Is AMD the same as Intel?

At what speed in GHz does a AMD Athalon 3400+ run at? And is a 2GHz processer speed in an AMD chip the same speed as a 2GHz processer speed in an Intel chip?

No, speed in ghz is not relevent anymore as intel have now done away with speed naming their chips, an amd64 3400 is on par with a pentium 4 3.4ghz chip, although in gaming terms the amd chip is better, and if alot of media encoding is needed the intel chip wins hands down. Though the new Amd x2 chips(dual core) are catching up slowly to intel in media encoding.

depending on if it is a

CLAWHAMMER CORE (2.2 GIG)

NEWCASTLE CORE (2.4 GIG)

a 2 gig AMD will squash an intel of 2 gig without question

IT HAS BEEN STATED BY AMD MANY TIMES THAT THE COMPARISON IS NOT TO INTEL BUT AN AMD ATHLON XP RUNNING AT THAT SPEED.

AMD is superior in gaming to intel as proven many times by gaming benchmarks.

latest comparison had AMD the very clear winner in Maximum Pc`s head to head recently on the top processors .

Thoughts on the X2?

http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu.html

The above site has some benchmark tests, and it clearly shows that the X2's aren't as good in gaming. An AMD X2 4200+ can be easily beaten by an AMD Athlon 64 4000+, by around 30 frames per second in Unreal Tournament 2004.

This obviously changes when you play a dual core capable game on a dual core processor.

I guess I really just want to know if you think 939 Socket mobos will last long, and if you think more games will come out with Dual Core support in the next 2 years.

With Intel introducing a 4 Core processor, we will probably have new socket types, and possibly a 4 core game if programmers can keep up.

939s are history now. AMD is sporting a new socket type called M2 or something like that coming soon for future chips. And Game developers are already starting to code with multiple cores in mind. You can thank console makers for pushing that though.

Ugh. I am in the middle of building a computer, and damn did I choose the wrong time.

I don't want to wait for the M2 socket type to come out, but I think I might get a Dual Core AMD processor. Only problem is, it takes major frames per second off of single core coded games.

Most other posts, people have stated not to expect more than 5 dual core titles before 2007, and I hope that is the case.

I am still torn between a dual core or a single core.

Pay no attention to benchmarks on Tom's Hardware. Those guys are famous for running skewed test setups. Their benchmarks rarely match up with those of just about every other reliable tech site. I used to read THG a lot, but got tired of their biased and unreliable information. Here are some better benchmarks at AnandTech. You'll notice that most other tech sites will put the X2 4200+ at just a few FPS (well at or around 5%) under the San Diego 4000+ on most single-threaded gaming applications.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2452&p=5

/truth. many better sources of info than them

I would go with dual core cpu. Currently Amd is much better with dual core then intel price & performance. It's true that not only new socket is coming out but quad core's may show up next year from both Intel & Amd. I would buy a solid motherboard, fast memory, and nice powersupply. Then put the cheap (or best you could afford with money left over) dual core cpu.

It all depends on how often you upgrade your cpu. This method will get you a nice system that will allow you to upgrade to a better cpu for a inexpensive boost. 64bit and dual core won't hit mainstream (software wise) until Windows Vista is out. Video cards are going to do it to you too. The bleeding edge ones now will be replaced with Windows Vista Direct X 10 latter.

Probably.

Few years time, we'll have a AMD 1028bit 100.8GHz Processor with Hexaquardmasteron with 200 Cores in 1 Chip !

And a nVidia FXUltimaZZZForce 12800GTFX 2GB, all the Dual-Cores today and 512MB ATI cards will be looked down upon like a AMD 1.0GHz and a built-in Intel Pentium graphics card today.

[/sarcasm]

Now, what the **** is the point of a QUAD (4) core!? 2 is understandable, but 4? Let alone 3, but 4 ! What the **** is the point? :|

I would think...Number Crunching. That is what computers do. They really can't make the processors any much smaller...so add cores and then go 2 times or 4 times the speed by having separate cores to do the number crunching...

Do they chew before they swallow ? Sorry, I know that wasn't even funny, in a weird mood today, heh.

But won't all these Quad-Cores decrease Game performance or whatever than it already does (supposedly)?

Hehheheheh I found that funny, but I am also in a weird mood today.

I don't think the dual-core design actually decreases performance. It's just that a single-threaded app (like a game) is only using one core, and the San Diego 4000+ is clocked 200MHz faster than each individual core of an X2 4200+.

AMD > Intel

On http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2452&p=5 , they have the dual core overclocked. I am not too comfortable with overclocking, but
I might do it a tiny bit.

I still am torn between the two processors. I could always go dual core later when they are cheaper I guess. This is driving me cookoo because I want to order them!!!

Back in the Olden Days...there were additional processor slots for a math co-processor. Like on a 386/DX....we thought they were cool...it did speed up the computer some. Then didn't they come out with dual slotted motherboards for dual processors? That was going to be the next big thing. Seems they only ended up on servers...correct? Then hyper threading....now dual cores....seems dual cores will be around for awhile. It makes sense to have the operations split up to do different tasks. We just have to have the software catch up with the hardware.

I thought the swallowing joke was funny too...hehe

Yup. Co-processor for floating point ops. The 486DX series was the first to include the math co-processor on-chip. Before that you could add one to most 286 and 386 boards via the "pop socket", which wasn't a ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) socket and wasn't keyed, so a lot of x387 chips were burnt dead by improper insertion. They also ran asynchronously to the CPU, which had to be a performace-killer. Definitely not playing GW on one of those...

That's right....the 486SX (for SUX) did not have the math co-processor....it has been long time ago for me to remember that stuff...

It gets even better

Nvidia and one of there OEM video card makers found a way to put two GPU cores on one card... put two dual gpu video cards and sli makes 4 GPU's.

There is a "physic" add on card that may take hold. A special card that can offload Phsycis processing, AI away from the cpu to speed stuff up. Xbox360 and PS3 use it and Unreal Tournment 2007 has support for it for the pc.

So depending on things work out:
Cpu (Dual Core - 64bit)
Video (2 cards - 4 gpu's)
Deciated card for physic's processing

And if someone could challange creative labs sound cards see an explosion...

Video cards are also growing. Ati is using there GPU to offload video decompression for H.264 (see quicktime 7 and there HD trailers). And both Nvidia and Ati hinted they can offload physics to there gpu as an alt to the physic X card. Bascially use there GPU for dicated processing of functions away from the cpu.

The BIGGEST factor about all of this is you actually have to have software to support all this stuff.

Strangley, the first ones to support this are next gen first person shooters so that shadow off of the light near the floor are 100% realstic your running / constantly jumping and firing rockets to not notice