Intel Vs. AMD

CamHot

I am requesting a complete diagnostic examination of Intel processors along with a complete diagnostic examination of AMD processors for the sole purpose of comparing and contrasting the two. Someone out there, please help me out! I need to prove to my clients that AMD is not at the same performance level as Intel and I don't feel like searching for the specs right now. Thanks.

Thrax

This article clearly displays AMD's dominance in most fields of computing; it even manages to win several media encoding tests, an area where AMD has traditionally been weak due to a low clock speed.

madmat

For Intel CPU's the performance issue is all about clock speed, the length of the pipelines in an Intel cpu are dependent upon high clock frequencies to keep the pipes "flowing" to allow the CPU to reach maximum performance.
AMD CPU's take a different approach, they use shorter pipelines to give the CPU a higher speed by allowing the CPU to perform more work per second rather than reach the same numbers through sheer brute force.
The AMD's CPU has pipelines that are significantly shorter (to the tune of close to 60% shorter) than the Intel CPU's are to allow for a greater "flow" per second of calculations.
The way I see it it's like a hydraulic line, you can use a 3/4" I.D. pipe under tremendous pressure to move the same amount of fluid (Intel CPU, long pipelines running really fast) as you can through a 2" I.D. pipe under far lower pressure (AMD CPU, short pipeline running at slower speeds) but in the end it all comes down to your personal preferences, which setup offers you the things you are looking for in readily available hardware.
I'm running an Intel setup, at the time I built this computer the A64's were still vaporware and the Intel CPU's, thanks to the new 800mhz FSB, were handily beating the AMD XP's in overall performance due to far greater clockspeed coupled with very effiecient memory utilization.
At the time the Intel chipsets were the only ones offering native SATA as well as SATA-raid so I jumped the fence and abandoned my AMD rig and went with Intel.
Do I regret it? Nope, not at all, simply put the first chipsets for AMD's A64's were less than steller, the AGP/PCI locks didn't work, there was no native SATA support meaning that SATA support was handled by chipsets feeding into the already crowded PCI bus and there was the issue of the top banana version of the A64 needing very hard to find registered memory.
Now those issues are by and large non-issues, if I had the money to outlay for a new system I'd very likely go with an A64 system as opposed to an Intel system because native SATA suport will be available very shortly (if it's not already, I simply haven't been paying much attention there) and the new hot ticket in graphics will be available very soon to A64 setups as opposed to Intel's lack of a consumer desktop SLI offering.
Also the PCI/AGP locks have been fixed with the nForce 3 250Gb chipset which offers native gigabit ethernet, something Intel also one upped the A64 on.

CyrixInstead

Wow, try breaking up your paragraphs mat?

~Cyrix

Geeky1

CamHot wrote:

I need to prove to my clients that AMD is not at the same performance level as Intel.

Ahahahaha. Surely you're joking. I hate to be the one to burst your bubble (if Thrax's link wasn't enough) but AMD's CPUs are consistently faster than Intel's. Especially with the Athlon 64. The P4 doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell against the A64. I've got Athlon-based CAD machines, servers, and just regular old office machines. They're faster and cheaper than their Intel counterparts, and every bit as reliable.

Now if you would like to lie to your clients, be my guest. But the fact of the matter is that AMD's CPUs are better than Intel's. They're faster, they run cooler (the Prescott puts out a great deal of heat), they're just as reliable, if not more, and they're cheaper. End of story.

CyrixInstead

You need to prove AMD is better or Intel is better? You give the impression that you need to prove AMD is not as good as Intel.

~Cyrix

Thrax

I get the opposite impression.

CyrixInstead

I just think that it would be better worded something along the lines of 'need to prove that AMD performs better than Intel'.

I just think that in my experience, when people say something like 'not at the same performance level' they mean 'not as good' but in a nice way. I think Geeky thought the same.

~Cyrix

Geeky1

He said that he needs to prove that AMD is NOT AT THE SAME PERFORMANCE LEVEL as Intel. That's perfectly clear to me.

madmat

CyrixInstead wrote:

Wow, try breaking up your paragraphs mat?

~Cyrix

Ummmmm...no. I wanted to get my point across not a critique'.

QCH

Geeky1 wrote:

He said that he needs to prove that AMD is NOT AT THE SAME PERFORMANCE LEVEL as Intel. That's perfectly clear to me.

AMD is NOT at the same level as Intel, It's at a higher level.

If a guy named "Intel" is on the third floor, and a guy named "AMD" is on the fourth floor, then AMD is not on the same level as Intel....

mmonnin

But what level do you think the meant? Pretty sure he meant lower than Intel which isnt true.

CyrixInstead

Thats the natural assumption imo. Not at the same level is either better or worse, but the assumption is worse.

Sorry mat, I didn't mean to come across in a bad way, I just meant that it was hardgoing on the eyes so a little off-putting.

Anyway, I read the article Thrax posted and found it excellent. One thing I never realised though is that AMD has always beaten Intel for business applications, therefore if businesses are there to make money, why the hell do most businesses use Intel??

~Cyrix

Straight_Man

Well, Intel has the "name brand" history for a long time. So, businesses that HAVE used Intel tend to keep using Intel. They think it is "risky" to jump on a new bandwagon, and the more they are pushed the more they resist. They want stability. Only way I know to break that barrier is to build a server on AMD chips that beats an Xeon server hands-down. And most businesses will not front funding for that. They want proof first. Remember that history gives ennui and inertia as to changing due to the simple factor that the lead folks for IT in any one company are being treated, in a business environment, as folks who are in what is traditionally a service department where decisions are MOSTLY NOT being made to spend money (especially R&D money) by IT folks who know the electronics, rather they are made by managers who have developed processes to analyze data based on what they have had proven to them in the past in many cases.

As to AMD, the K6 series did not "get along" as well with Windows as the the Pentia series, as Intel did very active chipset dev and driver dev to go along with Windows. AMD did hardware well, drivers that fully linked into Window's underlying layers less so, because Windows was tuned for Intel. Intel had cooperated more and earlier, historically, with Microsoft. Microsoft built its OS strategy around a cooperation with Intel. This is not MS wooing Intel versus AMD, but historically Intel helping MS debug things more than AMD did.

As far as businesses are concerned, one financial rule is to "not fix what is not really broke." And many business folks do not think Intel stuff is really broke. They run Xeon and Pentium things because they still run thier older software. Most do NOT run Prescott boxes. Many DO run Pentium Northwood boxes as newest boxes, and Pentium M boxes for laptops. And they want boxes that will be able to live three years or more in service for thier firm, from the management perspective. TCO includes software needs satisfaction costing analysis. Redoing software to tune to a shorter pipe versus data throughput strategy costs money. IT folks are seeing an IT slump in many areas (security, especially network security, is an area where IT folks are getting MORE income and RAISES) as companies stay with the IT idea as "service" department to marketting, sales, and mfring.

AMD is becoming more known as a "better" CPU mfr, but until they have been so for a significant amount of time historically, they will not have a heavy trend weight behind thier reputation. Note that right now Linux has been more tuned for AMD per se than Intel, and Windows mostly, over history, the OPPOSITE (Windows has been tuned more for Intel and Intel has tuned drivers more for Windows than Linux, historically).

The 64 bit gen competition is interesting to me, as 64 bit native software comes online in mass amounts, it will be interesting to see if Microsoft tunes more and more for AMD things. BUT, we are not there yet and folks in business OWN Northwood boxes. Some of them are doing webdev on *nix boxes and serving web things on *nix boxes. Microsoft has essentially arranged the dev of Windows Services for Unix, by HIRING some of it done for them with some of the payback being licensing some things to an outside dev firm economically so far-- they are looking to make Windows more intercooperative with *nix and not an emulation of it in reality.

They so far are not really rearchitecting Windows to be a *nix OS, instead they are looking to make it TALK to *nix boxes at the client level. In two to three years as business apps take REAL adavantage of 64 bit and true HT, IF they ever really do in that time frame, we might see market perception shifts. BUT, Windows does not fully HT itself, yet, instead it multitasks. SO, many businesses hang a gen or so back until others "prove" that next gen really has a total cost of ownership that is less because it is REALLY much more effective.

Summary: software and inertia are holding back a migration by businesses to the AMD bandwagon throughout thier enterprises. History plays a BIG part in what is "proven."

Thrax

Ageek's right. A lot of upper-management making the decisions on what parts and PCs to use in the field are about 3 years out of date when it comes to AMD; they still view them as the second-rate, hot-running, unstable, poor-man's chips when today's AMD couldn't be farther from that. Many management-level people use Intel because "That's what we've been using for 15 years" and that's reason enough for them.. They don't WANT to look, they don't care. They're getting cost-breaks on Intel products, and their Intel rollout is so large, there's no point in switching.

primesuspect

Thrax wrote:

Ageek's right.

Guyute

So if I wanted to take advantage of AMD's performance advantage, can I pluck out my P4 1.5 and plug in a new AMD? Or would the socket probably not match?

Thrax

Wouldn't match at all. You'd need an AMD motherboard.

profdlp

AMD and Intel parted ways compatability-wise with the demise of Socket 7.

Kwitko

The last good Intel chip was the PIII.

/me awaits heaps of bashing that is coming his way.

primesuspect

No way! The last good intel chip was/is the Pentium M (Banias but especially Dothan). It's really only been the P4 and Itanium that are the piles of steaming dung.

muddocktor

Kwitko wrote:

The last good Intel chip was the PIII.

/me awaits heaps of bashing that is coming his way.

You are dead wrong, Kwitko! :shakehead Intel is making a fine processor with the Pentium M right now; they are just too stupid and pigheaded to acknowledge their mistake with netburst and start officially offering them for desktop machines. After all, it's really a true decendant of the P3.

madmat

I personally think the P4C's are fine chips but sadly enough they're gonna get dropped soon.

GHoosdum

As much as the debate over CamHot's meaning makes me chuckle, I'm sure that this forum's pro-AMD bias is pretty clear, even to an infrequent poster. The phrase "AMD is not at the same performance level as Intel" simply means that the chips don't perform the same. Furthermore, I think anyone that was trying to prove a performance relation to their customers would be trying to prove that AMD is better than Intel, since most customers would naturally have the opposite impression and therefore no proof would be necessary...

At any rate, I think the question was definitely answered.

madmat

Considering the way he worded it I'm of the opinion he meant Intel was better, just substitue the words Mustang and Corvette in his post and see what I mean...
Someone out there, please help me out! I need to prove to my clients that a Mustang is not at the same performance level as a Corvette and I don't feel like searching for the specs right now. Thanks.

profdlp

This thread is two weeks old now, and CamHot's last post and last visit to S-M was at that time as well.

Maybe someday he'll return and explain his question in more detail.

Spinner

profdlp wrote:

This thread is two weeks old now, and CamHot's last post and last visit to S-M was at that time as well.

Maybe someday he'll return and explain his question in more detail.

Indeed. This has by far been the most interesting thread in Benchmarking to date.

I agree with GHoosdum's assessment of the thread.

Personally though, and this is what I always say to my clients... I have nothing against Intel, I believe their CPU's to be of extremely high quality and of performance. AMD's modern chips however are cheaper, of equal if not better quality, typically cooler, more cutting edge, and just plain faster.

To date I've never built an Intel based system up for a private client.

mikechinym

sorry, i dont know much about the cpu...however i konw the multiplier and fsb. i am a junior technician that repair a pc. for me pc that setup with the amd cpu always works faster than intel. the way i compare is the time for both pc that with different cpu are running a windows xp setup. amd always ends faster...i dont know why?? but what i know both are in the same cpu speed. what makes me like amd is, they offer lpw cost cpu with high speed.

profdlp

mikechinym wrote:

...for me pc that setup with the amd cpu always works faster than intel. the way i compare is the time for both pc that with different cpu are running a windows xp setup. amd always ends faster...i dont know why?? but what i know both are in the same cpu speed. what makes me like amd is, they offer lpw cost cpu with high speed.

That's exactly why most of us like them. The real test of a CPU is how it performs in actual use. Your experience adds weight to the argument.

Leonardo

Real world usage - yes, it's the key. That's why I'm a big fan of nearly all AMD processors in the last two years and my P4 Northwood. Intel really did get it right with the Northwoods. Nothing they've made since then, in my opinion, is particularly noteworthy.

muddocktor

Leonardo wrote:

Real world usage - yes, it's the key. That's why I'm a big fan of nearly all AMD processors in the last two years and my P4 Northwood. Intel really did get it right with the Northwoods. Nothing they've made since then, in my opinion, is particularly noteworthy.

I feel pretty much like Leo about this too, except that Intel also got the Pentium M right too. That mobile processor really rocks. The Northwood procs might be less efficient than an AMD processor but with HT enabled they do run smooth, much like a true dually system when running multiple apps at the same time.