Hello
  I don't think there has been a basic change for just about a full year
since what I read says that Intel is up against a wall of physics which is
mostly representing itself as power and it's associate, heat problems due
to it's basic core designs.  The only exception and the one area that has
done exceptionally well for Intel is the M (Mobile) processors which have a
different core design.  Intel dropped instructions per clock and ramped up
raw clock speed to attempt to compete wiith AMDs far more efficient core
system, to some success.  However just as seen here on the linked page of
gamepc, all year long or slightly longer, people have been treated to
benchmarks in which AMD CPU's operating at substantially slower speeds are
beating INtel processors at higher speeds and using considerably less power
to do so.  This climaxed in Intel's promoting the new BTX standars which
really was nothing more than shifting items around on the mobo to
facilitate better cooling.  AMD gloated about 

not needing to move to a new format.  Now Intel has abandoned BTX and is
wisely pursuing new core designs along the lines of the M processors since
they have finally recognized they cannot push Prescott et al based cores
any further and are only hurting themselves if they try.

  Intel is by no means out of the running.  They have far too much in
client base, sheer brainpower, and manufacturing facility to simply fold
and go home.  They have merely lost a run of cards to AMD who has had
substantially better hands, starting way back when they hired a large part
of the DEC Alpha team.  If you recall these boys were running 500MHz
processors and then 750MHz processors with passive heatsinks when the
fastest thing Intel could produce was the Pentium Pro at 200MHz  which even
then required active cooling.  AMD's Super 7 line was simply biding time
and dodging (artfully, mind you, and turning a death blow into new life) a
bullet Intel hoped would put AMD in their place before the big guns were
online.  Athlon/Duron was the beginning of CPUs in which the newly acquired
DEC Alpha boys were given free reign and AMD stopped being a me-too company
right then.  They are now a powerful and worthy competitor and almost every
hi performance PC company's top of the line gami

ng machine now uses AMD processors especially the 64bit FX series (similar
to Opteron in that they have the onchip, core speed memory controller so
heavily factoring in the linked gamepc shootout with the 4 x 4 Xeons vs/
the Dual Opterons) especially once nVidia's SLI (dual videocard) became
available as AMD only.  Months passed before nVidia made it Intel
compatible and still there are limitations non-existant on AMD boards.

   Sorry to spend so much time editorializing but I hope to dispel the
legacy notion that AMD is somehow inferior since that incorrect notion
still hangs around from years gone by.  Since this is an OS/2 forum and not
supposed to be concerned with ACAD or gaming, one can say there is little
advantage to buying an AMD based board, unless heat and power usage are of
great concern to you, but there is no longer any disadvantage whatsoever
especially in 64bit since Intel basically gave up their own design and
adopted AMD's.  It's a good time for consumers in the CPU market.

Jimmy


> On Fri, 28 Oct 2005 13:19:51 -0400, Alan Beagley wrote:
> 
> >On 10/28/05 12:43 pm Derek W. Keoughan tossed the following ingredients 
> >into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:
> 
> MMmmmm... soooooooup.  :-D
> 
> [snip]
> 
> >> Whatever you do - I'd recommend avoiding Intel architecture... it's a
> >> non-starter these days.  It's "already obsolete", and the
> >> price/performance ratio is poor... but I don't need to tell you this,
> >> really - you're already an AMD owner. :-D
> >
> >
> >
> >I thought I had read somewhere recently -- on Tom's Harware or AnandTech 
> >-- that Intel's latest CPUs have overtaken AMD again.
> 
> Take a look at this:
> 
> http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=paxville&page=1
> 
> Mind you, it's dated... it's from October 19th, 2005... things can
> change in 9 days. :-D
> 
> "Even comparing the Opteron 270 to the Paxville Xeon 2.8 GHz, we still
> would opt for an AMD based solution. "  (Page 11)
> 
> >But what about Opteron machines? Any known to work or not work with eCS SMP?
> 
> I have a dual Opteron 246 machine here running eCS 1.2 SMP that I
> demonstrated at Warpstock 2005 in Hershey, PA... on RC5-72, it's
> pulling down about 20.1Mkeys/sec, compared to a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with
> HyperThreading that's getting about 4.4Mkeys/sec on the same test... or
> roughly 4.5x the speed while running two 2.0GHz cores...  AMD simply
> gets more work done per clock cycle, and consumes less power doing it.
> 
> That box even booted and ran the eCS demo CD with no hard drives
> physically present in the box (hot-swap cages were pulled).  I have
> witnesses! :-D
> 
> I'm still working on the dual-core Athlon64 4800+... have a few things
> to try this weekend, and I'll hopefully have some positive results by
> the end of it...
> 
> -Derek
> 
> 
> Derek W. Keoughan,
> Finnegan Software, Inc.,  Brampton, Ontario, Canada  http://www.finnsoft.com
> 416-410-4774 phone - 800-258-0033 toll free - 905-846-5516 fax
> 
> Consulting, Networking, Cabling, Internet, Hardware, Software, Tech Support
> eComStation, OS/2 Warp/Server, WinXP/2000/NT/Me/9x, Linux
> Customized PURRformance PC's & Servers, OnSite Services, Installations and 
> Upgrades
> 
> = Celebrating 10 years of "happily purring" computing -
Founded 1995-02-02 =
> 
> FinnSoft "CyberCat" logo clothing and more -
http://www.cafepress.com/finnsoft
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
> 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 


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