http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1543&p=13

While there was some debate as to which was faster, the Pentium 4 2.0GHz or Athlon-C 1.4GHz, the Athlon XP clearly establishes a performance lead over the competing Pentium 4 solutions. At 1.53GHz, the Athlon XP is able to consistently outperform the Pentium 4, partially due to the incredible performance of the retail KT266A motherboard that we paired it with. Especially in games such as Wolfenstein and Serious Sam, the idea of the Pentium 4 being the better gaming processor is clearly put to rest.

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There was never any real debate on this topic as far as I'm concerned. If you must buy a P4, DON'T let yourself get suckered into a cheap one with PC133 RAM. Those are awful, abysmal performers-- whereas the P4s with RAMBUS are merely mediocre price/performers.

Though I will admit that the next-generation of DDR platforms with +40% memory performance is helping the Athlon a lot. My next system will be an Athlon XP with either the latest nVidia, SIS, or VIA motherboards. I'm leaning towards VIA 266A at this point because the devil I know seems to be preferable to the ones I don't.

You left out the next comments:

"If the first 2.2GHz Northwood based Pentium 4s are indeed delivered next month as we have been expecting, then AMD's reign as king with the Athlon XP may be short lived; at least until they can answer back with a higher clocked processor, but remember it's much more difficult for AMD to ramp in clock speed than it is for Intel because of architectural differences."

As I ponder what components to purchase for a new system, the one area where the P4 seems to have a clear advantage is upgradeability. A 478 pin P4 MB will easily accept up to at least the 3 gig P4 Northwood chips, and perhaps beyond that. It's not clear at all, beyond speculation, what the AMD upgrade options will be at this time.

Yeah, but who upgrades their processor without buying a new motherboard anymore? The motherboard technology is where the growth is, not in upping the clock again and again. The first one that figures out how to make the rest of the system run at the same clock speed as the processor is going to have a huge advantage.

--Dave

The only problem I have with my new Athlon is the ridiculous amount of heat the thing pumps out.

P4 - 50 watts, apparently? Couldn't find a reference, only a generic mention.
Athlon - 62-72 watts.

It's currently running at 130 degrees. I suppose I could cool it more, but there's no way I'm either putting up with more noise or shelling out for a Peltier.

I wouldn't hold your breath on a single-cycle memory to cpu bus anytime soon, Dave. The engineering hurdles are, erm, large.

"As I ponder what components to purchase for a new system, the one area where the P4 seems to have a clear advantage is upgradeability. A 478 pin P4 MB will easily accept up to at least the 3 gig P4 Northwood chips, and perhaps beyond that. It's not clear at all, beyond speculation, what the AMD upgrade options will be at this time."

Once Intel produces an official DDR-supporting motherboard for the P4, which is expected in January, that will kick out the last spidery leg from under RAMBUS. You can already buy DDR P4 solutions from VIA and SIS, in fact. Intel giving it their explicit blessing will be the last straw. So unless you're talking about a P4 motherboard that supports DDR-- I would consider that there is a very real possibility of RAMBUS going out of business and you'll be stuck with a mobo that has "legacy" memory slots.

Also. I would expect that a brand new AMD motherboard would be able to accept higher-clocked Athlons just as readily as the P4 mobos will. After all, my Via KT133A mobo will work with them and it was released 6 months ago. So if history is any indication..

Finally, IMO, the Northwood P4s have a fairly large performance deficit to cover WRT the Athlon XP. Releasing a 2.2ghz Northwood would only *close* the gap with the XP, not put Intel into the lead per se. But I do look forward to this happening; it'll be the first P4 really worth considering!

>"As I ponder what components to purchase for a new system, the one area where the P4 seems to have a clear advantage is upgradeability. A 478 pin P4 MB will easily accept up to at least the 3 gig P4 Northwood chips"

Are you kidding? Intel changes form factor like every three weeks. Maybe a board could accept a 3Ghz CPU, but by the time Intel is selling those I gurantee there will be a new socket you'll need. On the other hand AMD has been using the same socket A since the Athlon abandoned the slot form. In that time Intel's had a couple P3 sockets and at least one P4 socket, if not 2. The Duron, Thunderbird and Palimino (XP, MP and Athlon 4 core) all used the same socket. I'm not saying AMD won't switch sockets in the future, just that they do it less often than Intel.

>"My next system will be an Athlon XP with either the latest nVidia, SIS, or VIA motherboards. I'm leaning towards VIA 266A at this point because the devil I know seems to be preferable to the ones I don't."

Yeah, the KT266A is the fastest platform, the SiS is the cheapest and the nVidia will have super-fly integrated audio and stuff. I'm planning my next upgrade for late this month and I'm going with Elitegroup's SiS 735 based mobo. The chipset was the fastest Athlon platform in existance until the KT266A and nForce were introduced, and you still can't buy those. Plus you can pick up the ECS mobo for like $60 compared to $120-$150+ for the others. I worked it out so I can pick up a 1.2Ghz Thunderbird (no palimino for me right now), the mobo, a heatsink/fan and 256MB of DDR 2100 for under $200. Not friggin' bad, and I have high hopes for overclockability (1.4-1.5Ghz... *sigh*).

>"You left out the next comments:

'If the first 2.2GHz Northwood based Pentium 4s are indeed delivered next month as we have been expecting, then AMD's reign as king with the Athlon XP may be short lived'"

Well, we'll see. Current speculation is that the 2.2Ghz northwood will bring Intel back even with the fastest Athlon. I mean the 1.53Ghz XP literally kicks the shit out of a 2Ghz P4 at half the price (not to mention what you'll save on memory costs)... (oh and maybe the shit wasn't literally kicked out of a P4, that was just an expression.)

>"Yeah, but who upgrades their processor without buying a new motherboard anymore? The motherboard technology is where the growth is, not in upping the clock again and again. The first one that figures out how to make the rest of the system run at the same clock speed as the processor is going to have a huge advantage."

Yeah, these days you've got to upgrade to the fastest memory subsystem. Back in the socket 7 days I was usually upgrading to a mobo that could supply the proper dual voltage levels to the newest CPU. I went through 3 motherboards in 3 CPUs time.

>"The only problem I have with my new Athlon is the ridiculous amount of heat the thing pumps out.

P4 - 50 watts, apparently? Couldn't find a reference, only a generic mention.
Athlon - 62-72 watts."

Yeah, Intel certainly still leads when it comes to thermal management. Although the XPs reportedly run much cooler then the T-birds did. But Intel chips are better epuiped to handle catastrophic cooling failure. You guys see the video from Tom's article on the subject? Of course, practically speaking, what kind of a dumbass yanks the heatsink off their CPU while it's working? D'uh, you probably deserve the blue smoke you'll see.

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Quote:

I wouldn't hold your breath on a single-cycle memory to cpu bus anytime soon, Dave. The engineering hurdles are, erm, large.

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Nvidia won't be releasing their own cpu anytime soon.

1) there is no market - intel, amd (and cyrix if they survive) have the market sown up.

2) a graphics processor is hugely different from a general purpose processor. with a graphics processor, you do one thing, and one thing fast, and you can optimise the hell out of it. with a normal cpu, you have to balance everything out. you have to worry about out of order execution, you have to worry about compatibility with existing code... .

the xbox is basically nforce + integrated ram + integrated cpu - you're not going to be able to upgrade them inside wise. As i've said before, the xbox is microsoft's way of testing the waters for a microsoft computer.

i'd say (without knowing) that most of the size of the gpu is integrated cache - something that sucks up size like nothing else.

There most certainly is a market if you create a new one...completely integrated everything on one board. I'm not saying they'll make a stand alone processor. To be honest, I think there's a change in the winds toward motherboards that are complete systems less the hard drive. The technology is clearly there as proven by Xbox.

This is how NVIDIA may ultimately steal away AMD and Intel's market. They're tied super tightly to OEMs and can leverage that with a swiss army knife motherboard that has everything, including the processor, onboard. Upgrades will come through either complete board swaps or a new box. The larger market of average Joe consumers won't have a problem with it. Only the tweakers won't like it and they're not nearly a large enough segment to stop such a fundamental shift.

I also think you're completely underestmating NVIDIA as has just about every company they've ground under their foot in the last few years. There are really bright people there with a long range plan. Every time you think they've run out of market segments, they find a new idea. On top of that, they keep pushing their tech in the core technology of graphics. It's good that ATI has decided to go head to head with them at the high end. That can only lead to better graphics cards at lower prices.

NVIDIA's core strength is that they design the tech and let someone else do the sales and marketing of it. With an integrated everything board, they can reach even more consumers and become the driving force in PCs. They already drive graphics and are pushing hard with sound integration that is far beyond what's been seen before on a motherboard and competes favorably with the high end of Creative. Motherboards are the new battleground and I really think they'll keep going after that.

--Dave

My R&D groups have worked with Intel, AMD, and IBM for quite a few years (development of new materials.) Thus, we've had some pretty intimate "inside" looks at everything from the planning boards to the prototyping to the production lines.

Without saying more than I should (and I'd probably get it wrong anyway,) I would be absolutely shocked if nVidia tried to get into the CPU market, and even more shocked if they had even a modicum of success. It would be extremely difficult for anyone who isn't already up and running hard in the CPU market to insert themselves, from both a technology POV as well as a business POV. And I'd be willing to bet a paycheck that the top nVidia R&D directors agree.

"Yeah, but who upgrades their processor without buying a new motherboard anymore?"

First - I'm not an evangelist for the P4 or the AMD side. I'm sitting in the middle, trying to figure out what components to purchase for a new machine.

However - lots of people upgrade their processors without buying a new MB. The ability to pop out your 800 MHz chip and pop in a 1.6 MHz chip is pretty handy. Heck, I upgraded my old Dell 400 MHz P2 with a surprisingly simple P3 1 Gig CPU swap - two hundred and fifty bucks took that old machine from a 400 MHz P2 with 128 Meg of slow RAM to a 1 gig P3 with 256 meg of fast RAM.

My point was that Intel has announced their near future planes, and I can buy a 478 pin MB and a 1.5 or 1.7 Gig P4, knowing that Intel will go to at least 3 Gig with the Northwood 478 process. So I'm guaranteed that at a minimum I'll be able to pop in a CPU up to a P4 3Gig. That's not speculation. What I'm studying, and what is not at all clear from the "experts" is what my upgrade path will be if I choose an AMD XP 1.5 GHz. There is no announced future path from AMD at this point, and as the Anandtech article points out, higher speeds with this architecture will be difficult. Not an attack on AMD, just a statement of uncertainty. I frankly don't give a whit as to whether I end up with Intel or AMD, I'm just going to build a machine that I feel will give me the best performance for the longest period of time.

nVidia doesn't have a fab. They don't manufature their own chips, all that is done by a third party. I'm not even sure they could afford to build one. Plus I don't think they'd be too eager to get into a three way price war with Intel and AMD. Besides, there's more money in GPUs and chipsets.

As for AMD's upgrade path, they're going to continue to use the Socket A form factor through the end of 2002 with the ThoroughBred and Barton cores.

Brad Grenz

You guys are missing the point...they don't have to fab it. They're already farming out GPU production. Why not do the same with a CPU that's integrated into their own motherboard design along with the sound, video, ethernet, etc.? Literally one piece of silicon. Let Abit, ASUS, et. al. do the building, selling and marketing. Or anyone else that wants to make PCs around it like Gateway and Dell.

I never said they'd abandon their core market. One thing the most successful hardware companies do is find new markets that are untapped. 3dfx and Rendition were the 3D consumer graphics pioneers, but NVIDIA went one step further and made sure that OEMs were all putting their 3D in their machines. Then they built the first GPU for consumer use, followed by the Xbox and now a motherboard with integrated sound and video as well as a more efficient design.

I'm speculating, sure...but it doesn't seem that far removed from a plausible scenario. NVIDIA has plenty of cash, they have a huge market segment to rely on for more cash and they have the technical ability to create what I'm speaking of. It's the true "throwaway" PC. One board with all that is required in silicon.

Oh, and BTW Jeff, everyone told NVIDIA not to bother trying when 3dfx led the add-in card market and 3D meant "3dfx". Look where they are today.

--Dave

I think there are some very fundamental differences between the graphics chip market and the CPU market. I remember the old days when nVidia and others took on 3Dfx (in fact, I've got an nVidia 128 mug and shirt they sent me.) But I think you may be underestimating what's required to design, develop, and produce the CPUs, particularly when you look at AMD and Intel's roadmaps, building off of their current technology base, and someone having to start with no technology at all in the area. I know first-hand that not too far in the future they will not only have to radically improve the circuit design, but they will have to completely change the materials of construction of the chips themselves to some very cutting edge technology.

Maybe nVidia will get into the CPU business, but if they do, that's the day I'd sell all the nVidia stock short that I could. One of the reasons some very successful companies go down the tubes is by moving out of their areas of competency, investing huge amounts in that move, and then sinking.

Anybody have any experiences on running an Athlon XP on an Abit board (specifically I'm looking at running an 1800 on an Abit KG7)? Would like to know if there are any specific problems before I start spending major bread.

--- Alan

Odd - I noticed that the XP 1800 has dissappeared from some of the vendor sites on which it was advertised a couple of days ago (e.g., googlegear and Mwave.) I assume that means they've sold out their first shipment.

'Why not do the same with a CPU that's integrated into their own motherboard design along with the sound, video, ethernet, etc.?'

A graphics chip company designing a modern CPU is like, oh, a lawnmower company getting into the business of manufacturing jets. They're sort of the same thing, but one's immensely more complicated.

The thing about competeing in the CPU market is that it means competeing in the area of fabrication technology. nVidia couldn't count on a company in Taiwan to stay competitive with the next big thing Intel or AMD (or Motorola and IBM for that matter). Are they going to be set up for a .13 micron process when they need it? Can they switch to a copper process in time for nVidia to take advantage of it? And farming out actual production will hurt their ability to compete in a pricewar.

Brad Grenz

I think it's EXTREMELY unlikely that nVidia would develop a CPU. I do hope their motherboard stuff does well, though-- they could be a stellar mobo chipset provider. The potential is there.