Which processor ?

PENG_FA

What's the difference between AMD and Intel processors ?

andy1249

Man the answer to that could go on forever , Pc processors are about one of the most complicated devices ever made by man , but to keep it simple ,

To the end user , thats every ordinary Joe using a pc , there is little or no difference except in price , AMD currently being a lot cheaper than the equivalent Intel.

Both companies have pretty much the same technologies ( called the X86 architecture ) and by and large have so far managed to keep in step with each other , for instance intel now have dual core processors , AMD have X2 processors , which is the same thing , AMD were the first with 64 bit processors to market , intel followed soon after with pentiums with E64 extensions, intels budget processor is called the celeron , and AMD's is called the sempron , and so on and so on ,

In short , unless your are interested in Semiconductor wafer fabrication , there is no difference between the two types of processors , every intel has its AMD equivalent , they will both run any software that is out there ,and run it equally well for equivalent models, there is no software that will run on one and not the other , to all intents and purposes the end user will not notice a difference between the two.

Which processor to choose therefore is down to a matter of price , also note that the equivalent motherboard must be bought for whatever processor you choose , again not much difference here , most boards feature the same list of connections and features , take the same types of memory and work the same way.

Hope this helps ,

djmarkus

This has been covered at least a dozen times, do a search, save another intel vs amd brawl.

PENG_FA

Thanks andy1249, that answered my question perfectly.

rsynnott

Mostly pedantics, except the laptop thing:

andy1249 wrote:

To the end user , thats every ordinary Joe using a pc , there is little or no difference except in price , AMD currently being a lot cheaper than the equivalent Intel.

Except for laptops, where there really is no AMD alternative to the P-M or Core Duo.

andy1249 wrote:

Both companies have pretty much the same technologies ( called the X86 architecture )

They use the same instruction set. Underlying operation is quite, quite different.

andy1249 wrote:

and by and large have so far managed to keep in step with each other , for instance intel now have dual core processors , AMD have X2 processors , which is the same thing , AMD were the first with 64 bit processors to market , intel followed soon after with pentiums with E64 extensions, intels budget processor is called the celeron , and AMD's is called the sempron , and so on and so on ,

Well, Intel had the Itanium

andy1249 wrote:

In short , unless your are interested in Semiconductor wafer fabrication , there is no difference between the two types of processors , every intel has its AMD equivalent , they will both run any software that is out there ,and run it equally well for equivalent models, there is no software that will run on one and not the other , to all intents and purposes the end user will not notice a difference between the two.

Mostly correct, these days. Wasn't always that way: early P4s, for instance, are quite dramatically bad at certain tasks. A major contributor to this is the lack of hardware barrel shifters.

andy1249 wrote:

Which processor to choose therefore is down to a matter of price , also note that the equivalent motherboard must be bought for whatever processor you choose , again not much difference here , most boards feature the same list of connections and features , take the same types of memory and work the same way.

Note that no current AMD processor takes DDR2.

shanethemofo

please not another one no NO NO!!!!! i suggest the thread be safely disposed by technicall experts

Dooom

rsynnott wrote:

Well, Intel had the Itanium

Didn't that cause a few fatalities or something?

SouperComputer

Well, Intel had the Itanium

Don't forget the Sun SPARC!

PENG_FA

My PC is 3 year old with the Trigem IM845GL motherboard & Celeron 1.8 processor.

Does anyone know if this motherboard would take a P4?

The Real B-man

what ever is in your budget mate thats what i say!

PENG_FA

Hi,

Well I was going to do a total new build, but taught it might be cheaper to upgrade. I just want to make sure I get the correct processor chip for my motherboard.

po0k

PENG_FA wrote:

My PC is 3 year old with the Trigem IM845GL motherboard & Celeron 1.8 processor.

Does anyone know if this motherboard would take a P4?

Afaik the i845 chipset only supports socket 478, newer P4s would need socket775 and DDR2.

You really need to upgrade your motherboard, ram, cpu, power supply and graphics card (AGP->PCIE). Case, drives, monitor etc. don't *need* to be upgraded for a significant speedboost if can afford it. Otherwise, shop around for a socket 478 P4 (northwood on eBay), get a new heatsink and fan and buy some ram. Pickup a cheap AGP card if you can afford it. That'll keep you tickin over.

po0k

Wait, that has onboard graphics.

If you want to play games you'll need a socket 478 motherboard and an actual graphics card (PCI Express if possible)

rsynnott

SouperComputer wrote:

Don't forget the Sun SPARC!

I certainly won't! The UltraSparc T1 is probably the most interesting server chip currently available.

Capt'n Midnight

rsynnott wrote:

I certainly won't! The UltraSparc T1 is probably the most interesting server chip currently available.

Remember the arrival of the Alpha ? it had some stupid clock speed compared to Intels best offering at the time. Imagine history repeating itself. Open source Chip + Skunkworks + clock speed.

The IBM Blue Gene/L is the fastest supercomputer in the world.

On March 25, 2005, IBM's Blue Gene/L prototype became the fastest supercomputer in a single installation using its 131,072 processors to run at 280.6 TFLOPS (1012 FLOPS). The Blue Gene/L prototype is a customized version of IBM's PowerPC architecture

Replace the power pc's with T1's and you would be limited to just 4,194,304 threads at any one time
That's a lot of Penguins on the boot screen

PENG_FA

SyxPak wrote:

Afaik the i845 chipset only supports socket 478, newer P4s would need socket775 and DDR2.

You really need to upgrade your motherboard, ram, cpu, power supply and graphics card (AGP->PCIE). Case, drives, monitor etc. don't *need* to be upgraded for a significant speedboost if can afford it. Otherwise, shop around for a socket 478 P4 (northwood on eBay), get a new heatsink and fan and buy some ram. Pickup a cheap AGP card if you can afford it. That'll keep you tickin over.

Thanks SyxPak, would I be better off getting a new motherboard than just upgrading the one I have now every year or so ?

po0k

If you wait 3-4 months, save up some more cash, build an AMD SocketM system with SLI PCI express and DDR2 you'll have a solid system that'll should still be relatively upgradable in over the following 1-3 years when you have a spare bit of cash for speed-bump upgrades and add-ons.

If you can afford it, and your motherboard has an AGP slot (does it?), you could pickup an agp version of a 6200 or 6600 or whatever you think is a good bargain, and maybe double-up/max outthe ram in the machine. That could keep you going for 6 months while you save for the M2 system which should be past the initial high-end price premium for M2 gear at launch and time for whatever teething problems may occur.

It all depends on how much you want to/can spend. If you have say 250-400 euro now, and can afford to save 100-140 a month till June/July/August, you should be able to have a decent rig.

This is largely based on you being of working age (say 17+) or being a rich focker from Bawl's Bridge and therefore in receipt of a regular income.

po0k

Oh, and could one of the mods split the arch-**** posts into a seperate thread? It's nice to see people still have reverence for DEC tech, and as such it deserve's it's own unique key in the board's thread db table(s)

DIRTY69

After quite a lot of research (and looking at online review and the like) I came to the conclusion that AMD is far superior. I am building a system as soon as i can gather together enough cash, and I think I will get an AMD Athlon 3400.

rsynnott

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Remember the arrival of the Alpha ? it had some stupid clock speed compared to Intels best offering at the time. Imagine history repeating itself. Open source Chip + Skunkworks + clock speed.

How is it history repeating itself? The DEC Alpha was introduced in '92, at 192Mhz. At the time the highest-clocked Intel chip was probably a 66Mhz 486. Now, the T1 runs at 1Ghz or 1.2Ghz; Intel chips go up to 3.4Ghz or so.

I think this open-source chip thing will have limited or no impact. First, the whole chip won't be open-sourced by any means. Second, people won't be inclined to mess around if they can't easily see the results. You may be able to show in a simulation 'oh, look, this change makes X however many cycles faster', but you won't be able to use that modified chip in your computer.

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

Replace the power pc's with T1's and you would be limited to just 4,194,304 threads at any one time
That's a lot of Penguins on the boot screen

The Ultrasparc T1 doesn't do SMP. The T2 will, but apparently only with two chips in a system.

And the T1 is not a suitable chip for a 'super-computer' (the last proper supercomputers died with the cold war, but what passes for a super-computer now). It has, by design, dire floating-point performance.

PENG_FA

Thanks again SyxPak, your very helpful and I'm learning too. I'm happy with my PC at the moment but would like to update it maybe in the summer. All I want from a PC is to be fast (which I think it is, but don't have a 2nd PC to compare too). My PC has a 1.8 Celeron, 360 GIG HD (a 60 gig & a 300 gig) and 768 of RAM. I use a 15" TFT that I can trade in for a 19" TFT + cash.

I'm 26 and work for myself at home. I have a lot of files I use daily so that's why I need a big HD.

I basically just want a faster, P4 machine. I'll probably sell this and get a total new build but keep my HD's and my DVD RW drive for the new rig.

I know a guy who builds PC's and he also sells them, made to order etc so I'll use him.

SouperComputer

PENG_FA wrote:

Thanks again SyxPak, your very helpful and I'm learning too. I'm happy with my PC at the moment but would like to update it maybe in the summer. All I want from a PC is to be fast (which I think it is, but don't have a 2nd PC to compare too). My PC has a 1.8 Celeron, 360 GIG HD (a 60 gig & a 300 gig) and 768 of RAM. I use a 15" TFT that I can trade in for a 19" TFT + cash.

I'm 26 and work for myself at home. I have a lot of files I use daily so that's why I need a big HD.

I basically just want a faster, P4 machine. I'll probably sell this and get a total new build but keep my HD's and my DVD RW drive for the new rig.

I know a guy who builds PC's and he also sells them, made to order etc so I'll use him.

"Fast" is a very broad term. Do you mean responsiveness during work, or gaming performance?

If its for work, I would say get a fast Boot HD such as a Raptor and perhaps grab a Northwood P4 chip from boards\ebay. If you are using XP, turning off the useless animations\colour crap helps prep things up too.

Until recently my "work" pc was an 800Mhz machine with a 10K RPM SCSI drive. I am running from a P4 2.7 (well 1.8 @ 2.7) from a 5400 RPM laptop HD and it is noticably "slower" in terms of everyday use.

What is the typical use for this computer?

On the Intel\AMD discussion, IMO both are great, but generally AMD provide better value, especially with Celeron Vs Sempron.

craigcharlie

Souper is right about the raptor... hard drive performance has an immense impact on overall performance, it's really a bottleneck in every system. and if you're moving from a celeron to a P4, you'll notice a huge difference... you won't regret it.

Souper, for your laptop, you might be interested in getting one of these one day. I got that one from newegg while I was in the states, but Komplett has them for 145 euro.

The difference in laptop performance is amazing. After having experienced it, I don't think a laptop can be called high performance any more unless it has one of these... and there appears to be no detectable difference in heat and battery life. it's amazing. (the other cool thing is that when you remove the old hd from your laptop, buy a 20 euro 2.5 inch HD enclosure and you've got a whack of portable storage )

SouperComputer

Aye, but im running from a desktop! Id need a heafty cooling job to get a laptop 1.8 to go to 2.7! I cant find my camera, shame as the a pic would be entertaining!

Its what I would call a HTPC "development unit"! Hence the usage of a laptop HD.

7k 2.5's are nice, but heat disssapation can be an issue, depending in the laptop. The newer 5400's with 16MB cache are nice.

Ive been an advocate of quick HD's for heavy office users for a while. Got to use a machine I built with one of the first raptors two years ago for a client. Despite having "only" an athlon 2200+ CPU it's still fast as fcuk two years later, and is more responsive than Athlon64 units. They agree which is nice and now swear to use decent HD's in future computers.

PENG_FA

Thanks SouperComputer, I never play games, well maybe a game of poker online. So I'm not looking for a gaming machine, just responsiveness during work as you say. My main HD (C:) is a Seagate 7200 (300 gig internal, got it in Maplin 2 months ago €160) and I run win xp pro on it.

rsynnott

To be honest, the fancy hard drive would almost certainly be overkill. Hard disk speed is less important than it used to be, because memory is so cheap.

SouperComputer

rsynnott wrote:

To be honest, the fancy hard drive would almost certainly be overkill. Hard disk speed is less important than it used to be, because memory is so cheap.

I dont see how unless you cache the entire OS/Common apps in RAM! Even then the OS willl have to be loaded from the HD, and a HD with a solid throughput will help.

The price of RAM makes no difference, even if you arent using a swap file a quicker HD will mean that apps load quicker.

@ PENG_FA The drives you have are OKAY, it all depends on what you want to spend. I also went from a 7200 diamond Max (Slightly quicker than your seagate) to the 10K on the same hardware\image and the difference was noticeable.

A quick HD will generally outlast your PC (my last 10K drive was planty fast enough for about 4 years before I moved to a later model)

How long is it since you reinstalled a clean version of your OS?

I recon, nice HD & SATA card with a clean install minus the silly GUI crap with XP and unneeded services disabled will give you the perfect machine you need.

The HD will make a bigger difference than the CPU, so id run with that first. Again, its money well spent as you will keep it for a long time, somewhat like a good PSU, always a good investment. It also forces you to keep you OS\Apps seperate from the files, which is another good thing.

rsynnott

Is application loading speed actually an issue for anyone?

Why in my day <insert tape-related rant here>

WizZard

Tape? Pfft, noobs. Punch-cards, now they were slow. :rolleyes:

PENG_FA

Hi, I reinstalled the xp pro about 2/3 months ago. It originally came with xp home on a 60 gig HD.

conzy

a clean install minus the silly GUI crap with XP and unneeded services disabled will give you the perfect machine you need.

There is a program called NLITE, that removes unwanted languages, services, visual effects...........everything you could possibly remove from windows before you install it,

Its a great program, very easy to use, just uncheck boxes to disable things, it will make an ISO and you can burn it with NERO or something

Guides and download here;)

http://www.nliteos.com/

It even removes that little paper-clip bas**** from the search tool:D

po0k

rsynnott wrote:

Is application loading speed actually an issue for anyone?

Why in my day <insert tape-related rant here>

Yes.

rsynnott

Mind if I ask why? Patience is a virtue

SouperComputer

rsynnott wrote:

Mind if I ask why? Patience is a virtue

Indeed, and time is money!