At 10:54 AM 5/4/00 -0300, The Hermit Hacker wrote:
>Can someone out there that understands CPUs help me out here? My
>understanding is that Intel vs AMD has benefits depending on
>use. Unfortunately, I don't recall how it goes ... as a server, Intel is
>faster, and for graphics processing, AMD is ... or something like that?
First, take a look at my earlier post (that I didn't send to the
list because it seemed irrelevant) about some basic issues regarding
the i840.
For servers, I think the bottom line at the moment is that the Athlon
isn't available in SMP, and won't be 'til later this year. And the
Athlon boards haven't been out long, and they're tricky to make, and
require high quality power supplies. All and all, I'd look closely
at an Athlon for a personal workstation but not a server at this
point. For a low-end server (say, static web pages) an i810 or
i810E with on-board video is a compact solution that fits
nicely in 2U rack cases. A Celeron 366 does a great job for this kind
of application, cheaply (see http://donb.photo.net for an example
of a C366 at work). Of course, you can only buy faster ones now,
they'll do the job even better.
For a high-end db server, you probably want an SMP board, I'd
guess. Even if you only put in a single processor, this gives
the option of adding a second one if load grows and you've got
enough RAM, etc. That rules out the Athlon at the moment.
As far as head-to-head comparisons of current PIII coppermines
and Athlons...the Athlon has 1/2 or 2/5 speed cache (slower speeds
at the high end 750 MHz+ I believe), the coppermine full-speed,
on-die cache. But the Athlon has more L1 cache. And the
Athlon has faster FPP, but more graphics stuff is optimized for
Intel.
Price performance wise, the Athlon smokes the coppermines as
you can buy a much faster part for the same price. Absolute
performance wise, in theory a 1 GHz coppermine beats a 1 GHz
Athlon for almost anything, but you can't get them unless
your name is Michael Dell, etc. For build-your-own types or
small systems integrators they don't really exist.
By fall, it won't matter. The new generation Intel chips start
showing up, Athlon on-die full-speed cache version shows up
making the current part look like a slouch, and new generation
AMD parts start showing up. We'll all realize our current
computers suck, even though they've got more power than most
of us can figure out how to use.
And ... maybe an Intel solution to the i820/i840 fiasco. We
can always hope.
- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza@pacifier.com> Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest Rare Bird Alert
Serviceand other goodies at http://donb.photo.net.
