AMD gone too far...yet nowhere?

[stix_kua]

I was looking at Newegg just a second ago and I saw the 3200+ Barton 400MHz bus running at 2.2Ghz. That is a whole 1.0GHz less that what it is supposed to compete with. I just find that too hard to believe. It seems too unreal and full of bull-plop.

It'd be like saying a K5 running at 90MHz beat a PII at 400MHz...totally unreal...

AMD has got to do something about this gap. I'm not seeing why it is so hard for them to close the gap. They had Intel within reach in the T-bird days...what happened?

The price tag wasn't friendly either...$453...Come on!!!

My ideas for getting AMD up there is:

Stop producing the slower processors, cut out the inbetweens and hit the high note...Instead of having the 3000+ then the 3200+ and so forth, cut out some of the middle men and stop with the little speed bursts and go for something bigger. It is hard to believe the PR rating system and it makes it hard for me to want to buy AMD processors.

I kinda wish Intel would give 'em some cash to give em a little boost...(This'll probably never happen)

[Izdaari]

Originally posted by stix_kua
I was looking at Newegg just a second ago and I saw the 3200+ Barton 400MHz bus running at 2.2Ghz. That is a whole 1.0GHz less that what it is supposed to compete with. I just find that too hard to believe. It seems too unreal and full of bull-plop.

But it's true. The PR rating on the 3200+ is a tad optimistic but still the fact is it is competitive in performance with Intel's top CPU, the 3.0C, even at 2.2GHz. That's even more pronounced with the Opteron, which at 1.4GHz beats Intel's 3.0GHz Xeon. AMD really does get more work out of each CPU cycle, so don't be freaked by mere GHz differences. It's how fast your games and apps run that counts.

[stix_kua]

Originally posted by Izdaari
But it's true. The PR rating on the 3200+ is a tad optimistic but still the fact is it is competitive in performance with Intel's top CPU, the 3.0C, even at 2.2GHz. That's even more pronounced with the Opteron, which at 1.4GHz beats Intel's 3.0GHz Xeon. AMD really does get more work out of each CPU cycle, so don't be freaked by mere GHz differences. It's how fast your games and apps run that counts.

I hope it's very true...

I truly do love AMD but am feeling frustrated when I live in a household of Intel crazed family memebers who haven't seen AMD machines kick the ***** out of Intel...They have only seen mine and are amazed and p!ssed....

I have a 2000+ T-bred A that beats my bros p4 2.0 but I do have 768 megs of RAM maybe giving me an advantage

[Slade54]

Yea, alot of people dont agree with the 3200+ rating that that model has recieved. Seems about 200points too high.

But dont worry. They are working on faster processors. They have just been hitting design and manufacturing snags, but they have overcome that (with IBMs help) So by the end of this year, they should have the much faster stuff out. And if they dont by then, then i would be worried.

[Optimus Prime]

If you didn't already know, the rating means theoretically what the Thunderbird speed must be to match the Athlon. It's not about comparing it against P4's, whoever told you, is wrong.

[kevrob1]

If you didn't already know, the rating means theoretically what the Thunderbird speed must be to match the Athlon. It's not about comparing it against P4's, whoever told you, is wrong.

This is true but in reality it's to show that an AMD proc will perform as fast or faster than an Intel at that +rating speed. I do wish that AMD would release a proc @ 3.2GHz with the same ability for instructions per clock cycle. Think of how Intel would scurry then! I own an Intel P4 2.26GHz proc and I can't really see the difference between it and my AMD Athlon 1.4GHz Thunderbird. Yes it benchmarks higher and yes it has 512Kb L2 cache but the Athlon seems "snappier". Go figure...

[Slade54]

Optimus Prime, are you telling me that practically everyone at this forum, everyone who writes on a tech site, AND AMD are ALL wrong?

Straight from AMD (its talking about the K5, but it still applies)

The P-rating is a new performance measurement, it is an apples to apples performance rating for the processor using the industry standard Winstone 96 benchmark. If an AMD-K5 processor has a rating of "PR100" that means that the processor would offer you performance equal to or greater than a Pentium at that P-rating. For Example, if you have a AMD-K5-PR133, it would give you the performance level of a Pentium 133MHz processor. However, the "PR" rating is not an indication of clock frequency.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

No, Optimus is right, the PR Rating for the AthlonXP series relates to the equivalent speed of the Tbird Athlons. There was a big hoo hah from Intel over AMD's PR Ratings a couple of years back and the AMD response was that these numbers represented the performance of the chips in comparison to Tbird's. Generally though the PR rating is equal to the P$ alternative, except in the case of the 3200+ which is a tad optimistic

--Jakk

[Slade54]

Funny, i tried to find that on AMDs site, and couldnt.

[Izdaari]

Originally posted by Bigjakkstaffa
No, Optimus is right, the PR Rating for the AthlonXP series relates to the equivalent speed of the Tbird Athlons. There was a big hoo hah from Intel over AMD's PR Ratings a couple of years back and the AMD response was that these numbers represented the performance of the chips in comparison to Tbird's. Generally though the PR rating is equal to the P$ alternative, except in the case of the 3200+ which is a tad optimistic

--Jakk

That's what they'd like you to believe. It's probably even true, but they know and intend that people will use the PR rating to compare with P4s, they just don't want to admit it in public. If people didn't do that it wouldn't be useful for marketing. And regardless of intent, the PR ratings are comparable to the P4, so that part isn't deceptive.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Officially they arent, unofficially we all know they are (except for the 3200+)

--Jakk

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Originally posted by Izdaari
That's what they'd like you to believe. It's probably even true, but they know and intend that people will use the PR rating to compare with P4s, they just don't want to admit it in public. If people didn't do that it wouldn't be useful for marketing. And regardless of intent, the PR ratings are comparable to the P4, so that part isn't deceptive.

I agree with ya. But one more point to it aswell. IF amd did claim it was reference to the P4 then it would also be like syaing that intel is the bar of excellence to compair to. By compairing to their OWN cpu they arent glorifing Intels cpu power.

[Izdaari]

Originally posted by $1500-P4 gamer


I agree with ya. But one more point to it aswell. IF amd did claim it was reference to the P4 then it would also be like syaing that intel is the bar of excellence to compair to. By compairing to their OWN cpu they arent glorifing Intels cpu power.

Right. Hadn't thought of that, but it's probably the real reason. Fear of Intel's legal department doesn't make sense because there's nothing illegal about comparing products.

[Terminator]

On the price side forget shelling out heaps on a 400FSB AMD3200+. Get a Barton2500 (dead cheap) and clock it higher at 400FSB than a 3200+ like me 2.4GHz, FSB400 , temp 46C aircooled.

T

[Izdaari]

Exactly my plan, Terminator! I have an ASUS A7N8X Deluxe rev. 1.04, which will take the 1004 BIOS I need to run the 3200+, but why when the 2500+ Barton is so cheap and will OC so well?