stacey

From your link

"Nevertheless, it looks as if the upcoming announcement of the new Pentium 4
3.2GHz in June could turn the scale in Intel's favor again, unless AMD
introduces faster CPUs."

BTW this benchmark was done before Asus enabled PAT (+5-8%) on that board
with a bios upgrade. Guess you wouldn't want to read/post reviews where
they actually had an optimised Intel setup?

So it appears while in some benchamrks runs like a 3.0 intel, they decided
to call it a 3200+ for marketing reasons... Like I said it doesn't deserve
it's 3200 rating. Interesting that in the apps it beat the P-4, the XP2400
beat the XP3200! But then you'll claim this isn't a fault with their rating system...

And in this case higher than the better performing P4.
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Stacey

jk

The Pentium 4 3.2 ghz is priced much higher than the XP3200+.
The XP3200+ is priced close to the P4 3.0 ghz 800 fsb.


In other benchmarks it outperforms a Pentium 4 3ghz. In any case, for most
people either chip probably wouldn't be a great choice, and a model
or two lower at a much lower price would make much more sense.


It depends what is being run.

That is a 2.4 Ghz Athlon XP in the test, which is an overclocked
XP3200+.

But then you'll claim this isn't a fault with their rating


No, read the article.

It depends on what is being run. For math, CAD, and business applications,
the XP3000+ 400 at around $260 seems to perform better than a 3.0 ghz
P4 at around $400.

stacey

So what chip would be better for Apps besides those? Like the ones the P4
excells in? An AMD?

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Stacey

stacey

But is rated at 3200. Like I said this rating in inflated compared to what
it can actually do. Even your links prove this point. Thanx!

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Stacey

jk

For most non SSE2 software(a very small percentage of X86
software in existence even uses SSE2) an Athlon XP outperforms
an Intel processor at the same price.

someadress

Well, I would say he has! Ti4600 is an overdose for a 1.6GHz P4. The
videocard certainly isn't the bottleneck in his system.


I'd say you have a nice system. If you really aren't happy with it (?)
you actually do have to think of something brutish at the core. Like
dual channel DDR400 and a XP2500-XP3200 or 2.8GHz-3.2GHz. I can't
think of anything simple or cheap to upgrade your system
significantly.
- Other than remove Win2000 and replace it with XP or good ol' 98SE,
of course! ;-)


ancra

someadress

Some standard winmark benchmark will do that nicely, I think. 6%
faster, actually.
Unreal Tournament also runs faster, faster than the 3.2-800 as well,
FYI. But that is beside the point, as the 3.06 and 3.2 really does
have the edge on many modern apps and most modern benchmarks. Not much
of an edge, but the P4 _IS_ faster. ...on that.
Now for the $64000 question: How many P4-code-optimized apps do you
have, and rely on heavily? How many do you intend to buy before
replacing your current computer?
Because the P4 really ****s bigtime on oldfashioned 386/387 apps!
But Ok, games are the main performance concern, for most of us, and
the P4 does well on that.


That citation is part of an argumentative article that doesn't offer
any testresults that actually support the expressed opinions. Some
claims, in the article, are also quite off mark as well. Such as the
statement that the 'Northwood' core has meant that the P4 is more
competitive. That's largely nonsens. Northwood is only slightly more
efficient than the Willamette.

What has happened since the Northwood release, is that the benchmark
collections, used in comparisions, have changed. Changed to emphasize
streaming instructions, and have also been recompiled for P4 code
optimisation. Since the P4 is quite good at that, of course it shows
up better. Another thing that also has happend, is that Intel has got
into DDR RAM. With a vengeance, certainly. But that only has a real
impact on performance some of the time. Not always.

Religions have little to do with God and the real world. Benchmarks
are like that too. Have people all worked up and full of
righteousness. (Just lok at me now, for example. ;-))
- And have little to do with actual application performance or the
real world.

IMO. In the history of computing there has never been a computer/CPU
architecture that has been as consistently overrated by benchmarks, as
the P4. So I wouldn't have any respect at all for Intel's regards for
others benchmarks. That doesn't mean the P4 is always slow. But it's
performance on exclusively P4-code-optimized,
streaming-instructions-only type of app benchmarks, doesn't really
reflect on its relative performance in other cir***stances.

I have been fooled twice. I have acquired two P4's. Both have been
dissapointments (I have Athlons to compare with). I got the second one
after reading benchmarks on extremetech and Toms hardwork. I swallowed
that Northwood number. Since then I've read benchmarks more carefully.
In particular I've noticed that extremetech and Toms hardwork have
gradually removed all benchmarks where the P4 made a poor showing.
Replacing them with others, recompiled by Intel for the P4. They have
made some argument why that is supposed to be 'fair'. I'll not get
into that. My point is that I and most others tend to gloss over such
details, and end up with a 'big picture' that is misleading in terms
of what kind of relative performance we can expect on our usual crop
of software.

Intels P4 seem always to "have the edge" with some testing crowds.
Problem is, about the same time the 3.06 "clearly had an edge" over
the 3000+ at extremetech. PCW threw a bunch of apps at a few systems.
The 3.06HT rated in behind the slowest participating Athlon, 2600+.
Higher end Athlons mostly being 20 -30% faster.

I don't have any experience with fast P4's, my fastest is a 2.4GHz.
But the above does match my experience of extremetechs 'benchmarks',
P4's and Athlons. I don't believe in HT, I don't believe in 800FSB, I
don't believe in extremetech, I don't believe in the P4 anymore. No
matter what some testers cook up. The P4 is lightningfast on some
things. The Athlon is more honest, it crunch code all the time.

I have a relative who works for Intel. He's biased of course - he
works with the Itanium - but he would vomit all over the P4- "folks at
Intel" and their benchmarks. and their claims of P4 performance.


ancra

dvr

Yeah, I agree I'll have to spend some cash. I'm already running XP. I did
upgrade the video drivers to the Nvidia Detonator FX latest build and that
bumped benchmarking scores up considerably, and made a current game I'm
playing run and look a lot better...pretty amazing how just a driver change
did that.

For now, I'm going to screw around with overclocking the CPU even though I
don't expect much speed gain from it. Maybe I'll deal with the whole
motherboard/cpu/ram upgrade thing in a few months when P4 2.4ghz+ get
cheaper.

stacey

Guess it depends on who tested it? http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1834&p=8

Yep and for people who don't use modern apps that are P4 coded I always
sugest using an AMD. What jerks my chain is when people like JK contsantly
proclaim AMD are the best at everything no matter what.


Guess you missed the pages of benchmarks? :-)


IMHO what changed was the chipsets, especially the DDR solutions. The early
845 boards were pathetic and that's what most people bought.


So has the software being sold?

They sure arn't the right choice for some people and for some people they
are, see above.

I've been burned before as well. I just don't think being totally "Push one
brand on people" is being honest to the people asking for advice.

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Stacey

stacey

So when an intel chip is twice as fast in certain apps, Intel should make up
a 2X number for theirs?
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Stacey