Price difference between Intel & AMD systems

[Carlo Razzeto]

We're neither talking about an item with a £8000 price difference (is
your pound key broken?) or one which has an value in it's own right;
it's simply a component of the overall system.

J/K supports AMD a little too much. He can't grasp the idea that there are
situations where a P4 may be preferable to any AMD chip. So I'd stop arguing
if I were you it's not worth it. One thing to note. I didn't follow the
thread very closely so if there's a reason why some one should assume we're
talking about British currancy I'll shut up. But news groups are indeed
international. Unfortunatly I"m sure J/K lives some where in the U.S. like
me and perhaps he is assuming we're talking about U.S. currancy. So I'm sure
his pound key isn't broken, perhaps he just didn't know he should be using
it.

Carlo

 

[Carlo Razzeto]

I read the posting in uk.comp.homebuilt, which is a UK-based group. I
must presume therefore the OP is in the UK or the posting would be
off-topic.

Ah! Ok... Note: This was cross posted to comp.sys.intel, alt.comp.hardware,
hardware.overclocking.amd etc......

Carlo

 

[Johannes H Andersen]

[...]

AMD Athlon XP 3000+ 2.16 GHz 400 MHz single channel OEM ..... $98

Not really much difference considering the total price of the PC.

Very funny. An Athlon XP 2500+ is only around $65. An XP 2500+ 333
is around $75. Why should someone pay around $100 more than they need to?

And you base this comparison on a single Business Benchmark test? That
test could have a large I/O element and thus depend on other hardware
factors. And I just pointed out to you that on the very same site, the
P4 3.0 GHz beats the AMD Athlon XP 3000+ on Content Creation Benchmark.
You have to look at the whole performance spectrum. Not everybody run
databases or are interested in business tests. The Intels perform
traditionally very well for numerical modeling problems with vectors
and matrices. Special libraries are optimized for Intel. Also the
simplicity of plugging in an Intel P4 without having to worry about
many things.

 

[twobirds]

And you base this comparison on a single Business Benchmark test?

Did you notice what the OP said he was doing with his PC? No games - no
video - no content creation - no 'nuttin' but surfin' and makin' word docs.
The OP could get by with a PIII 800 and any speedy HDD, but since he's doing
nuttin' but office stuff - that would be the appropriate benchmark to use
for comparisons.

 

[Tony Hill]

Is there a rough rule of thumb which indicates the price difference between
an AMD system and an Intel system of the same power?

In a word, no.

I am thinking of just the processor and mobo.
(I don't think memory depends on processor type)

To a certain extent memory does depend on the motherboard and/or
processor. For example, some setups (for both AMD and Intel) use
single channel memory while others use dual channel memory (ie memory
must be added in pairs). Some AMD systems, most notably the older
Socket 940 Athlon64 FX chips, require the use of registered memory,
while pretty much all others use unregistered memory.

Is it something like ... "Intel systems cost 25 to 30 percent more than an
equivalent AMD system"?

Well, first off, defining "equivalent" is not a very easy thing to do.
In some applications Intel's P4 design tends to do pretty well, while
in others AMD's AthlonXP line does well and in others still it's AMD's
Athlon64 line that really pulls ahead. So equivalency here depends
largely on what application is most important to you.

What's more, prices are rather fluid and tend to change a lot
depending on where in the price/performance scale you are looking.
For example, Intel's top-end P4 Extreme Edition chips are VERY
expensive ($900+), and generally perform about the same as an Athlon64
3500+ ($365) or 3700+ ($500). On the other hand, if you were to
compare a P4 3.0GHz, it would usually perform more or less on par with
AMD's Athlon64 3000+ (again, depending on the applications you use),
where here AMD's processor is only about $20 cheaper.

 

[Tony Hill]

I use my PC for home and "small office" use.
No games. No video or sound editing. No movie playing. No power use.

That is the sort of thing I would like to compare between AMD and Intel.

The final system may be something like a AMD Barton 2500+ with 1GB memory,
sound integrated on mobo and a very modest VIA-based graphics and 80 GN HDD.

If you're going to use integrated graphics, stick to either Intel, ATI
or nVidia chipsets. SiS boards have VERY weak integrated graphics,
but even they are MUCH better than the trash that VIA puts out.

Interesting note about the Barton 2500+, it's now actually more
expensive than the Barton 2600+. Why? I really don't know. Only
thing I can think of is that overclockers feel that the Barton 2500+
is somehow a better processor.

But all I want to get anidea of is the relative cost on an AMD mobo &
porceesor compared to Intel.

Well, here's some numbers to toss out, all prices from www.newegg.com,
all using retail boxed processors (which include a heatsink and fan,
plus 3 year warranty). Note that these will not be the cheapest
prices you'll find from the Pricewatch bottom-feeders because Newegg
is, from all accounts, a reliable vendor and not some fly-by-night
shop.

AMD system:
AthlonXP 2600+ $94
MSI K7N2GM-L $72
PGI 2x512MB PC2700 $166
Total: $332

Intel Celeron D system
Celeron D 335 2.8GHz $111
MSI 865G NEO2-PLS $95
PDP 2x512MB PC3200 $159
Total: $365

Intel P4 system
P4 2.4C $157
MSI 865G NEO2-PLS $95
PDP 2x512MB PC3200 $159
Total: $411


All three of these systems are likely to be close enough in
performance that you won't notice the difference, though at a guess I
would say that the AthlonXP system would be the fastest, followed by
the P4 system with the Celeron being the slowest.

Anyway, comparing the price/performance of the AthlonXP vs. Celeron
system here, that would give you about a 10% difference in price when
taking just these components, or probably about a 5% difference in
price for the system as a whole.


Now, mind you, if your headers are to be believed, your over on the
other side of the pond, so prices might be a bit different there.

 

[Paul Hopwood]

J/K supports AMD a little too much.

I was starting the feel that vibe. ;-)

He can't grasp the idea that there are
situations where a P4 may be preferable to any AMD chip. So I'd stop arguing
if I were you it's not worth it. One thing to note.

Which was kinda my point. I'm not going to get drawn into which is
better because it'd be purely my opinion, just as JK's preference to
AMD is his. Both have their merits and people who buy either have
their reasons for doing so. I can't see why some people feel so
strongly about the whole thing or, come to think of it the whole
MCIBTYC thing; be it Intel vs AMD, ATI vs Nvidia, PC vs Mac,
self-build vs branded etc.

The world is so much more colourful and stimulating due to diversity
and choice. I don't see why people can't accept there are other
options and feel the need to suppress and coerce people into acting
the same way they do, whether it be CPUs, cars, politics, race,
sexuality, religion or whatever else it is that rocks your world.

I didn't follow the
thread very closely so if there's a reason why some one should assume we're
talking about British currancy I'll shut up. But news groups are indeed
international. Unfortunatly I"m sure J/K lives some where in the U.S. like
me and perhaps he is assuming we're talking about U.S. currancy. So I'm sure
his pound key isn't broken, perhaps he just didn't know he should be using
it.

The OP was cross-posted into a number of groups, including
uk.comp.homebuilt so 'Franklin' is either in the UK, in which case any
discussion of price differences in US$ would be irrelevant to him or,
alternatively, he's just off-topic.

--

 

[Never anonymous Bud]

All three of these systems are likely to be close enough in
performance that you won't notice the difference,

WHAT have you been smoking??

The Celeron is a dog by ANY standard, and not close to the other 2 systems.

 

[Tim Auton]

WHAT have you been smoking??

The Celeron is a dog by ANY standard, and not close to the other 2 systems.

Office work is not typically CPU-bound.

The Celeron may be a dog, but it really doesn't matter much for an
office system.


Tim

 

[JK]

In a word, no.


To a certain extent memory does depend on the motherboard and/or
processor. For example, some setups (for both AMD and Intel) use
single channel memory while others use dual channel memory (ie memory
must be added in pairs). Some AMD systems, most notably the older
Socket 940 Athlon64 FX chips, require the use of registered memory,
while pretty much all others use unregistered memory.


Well, first off, defining "equivalent" is not a very easy thing to do.
In some applications Intel's P4 design tends to do pretty well, while
in others AMD's AthlonXP line does well and in others still it's AMD's
Athlon64 line that really pulls ahead. So equivalency here depends
largely on what application is most important to you.

What's more, prices are rather fluid and tend to change a lot
depending on where in the price/performance scale you are looking.
For example, Intel's top-end P4 Extreme Edition chips are VERY
expensive ($900+), and generally perform about the same as an Athlon64
3500+ ($365) or 3700+ ($500). On the other hand, if you were to
compare a P4 3.0GHz, it would usually perform more or less on par with
AMD's Athlon64 3000+ (again, depending on the applications you use),
where here AMD's processor is only about $20 cheaper.

Which wouldn't be so bad if the Pentium 4 being discussed was a 64 bit one.
Unfortunately it is a 32 bit one. Assigning no extra value to the Athlon 64's
64 bit mode doesn't seem to make much sense. In 2005 many of those
who bought a high priced 32 bit processor in '04 might become upset
that they didn't use foresight and buy a 64 bit processor. I wonder what great
64 bit applications we will see in 2005. I wonder what 32 bit applications will
be ported to 64 bits and show tremendous improvements in performance
when the 64 bit is run compared to the 32 bit version on an Athlon 64
or Opteron. Here is a link to one application already out in 64 bits whose
64 bit version runs 25% faster than the 32 bit version on an Athlon 64.

http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=257&p=1


Other applications might show a much greater performance increase.

 

[Paul Hopwood]

Which wouldn't be so bad if the Pentium 4 being discussed was a 64 bit one.
Unfortunately it is a 32 bit one. Assigning no extra value to the Athlon 64's
64 bit mode doesn't seem to make much sense. In 2005 many of those
who bought a high priced 32 bit processor in '04 might become upset
that they didn't use foresight and buy a 64 bit processor. I wonder what great
64 bit applications we will see in 2005. I wonder what 32 bit applications will
be ported to 64 bits and show tremendous improvements in performance
when the 64 bit is run compared to the 32 bit version on an Athlon 64
or Opteron. Here is a link to one application already out in 64 bits whose
64 bit version runs 25% faster than the 32 bit version on an Athlon 64.

Perhaps similar to the reaction of the "let's buy 64-bit because it's
the latest and greatest thing" brigade when technologies such as BTX,
PCI-Express, faster FSBs, new sockets etc hit the market en-mass in
2005 and render their "latest and greatest" machines obsolete. Then
they might well wonder why they didn't buy 32-bit machines, have
saving themselves some money and wait until they actually needed it?

--

 

[JK]

Perhaps similar to the reaction of the "let's buy 64-bit because it's
the latest and greatest thing" brigade when technologies such as BTX,
PCI-Express, faster FSBs, new sockets etc hit the market en-mass in
2005 and render their "latest and greatest" machines obsolete. Then
they might well wonder why they didn't buy 32-bit machines, have
saving themselves some money and wait until they actually needed it?

Buying a low priced 32 bit Athlon XP or Sempron might make sense,
especially for someone who runs only business software. Buying a 32
bit Pentium 4 at around the price of an Athlon 64 doesn't make much
sense for most people(notice I said most people, as there will be a few
who will say that more than 50% of their pc usage is video editing, and
they have no plans to ever want to upgrade to 64 bit editing software).

 

[Tony Hill]

Which wouldn't be so bad if the Pentium 4 being discussed was a 64 bit one.
Unfortunately it is a 32 bit one. Assigning no extra value to the Athlon 64's
64 bit mode doesn't seem to make much sense. In 2005 many of those
who bought a high priced 32 bit processor in '04 might become upset
that they didn't use foresight and buy a 64 bit processor. I wonder what great
64 bit applications we will see in 2005.

Don't hold your breath for too much. 64-bit is nothing new, it's been
around for 10+ years in other processors. The benefits and drawbacks
are well known. Usually those drawbacks (pointers twice as large and
therefore twice as much memory use/cache use/bandwidth use) outweigh
the benefits and applications tend to be slower unless you really need
64-bit integers (very rare for most apps) or you need more than ~2GB
of addressable memory (the real reason for 64-bit).

Of course, all is not equal in x86-64, as AMD also did a bit of
tidying and doubled the number of integer registers. This will tend
to make applications about 5% to 10% faster. For example, for SPEC
CINT2000 base, AMD showed an 8.9% improvement overall. However in
that 8.9% improvement there were three tests (181.mcf, 197.parser and
300.twolf) that ran slower, two that ran MUCH faster (186.crafty was
41% faster while 252.eon was 49% faster), and all the rest that were a
little bit faster.

Of course, all this will be for naught for 95%+ of all users if
Microsoft doesn't get their act together and get WinXP for x64
released sometime this decade.

I wonder what 32 bit applications will
be ported to 64 bits and show tremendous improvements in performance
when the 64 bit is run compared to the 32 bit version on an Athlon 64
or Opteron. Here is a link to one application already out in 64 bits whose
64 bit version runs 25% faster than the 32 bit version on an Athlon 64.

http://www.short-media.com/review.php?r=257&p=1

More important than the 25% improvement is the issue they ran into on
the first page, some things were just not possible on a 32-bit machine
due to lack of memory address space. Kind of flies in the face of
those who say 64-bit is not necessary on the desktop for the next 5+
years.

Other applications might show a much greater performance increase.

Some will. Some applications will show a 100% improvement in
performance. Others could easily show a 10% loss in performance.
Most will be about 5-10% faster. Not much, but it's free, so hey, why
not?

I do tend to agree with you, AMD's processors are often a better buy
these days even if the price is the same. However, that wasn't what
the original poster asked.

 

[Tony Hill]

WHAT have you been smoking??

The Celeron is a dog by ANY standard, and not close to the other 2 systems.

Note that I was specifically talking about the new Celeron D
processors, which improved quite a bit over the previous generation of
Celeron. Here's a relatively recent comparison of this chip relative
to some similarly priced AMD chips:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2093

On average I would guess that the Celeron D 335 (2.8GHz) falls about
on-par with an AthlonXP 2400+. Sometimes it's a bit faster, sometimes
it's a bit slower. Usually it is slower than the 2600+, though even
there it wins a few tests.

Still probably not a very good buy, since it's a bit slower and more
expensive, but at least it's not nearly as embarrassing as the
old-style Celerons.

 

[JK]

Note that I was specifically talking about the new Celeron D
processors, which improved quite a bit over the previous generation of
Celeron. Here's a relatively recent comparison of this chip relative
to some similarly priced AMD chips:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2093

On average I would guess that the Celeron D 335 (2.8GHz) falls about
on-par with an AthlonXP 2400+.

The only problem is that it is double the price.

Sometimes it's a bit faster, sometimes
it's a bit slower. Usually it is slower than the 2600+, though even
there it wins a few tests.

Still probably not a very good buy,

What an understatement!

 

[JK]

Don't hold your breath for too much. 64-bit is nothing new, it's been
around for 10+ years in other processors.

Do any of the other 64 bit chips have integrated memory controllers?

The benefits and drawbacks
are well known.

Are they?

 

[Ed]

The Celeron may be a dog, but it really doesn't matter much for an
office system.

The P4 is a dog

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Do any of the other 64 bit chips have integrated memory controllers?

The Sun UltraSparc 3 & 4 do. I think one of the Alphas had an integrated
controller too, but it was a RAMBUS controller, so it wasn't quite the same
thing as what's currently needed.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Tony Hill]

Do any of the other 64 bit chips have integrated memory controllers?

Yes, most of them do these days. Sun UltraSparc 3 and US4, the HPaq
Alpha EV7 and IBM Power5 all have integrated memory controllers. I'm
fairly certain that there is at least one 64-bit MIPS core out there
with an integrated memory controller.

Nothing particularly unique about integrated memory controllers or
64-bit, the only thing that Athlon64/Opteron do is bring these
technologies alongside the x86 instruction set and a much lower price
than most others.

Are they?

Yes, in fact they are. There's really nothing new about 64-bit, same
idea has been used in virtually every processor architecture on the
planet other than x86 for the past 10 years.

 

[Franklin]

How about you guys drop c.s.i.pc.hardware.chips from
your crossposting ?

Absolutely none of the regulars from this newsgroup
are participating in this thread. Don't ask me
why it was ever cross-posted here.

Hi Rob, I am the OP and I must aplogize if I am including a group which is
irrelevant to my original question which was ...

------- BEGIN QUOTE -------
Is there a rough rule of thumb which indicates the price difference between
an AMD system and an Intel system of the same power?

I am thinking of just the processor and mobo. (I don't think memory depends
on processor type)

Is it something like ... "Intel systems cost 25 to 30 percent more than an
equivalent AMD system"?
------- END QUOTE -------

My thinking for including c.s.i.pc.hardware.chips in the original posting is
that the essential difference bewteen an Intel and an AMD system is the mobo
chipset (and of course the cpu).

I figured that you guys in c.s.i.pc.hardware.chips would know about relative
pricing of this sort of thing and about the cost the mobos that include
these chips. Am I off-topic?