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Athlons vs pentiums

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I know this has probably been done to death but why are athlons just as fast or faster than pentiums of far higher clocks speeds, Like my athlon 3500+ i assume means its as fast as a pentium of 3.5ghz but with a clock speed of only 2.2ghz.
 
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I think it is something to do with the memory controller which is ontop of Athlon CPUs. I think the Pentium cpu memory controller is on the motherboard which means data as further to travel which takes longer.

However Athlons are only faster in programs like games. A pentium cpu would beat a athlon cpu usually in number crunching tasks.

(someone correct me if I am wrong!)
 
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The athlons have a shorter pipeline and can process more data per cycle than a pentium 4.

its like having a pile of coal ,the athlon is the bigger shovel so can move the pile in less shovels

the P4 is the smaller shovel so to move the same ammount of coal it has to move more shovels at a faster pace to move the same ammount.

hope this makes sense its early:)
 
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But is the athlon called a 3500+ because its as fast as a pentium 4 3.5.ghz?
And what sp special about the athlon FX processor that makes it 600 quid?
 
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easyrider said:
The athlons have a shorter pipeline and can process more data per cycle than a pentium 4.

its like having a pile of coal ,the athlon is the bigger shovel so can move the pile in less shovels

the P4 is the smaller shovel so to move the same ammount of coal it has to move more shovels at a faster pace to move the same ammount.

hope this makes sense its early:)


OI! That's my analogy :p


The PR (eg 3500) ratings apparently don't correspond to Pentium 4s (officially they are the speed in mhz that an original Thunderbird 1ghz athlon would have to run at to be as quick, IE a 3.5ghz thunderbird = an athlon 64 3500) - in reality it basically is supposed to be a 3.5ghz p4, but its not as quick as that.
 
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hogfather said:
OI! That's my analogy :p


The PR (eg 3500) ratings apparently don't correspond to Pentium 4s (officially they are the speed in mhz that an original Thunderbird 1ghz athlon would have to run at to be as quick, IE a 3.5ghz thunderbird = an athlon 64 3500) - in reality it basically is supposed to be a 3.5ghz p4, but its not as quick as that.

Is it?

:D i read it somewhere and it seemed to make sense :p
 
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As hogfather says officially they are for comparison with the Athlon Thunderbird

The A64 3500+ can be roughly compared to a 3.5GHz P4 though. Hogfather isn't correct when he says that it isn't as quick as that - it all depends on the task

For most tasks they will be on par with eachother. The P4 will have an advantage when encoding, for example, and the A64 when gaming
 
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Why are the A64's better for gaming? I always thought gaming was heavly dependant on number crunching and Floating point calculations which i thought the pentiums are better at. Also whats the difference between different athlons apart from clock speeds, because i see that a 3500+ is clocked at 2.2ghz but so is a 3700+ and the 3800+ and 4000+ are both clocked at 2.4ghz, So whats making the 4000+ faster than the 3800+? And is the FX 64's only advantage being that it runs at 2.8ghz or is it faster than the other athlons for other reasons as well.
 
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radio91 said:
Why are the A64's better for gaming?

Largely due to the shorter pipelines (12 on the Socket 939's instead of 30+ on the modern Pentiums). Modern CPU's have predictive algorithms in the pipelines, but if one of the predictions is wrong all of the data in the pipeline is scrapped and the calculation must be restarted. It's usually less 'costly' for a AMD CPU to abandon this data than an Intel processor.

radio91 said:
I always thought gaming was heavly dependant on number crunching and Floating point calculations which i thought the pentiums are better at.

The modern AMD CPU's nullify Intel's advantage in this field. They are very efficient.

radio91 said:
Also whats the difference between different athlons apart from clock speeds, because i see that a 3500+ is clocked at 2.2ghz but so is a 3700+ and the 3800+ and 4000+ are both clocked at 2.4ghz, So whats making the 4000+ faster than the 3800+?

Look very carefully at the description for these items. Check both the L2 cache size, and the CPU multipliers as well as the core type.

The cores have essentially progressed since the first 939 CPU's were brought out as:

Newcastle
Winchester
Venice
San Diego

(I've got a nasty feeling I've missed one out).

Each revision has had incremental improvements to the memory controller and technology used within the chip (such as strained silicon, and the drop from 130nm CPU manufacture to 90nm... 65nm expected later this year!!!).

3800 - Venice Core. 512K L2 Cache. 2.4Ghz (12x multiplier).
3700 - San Diego Core. 1mb L2 Cache. 2.2Ghz (11x multiplier).
4000 - San Diego Core. 1mb L2 Cache. 2.4Ghz (12x multiplier).

The combination of revised technologies (as indicated by the core) and the L2 cache is what makes the 4000+ faster than the 3800+.
 
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Okey i get you, Is there anywhere i can read up on what multipliers and other overclocking varibles actualy are ? Its all very well trying to follow the guide and knowing what to set things to, But its better if you actually understand what it all means.
 
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Dace said:
The cores have essentially progressed since the first 939 CPU's were brought out as:

Newcastle
Winchester
Venice
San Diego

(I've got a nasty feeling I've missed one out).

Theres Clawhammer in there as well somewhere, think it came before the Newcastle, and wasnt there a Sledgehammer as well? Or am I taking carp?

Edit: Just found this after a quick search.. loads of info on the A64 chips and overclocking for you:)

Linkage!!!
 
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Sledgehammer was the orignal Opteron core and Clawhammer was the original Socket 754 A64s.

It used to be the case the AMDs lagged in terms of encoding/hardcore CPU frazzlement due to most such programs liking high clockspeeds, effectively neutering all the gains AMD made in terms of efficiency. However, massive gains in HT frequency, cache size and instruction sets have not closed that gap and even surpassed Intel's mainstream offerings.

radio91 - unfortunately, the best way by a country/city (area-dependent) mile to learn what does what in that horrible thing called a 'BIOS' is literally to change things and see what they do. Load up a benchmark program, like SuperPi, PiFast, Prime95 or whatever and see what gives you the best stable performance. Follow the guides in terms of what to adjust first, etc. and then just play around.

It's all well and good learning from a book but nothing beats practical experience.

Just be warned, however - once you start, it's difficult to stop.
 
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How far do you think socket 939 will go? I mean will there be any knew faster cpus released on socket 939 and if so what do you think the maxium speed will be?
 
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my xp-m can hit 2.8 on water, but is curently @ 6x100 in my mates machine lol

i bet a 3.5ghz tbird would be signifcantly faster than a 3500+, if clocked at 3.5 ghz and a decent fsb like 250 or something
 
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