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Subject: Re: AMD 64 FX - PC Experts - Athlon 3400 just as good?

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 10:00:39 01/09/04

Go up one level in this thread


On January 09, 2004 at 12:24:47, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>On January 09, 2004 at 10:13:39, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On January 09, 2004 at 00:29:51, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>
>>>On January 09, 2004 at 00:20:48, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>
>>>>On January 08, 2004 at 23:39:42, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On January 08, 2004 at 22:50:32, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>>Where is this going on? Aren't all of the 64 bit Athlons named "Athlon 64"?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>They are not being called that everywhere.  IE 3400+ what?
>>>>>
>>>>>I think you're confused about AMD's product line. 3400+ is the speed rating.
>>>>>Athlon 64 is the family name. The full name of the chip is "Athlon 64 3400+" so
>>>>>I don't think you have a valid complaint.
>>>>
>>>>athlon.  athlon-64.  opteron.  FX51.  And there is "no confusion"?
>>>
>>>I'm not confused. Honda makes the Accord, Accord Coupe, Acura TSX, and Acura TL
>>>and they're all based on the Accord, yet somehow people manage...
>>
>>Not all of those are "accords" with different names, however.
>>
>>FX51.  athlon-64.  Opteron are the same with a minor memory controller
>>difference for one.
>
>Not really. The A64 3000+ has a 512k cache, vs. the others' 1M cache. The A64's
>"minor" memory channel difference is a complete lack of an entire memory
>channel. And only Opteron can be used for multiprocessor scenarios.
>
>Let's compare this to Intel, shall we? Intel sells slightly defective Pentium 4s
>as "Celerons." The only difference is that half the cache is disabled--how is
>this different from disabling, e.g., multiprocessing on an Opteron and calling
>it an Athlon 64?

You are _totally_ missing the point.  And I _do_ mean _TOTALLY_.

Intel re-marks PIVs as celerons to (a) sell chips that might normally
be tossed, or more commonly, to sell 'em at a price point that is cheaper
than the normal PIV chip.

Who cares?

The point here _is_ that the opteron is really a well-done processor.  yet
AMD is burying flavors of it down in the Athlon product line.  If they were
dominating the market, that might make sense.  But now, it would seem that it
is the right time for AMD to market their chips as AMD, and not as "comparable
to Intel's xxxx mhz processor."

If they continue to compare themselves to the Intel product, people will
continue to believe that Intel is better.  Every time I see an advertisement
that says "as good as XXX" it makes me wonder...  "is it really?"  "why do
they compare themselves to XXX unless XXX is very good?"  Etc.

This is about _marketing_.  I suppose if they want to follow Intel until they
die, that's ok.  But _right now_ they actually have something that looks far
better, yet they are marketing it as "as good as"...

>
>Intel also sells the Pentium 4 Extreme Edition, which is absolutely identical to
>one of their Xeons.
>
>So are you going to make the same complaint about Intel, Celerons, Extreme
>Editions, and Xeons?

If you were around more you would know that I _have_ made that complaint in
the past.  So no inconsistency at all.  But in Intel's case, I see why they
are doing it.  They own the high-end marketplace, they are waging a war on the
low-end.  AMD could make a lot of waves with the Opteron.  But it is really
very quiet.



>
>>>>>It's not really nonsense. How else do you propose people tell the difference
>>>>>between a 486/50 and a 486DX2/50?
>>>>
>>>>I wouldn't fake the MHZ numbers, for sure.  If the external clock frequency
>>>>is 50mhz, it's 50mhz.  If it is 25mhz external and 50 internal, it is 25mhz.
>>>
>>>You're just digging yourself a deeper stupidity hole. If you call it a 486/25,
>>>how do you tell the difference between that and a 486 with a 25MHz internal
>>>clock? According to your backwards notion, there would be half a dozen 800MHz
>>>Pentium 4s that all perform differently.
>>
>>I'm not digging any sort of "hole" at all.  I simply think it wrong to have
>>two chips that say 486-50 when they are not the same.  I think I made that
>
>Of course. I agree completely. That's why the 50MHz int/50MHz ext 486 is called
>a 486/50 whereas the 50MHz int/25MHz ext 486 is called a 486DX2/50. There's no
>"faking" of MHz numbers going on at all.

Sure there is.  The DX2 ran nowhere near 2x faster than the 486/25.  It ran
faster in some cases, but memory was a bottleneck and the external cache
had to work to make it run faster at all, except for dinky programs.


>
>-Tom



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