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DAPUNISHER
09-10-2003, 10:31 AM
After seeing the Opteron 246 in action, we have more faith in the Hammer architecture than ever. With the lifespan of this chip just starting, and Intel's current Northwood designs all but drained from further speed boosts, it looks like AMD has free reign of the high-end market until Intel's Prescott architecture comes along. No doubt Intel will push clock speeds to a maximum with their new chip, but this time it may not matter as much. AMD has such features like their on-die memory controller and X86-64 processing abilities, both of which Intel won't be matching anytime soon. They should have shown the advantage HT offers to counter-point the following assertion however "has such features like their on-die memory controller and X86-64 processing abilities, both of which Intel won't be matching anytime soon" I realize they are excited to see AMD with a strong showing but shouldn't sell the P4C short in the process ;)

The features of the new X86-64 line of AMD processors that impress me most are the strong IPC, effective use of bandwidth, and the silent cooling capability with just the stock cooler@2ghz
this temperature is still lower than Intel's Pentium 4 3.2 GHz running at full blast with the Intel stock cooler. We were also able to run the AMD stock cooler at silent RPM levels using the Asus Q-Fan technology on the SK8N Opteron motherboard. AMD's stock cooler is actually very quiet at standard RPM speeds, and with thermal speed control, can be brought down to very low levels and still keep the Opteron 246 CPU quite happy.

Prescott's single negative thus far appears to be the need for serious cooling if what I've read is accurate. That leads me to speculate that perhaps AMD is demonstrating exceptional wisdom by extracting the evident performance in many areas while effectively combating the heat issues that both Intel and they themselves have been facing recently.

At any rate :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: to AMD for creating a ray of hope in what otherwise appeared to be the bleak landscape of their micrprocessor division's future.

pointreyes
09-10-2003, 11:04 AM
Originally posted by DAPUNISHER
Prescott's single negative thus far appears to be the need for serious cooling if what I've read is accurate. That leads me to speculate that perhaps AMD is demonstrating exceptional wisdom by extracting the evident performance in many areas while effectively combating the heat issues that both Intel and they themselves have been facing recently.


I agree. The Prescott does not impress me mainly because of dealing with the 2.8C HT and AMD procs. I'm simply not that impressed with HT. It is certainly better to have it than not and it definitely gives the P4 some power that it needs. But at the expense of 100watts seems way to high for comfort when you are sitting near a computer that is heating you up as well as itself. Hopefully by mid-week next week I will be able to provide the temps of two 240s. I have the Tyan K8W coming this week and the procs should be sometime next week.

BE is a very bad place. Here I go again with bleeding edge technology. :rolleyes: The Tyan K8W is only released today and it's already on the way to me on a FedEx truck. :rolleyes:

Flamer
09-10-2003, 04:11 PM
Pointreyes,

I am looking foward to see what your dual opteron will do. If these new AMD chip perform as well as advertised i will defently jump ship and go AMD.

DAPUNISHER
09-11-2003, 09:38 AM
I'm salivating like Pavlov's dogs just thinking about your new setup pointreyes:yummy:

Now, checkout what T-break did with the bottom of the line skt754 :D 2.4ghz (http://www.tbreak.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=19317&perpage=15&pagenumber=1) Gamers rejoice! Hopefully the new A-64's combined with a great DX9 card like the 9800pro will get HL2 running at decent frame rates.

pointreyes
09-11-2003, 10:06 AM
Originally posted by DAPUNISHER
I'm salivating like Pavlov's dogs just thinking about your new setup pointreyes:yummy:


I'm more confused about what to do. :rolleyes: Here's the current make up of the system which by the looks of things will be built this Friday night or Saturday day.
Windows 2003 Enterprise Server
Tyan Thunder K8W
2 x Opteron 240
2 x 256 of Corsair PC2100 (will be replaced with 2 x 512 of PC2700-just have not decided which to get yet).
ATi 9800 Pro
Audigy 2 (if this card fails to work, I have the Santa Cruz or the onboard sound I can use)
Maxtor 160Gig 8Meg cache drive

ATi should have me advertising for them. I now have the following cards for my three 'puters.
9500 Pro, 9600 Pro, 9800 Pro. Interestingly, the brands of the mobos on the systems advertise ATI.
Abit
Tyan
Iwill :p :D