AMD and Intel Processor differences

[D8TA]

Wondering if anyone has knowledge in the real differences between an Intel Pentium 4 chip and an AMD Athlon 64 processor? I've looked on both websites and tried using Google but I cannot figure out the inside workings differences. I know the AMD Athlon 64 is a 64 bit processor but cannot figure out what else really sets these processors apart.

Someone said something about the way the processors perform calculations but that really is vague. Can anyone point out or lead me to an article that would assist me in finding the differences. What really sets these processors apart?

Any assistance, feedback, etc would be greatly appreciated.

[KamiQuazi]

Intel chips are more for workstations and the AMD chips are more widely used for gaming... here are some useful links...

Intel Pentium 4 Information

AMD Athlon 64 Information

[RogueSpear]

If you want to find some real tech nitty gritty on CPU inner workings I would try these two web sites:

AnandTech

Tom's Hardware Guide

In my personal experience I've had more problems with AMD based systems than I'm willing to put up with. I'm not actually sure if this is due to the AMD processor or the completely substandard mobo chipsets put out by ALi, SiS, and VIA. I've seen way too much complaining on boards regarding nVidia chipsets. So much so that I would never try one out, at least not with my own money. I haven't heard too much about a solution with an AMD chipset however.

At this point I only recommend Intel mobos to my clients. They aren't gamers, they're businesses and as such, stability and reliability are paramount. If you're a gamer I'm guessing anything would beat out Intel, just don't expect the same kind of reliability.

[ripken204]

RogueSpear-you are correct in giving ur buisiness customes intels but there are not that many bugs with amd. as long as you know what you are doing then you should have any problems at all. the NV chipset is amazing.

[RogueSpear]

The NV chipset may be among the most capable and high performing, however trying to get one of these things to properly install using RIS or in a traditional media based unattended fashion is enough to make a grown man cry.

One thing I will give AMD... dual CPU options. Right now I can't think of a viable dual CPU option for a home user using an Intel CPU. I'm dying to build a dual CPU machine using Intel dual cores with Hyperthreading

[jeeva]

For me Personally, I had more problems installing an Intel Socket 478 System than an AMD Athlon 64 Socket 939 System, regarding CPU and it's Cooler, both boxed ones.

[suryad]

AMD hands down has the better design. Intel focused on getting higher clockspeed and AMD focussed on lower clockspeed but higher performance and scalability as well. Intels dont scale well at all. In fact there was a test where they oclocked an Intel P4 to 5.2 ghz and it still could not beat a stock AMD FX part. I dont remember the exact details but I think hexus.net ran that article. I think the main culprit for Intel is the fact that its data pipeline is a whopping 31 stages in the Prescott processor. Heck a 3.4 ghz northwood is faster slightly than a 3.4 ghz prescott....and produces way less amount of heat!

AMD reportedly is already working on producing the next generation of 64 bit procs with all new architectures and so on. And if you notice the Intel roadmaps they are more focussed on the Pentium M architecture which just happens to be a derivative of the Pentium 3 architecture IIRC.

[albator]

Amd processor rock, (especialy dual cores wich are the only one true dual cores) But AMD procesor are toaster their are hot, so for the mobile Intel centrino beat Amd...

[suryad]

I dont know about toaster hot. Shizz my bro got an HP with an amd 64 clocked at 2ghz and that processor is insanely fast esp in computation intensive applications!!! I couldnt believe how it smoked my 3.4 ghz desktop proc from Intel! **** forget Intel! AMD all the way.

[Zxian]

Dude... get off the "GHz bandwagon". You cannot compare the clockspeed of one processor to another.

To give you some examples - The Pentium-M CPUs that are clocked at 2.16GHz out perform P4's @ 3.6GHz (non-HT mode) in most apps. My Athlon XP 2000+ is clocked at 1.66GHz, while my friend just bought a Sempron 2600+ which is clocked at 1.6Ghz... go figure.

[RogueSpear]

Speed is fine, but in my book reliability is still King of the hill. I've never seen reliability with an AMD system that satisfied me. As I had stated earlier in this thread, that may be more the fault of the supporting chipset than anything AMD has done.

Check out these two articles from Tom's Hardware Guide:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20051010/index.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20051017/index.html

If you buy into half of what is said in these articles, then Intel would seem like a pretty good bet about a year from now. I honestly feel that Intel is the superior company when it comes to engineering, and they certainly have more financial clout to pour into newer and more modern fabrication processes. With that being said, we wouldn't have all of the exponential breakthroughs in CPU performance of the last five years if either Intel or AMD didn't exist. This is a true testament to the benefits of competition.

Imagine if there was a real desktop OS competitor to Windows...

Edited October 20, 2005 by RogueSpear

[ripken204]

i dont care about reliability, no one even really knows how reliable anything is until its dead. all i care is that amd has a better price/perfomance ratio and that amd just plain old rapes intel

[sven]

personaly, i stick with intel, but thats just me, i havent eally spent a lot of time on an amd computer. the one main this you have to watch out is if your cpu overheats. an amd processor will completely shut down the pc, where as a intel will just reduce the clock speed.

[RogueSpear]

i dont care about reliability, no one even really knows how reliable anything is until its dead. all i care is that amd has a better price/perfomance ratio and that amd just plain old rapes intel

I'm surprised to see a statement like that. That's the same sort of attitude that would explain why anybody would ever buy a car made by General Motors.

Reliability comes in many flavors and what I'm most conerned about is not a computer that's "dead", rather one that crashes continually because the device drivers for the controlling chipset suck a**. When I have someone applying filters in Adobe Photoshop to a 120MB image from a homicide scene, I'd much rather the guy in the photo lab wait an extra 15 minutes for the filter to apply rather than see the spectacular crash about an hour and 45 minutes into it. Yes, I've seen this happen. While this fellow is an unbeatable all star in the field of crime scene analysis, he is also an absolute neophyte with computers. But he "heard" that AMDs were so much faster. How much faster I don't really know since he had to reboot several times a day.

If your main concern is video games, then yes AMD would be the way to go. If you're involved with mission critical applications, I don't think too many would argue with me that Intel is the way to go.

Edited October 20, 2005 by RogueSpear

[ripken204]

well it depends on what you mean by reliability, if it is wether on not it crashes alot then im not sure which to pick. amd's are ALOT cooler than intel's.