Pentium 820 D

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Threw up the details in my original post to Dunk (screw wishlists - first and last time I try to use them :frown: )

Mike.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>
 
Gah, forgot something again...

Saw on Anand's newslinks that AMD reported that a $350-ish X2 will be out Aug 1. Supposed to be the X2 3800+, and I'd bet it's 2.0ghz/512k.

Mike.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>
 
Yeah thanks.
It's around $250 difference so if you want to go dual core from scratch it'll be cheaper to go Intel. If you have a s939 system right now it's a little different because you save the mobo and RAM cost.

<font color=red>It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious<font color=red>
 
$350?
That's much better.
I wonder when are we gonna start seeing more multithreaded applications. Maybe then the prices will come down a little more.

<font color=red>It's impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious<font color=red>
 
Yeah, I think if I was building from scratch... and I wanted a dual core... and I had an $800 dollar budget... then I would definitly look into going with the 820D.

All I know is that if AMD wants to compete in this market they had better come out with a CPU that gives an obvious performance advantage for equal or better price, because as it is right now the only market share they have is directed towards people like us who actually know what we are doing, not the uneducated Delliots of the world.
 
I'm wholly unsuprised there..

What of course we don't know is whether AMD is reacting to Intel's 'el-cheapo' offering, or whether it's always been on the cards...

When that's out, bang goes the only reason I'd build with Intel...

---
<font color=red>"Life is <i>not</i> like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeńos - what you do today might burn your a<b></b>ss tommorrow."
 
Some applications simply don't lend themselves to multiple threads. And Multi-threaded programming (well, certainly debugging) is still a PITA.

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<font color=red>"Life is <i>not</i> like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeńos - what you do today might burn your a<b></b>ss tommorrow."
 
Yep, the new X2 makes an AMD/Intel dual rig under $100 difference, and (estimated) if the new X2 is on par performance-wise with the 830 (assuming the 2.0ghz part, a safe bet), there's a lot less reason to go Intel.

Mike.

PS: Could also be because enough of the X2's failed 4200+ binning, so it gets rid of inventory 'waste'.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>
 
PS: Could also be because enough of the X2's failed 4200+ binning, so it gets rid of inventory 'waste'.
Click to expand...
Could be, but if they're having problems hitting 2.2Ghz, then that's not a good sign IMO. I haven't heard of a single Venice core getting less than 2.4, so (effectively) 2 of them together not hitting 2.2Ghz would be a suprise really.

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<font color=red>"Life is <i>not</i> like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeńos - what you do today might burn your a<b></b>ss tommorrow."
 
True, but both of them have to hit 2.2. That changes the law of probabilities a lot. And we have no idea what the ... (brain went blank)... (umm...)... (in other mfg's it's the error %)... ummm, the term escapes me 😱 , but it's their % of good cores per wafer... is.

Gah I hate it when the sh!t won't come out...

Mike.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>
 
I am beginning to think AMD made a mistake in the design of the X2, unless they are magical in getting very good yields. Maybe not so much a mistake but a design decision that can haunt them. Intel version places two separate cores or dies onto a chip, in AMD's case the whole dual core design is made together. Problem, if one of the cores from Intel fails it is never placed on a chip, thus they are not throwing away one good core and one bad. Now if one of the cores from AMD fails???? Throw away whole chip?

In the end it looks like Intel has less to lose with a bad core. In addition if these early Pentium D's have that much head room then it indicates that the design is efficient in working together. So Intel may always have a price advantage with their design and this maybe the first indications of this on the initial lauch.

From the many benchmarks I looked at, the el cheapo 820D usually blows any of AMD's single chips in multitasking type enviroments and multithreaded applications. So for what I do this would be a wiser choice at the moment, besides I just have a XP2500+ overclocked, so my next upgrade will be a whole new system design, which I hope to do in 3-6 months.

Now people using the heat issue or power usage as the reason seems kinda funny to me, some of whom will not hesitate to install two 7800GTX's in a SLI setup. Or, overvolt and OC while bragging about how much energy their AMD chip saves over Intel while turning their bedrooms into an oven.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 07/06/05 06:46 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Now people using the heat issue or power usage as the reason seems kinda funny to me, some of whom will not hesitate to install two 7800GTX's in a SLI setup. Or, overvolt and OC while bragging about how much energy their AMD chip saves over Intel while turning their bedrooms into an oven.
Click to expand...
You're somewhat missing the point.... I <i>would</i> have to either spend more money on cooling, or live with a lot more noise if I wanted a P4 with similar performance to my 2.5Ghz A64.

And I would be extremely concerned about heat if I had 2 7800GTX cards in SLI.

If I were you, I'd wait for AMD's competing offering in that price segment and then see which seems a better deal. (since it's supposed to arrive in less than a month)

---
<font color=red>"Life is <i>not</i> like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeńos - what you do today might burn your a<b></b>ss tommorrow."
 
>I am beginning to think AMD made a mistake in the design of
>the X2, unless they are magical in getting very good yields.
>Intel version places two separate cores or dies onto a chip,
>in AMD's case the whole dual core design is made together.

There are several up and downsides to each approach.

intels current approach looks much simpler, but also has its drawbacks; from a performance POV, its okay-ish for singe socket (dual core), but once you start looking at 2 or 4 sockets, it becomes a disaster. From a production cost POV, I honestly don't think there is a huge difference with AMDs approach; whatever advantage there is to being able to test individual cores before bonding them together might well be offset by the cost of the more complex packaging on the substrate. Smithfield might have two individual pieces of silicon, but if i'm not mistaken, most (all?) of its followups will also consist of a single "die" (even though they are still 2 seperate cpu's just cut together), so clearly all is not roses with Smithfields approach.

And btw, if really the yield issue was so big, AMD could still sell an X2 with a single functional core as an A64.

AMD currently sells its dual core chips as premium priced products for several reasons, but significantly higher production cost compared to smithfield, IMHO just isn't one of them. Its quite simple really, the real value for dual core chips is to be had in the server market; if I where AMD, I would also focus my attention there, and rather sell a 1.8 Ghz dual core part as $866 DC opteron with no competition, than as a sub $250 smithfield competitor.

>From the many benchmarks I looked at, the el cheapo 820D
>usually blows any of AMD's single chips in multitasking
>type enviroments and multithreaded applications

yeah, who would have guessed a dual core would have been better than a single core at those benchies ? 😀

Seriously though, I find it odd everyone all of a sudden seems to think dual core is so hot and beneficial, while nearly no one ever bothered buying dual cpu systems, even though these have been quite affordable just as well. For some reason, people think for dual core its okay to sacrifice single thread performance for throughput, while they didn't seem to think so for dual socket systems.. very odd...

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 
AMD also announced 3800+ and 4000+ dualcore coming August 1. <A HREF="http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20050706A2006.html" target="_new">Here</A>. I must be missing something, because I don't know what the heck a companies manufacturing process has to do with me, the end user, as long as it works as it's supposed to.

And I'm sorry my first post got looked over, I'll try to add more insults, FUD and incoherent nonsense so people can understand.
 
lol, ok, yes I am looking forward to what AMD does as well. For the home enviroment, the dual core from Intel seems rather nice, especially if the OC experience is consistent from what I am hearing. I think dual core will become more and more important because multi threaded applications will be more prevaliant then before.
 
>And I'm sorry my first post got looked over, I'll try to add
>more insults, FUD and incoherent nonsense so people can
>understand.

LOL !!! And indeed, I missed it, cause I don't read every single thread from A to Z.

As for those cheap X2's; its a welcome addition for anyone needing throughput rather than single threaded performance while being on a budget, but I honestly don't think that is such an enormous market. Seems like another case of "build it and people will buy it", helped in no small amount by marketing and (frankly, often quite ridiculous) benchmarks/reviews, but in the real world, most ppl will still be better served by a faster and/or cheaper single core chip.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 
From my aspect I could care less what most people do, it is what I do that hopefully determines where I go in building a new system. Maybe if most people buy cheap Dells that would be better for them as well. Dual core is the future and it is here, Intel looks to have better offerings, hopefully AMD will be there as well.
 
Some other considerations I have is how over clockable the average core that I am looking at. If the X2 beats the Pentium D series but yet the average Pentium D overclocks way better then the X2, well it may actually be the Pentium D that is the performance leader if maxed out, you know fine tuned.

I am also looking at 2gb plus of memory, I am not convinced the X2 system will do good there plus going to 2T timings does handicap the outcome, how well does the X2 handle 4gb of ram?

A more minor point is that DDR2 should be around longer then DDR, so a purchase of DDR2 memory would probably payoff longer in the long run and more usuable for the next 3-5 years. If I go with the X2, it would mean once more buying DDR ram which may not go on to be used in a future upgrade or system. This scenario would be likely for me, so if I am going to buy more memory I rather it be DDR2.

Then the price, AMD's prices on their dual core just plain out suck now! Virtually twice the cost of Intel's, of course Intel's 840D EE seems rather expensive but I am sure plenty will buy that processor for good and bad reasons.

I guess I am use to AMD having some rather good processors for unbeatable prices but now that is no longer true, Intel seems to know what they are doing, at least from my viewpoint.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 07/07/05 11:04 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Maybe everyone here or most folks here just want to talk about the rather more expensive line of cpu's with double the price for 20% more performance.
Click to expand...
I understand what you're saying. I would just like to point out that whenever Intel releases another dual core CPU with 20% higher performance than its current offering, you can bet it will cost about twice as much as the 820D, too.

Decide what level of CPU performance you need, and buy it from whoever sells it at the lowest price.
 
>Dual core is the future and it is here

Just what is so magical about 2 cores, I just don't get that. Did you buy Athlon MPs previously ? They could be had for a similar price per core, and the clockspeed/single threaded performace penalty compared to normal desktop parts was quite comparable to the current ~20% gap. Motherboards wheren`t too expensive either, so why didn`t people crave (or buy) dual MPs en mass 2 years ago, and now seem to think they absolutely need dual core ?

>If the X2 beats the Pentium D series but yet the average
>Pentium D overclocks way better then the X2, well it may
>actually be the Pentium D that is the performance leader if
> maxed out, you know fine tuned.

Without watercooling, I wouldnt even consider overclocking a Pentium D. Its hard enough to keep it from melting at stock speed. As for performace; it will obviously depend what apps you care about , but for a lot of things you`d need to clock a P-D around 4 GHz to just match a stock 4800+.

>I am also looking at 2gb plus of memory, I am not convinced
> the X2 system will do good there plus going to 2T timings
>does handicap the outcome, how well does the X2 handle 4gb
>of ram?

The performance drop ranges from totally insignificant to un-measurable:
<A HREF="http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=917314" target="_new">http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=917314</A>
<A HREF="http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=917047" target="_new">http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=917047</A>

>A more minor point is that DDR2 should be around longer
>then DDR, so a purchase of DDR2 memory would probably
>payoff longer in the long run and more usuable for the next
> 3-5 years.

Yeah right; todays slowpoke DDR2 will be as "useable" in 5 years as DDR1-266 is today.

>Then the price, AMD's prices on their dual core just plain
>out suck now! Virtually twice the cost of Intel's,

Factor in more expensive motherboards and RAM, and the price difference becomes really small; consider the performance delta on most apps, and its the P-D that starts looking overpriced.

>I guess I am use to AMD having some rather good processors
>for unbeatable prices but now that is no longer true

Its still just as true. Sure you can beat the price, but not the performance, let alone both.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 
>>> Hmmm... Pentiums are multiplier locked... When they
>>> throttle, they drop the multiplier to 14... the
>>> multiplier of the 2.8 @ 800fsb is 14... nope, can't
>>> throttle.


Just as a note, from what I heard, the 800's series is unlocked. Considering how cheap the new pentium-D's are compared to AMD, and that they overclock better, they are much better performance vs price than the AMD. Why pay $500-$750 more for simply 5-15FPS, or 5-10% quicker encoding? Unless it's at a professional deadline scheduel, it's just stupid.

Also, Intel mobo's arent much more expensive or the same price as AMD if you know where to look, and DDR2 is getting cheaper, and will continue to.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Keman on 07/08/05 06:55 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
Where have you been? Motherboards for the Pentium D series can be bought rather cheap. The 1GB modules of DDR2 are virtually the same cost as DDR but faster. I doubt very much the cpu will melt, sounds more like an AMD thingy of the past which Tom had a smoking video. DDR2 will be more useful then the DDR memory modules in a sock drawel two years from now. CPU's of the past, the performance increased dramatically from speed increases which are less seen today. Dual core allows for a dramatic increase in performance (depending on application) and takes only a single slot. Dual processors as in two on a motherboard was always much more costly to buy and to maintain. Dualcore processors are not. Does that explain why?
 
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