In very rare applications (far less than 10% of real-world applications), that don't support 3D Now, and even then it's only just barely. And for everything else, it loses to the 1.4GHz T-Bird.
I realize my argument is weak but I'll have to contend with the following for now. Notice that in MP3 encoding the XP1500 does majorly better than the 1.4GHZ Tbird. And also scroll some pages, notice MPEG 2 performance. It is clear MM is affected by the advent of SSE.
<A HREF="http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20020107/p42200-13.html" target="_new">http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20020107/p42200-13.html</A>
Surely it was a minor advantage
It is significant in multimedia for many applications, and Anandtech supposedly got a 90% boost once. I don't know how true it is, but I know that SSE was something missing.
It'll have to be adjusted once again.
They only adjusted the XP2600 and XP2400 for some reason I forgot. I'd check the article where it was paper launched to see why. But they did not modify any other previous cores' model.
You could run Athlons with CAS 3 PC100 SDRAM and compare that to a P4. Why is it wrong to look at it that way? Because it's simply using memory that you know bottlenecks the CPU so that it can't perform to it's fullest.
How many people do you think are paying for the premium of PC1066 systems?
I can be sure when I say that the majority of P4 owners are buying DDR memory. So it's safe to say for gamers, that DDR will be their buy if they want value for performance. Yes PC1066 is still the absolute winner, there is no doubt, and it easily overtakes AthlonXPs. However the least AthlonXP system you can get from the worst OEMs is one with DDR 266. Least from P4 OEMs is lol, SDRAM of course.
However you were talking about the CAS 3 100MHZ RAM equipping, so that's all I have to say about common systems on both sides of the platforms.
Besides, high quality DDR that isn't running on overclocked timings is only about 5%-10% less in price than an RDRAM solution.
I disagree. Around town, 512MB PC1066 that is actually OCZ, a barely reputable brand name for quality RDRAM, is an insane 559$ CDN. DDR 333 from Crucial, 512MB is roughly half that, and Crucial is known to be a very high quality RAM maker. All for 249$. Here is the proof: <A HREF="http://www.shoprbc.com/ca/shop/?cid=162" target="_new">http://www.shoprbc.com/ca/shop/?cid=162</A>
So while currently DDR333 is the top and certified DDR and PC1066 is the official top performer for Pentium 4 systems, it is clear that your point is not as valid anymore. DDR400 is also not too expensive. Actually CAS 2 DDR400 from OCZ, rated as PC3500 for 433MHZ usage if needed, is 365$, still far from RDRAM.
You make it sound as though people aren't OCing high end P4s with PC1066 RDRAM and totally slaughtering the AXPs.
I agree, I was a bit disregarding, my bad.
Except that those who would buy say, a 2.4GHZ P4 and OC it to 3GHZ on air, are often trying to get value, and again those users will buy DDR systems. (I know it because I got two friends who have bought a 2.4GHZ with DDR and wish to overclock later on, and of course were short on money) If you can get an XP2400 unlocked, overclock it to say 2.2GHZ, then up the FSB to 200MHZ, keep the same clock, use the nForce 2 Dual Channel aggressive timings, you will get similar value, if not better. I would imagine the P4 still would kick ass in multimedia with SSE2, however you are still getting somewhere with the AMD system, which is not a bad thing at all.
However, even then as far as absolute performance goes
Again, as I said above, it is slowly changing in my perception, because I still think that most P4 overclockers will opt for a DDR setup, and as seen in THG's VGA Chart benchmarks, it will not perform as good as an AXP that is not even using the same PR to clock rating. In other words the XP2700+ is able to beat the 3.06GHZ, but then again HT might be hurting it more now than helping.
Yes though Intel with Rambus, are still the absolute performance winners. But again, with the RDRAM price, what's the worth really? I wish it had been like 200$ CDN less, then it'd be widely considered. You yourself seem short on cash when you had announced the system for Xmas that you wish to build. Can you opt for the RDRAM system?
Be this as it may, it still has nothing to do with the very simple fact that AMD's PR rating never made sense when compared to T-Birds. Even from the very beginning, it was wildly skewed to compare to P4s, not to the noticably more powerful T-Birds. AMD still won't admit that.
And I am not against you on that one. It sure isn't worth comparing to a Tbird, especially when it takes 66MHZ for 100 PR points. No Palomino rising 66MHZ will compare to an unproportionally rising 100MHZ of Tbird performance. But then again, would they have ever sold this many Athlons if they had kept real clock speeds to sell?
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<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=faq¬found=1&code=1" target="_new">The THGC Photo Album, send your pics and see others'!</A><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Eden on 12/23/02 04:28 PM.</EM></FONT></P>