Clever design gives AMD edge over Intel

[nolabels]

Clever design gives AMD edge over Intel

By Dean Takahashi

Mercury News

When Advanced Micro Devices created the Opteron, the Sunnyvale company devised some clever designs that caught rival Intel by surprise, analysts say.

Intel's Itanium chip focused on 64-bit performance, crunching data in chunks that were twice the size of those processed by standard 32-bit microprocessors. But the Itanium was incompatible with 32-bit software. AMD, on the other hand, designed the Opteron to run 32-bit software at high speeds while being capable of handling 64-bit software.

AMD also decided to move a component dubbed a memory controller into the microprocessor that would make it a much better traffic cop for data coming in from memory chips. The innovation allowed data to be routed faster from the memory into the microprocessor, a growing problem because memory chips weren't keeping up with the speed of processors.

That made the Opteron faster than Intel's 32-bit chips, which didn't have the same component on the processor.
(snip)
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/11476905.htm

[Deja Q]

1. What else is new?

Been an AMD fan for years; Intel's inflated prices are sickening.

[mogster]

5. Tried the mini-itx, HypnoToad?

Here's a setup with web server and a firewall



The processor is Via Eden, a brand made for these mainboards. Speed range from 500mHz to 2 gHz.
Perfect for Linux servers with apache/mysql/php, and very cheap. All things onboard, only mem and disk needed. And power/tower, of course :D

I usually put them inside a box, but they run just fine on my shelf as is, too.

[seemunkee]

6. NIce custom case you got there.

[nolabels]

9. The directions on my pot pie say to cook it in the box

But I guess that has to do with all the heatin them micro-waves do :tinfoilhat:

[high density]

15. Great "green" PCs...raw processing power seems to be disappointing, though

I was looking to build a small computer a few months ago to replace my old Pentium 133 Linux box. I looked at the Via offering, but the processing power to price ratio was so weak compared to that of the AMD Sempron. Even though the very low power consumption of the Via design is attractive, I ended up going with the Sempron since I wanted the speed after utilizing a Pentium 133 for way too long.

[Unions]

22. AMD solutions support ACPI

and other power management features. Some AMD chips dynamically adjust core voltage and clock speed which results in less power consumed and heat. You'll need a system board that supports it, however.

OR you can get some software that sends HALT command to the CPU to accomplish the same effect.

I'm not sure about the sempron line. Some of them are socket A chips that are essentially bastardized Athlon XP's. Some of the higher clocked chips are socket 754 or 939 (forget which) like the Athlon 64s. Not sure what they've based the core on in those chips.

Semprons are the new durons essentially, are a poor server chip for anything serious.

[mogster]

26. Yeah, gotta agree to that

If you want a performance box, this is not the right thing.

But it works good for servers and shuffles data well as multiprocessing equipment.

And it is really neat and quiet, especially if you buy a disk and a power with that in mind.

AMD has become a really good processor, and Intel lags behind in some areas. I've had four Intel PC's and two AMD 'fuelled' - very good performance on AMD.

[SKKY]

23. I guess heat dissipation isn't a problem for you, huh?

[mogster]

25. No, cooling not a problem ;-)

Have a look at this, though:





There are many crazy projects here:

http://www.mini-itx.com/

People kinda build these mainboards into anything! :D

[high density]

14. "Ditto"

When I bought my latest upgrade I didn't even bother to seriously consider Intel's offering. AMD's price and performance are both superior to Intel's product and have been since the release of the Athlon, or maybe even the K6-2. Intel seems to have a much better marketing department, though.

[Atman]

2. Wow...AMD figured out how to do what Apple did years ago!

A 64 bit processer? *yawn*. And it runs 32-bit software *half-yawn.*

Maybe next MS will make a decent video player...now THAT would be a technological miracle.

[Deja Q]

3. Here are some facts for you:

Apple had little to do with it, except buy it. Motorola made it. Or, rather, Motorola and IBM in a collaborative project made that 64-bit CPU. Apple merely bought the chip because their entire line was Motorola in the past.

And while Motorola's design has always been superior to Intel, surely you can put the cynicism aside and take note how a NON-INTEL company can make an INTEL-COMPATIBLE CPU that transcends the limitations of the x86 design while providing new, incredible features that the market should embrace rather than wait for Intel to juryrig its own 'solution'?

Had Motorola done all of that with the x86 design, I'd be far more surprised and overjoyed. But not today.

[Atman]

8. Yes, Toad, I cannot argue with you on any of that.

This really is just news for Intel/AMD users. They should be excited to finally get a modern processor.

[Unions]

20. What do you mean "finally"?

Do you know how long ago opteron was released?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

10. Here's some more:

And I know this situation intimately.

This CPU came out of a consortium of Apple, IBM and Mot. The fact is that Apple has enormous power in the consortium. When Jobsie came back, he killed off the CHRP initiative, which would have opened up IBM and Mot processors to a wider desktop and server audience and locked it into Apple computers only. While there are other motherboards out there that do use the PPC(or whatever they call it now), they are few and very expensive. That is because they do not have the benefits of economies of scale. Thus, Apple is the only manufacturer that is successfully deploying what could be a seriously better processor in any numbers.

For more on this google "Dave Haynie+PIOS". Dave is real clear about all this and he tells the real truths as to why the Power chip is not more widely used.

[wakeme2008]

13. Ah, but they are beating the shit out of HP and others

Yesterday, maybe not today the way things change :), the fastest processor for HP Unix systems is 1Gig, a lot of their systems ship with 800MHz processors. The number of chips Apple requires makes IBM $$$ and Apple is forcing faster and faster chips.

IMHO IBM will start leading the way in large Unix boxes while Apple is forcing the speed issue.

Within 4 months IBM/Apple will have their dual processor chips out. I just can not wait......

Same for AMD.... Most of my high CPU tasks are also data heavy. So a dual processor will be a real speed improvement.

[Unions]

21. Dual CPU solutions

as well as multi have been available on the AMD line for years.

You're making the mistake of judging a CPUs speed solely on clock frequency. This is the reason AMD changed it's naming scheme to "XP 2000" even though that chip would run at 1.67Ghz. The idea was that the consumer would better realize XP 2000 would run at about equal speed to a P4 2.0ghz chip. Other factors, even optimizations such as SSE and 3d-now effect true performance.

Now when you say "dual processor" I *believe* you are talking about dual *core* CPUs which are entirely different.

"Dual processor" refers to a system board in which you can run two individual processors in tandem.

"Dual core" refers to a CPU that has more than one core on chip.

Unfortunately due to latency and other issues you will still not be getting a double performance increase. You also have to account for bottlenecks such as bus speeds and other components that are behind.

[wakeme2008]

27. Sorry I was talking about

the RISC chips in the HP Unix boxes and the IBM PowerPC chip that they use in their large Unix systems. Both are RISC and much new design than the old X86.

You are right I was talking about "Dual core" chips. But today, one company has taken their server boards that supported 4 processors and by switching to the dual core AMD chips now have a 8 processor board.

There is some legal talk still out there about how to price the software for Dual Core machines.

Anyway, I do not really like the dual processors Apples, but will buy in a heartbeat the dual core Apples and a dual core AMD Windose box :evilgrin:

[QC]

18. Are you trying to suggest that there's something Apple didn't invent?

HERESY!!! You'll burn for this!

[w4rma]

4. AMD is going to eat Intel's lunch with that backwards compatibility.

Wow. This is a major upset.

AMD's speed boost is just icing on the cake.

[Mist]

7. Looking them up at their site, they seem to have lost money

and price per share is down--what's up with that? Or is this a good time to buy because they'll go up again?

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

11. A big reason they are down:

The entire market is fundamentally soft. Enterprises are just tickling the market for new iron. Desktops, in enterprise situations, and workstations are well past their shift-out date and held together with spit and flour.

Companies are loath to do capital investment in a lot of areas of IT infrastructure.

[nolabels]

12. I am no tech but when it's $50 cheaper and works better I am okay with it

Besides is this AMD CEO cool or what?

AMD boss says dual core Opteron will plug into existing boards

Mikey Dell is burdened with $5 billion Intel Albatruss

By INQUIRER staff: Thursday 29 April 2004, 09:14
Hector Ruiz US MAG Eweek has an interview on its pages with Hector Ruiz, AMD's CEO, where he dilates on what his firm will get up to in the next 12 to 24 months.

And he said that next year its dual chip Opteron-whatever will "shock the hell" out of everyone because it will be pin compatible, hardware compatible and otherwise compatible with existing motherboards.

He reckons that people with a two processor product will be able to throw in a dual core Opteron and get a four way system for the price of two.

In other little bites, Ruiz says that the IBM Intel blade alliance is going nowhere.

He also loves Mikey Dell and can just pick up the phone and talk to him without the secretary saying "bog off AMD".
(snip)
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=15605

[420inTN]

17. That's about 50% accurate

1) The current dual-core processors are pin-compatible with current 940 pin socket motherboards. This means, that the processor will plug into the socket correctly. However, that doesn't mean that the processor will work with the motherboard. It might, it might not, or it might if you update (flash) the bios of the motherboard. It will be best to check with the manufacturer of the motherboard to make sure that the board is compatible with dual-core processors.

2) Next year, AMD is releasing a new dual-core processor with a new socket (1226 pins?). These processors will definitely need a new motherboard. The current dual-core processor is a half-step between the single-core 939/940 socket processors and the dual-core 1226 socket processor. The 1226 socket processor will support DDR2 memory (instead of the current DDR memory).

[nolabels]

31. Really I was just debating the difference in price of off the shelf P.C's

I am not putting together no system, never ever again will I do that. The most I will get to sticking in a machine is a hard drive or some kind of card. The last two P.C.s that I picked up had AMDs which were at least that $50 cheaper compared to the other Intel chip sets.

And thanks for all the info :-)

[420inTN]

34. Personally, I will only build my own.

I have also built several for my company (small software shop).

[420inTN]

16. AMD's recent losses are due to weaker flash memory sales

AMD basically has two divisions: processors and flash memory (used in cell phones, PDAs, SD cards, etc.). Normally, their flash memory division has been a cash cow for them, helping them to keep afloat while developing their new processors. Lately, the fortunes have reversed and the processor division is profitable, while the flash memory has lost money. The main reason that the flash division is losing money is due to a price war with Intel over flash memory. Intel has ramped up its flash memory production in order to drive down costs, and to hurt AMD.

AMD is rumored to be about to spin-off its flash memory division and concentrate solely on processors. While that may be a benefit when the flash market is weak, it could hurt them later when processor sales weaken and flash memory sales improve.

As to whether or not now is a good time to buy AMD stock, i'm neutral. I own AMD stock. I first bought stock in 2000 at $21.01/share. Then during the stock market slide, kept buying at $13, $9, $7, and finally at $3.40/share. It then started climbing back up, and I sold 500 shares at $22.01. I still have the 200 shares that I bought at $3.40/share.

The stock market always reacts weird to AMD. When they made their first profitable sequential quartes in over a year, their stock actually went down!

However, I believe that AMD has a very strong product portfolio and is in position to make some strong sales. AMD has pretty much every major PC maker using their products (the only notable exception is Dell).

While they are only making dual-core server/workstation processors right now, later this year they will be bringing out dual-core desktop and laptop processors.

[lfairban]

19. Better link, no registration required.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/11476905.htm

[LeftHander]

24. G4 and G5 rock...

OS X is unix.


Intel sux and so does Windows...

When you stop playing games with cpmputers and really start creating...Wintel is a dead end.

Apple did the right thing in embracing Unix.

Windows...VTP machines.

Virus Transfer Protocol...

[SlavesandBulldozers]

28. stop playing games?

whatever would i do with my computer at that point?

;-)

[420inTN]

29. Door stop? Room heater? :-) n/t

[SlavesandBulldozers]

30. 2 outstanding ideas hahahah

anchor maybe?

[420inTN]

33. Only for a bass boat. n/t

[roughandtumble]

32. Yet Intel blows Dell

to keep AMD chips out of Dell machines. What is Intel doing that is illegal?

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

35. I have an AMD x64 chip

It screams. You can do a full boot to WinXP (x32) in about 20 seconds.

I'm designing a server system for a client, and I intend to use this chip.

[Maestro]

36. I've been with AMD

since their K-5 core. That ran great but did have some hiccups. I went to the K-6 and 7 cores eventually topping out at a 1ghz Thunderbird. I went back to Intel with the Northwood core, but now I am back where I belong with AMD. I love my FX-55.

Here is some techno-pr0n...

And here is an old Athlon: editing size, wait...

[TrogL]

37. My last two systems were AMD's

Just built one of them and I've never been happier.

Intel looks like they're concentrating on the 64-bit server market, where they've got some real competition in a narrowing field.