Northwood is here...oh boy, so what??!!

[Chronus]

Exactly.

So what?

With a 0.13 micron core, with a standard air cooling reaching as much as 2.6 and heavy cooling making it go to 2.8, it seems impressive...

Well, with a 0.18 core, AMD's Palomino has gone as far as 2.2 Ghz with heavy cooling...

I think there has been too much of a "party" arranged around this new Intel release. It looks promissing, but every review places it only a little bit ahead of the XP 2000+, whose core is running almost 600 Mhz slower!

Well, people, talk about celebrating by antecipating the victory in the War when the little battles haven't been won yet. When AMD finally releases its .013 micron core, we will see how good is the Northwood after all.

Chronus
Sim-News Contributing Editor

[chosenfool]

my main concern is how much faster can i rip my DVDs to DiVX...

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no one else will admit to it

[talldude]

Originally posted by Chronus:
Exactly.

So what?

With a 0.13 micron core, with a standard air cooling reaching as much as 2.6 and heavy cooling making it go to 2.8, it seems impressive...

Well, with a 0.18 core, AMD's Palomino has gone as far as 2.2 Ghz with heavy cooling...

I think there has been too much of a "party" arranged around this new Intel release. It looks promissing, but every review places it only a little bit ahead of the XP 2000+, whose core is running almost 600 Mhz slower!

Well, people, talk about celebrating by antecipating the victory in the War when the little battles haven't been won yet. When AMD finally releases its .013 micron core, we will see how good is the Northwood after all.

Chronus
Sim-News Contributing Editor

There's a couple of flaws withing your argument. It has been shown that the current .18u atlon core has already a .13u gatelength implemented. The reduction in gatelength is probably the most signifficant improvement in providing more headroom for any given processor.

The Northwood has been shown to be able to reach 3Ghz rather easily. By the end of the year, that barrier will probably be broken. What does AMD have to counter that? I would seriously doubt that the tbred can scale to 2.3-4Ghz which it needs to stay competitive with the Northwood. Yet another advantage for the Northwood is increased L2 cache, which hasn't been confirmed for the tbred. They are believed to stick with 256kb L2.

In the future, programs are going to leave a larger footprint, this means L2 cache becomes more of a contributor for performance. Northwood will shine here.

Lastly, the Northwood has several core improvements over the Williamette:
Northwood:
512Kb L2
.13u copper interconnects
improved branch prediction

Willimette:
256Kb L2
.18u aluminum interconnects

while the tbred will essentially be a scaled down version of the XP with an extra 2 pipline stages. There are no confirmed reports of any other improvement for the core. The extra pipeline will help it to scale more but not signifficantly.

In the end, the Northwood will be the winner of the two. However...even if this battle is lost, the claw-hammer is just around the corner!

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squire of an OC Crusader
Abit SH6 (finally working )
p3 slot1 700@860mhz (cooled by alpha p3125)
Max OC to boot in windows 896 mhz
creative geforce 256 120@150 core 166@200 memory
soundblaster live platinum
2x 128 mb pc-100 ram cas2 (awesome stuff)
28.5GB barracuda ATA
creative CDRW 4x4x32
buffalo 11mbs wireless lan
SE Overclockers SETI@Home Team

[sapasion]

Yes and no. Northwood is the king of the hill now in pure overall performance. The 2.2Ghz goes aircooled past 2.9Ghz [all reviews who really intend to max an OC get at least this high]. At 2.9Ghz Northwood will defeat anything AMD currently has period. [Yes at stock speeds its a virtual tie with the stock XP2000+]
Now I do however, believe in the OC ability of the Tbred if they have the 1.8Ghz 2200+ out by March I think that cpu will be capable of 2.2Ghz. Tbred's default clockspeed will probably on get as high as 2.0-2.2Ghz by the end of the summer but that should be enough to keep it neck and neck with Northwood; which by then should be OCing into the mid 3Ghz range.

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OC Crusaders
My Humble Rig

[Moridin]

Originally posted by talldude:
There's a couple of flaws withing your argument. It has been shown that the current .18u atlon core has already a .13u gatelength implemented. The reduction in gatelength is probably the most signifficant improvement in providing more headroom for any given processor.

While I believe this is happening, (in fact it is guarantied that all semiconductor manufacturers do this to some degree) it’s essentially impossible to prove. AMD’s roadmaps seem to support the theory, and Intel has publicly stated they believe AMD is “cheating” on gate lengths/process definitions, but this doesn’t really prove anything.

While the evidence is strong, it isn’t nor likely ever be established as 100% fact.

That being said, my own feeling, and this seems supported by AMD’s roadmaps, is that the AXP will not get much above 2 GHz (stock) without the aid of SOI. By the end of summer I predict that AMD will 800 MHz behind and Intel will have another per clock performance boost under its belt from raising the FSB to 133 (X4).


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Life is complex. It has real and imaginary parts.

[dudephil]

You know what guys. I have a few computers myself. The least one being a 400Mhz and the most being a 1.3Gig. I also have an 800 Mhz and a 1 gig. For everything I do, i cannot tell any difference in speed between the 800,1.0, and 1.3. True , I'm not much of a gamer but if I was I would buy a gaming console to game on.All this talk about who has the fastest processor is old news.All computers today are fast.It's all about what can your computer do that mine can't. Just look at Mac's new invention. It just has an 800Mhz processor in it, but look at everything it can do. That's what counts in todays world.

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Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead.
"Live as if your were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
-Mahatma Gandhi

[sapasion]

Originally posted by dudephil:
You know what guys. I have a few computers myself. The least one being a 400Mhz and the most being a 1.3Gig. I also have an 800 Mhz and a 1 gig. For everything I do, i cannot tell any difference in speed between the 800,1.0, and 1.3. True , I'm not much of a gamer but if I was I would buy a gaming console to game on.All this talk about who has the fastest processor is old news.All computers today are fast.It's all about what can your computer do that mine can't. Just look at Mac's new invention. It just has an 800Mhz processor in it, but look at everything it can do. That's what counts in todays world.

Great point about the so-called Mhz myth. Its all about what you want to do with your machine. Gamers and OCers do tend to flock towards a certain field though.

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OC Crusaders
My Humble Rig

[ynd69]

Isn't it amazing how people speculate? AMD will have this Intel will have this...and then get beat by that... blah blah...

God..

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~ Baron ynd69 of the OC Crusaders ~

System Specifications

Trance - Is it in you?

[CJ8879]

"Great point about the so-called Mhz myth. Its all about what you want to do with your machine. Gamers and OCers do tend to flock towards a certain field though."

AMD is following Apple's mistake .

The Mhz myth isn't a myth to the common folk, and it will show yet again here with Intel continuing to dominate the processor market.

[sapasion]

Originally posted by ynd69:
Isn't it amazing how people speculate? AMD will have this Intel will have this...and then get beat by that... blah blah...

God..

How right you are! Cruise over to VideoCard for the same thing too. Of course that's just how we are isn't it. I mean I got my NFL playoff picks lined up already


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OC Crusaders
My Humble Rig

[macutty]

Originally posted by Chronus:
Exactly.

So what?

With a 0.13 micron core, with a standard air cooling reaching as much as 2.6 and heavy cooling making it go to 2.8, it seems impressive...

Well, with a 0.18 core, AMD's Palomino has gone as far as 2.2 Ghz with heavy cooling...

I think there has been too much of a "party" arranged around this new Intel release. It looks promissing, but every review places it only a little bit ahead of the XP 2000+, whose core is running almost 600 Mhz slower!

Well, people, talk about celebrating by antecipating the victory in the War when the little battles haven't been won yet. When AMD finally releases its .013 micron core, we will see how good is the Northwood after all.

Chronus
Sim-News Contributing Editor

I don't think this is fair, it's like the differencr between a big block domestic V8 (Intel)and a small displacment turbo import (AMD) domestic puts up big numbers by having big every thing (big pistons, holley double pumper, long tube headers) where the imports do more with what they have (turbo, fancy fuel injection and digital ignition) just like AMD. So in the end you have a little twin turbo 4 banger thats putting the same 1/4 mile times and trap speeds up as a big bore thumper. Just cubic inches dont measure an engine and neither does MHz measure a CPU.

Point being you cant compare MHz and the such on an equal plane, the manufacturers are trying to do something completely different.

I mean does anyone think that this is a matter of AMD being uncapable of making a 2.2GHz CPU? NO.

And could intel not be able to pull more performance out of a clock? Laughable.

And the debate goes on......

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C900@1333 w/Alpha PAL6035----------------------C566@850
CUSL2-C------------------------------------------P2B-f
256MB Micron-------------------------------------256MB Micron
Elsa GF2MX 32MB----------------------------------Creative TNT2 Ultra
QuantumFB 20G ATA100/7200----------------------2X WD 13G ATA66
SBLIVE! Value-------------------------------------SBLIVE! Value

[sapasion]

Originally posted by CJ8879:

The Mhz myth isn't a myth to the common folk, and it will show yet again here with Intel continuing to dominate the processor market.

Well Q4 2001 sales show that the general public does seem to be either buying into AMD's PR labeling scheme or they flat out know what the benchmarks say. AMD captured a greater portion than ever before.

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OC Crusaders
My Humble Rig

[ynd69]

Originally posted by sapasion:

How right you are! Cruise over to VideoCard for the same thing too. Of course that's just how we are isn't it. I mean I got my NFL playoff picks lined up already

Just gets to me sometimes, but that's how we are

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~ Baron ynd69 of the OC Crusaders ~

System Specifications

Trance - Is it in you?

[sapasion]

Originally posted by ynd69:
Just gets to me sometimes, but that's how we are

Hmmm maybe you better stay out of Video Cards then; especially with the GF4 launch coming up next month

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OC Crusaders
My Humble Rig

[mellojoe]

Originally posted by sapasion:
Hmmm maybe you better stay out of Video Cards then; especially with the GF4 launch coming up next month

For real. I bought a 32MB graphics card a while back. 32MB! Thats serious especially that its only been recent months where you can buy an OEM that sells anything but integrated with 8MB sharing. Heh.

Now people are complaing that their video cards, which have the power to render the movie Toy Storie in real time, aren't powerful enough. What the H3LL are they doing? Can I at least watch?

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MelloJoe
OC Knight of the OC Crusades
AMD Thunderbird 750mhz @ 900mhz (6 x 150mhz :-D)
...AMD XP1800+ in hand...=)

...Ok ok, maybe 150mhz FSB isn't all that great anymore, but I had the first chipset to be able to handle 133mhz FSB, and I was one of the first generation to be able to hit 150mhz. I used to be a contender...

My Computer Specs with Images

www.JEDProducts.com