athlon numbering system

  • Thread starter Thread starter Skeleton Man
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Skeleton Man

Hi all,

I've always wondered why Athlons are just marked as 1800, 2800+, etc instead
of the actual core speed in Ghz.
I figured the reason for this was merely to give the impression of a chip
being faster than it really is.. but someone told me this is only one reason
they did it..

Can someone fill me in on the reason for this ? and also perhaps why Intel
is soon to follow suit ?

Regards,
Chris
 
Hi all,

I've always wondered why Athlons are just marked as 1800, 2800+, etc instead
of the actual core speed in Ghz.
I figured the reason for this was merely to give the impression of a chip
being faster than it really is.. but someone told me this is only one reason
they did it..

Can someone fill me in on the reason for this ? and also perhaps why Intel
is soon to follow suit ?
Click to expand...


It's because different CPU architectures performance
differs, MHz per MHz an Athlon is faster than it's only
competition, the P4. Now they once implied that it was due
to higher performance jump from Palomino CPUs over the prior
T'Birds, but it wouldn't have happened if not for Intel's
choice to accentuate core frequency increase as their method
of boosting performance over THEIR previous design.

In other words, it boils down to seeking benchmarks for your
specifc, most demanding uses of the system (specific
applicaitons and SAME versions of those applications that
you'll be using, as version number can make a large
difference), to determine which architecture, at which
price-point, is appropriate.
 
Skeleton said:
Hi all,

I've always wondered why Athlons are just marked as 1800, 2800+, etc instead
of the actual core speed in Ghz.
Click to expand...

I've wondered why Intel stuck with naming their processors by clock speed
for so long, rather than naming them in terms of performance.
I figured the reason for this was merely to give the impression of a chip
being faster than it really is.
Click to expand...

The only reasonable measure of speed for a chip is how fast it runs software.
A centipede takes more steps per minute than a race horse, however people
realize that the race horse can travel a greater distance per minute than the
centipede.
. but someone told me this is only one reason
they did it..

Can someone fill me in on the reason for this ? and also perhaps why Intel
is soon to follow suit ?
Click to expand...

There are many other ways to increase chip performance other than by
boosting clock speed. Increases in clock speed are typically correlated
with higher power consumption, so increasing clock speed is probably
a less desirable way to increase performace, and should be left for when
other methods of boosting performance aren't practical.
 
Skeleton Man said:
Hi all,

I've always wondered why Athlons are just marked as 1800, 2800+, etc
instead
of the actual core speed in Ghz.
I figured the reason for this was merely to give the impression of a chip
being faster than it really is.. but someone told me this is only one
reason
they did it..

Can someone fill me in on the reason for this ? and also perhaps why
Intel
is soon to follow suit ?

Regards,
Chris
Click to expand...
someone told me that and AMD2600+ is meant to perform at the same standard
as a Intel 2.6 ghz, mainly down to technical things which i cant explain,
data pipes or something, so i have been told, my informant may be a serial
bull sh*tter but everyone knows an AMD2800+ out performs a decent intel
 
someone told me that and AMD2600+ is meant to perform at the same
standard
as a Intel 2.6 ghz, mainly down to technical things which i cant explain,
data pipes or something, so i have been told, my informant may be a serial
bull sh*tter but everyone knows an AMD2800+ out performs a decent intel
Click to expand...

Close, but nope...

An AMD XP 2600+ is supposed to perform just as fast as an AMD 2.6Ghz
Thunderbird CPU - if they had ever made one.
 
Close, but nope...

An AMD XP 2600+ is supposed to perform just as fast as an AMD 2.6Ghz
Thunderbird CPU - if they had ever made one.
Click to expand...

The AMD numbering scheme is very conservative. The comparison is to the K6
which was pretty close to the PIII clock for clock. The P4 is much worse
then the PIII or K6 on a clock for clock basis so that tends to skew
peoples idea of what a MHz of performance means. My benchmarking of the
Athlon 64 3400+ showed it to be approximately the performance of a 3.4GHz
PIII or a 5.2GHz Xeon. If AMD had wanted to call it a 5200+ instead of a
3400+ that wouldn't have been a lie, it is the equivalent of a 5200MHz P4
for at least some applications. The 3400+ designation can therefore be
considered as a lower bound for it's performance vis a vis Intel. I
haven't benchmarked the older K7 parts so I don't know how well that
perform but judging from the K8 I'd say that you can count on an XP 2600+
as being at least as fast as a 2.6GHz P4.
 
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