Why Pentium?

[paulmd]

Hello,

I am in the market for a good computer, with a dual-core CPU. I keep
reading that Athlon is better than Pentium, Athlon is faster than Pentium,
and Athlon is lower priced than Pentium. But if that is the case, why do
most businesses have Pentium based PCs and not Athlon based PCs? Surely most
businesses research the pros and cons of a product before they make their
purchases. Thank you for clarifying this for me.

T.I.

Intel and AMD both make excellent chips. Business have historicly
chosen Intel because of heat and stability issues, plus most business
apps don't demand the performance of Athlons. But AMD has been gaining
ground in the Business market. I would not disrecommend either
processor.

Stay away from VIA processors, they do not perform. They're energy
efficient, and require minimal cooling, and they're cheap, but if you
have real work to be done, stay away.

If you want a good, reliable machine, go with Dell, or have one built.
Avoid Emachines.

 

[George Hester]

I own two PC's I put together myself, one with the Athlon 2600+, the other
with the Intel Pentium D dual core. The latter actually runs a bit
faster(even though both PC's have the WD SATA Raptor drives running at
10,000 RPM). But it also runs at a higher temp and after nine months was
beginning to overheat a bit. So I applied some thermal compound the other
day which has corrected the problem.

You know every time we installed a heat sink on IC chips, we ALWAYS used
thermal compound. It was a requirement. So you put that between the
heatsink and the processor?

 

[George Hester]

This was once the case. I always buy Intel, and I can tell you that the last
dual core processor at 3.2Ghz runs quite hot. In my case with aftermarket
(Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 pro) cooling, I have 50 degrees Celsius (almost
regardless of the ambient temperature).

John

Wow that is hot isn't it? That is where my machine is supposed to flip out.
I have the setting there. Can you tell me what it should never be more
than?

 

[kony]

Wow that is hot isn't it? That is where my machine is supposed to flip out.
I have the setting there. Can you tell me what it should never be more
than?

There is no need to set a shutdown temp of 50C.
The manufacturer or person setting it up merely forgot to
set a more appropriate temp. 70C would be better, but if
you want a machine-specific setting, run something that
loads it and checks for errors (like Prime95's Torture test)
and set the thresold temp below that which causes
instability, as you would not want the system producing
errors even if it weren't in jeopardy of permanent damage-
and it would then possibly indicate that a better heatsink
was useful in some situations.

 

[Mxsmanic]

There is no need to set a shutdown temp of 50C.
The manufacturer or person setting it up merely forgot to
set a more appropriate temp. 70C would be better, but if
you want a machine-specific setting, run something that
loads it and checks for errors (like Prime95's Torture test)
and set the thresold temp below that which causes
instability, as you would not want the system producing
errors even if it weren't in jeopardy of permanent damage-
and it would then possibly indicate that a better heatsink
was useful in some situations.

Wouldn't pushing the chip to the point of instability already be
running a substantial risk of damaging it?

 

[manny]

I am in the market for a good computer, with a dual-core
CPU. I keep reading that Athlon is better than Pentium,
Athlon is faster than Pentium, and Athlon is lower
priced than Pentium. But if that is the case, why do
most businesses have Pentium based PCs and not
Athlon based PCs? Surely most businesses research
the pros and cons of a product before they make their
purchases.

What makes you think business people evaluate their
computer purchases carefully? They're not careful
with their pension plan selections, and pensions are
far less technical and more financial in nature, meaning
business people should understand them. The fact
is that the typical business buys what's presented to
them in advertisements or by sales people.

There was only one reason to ever prefer a Pentium
over an Athlon or later AMD CPU: Pentiums couldn't
burn out from heat. But this isn't a problem with
64-bit AMD CPUs either.

 

[manny]

Wouldn't pushing the chip to the point of instability already be
running a substantial risk of damaging it?

70C? No way. It probably takes at least 100C to actually damage the
silicon.

 

[Clint]

Keep in mind who does the buying at most businesses. Not the user of the
computer, but the IT department. Their number one goal is typically keeping
the total cost of ownership down to a reasonable level. This means they
want standard equipment that's going to be supported. To them, that means a
Dell or HP box, which has (in the past) meant Intel processors. The initial
purchase price makes up a small portion of the TCO; it's the ongoing support
and maintenance that eats up a big chunk of it.

Also keep in mind that most computers at a job spend the bulk of their time
idling along, I'd guess at less than 50% CPU utilization. So having a
processor that's 10 or even 20% faster wouldn't be noticed or appreciated by
most business users.

That's my $0.02 worth. FWIW, I'd wait for the the Conroe processors to come
out at the end of this month, if you're not in a hurry and want a dual-core
CPU.

Clint

 

[Mxsmanic]

70C? No way. It probably takes at least 100C to actually damage the
silicon.

Then why would it become unstable at 70° C?

 

[Rod Speed]

What makes you think business people evaluate their
computer purchases carefully? They're not careful
with their pension plan selections, and pensions are
far less technical and more financial in nature, meaning
business people should understand them. The fact
is that the typical business buys what's presented to
them in advertisements or by sales people.

There was only one reason to ever prefer a Pentium
over an Athlon or later AMD CPU: Pentiums couldn't
burn out from heat. But this isn't a problem with
64-bit AMD CPUs either.

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

 

[Steve]

Hi there !

You mean you assembled the Intel Pentium WITHOUT thermal compound in
the first place ?????

Putting thermal compund on is one of the BASIC requirements when
assembling ... no wonder it ran HOT !!!!!!

One thing Intel do that AMD don't ... that is thermal protection .....
If a Intel processor gets hot it slows down...
If a AMD processor runs got ..... it BURNS OUT !

I know what I prefer ... as cooling fans on heatsinks, cases and
powers supplies DO sieze up !

Steve

 

[David Maynard]

Hello,

I am in the market for a good computer, with a dual-core CPU. I keep
reading that Athlon is better than Pentium, Athlon is faster than Pentium,
and Athlon is lower priced than Pentium. But if that is the case, why do
most businesses have Pentium based PCs and not Athlon based PCs? Surely most
businesses research the pros and cons of a product before they make their
purchases. Thank you for clarifying this for me.

T.I.

Well, it can get complicated because companies tend to buy pre-builts so
the builder's choices are a heavy influence but, of course, they try to
make choices the companies will buy.

However, the crux of it is that whatever criteria you (or the articles) use
to determine 'better' is not necessarily the most important criteria to
companies.

Companies want a stable, reliable, trouble free (as much as possible),
platform that performs the assigned tasks in a timely manner at the least
total cost.

To wit, 'faster' is not necessarily 'better', as long as it does the job in
a timely manner, and there's more to cost than just the initial purchase,
of which processor price differential is a minor component.

There are also similar considerations from the system builder's perspective.

For example, Intel makes compilers and chipsets in addition to just the
processor and you can build an entire system from Intel parts. So what?
Well, if you're a builder and have some integration problem there would be
one place to go to get it resolved vs the confusion that can arise from
multiple vendors each claiming the problem is someone else's. And that
costs money, which might be considered more significant than a nominal raw
processor cost differential.

Many companies use a similar line of reasoning in buying pre-builts. Cost
isn't just the 'cost of repair' because, presumably, the machine serves a
money making purpose, no matter how obliquely, and it isn't serving that
purpose when not working (which includes the stable/reliable/trouble free
points I mentioned earlier).

 

[manny]

Then why would it become unstable at 70° C?

Some gates slow enough to not be ready for the
next clock phase, but that's not the same as
transistor destruction.

 

[manny]

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

I doubt most business owners care about chipsets but only factors
they can notice (at least on paper), like clock speed, memory and
disk capacities, and cost.

I'm not a speed demon. I simply buy the third-slowest or
third-fastest motherboard that doesn't have Taiwan capacitors
in the voltage converter.

 

[David Kanter]

Hello,

I am in the market for a good computer, with a dual-core CPU. I keep
reading that Athlon is better than Pentium, Athlon is faster than Pentium,
and Athlon is lower priced than Pentium.

Eh, these are all true and false to varying degrees. IT depends which
Pentium, which Athlon, which workload etc. Right now, desktop Athlons
are faster (I don't know about cheaper) than desktop Pentiums.

But if that is the case, why do
most businesses have Pentium based PCs and not Athlon based PCs?

Think about why a business buys PCs. They don't buy them so that they
have bragging rights about what is 'best'. They want to spend the
least money possible to get the job done. If you want to understand
why a particular type of customer behaves, put yourself in their
shoes...sometimes 'better' doesn't matter.

Surely most
businesses research the pros and cons of a product before they make their
purchases. Thank you for clarifying this for me.

You'd be surprised...

DK

 

[David Maynard]

Then why would it become unstable at 70° C?

Because internal time delays increase with temperature, mainly because MOS
channel resistance increases with temperature making it slower at driving
(the next stage's) gate input (and leakage) capacitance.

It means the signals ain't getting to the proper places in time.

 

[Mxsmanic]

Some gates slow enough to not be ready for the
next clock phase, but that's not the same as
transistor destruction.

Is this something that varies from chip to chip, or is it fairly
constant for all chips of a given processor model?

I recall hearing somewhere that chip manufacturers stress-test chips
individually, then market the ones that won't run at high speed as
lower-speed submodels (rather like CCD manufacturers that test their
CCD sensors, selling the perfect ones to pros and putting the rest in
consumer gear).

It seems to me that most chip defects would be all or nothing--either
the chip runs or it doesn't--but perhaps there are things that can
affect individual chips without ruining them (?).

In any case, it makes me uneasy to stress my processor just to see if
it stops working.

 

[Mxsmanic]

Because internal time delays increase with temperature, mainly because MOS
channel resistance increases with temperature making it slower at driving
(the next stage's) gate input (and leakage) capacitance.

It means the signals ain't getting to the proper places in time.

Is movement of dopants through the substrate a significant issue when
chips run hot? Or does that occur so slowly that it's not likely to
affect a chip over its lifetime? And how quickly does it accelerate
with increasing temperature?

I know that silicon itself is incredibly resistant to heat; you could
add a zero to the typical operating temperature of a processor and the
silicon wouldn't care. But the structures you build on top of the
silicon are a lot more delicate.

 

[Mxsmanic]

It was more complicated than that. The other real advantage
with Intel cpus is that you could choose to use intel chipsets too.

Well, times change, but all I can say is that I lost to machines to
AMD processor burnouts (they overheated and just continued to run
until they destroyed themselves and surrounding components), and that
pretty much soured me on AMD for a very long time to come. I'll take
a slightly slower processor at a slightly higher price, if necessary
in exchange for the benefit of a processor that's smart enough to shut
down if it overheats.

As you say, chipsets are an advantage, too. I've had trouble with VIA
chipsets for AMD in the past, but no trouble with Intel chipsets for
Intel.

I suppose that if one is extremely strapped for cash and/or one wants
to be on the absolute bleeding edge of raw performance, one might
occasionally prefer AMD. But performance is really only important for
games these days, and the price differences between the two processor
vendors are small.

 

[Mxsmanic]

I doubt most business owners care about chipsets but only factors
they can notice (at least on paper), like clock speed, memory and
disk capacities, and cost.

The list is even shorter than that: all they care about is cost. Most
PCs today will do any type of business tasks that anyone might care to
perform, so clock speed, memory, and disk capacity are all
irrelevant--any PC will have more than enough of each for business
use.

I'm not a speed demon. I simply buy the third-slowest or
third-fastest motherboard that doesn't have Taiwan capacitors
in the voltage converter.

You write off anything from Taiwan? I should think there are both
good and bad vendors. Don't some Intel motherboards come from Taiwan?