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nexxo · 10-04-2002, 05:58 PM

Decisions, decisions... Intels have better housing (with built-in heat spreader), and are faster at integer and some multimedia operations, but they are more expensive; moreover, relatively speaking (i.e. if clock rates were the same) they do not actually perform better than P III's... They used to run cooler but now AMD has gone Thoroughbred temps are roughly comparable.

Intels throttle back to prevent overheating; a neat feature but it does not actually inform you when it does. So you may think you're pushing it further and further, overclocking the hell out of it while in fact it has been throttling back to keep from overheating...

AMD's are better at floating point operations. The die lacks a heat spreader, is more fragile and you need a shim to mount a substantial block on it. It gives more bang for your buck and temperature, compared to a P4, is not such an issue now. There is no overheating protection although some new motherboards incorporate a throttle-back feature for you. Athlons incorporate an internal temp sensor (like a P4) but few mobos use it.

For dual processing AMD offers the most practical home user solution; Xeons are expensive and although Hyperthreading is sweet (effectively giving you four processors) Xeon Mobo's hardly fit inside an ATX case (except the Tyan Thunder 5700i, but that doesn't have AGP-- darn!) and you need server software to use hyperthreading. Moreover the somewhat extra bang does not justify the mucho buck, really.

10-04-2002, 05:58 PM	#8
nexxo Cooling Savant Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Brimingham, UK Posts: 385	Decisions, decisions... Intels have better housing (with built-in heat spreader), and are faster at integer and some multimedia operations, but they are more expensive; moreover, relatively speaking (i.e. if clock rates were the same) they do not actually perform better than P III's... They used to run cooler but now AMD has gone Thoroughbred temps are roughly comparable. Intels throttle back to prevent overheating; a neat feature but it does not actually inform you when it does. So you may think you're pushing it further and further, overclocking the hell out of it while in fact it has been throttling back to keep from overheating... AMD's are better at floating point operations. The die lacks a heat spreader, is more fragile and you need a shim to mount a substantial block on it. It gives more bang for your buck and temperature, compared to a P4, is not such an issue now. There is no overheating protection although some new motherboards incorporate a throttle-back feature for you. Athlons incorporate an internal temp sensor (like a P4) but few mobos use it. For dual processing AMD offers the most practical home user solution; Xeons are expensive and although Hyperthreading is sweet (effectively giving you four processors) Xeon Mobo's hardly fit inside an ATX case (except the Tyan Thunder 5700i, but that doesn't have AGP-- darn!) and you need server software to use hyperthreading. Moreover the somewhat extra bang does not justify the mucho buck, really. __________________ "There is a thin line between magic and madness"