This Can't be right!!

[Zoson]

Yeah, I would recommend taking advice from these folks with a grain of salt in the future:

Zoson
http://hardforum.com/member.php?u=23725

mhenley
http://hardforum.com/member.php?u=22895

Ruoh
http://hardforum.com/member.php?u=204695

The first Phenom was a dog. Phenom II was less of a dog but still a dog. Bulldozer is worse than Phenom II clock for clock in a lot of areas. What does that say? (No I do not mean that Bulldizer is slower than Phenom II at encoding.)



It does do well in that area. It matches higher end offerings from Intel in a lot of cases. I wouldn't say that it's awesome for encoding because there are better CPUs for that job from Intel. Though they are significantly more expensive. (IE 3930K, 3960X etc.)

I must be wrong, since Dan_D pretty much just agreed with me. AMIRITE?

I just encoded Real Steel for shits and giggles on my 990x with handbrake's high profile... Just to see the difference. My system at 4.66GHz pulled in 87FPS average.

Oh, and it only took about 40 minutes.

 

[kac77]

I love how people who can't afford this or that usually act like those who can are just spoiled bitches. They couldn't possibly have earned their way towards having enough income to enjoy a hobby now could they.

I don't think the issue is with price Dan. You had an OP with an honest issue that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the chip was BD. The encoding outcomes should have been much higher. Instead of people offering help, people offered ridicule instead.

There are tons of people with setups that I wouldn't do, but if they need help then that's what they need. Not my personal feelings against their decision. Now I will be honest and say that it's not exactly easy to remove your personal feelings sometimes, but nonetheless the OP's issue was a software issue and had very little to do with the processor at hand.

Someone a while back had an issue with an i7 not performing correctly within Handbrake and that person deserved just as much help as this OP did.

 

[Jherek]

OP Glad you got your BD up to speed! Looks like my turning off the Cool n' Quiet suggestion was on the money.

I couldn't let this claim stand unanswered:

I love how people who can't afford this or that usually act like those who can are just spoiled bitches. They couldn't possibly have earned their way towards having enough income to enjoy a hobby now could they.

Was Phenom II a dog In terms of what else was available? Absolutely. Yes Phenom II was a dog. It barely matched the Core 2 Quad 45nm CPUs and was obliterated by the Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs. As for the bang for your buck argument, let's not forget that since the introduction of the Core 2 Duo E6300 there have always been Intel CPUs which were pretty close to the price of what AMD was offering on theie high end of the spectrum and generally speaking, Intel's CPUs were far more powerful. Core 2 Quad's hit the sub-$300 price point quite often after the Core 2 Quad Q6600's had been out for awhile and more frequently when 45nm CPUs hit. Core i7 920's were under $300.00 before too long, Core i7 2500k and 2600k processors that came out later were also under $300.00. In fact the Core i5 3570K I purchased for my mini-ITX build was $169.99 a few weeks ago. Core i5 3570K's, and Core i7 3770K's etc. still surpass the performance of anything AMD has in most applications.

You can argue for cheaper motherboard prices and you'd be right to some degree but it isn't as if all Intel processor compatible motherboards are $300+ either. There are many options which reach near parity with AMD processor compatible offerings.

Was the Phenom II a good value for the dollar, at one time, or was it a "dog" as he insists? Well, Let's investigate some of those claims here:

"Yes Phenom II was a dog. It barely matched the Core 2 Quad 45nm CPUs and was obliterated by the Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs.".

Let's go back to January 10th 2011, and see what Newegg was selling these processors for:

http://web.archive.org/web/20110110...aspx?SubCategory=343&name=Processors-Desktops


Here we find the Phenom II 965 at 3.4 GHz selling for $159.99.
Intel's Core 2 Quad Q8400 was $169.99

Does the 965 "barely match" the Q8400, which was 10 dollars more?

Nope, the 965 beats the Q8400 pretty handily, though, in most cases not a huge win:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=89

"It [the Phenom II] barely matched the Core 2 Quad 45nm CPUs"

Looks like that claim was wrong.


What about:
"[The Phenom II] was obliterated by the Core i7 and Core i5 CPUs"

Back on January 10th, 2011, the Core I5-760 was selling for $204.99 (45 dollars more than the 965). Is the Phenom II 965 "obliterated" by it? Let's see:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=191

Well, in most cases, the 760 does beat out the 965 by ~10% to 20%. Hardly "obliteration", considering the 750 was, at that time, over 20% more expensive.


What about the I7 claim?

Back then, the I7-950 was $294.99, on sale (almost double the price of the 965 at $159.99)

Does the pricy I7 "obliterate" the 965? Let's see:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/102?vs=100

At most benchmarks, it does beat the 965 by about 25 to 33 percent. Is that "obliteration", considering the I7 cost almost twice as much?

Looks like the Phenom II WAS a good value, after all, especially considering it was such an easy over-clocker. Of course, I wouldn't be recommending buying one new today (unless you got a real steal), what with all the newer generations processors on the market, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't a good value then, and that they aren't useful still today.

 

[cageymaru]

Those benches show exactly what I should expect. Double the performance, and I ain't getting it!
This is the whole purpose of this thread.
Now if we are finished with the "Bulldozer sux.........." posts.

I didn't see "cool and quiet" in the bios setting but it might be called something else and enable. Need to review. I have not loaded any AMD CPU drivers in Windows either other than the software that came with the MB (AMD chipset drivers).

Just wanted to say that I feel sorry for you trying to ask a legitimate question and getting trolled. Very sad that people are that ignorant.

 

[Dan_D]

I don't think the issue is with price Dan. You had an OP with an honest issue that had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the chip was BD. The encoding outcomes should have been much higher. Instead of people offering help, people offered ridicule instead.

There are tons of people with setups that I wouldn't do, but if they need help then that's what they need. Not my personal feelings against their decision. Now I will be honest and say that it's not exactly easy to remove your personal feelings sometimes, but nonetheless the OP's issue was a software issue and had very little to do with the processor at hand.

Someone a while back had an issue with an i7 not performing correctly within Handbrake and that person deserved just as much help as this OP did.

He solved the problem as I saw in one of the other posts. So there wasn't much to say. I was just commenting on the fact that for the historical record, the Phenom was a dog. Phenom II was better certainly, and even a good deal which made sense at certain price points in certain circumstances. But that doesn't mean that it was any less of a dog. There were MANY Intel CPUs that were faster. And they weren't all super expensive.

 

[Smoove910]

Sorry, but the Phenom II didn't have the TLB bug the original Phenom had, so it was far from the 'dog' you claim. Please take a step away from the Intel high-horse and just leave the argument be. I would expect more tact from an Editor.

 

[techie81]

Sorry, but the Phenom II didn't have the TLB bug the original Phenom had, so it was far from the 'dog' you claim. Please take a step away from the Intel high-horse and just leave the argument be. I would expect more tact from an Editor.

Even without the bugs they were pretty damn slow compared to everything Intel had. How do I know? I owned a few Phenom I's and II's and moved to Intel. Sorry but its just the way it is.

And I think Dan knows what the hell he is talking about.

 

[wurmy]

I think I found the culprit. There was a CPU "power control" option turn on in the bios that was the issue. Bios for this MB doesn't use any of the usual nomenclature for the functions. Turned it off and it was off to the races.
Also I was using the AMD VISION overdrive version and it gave up at 3.4Ghz and wouldn't go no further.

I downloaded the stand alone version of AMD overdrive and used it.
Well, on auto tune it got to 4.1 Ghz and wasn't slowing down. Hottest it got was 50C according to CPU temps in AMD Overdrive. I stopped it there. Will see where max overclock later and test stability. But I set the multiplier to 20.5 and fired up Handbrake and duplicated the transcode from earlier.

Right now average 53 FPS. That is transcoding a full lengh 1080P movie.
And that is near double the performance.

Load is floating from 60-75% per core and temp is 41C. So it still is not using them to 100%. But that is enough for tonight.

Glad to see your problem solved and great info on your fix and results!

 

[Dan_D]

Sorry, but the Phenom II didn't have the TLB bug the original Phenom had, so it was far from the 'dog' you claim. Please take a step away from the Intel high-horse and just leave the argument be. I would expect more tact from an Editor.

Phenom II was faster than Phenom I's with the TLB bug and no fix enabled. The fix could be toggled on and off in the BIOS and was only needed for very specific circumstances. Mainly with regard to virtualization. But that wasn't the only reason Phenom sucked. It was slow even without the fix. Core 2 Quad's were faster. Period. When the Phenom II came out it couldn't touch the Core i5/i7 line at all. Period. End of story. The only thing Phenom II had going for it was price vs. performance in certain price brackets and even then the argument was somewhat difficult to make at times unless you already had a compatible motherboard on hand already.

Everyone values performance differently. Some wouldn't see any price increase outside their budget as worth while. Others will see massive gains in performance for a little bit more money a worthy trade off. Some people only care about performance and care little to nothing about the price. This isn't [F]rugal|OCP after all so you will see people like that on here. So that part of the argument is always subjective. But in terms of absolute performance AMD's Phenom, Phenom II, Bulldozer/Zambezi and even Vishera CPUs have always been slower than a great deal of Intel's product line at the same times they shared market space. Especially where gaming was concerned. Phenom II x4 gets it's ass kicked by Core i3 2100's in many cases. You can say Phenom II wasn't a dog all you want but the fact is that it struggled against weaker processors from Intel's product line just as Zambezi and Vishera do now.

If AMD didn't slash prices to the bone they wouldn't sell at all to anyone who didn't already have an AM3 / AM3+ motherboard or anyone who wasn't a die hard AMD fanboy. I didn't want this thread to go there but I agreed with the statement that Phenom was a dog. Because it was a dog.

 

[cageymaru]

Well I would like to say that for those of us that use our PC's for gaming and entertainment the AMD FX chips do just fine. I have given up on waiting for great multithreaded software that is going to push my perception of what is possible on a PC. All the developers want to sell is the same old same old with a new UI.

And because of this there isn't a reason to care how much faster an Intel chip is because there's nothing in the entertainment space that makes a compelling reason to spend extra to get it. Microcenter doesn't exist within 4 1/2 hours of me so that is a fantasy for many in the USA. BF3 runs plenty fast, Borderlands 2 I'm at 80 fps, Skyrim with the multithreaded tweaks is 60+ fps now.

Sure I can get even more fps with an Intel but why? Sell me on a new game or idea where I'm going to go from sub 30 fps to 50 fps and I'll consider it a serious upgrade path.

 

[buttons]

You say Phenom II was still a dog? Whatever man, the Phenom II was a great CPU and virtually unsurpassed in the performance per dollar category. If you think the Phenom II is a dog of a CPU then you are extremely spoiled on your $350 dollar i7 processors. Realistically a VERY small percentage of people can afford to spend that much on their computer hardware.

No kidding, 99% of my AMD builds were about the price of just the i7-920. I really think calling the phenom II a dog is pretty extreme when 99% of end users would be unable to see a difference in day to day use.

For example "OH no my games are only butter smooth at 90FPS instead of 105FPS." I built a few i7 systems this year and i couldnt see any difference versus my FX/phenom II builds in general usage or gaming

 

[Zoson]

No kidding, 99% of my AMD builds were about the price of just the i7-920. I really think calling the phenom II a dog is pretty extreme when 99% of end users would be unable to see a difference in day to day use.

For example "OH no my games are only butter smooth at 90FPS instead of 105FPS." I built a few i7 systems this year and i couldnt see any difference versus my FX/phenom II builds in general usage or gaming

Then you remembered that the metric the OP was using to measure his performance was HANDBRAKE. A video encoding/multithreaded piece of software.

Then you also noticed that his performance is only around 60% of what my performance is... And I'm running a nearly three year old chip.

'nuff said.

 

[Digital Viper-X-]

The first Phenom was a dog. Phenom II was less of a dog but still a dog. Bulldozer is worse than Phenom II clock for clock in a lot of areas. What does that say? (No I do not mean that Bulldizer is slower than Phenom II at encoding.)



It does do well in that area. It matches higher end offerings from Intel in a lot of cases. I wouldn't say that it's awesome for encoding because there are better CPUs for that job from Intel. Though they are significantly more expensive. (IE 3930K, 3960X etc.)

While I agree clock for clock, and for people who OC BD/PD are not the best options, for people who don't OC, it's pretty hard to beat a 8350 in terms of Perf/$ and perf over all

 

[Fantasyalive]

Then you remembered that the metric the OP was using to measure his performance was HANDBRAKE. A video encoding/multithreaded piece of software.

Then you also noticed that his performance is only around 60% of what my performance is... And I'm running a nearly three year old chip.

'nuff said.

He's running a year old chip that is is over 6x times cheaper.

nuff said

 

[Dan_D]

While I agree clock for clock, and for people who OC BD/PD are not the best options, for people who don't OC, it's pretty hard to beat a 8350 in terms of Perf/$ and perf over all

Intel's OC too you know. You need a significant clock speed leap over Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge before Bulldozer / Zambezi / Piledriver / Vishera catch up much less surpass them. And the Intel CPUs can all generally do 4.8GHz. Some more. Sandy Bridge can often go 5.0GHz or better. I've heard of FX 8350's doing 4.8-5.0GHz but that wouldn't be enough of an advantage to beat Intel's offerings in most applications.

 

[xTrident]

No kidding, 99% of my AMD builds were about the price of just the i7-920. I really think calling the phenom II a dog is pretty extreme when 99% of end users would be unable to see a difference in day to day use.

For example "OH no my games are only butter smooth at 90FPS instead of 105FPS." I built a few i7 systems this year and i couldnt see any difference versus my FX/phenom II builds in general usage or gaming

I can attest to this just based on the two systems in my sig. While my 930 is noticeably faster to me, and is my primary machine carrying the load of everything I do... The 720 is seriously just fine. I'm always repeating thisf, but I built the AMD machine after my i7 just to see. I could have easily gotten away with an AMD build comparing the speed of the two. Maybe not just a triple core AMD, but a quad or six...? Yeah, no problem. Not to mention my 930 is clocked ~45% higher than my 720.

In general I agree with Dan_D and enjoy reading what he says because I think he has a clue what he's talking about. Granted sometimes I think he's a bit harsh on AMD considering all the variables.

 

[Zoson]

He's running a year old chip that is is over 6x times cheaper.

nuff said

So we're supposed to be impressed by a chip that's two years younger and significantly slower, because it costs less? Sorry, no. Newer CPU's are supposed to bring added performance to the table and cost less, not be 40% slower than something that was released years before and cost less. Just because something costs less doesn't make it a good value.

I've gotten value out of my PC for the last three years(not to mention my computer paid for itself within the first 6 months of owning it because of the work I'd done on it). Work that I would have been unable to do with an AMD cpu because of time restrictions. That's REAL value.

Starting to think Dan might need to propose renaming [H]ardocp to [F]rugalocp after all.

 

[pstang]

i hate how it seems every fucking thread in the AMD section devolves into this same argument... im all for debates, but EVERY. SINGLE. THREAD?????? what does it take to get mods to start locking threads when they turn into this crap?

 

[Dan_D]

So we're supposed to be impressed by a chip that's two years younger and significantly slower, because it costs less? Sorry, no. Newer CPU's are supposed to bring added performance to the table and cost less, not be 40% slower than something that was released years before and cost less. Just because something costs less doesn't make it a good value.

I've gotten value out of my PC for the last three years(not to mention my computer paid for itself within the first 6 months of owning it because of the work I'd done on it). Work that I would have been unable to do with an AMD cpu because of time restrictions. That's REAL value.

Starting to think Dan might need to propose renaming [H]ardocp to [F]rugalocp after all.

Yeah, there are a bunch of cheap bastards on here. That's fine to an extent but they practically berate people who can afford higher end machines for doing it as if they are stupid. That's what's changed around here and I do not like it. There is nothing wrong with being value oriented yourself but I don't get the hate towards people who want absolute performance and the best hardware.

Every thread turns into a: "This is not a good value, xx is a good value." It used to be that people appreciate more performance and got it no matter the cost. I do not know why these two groups can't co-exist anymore.

i hate how it seems every fucking thread in the AMD section devolves into this same argument... im all for debates, but EVERY. SINGLE. THREAD?????? what does it take to get mods to start locking threads when they turn into this crap?

And every thread turns into a bang for your buck argument these days. Not sure why. I take responsibility for the Intel vs. AMD debate as I expanded on the Phenom is a dog argument. But agreeing with the sentiment would have always required explanation.

You know what, I'll say it. I don't care much about value. There are times where I think something isn't worth the money and won't get it. The 3960X had nothing significant over the 3930K and that's why I don't own one. But when the 980X offered two more cores and better overclocking over standard 45nm Core i7 parts you bet your ass I went for it. Phenom was a dog because tons of processors from Intel were faster. Phenom II was better but still a bit of a dog. Bulldozer etc. same thing. I approach this from an absolute performance perspective. Call me spoiled if you want to but then I'm going to call you cheap. It's my opinion and that's all there is to it.

And when I didn't have much money I bought the best I could afford. I dreamt of higher end hardware and better things in life and try every day to pursue my goals of living better. I do not hate, or get jealous of those who have more and can afford more than I can. I'd be lying if I said I didn't envy them to a degree but I'm not going to rip on them and act like they are fucking retarded for buying a Corvette when a Honda Fit would suffice or an Core i7 3930X when they probably wouldn't know the difference between that and a FX-8350 on their single 1920x1080 monitor. Some people are satisfied with budget builds and cheap cars. Some of us aren't.

 

[pelo]

And every thread turns into a bang for your buck argument these days. Not sure why. I take responsibility for this as I expanded on the Phenom is a dog argument. But agreeing with the sentiment would have always required explanation.

Probably because you ultimately have to pay for it

Price is always a factor, it's only a matter of just how much of a factor. Once you've determined that then you get down to picking individual SKUs and all that that entails.

 

[Veedo]

i hate how it seems every fucking thread in the AMD section devolves into this same argument... im all for debates, but EVERY. SINGLE. THREAD?????? what does it take to get mods to start locking threads when they turn into this crap?

no shit, right? people suck the fun out of everything! oh well, keeps things interesting I guess. would be boring around here if everyone had the same chip with nothing else to compare it to. last project I chose was the 8350, just for the fun factor. its not exactly an easy chip to overclock.

 

[xTrident]

no shit, right? people suck the fun out of everything! oh well, keeps things interesting I guess. would be boring around here if everyone had the same chip with nothing else to compare it to. last project I chose was the 8350, just for the fun factor. its not exactly an easy chip to overclock.

I actually tend to enjoy it because although most of what gets said is similar I almost always see something new brought to the table.

 

[Dr. Righteous]

Then you remembered that the metric the OP was using to measure his performance was HANDBRAKE. A video encoding/multithreaded piece of software.

Then you also noticed that his performance is only around 60% of what my performance is... And I'm running a nearly three year old chip.

'nuff said.

Meh.

That handbrake "score" was far from an optimized situation. That was after finding the initial bios setting wrong which was seriously killing the performance.
I later did a more aggressive overclock to 4.3Ghz and did a DVD transcoded for giggles.
It hit 260 FPS in normal mode.
Also this was after I found a windows CPU power manager setting that was holding back performance. Now I can get 100% usage across all 8 cores.
Linux is better optimized for BullDozer so I plan to install a light weight distro and do my transcoding with it. I plan do limit the oc to 4Ghz anyway because above that the fan get really loud.
As far as Windows goes, it is good for games but that is about it for me.

So I'm scoring this one:
AMD-win
Linux-win
Win7 games-win

Anyone else on my team??

 

[ZodaEX]

I think he meant to say underdog cause that makes way more sense.

 

[Digital Viper-X-]

Intel's OC too you know. You need a significant clock speed leap over Ivy Bridge or Sandy Bridge before Bulldozer / Zambezi / Piledriver / Vishera catch up much less surpass them. And the Intel CPUs can all generally do 4.8GHz. Some more. Sandy Bridge can often go 5.0GHz or better. I've heard of FX 8350's doing 4.8-5.0GHz but that wouldn't be enough of an advantage to beat Intel's offerings in most applications.

I think you misunderstood

For people who OC , Intel is a better choice
For people who won't OC, pretty hard to beat an 8350.
the 3770/2600/2700 would probably be the only chips that can compete @ stock (over all vs the 8350), however they easily cost $100 more

 

[buttons]

Then you remembered that the metric the OP was using to measure his performance was HANDBRAKE. A video encoding/multithreaded piece of software.

Then you also noticed that his performance is only around 60% of what my performance is... And I'm running a nearly three year old chip.

'nuff said.

Then you remember your chip is running 4.6ghz and HIS chip is running 3.4ghz. not to mention 8 threads vs 12... your chip costs what $500 USED? 8120's around $139 brand new....

 

[buttons]

So we're supposed to be impressed by a chip that's two years younger and significantly slower, because it costs less? Sorry, no. Newer CPU's are supposed to bring added performance to the table and cost less, not be 40% slower than something that was released years before and cost less. Just because something costs less doesn't make it a good value.

I've gotten value out of my PC for the last three years(not to mention my computer paid for itself within the first 6 months of owning it because of the work I'd done on it). Work that I would have been unable to do with an AMD cpu because of time restrictions. That's REAL value.

Starting to think Dan might need to propose renaming [H]ardocp to [F]rugalocp after all.

Thats like saying... WTF MY 2004 mustang GT isnt faster then a 1989 Porsche 959 turbo?! its 15 years newer, i dont get it...

Price is a big part of the equation. A lot of us are not paid extra for the computer we are using. Even if that were the case and i did 50% more work they wouldnt pay me extra, i might get a thank you -- but no way would my pc "pay for itself" outside bitcoin mining. My employer has about 3,000 dells 90% (GX240,260,280,620,745) of which are equipped with a pentium 4. HT if your lucky. Not even kidding, my work pc lags if i listen to pandora because the P4 cant handle music and outlook at the same time.

If a pentium 4 can get us by, then why are we bickering over high end AMD vs Intel. 99% of end users only need to check their email, print a report, and surf the web.

 

[Dan_D]

Thats like saying... WTF MY 2004 mustang GT isnt faster then a 1989 Porsche 959 turbo?! its 15 years newer, i dont get it...

Price is a big part of the equation. A lot of us are not paid extra for the computer we are using. Even if that were the case and i did 50% more work they wouldnt pay me extra, i might get a thank you -- but no way would my pc "pay for itself" outside bitcoin mining. My employer has about 3,000 dells 90% (GX240,260,280,620,745) of which are equipped with a pentium 4. HT if your lucky. Not even kidding, my work pc lags if i listen to pandora because the P4 cant handle music and outlook at the same time.

If a pentium 4 can get us by, then why are we bickering over high end AMD vs Intel. 99% of end users only need to check their email, print a report, and surf the web.

This isn't a site for average users. It's a site for PC enthusiasts. Enthusiasts for PC's are like enthusiasts for anything else. They want more power, more performance, better looks, etc. What's wrong with that? Who gives a shit what people need for their office PC's?

 

[xTrident]

Thats like saying... WTF MY 2004 mustang GT isnt faster then a 1989 Porsche 959 turbo?! its 15 years newer, i dont get it...

Price is a big part of the equation. A lot of us are not paid extra for the computer we are using. Even if that were the case and i did 50% more work they wouldnt pay me extra, i might get a thank you -- but no way would my pc "pay for itself" outside bitcoin mining. My employer has about 3,000 dells 90% (GX240,260,280,620,745) of which are equipped with a pentium 4. HT if your lucky. Not even kidding, my work pc lags if i listen to pandora because the P4 cant handle music and outlook at the same time.

If a pentium 4 can get us by, then why are we bickering over high end AMD vs Intel. 99% of end users only need to check their email, print a report, and surf the web.

Because this is an enthusiast's site that specializes in covering the high end. To me, budget building is just as much a conversation piece in these forums as high end price is no object builds/parts.

 

[Zoson]

Then you remember your chip is running 4.6ghz and HIS chip is running 3.4ghz. not to mention 8 threads vs 12... your chip costs what $500 USED? 8120's around $139 brand new....

Then you saw that he did in fact overclock higher, and I was comparing my numbers to his overclocked figures. Also, so you're saying my 3 year old CPU overclocks better than his new one? That doesn't really support your argument.

Thats like saying... WTF MY 2004 mustang GT isnt faster then a 1989 Porsche 959 turbo?! its 15 years newer, i dont get it...

Price is a big part of the equation. A lot of us are not paid extra for the computer we are using. Even if that were the case and i did 50% more work they wouldnt pay me extra, i might get a thank you -- but no way would my pc "pay for itself" outside bitcoin mining. My employer has about 3,000 dells 90% (GX240,260,280,620,745) of which are equipped with a pentium 4. HT if your lucky. Not even kidding, my work pc lags if i listen to pandora because the P4 cant handle music and outlook at the same time.

If a pentium 4 can get us by, then why are we bickering over high end AMD vs Intel. 99% of end users only need to check their email, print a report, and surf the web.

It's not at all a comparable situation. Cars do not have Moore's law. A fast car is a fast car, and a slow car is a slow car. A fast car does not become a slow car over time like a fast cpu becomes a slow cpu over time.

Increasing transistor count is supposed to yield higher levels of performance/more capability. Compare the performance of the P4 Northwood with the i7 920. That's a more apt 'time lapse' of performance. Now consider the performance of the AthlonXP with the Bulldozer. Not anywhere near the stark contrast of 'this shit is definitely better' that the Intel progression commands.

 

[ZodaEX]

consider the performance of the AthlonXP with the Bulldozer. Not anywhere near the stark contrast of 'this shit is definitely better' that the Intel progression commands.

Oh come on lol. Bulldozer is so so much better than the Athlon XP. Were talking about comparing a 32 bit single core CPU with a 8 Core 64-bit CPU with a friggin shield and DDR3 memory controller. You think it would be hard to tell the Bulldozer was definitely better? That's just silly talk.

 

[xTrident]

Oh come on lol. Bulldozer is so so much better than the Athlon XP. Were talking about comparing a 32 bit single core CPU with a 8 Core 64-bit CPU with a friggin shield and DDR3 memory controller. You think it would be hard to tell the Bulldozer was definitely better? That's just silly talk.

I agree, but I think more of his point was comparing it to the Intel counterpart...

I was actually debating saying something of the same thing you did...

 

[Zoson]

Right, the key hint there is the use of the word 'contrast.' Which lets you know that I'm comparing the two sets of equipment I had named. The difference in performance between a northwood and an i7 is enormous. The difference in performance between an athlonxp and a bulldozer is not nearly as large.

It also doesn't change the argument that comparing a 1989 fast car to a 2004 slow car isn't equivalent to comparing a 2010 fast cpu to a 2012 fast cpu, because a 2010 fast cpu should actually be a 'slow' cpu in 2012. UNLIKE a fast car from 1989, which is STILL a fast car in 2012.

Simple fact remains that my fast cpu from 2010 should be a 'slow' cpu now, but in comparison to the latest offerings from AMD, it's still 'fast.' In fact you'd see that I've argued this *exact* point in relation to gulftown/sandybridge. There's been little to no progression on performance in all the cpu's after gulftown because of the change in focus for intel on lower power and integrated graphics. I wouldn't call lynnfield/sandy/ivy dogs though, since while they don't improve actual computing performance much, they bring significant new functionality/features to the table(in the form of gpu performance).

 

[Mr Spocko]

PhII was not a dog, Phenom I was disappointing (and IMO way more open to criticism than BD is)
I'd agree that some of the Phenom chips were a bit power hungry (the 4 core ones at higher frequencies) but I built a fair few of these rigs and nobody was unhappy. PhII x6 again I though they were pretty good overall bang per buck and performance.

I built and ran Athlon XP pc's and let's get real here..Athlon XP (and I had many myself) cannot in any way be compared to a "slightly recent CPU" I thought the Athlon 64x2 4200 was a massive upgrade over that processor (and it was) even my second budget mess around pc has an Athlon II x2 3.2 GHz and that blows the older 4200 rig apart and them some.

And of the BD chips are massively more powerful than these older single core processors, yes we can agree AMD have not move things forward as much as they should. But hey with round 3 of the FX processors I'm certain they will nail it so that first/second round FX users WILL want to update to those ones.

 

[Zoson]

History is the best prediction of the future. On that note, holding your breath for a high performance CPU out of AMD is foolhardy, as they have already stated they will not even be attempting to compete with intel in the performance arena.

 

[Dan_D]

PhII was not a dog, Phenom I was disappointing (and IMO way more open to criticism than BD is)

Was Phenom II faster than Core i5/i7's at the time? No it was not. It was a dog. Second place is last place when you only have two CPU manufacturers. To say Phenom II was better than the original Phenom doesn't say much. Less horrible is still not stellar. It was a good improvement yes, but it wasn't a massive improvement. Phenom II was only cheaper because AMD was forced to slash prices to move them. The only thing that ever makes AMD's chips since the introduction of the Core 2 Duo attractive is low prices or users with existing boards that will take these CPUs as drop ins. They have to be priced very carefully in order to make them appealing. And Intel adjusts their prices forcing AMD to re-adjust constantly. So one week a Phenom II might have made sense and then next week it didn't. Even so it was never the better performer. Just cheaper.

A dog is still a dog. They just priced them in such a way as to make them competitive with lower end or lower priced Intel offerings. This is because they can not compete with most of the Intel CPU's on a performance basis alone. If they could we wouldn't see bargain basement pricing on them.

There is nothing wrong with buying one of these chips but lets not sugar coat what they are.

 

[Blacklash]

Many people here treat the AMD CPU forum like it's a general CPU forum.

You could preface every post here with "Intel has better IPC than AMD" however the Intel evangelists would still come in and wave their dicks around. It really doesn't matter what the OP is about.

Some of the best overclockers in the world haunt the XS forums. They often own both Intel and AMD processors. I guess those fellows don't qaulify as enthusiasts.

If you want to discuss AMD processors try another forum.

 

[Veedo]

Good point. Don't get me wrong hard forum is my favorite forum, but compare the amd section here to say, XS, or overclock.net. its a ghost town in comparison.

 

[RamonGTP]

Guess that means the majority of Hardforum members prefer the better processor... I don't think anyone will be apologizing for that.

 

[maxius]

Good point. Don't get me wrong hard forum is my favorite forum, but compare the amd section here to say, XS, or overclock.net. its a ghost town in comparison.

the reason for this is cause all the intel snobs drove off all the amd enthusiasts not to mention the [H] itself has not painted amd in any good light and they are very justified for doing so as they want amd breaking the bank to keep up pace with the 800lb gorilla that has a foundry process advantage and money to toss away on whatever they vs amd releasing competitively priced cpu/apu's to the market.