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GeekNights 070416 - AMD and Intel: CPUs Through the Years

RymRym
edited April 2007 in Technology
Tonight on GeekNights, we talk a bit about the history of computer processors from a purely consumer perspective, leaving out most of the deeper tech. In the news, DVORAK is lame, and DRM is coming to Flash.

Scott's Thing - Unicycle!
Rym's Thing - One Kind of Person I Dislike

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Comments

  • SailSail
    edited April 2007
    Dvorak < Dvorak
    Post edited by Sail on
  • rhinocerorhinocero
    Oh, man. That reviewer lady is from San Francisco. Now I feel ashamed. I mean, KRON is a shit station anyway, but still. Damn.
  • CorbinCorbin
    I'm going to assume that the unicyclist is not Chinese but Japanese, because it says Nihon (Japan) in characters on the banner behind her, correct me if I'm wrong.

    Good God, thise brought back memories of the AMD vs. Intel war. I remember back in my Information Technology Systems class there were people vehemently saying "Intel is so much better!!" and others saying "AMD is the best!!" ahhh memories.

    When I first saw "Dvorak is lame" I thought they were talking about John C Dvorak too :-p
  • CorbinCorbin
    Oh yah, and that lady was a complete ass.
  • JekkioJekkio
    Yeesh what a grouch. While I personally would not let a child of mine (figuratively speaking) see this film, I have no doubt that any reasonably minded person can tell the difference between reality and smoke and mirrors.
  • HecateHecate
    This episode brought back memories of the early days of overclocking and the craziness that ensued :)

    I remember well the motherboard in the freezer, insane watercooling setups and those guys from New Zealand who cooled their PC with liquid hydrogen. Most of these setups involved early Celerons - there was one particular batch that could be overclocked far beyond it's published specs, and everyone was searching for chips with that certain serial number prefix ;)
  • HungryJoeHungryJoe
    When I first saw "Dvorak is lame" I thought they were talking about John C Dvorak too :-p
    I first thought of Dvorak.
  • AndrewAndrew
    I first thought ofDvorak.
    Same here.
  • AprecheApreche
    I first thought ofDvorak.
    Same here.
    That is indeed the best of all Dvoraks.
  • KilarneyKilarney
    You mean it wasn't this Dvorak?
  • KilarneyKilarney
    To answer the logical fallacy question, is the answer "Unstated Major Premise?"
  • AndrewAndrew
    Isn't it just a False Premise like Scott said?
  • KilarneyKilarney
    edited April 2007
    Looks like it is indeed a little too early for me to purchase a computer. CNN is reporting that the new Intel Penryn chips will be up to 40% faster in high-end applications. That's a huge jump!

    We'll have to see what the price is for these new Penryn chips. The reality is that the E6600 is probably more than adequate for what I'd like to do. (Except the Penryn would be sweet for Flight Simulator.)

    So when do people predict that the E6600 will be at the right price point?

    I'm assuming that it never pays to be the first to adopt new technology. That means that I'll have to wait about 2 years for the new Intel Penryn chips to be cost-effective. So maybe the E6600 is looking good after all.
    Post edited by Kilarney on
  • RymRym
    So when do people predict that the E6600 will be at the right price point?
    If the supposed April 22nd leaked price drop occurs, it will be a close fight. The real sticking point for me is that AMD is slashing their prices in order to remain competitive, and it's working to a surprising degree...

    After April 22nd, I'll be a lot more confident one way or the other.
  • ShaunShaun
    edited April 2007
    Naked Assertion
    Post edited by Shaun on
  • RichLatherRichLather
    Beaten to the news about the Penryn chips.

    For Christmas I got a Core2Duo (E6400 or E6600), an ATI X1950 video card and a Sound Blaster X-Fi just waiting for me to get another $400 for a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 LGA 775 mobo, 4GB of PC2 6400 RAM, a new SATA HDD and an IDE controller so I can pull over one of my two current HDDs. It feels like the longest wait of my life, and I hope I get it built before it gets too far out of date.

    The computer I'm using now (P4 2.4GHz HT, 1GB RAM, GeForce 6600GT) will then transition into a video render and folding box or a media server.
  • RymRym
    I was under the impression that Penryn was old news... ^_~
  • JasonJason
    Okay, seriously. I can only open so many tabs at a time, here people. STOP WITH THE SERIAL LINKING! ^_~
  • KilarneyKilarney
    I was under the impression that Penryn was old news... ^_~
    It's just that today they actually came out with some performance numbers. (albeit generic)
  • KilarneyKilarney
    edited April 2007
    Who knows how accurate anandtech is, but if the prices quoted in this post are true, then it looks like August is the time for me to pull the trigger on a new system.

    A 3.00 ghz Core 2 Duo with 4mb cache for $266? I hope this is true! Heck... the processor I'm looking at now for $308 will have a slightly faster version for $183.

    One interesting result. In August, there will be two chips priced at $266.
    1) E6850 - 4MB - 1333MHz - 3.00GHz Core 2 Duo
    2) Q6600 - 8MB - 1066MHz - 2.40GHz Core 2 Quad

    Wouldn't the Q6600 be a faster performer - or am I missing something?

    August isn't that far away... now if I only knew that this would be true.
    Post edited by Kilarney on
  • RichLatherRichLather
    If what Scrym said in this episode is accurate, a Quad Core is pretty much overkill for current-day applications, or at least for games. As someone who does a lot of video editing, I have to wonder if that would benefit from a Quaddie.
  • KilarneyKilarney
    Here is a pretty good article that puts some of these processors and prices into context. It definitely makes me want to wait until Q3.
  • AprecheApreche
    The quad core would only help your video encoding/decoding if the encoding and decoding software was designed to take advantage of it. You could very well write an encoder that would use all four cores in tandem to cut your rendering times. However, I imagine most of these programs were not written with parallel processing in mind. You're lucky if they take advantage of two cores, let alone four. Even if your encoder takes advantage of only one core, there is a benefit to having a dual core chip. That advantage is that you can run the encoder on one core while still having a perfectly usable computer with all the other processes using the other core. I remember the one time I ran an overnight encode with my Pentium ///. I couldn't use the computer at all until it was done.
  • CorbinCorbin
    I think that the video Scott was talking about inear then end of the show was this one. Ahh Tom's Hardware how you were so good back in the day. I remember I built a computer by referencing the hardware from Tom's and getting them from Pricewatch.
  • ThaedThaed
    Boy did you guys bring back memories. I build many Cyrix based PCs back in the day. Scott said only people who were really nerdy or poor bought Cyrix chips. I even owned stock in the company. lol.
    Also, I believe my original IBM XT had an 8088 processor, not the 8086.

    I think everyone underestimates the value of the quad core chips. You guys must not do much video editing. Quad is only the beginning. We'll all be using 80 core chips in 5 years.
  • RymRym
    We'll all be using 80 core chips in 5 years.
    Many-core chips are wonderful ONLY if applications use them properly. It's difficult to write such applications, and in many cases impossible. Diminishing returns from internal losses increase as the number of cores increase.

    For the foreseeable future, a small to moderate number of ever-faster cores will definitely out-perform more numerous but slower cores.
  • KilarneyKilarney
    As for buying a new system in August when the new chips come out....

    Do you think that DX10 will be mainstream in graphics cards by that point? I know that most games haven't adopted it yet, but supposedly it will really speed things up since it's a total re-code. Right now the selection of DX10 cards is limited at best. There isn't a whole lot of price competition.
  • AprecheApreche
    As for buying a new system in August when the new chips come out....

    Do you think that DX10 will be mainstream in graphics cards by that point? I know that most games haven't adopted it yet, but supposedly it will really speed things up since it's a total re-code. Right now the selection of DX10 cards is limited at best. There isn't a whole lot of price competition.
    You can only get DX10 if you run Vista. Plan on running Vista? If yes, a DX10 card is probably worth it. If not, then get the best DX9 card there is.
  • KilarneyKilarney
    edited April 2007
    I'd like to stick with XP, but I've resigned myself to getting Vista if I'm waiting until August. I'm just hoping that there will be better drivers by then. If I am going to get Vista, I'm glad to be waiting a few months to get the kinks worked out.

    Is Vista much more of a hog than XP if I run it in basic mode? I just don't see the point of sucking up system resources for something like that. Vista is getting a lot of mixed reviews amongst gamers. Since the only game I play is made by Microsoft, I'm hoping that it will indeed work well with Vista.

    This will be my first computer purchase in about 5 years - and the current machine I own was cheap even 5 years ago. It's just a Celeron 1.8ghz with 718mb RAM and onboard video. I think it cost something like $450 with a monitor. (It was an IBM employee's friend price.) The motherboard only has PCI slots - not even AGP! And yet... it still performs just fine for 95% of what I want to do.

    Is it me or do computers have more "staying power" than they used to? A 2 year old computer used to seem ancient. Now they just don't seem that bad.

    What's really frustrating is that I'd rather not buy a Dell - but I'm not really finding anyone that's cheaper. (Dell seems to use a lot of proprietary stuff that's hard to tinker with.)
    Post edited by Kilarney on
  • jwallacejwallace
    edited April 2007
    @ Kilarney: I'm also not ready for Vista yet, but I do need a new PC pronto. I'm planning on purchasing a Dell next month only because I need one immediately for school plus the fact that not having a PC in my room has caused a valuable personal stream of information to be lost. Dell machines seem to be the only viable choice for consumer wishing to try out Vista and are not as messily manufactured (like HP/Compaq).

    What I would suggest is purchasing a Vista PC and and installing a second drive to run Windows XP - in this manner if a game like Supreme Commander or the upcoming PC version of Lost Planet doesn't work seamlessly in Vista then just install it on the second drive.

    Whether consumer-priced PCs have had more staying power within the last five years depends upon the care of the users, however I submit that my aunt's PC is six years old and has huge globs of dust in the floppy drive and several layers of dust on the motherboard but it still works.
    Post edited by jwallace on
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