AMD Battles Megahertz Myth

[spikey]

I dont blame jobs for selling his products at all, infact of all the computery people i have heard jobs is the koolest by far.
But what i do hate is the way people believe what jobs says at expos word for word, just because they are closed minded and zealots.
The use of photoshop at expos does demonstrate how limited it would be to a pc user, and also the use of certain tasks the G4 performs especially well in, pisses me off a little.
I really think it is sad that no matter how good a chip is, companies like AMD and Apple have to compete with pure marketing strategy by intel. Pentiums are a cheaply produced, designed and manufactured chip.
Didnt the G4s gigaflops rating prevent it from shipping from america early in its life?

 

[ThlayliTheFierce]

Yes it did Spikey. The US government wouldn't let it ship to certain countries. Why? Because of its computing power! I agree with you about the Intel marketing thing. I would HATE to see AMD go under because of Intel's "Mhz = speed" smokescreen. And Fragiledreams, you haven't offered any argument against what I've said or evidence to the contrary. So until I see some, I'm going to stand by what I've said. The Apple site isn't my only source of information. I'd like to know what yours is.

 

[fragiledreams]

I thing that we are running in a circle!!!


ThlayliTheFierce
Do youu know why in politics there are over 10 political parties participating in the elections each time???? Because people don't agree in everything. Things in life just get toooo much complicated.
Our talking about the CPUs is also complicated! Since there isn's that SUPER BENCHMARKING program that gives an exact result of each CPU in REAL LIFE APPLICATIONS each company, Motorola-Apple, Intel and AMD try to market their product the way they consider more efficient!
Intel increases the MHZ 115% more than the fastest G4.
AMD changes its Product names for Intel direct competition purporces and
Apple uses Photoshop do demonstrate its CPU advandage over the others (Intel mostly), because Photoshop is indeed a piece software that G4 runs smoother than P4. But thats it. Nothing more nothing less
Conclusion???? Which chip is better????
Answer: We can't tell by our limited info provided!
The whole thing is like comparing 43 ORANGES with 14 PINAPPLES and 21 PIZZAS!!!

Until there is a commonly accepted Benchmarking system, each of us says it's opinion
You say G4 is the best CPU, I say I don't Know whick one is better, and another might say that Athlon or P4 is the best.
And you know what?

None of us is either right or wrong.

 

[ThlayliTheFierce]

You're comparing the whole system to chips here, I think. You can determine which chip is best based on a number of factors, like Mflops, power consumption, heat produced, etc., most of which the G4 wins. However, what is more difficult, and the direction this forum seems to have taken, is overall system performance, which I agree is near impossible to determine, because it depends on so many things. So yeah, it's hard to say which system is really faster, but processors can be compared much more easily. They are like different kinds of apples (no pun intended), not like pizzas and pineapples.

 

[fragiledreams]

I just thought something very interesting....




Putting 2MB Level3 CACHE can transform even a Coke Can to a CPU! (hehehe). ( Also see the 566 G4 running better than the new L3CACHELES 733MHZ G4 issue described on MacRumors)
I would like to know how would a P4 perform with such a huge cache amound. That's very interesting If you consider that the second fastest Motorola CPU for now (733) performs like a 533MHZ one if it doesnt have the 2MB L3 help. -->
AND How does a 533MHZ G4 compares with lets say an old 1.7 P4? (ERrrrr here I think that the P4 is fastest). Of course Apple very cleverly takes this advandage and hugely increases the performance of its CPU by injecting more cache. Other stupids like Intel try to lower cost by omiting this. Here I aggre that Intel takes a more "Cheaply" approach....

Anyway.... we could talk 757346895 days for these stupid CPUs. I am going to sleep!: ZZZZzzzzzzzz after all others sleep the sleep of the just, ALL the time ........ PP

 

[numone2k]

model numbers

The one thing that most of you missed with all of the points made, and there have been some good ones, the model number on the athlon is a conservative performance equivilent. The AthlonXP 1800+ is actually benching equal or higher to the P4@2Ghz in most benchmarks. I only makes sense to pit an AthlonXP 1800+ agienst a P4 @ 1.8Ghz. The Athlon will smoke the P4. Every 3rd party evaluation confirms this. Sheck for yourself. http://www.tomshardware.com http://www.amdzone.com it takes only a little looking around to see that the Athlon is back on top of thge speed race evan with a model number that is 200mhz less than that of the highest P4.

 

[sonyrules]

G4 and P4

Im a graphics designer in my own company that use both Mac's and PC's. I use a 733 G4 and a 1.8 Ghz P4, Im most cases the P4 is faster, but the P4 is no where as accurate as the G4. Everyone has to remember that the OS has alot to do with performance also. I use the Mac more because the OS is just plain faster and more responsive. Even when im using OS X is the entire system fast. I cant say that about the PC cause it uses Win 2000 and its just like other windows, memory errors and unstable. Take this in to thought. Apple makes all there own computers, so they can taylor the motherboards to produce faster and accurate specs. What does the PC industry have?? NOTTA a one thing in common. All in all, the Mac is by far the better product. Is it worth the money?? I think it is, since i have upgrade the PC 3 time and the mac once.

 

[jefhatfield]

that just goes to show that macs do have the right stuff put into the machine in the first place so most don't have to tweak it, outside of RAM upgrades from time to time

 

[spikey]

But consumers dont look at quality of products, they look at specs and facts.
Which is why PCs sell well.

Apart from when you come to laptops, then consumers look at quality, design, and specs. Which is why Sony Vaios suck, and TiBooks kick ass.

 

[jefhatfield]

re: word for word

spikey,

you are so right about how zealots hinge on jobs' every word

and about the tiBook vs the vaio, the tiBook is better in every way but i would also love the vaio, too

jobs' key to success is the model he uses from sony and sony's former ceo is steve jobs' role model for the industry being that sony has been a leader, not a follower

and if you look at apple, they are unparalleled in their inoovation in the home computing industry

woz invented the modern operating system, mini desktop ram, desktop rom, the idea of a qwerty keyboard for computing and jobs came up with the marketing to consumers and pushed the idea of a plastic enclosure which would be low cost and effective

the modern motherboard is based on apple's innovations and the use of a crt is also one that apple pushed and apple brought the mouse to the forefront (and yes, xerox had a working model of a mouse but other companies in the valley had less practical working models ten years before but they were so big people had to use a ladder to move the mouse high enough to make the cursor hit the top of the "page"

so in some way, i could see why some people hinge on jobs' every word buy i think they often mix up his contributions with the other steve (actually many people on macrumors don't even really know the truth, but there is a lot on the woz page....

check out http://www.woz.org

 

[spikey]

Oh agreed, Woz created apple. A Personal computer invented by 2 hackers/phone freakers, never see that one again.
Steve Jobs's influence on apple was really more to do with business.

As for the bashing sony Vaio, well i saw a tw*t with the zealoty name "sonyrules". I want to let him know that theyre products arent all that great, 99% of the time they are a jack of all trades but master of none. the 1% is things like the original playstation, hyperopteploploplane woofers (however u spell it), etc etc

zealots are supid people who cant think for themselves

 

[jefhatfield]

then what about my iBook

this field moves too fast!

the P4s i see don't seem "faster" than my iBook or K6-2 366 laptop since i only do businees/office stuff and internet and light gaming

should i move up?

 

[spikey]

Nah, no need to.
iBooks are kool anyway.
K6-2 is an ok chip.
If it fits your needs then dont move up, save ur pennies till better laptops come out and u need one.

If and when you do move up then i suggest you get an athlon laptop (not sure when they are coming out).
Well consider that after considering an ibook or Tibook, cos apple makes the best laptops.

[Edited by spikey on 10-27-2001 at 01:25 PM]

 

[OnlineLoVato]

I am sorry, but for the same price as an apple you could build a dual athlon XP system with 1 gig of ddr ram and a geforce 3 ti500 etc... I mean this system will still require some software and a monitor to boot. the apples look nice and they are not even close to comparable to the athlon systems. If apple and amd could team up and make the g5 with ddr ram and possibly a 2 gigahertz athlon(cuz by the time they make it Intel may be at 3 gigz or a lil less) then I could say, ok maybe apple does have the fastest system.

 

[ThlayliTheFierce]

um...

Ok, the G5 is on its way. It will be made by Motorolla and possibly IBM. If the specs are right, it will be the fastest chip on the market, period. Faster than anything AMD has. Faster than anything Intel has, even the Itanium (or Itanic, however you want to look at it). When Apple has a dual 1.6 Ghz G5, nothing will touch it. Then maybe Macs will be worth the money again.

 

[oldMac]

Macs are slow and expensive...

There's no question that the fastest Macs are slower for most non-photoshop tasks than the fastest available PCs.

And the PCs are cheaper.

Let's face it folks... I love my Mac, but the PowerPC alliance has been broken for a couple of years now. Motorola pushed apple down the Altivec path, and now they can't get the processor speeds up because they made the chip too damned complicated.

G3s easily clock faster than G4s now and surpass them in integer and floating point performance! And they're a lot cheaper than G4s!

However, it's really tough to explain to the consumer why you can ship an iMac that outperforms your high-end G4 at half the price. Therefore, the G3 speeds stay artificially low so that Apple can save face for their "high-end" machines.

The solution is going to be the following:

1) Dumb-down Altivec so that it speed-scales better
2) Make IBM the premier PPC designers again
3) Contract the manufacturing of PPCs to either IBM or AMD so that we can get results and lower prices
4) Spend money sponsoring compiler technologies that remove the altivec burden from the programmers

There's no question that Macs are overpriced right now. Hopefully, Apple can stay profitable long enough to wait out this crappy market and get the chips in place to take advantage of a better situation.

And, btw... let's hope Apple has enough sense to put DDR in their next revision of the G4.






[Edited by oldMac on 10-27-2001 at 10:04 PM]

 

[jefhatfield]

steve is an angel

not only is steve jobs an angel, he is the angel and patron saint of the distortion reality field

many ceos use selective facts to sell a product, but jobs' forces it so much (and a little too often) he looks like an idiot to all but the most loyal and "forgiving" die hard mac users

i hate to see analysts call him the master of peddling colored plastic when we know that the mac products offer so much more

2001 brought great apple products but poorer than expected sales, but to be fair, one should not blame just steve jobs for 2001...part of that was due to the downturn in general of the whole high tech field of computing

 

[spikey]

Or alternatively oldmac they might just wait till the G5 is out and then dump the G4. Keeping the new G3 in consumer desktop machines.
Thats probably what i would do.

 

[spikey]

I very much doubt that apple would ever team up with AMD, if they are going to team up with someone i expect IBM. And it would be a good thing too, IBM put more money into developing new technology than AMD.

Generally alot of problems have been happening to Dual athlon systems. alot of heat is produced, cpu running at 40C - 50C, and motherboards like Tyans are problematic. although you are right about Athlons toasting equivalent Macs.

 

[oldMac]

the G5 & Altivec (dumbed-down)

Well, I cheated a little when I listed out the steps of what would happen...

The G5 *does* dumb-down the Altivec unit. So, dumping the G4 in favor of the G5 will essentially fulfill my first point of prophecy.

Within the PowerPC alliance, IBM fought against Altivec because they were concerned that it would hamper clock speed and generally make the chip more expensive to make. THEY WERE RIGHT! AND NOW MOTOROLA HAS EGG ON THEIR FACE!

Since then, IBM has seen benefit to a simpler version of the vector unit (Altivec) and have started working on a version for their new G3s.

Of course, Intel (with the P4) and AMD now have similarly dumbed-down vector units on their processors, too. (Generally referred to as SIMD instructions.) It's not exactly the same, but close enough.

The P4's SIMD execution is pretty fast (faster than AMDs). Unfortunately, like the G4, most compilers do not optimize instructions for that unit. So most of the action on the chip is happening in the traditional integer and floating point units, leaving the vector unit to twiddle its thumbs.

This is the primary reason that P4s aren't benchmarking faster than the AMD chips. However, Intel is investing *serious* effort in compiler technology that takes advantage of the SIMD instructions. This takes the burden off of the programmer to code for these special units, and make no mistake, it is VERY DIFFICULT to optimize your code to take advantage of the vector unit. Similarly, it is VERY DIFFICULT to write a compiler that takes advantage of it.

This is the reason that the G4 is only showing spectacular performance in specialized operations where somebody takes A LOT of time to code for the Altivec. For most programmers/organizations, it's just not worth the time and effort.

One could argue, that if the G4 didn't have an Altivec unit, it could be running at 1.0 - 1.5 GHz right now, and it would give us machines nearly twice as fast in every application except Photoshop!

Predictions...

Watch for Motorola to get dropped out of the picture, IBM to start manufacturing G5s next summer, and AMD to be making G3s under contract by the end of 2002.

 

[jefhatfield]

teaming with AMD would be nice

the ibm connection is there and the amd connection will never happen like mentioned becuase

1) a new architecture would have to be made for Macs by amd
2) apple is too small to have amd shift any resources right now while intel is winning MHz/GHz battle (but amd still has the better processor)

but if amd got into macs along with ibm, then it would certainly help the macs get closer to catching up speed wise but apple is just one company with one os, not hundreds of companies using windows, which as a whole, has a lot of money to influence the market with

apple could still survive on doing what they do best with the graphic designers and artists but new users will be hard to get since the high clock speeds of the pcs will always lure the simple masses

if apple could go back to ten percent of the market like they had in 1999, that would be great but i have never heard anyone ever expect that again from apple (it is just wishful thinking on my part because the amazing iMac revolution is something that is only seen once in a great while...i don't even think something like an lcd iMac or G5 could replicate the newness that the '98 iMac astounded the market with since it was the perfect time for it much like the way it was good timing for the Beatles to invade America and give people something to be happy about just a few months after the assasination of jfk)

 

[oldMac]

the key is AMD making the G3...

They key to having AMD enter the equation is that the G3 has a *huge* audience in many, many verticals and embedded applications. It's much bigger than just Apple's share.

Outsourcing production of some G3 lines to AMD could be a win-win-win for IBM, AMD and Apple.

Having a license to produce G3s could help to stabilize AMD's business through the ups and downs of the PC industry.

The question is whether or not IBM sees benefit in an outsourcing/licensing plan for the manufacture of some of their chip lines.

 

[jefhatfield]

that would truly be win-win-win

thanks oldMac, for the comment

win-win-win is cool if apple benefits

i don't care if apple has to team with microsoft on something which would help apple financially...how about that apple add which shows OS X and Office 10 and calls them a "hard working team"...i tell you, i like it (and i like appleworks at the same time, too)

when someone asked steve jobs about the amd possibility, he was not ready to answer and got angry like usual

either he is mad at the idea, or someone leaked the rumor to the press that it may have been a long term apple strategy to team with other chip manufacturers

what is amazing is how he feigns ignorance to words like processor, benchmarks, technical stats, etc when he feels it wwill make him look like a fool...i think he is trying to shake the liar moniker put on him with that distortion reality bit and the totally uncool and unflattering portrayal of him by noah wylie in that stupid pirates movie

noah wylie, by the way, is a good actor but the only portrayal i think is historically accurate it that of steve wozniak in that movie...i also heard of a fictional piece on him in biography (easily the worst show on tv since it looks real on the outside, but its contents follow a cheap formula and is very liberal with any real facts in their biographies which it stamps out with orgasmic regulairity)

 

[jefhatfield]

sorry biography fans

this is off post, kind of, maybe, perhaps...

while biography on tv is very entertaining, it is not a bad show because per se because its facts are not lined up correctly, it still beats syndications of gilligan's island...but either way, my tv is gone and out of the house

i am just hard on tabloid press (like enquirer, the sun, business week, people, etc)

i like boring things to read and or see like the economist, harvard business review, the census, visual basic, mac format, and mac tech

and when online,if i want to indulge and not use my brain and get into juicy gossip and backstabbing, my outlet is macrumors (i recently got tired of another url and jumped back to macrumors after very little activity this year overall)...now let's start a forum war

 

[ThlayliTheFierce]

A few major computer manufactures stopped using AMD chips, like Tiny. With these drying up, it makes sense for AMD to be looking for new markets. AMD sold more chips this year than any other, and yet it still struggles to make a profit. One of the big reasons is price wars with Intel. So a teamup between IBM, Apple, and AMD truly could be a winner for AMD because they could sell chips without the same David-and-Goliath competition from Intel.