Intel vs. AMD.... FIGHT!

I was just reading the benchmark comparisons of the P42200 and the AthlonXP2000+ and I\'m pretty impressed that AMD is able to keep its ground against Intel with a processor that is quite a lot slower than Intel\'s offering.

Anyway, thats a bit peripheral to my question...

I was thinking that everyone I know who has bought a computer recently has bought an Athlon. Anyone bought a P4 recently, and if so why?

Yeah, I finally bought a computer, although its not delivered yet, I wanna use it for music and video editing, so I got a grunter. Anyway, its a P4, quite by accident, I had the option of either, and would have chosen AMD, but sometimes I\'m a bit of a dreamer and not that on to it...
I\'m not a computer person, but I read recently in the news that AMD accuses Intel of devaluing the meaning of clock speeds, because while they are releasing faster and faster clocks, the actual performance doesnt increase greatly. AMD\'s chips basically perform more instructions per cycle (er, rather, less cycles are made per instruction).

Exactly right smiley. Thats why AMD started branding them with a \'model\' number roughly equivalent to Intel\'s processor designations to combat what they call \'The Mhz Myth\".

Paid off pretty well for them too from the sounds of things. AthlonXP2000+ performs only slightly under P42200 at 1666 Mhz and US$200 cheaper.

Eventually, P4 will leave the Athlons in the dust (unless AMD does something pretty dramatic) but at the moment, Athlons are the best processor for your buck!

I had the same justification for my computer Smiley (music, video) but at the moment I only use it for games! You buying a DV camera for that puppy?

Not as yet, I just realised I need to look into getting a firewire DV card (or whatever you call it). You\'d think I\'d put a bit more mental effort into such a big purchase... I\'ve got mates who work in the TV industry (Like I\'m supposed to!!!) who have access to cameras and other crap anyway.
As for games, I think I\'ll just stay away incase I find out I actually like them. I have a PS2 for games(or movies), but apart from WRC (and before that was GT3), I get bored very easily of games. I wanna try to keep it like that!! : )
Er, just reread this and its a bit of a \"all about me\" post, but er, oh well, you get that...
Oh yeah, this deal comes with a small intel camera actually.

Trans... Your Wrong.

AMD has smoked Intels ass for the last 6 months - and they just keep on getting better. It used to be that anyone who do did processor intensive tasks got an Intel (high Floating Point), but now its AMD all the way...

in the performance index (not just price)... you don\'t gain anything by paying more for Intel.

Intel still wins in Sales (legacy customers).

I\'m wrong? Dammit!

I\'m not debating that Athlons rule the roost at the moment, performance, price and value-wise. Add to that the fact that Intel have done just about everything wrong for the past 6 months (partnering with Rambus for a start) and its no wonder AMD are on top, even with Intel\'s considerable marketing juggernaut.

But for how long?

Its well known in the computer industry that unless AMD shrinks their manufacturing (by a few points of a micron or so) and improves their technology processes, Intel will leave them behind with the P4\'s. The Athlon is almost at its theoretical speed limit, while the P4 is only just getting started. Once the P4\'s are around 3-3.5Ghz, even the mighty (current) Athlons won\'t be able to top it. Thats why AMD need to improve their technology (unless this is all planned and they\'re thinking of getting out of the processor business in a couple of years).

I\'d say stocks in Intel are still pretty safe!

When I finally get my quantum processor I\'m building in my shed working properly I will \"rule the roost\".

Next on my list is solving all the NP-complete problems

Hows yours going Harv? My quantum machines unpredictable and occasionally the electrons go on strike. Tis a most vexing thing!

Wow, geeks out in force! I like! - not just TT and I geekin\' it up in here on occasion. *laughs*

Yeah, I\'ve got an Athlon C (1200MHz, 4.5x266 on the FSB) but I have massive heat problems - although not affecting stability, it\'s not that pleasant idling at 53 degrees. Which is why the XPs have got it made - way less heat production.

I think the /real/ duel will be in 64-bit processors - will these take off, and who will win the battle? Both companies know how to make good, fast 32-bit models, but 64-bit could be a whole new ballgame.

ClawHammer vs. Itanium!
And isn\'t Clawhammer a motherfucka of a macho name? *laughs* I\'d buy it just for that name.....

\"I\'ve got a CLAWHAMMER, MAUAHWHHJRWJrjAJAJaaJAA!\"

Mine are stable for a short time. But am so busy these days its hard to find the time to work on such hobbies.

clawhammer sounds like a mech outta mechwarrior to me...sorry but i thought i\'d share that

Yeah, I agree. Cool huh? *laughs*

Yeah, mine is rock hard stable - but I\'m not sure how long my CPU will last at that temp. *shrug* Anyway, I love the CPU, and it was sooo much cheaper than Intel cpus and motherboards.

Mines rock hard too. All this hardware talk is gettin\' me excited!

Er... stable that is. *ahem*

Yeah, I agree about the 64-bit processor battle voice. The 32-bit processor is nearing the end of its days I think. Its a new ball game for both companies. I have the feeling that Intel have a bit of an advantage facility-wise but the thing is with Intel is that they\'re bound to fuck it up!

Generally speaking, AMD seem to make more sensible decisions about their technology (except for the K6-2+ family ick).

Was it you who pointed out the irony of the x-box incorporating hypertransport in another thread voice? I thought that was bloody funny. Seems to work O.K. too!

Nope, wasn\'t me, but that is quite ironic really. Hell, let\'s just pretend it was me eh?

Yeah, 64-bit = good, except for the dodgy emulation that we\'ll be running for years to handle 32-bit \'legacy\' programs. Erghh.

Now, I don\'t really care what the stats are - I used to run two boxes (wonder why) and one was a P and one was a K6. Statistically, people were using the same debate as they do now. But in actuality, when it comes down to it an AMD just \'feels\' slower.

It\'s like cars.

P.S: I know this opinion sounds rather simpleton but hey!

(Just to rile up a few people)

The guy on P goes faster
The guy on K cant work it out at all

*poke*

The K6\'s had some issues, but they were a solid competitor to Intel and they gave Intel a poke, and something to push them further in their design. I guess it depends if you want to pull out price / performance ratios - the K6\'s were a hell of a lot cheaper than the comparable Intel.

Anyway, the Athlon\'s now come out on top of the P4s in heaps of the benchmarks and tests. Finally the desings have diverged somewhat, in terms of caching as well as the use of thermal diodes and even down to socket vs. slot design. I seem to remember the K6 and K6-2\'s being very similar to Pentiums, and a slightly inferior copy (just a lot cheaper!).

Pretty much all the big hardware sites benchmarking them now come out with the AMDs on top, and a lot cheaper too, especially when most of the current P4 chipsets are bloody Rambus-based (i.e. buy a new mobo, new RAM (pricey RAM) etc). At least you can now get a DDR SDRAM chipset now for P4 (at least one - a Via one right?).

J: Were the boxes identical in every aspect but the processor/chipset? There\'s many components that affect performance, and the processor is a minor part often. The idea of benchmarking and stats is to isolate just one component (or two) to compare in each PC, where at all possible, or to pick computers in a similar price range I suppose. *shrug*

I\'m still using a k6-233!

I think you\'re quite right J. I used to hate my K62+. It _did_ feel slow compared to the Pentium.

Not the case with the Athlon\'s now though. The Athlon\'s bbbbbllllaaaaazzzeeee. Hell, even the Duron\'s give P4 a run for its money at the moment. Of course, fast RAM and Graphics card helps!

k-6 had arse floating point, hence the real benchmark Quake ran like shite.

The new athlons dont hence things like DivX encoding and Quake3 run nice and spiffy

Yes indeed. I was having a chat with a mate last night (geek-talk) at the spa pool at the local pool (as you do), and he mentioned that Anand had a good article on his site.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1574

Anyway, I haven't read the whole thing yet (at work!), but Anand usually writes resasonably well balanced stuff. I like this bit:

"The second point we attempted to make is that the Athlon XP is indeed a very impressive offering from AMD. We've all known this for a while but seeing how well it is able to stand up to the 2.2GHz Pentium 4 is like one day rediscovering the beauty of a wife or girlfriend of many years."

Hehehe, go Anand! Pity I didn't have the same luck with my ex eh? She mustn't have been no Athlon XP! *geek snort*

Hey, I should stop this now. *whispers to Transtemp: hey, i ordeed a Ricoh MP7200A 20/10/40 writer for $230 yesterday, and a Dynalink RTA020 DSL router for $320 - mmm!*

*stops*

step up to 128bit you slowpokes
heh

*whispers to voice: shit thats a pretty good price dude. For both of those pieces actually. How'd you manage that?*

*knocks over priceless ming vase*

SMMAAAASSSHHHH!

*whispers back: www.pp.co.nz - yet to see how their service turns out*

No sense in whispering anymore dude. I already smashed that vase!

I was mulling this over last night after I replied and logged off and I was wondering whether I remembered those numbers correctly. Is that 20x read, 10x burn, 40x ?? Surely its not 40x burn speed... That would be ridiculous!

yes, considering i havent seen any media that
records faster than 16x. Mind you, i havent
bought any blanks for a few months......

Nah, 24x media has been out for months. Imation is the big name available in NZ, but Ricoh have another couple of brands they recommend, I can't remember the names though!

Nah it's 40x read, 10x re-write, 20x write. Uses Zone-CLV technology to write, and also has bufer underrun protection, so you don't end up with those coasters. I think I was reccomending this writer to someone back 6 weeks or so in this forum actually!

Holy shit fuck! Thats ridiculously fast!

...

Why do you need such a fast writer voice? United Video hiring out games for one hour now or something? Zip home, quick 6 minute copy, zip back...

Yeah it is fast eh. But absically, if you're gonna get a CD writer I redkon you'll have to get it now to make it worthwhile, before DVDs or something else becomes the standard media of choice.

Remember it's X-CLV so it's only going at the full 20x in the outer zone. But near, 6.5 minute burn times at full speed. Heh. Funnily enough it's the cheapest writer I could find - but has been getting awesome reviews!

And of course, it's for ripping my 6GB porn collecton, danjah style. *grin* And then starting a wholesale operation...

I can't wait til DVD recorders come down in price! I think that'll basically signal the end of video, if it hasn't already!

It will be nice when DVDs are surpased by something that is much easier to be rewritten multiple times. Theres been some research done into discs with 20 layers that data can be extracted using a prism to build an almost 3d representation of data. Supposedly able to hold terabytes on a single disc and easily rewritten.

...however, I read that info a while ago now and I may have gotten some of it mixed up.

Yo voice, you seen the overclocking article on Tom's Hardware? Northwood P4 2.2 @ 3.1 Ghz! Youch!

Intel really know how to get their money's worth out of a processor design don't they?! Even though it can do 3Ghz quite nicely, we're still fucking around with 1.4 Ghz processors!

We just got a couple of P4 machines... I wonder whether the BofH would let me have a look?

Oh my god! TT reads TheReg too! (hence the bofh comment) You rock!

Nah, I don't follow Toms or Anandtech too closely, kinda blows my mind reading so much stuff eh! Might have a read though. Yeah, the P4 architecture is much more scalable in the medium term, but I'm putting my money on CLAWHAMMER in da 64bitz. *manly grunt*

PS: Got my Ricoh! WOOoooooo! it's insanely fast. And I love having two DMA33 drives and buffer underrun protection.

The other night I was doing a CD -> CD burn, watching a futurama DivX, downloading vast amounts of stuff on KaZaA and FlashGet, and streaming a webcam pic. CPU use: 18%. Heh.

Isn't it funny when you get a new piece of hardware, install it, run everything and then look at System Diagnostics!

TheReg is just so bloody funny! I loved that article that was something like "HACKING MS? Half the work's already done for you..."

Just out of curiosity, do you use Flask? I've had big issues trying to get it to run. Just wondering if you've had any troubles...

excuse the off the topic question....but, what app do you guys use to break whole album mp3 into tracks before burning?? I use nero mainly, but couldn't figure this out, is there a special term for this process?

haha, yueah I love British humour. Ever since PC Zone 'way back in the day' - I have loved it.

Yeah, I have used Flask, but gave up on DivXing and DVD ripping when I decided that it took too much time and I needed to know and understand so much more about video encoding and decoding. I could never get my DivXs I played around wtih to high enough quality c/f the file size.

I have't actually done that yet, since I only just got my writer. Doesn't Nero always put like 1 second gaps between tracks though, which wouldn't be good for trying to burn a mix mp3?

And I don't know what the special term is.

BigDaddy - I don't tend to split up mixes, but I've heard a freeware program called HJSplit 2.2 from Freebyte is quite gnarly:

http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/

Same as me voice. I'd like to do more research on it because its just such an interesting thing but I can't actually be bothered DivXing my DVDs. The only one I do want to DivX is "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" because the DVD was banned in NZ (it has a trailer on it that can't be played with the main features certification). Crazy huh!

Yeah. In particular, DivX is sooo non-standard. Bloody OpenDivX vs Divx3 vs Divx4 vs the rest, also differing in the mp3 codec they use (some use Radium, some the standard mp3). It's annoying enough that every Futurama episode I download seems to use a different codec.

Yeah, it is interesting eh? I started getting into it and stuff, but gave up. Too much to learn in my spare time.

Incidentally, I just fully read that Anandtech article I posted a link to above. I repeat - goooo AMD!

Can't wait for the 0.13 micron AMD processors though. isn't it funny that AMD always come up with massive heat issues at the end of their processor range? Same with the Athlon C's like mine, now the Palominos (Athlon XPs) - which were originally touted as running much cooler than the Athlon Cs.

Yeah, they really need to upgrade to that .13 micron bizniz! The processors would run a lot cooler.

I guess they figure that they may as well get as much as they can out of the current processor design, rather than upgrading the manufacturing process and incuring the cost of upgrading facilities.

TT - Cheers, I'll give HJsplit a go....

BTW - AMD at my house...gotto love going with the underdog, and when the price and performance are better, hell it's xmas isn't it :o)

TT: My computer finally turned up, like, 2 and half weeks later, but fuck its the business!! Wicked computer, and Windows XP is so purty!
As an aside, look forward to posts from me now that are
a) stoned and therefore rambly (heheh)
b) have more time/thought put into them cos I'm not at work...
c) actually about music
d) in forums other than the lounge (its such a pass the day at work forum that one, isn't it?)

Anyway, I ordered a P4, but they delivered an AMD in the end!!

You ordered a P4 and they sent you an AMD?! How does that work?! Keep in mind that if you actually paid the price of a P4, then they've totally ripped you off! AMD processors generally cost $200-250 less than their Intel equivalents.

What was the Intel processor you ordered and what was the AMD they delivered?

I would complain loudly and make out as if AMD are crap and slow, then 'capitulate' and keep the AMD but make them give you some other piece of hardware you want 'instead of' the intel, like, say a CD-Burner (voices ricoh one is quite nice), DVD-drive, DVD-decoder card, nice firewire card or better soundcard. Cos less face it, they won't give you a refund - but they might give you something in lieu.

Coincedentally smiley, that was a bit weird. You posted something longer than a sentence! My week was pretty bad, so I kept away from the lounge for fear of lashing out. Have to catch up soon mr smiley. Mel/Dave are keen to meet up! DHnF?

And its a wee bit off topic (hey its my thread so I can do whatever the fuck I like), but I had a thought the other day as to why I hate meeting large bunches of biggies.

Because the more people there are, the harder it is to 'be genuine'. I know that sounds weird, but its hard to remember everyone's names and not seem as if you're just running off every 2 minutes to talk to someone else. I hate that. Thats why I'm not much of a networker! I have a feeling my friends would debate that though... Yipe!

But hey, I've got my total up to... ar... 12 now!

Yeah, I've been told that, maybe I'll go and complain... I have to go into the store though, cos they don’t answer their phones!! - I'd quite like firewire actually.

I'm keen to catch up, and definitely going to DHnF.

Heh, I know what you mean about meet ups, I think that’s a reason why I kind of shy away from them now (Although when a meet up is right in front of me I jump right into it).
I'd like to hang out with different people and get to know them better. And not necessarily at a rave at night. Sounds cheesy, but y'know in daily life you meet people, some are cool, some are crap, and some seem cool but turn out to be crap... Well I've meet pretty much only cool people through here. It’s true.
I'm not much of a networker or social bunny either actually.’

Now I have to work out why quotes will only appear when I hit the key twice (and then two lots appear!!)…

Hehee, you guys sounds like you have a similar attitude as I do. It's good down here because the Wellington biggies are a smaller group of people. I stay out of the lounge 90% of the time now, it's just not worth the boredom and annoyance - and takes too long to pick through the bullshit threads for anything of real substance or interest.

Yeah, my attitude has hardened over time Voice. Dont get me wrong, I still like to meet new people and am still friendly, but, yeah, it can be done in a very shallow way.

Anyway, I came here to add that the new exlaimation sound on Windows XP keeps chucking a piano version of that "Stan" song(eminem), or rather Dido's song (whatever its called) in my head 'ços its the first two notes!!

And this quote mark thing is still an issue... Suppose I'm gonna have to do some boring reading...

You guys sound like you have a great time down there. I'm quite jealous.

Of course, I could just try going along to the "Sunday Mission bay" styles we have up here and stop being such an old grump. Even Stargirl's more sociable than me!

Windows has always been a little bit naff like that hasn't it? Its just the little things like sound effects and desktop backgrounds.

TT - I had a look at that file splitter, but it's more for breaking up BIG files (of any format), rather than adding indexing a MP3. So I'm back for more help!!
The situation is: the whole album has been ripped as one track only (110Meg sort of thing). I want to add the indexing that would have exisited originally to make 12 tracks or whatever..... and then burn it like that.... I use Nero but have CD clone too, has anyone used these apps to do this??

Cheers
BigDaddy

Neither of them do the audio editing you need really. CloneCD is a simple program, but highly efficient. Nero is more of a "burning tool for dummies" program, although it is really good and does things easily. You really need some kind of music editing program.

You'll also run into programs using nero one you've split the mp3s as it'll probably insist on puttign 1sec gaps between tracks.

Good luck though - let us know if you do work it out, I'd be most interested as I'd like to do the same with a 65MB mp3 I've got!

voice - I've got some editing apps somewhere i'll have a go with....

BTW - Nero supports no gaps between tracks - to do this add the tracks you want to burn then highlight the tracks you want to do this to (usually 2 thru end) and right click, and check properties (i think) in there you can set time between tracks/ or frames... I've had no problems with this - there is a slight noise when you play the cd but i think i'm the only person who notices...

I stand corrected - cheers man. Does Nero allow you to do lead-in and lead-outs from tracks manually? (you know, when negative times display on your player)

Hey BigDaddy - I don't know of any more programs and it was only after I suggested that program that I realised its just a file spliter! Sorry dude!

Post a topic on dancenet and ask Harvey. I remember him saying something about splitting live sets up and burning them to CD.