Some early benchmarks for P4EE

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 13:10:36 GMT, Telcontar wrote:
I don't think anyone knows how Tom's hardware manages to come up with
some of the conclusions that they do. Mostly it seems to do with what
company happens to be giving them the red-carpet treatment and who
took Tom out to the nicest restaurant.

On a tangent not relating to the thread at all, sorry, but why do they
still call it Tom's? When was the last time anyone saw an article with
the good doctor's byline?

They call it Tom's Hardware because it's a brand name that has good
recognition. Same reason why Intel still calls their chips "Pentium",
even though the Pentium 4 has virtually nothing in common with the
original Pentium.

Of course, I've personally found that quality of the articles on Tom's
Hardware has gone up slightly since Tom seems to no longer be involved
with things :

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca

"Tony Hill" wrote in message
.com...
On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 10:50:07 -0600, "Judd"
wrote:
"Yousuf Khan" wrote in message
le.rogers.com...
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11670

Ace's Hardware seems to be seeing between 2-15% improvement from the
2MB
L3
cache.

Ace's will also be doing a head to head against processors from a
"rival"
processor manufacturer in a couple of days, when their NDA expires.
Stay
tuned.


Toms Hardware did a benchmark and the P4EE won on just about every
benchmark
over the highest rated A64 (the FX or whatever it is). The P4 3.2 and
the
A64 were about even on the tests though Toms hardware claimed the FX was
victorious (not sure how they came to that conclusion).

I don't think anyone knows how Tom's hardware manages to come up with
some of the conclusions that they do. Mostly it seems to do with what
company happens to be giving them the red-carpet treatment and who
took Tom out to the nicest restaurant.

It looks like Intel
has stemmed the tide for now and has time to release it's Prescott (no
reason to hurry).

It seems to me that the Athlon64 3200+ and the P4 3.2C are well
matched at this time, while the Athlon64 FX 51 and the P4 EE 3.2GHz
are also about even. In each case sometimes one chip wins and
sometimes the other wins, but overall most people aren't likely to
notice the difference.

Then it just comes down to other features. I really like Intel's
Hyperthreading feature, and if you look at some multitasking tests
(always somewhat tricky to perform), the P4 almost always comes out on
top. On the other hand, AMD's 64-bit capabilities are nice and are
currently mostly unused. I've been surprised to see a number of
applications showing a good performance boost when going to 64-bits
which I had not expected. MP3 encoding, Div-X encoding and software
compression all seem like they might see a decent (greater than 10%)
boost in performance which I had not expected to see.

Personally, I see both the Athlon64 FX series and the P4EE chips as
being a waste of money. Both add a LOT to the price tag without
adding much to performance. Hmm, interesting, I just checked my
regular parts supplier (www.ncix.com, note: prices in Canadian $), and
they now list the Athlon64 3200+ as being in stock. What's more, it's
listed as being quite a bit cheaper than the 3.2GHz P4; $640 (~$450
US) for the Athlon64 vs. $998 (~$710 US) for the P4.

I agree that there is a lot to like about both. As for price point, I would
expect to see the price of the Pentiums go down in the very near future.
They (Tom's hardware) did a price comparison of all the systems they put
together and they were very similar. I'm curious to see what's in store for
Prescott. For me personally, it's time to get a new system but I'm not sure
whether to get one now or wait (always the baited question). I'm a fan of
dual CPU's but if Prescott has improved hyperthreading, then perhaps I'll go
for the single CPU system for the first time in 10 years. The 64-bit will
come in handy one day, but for now, the AMD system's biggest advantage is
their fast memory subsystem and excellent price/performance.

"Carlo Razzeto" wrote in message
...

"Judd" wrote in message
...

Toms Hardware did a benchmark and the P4EE won on just about every
benchmark
over the highest rated A64 (the FX or whatever it is). The P4 3.2 and
the
A64 were about even on the tests though Toms hardware claimed the FX was
victorious (not sure how they came to that conclusion). It looks like
Intel
has stemmed the tide for now and has time to release it's Prescott (no
reason to hurry).



You know what the great thing about benchmarks are? You can prove anything
you want to prove! For every Tom's Hardware type site that found that the
P4EE was the clear winner, there was another site such and Anandtech.com
that found AMD64 to be the winner. In the end I think the situation
remains
the same... People should be buying the best processor for the job they
want
it to do. And for get about stupid allegiances to particular platforms.

Carlo

So longtime AMD proponent Toms Hardware is now favoring Intel while
Anandtech is still in AMD's camp. Interesting...

"Carlo Razzeto" wrote in message
...

"Judd" wrote in message
...

Toms Hardware did a benchmark and the P4EE won on just about every
benchmark
over the highest rated A64 (the FX or whatever it is). The P4 3.2 and
the
A64 were about even on the tests though Toms hardware claimed the FX was
victorious (not sure how they came to that conclusion). It looks like
Intel
has stemmed the tide for now and has time to release it's Prescott (no
reason to hurry).



You know what the great thing about benchmarks are? You can prove anything
you want to prove! For every Tom's Hardware type site that found that the
P4EE was the clear winner, there was another site such and Anandtech.com
that found AMD64 to be the winner. In the end I think the situation
remains
the same... People should be buying the best processor for the job they
want
it to do. And for get about stupid allegiances to particular platforms.

Carlo

By the way, checked out anandtech's site and didn't see a comparison to
P4EE, just one to P43.0c. I did see a link to x86-secret.com which showed
benchmarks between the two but did not see the conclusion of AMD winning.
In fact, from their graphics, they each won about 1/2 the tests (Intel won
like 1 or 2 more or something).

http://translate.google.com/translat...Ephp%3Fid%3D91

From this in translation, it says:
"This said, INTEL answered the evil by the evil and Pentium 4 ' EE' is a
success in term of performances. Catching up with Athlon 64 FX in all the
tests (except for UT2003 in BotMatch) and exceeding it, sometimes largely,
in others, Pentium 4 ' EE' are as powerful as expensive and inalienable"

Actually seems like they are saying the same thing as Tom's Site.

In article ,
says...

"Carlo Razzeto" wrote in message
...

"Judd" wrote in message
...

Toms Hardware did a benchmark and the P4EE won on just about every
benchmark
over the highest rated A64 (the FX or whatever it is). The P4 3.2 and
the
A64 were about even on the tests though Toms hardware claimed the FX was
victorious (not sure how they came to that conclusion). It looks like
Intel
has stemmed the tide for now and has time to release it's Prescott (no
reason to hurry).



You know what the great thing about benchmarks are? You can prove anything
you want to prove! For every Tom's Hardware type site that found that the
P4EE was the clear winner, there was another site such and Anandtech.com
that found AMD64 to be the winner. In the end I think the situation
remains
the same... People should be buying the best processor for the job they
want
it to do. And for get about stupid allegiances to particular platforms.

Carlo

So longtime AMD proponent Toms Hardware is now favoring Intel while
Anandtech is still in AMD's camp. Interesting...

You either don't have a clue about Dr. Tom, or your haven't been
paying attention. Likely both!

Why *anyone* would listen to what he (or anyone writing for his
site) has to say is beyond me! He's for sale to the lowest bidder
(damn, even a first-class ticket and a dinner rubbing elbows has
impressed the nitwit).

--
Keith

Tony Hill wrote:
It seems to me that the Athlon64 3200+ and the P4 3.2C are well
matched at this time, while the Athlon64 FX 51 and the P4 EE 3.2GHz
are also about even. ...

Indeed.

Then it just comes down to other features. I really like Intel's
Hyperthreading feature, ... AMD's 64-bit capabilities are nice and are
currently mostly unused. I've been surprised to see a number of
applications showing a good performance boost when going to 64-bits
which I had not expected. MP3 encoding, Div-X encoding

Why not? bit operations and multiplications are always the wider the
better if you can do them in equal time -- you have fewer to do now.

Personally, I see both the Athlon64 FX series and the P4EE chips as
being a waste of money. ... Hmm, interesting, I just checked ...
Athlon64 3200+ as being in stock ... cheaper than the 3.2GHz P4; $450
US for the Athlon64 vs. (~$710 US) for the P4.

How would a P4 3.2GHz EE plus the intel 875 chipset compare with a pair
of Opteron 240's on (say) the Tyan K8S or K8W in terms of productivity?
Yes, I know that the latter runs to about $1200.

"Judd" wrote in message
...

"Carlo Razzeto" wrote in message
...

By the way, checked out anandtech's site and didn't see a comparison to
P4EE, just one to P43.0c. I did see a link to x86-secret.com which showed
benchmarks between the two but did not see the conclusion of AMD winning.
In fact, from their graphics, they each won about 1/2 the tests (Intel won
like 1 or 2 more or something).


You obviously didn't read the "AMD Athlon 64 & Athlon 64 FX - It's Judgement
Day" Artical written by anand him self... Or if you did you didn't interpit
"P4 EE" the same way I did... Not sure which it is...

Carlo

On 27 Sep 2003 03:10:01 GMT, (root) wrote:
Tony Hill wrote:
It seems to me that the Athlon64 3200+ and the P4 3.2C are well
matched at this time, while the Athlon64 FX 51 and the P4 EE 3.2GHz
are also about even. ...

Indeed.

Then it just comes down to other features. I really like Intel's
Hyperthreading feature, ... AMD's 64-bit capabilities are nice and are
currently mostly unused. I've been surprised to see a number of
applications showing a good performance boost when going to 64-bits
which I had not expected. MP3 encoding, Div-X encoding

Why not? bit operations and multiplications are always the wider the
better if you can do them in equal time -- you have fewer to do now.

To make use of wider bits, you need to actually be using the values.
You can't pack two 32-bit values in a 64-bit register and be done with
it, it just doesn't work like that. You actually need to be using
64-bit integers to see a benefit from the 64-bitness, and that means
that your integer values have to have the possibility of being larger
than 4 billion. For Div-X in particular I figured that most would be
handled by the floating point unit anyway, which is unchanged in AMD64
as compared to IA32.

It's quite possible, perhaps even likely, that the real difference is
coming from the double the number of registers rather than doubling
the width of them. This is rather unrelated to AMD64 being a 64-bit
instruction set, it was just a convenient time to fix a long-lasting
problem with x86.

Personally, I see both the Athlon64 FX series and the P4EE chips as
being a waste of money. ... Hmm, interesting, I just checked ...
Athlon64 3200+ as being in stock ... cheaper than the 3.2GHz P4; $450
US for the Athlon64 vs. (~$710 US) for the P4.

How would a P4 3.2GHz EE plus the intel 875 chipset compare with a pair
of Opteron 240's on (say) the Tyan K8S or K8W in terms of productivity?
Yes, I know that the latter runs to about $1200.

Depends in what you're planning on doing with the machine. For me, I
would probably prefer the Opterons. For a gamer, the P4 EE would be
better.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 13:44:51 -0600, "Judd"
wrote:
Personally, I see both the Athlon64 FX series and the P4EE chips as
being a waste of money. Both add a LOT to the price tag without
adding much to performance. Hmm, interesting, I just checked my
regular parts supplier (www.ncix.com, note: prices in Canadian $), and
they now list the Athlon64 3200+ as being in stock. What's more, it's
listed as being quite a bit cheaper than the 3.2GHz P4; $640 (~$450
US) for the Athlon64 vs. $998 (~$710 US) for the P4.

I agree that there is a lot to like about both. As for price point, I would
expect to see the price of the Pentiums go down in the very near future.
They (Tom's hardware) did a price comparison of all the systems they put
together and they were very similar.

And as usual, Tom's lackey came up with some really odd-ball
statements about price. Like why does the memory for the Athlon64
3200+ cost more than the memory for the AthlonXP 3200+, which in turn
costs more than the memory for the P4 (C and EE) 3.2GHz? They all use
unbuffered, DDR400 memory, so why use different memory (or at least
have different prices) for each?

Also, his price guide includes an extra $94 on the AMD systems for an
add-in Serial ATA RAID card, which likely has little relevance for
most users (if they were needing SATA RAID on an AMD board, they would
probably buy a board with it built in, as many exist for the AthlonXP
and a few even exist for the Athlon64).

I also don't understand why every processor has a $50 cooler added on
to the price, despite the fact that he's using the price for retail
box processors which come with a cooler.

I'm curious to see what's in store for
Prescott. For me personally, it's time to get a new system but I'm not sure
whether to get one now or wait (always the baited question). I'm a fan of
dual CPU's but if Prescott has improved hyperthreading, then perhaps I'll go
for the single CPU system for the first time in 10 years. The 64-bit will
come in handy one day, but for now, the AMD system's biggest advantage is
their fast memory subsystem and excellent price/performance.

I agree. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at
it, I'm not in the market for a new machine just yet (gotta find a
job, an apartments and a car first : ), so I'll have a bit of time to
sort things out before deciding. At the moment I would probably lean
towards Intel's P4, especially if the Prescott does improve
hyperthreading and is available at a reasonable price. Unfortunately
the latter isn't likely to occur until Feb. or March of next year.
The first Prescott chips now won't be out until December apparently,
and initially it will only be at 3.2 or 3.4GHz and be quite expensive.

Ohh well, the next upgrade for me will be a new hard drive anyway,
gotta replace that IBM Deskstar 75GXP that, surprise, surprise, has
died on me :

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca

"Tony Hill" wrote in message
.com...
Why not? bit operations and multiplications are always the wider the
better if you can do them in equal time -- you have fewer to do now.

To make use of wider bits, you need to actually be using the values.
You can't pack two 32-bit values in a 64-bit register and be done with
it, it just doesn't work like that.

You've forgotten about the SIMD instructions, i.e. MMX all of the way upto
SSE2.

Yousuf Khan