Athlon v P4 - Overall (AMD probs w/multitasking?)

Hey all,

What are the overall differences, all else being equal (not considering price), between the two processors?

I have heard that, although AMD seems to rule gaming, there are multitasking issues compared to the P4. Are these claims valid, if so, what is the effect? When up/down'n files off the net, will there be a performance difference? (Appearently DELL stopped using AMD due to high return rates, claiming multitasking issues as the cause.) thx.

peace,
-=i3lue}{orneT=-

<font color=blue>---------------------------UPDATE---------------------------
Which is better when it comes to stability? Which will be better ready for upgrading in the future? thx<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by BlueHornet on 02/05/03 09:02 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

AMD does not have issues multitasking, its just not as efficient as Intel in it. Just as intel isn't as efficent when it comes to gaming. But the performance loss in both cases is pretty small so it really doesn't matter. The lower amd xps rule in price/performance and intel just rules in overclockablilty. It all depends on what you want. Oh as the above person said, Dell NEVER used AMD. Dell's product quality also seems to be going downhill.

Whoever told you this lied to you. They most likely have alterior motives and you should watch your wallet.

<font color=red>
<A HREF="http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?dhlucke" target="_new">Introducing the NVIDIA GeForceFX: The first Videocard designed exclusively for deaf people!</A></font color=red>

>>>When up/down'n files off the net, will there be a performance difference?

When uploading or downloading files - I doubt the processor is going to be your bottleneck anyhow...

yeah and what about the heat of the AMD's is it only a real issue if you overclock?

AMD chips do not have heat issues that I'm aware of. When buying any CPU, intel or AMD, you buy a cooling device that is recommended for it. Any retail boxed CPU you buy at a store, or any system you buy from a retailer will come with the appropriate cooling device, which consists of a heatsink/fan.

Someone has told you wise tales about AMD CPU's, which is really sad in my opinion. Both are reputable companies with quality products. One is a huge conglomerate and the other is barely afloat, but still is managing to release quality products at competitive prices. I would forget the misinformation that was fed to you and buy a system that has what you want at the price you want, regardless of the company that made its CPU.

I would hardly say that building a multi-billion $$ fab facility where they can produce 1 million processors a week is "barely afloat".

Heat is/was a big issue with the process in emergency situations, such as when the cooling unit falls/breaks off (for whatever reason--shipping, etc) for the AMD processors. I do not know if they have resolved this with the more recent productions.

Because a company doesn't have a speedy upgrade path to high megahertz doesn't mean it isn't a working viable company. Sometimes silence from a company means they are working harder behind the scenes to produce something better in the long run. I've seen this an overabundant number of times from various companies.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Jimbo99 on 01/29/03 11:14 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

Considering this was taken STRAIGHT from that link....

I wonder now...si it REALLY that almighty FPU that got smashed juin?? Or the fact that the benchamrk used utilized a LOT of bandwidth and SSE2 coding..????

Disable SSE2 on the P4 see hwo well it does in comparision to the Athlon FPU that gets "smashed again"....

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=13597" target="_new">-MeTaL RoCkEr</A>

Exactly! =)

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=13597" target="_new">-MeTaL RoCkEr</A>

This thread is gettin sidetracked.

<b>My Computer is so powerful Sauron Desires it and mortal men Covet it, <i>My Precioussssssss</i></b>

<<<The only reason any company doesn't sell an AMD based system is because Intel wants it that way.>>>
wrong the reason our company stays away from amd systems(we sell the on request) is cause they have more problems support wise(when we sell intel we sell intel boards).

I regularly find myself running a quantum simulation/ rendering something in 3d s max, playing a game like cs, running kazaa, mirc, aim, a bunch of other stuff and everything runs fine. Whoever told u that has no idea what they're talking about, and as stated, dell never sold amd systems due to an agreement made with intel.

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

well thats a lot of help guys thx...(lack of comp knowledge leaves me totally confused)

peace,
-=i3lue}{orneT=-

LoL....you've never heard of the AMD K6-2 ??

Ok..Athlon's are K7 based...correct?? 7th Generation x86 by AMD...

K6 was th generation x86 by AMD......Original K6 competed with Pentium MMX.....K6-2 competed with Pentium 2...K6-III originally was supposed to compete with Pentium III but than Athlon (K7) came out so it directly competed with the Pentium III and now the P4 etc...

anyways the K6-2 was the first processor on the market to have a 100Mhz FSB.....very first processor to have any kind of Streaming SIMD Extensions(3D Now! and later Enhanced 3D Now! on Athlon's and K6-2+ and K6-III+) and it was AMD's processor to extend the life of the Socket 7 platform and it did so VERY well.....it didnt have the greatest FPU unit but 3D Now! more than made up for it when running applicationa that utilized 3D Now! (much like the P4 is like today with SSE2) infact games ran much better on K6-2 and especially K6-III systems than there Pentium 2 counterparts when 3D Now! was used..like Quake 2 etc.....amazing what there awesome instructions can do to speed up performance of a harware component....

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=13597" target="_new">-MeTaL RoCkEr</A>

Spud the Palomino came "bundled" with SSE AND hardware data prefetch, was that not enough for SSE to function normally if not better than the P3's SSE?

Also, THG's tests, showed that 3dNow was able to give a small performance boost in Quake 2, albeit not much.
<A HREF="http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/19990809/athlon-25.html" target="_new">http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/19990809/athlon-25.html</A>
Here in this old benchmark you can see the small boost per clock.
Ahh how I loved that test article back then, especially the FPU.

--
This post is brought to you by Eden, on a Via Eden, in the garden of Eden. <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Eden on 02/01/03 06:57 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

So where did the actual IPC boost come from?
It had a good 10% boost per clock in almost every benchmark, and even more when SSE was available for use.

--
This post is brought to you by Eden, on a Via Eden, in the garden of Eden.

Have you heard about GoGo NoCoda Encoder? Beleive it or not, this MP3 Encoder gave me <b> about 400% </b> performance boost with 3D Now! enabled with my older K6-2 450 MHz system. With my current current 1 GHz Duron, this app gives me around 95% times performance boost. With SSE, it gets about 100% performance boost. But these results should not be taken seriously, because this MP3 Encoder is based on very old LAME MP3 code, and produces unacceptable quality MP3 files.

<b> "You can put lipstick on a pig, but hey, it's still a pig!" - RobD </b>

<font color=red>Original post had been updated, pls see..thx.</font color=red>

peace,
-=<font color=blue>i3lue}{orneT</font color=blue>=-

as far as ur new update.....

with Intel u have till whenever they stop releasign chips for Socket 478...

and for AMD u have till they stop making chips for Socket A.....

Barton is around the corner for AMD and i see prolly another revision of the K7 hitting Socket A b4 its done...

as for Intel who knows.....Pentium 4 has already been on 2 different platforms.....and there were 3 versions of Socket 370.......

Stability though thats a good one..seeign how either system will prove to be unstable if paired with crappy parts (crappy PSU, crappy RAM, crappy chipset, crappy MB Manufacturer, etc.) so really its ur decision..personaly id say go for the AMD.....more specifically to avoid any ASUS only probs. get the EPOX 8RDA+ nForce 2 motherboard and a 333MHz FSB Athlon or even wait till the 512Kb L2 cache 333Mhz FSB Athlons r out (Barton's) which supposedly will be readily available in 2 weeks......

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=13597" target="_new">-MeTaL RoCkEr</A>