[cschaef13]

I had a 3200 p4 and a 3200 athlon xp both almost same i can barely tell the difference, and i could care less about the difference. I look on sites for benchmarks and there is only a few fps gain or lose in games, i dont get it. Why do people care so much about this.

[enggmaster]

Xp Athlons are significantly weaker than their AMD 64 counter parts, just to let you know. A regular AMD 64 3200+ would outperform the 3.2Ghz P4.

And yes its a big deal, because more people are buying Intel CPUs even though AMDs are generally stronger/cheaper. Much of the blame can be traced to huge advertising/marketing of the Intel chips, like everyday I see an Intel commercial advertising their chips, and most retailers sell Intel. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen one AMD commercial before...

[9 ball 1212]

theres a difference between the new P4 prescott and The AMD 64. the athlon 64 uses 64 bit technology, Intel doesnt have yet for Pentium and the Pentium 4 prescott is made more effciently then its predissesor

[enggmaster]

http://www.anandtech...aspx?i=2149&p=7

[Chikitta]

Quote

I had a 3200 p4 and a 3200 athlon xp both almost same i can barely tell the difference, and i could care less about the difference. I look on sites for benchmarks and there is only a few fps gain or lose in games, i dont get it. Why do people care so much about this.

Price is the main difference.

You pay more for a Pentium chip even though you're getting very similar performance from it compared to it's AMD equivilent:

P4 Prescott 3.2GHz - £152 (£164 for the Northwood)

AMD XP 3200+ - £93

You said yourself you can't notice the difference in performance, but look at the prices. Now you know why people care so much about it.

[CommieRed]

cschaef13, on Jan 22 2005, 10:20 AM, said:

I had a 3200 p4 and a 3200 athlon xp both almost same i can barely tell the difference, and i could care less about the difference. I look on sites for benchmarks and there is only a few fps gain or lose in games, i dont get it. Why do people care so much about this.

You neglect to mention that the 3200 Athlon only runs at 2.0 GHz and costs CONSIDERABLY less than the 3.2 GHz P4.

Also, the AMD Athlon 64 939-pin 3200+ chip (which is only 210 USD - a LOT less than the 3.2 GHz intel chip) blows the P4 away in those same benchmarks.

Comparing the Athlon XP series to the top of the line P4 right now is a lot like comparing a 1970's pinto to a 1997 Subaru Impreza with the only difference being that the pinto holds its own.

If you want to compare direct rivals, you have to compare the AMD 64 to the P4 at 32-bit and then we can talk.

[Brumisator]

well you can't say Intel is bad, or AMD is good, nor the other way round...
The short explanation is that AMDs' are better for aplications like games, and Intels are better for imaging 'n stuff...

Of course, as we're on a gaming forum, most people will say AMd is better...I've been using AMd since 2000, and I'm happy with them...

[Chikitta]

Quote

well you can't say Intel is bad, or AMD is good, nor the other way round...

Yeah you can - AMD is "better" than Intel - simple as that. You pay less and get more bang for your buck, even in the likes of encoding stuff where the P4 chips traditionally smoked AMD.

Anyone building a new PC today would have to be crazy to chose Intel over AMD.

[Arinthel]

In my experience, many of intel's customers come from people who just want intel.

I got into a debate with one lady at an electronics store who was dead-set on buying her friend a Pentium 4 instead of an AMD, but had no reason other than "you don't want an AMD".

[CommieRed]

Chikitta, on Jan 22 2005, 04:38 PM, said:

Quote

well you can't say Intel is bad, or AMD is good, nor the other way round...

Yeah you can - AMD is "better" than Intel - simple as that. You pay less and get more bang for your buck, even in the likes of encoding stuff where the P4 chips traditionally smoked AMD.

Anyone building a new PC today would have to be crazy to chose Intel over AMD.

So true.

About 5 months ago I built a new PC (accidentally damaged my old one a bit - trying to swap out a 1.2 GHz Duron for an Athlon XP 2400 in an Abit BP6, and the bastards who put it together when I bought it {custom built box} glued the damned heat sink/fan to the board. Accidentally slipped trying to pry it off and jammed my screwdriver through my motherboard. As an aside, even though it was damaged, the PC ran just fine. Go Abit.)...

Anyway, yeah, at that time the AMD offerings were still pretty expensive. The 64-bit chips were relatively new and pretty high in price. So, I through together an Intel P4 2.8 GHz 1 Meg cache prescott box with a gig of RAM. It ran well, but it also ran pretty hot. It was a stable box, but I just wasn't happy with it. It had no flare.

So I sold it to someone that it could serve better and bought myself a nice shiny AMD Athlon 64 3200+ socket 939 box and I couldn't be happier.

Clock-per-clock, the AMD may be slower at certain compression operations, but that's not the only consideration.

Most people just don't think about the price difference when they make these decisions. They say "Well, a 3.2 GHz pentium is about equal to the equivalent athlon 64 chip, so they're the same in my buying decision. "

Nope. Factor in price and you realize that for the price of that 3.2 GHz intel chip, you could buy a 2.6 GHz AMD Athlon 64 socket 939 chip and blow the crap out of that Intel chip on any given operation.

[Warbird]

Intel is not evil for having commercials, in fact amd is stupid for not having any.

[Chikitta]

Quote

Intel is not evil for having commercials, in fact amd is stupid for not having any.

Nobody said they were

It's the commercials that give people the attitude Arinthel pointed out. A lot of people don't even realise AMD exists, and the major PC stores / manufactuers tend to pretend AMD doesn't exist because Intel pay them bags of money to stock their processors or to use them in their machines.

It's a shame the Intel advertising is so sucessful - people are getting ripped off and paying more for processors than they should be. Having said that, I haven't seen a single AMD commercial, so it's partly their fault for not making people aware they exist.

[whiteShadow]

Chikitta, on Jan 22 2005, 10:42 AM, said:

Quote

I had a 3200 p4 and a 3200 athlon xp both almost same i can barely tell the difference, and i could care less about the difference. I look on sites for benchmarks and there is only a few fps gain or lose in games, i dont get it. Why do people care so much about this.

Price is the main difference.

You pay more for a Pentium chip even though you're getting very similar performance from it compared to it's AMD equivilent:

P4 Prescott 3.2GHz - £152 (£164 for the Northwood)

AMD XP 3200+ - £93

You said yourself you can't notice the difference in performance, but look at the prices. Now you know why people care so much about it.

Yea, that is the main reason I go with AMD. They both perform well but since AMD is lower in price, it is just a no brainer.

[AgentVX]

Chikitta, on Jan 23 2005, 05:19 AM, said:

Quote

Intel is not evil for having commercials, in fact amd is stupid for not having any.

Nobody said they were

It's the commercials that give people the attitude Arinthel pointed out. A lot of people don't even realise AMD exists, and the major PC stores / manufactuers tend to pretend AMD doesn't exist because Intel pay them bags of money to stock their processors or to use them in their machines.

It's a shame the Intel advertising is so sucessful - people are getting ripped off and paying more for processors than they should be. Having said that, I haven't seen a single AMD commercial, so it's partly their fault for not making people aware they exist.

Yeah it's all about good marketing, and Intel benefits from having a very established position in the desktop CPU market.

[KardiaK]

i actualy heard an AMD commercial on the radio when i went down to L.A. for a week. it was for the 64's and just said like "powerful performance" so it didnt realy do anything different that any intel advertising but hey, its a start