This may start a fight... oh well

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Thank you for being able to DEBATE the subject matter INTELLIGENTLY. After TheAudiophile's garbage spewing nonsense, I was afraid the whole art discussion had died out entirely.

I know I flamed TAP pretty hard, but if anyone ever deserved it...

"Has anyone seen a p3 1.13? An intel video card? Yes even some intel proucts fail. But you are both right the p4 will not disapear more like evolve."

You bring up a well sounding argument, but the points aren't as valid as you weigh them. The 1.13GHz P3 never officially made it to market. What very few that got sold were recalled. Because of this, it should be impossible to buy one today or ever after. So of course a chip that isn't ever sold anymore and was recalled is going to vanish. That's true of any product under those circumstances with the rare exception of the few that become collector's items.

So it's still a good argument, but not a strong one for the vanishing P4's case. But then you even admit that the P4 won't vanish, so you already agree with that anyway. :)

As for Intel video cards ... Intel has tried to branch out into a lot of things. They really shouldn't because they just don't do well in areas that they don't belong. They should concentrate on the few things that they are good at and slowly disolve/sell the rest.

Besides, only then can they compete soundly against AMD anyway because then they wouldn't be wasting resources in losing battles.

"However it is also possible that adding the missing fpu and missing cache may negatively effect its scalability as well....time will tell."

It is a possability, but it isn't a likely one. From everything I have read, the original P4 specifications had these things in. It was Intel's adamant decision to stick with a specific die size that forced them to cut pieces off. There is nothing to support that they were removed for scalability purposes.

It reminds me in many ways of the 486 SX vs. DX. Intel made 486s without internal math co-processors. They bit when it came to hard calculational power. And there was nothing lost by putting the math co-processor in the die itself. Intel just didn't do it that way at first because of die size limitations in their production that they eventually overcame with a smaller etching process.

It's an amazingly similar case to the P4. It didn't hinder scalability then, and it's not likely to do so now. If anything, I believe it would make the P4 more scalable to have their FPU better match the ALU performance.

"I find humor in your Rdram to DDR Ram cost comparison. You are comparing a product that has been out only a couple months to a product that has been on the market over a year and a half. Once DDR Ram becomes more readily available it will come down to a price that is considerably cheaper then RDRAM. "
I find great humor in your statement as well. Did you know that DDR SDRAM has existed for years? It has been used in video cards and other electronic devices. It took so long to go into PCs as system memory because everyone was trying to standardize the implementation so that there wouldn't be compatability problems. Yet the DDR technology has existed for MUCH longer than the short period it has been available for PC MEMORY.

As it is being put into PC memory, the technology is already quite mature and even nearing the end of it's growth potential. What we see going into PCs as DDR SDRAM is a very mature product, only put to a new use.

Furthermore, DDR SDRAM is inherantly based on SDRAM. And that is a technology that has existed for a VERY long time. It is long due for a serious improvement. More so than just a double or quadruple data rate of the same basic core technology.

Why, it's almost as old as EDO memory when you really think about it.

Meanwhile RDRAM has been hardly used for anything. It has existed even longer than DDR SDRAM, but for the longest time it had only been used in devices such as game consoles. And during that time, there was no need to advance the technology any because once a console is designed and produced, it is never fundamentally upgraded. It was only once it was applied to use in PCs that further refinement was started on the technology.

"I would concur on your evalutation of SSE2. Thank god for all of use AMD and Intell will both use it."
Agreed. We have long needed optimizations for chips that are accepted by ALL PC chip manufacturers. MMX was such a wonderful thing. Then came the SSE1 vs. 3DNow! battle. That hurt the PC world in a lot of ways. Now AMD and Intel both plan to use SSE2 and we can see software commonly optimized again.

It is funny to hear over and over how AMD activists protest against SSE2 as though it were an Intel only technology. Perhaps they do not realise that AMD has just as many plans to use it. They call Intel cheaters when a benchmark contains SSE2 optimizations. Yet the won't admit that by that logic AMD has to be called cheaters as well when their Hammer chips are released.

-Despite all my <font color=red>rage</font color=red>, I'm still just a <font color=orange>rat</font color=orange> in a <font color=white>cage</font color=white>.
 
Don't even bother.

It's pretty obvious to anyone that you're the only ignorant closed-minded loser here.

Yes, I openly admit flaming you. It's for your own good. You're obviously too simple-minded to pick up on any constructive criticism.

So either take the hint and grow up, or go away and let the intelligent people converse.

Otherwise I will simply ignore you because you will have shown no capability to learn.

-Despite all my <font color=red>rage</font color=red>, I'm still just a <font color=orange>rat</font color=orange> in a <font color=white>cage</font color=white>.
 
"You bring up a well sounding argument, but the points aren't as valid as you weigh them. The 1.13GHz P3 never officially made it to market. What very few that got sold were recalled. Because of this, it should be impossible to buy one today or ever after. So of course a chip that isn't ever sold anymore and was recalled is going to vanish. That's true of any product under those circumstances with the rare exception of the few that become collector's items."

The only point was to show Intell is far from infallable and has stumbled as of late. And while you have a point with the p3 1.13 bear in mind that it has passed all of intells quality assurance tests and was do to be released. Only after A few were actually reviewed by independent hardware sites and problems discovered did Intell decide to recall them. The fact still remains that intell themselves did not even know they had a problem. The I 740 was brought up as a reference to show that not every product intell claims to be the next greatest thing pans out ie. RAMBUS.

I in part agree that the p4 has enormous potential just not in its current implementation. As an AVID AMD fan this is hard to say but truth be known if (and when) the p4 did (does)have the additional cache and extra FPU that a die shrink would afford it It would raise the bar to new levels indeed. However, at this time it is not the case and I really cannot see anyone spending that kind of money for it now. As for the extra cache and fpu in its next phase effecting its scalablity admittably is pure speculation on my part. Speculation however based on overclocking experiances. You see it is the cache itself that is usually the first area of a chip to fail when ramped to higher clock cycles. This is why the AMD classics ( as well as the p-2 and early katmai p3's) at first had the of die cache at less then full clock speed. You did however misunderstand me I did not mean to say that intell left these out to increase scalabilty only that adding them may effect it.

As for you argument with DDR being out a long time that is only a half truth. Yes DDR ram has been out for video cards. However, until recently there was no contoller hub for a motherboard that could use DDR thus there was no DDR chips for a motherboard. It is simply a case of supply and demand. Now with DDR just coming to market and not much a demand for it memory manufactorers are only producing ddr in limited quantities. This as we all now results in higher prices. As demand increases and manufactoreres ramp production prices will fall accordingly. Given the year and a half that RDRAM has had on the market for PC's I am sure you will see a substantial reduction in price making it much more attractive to large OEMs than RDRAM. You can argue that the p4 needs the high bandwith of RDRAM and with DDR it will suffer greatly but while maybe true on paper let us see what happens. Intell also told us how great that RAMBUS would make the p3 ( which is currently the only chip that we are able to compare RDRAM VS SDRAM) and this was in fact not the case at all. It will indeed be interesting when the ddr chipsets for the p4 arrive ( to bad it has to be done by via and not intell) to finally compare.

Although a comment not directed at my post but to another a 10% increase is indeed a significant increase in performance after all. Remember we have only improved one segment of the computer and the 10% is an increase in total system performance. This is the greatest achievemant to date of a new memory technology. (as for we really can't compare the effects of Rambus yet as we have no system to cross compare the two architectures ( unless you want to compare the P3 I840 with Rambus to the p3 I815 with SDR.

And last but not least, I myself find fault with intell fans only choosing to compare the sse2 compiled benchamrks and ignore the sse or mmx benchmarks. The fact still remains that not many apps are optimized for sse2 yet. I strongly believe that any newer better chip should be backwards compatable and excell at existing apps as well as future apps.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
note on water cooling: if you build your own system you can do it for under $50. the only expensive part is the pump, but you can find them for about $20. after that all you need is a copper block, some tubing, a radiator which can be built from copper tubing for about $5 and a fan. although it takes more time and skill than a normal HSF it's not much more expensive.
 
sounds interesting wusy, i haven't ever heard of water cooling that was very cheap... But still, a car radiator!?? how could you move that sorta equipment around? coz that's what i need to do..

But i will read more about it, i don't know all that much about water cooling really...

<b><font color=blue>Note to self: Never buy <i>anything</i> without checking with <font color=red>Tom</font color=red> first...
 
gotta disagree with ya there bud...
I sincerely HOPE this P4 will disapear, we NEED it to, as does Intel.
This P4 resembles the Pentium Pro fiasco, after a core rework (ie PII)it improved greatly, I hope that will be the case.
Now, to debunk a few eroneous comments...
where have you heard the FPU will be returned to the original design? I've heard the .13 micron PIII's and P4's will have more L2 cache, that could help tremendously with the latency issues of RDRAM, but I've yet to hear the P4 will actually be fixed. According to Intel the problem with the FPU isn't their processor, its everyone's software that doesn't use SSE2 that its suppose to.
They will have to eat a bit of crow if they do fix the FPU... there is a no win situation here, either way, Intel is going to have SOMEONE mad at them, or at least critisizing their management and product development...
I've said it before, Rambus nor DDR impresses me much right now... lets see how that ghz RDRAM works, may be better, but the cheaper version of RDRAM looks to have a higher latency, which is going to back up the progress here...
overall, technologicly speaking, the entire industry is in shambles, which way to go... This P4 will go the way of the Pentium Pro, RDRAM will be made cheaper at the cost of performance, which will probably bring the bandwidth down to current DDR levels. I don't see DDR taking over RDRAM sales, but I don't see RDRAM taking over the industry.
the gap between Intel and AMD will grow larger, kind of like import vs domestic sports cars.
do you want monstrous torque, or high rpm horsepower?
both go about the same in the quarter mile, which do you prefer?

----------------------
why, oh WHY, is the world run by morons?
 
i have decided against firing back at you through a post on a forum, i will indeed respond however i will not make it such a public affair as you have. Perhaps you should try to concentrate on keeping your temper for longer... no one appreciated your post, not only for the dial-up people who had to download the longwinded thing, but also for the many facts you put forward that are false.

As you will see by NCogneto's posts to late, he agrees with me, as will Griz and Wusy i believe you will find... I admit i do prefer AMD but i am not a devoted fan, you on the other hand appear to be on the side of intel, i won't speculate any further..

My reply to you will be private so you will get the benefit of a knowledgable response instead of assuming what you think people meant.

My last suggestion to you, is to read people's posts more thoroughly. You might just find their statements have two meanings, if you just read them more carefully instead of copying and pasting as you go along and <b><i>DE</i></b>constructively criticizing them when you disagree. The main reason for this being that you will avoid confrontations such as this.

Far more importantly however, I am sorry to piss you all off, it was not me who started this flaming match, but it is me who is ending it. Continue your posts guys...

<b><font color=blue>Note to self: Never buy <i>anything</i> without checking with <font color=red>Tom</font color=red> first...
 
Sounds very interesting but i would need to read a lot of info before i took on such a task.. how can you test something like that to make sure it cools efficiently? I can't see myself building it perfectly first go... I would more than likely spring a leak!

<b><font color=blue>Note to self: Never buy <i>anything</i> without checking with <font color=red>Tom</font color=red> first...
 
Oh, I completely agree that no one is perfect. Intel has made bad choices and mistakes. I don't know of a company or person who ever hasn't, especially while under pressure. But at least Intel admits when it does make a mistake and does do everything in it's power to make things right with their customers.

And maybe the RDRAM won't pan out. Maybe it'll end up failing entirely. Who is to say? No one can predect the future with complete clarity. I don't think that it'll happen because DDR SDRAM is nearing it's limits. But then again, maybe DDR SDRAM will end up meeting the P4's bandwidth requirements well enough and RDRAM will be dropped entirely. It is a possability.

As for the cache memory affecting the scalability of the Northwood, yes, it's always possible. But I can't imagine that Intel would ever go back to an off-die cache to fix that problem. So their engineers must be pretty sure that such isn't the case. I could be wrong, but any company would have to be crazy to do that to themselves.

But I completely agree that purchasing a P4 right now is almost always a waste of money. There are a very few reasons that I can come up with for it, but they don't apply to the typical home PC user. I myself wouldn't buy a Wilamette. It's clearly not all Intel wishes it were. If I had to buy a system today, I would definately go with AMD, and I do suggest that to experienced PC users. But you have to admit that the future's possabilities look more interesting for the Northwood, at least until AMD's Hammers prove themselves as interesting and affordable products.

And I thought I made it pretty clear that DDR SDRAM has been out as PC system memory for only a short while. But DDR SDRAM the technology itself has been out just as long as RDRAM. The technology has been improved upon over and over again, driven by the video card industry. As such, it has grown a lot more than the RDRAM technology, which hasn't been pushed to grow by anyone other than Intel.

As such, DDR SDRAM has reached a high state of maturity. And RDRAM is still in it's infancy, despite it's age. I don't think anyone could really argue that point.

RDRAM has a much higher bandwidth potential than SDRAM derivatives. But, if RDRAM isn't accepted and research isn't put into the technology, then that potential will never be achived. The whole weight of the memory's future is dependant on if it can be accepted or not. And considering Rambus and their tactics, it'll be a hard thing to accept.

And yes, DDR SDRAM's 10% performance improvement is exceptional for just one component upgrade. But it makes one wonder why it's only a 10% gain. If the bandwidth is doubled, the performance should be a lot better than that. ... UNLESS, there is a maximum bandwidth that the CPUs are actually designed to use. In which case anything over that limit isn't ever used. Which is indeed the case.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't any slam on DDR SDRAM. It's actually a complaint aimed towards the P3 and the Athlon that they just weren't designed to use more bandwidth. Hopefully their .13 micron counterparts will be better designed in that respect. Otherwise, really, the only memory that will ever be useful in those chips is single-rate SDRAM with really low latencies. DDR SDRAM will give a minor benefit over that, but only so much as that tiny bandwidth improvement between single-rate SDRAM and the processor bandwidth cap is.

And I completely agree about people who ONLY look at the SSE2 optimized benchmarks. One should look at the non-SSE benchmarks as well because most applications aren't going to be using SSE2. Some already are though, so people really need to examine BOTH sets. Or, more importantly, people should look at which benchmarks best apply to the actual software that they use.

I do however find fault when AMD fans suggest that Intel 'cheats' because a benchmark is compiled for SSE2 optimizations. Since AMD also plans on using SSE2 and there is software released that is already using SSE2, the ability to see the differences between SSE2 and non-SSE2 is very important for people who may be using or needing SSE2 optimized software. This is not 'cheating'. This is merely showing the full capabilities of SSE2. And when AMD's Hammer chips with SSE2 come out, these benchmark programs are going to be very important for seeing which chip really utilizes SSE2 better and which chip performs better for specific SSE2 optimized applications.

If AMD were not planning to implement SSE2 into their Hammer chips, I would agree that it is sort of cheating. Or more accurately, I would call it unfair that 3DNow! optimizations were not included. But AMD does intend to use SSE2, so that changes the entire situation. It isn't Intel's fault that AMD is taking so long to release their ClawHammer.

-Got your money for nothing, and your chips for free.
-I want my, I want my, I want my AMD.
 
I really have to disagree with you here. I hope that the Wilamette does disappear, but that the P4 itself in the form of Northwood lives on. It is the same as how the Coppermine replaced the Katamai for the P3.

The computer industry in generally really NEEDS the P4 to live, because we need chips that use more bandwidth. Otherwise there is no more point in ever developing better memory.

And as I've said many a time before, there is no certainty in the future. All that we can offer are educated speculations.

With that said, there is no proof that the Northwood will incorporate an FPU better than Wilamette's. There is however proof that the original P4 design called for a better FPU. And that this FPU was hacked up in order to fit the core into a specific die size.

Now, with that in mind, Intel would have to be stupid to not put the original design's FPU into Northwood because the .13 micron etching will allow Intel to fit more components onto the same die size.

Will Intel actually do it? I can't guarantee that. But if they don't, I'll be first in line to call them complete bloody morons for not doing it.

And yes, Intel pushes SSE2 as the solution to the P4's FPU problem. Why? Because somehow their SSE2 engine manages to utilize their ALUs, not their FPUs, to do SSE2 FLOPS. Neat trick that. This is another thing that they did to hack away components to save precious die space.

And the original P4 design called for a double-sized FPU WITH SSE2 integration into both the ALU and the FPU.

So if the Northwood is everything that the original P4 design was supposed to be, you can expect Northwood's SSE2 FLOPS to be amazingly faster, and even their non-optimized FLOPS to be at the worst equal to a P3's on a clock-for-clock basis.

It is my OPINION that Intel will have to 'eat crow'. And the only way to look their best will be to admit that the Wilamette was a PoS. Then they can make the Northwood everything that the original P4 design specs were, and claim how great it is.

If Intel doesn't do this, and they purposely leave the Northwood hacked-up just as the Wilamette was, then their managers are bloody morons. Heh heh. There would be no other viable conclusion to draw. I'd even almost be willing to go out on a limb and say if it turns out that the Northwood isn't following the original P4 design specs better, you will actually see some of Intel's engineers leave the company. I have nothing to back that up with, but we know that the engineers have laid out good blueprints and it's management that is keeping them from being reality.

And don't get me wrong, I don't see RDRAM as any savior of the computer industry. It won't even take over all (or even most) of the memory market. But, for high-bandwidth CPUs, it *should be a better answer than DDR SDRAM.
(* = Should be in that if no one puts and decent research into RDRAM, then it will never mature into a inexpensive yet still useful product.)

I don't suggest that RDRAM take over anything. Just that it is a useful technology for the P4 and for other high-bandwidth CPUs. SDRAM derivatives are still the clear choice for things like inexpensive memory.

And as for video cards, the best memory to use there is debateable. Ideally DDR SDRAM works. QDR SDRAM would be infinitely better. And if RDRAM were to be more developed and matured, it would possible be better yet. But that depends on if latency, heat issues, and controller complexity can be improved so that it will work better on an expansion card.

-Got your money for nothing, and your chips for free.
-I want my, I want my, I want my AMD.
 
if your taking it from the tap you don't need a radiator. it's already really cold!

also a car radiator would mean you have to have a larger tank, and larger fans, which ups the $$$

-----------------
"648kb is all the space anyone will ever need!"

Bill Gates, 1980s
 
the katmai to coppermine was an addition of L2 cache and SSE, not a massive core rework like this is going to be.
A missing fpu is kind of an important part in my opinion.
thats why I've been comparing this situation to the Pentium Pro, its more than L2 cache added to the system.
you misunderstood or didn't read the entire thing, THIS P4, williamette, needs to die, completely. The Northwood, I hope, is the reworked asskicker it should have been in the first place, it wouldn't be a bad idea if the name changed to keep the P4s from being confused by the average Joe.
In my opinion, Intel would have been better off to let AMD grab the mhz crown for a bit and release the .13 P4 and take over the industry, but it seems Intel likes a bit of controversy.
nice b!tch!n with ya man, decent little discussion goin on here...

----------------------
why, oh WHY, is the world run by morons?
 
Well we seem in part to be coming to some sort of agreement. The p4 in its current state is a useless overpriced piece of silicon dollar for dollar compared to the athlons for all but a very select few which do almost all there work with programming that is sse2 optimized. I myself even have to chuckle at some of my AMD counterparts who fail to see the enourmous potential in this chip (the p4) when it goes to the .13 micron process which would (in theory) allow the missing cache and fpu to be added back as you suggest may happen. It clearly appears that the only reason intell released this chip was to have a mhz competition with AMD in which it could somehow claim victory. It kind of reminds you of the days of Cyrix and there MHZ rating joke. It is so sad to see marketing win over actuall performance. Still all this aside if ( and I emhasize only if!) they do get the ommitted fpu and cache back into the core in the northwood, AMD is going to have a tough act to follow.

I can only hope that the reason AMD has not done the same with a chopped up hammer is because they felt no reason to do so as there athlon's clearly compete and compete rather well against the Intell p4 counterparts. Perhaps rather than intell, they choose to wait untill they could release there sse2 optimized chip whith full fpu and on die l2 cache. Intell on the otherhand needed a chip on the market to compete with the athlon as there p3 reached the end of the road as we saw with the 1.13 p3.

As to the Rambus debate it will always be overpriced as Rambus charges a hefty licensing fee for its use which will always be passed on to the consumer. If they lose there court battles over DDR then this cost will not be passed on to users of DDR. The latencey versus bandwith debate is a good one and while we can clearly see how the p4 benefits from the higher bandwith of Rdram it could very well be possible that ddr or qdr has enough bandwith with lower latency makeing it a better choice even for the p4. As to which is more important latency vs. bandwith they are almost of equall importance one counteracting the other. The best scenario for all users would be for Rambus to lose all its court battles have there stock tumble down the toilet, be bought out by another company (and or companies) ( much like we saw with nvidia vs. 3dfx) and Rambus technology be brought to the fold (JEDEC) for all to use.

And one last note a little off of topic pertanining to Intell's mistakes. The biggest mistake they ever made was not to allow others to use SSE as they had with mmx. Up to that point other chip makers were content with using intell tech and not doing any research of there own. This saved them money but at the cost of always being behind the leading edge by a year or so. When Intell pulled the plug on that sharing of it's technology (with SSE)it underestimated its competitions ability to come up with its own extensions. This hurt AMD initially but made them a stronger better company for it. When 3dnow came out ( particullarly advanced 3dnow) Amd was no longer forced to live in Intell's shadow.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
 
SSE2 is an instruction set for the P4 unless I'm wrong

By the way, I don't think RDRAM will disappear ( It's not necessarily a bad product it just needs a better latency, once that problem is solved it could kick asses ).

Ithanium is intel chip for SERVERS ( like xeon ) but that chip is going to support 64 bit instructions ( or 128 can't remember correctly ).

it needs a refregirator to stay cool and a big power supply and when I say BIG.. IT'S BIG in term of PC. In term of mainframe it's small but I don't want to get into that discussion.

So ithanium is a new chip supporting new instruction sets so it can run 64 bits ( 128 if I was wrong ) operating systems.

ON the other hand sledgehammer is AMD cpu which is going to be the competition of that ithanium chip... It supports 64 bit instructions (128 if I was wrong ) and will run 32 bit instruction 2 times faster ( 64 bit instruction if I was wrong ) because the architecture of the cpu is in a way that it can load 2 instructions.. Ithanium can't do that ( even though the bandwith enables it )

ATHLON-C is the third type of CPU for the athlon core..

It supports 133 mhz of Front side bus ( double pumped ) it makes 266...

That's about the only difference between TBIRD-C and T-BIRD B.

P4 isn't necessarily a bad cpu, because with intel marketing and market share, software designers WILL develop for it and as such, the P4 will be a good choice (except for the price ) right now it's not a good idea though

RDRAM like i said isn't necessarily a bad product either.. it just need a little bit more researches.. SAMSUNG has developped a RIMM that cost less, has less latency and can transfer faster ( it's called PC1000 and 1200 ) it's going out ont the shelves soon...

So all in all P4 isn't a nice idea right now but is going to be a big player in the next few months.

Same for RDRAM

Unless AMD decides to become a chipset maker they will lose their market share because VIA chipsets and ALI chipsets aren't that good. ( for the moment the best chipset for AMD is amd 760) (irongate was not a nice chipset for amd though ).


Anyway these are probably predictions, and as such only future will tell us what will actually happen !
 
Look budy i don't give a shi.t if you are a software prgrammer. I work with Pentium. So what about all the hype with the P4. I agree with TheAudiophile when he says that the P4 will be gone soon. It will. Wow you've built 10 systems. I've built hundreds all using Pentiums. All the tests against the P4 prove that is isn't as good as it is put out to be.

I'ma actually a AMD fan myself. Pentium's are good but i have to admit that the AMD kicks the arse of the Pentium by far.

So what if the forums are about exchanging information if someone wants to start a debate over something they have every right. I think you have no idea about what you are saying. To me it sounds like it's YOU haveing the educated guess.
 
Aboslutely right ! I wasn't arguing just transmitting what I know of those CPUS.. I might be right or I might be wrong !

didn't mean to offense anyone !!! If it did I'm sorry !
 
"the katmai to coppermine was an addition of L2 cache and SSE, not a massive core rework like this is going to be."

Yes, I understand your reasoning there. But the Northwood will (hopefully) be following the original P4 design specs, where as the Williamette didn't. Therefore the Northwood will be the first true P4. The Williamette was more like a P3.8.

So with that said, the Northwood will, in all probability, be named a P4 just as the Williamette was. My point was that we don't want THE P4 to die, just the Williamette. Where as you specified the P4 in it's entirety.

I don't think that Intel would rename the Northwood to something like a P5, because what they have more to gain from keeping the P4 name so that they can give the P4 a good name again. After all, the Northwood vs. Williamette is basically the 486DX vs. 486SX.

And Intel definately did something weird/stupid when they released the Williamette. I agree with you. They would have been better off just letting AMD have their run as the faster CPU.

I personally think that what Intel should have done was to release the Williamette on a larger die size so that it didn't have anything cut out. It would have cost a heap, but it already did cost too much. At least then the price would have been justifiable and the chip would have beaten the T-Bird.

As it was, I think Intel made the worst possible decision when they hacked up the P4's original design specifications to release the Williamette as they did.

-Got your money for nothing, and your chips for free.
-I want my, I want my, I want my AMD.
 
Oh, no doubt the current Williamette is an overpriced piece of junk to about 95% of all computer users. And it's pretty clear that Intel pushed it's PoJ Williamette out before it was ready only to compete against AMD in their GHz battles.

They should have just waited or put it on a larger die. Besides, AMD does make some darn fine CPUs, so they deserved a clear-cut run as either the home PC champ or the home PC price champ.

My ONLY complaints against AMD are that they don't have a thermal cutoff YET, they don't have an affordable multiple-CPU chipset YET, and they don't produce enough of their own chipsets. Instead most AMD users end up with crappy third-party chipsets, which are worth their weight in dung and not a bit more.

Intel definately has the potential to put the heat back on to AMD with their Northwood. But it remains to be seen if the management over at Intel has the brains to do it correctly. Intel has good engineers, but crappy management.

But I doubt that AMD would do anything as stupid by prematurely releasing a hacked-up Hammer core to compete. I hope that they learned their lesson from Intel's mistake. Besides, AMD doesn't seem to do things that are as daring. They just stick to what they know will work. That's why they do so well. Now if they would only work more with chipsets to support their processors...

And I totally agree with your best scenario. It would definately benefit everyone if Rambus lost the cases, had their stock drop drastically, and then got bought out by someone else who would take the RDRAM patents and let anyone use them for free.

I could care less about Rambus surviving. But RDRAM surviving has definite benefits for development of future technology.

And ideally, the best memory type would be a hybrid cross between QDR SDRAM and RDRAM. It could balance bandwidth and latency and really provide a great memory solution. But that won't happen so long as Rambus lives.

But if Rambus does die like that, what will probably happen is RDRAM will entirely die as well. Unless Intel buys them out anyway. And RDRAM's death wouldn't benefit anyone. So I have some qualms about wishing for Rambus to collapse.

As for Intel's mistakes with SSE1, I can't argue against that. I think though that their biggest mistake was to not include floating point operations into SSE1 like they had originally claimed they would. Had they made SSE1 everything that SSE2 is, then their keeping SSE1 for their chips only like that would have definately made good business sense.

Still, from a programmer's perspective, I like open source and proprietary-free technology. So I'm just glad that Intel let AMD use SSE2. Hopefully now we can get back to having commonly-optimized software. :)

I can't wait to see AMD's ClawHammer and how well it will run SSE2 optimized code.

-Got your money for nothing, and your chips for free.
-I want my, I want my, I want my AMD.
 
well! should p4 live to make memory makers earn their living??? with those like the rambus guys, one would hardly impagine this. after all, they make their living with OUR money. well worth watching DDR-SDRAM taking over RDRAM, as the latest <b>Intel</b> (and of course, those from other companies) chipsets demonstrate this. P-III/P-4 will work with DDR, thats the bottom line!

northwood P4 should be better than Williamette, but who knows? have seen the latest Athlon-C and forthcoming Athlon Palomino?

well, wait and watch... athlons will be all over p4s.

Girish

die-hard fans, don't seem to have heat-sinks!
 
heheh Hi-Fi is my favorite, even though I don't play them now cause they are so much more expensive than PC.

Anyway, did you that "acoustics" are more important than "electric"

For example, your voice changes when you walk from outside into the living room, then kitchen, then toilet and bedroom etc. The difference in simplicity is say 70% change.

However (like tom) when you change a CD player, amplifier, DAC etc etc etc, doesn't make that much a difference and is limited by the room's sound namely "acoustics"

Do some experiement, tell me what you discovered. :)

If only I could get you into a anechoic chamber to continue this demonstration. 🙁 not everyone have one.

Best regards
cx5
 
Ahh wusy, finally you agree with me.. This slv_phoenix is really on about the P4 isn't he? it's sorta annoying in a way coz i had this whole list of problems with his first flame of me, and it seems there's no point in putting it up because since he posted it, almost all of his points have been disproven by everyone!!!

ahh amd... yum...

<b><font color=blue>Note to self: Never buy <i>anything</i> without checking with <font color=red>Tom</font color=red> first...
 
Damn night Girish, the Palamino is going to kick the ass off the P4 no matter how ya see it... Everyone bar slv... agrees... it's hard to dispute..

AMD is becomming the better company... and in my eyes already are.,

<b><font color=blue>Note to self: Never buy <i>anything</i> without checking with <font color=red>Tom</font color=red> first...
 
I finally agree with you Slvr... you're right, the P4 in itself is good, currently of course it's not worth the silicon it's made with, but in the future, the Northwood <b>WILL</b> be the one to beat. In all logical sense, Intel could not be stupid enough to leave out the stuff they did with the Willamette, because if they did they would be dooming their reputation... Whoever it was up there ^ that said that the Engineers would quit, i would be pretty much inclined to agree with that, either that or strike, whichever's easier. Remembering it's hard to get a job after you quit from Intel i would imagine = ]

Anyway Slvr, time to settle our differences and stop this WAR we're having... You realise this discussion started off with me wanting to know about the different chips? (i made the subject what is is because originally i just wanted people to look at it, and it worked! but it sorta backfired and i ended up being the one fighting... I won't flame you back now because i think it's evident that we both learnt something from the posts past our own.... ANd we can agree that the P4 (wil) is a PoS and the P4 (nor) will more than likely kick ass... But still, i believe the Palamino is going to be reeeeally promising...

<b><font color=blue>Note to self: Never buy <i>anything</i> without checking with <font color=red>Tom</font color=red> first...
 
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