Stupid question about AMD processors VS Intel...

merlinxi

I notice a lot of AMD processors are only like 2.2 or 2.4 or 2.8 GHZ.

Now P4 are like 3.2 3.0 3.0

how is it that AMD outperforms pentium though???

FSB?

CDsDontBurn

well, this was true up until Intel launched the Core 2 processors 'bout a week or two ago.

what was going on is that AMD processors were more efficient at making calculations per clock cycle, whereas, for Intel processors to make the same (or greater) amount of power, they had to make more cycles to be just as powerful. Thus making the p4 have the higher clock cycles.

The best way i can explain it, is like this; an AMD processor at 2.2Ghz (AMD 3500) does 10 calculations per clock cycle. An Intel 3.6Ghz processor does 6 calculations per clock cycle. The AMD processor is more efficient because it can do more at a slower speed.

merlinxi

Still got to say the AMD's and Intels out now are still good, unless you have crazy money, which it seems some people do, I mean the systems are still really good. Yeah I got the 4600 and it's coming in the mail today it's the X2 4600 so now I understand what you are saying, where can you find the stats on the how many calculations the AMD does per cycle?

dipstick

A few things made the A64's faster than the P4 in most situations; the mentioned 11 vs. 6 ipc(instructions per clock), onboard memory controller, and larger and much faster cache are just a few. Intel learned from its mistakes and the new Core 2 cpus are able to best AMD clock for clock.

zanzabae

the other thing is the p4 used only 100mhz core while amd uses 200mhz (amd needs a lower multiplyer so its faster)

and the clocks that r advertized arnt the only clocks the advrage p4 uses 3.0ghz and 800mhz fsb while the advrage amd is 2.2 ghz and 2ghz fsb, so 4x the fsb will make a huge inpact