What is the performance increase of Thunderbird...

[Guest]

I would like to know the perfomance increase of Thunderbird over P3 that makes it a better choice? and who does that increase show in real life performance?

 

[MeTaLrOcKeR]

Well, it all depensd on what clockspeed your going to be using buddy. =)
The Athlon's FPU Unit is a heck of a lot more powerful than the P3's could EVER be. So in 3D Rendering (using software such as 3D StudioMAX) the slowest thunderbird (700MHz) will outshine the fastest P3 (1GHz). Gaming is fairly equal at both 1GHz chips but if you get into C class Athlon cores and DDR your Athlon will outperform the P3 in anything and everything.

-MeTaL RoCkEr

Burn MF, BURN!!!

 

[Guest]

Many benchmarks show the TBird-C to be about 20% faster clock-for-clock on floating point stuff.

In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.

 

[Ncogneto]

Primarily cost. The P3 is a good chip. However, as of right now a P3@1 gig will run you $199.00. With the same amount of money, you can purchase a 1.33 gig athlon for ( $197.00). The athlon chip will give you much higher memory bandwith, and has a stronger FPU. Also, if you get a 1 gig pentium 3 right now, this is the highest you will be able to go unless you plan on purchasing a new motherboard as well. While it is hard to say at the moment it looks like the athlon platfrom will go to 2.2 gig.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!