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The results speak for themselves. The average frame rate across all six games for the Athlon 64 system is 61fps, while the Pentium 4 averaged 54fps. That's a 13% difference—not tiny, but not large enough to bowl us over. What is more important, we feel, is how often a game runs slowly enough that you can feel it. This methodology is consistent with the one used by a new performance analysis tool in the works at Intel. We picked arbitrary performance thresholds, but these are numbers based on years of game playing experience. We picked frame rates at which you actually notice an impact on how the game feels, not the absolute minimum required to play and enjoy a game. This is where the Athlon 64 really kicks the Pentium 4 in the teeth. Our P4 system spent almost a third of the time, across all games, beneath our target minimum FPS. The Athlon 64 system, on the other hand, spent only 14% of its time there. This is a difference of a whopping 121%!
Clearly, the results we get from timedemo-style benchmarks in our processor reviews aren't far off the mark. If anything, you could say they're kind to Intel. By focusing on average frame rate in the playback of pre-recorded or scripted demos, we find AMD processors are typically 15-25% faster in gaming scenarios. Focusing on the amount of time spent beneath a minimum FPS threshold makes the situation look far worse for Intel, as they spend more than twice as much time beneath the limit.
Wrong. When it comes to single-core Intel is better for audio/video encoding, heavy multitasking, and some 3D rendering.
I agree completely with that statement. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I still think Intel single-cores are competitive with AMD single-cores. Unfortunately, a lot of dual-cores are cheaper than a lot of single cores out there, and the slowest AMD dual-core outruns the fastest Intel single core in the only single-threaded application genre that even counts: Gaming.
As an Intel fan, I have to say that the Pentium 4 (heck, even Prescott) was a great processor. Prescott wasn't a bad design, it was, in fact, extremely innovative, perhaps borderline genius -- it was just ahead of it's time. If Intel could fix some of the leakage problems faced by Prescott, and put some of that power back into performance that would be one effing heck of a processor.
But it wasn't... which is why I have to ask -- why, oh WHY, did they can the Northwood? That was a great Pentium 4. The Northwood would've kicked butt with some of Prescott's technologies, like 64-bit, the larger cache, the improved hyperthreading, the improved branch predictor... Northwood would've scaled higher, too. A 3.4 GHz Northwood runs cooler (much 0_0 ) than a Prescott, and consumes less power to boot. Yeesh, Northwood as the basis of a GOOD dual-core design would've been fantastic!
Gah. [/rant]
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then you add in the X2 and it wipes the floor with anything Intel has for multi tasking.
If you ask me, Intel's dual cores are capable of performing on par with AMD's, but the design of the Smithfield itself is lacking. I believe a design similar to AMD's X2 with the System Request Interface and the Crossbar Switch (allowing for greater communication between the two cores), paired with a much faster bus speed would've resulted in a much better Intel dual core.
This is exemplified in preliminary benchmarks of Dempsey (the Xeon dual core that actually tries) vs. an Opteron 280 system. Dempsey features a 1066 MHz frontside bus and a larger cache. While that isn't a terribly good solution in and of itself, the larger cache with a little more bus speed (more bus and cache to spare for core communications) puts Dempsey back in contention with the Opteron.
Who knows? Maybe the 9xx-series Pentium D's won't suck so badly either...
Last edited by A_Pickle on Thu Nov 10, 2005 12:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
From my experiance, Intel processors make for more stable systems, for graphics work, audio, etc, as well as your other computer functions, and some older games. For any new game, however, AMD processors own Intel with their large FSB.
Personally I have an Intel Pentium 4, and it works just fine for me. I don't do any heavy gaming on my computer, because I use my xbox for that. I do play several demanding games on my computer though, and I do not have any problems. I haven't tryed Doom 3 or Far Cry 2 on it yet.
From my experiance, Intel processors make for more stable systems, for graphics work, audio, etc, as well as your other computer functions, and some older games. For any new game, however, AMD processors own Intel with their large FSB.
Personally I have an Intel Pentium 4, and it works just fine for me. I don't do any heavy gaming on my computer, because I use my xbox for that. I do play several demanding games on my computer though, and I do not have any problems. I haven't tryed Doom 3 or Far Cry 2 on it yet.
Intel CPU's used to be stable. The Prescott is not stable due to it's high temps. Sure it will run great for 3 to 6 months, but if you don't clean the Heatsink & fan on the CPU, you will get re-starts every so often.
This is already happening to a few placed in my office. Older AMD CPU's were designed to run hot. They can handle the heat, but now AMD is with the cooler running CPU's.
In terms of single core processors Intel is better for audio/video encoding and a few other things, as KoolDrew said. Basically everything else AMD does better. This a very recent AMD/Intel comparison for games.
In terms of dual core AMD has flattened Intel. Intel's dual core architecture simply can't compete with AMD's. It wins in some things but by no means enough to warrant purchasing one (unless you're on a very tight budget).
Intel CPU's used to be stable. The Prescott is not stable due to it's high temps.
Uh... we've had a Pentium 4 660 for more than a year running just fine. The Prescott is designed to take temperatures of 100? C. The K8 is designed to take temperatures of 70?.
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This is already happening to a few placed in my office. Older AMD CPU's were designed to run hot.
That's not true. Tom's Hardware did a test on older Intel s(Northwoods) and AMDs (K7's) on stress/heat testing. They'd take off the CPU heatsink/fan assembly, and see which ones lasted longer. Not only did the Intels last longer, some of the K7's didn't even survive.
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Basically everything else AMD does better.
That's not true. In terms of single core, the only things tha Athlon64 won in were gaming and number-crunching. Workstation tasks (3D Rendering, video encoding, compiling, etc.) are all the forte of the single core Pentium 4.
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It wins in some things but by no means enough to warrant purchasing one (unless you're on a very tight budget).
I get the impression that this will change come Yonah. :)
EDIT: Dempsey apparently has two 1066 MHz frontside buses, one for each core. This is a significant change that clearly explains why it doesn't downright suck like Paxville.
Last edited by A_Pickle on Fri Nov 11, 2005 12:43 pm; edited 1 time in total
This is already happening to a few placed in my office. Older AMD CPU's were designed to run hot.
That's not true. Tom's Hardware did a test on older Intel s(Northwoods) and AMDs (K7's) on stress/heat testing. They'd take off the CPU heatsink/fan assembly, and see which ones lasted longer. Not only did the Intels last longer, some of the K7's didn't even survive.
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Basically everything else AMD does better.
That's not true. In terms of single core, the only things tha Athlon64 won in were gaming and number-crunching. Workstation tasks (3D Rendering, video encoding, compiling, etc.) are all the forte of the single core Pentium 4.
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It wins in some things but by no means enough to warrant purchasing one (unless you're on a very tight budget).
I get the impression that this will change come Yonah. :)
And who runs their cpus without Heatsink? People that do that don't deserve to have a cpu. The only reason that the Intels didn't die is because they have a better temperature cut off. AMD figures that those who have their cpus know enough about computers not to use them without cooling.
When you say that Intel won some tests, it is match supposedly equal cpus (3700 vs 3.7GHz), or equally priced cpus? I think if you went with equally priced, the AMD would win them all
And I get the impression that Intel will never again beat AMD in anything ;) It's called speculation, and it's worthless most of the time.
\"EDIT: Dempsey apparently has two 1066 MHz frontside buses, one for each core. This is a significant change that clearly explains why it doesn't downright suck like Paxville. \"
This is why AMD has Hyper Transport 2 already being used & tested. ;) And we will see now AMD's Tri-Core CPU's perform against Intel's Quad-Core's when the time comes.
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