Pentium IV - does it even keep competition up?

[Guest]

I'm starting to wonder after I read the review at Anandtech, and I bet Tom won't go easier on Intel... The conclusion there was:

"For today's buyer, the Pentium 4 simply doesn't make sense. It's slower than the competition in just about every area, it's more expensive, it's using an interface that won't be the flagship interface in 6 - 9 months and it requires a considerable investment outside of the price of the CPU itself. Remember that you have to buy a new motherboard, new memory (if you don't get it bundled with a boxed CPU), and a new power supply/case. This is the investment that must be made in order to have a CPU that can't outperform any of today's top performers with the promise that tomorrow's Pentium 4 will be better."

To me, it doesn't even sound as if PIV will keep Intel floating. I was hoping for PIV to force AMD to crank out faster CPUs, but right now it looks like they can hit cruise control and roll in cash on 1.2GHz/760 DDR combo. Am I just too unoptimistic? I wouldn't buy a PIV, bundled with the most expensive and useless memory structure ever, and I can't think of any reason why anyone else would, except those truly unintelligent who think "1.5 > 1.2 = better. Me buy PIV. Ugh!" but I doubt they'd have that much money to spend on it anyway...

Kjella

 

[Guest]

Intel will still have their own benchmarks and routines to make their processors sound the better over AMD. They will tweak and tune their processors somewhat. I'm sure Intel will remain strong competition. Though AMD is still gaining, Intel still has the lead and will continue to for sometime unless they blunder for much longer

 

[Guest]

Wait for 1.6Ghz from AMD. Let's see how it will beat PIV. .

For me today - TBird rules (I don't wanna spend $5000-$6000 for PIV where I can spend twice cheaper for TBird).

 

[Guest]

You are missing the point. Although I am a huge AMD supporter, I have to admit that the P-IV is well positioned to continue to lead the market. It has the best scores on 3d intensive applications, which is the market that relys on the latest processors, and it has a great marketing scheme. For the average consumer, clock speed is the only consideration when looking at a new system. I work in IS and it is amazing that many of the people I work with (A+, CNE, MSCE, etc) don't realize the difference between clock speed and performance. AMD, I hope, realizes that better performance does not mean better market share (look at the old Beta vs. VHS war).

Regardless of AMD's performance on legacy aps and office aps, the P-IV is well equiped to maintain Intel's profit line.

 

[Guest]

sorry for the interuption everyone...just testing

bill Neubauer
President
Ultimate PC Creations

 

[Guest]

I have just finished reading posts on the pIV from a host of sites and the pIV's performance is, well, sad. The recompiling of apps will give the pIV some very good numbers in about 2 or 3 quarters. The problem is that this initial bad performance will stick in the minds of a lot of people and ferment(i.e k5, k6).
*ntel has had there perverbial butt kicked by AMD. Its like hyundai(amd) taking 20% marketshare from GM(*ntel) in a year or so.
I suspect that with the large die its going to cost *ntel 2x the money to compete with a product with half its die and that spells trouble for *ntel's bottom line.

*ntel is going to be hurting in 2001 as AMD starts to go full production in dresden.
I suspect that as the hammer family comes online 2002 we will see a lot of layoffs @ *ntel.

GLT

 

[Guest]

Intel will sell every processor they produce whether it is "the world's fastest" or a "dog". AMD cannot keep up with the demand for high end computers just because of production capacity. IT and IS departments will start the new year budget expenditures in January and they will upgrade equipment. If they can't get high end Athlons, then they are not going to wait to make purchases, so the next choice is the P4, thus Intel gets rid of the Pig4 CPU.

Thermal Acceleration means 'Overclocking'

 

[Guest]

SC did delphi go down? Was going over there to see what the BOYz have to say and can't get in. P4 is a Q3A cpu wonder how it stacks up at anything else? Is the FPU still really low? Just on TV they say it SUX. Not worth it price even if they cut it in half...

BatMan

BatMan

 

[Guest]

After reading 5 reviews from Tomshardware, Anandtech, HardOcp, HardwareCentral, Aceshardware.

I am beginning to believe that Intel is going to give AMD some hardtime ahead.

Maybe everyone is right about Intel's not able to perform well in a clock to clock basics. Yes, that is true. Majority of the market looks at frequency. Yes, that is also true. P4 has been designed to reach very high frequency without migrating to 0.13 micron process (so soon). As we can see P4 is just out, although still using 0.18 micron technology, it should still have plenty of room to ramp up in frequency whereas Athlon Thunderbird cruising at 1.2 Ghz, it is pretty much towards the limit of the technology. Without AMD moving to 0.13 micron process any sooner, AMD is gonna lose the performance crown when P4 ramp up in frequency that will ultimately close the performance gap very quickly.

Make any sense?

 

[Guest]

Intel is a HUGE company, it will take many years of horrible losses to kill this lizard. To us "the more educated consumer," the P4 is slower at an IPC level than Athlon and even P3, but, sadly, the average consumer will see those big numbers and think that they have the best chip ever. P4 may be a dissapointment for now, but when those frequencies get higher and higher, the P4 will get faster and faster.

 

[Guest]

I think Intel is jumping the gun to release the processor with the highest MHz again like the 1.13Ghz pile of crap. They're releasing a ridiculously large buggy processor without refining it.

I think Intel might even have a winner with the P4 but not if they release it without ironing out all the problems and getting that huge dye size down using the more effecient micron processes of today. All they're going to do is screw their initial customers with the overpriced, buggy, chunky mofo only to optimize it and call it the P4 Ultra or whatever.

 

[Guest]

Yes they closed the puppy. P4 is a Megaturd. If you remember before it released I said it would be relegated to a Quake game console. How many more floaters does Intel plan to release next year?

Thermal Acceleration means 'Overclocking'