AMD 64s v. P4, a question of speed.

[Shylock]

I'm in the market for a new processor. AMD 64's usually have clock speeds of 2.6ghz or so whilst Intel is up to 3.2ghz.

How can 64s be faster with those speeds, or am I missing something?

 

[Gainy]

Think of it like heartbeats.

Someone with a really fast heartbeat will pump blood around their system very frequently, although not necessarily in large quantaties for each beat.

Someone with not so fast a hearbeat, but say a massive heart or really wide veins, will pump large amounts of blood with each beat, just doesn't beat so often.

Blood is the data, beat is the ghz.
Basically AMD tends to send more information per clock cycle than Pentium, but Pentium have faster cycles.

 

[Zelig]

Look at the newer Intel cpus, the Core 2 Duo has lowered clock speeds, but is easily a faster processor.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html
Take a look at those charts to get a good general idea of how cpus compare.

 

[jimbob27]

Basically because Intel pushed and pushed clockspeed as high as they possibly could with the p4 with little regard to actual performance, so they could put big impressive numbers on their boxes which would impress PC noobs (like your dad). AMD actually built their chips with performance as the priority, and didn't pay attention to the headline grabbing numbers intel drived for.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

Which one is actualy faster?

 

[warpus]

Which one is actualy faster?

faster does not equal better performance.

 

[Comraddict]

Avoid P4 at all cost today. It is processor of yesterday.

 

[Shylock]

Basically because Intel pushed and pushed clockspeed as high as they possibly could with the p4 with little regard to actual performance, so they could put big impressive numbers on their boxes which would impress PC noobs (like your dad). AMD actually built their chips with performance as the priority, and didn't pay attention to the headline grabbing numbers intel drived for.

How did you know he was noob who only looked clock speeds?

Thanks all, these were a big help.

 

[jeriko one]

Which one is actualy faster?

Correct me if I am wrong. I usually do not post to this forum so you guys can be ahead of me...

AMD is faster in games but Intel is faster in other areas. If you planning to buy an AMD CPU, go for AM2 socket. It will enable you to use DDRII RAMs. If you buy 939 socket, you invest in yesterdays technology.

On the Intel front, they have new technology. Everybody says Conroe is quite good. Also new generation Intel CPUs are more advanced architecturewise(65 nm)

 

[Underseer]

If you're looking at top-of-the-line multicore CPU systems, then Intel provides both more processing power and more efficiency (processing power per watt).

However, you may not be in the market for one of those overpriced bleeding edge computers. I would suggest figuring out what your price range is, and reading up some performance reviews for whichever CPUs you're considering.

If you can afford it, definitely consider multicore. I was skeptical of the advantages since most applications and games these days are still single-threaded, but I was pleasantly surprised at the little things that improved when I recently upgraded to dual core CPU.

Also, future games will probably be multithreaded to take advantage of multicore systems.

 

[jimbob27]

How did you know he was noob who only looked clock speeds?

Thanks all, these were a big help.

Hehe, I was just assuming. That was intels main target audience. The middle aged guy who knows little about computers, who walks into PC world or phones up Dell, and says " I need a family computer for internet and stuff".

Then the salesperson can do their thing, and he walks out with a 3.66ghz pentium, without really knowing a huge amount about what he's just bought.

Of course, this discussion is kinda out of date, now that intel are smoking the crap out of everything with their low ghz dual-core thingys.