Why Pentium?

On Tue, 04 Jul 2006 07:18:10 +0100, Steve
wrote:

Hi there !

You mean you assembled the Intel Pentium WITHOUT thermal compound in
the first place ?????

Putting thermal compund on is one of the BASIC requirements when
assembling ... no wonder it ran HOT !!!!!!

One thing Intel do that AMD don't ... that is thermal protection .....
If a Intel processor gets hot it slows down...
If a AMD processor runs got ..... it BURNS OUT !

Utter rubbish.

I know what I prefer ... as cooling fans on heatsinks, cases and
powers supplies DO sieze up !

You "prefer" to live by ancient folklore too?

Steve

On Mon, 03 Jul 2006 15:14:23 GMT, "Mark Mandell"
wrote:


"Talal Itani" wrote in message
news:M3aqg.1208$543.1165@trnddc04...
Hello,

I am in the market for a good computer, with a dual-core CPU. I keep
reading that Athlon is better than Pentium, Athlon is faster than Pentium,
and Athlon is lower priced than Pentium. But if that is the case, why do
most businesses have Pentium based PCs and not Athlon based PCs? Surely
most businesses research the pros and cons of a product before they make
their purchases. Thank you for clarifying this for me.

T.I.
I own two PC's I put together myself, one with the Athlon 2600+, the other
with the Intel Pentium D dual core. The latter actually runs a bit
faster(even though both PC's have the WD SATA Raptor drives running at
10,000 RPM). But it also runs at a higher temp and after nine months was
beginning to overheat a bit. So I applied some thermal compound the other
day which has corrected the problem.


--
Rgds, George Macdonald

On Tue, 04 Jul 2006 13:59:15 GMT, Poly-poly man
wrote:

Talal Itani wrote:
Hello,

I am in the market for a good computer, with a dual-core CPU. I keep
reading that Athlon is better than Pentium, Athlon is faster than Pentium,
and Athlon is lower priced than Pentium. But if that is the case, why do
most businesses have Pentium based PCs and not Athlon based PCs? Surely most
businesses research the pros and cons of a product before they make their
purchases. Thank you for clarifying this for me.

T.I.



You got one of those right. The Pentiums beat out Athlons in speed and
reliability according to most tests.

Which Pentiums and which Athlons are you talking about? Athlon64 has had
P4 beat for most business and gaming tasks for near 3 years now - same for
Opteron vs. Xeon. As for reliability, there's no basis for that conclusion
at all; in fact AMD has had better thermal behavior and management for a
similar amount of time. Any reliability concerns, e.g. Dell's massive
write-off on the capacitor problem, are independent of CPU & chipset.

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

On 2006-07-04, David Maynard wrote:

Unfortunately, no one outside the manufacturer knows what the numbers are
so while one can say a processor will last longer at a lower operating temp
it's anyone's guess how much longer or, conversely, how much operating at
high temp degrades it. You can use the halving per 10C guesstimate but we
don't know where the MTBF is starting at either. I mean, if running it at
50C instead of 70C cut MTBF down from 400 to 'only' a hundred years would
you really care? (Not that I'm saying this is the case but that we don't know).

I'd expect silicon chips to last long enough that their MTBF is to all
intents and purposes irrelevant - most solid state electronics has a
pretty good lifespan - the only thing that tend to let the side down
are electrolytics.

Whilst obviously we can't discuss modern machines in this context, as
a case in point I have an old Apricot LS Pro (something of a
collectors item now) powered by a a Cyrix 486SLC. This is a tiny,
_plastic_ chip with no heatsink and no fan. It was in daily use until
I picked it up maybe 18 months ago. I've no idea how hot the chip
gets - far too early for a motherboard sensor - but it's too hot to
touch in operation so that's probably at least 60C. It still works a
charm, maybe 14 years after it was built. Most people won't be using
the machine they have today in that amount of time, unless of course
like me they have a interest in old kit.

--
Andrew Smallshaw

On 2006-07-03, wrote:

Stay away from VIA processors, they do not perform. They're energy
efficient, and require minimal cooling, and they're cheap, but if you
have real work to be done, stay away.

As others have pointed out elsewhere in this thread, there's more to
life than sheer performance. As you say, they run cool, making passive
cooling a realistic option, and the case can be smaller too. I chose
a VIA chip when I wanted a small, quiet machine for my bedroom - I use
it for exactly the same tasks as my other machines and most of the time
I don't even notice the lack of power.

--
Andrew Smallshaw

On Tue, 04 Jul 2006 06:09:24 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

writes:

70C? No way. It probably takes at least 100C to actually damage the
silicon.

Then why would it become unstable at 70° C?


Another reason is the increase in resistance at higher
temps. One could increase the voltage in such cases and
regain stability, but obviously it would then require even
more cooling to remain at a stable temp. threshold.

On Tue, 04 Jul 2006 11:50:40 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Rod Speed writes:

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

Well, times change, but all I can say is that I lost to machines to
AMD processor burnouts (they overheated and just continued to run
until they destroyed themselves and surrounding components),

That is a reason to more carefully scrutinize the failure
point, which was not an AMD processor but another factor
like fan or grease failure, chassis cooling problems. One
should never buy a system with the idea that one of the
basic fundamental needs will fail and thus Intel's
last-resort shutdown would matter. Certainly that shutdown
feature is better than NOT having one, but it is not
something that should be among primary considerations in any
remotely normal system, selection.


... and that
pretty much soured me on AMD for a very long time to come.

I suggest that you drew the wrong conclusion. A system
built with an Intel CPU but same problem the AMD one had, is
not trouble-free either. You saw the result of the problem
as a focal point instead of the cause. Whatever that AMD
CPU was, that it was a past generation CPU is a sign that
many alternatives from either manufacturer produce more heat
today, we can't just write-off the AMDs as hot-running, and
contrary to urban myth, many Intel alternatives actually had
a higher TDP but merely idled cooler.

I'll take
a slightly slower processor at a slightly higher price, if necessary
in exchange for the benefit of a processor that's smart enough to shut
down if it overheats.

Put the $ towards the problem instead. If it overheats the
problem was the cooling system or maintenance (lack of)
towards cleaning out dust, replacing poor thermal compound,
or relubing junk fans (if for some reason it isn't viable to
replace them with good quality fans instead).



As you say, chipsets are an advantage, too. I've had trouble with VIA
chipsets for AMD in the past, but no trouble with Intel chipsets for
Intel.

Some have had trouble, for example Intel southbridge USB
issues/burnout. Pointing to one past chipset used on AMD is
no evidence against AMD itself. Even in the past some
chipsets for Intel posed problems, like Sis 620 (or was it
630) refusing to use UMDA for HDD on NT/2K/XP in many cases.
So long as the system proposed doesn't use the specific
chipset, there is no point considering that past generation
chipset. It brings up another prudent practice though,
buying mature platforms where there is ample feedback about
issues.



I suppose that if one is extremely strapped for cash and/or one wants
to be on the absolute bleeding edge of raw performance, one might
occasionally prefer AMD.

That would be a silly random conclusion. One could argue
the same thing for an Intel Celeron w/Intel-integrated
video, as it is the most popular combination for the highest
selling market segment (OEM low-end).

But performance is really only important for
games these days,

Not at all. Many popular benchmarks make a ridiculous
assumption that one would only run a few of the premier
applications, newest versions of those. How many people do
you know that pay thousands of dollars every time a newer
version of their apps come out? Most people don't, only
getting newer versions when it happened to ship with their
new OEM system (which tends not to have premier apps on it
at all, except perhaps MS Office).

Take the typical apps of a few years ago and even Athlon XP
beat the P4 though online benchmarks suggested P4 beat it
most of the time (towards the end of the Athlon XP era at
least).

and the price differences between the two processor
vendors are small.

There are reasons to choose either alternative, it would be
most valid to choose based on the specific, most common or
most demanding use the system will encounter... as it is
with a comparison of any two CPUs having different
architectures. Nothing wrong with a P4 or Pentium D where
it excells but the very specific use, not even a newer
version of the same application, must be considered.

Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

I recall hearing somewhere that chip manufacturers stress-test chips
individually, then market the ones that won't run at high speed as
lower-speed submodels (rather like CCD manufacturers that test their
CCD sensors, selling the perfect ones to pros and putting the rest in
consumer gear).

It seems to me that most chip defects would be all or nothing--either
the chip runs or it doesn't--but perhaps there are things that can
affect individual chips without ruining them (?).

It's not all or nothing, and factory testing is used not only for
finding
defects but also for finding the maximum operating speed and
temperature ratings of each chip. And outright defects don't
necessarily mean the chip has to be dumped because they may
be sold as slower or lower capacity chips, an example being the
earlier AMD Durons, which were Athlons with defective L2 caches
that were partially disabled.

In any case, it makes me uneasy to stress my processor just to see if
it stops working.

Don't worry. Factory testing is done at higher temperatures than
you'll
ever use, unless your heatsink fan stops.
Don't worry

Mxsmanic wrote:
writes:

I doubt most business owners care about chipsets but only factors
they can notice (at least on paper), like clock speed, memory and
disk capacities, and cost.

The list is even shorter than that: all they care about is cost. Most
PCs today will do any type of business tasks that anyone might care to
perform, so clock speed, memory, and disk capacity are all
irrelevant--any PC will have more than enough of each for business
use.

I'm not a speed demon. I simply buy the third-slowest or
third-fastest motherboard that doesn't have Taiwan capacitors
in the voltage converter.

You write off anything from Taiwan? I should think there are both
good and bad vendors. Don't some Intel motherboards come from Taiwan?

Taiwan brand electrolytic capacitors are aren't nearly as good as their
other products. This is why some Taiwan motherboards have Taiwan caps
for bypass but Japanese caps for their switching voltage converters,
and motherboards sold to Intel or Dell may have all Japanese caps.

David Maynard wrote:
Mxsmanic wrote:

writes:

I doubt most business owners care about chipsets but only factors
they can notice (at least on paper), like clock speed, memory and
disk capacities, and cost.

The list is even shorter than that: all they care about is cost. Most
PCs today will do any type of business tasks that anyone might care to
perform, so clock speed, memory, and disk capacity are all
irrelevant--any PC will have more than enough of each for business
use.

Well, for general office use but lets not exaggerate too much. There are
still plenty of things business does where computing power makes a
difference, like CAD, modeling, and animation just to name a few.

Just recently did a dual, dual core, system so the user would only have to
wait a few hours for their animations to render.

But that's not business but art, engineering, and science. The most
intensive business computing typically involves converting documents
to printable form.

I used to work for someone who gave the fastest, newest computers to
the executives and left his engineers doing CAD work on 100 MHz 486s.
Now I work for a much better person who gives the engineers everything
they want, sometimes even before they ask for it, and makes the
executives perform real work and get by with the slowest computers.

kony wrote
Mxsmanic wrote
Rod Speed writes

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

Well, times change, but all I can say is that I lost to machines to
AMD processor burnouts (they overheated and just continued to run
until they destroyed themselves and surrounding components),

That is a reason to more carefully scrutinize the failure
point, which was not an AMD processor but another
factor like fan or grease failure, chassis cooling problems.
One should never buy a system with the idea that one
of the basic fundamental needs will fail and thus Intel's
last-resort shutdown would matter.

Wrong. It makes a lot of sense to buy a system which wont
end up with a dead cpu if the cpu fan fails for whatever reason.
Just replace the cpu fan and carry on regardless if that happens.

Makes absolutely no sense to have to replace the cpu too
if something happens to the cpu fan or say the heatsink
clips give way or someone didnt install it properly.

Certainly that shutdown feature is better than NOT having
one, but it is not something that should be among primary
considerations in any remotely normal system, selection.

Its just another thing worth considering when deciding which
particular cpu to use, like that chipset question is too.

... and that pretty much soured me
on AMD for a very long time to come.

I suggest that you drew the wrong conclusion. A system
built with an Intel CPU but same problem the AMD one had, is
not trouble-free either. You saw the result of the problem
as a focal point instead of the cause.

Presumably he was ****ed off about having to replace the cpu.

I would be too, particularly when that was one of
the most expensive components in the system and it
should have been designed better so that didnt happen.

Whatever that AMD CPU was, that it was a past generation
CPU is a sign that many alternatives from either manufacturer
produce more heat today, we can't just write-off the AMDs
as hot-running, and contrary to urban myth, many Intel
alternatives actually had a higher TDP but merely idled cooler.

Irrelevant to whether its bad design for the cpu to
end up dead due to something as trivial as a cpu
fan failure or bad installation of the heatsink etc.

I'll take a slightly slower processor at a slightly higher
price, if necessary in exchange for the benefit of a
processor that's smart enough to shut down if it overheats.

Me too.

Put the $ towards the problem instead.

No thanks, I chose to buy the cpus that were designed better instead.

If it overheats the problem was the cooling system or maintenance
(lack of) towards cleaning out dust, replacing poor thermal
compound, or relubing junk fans (if for some reason it isn't
viable to replace them with good quality fans instead).

I still want a cpu that wont die if that stuff is neglected,
because its never possible to guarantee that that stuff
wont be neglected by someone who doesnt know any better.

As you say, chipsets are an advantage, too.
I've had trouble with VIA chipsets for AMD in
the past, but no trouble with Intel chipsets for Intel.

Some have had trouble, for example Intel southbridge
USB issues/burnout. Pointing to one past chipset
used on AMD is no evidence against AMD itself.

No one ever said it was. I JUST said that one advantage
with an intel cpu is that you can have an intel chipset and
that on the whole there have been less problems with
those than there have been with VIA etc. Which is why
I choose to avoid VIA chipsets when thats feasible,
even when using an intel cpu.

Even in the past some chipsets for Intel posed
problems, like Sis 620 (or was it 630) refusing to
use UMDA for HDD on NT/2K/XP in many cases.

Which is another reason why I choose to use
Intel chipsets unless there is a good reason not to.

So long as the system proposed doesn't use the specific chipset,
there is no point considering that past generation chipset.

The problems seen with past generations of chipsets does
provide some evidence of the capability of that chipset supplier.

It brings up another prudent practice though, buying mature
platforms where there is ample feedback about issues.

Sure, I dont normally buy the bleeding edge, and choose to
avoid the chipsets which have demonstrated that the manufacturer's
design capabilitys have had severe problems in the past.

I do that with hard drives too.

I suppose that if one is extremely strapped for cash
and/or one wants to be on the absolute bleeding edge
of raw performance, one might occasionally prefer AMD.

That would be a silly random conclusion. One could
argue the same thing for an Intel Celeron w/Intel-
integrated video, as it is the most popular combination
for the highest selling market segment (OEM low-end).

But performance is really only important for games these days,

Not at all. Many popular benchmarks make a ridiculous
assumption that one would only run a few of the premier
applications, newest versions of those. How many people
do you know that pay thousands of dollars every time a
newer version of their apps come out? Most people
don't, only getting newer versions when it happened to
ship with their new OEM system (which tends not to
have premier apps on it at all, except perhaps MS Office).

Take the typical apps of a few years ago and even Athlon XP
beat the P4 though online benchmarks suggested P4 beat it
most of the time (towards the end of the Athlon XP era at least).

and the price differences between the two processor vendors are small.

There are reasons to choose either alternative, it would be
most valid to choose based on the specific, most common
or most demanding use the system will encounter...

In practice few personal desktop systems have
the performance determined by the cpu anyway.

as it is with a comparison of any two CPUs having different
architectures. Nothing wrong with a P4 or Pentium D where
it excells but the very specific use, not even a newer
version of the same application, must be considered.

Or realise that hardly any users would ever be able to pick
any difference any benchmark claims to see, with the main
exception being with games. And bugger all personal desktop
systems are used for demanding games anyway.