Question about AMD...

S

SemiDevil

New Member
Hey all

I have a few quesion about AMD processor.

AMD's label are as following:
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ =2.0GHz
Athlon 64 X2 4200+ =2.2GHz
Athlon 64 X2 4400+ =2.2GHz
Athlon 64 X2 4600+ =2.4GHz
Athlon 64 X2 4800+ =2.4GHz

1st question: What does the 3800+ and 4200+ and 4400+..etc..etc.. means?

Why don't they put down Athlon 64 x2 2.4 GHZ or something like that?

2) Is 2.4 ghz the highest AMD can go? If it is, its not very high.

3) What is the difference between 4600 and a 4800 since both of them are 2.4 ghz?

4) If 2.4 ghz is the highest AMD can go, than I"m assuming that GHZ is not AMD's selling point. If its not the selling point, than what is AMD's selling point? More cache?

Thank you guys...I'm really appreciate it.


Semi
 
Amds are not like intel. They dont go by Ghz. the 3800+ means the model basicly. With Amds more Ghz doesnt always mean faster, so naming it after the Ghz would be pointless.
 
4600 means that processor is eqaul to an intel processor of 4600 Mhz or 4.6 ghz.

There selling point is that you get performence Chips at a value price.
 
4600 means that processor is eqaul to an intel processor of 4600 Mhz or 4.6 ghz.
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Cool...I did not know that....Intel made a 4.6 Ghz processor? WOW..

No way..

I did not know that.


With Amds more Ghz doesnt always mean faster, so naming it after the Ghz would be pointless.
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Oh...well thats cool..
 
No intel didnt but if they did a 4600+ would be equal to it
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Or about
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Oh, I see. Hm...I have a little suspicious mind here... A 4600 is about 2.4 GHZ and they claimed that an AMD 2.4 GHZ is about equals to Intel's 4.6 GHZ? Hmm...:confused: :confused:

If taht is the case then, shouldn't AMD be handling applications better than an intel instead of the other way around?

:confused:
 
Remember GHz is just clock rate or how many times the processor does something per second. The faster you speed up the clock rate the more you can do in less time. Its like if humans could run 1000 mph we could get alot more done.
From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_rate

The clock rate is the fundamental rate in cycles per second, measured in hertz, at which a computer performs its most basic operations such as adding two numbers or transferring a value from one processor register to another.....Clock rate should not be used when comparing different computers or different processor families. Rather, some software benchmark should be used. Clock rate can be very misleading, since the amount of work different computer chips can do in one cycle varies.
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QACJared said:
4600 means that processor is eqaul to an intel processor of 4600 Mhz or 4.6 ghz.

There selling point is that you get performence Chips at a value price.
Click to expand...

that was more true with the lower end chips, nowadays, it's not that accurate anymore.

And btw, intel is starting to adopt this method too. If you look at their PM and PD lineup, they're starting to the the number models too.
 
1) The numbers are just ratings, so its telling you that a 4200 is better then a 4000, but not as good as a 4400.

2) AMD's newer cpu's do go higher, upto 2.8Ghz stock i think, but the reason they generally have a lower speed compared to Intel is because it does more calculations per clock cycle then Intel does. And because of this, the temperatures are/were alot lower then Intels.

3) The difference is (off the top of my head, i cba to check atm) that the 4800 has more L2 Cache. Thats usually the difference between steps when the speed is the same.

4) I wouldn't really say they have a selling. In the skt A processors, unoffically, the numbers (ie. 2800) represented the equivalent of Intels (2.8Ghz in this case) processors. But as liuliuboy said, i dont think thats the case so much anymore
 
Motoxrdude said:
Amds are not like intel. They dont go by Ghz. the 3800+ means the model basicly. With Amds more Ghz doesnt always mean faster, so naming it after the Ghz would be pointless.
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Intle's have a numbering system now as well, such as the Pentium 4 630 and the Pentium D 930, they dont sell by the "Ghz".

QACJared said:
4600 means that processor is eqaul to an intel processor of 4600 Mhz or 4.6 ghz.

There selling point is that you get performence Chips at a value price.
Click to expand...
That is completly wrong. A 4600+ does not equal a 4.6Ghz Intel. The new Intel chips operate at a lower frequency just like AMD, and in some chips a 2Ghz Intel would outperform a 2Ghz AMD. Just look at the Core Duo's and Pentium M's speed, which maxes out around 2.2Ghz.

Even if you compare the Athlon 64 line to the Pentium 4 line, the model number doesnt equal the same performance as a Pentium 4 at similar clock speeds. The AMD would outperform in games, where as the Intel would outperform in everything else.

QACJared said:
Remember GHz is just clock rate or how many times the processor does something per second. The faster you speed up the clock rate the more you can do in less time. Its like if humans could run 1000 mph we could get alot more done.
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It isnt just Ghz that determine the speed. The Pentium 4 line was clocked really high because of there long 31-stage pipeline. The newer technology uses shorter and less pipelines, which effectivily gets more done per Ghz.
 
1) The numbers are just ratings, so its telling you that a 4200 is better then a 4000, but not as good as a 4400.

2) AMD's newer cpu's do go higher, upto 2.8Ghz stock i think, but the reason they generally have a lower speed compared to Intel is because it does more calculations per clock cycle then Intel does. And because of this, the temperatures are/were alot lower then Intels.

3) The difference is (off the top of my head, i cba to check atm) that the 4800 has more L2 Cache. Thats usually the difference between steps when the speed is the same.

4) I wouldn't really say they have a selling. In the skt A processors, unoffically, the numbers (ie. 2800) represented the equivalent of Intels (2.8Ghz in this case) processors. But as liuliuboy said, i dont think thats the case so much anymore
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Awesome...Thank you.

It isnt just Ghz that determine the speed.
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Could let me know what else determines the speed? The link down there said that the Clock rate should not be used when comparing two processor.

What else should we use?
 
When comparing processors you want to look for a few major things, such as; Clock speed, cache, FSB, bus, as well as if it has HT or HTT.

Intel made it very easy to compare their processors, the higher number the better. Such as a Celeron D 360 vs a Pentium 4 630.
 
When comparing processors you want to look for a few major things, such as; Clock speed, cache, FSB, bus, as well as if it has HT or HTT.

Intel made it very easy to compare their processors, the higher number the better. Such as a Celeron D 360 vs a Pentium 4 630.
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Oh ok...cool.

I'm curious to when you said that Intel made it pretty easy to compare their processor, because the higher the number the better.

Does this mean that its a little different from AMD? For AMD, is it the higher the number doesn't mean its faster?

Thanx
 
yea, they used to mean 3200 would be a p4 3.2ghz... but lately the dual core model #'s havent really meant that.. AT ALL lol...
dual core is a whole different processor, it doesn't just increase performance in everything... only in some apps and in multithreading.
a 3800+ to a 4200+, they only increase 200mhz...
a 4200+ to a 4400+, they both run at 2.2ghz but the 4400+ has more cache which also increases performance.
same goes for the 4600+ and the 4800+ they both run at 2.4ghz but the 4800+ has more cache.
like my friends said, an Athlon 64 MHZ does not equal a Pentium 4 MHZ.
generally when it comes to the single cores an athlon 64 3200+ would run about as fast (depending on the application) as a P4 3.2ghz..
but with dual cores, an FX-60 generally outperforms all P4's and Pentium D's (dual core Pentium 4)... that is except for the dual core Pentium D's and Pentium 4 extreme edition.
the fastest AMD chip is a single core FX-57 at 2.8ghz... and the fastest AMD dual core is FX-60 at 2.6ghz...
of course i've seen Athlon 64 single core's overclocked to 3.7ghz before.. which would ultimately outperform any Pentium 4...
and i've also seen Pentium 4's overclocked to 5ghz before...
note that all these processors used alternate cooling like vapochill... but they can achieve speeds that high!

basically, you can't compare Athlon 64 "GHz" to Pentium 4 "GHz", because it makes up for it in process time.
also, you can't really compare dual core to single core, and dual core to dual core with hyperthreading...
it gets complicated, but generally there is a better processor for the individual... depending on what you want to do.
i prefer AMD dual core, because i like to game, especially quake 4 (played for like 2hrs earlier) and i also like to listen to music while i do so.

generally a Pentium 4 at 3.4ghz would not be as good as an Athlon 64 at 2.4ghz... seems weird, but its true.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Dec/bch20051215033811.htm
if you thought that was long... lol read that!
 
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Thank you..

Very valuable information.

I have another question: I think I have read somewhere in an article that was comparing AMD and Intel and they said this :

WHen it comes to playing games AMD will trump Intel no problem.

And when it comes to applications or multitasking(or anything else besides games) Intell will generally be better, but the margin is really small. So, for the price that AMD offer, why not get AMD?

Thats pretty much the gist of the article. I would like to read the article again if any ofyou guys have it or know where I can read it again. It was pretty interesting.

I dont' really know how true it is...but....I just want to read it again, its really amusing.

Semi
 
fade2green514 said:
yea, they used to mean 3200 would be a p4 3.2ghz...
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They never meant that, AMD even says that on there site. People just assume that, and sometimes it did seem like it could be right, but deffinetly not anymore.

Does this mean that its a little different from AMD? For AMD, is it the higher the number doesn't mean its faster?
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It's similar, since an AMD Sempron 3300+ is faster than the Sempron 2800+, but you cant compare a Sempron to an Athlon 64 by there model number, since they have the same numbers. But you can compare a Celeron D to a Pentium D with Intel's.

WHen it comes to playing games AMD will trump Intel no problem.

And when it comes to applications or multitasking(or anything else besides games) Intell will generally be better, but the margin is really small. So, for the price that AMD offer, why not get AMD?
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Generally yes, but Intel's upcoming CPU will be better in games and multitasking.
 
even tho INTEL is high clock speed than AMD it cant be compared like that

analogy

you have two tracks. one is 100m around and the other is 200m around.

INTEL is on the 200m track while AMD is on the 100m track. INTEL has a high clock speed so let say it goes at 50mph and AMD has lower clock speed so let say it goes at 30mph. They both start at the same time and just keep doing laps.


Now if you are just comparing by clock speeding then you would want the chip that run farther in the same amount of time, which would be INTEL.


But a processor is just speed but its amount of work that gets done and a lot more stuff i can remember. Then you would want the chip that does the most laps in the same amount of time, which would be AMD because of the shorter track. Also AMD has a higher ratio of speed to laps thatn INTEL does.


So you cant compare an AMD chip to an INTEL chip by their clock speed
 
well my personal opinion is that if you do any gaming at all then athlon 64 is currently the best.. pentium 4 chips are priced well, but they're more multitasking chips..
basically id prefer to concentrate my money on a better gaming worse multitasking chip. money spent on a "customized" chip.
i figure, i can't game while im asleep right?? well i can encode video's while im asleep if i need to lol... or while im at work or at school..
but either way ive got gaming + multitasking performance :)
athlon 64 X2 for the win!!! :D
 
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