Wait for Athlon64 or upgrade NOW?

[spud]

I imagine they did since the game states on the box designed for the Athlon XP. Considering the user base they have is more or less equal for AMD and Intel based CPU's you would think they would have used the ICC 7.1 P4 with SSE2 support one. Since its been shown (cant find link) that it excellerate even the Athlons performance. But Tim at Epic is pretty hardcore to make a name for himself and since Carmack is a Intel man hes gotta be someone.

Unreal 2 though seems to be a different story its performance considering the heavy use of Pixel Shadeing is some what better than 2003's. But thats my own personal perceptions nothing to document ill do that when I get my 3.06 next week.

-Jeremy

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[POPEGOLDX]

AMD has companies working on 32 and 64 bit compliers for the hammer.

they are talking i nthe realms of 70% boosts in performance

the game is far far from over...

the current HAMMER is highly unoptimized.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Yes, but things don't look too bright for AMD either. Compilers have to be used; being available is not nearly enough. Besides, Intel's compilers give them a ridiculous boost in SSE2 (something in the range of 250±50%, it's pathetic), wo why not use them? AMD has to have paid the Unreal programmers.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Mephistopheles on 07/06/03 12:16 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[spud]

Like I said Tim Sweeney is out to make himself a name. From the interviews Ive read hes in love with AMD64 technology. With comment like this

FiringSquad: How do you feel AMD's 64-bit efforts compare to Intel's 64-bit Itanium family?

Hammer follows the PC CPU pricing model. It's going to be very reasonably priced for the moderate high-end at launch, and over the next year will go down in price so that Hammer can ship in high-end, mid-range, and low-end PC's in all existing pricing segments, consumer, workstation, and server, desktop and mobile. It runs all existing 32-bit software and OS's extremely well, better than existing AMD processors, and will run future 64-bit software and OS's extremely well.

Itanium isn't anything like that. You might as well be comparing Hammer to PA-RISC or SPARC. These are CPU's from a world alien to PC users, where you buy a $10,000 workstation containing a pair of $4000 CPU's and you only run the one or two CAD programs you bought your workstation for, because you can't run existing software at any reasonable level of performance. It's an interesting architecture, but it doesn't have anything to do with me or you.

you gotta wounder whats going threw his head the Itainium is a killer platform and what Intel is doing with deerfield will bring a new player to this 64bit race. The A64 will have a hard time beating the chip.

-Jeremy

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[Mephistopheles]

you gotta wounder whats going threw his head the Itainium is a killer platform and what Intel is doing with deerfield will bring a new player to this 64bit race. The A64 will have a hard time beating the chip.

I just have to express my full support for this opinion. Itanium is a powerful chip. It's in its third generation, and can give Opteron a really hard time - consider Deerfield.

I mean heck, even the last generation of Itanium could easily beat the Opteron at floating point. Madison can destroy anything.

 

[jmecor]

you're right, since opteron is a mixed 32-bit / 64-bit processor, if talking about 64-bit computing, the Itanium can beat the hell out of opteron big time.

 

[Mephistopheles]

beat the hell out of opteron big time

Absolutely.

Besides, Itanium's approach to computing is a clean one. They were able to put all their newest tricks and ideas in the core, because it was designed from scratch. Opteron, on the other hand, was designed anchored to compatibility - which is not a bad thing, of course, but it limits the processor design.

That's why Opteron being a 32-bit processor with 64-bit tacked on is a rather bad thing!

 

[rcj187]

you gotta wounder whats going threw his head the Itainium is a killer platform and what Intel is doing with deerfield will bring a new player to this 64bit race. The A64 will have a hard time beating the chip.

tim sweeney is talking about GAME performance not high end sever performance. in that arena itanium gets its ass kicked all over the shop! take what sweeney said in context and its not too hard to realise what he means.

 

[Mephistopheles]

tim sweeney is talking about GAME performance not high end sever performance

Please quote the sentence tim sweeny used to restrict himself to games. He did not do so.

Itanium wasn't designed as a Desktop CPU at all. Its absurd floating point performance, however, is of special interest. It lacks an AGP port, like Opteron at its launch, and is not appropriate for games as such. And there is absolutely no way you could know what Itanium would be capable of, if AGP-enabled motherboards and Desktop systems were build on that technology. Itanium is 64-bit unleashed, and Opteron is 64-bit held back by backward compatibility.

 

[spud]

Like I said hes in Carmack's shadow and desperately wants to get out from under it and make a name for himself. Hell say what he has to. I persoanlly emailed the man in regards to useing VS.NET2003 to compile UT in and stressed that his interest in the Athlon 64 code path was over done and he should take a look at what ICC 7.1 has to offer to the P4 line.

His response was; we choose what hardware we see as most future proof to specialize or code for. We dont see the P4 line as future proof as you or John nor even Intel would want everyone to beleive. We as a company have made our choice if its such a big deal you go and email Gates and ask him to add the ICC 7.0 binaries to the next release of VS.

That was about it I was more supprised he actually responded than anything. But the man is real keen on sticking with his guns. For better or for worse this is the way it is.

-Jeremy

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[Mephistopheles]

We dont see the P4 line as future proof as you or John nor even Intel would want everyone to beleive.

That's an interesting bit. They were probably paid to say that!