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Subject: Re: P4 gets blown to pieces, again.

Author: Keith Evans

Date: 10:01:04 04/24/03

Go up one level in this thread


On April 24, 2003 at 01:20:00, Matt Taylor wrote:

>On April 23, 2003 at 23:27:49, Keith Evans wrote:
>
>>On April 23, 2003 at 22:08:41, Matt Taylor wrote:
>>
>>>On April 23, 2003 at 01:01:37, Keith Evans wrote:
>>>
>>>>On April 23, 2003 at 00:43:27, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>On April 22, 2003 at 22:09:16, Aaron Gordon wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>On April 22, 2003 at 21:20:15, Eugene Nalimov wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Here are *official* results for Spec2k. Please notice that Athlon benchmarks
>>>>>>>were submitted by AMD itself.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/results/res2003q1/cpu2000-20030224-01964.html
>>>>>>>http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/results/res2002q4/cpu2000-20021202-01875.html
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>So: base Spec2k for P4/3.06 is 1099. For Athlon XP 3000+ score is 995. Higher is
>>>>>>>better.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Thanks,
>>>>>>>Eugene
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I've done official testing for AMD using AMD's methods. This was when I was
>>>>>>working on the optimized Quake 3 dlls. They had me disable everything in the
>>>>>>bios. This means the test took a pretty large hit performance wise. Why? I asked
>>>>>>AMD the same thing. They responded with, "Intel doesn't think it's fair, so if
>>>>>>we set the bios timings to the fastest settings possible we'd have a large
>>>>>>lawsuit on our hands and AMD doesn't need that". If you need confirmation of
>>>>>>what I'm saying email me at speedycpu@attbi.com and I'll give you the contact
>>>>>>information to the guy at AMD and he'll verify everything I've said.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>So, for a properly configured Athlon, my results are there and plain as day.
>>>>>>Like I said, run them yourself on the same systems I ran them on.
>>>>>
>>>>>I don't see how that works. Intel has the "performance at all costs" reputation
>>>>>for SPEC scores, even going so far as to use its committee clout to make
>>>>>profile-directed optimizations allowed for base scores, and now you're saying
>>>>>they use artificially slow memory timings? You can be sure that the competition
>>>>>(Sun, IBM, HP, etc.) runs their memory as fast as possible--is Intel going to
>>>>>sue them, too? Also, Intel submits slightly higher scores than Dell for the same
>>>>>processors. Does Dell also run its memory slow? And what would the charge be for
>>>>>this lawsuit, anyway? And besides, why do slow memory timings hurt AMD and not
>>>>>Intel?
>>>>>
>>>>>It's one thing to suggest that some sites might be somewhat biased in Intel's
>>>>>favor to get free stuff from them, but in this free-press society, not all sites
>>>>>can be biased, or it would be a major coup for the one that does the exposee.
>>>>>Besides, what benefit would aggressively anti-Intel sites (e.g., AMDZone) get
>>>>>from biasing their reviews towards Intel, and their reviews are remarkably
>>>>>similar to other sites' reviews.
>>>>>
>>>>>Suggesting that all hardware review sites are biased and that Intel, Dell, and
>>>>>AMD are all part of a conspiracy to artificially lower their own SPEC scores...
>>>>>did you forget your tin foil hat today?
>>>>>
>>>>>-Tom
>>>>
>>>>Well if they thought that said settings would produce unreliable behavior, then
>>>>they might feel uncomfortable quoting performance under said conditions. Makes
>>>>sense...
>>>
>>>The default settings are good enough for consumers but unreliable for SPEC?
>>>
>>>-Matt
>>
>>No the default settings are good enough for consumers, and apparently good
>>enough that they use them for SPEC.
>
>Default settings on all my boards are more optimized than the ones Aaron has
>described.
>
>>The "optimized" settings may be operating components out of specification, so
>>they could feel uncomfortable quoting results obtained with those in benchmarks.
>>For example do those people who tweak BIOS settings related to DRAM know how to
>>read a datasheet and verify that all of the parameters are being met?
>
>Modern DRAM has an SPD chip on it that lets the DIMM determine the specs. There
>is a difference between using SPD and manually configuring the DIMM so that it
>runs slower. I believe Aaron was implying the latter.
>
>I have had ram where I've been forced to manually configure it due to the
>manufacturer settings being too aggressive. In my experiences, however, this is
>not the general trend when you buy quality ram (which they were hopefully
>using).
>
>>Tom was basically wondering why they might "hold back", and I offered a
>>potential reason. I doubt that they would intentionally cripple their
>>benchmarks. Believe me I've worked in the electronics industry for a while, and
>>marketing people will do anything possible to quote good numbers.
>
>Considering they've had a couple hard years of losses and their gross income
>doesn't even compare to Intel's profit, AMD has no means to fight a lawsuit.
>Such lawsuits are not aimed for major financial gains but rather to inflict
>financial woes on the opponent. Baseless or not, if AMD was indeed threatened
>with a lawsuit over their numbers, they would be forced to comply.
>
>>I remember back when Diamond was shipping overclocked graphics cards. By default
>>they would be overclocked, and then we people had trouble they would call up and
>>the tech support guys would tell them to edit a ".ini" file to fix the problem.
>>I'm sure the cards that went to reviewers were carefully screened so they could
>>be overclocked and produce good benchmarks.
>
>So if AMD is doing the opposite as Aaron is claiming, it should make you raise
>your eyebrows.
>
>-Matt


It just wouldn't make any sense. If they are so afraid of getting caught up in a
lawsuit with Intel, then how do you explain the release of the Opteron?



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