Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 19:52:52 -1000 (HST) From: Vincent Poy <vince@oahu.WURLDLINK.NET> To: Sean Peck <seanp@loudcloud.com> Cc: Jeremiah Gowdy <jgowdy@home.com>, Charles Burns <burnscharlesn@hotmail.com>, <lplist@closedsrc.org>, <kris@obsecurity.org>, <mwlist@lanfear.com>, <freebsd@sysmach.com?>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: the AMD factor in FreeBSD Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.31.0104191950050.2730-100000@oahu.WURLDLINK.NET> In-Reply-To: <3ADF58E1.3660FD8E@loudcloud.com>
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On Thu, 19 Apr 2001, Sean Peck wrote: > I don't know if the DURON is faster when overclocked, I personally > stay away from overclocking, I don't need it. True but the Duron's from what I've heard are easily overclocked to 1Ghz or more even for a 600. > The only differences between the Athlon and the Duron is on chip > cache, and speeds of the front side bus, if I am not mistaken. I thought the front side bus was identical and the TBird has 4x the cache. > Athlons have larger L2 Cache I believe than the Durons, and are > available with up to a 200MHZ bus. Yes, they are but I thought the Athlon family which includes both the Thunderbird and the Duron has 200Mhz bus with the Thunderbird with 266Mhz on the DDR versions. > These are the only differences between the chips from my understanding > (if I am wrong I am sure someone here will set me straight) Hmmm, I thought the biggest difference was that the Thunderbird has 4x the cache of the Duron. Cheers, Vince - vince@WURLDLINK.NET - Vice President ________ __ ____ Unix Networking Operations - FreeBSD-Real Unix for Free / / / / | / |[__ ] WurldLink Corporation / / / / | / | __] ] San Francisco - Honolulu - Hong Kong / / / / / |/ / | __] ] HongKong Stars/Gravis UltraSound Mailing Lists Admin /_/_/_/_/|___/|_|[____] Almighty1@IRC - oahu.DAL.NET Hawaii's DALnet IRC Network Server Admin > Vincent Poy wrote: > > > On Thu, 19 Apr 2001, Sean Peck wrote: > > > > > I have been running AMD processors with both FreeBSD and BSDi for quite some > > > time now, and ATHLON is by far the better choice than the PIII or the P4. > > > > I guess it is cheaper too and delivers far better performance for > > the pricing and you can still get a better or equivelent system for much > > less. > > > > > The only real issue with AMD is heat related they put out a lot of heat.. but > > > that's about the only "concern" and I have never had this be a problem. > > > > Yep, I heard heat is the problem especially with those over > > 1Ghz... > > > > > I would highly recommend purchasing AMD over any Intel offering in > > > equivalent cost. You will get far more bang for your buck with > > > Athlon/Duron over anything that Intel has in the price range, period. > > > > True. Now, speaking about the Duron, are the Duron's really > > faster than the Athlon's when both are overclocked? Some guy who runs a > > cluster of 20-30 AMD's for rc5 crunching says the Duron is faster. > > > > Cheers, > > Vince - vince@WURLDLINK.NET - Vice President ________ __ ____ > > Unix Networking Operations - FreeBSD-Real Unix for Free / / / / | / |[__ ] > > WurldLink Corporation / / / / | / | __] ] > > San Francisco - Honolulu - Hong Kong / / / / / |/ / | __] ] > > HongKong Stars/Gravis UltraSound Mailing Lists Admin /_/_/_/_/|___/|_|[____] > > Almighty1@IRC - oahu.DAL.NET Hawaii's DALnet IRC Network Server Admin > > > > > Jeremiah Gowdy wrote: > > > > > > > > > > Thanks for the insight but what about in a Single CPU environment? > > > > > > > > > > > > This depends on what you plan to do. The general consensus among the > > > > > > hardware reviewers is that the Athlon is overall faster than any other > > > > x86 > > > > > > compatible CPU. > > > > > > > > > > Yep, that's what I read as well but are there any drawbacks to > > > > > being faster such as compatibilty and all that stuff? > > > > > > > > > > > > > The compatibility and all that stuff days of the K5 and K6 are long gone. > > > > Today, generally, if a cpu is x86 compatible, that's that. There are no > > > > compatibility issues with the Athlon. > > > > > > > > > > The only significant performance advantage that the Pentium 3 has over > > > > the > > > > > > Athlon is that its l2 cache memory is _much_ faster than that of the > > > > Athlon. > > > > > > > > Could you explain this ? If you're comparing Thunderbirds to Coppermines, I > > > > didn't think that was the case. > > > > > > > > > > The Athlon has a superior floating point unit that is, in addition, more > > > > > > deeply pipelined. When using software that isn't optimized for any > > > > > > particular FPU, the Athlon is typically just under 30% faster. (Some > > > > > > examples of this can be seen on comparisons between the two at > > > > Anandtech) > > > > > > > > > > Yeah, that's what I am concerned about. It seems that most things > > > > > are optimized for the Intel CPU's. While the FPU is faster on the Athlon > > > > > than the Intel, what about the non-FPU area? > > > > > > > > In business applications benchmarks the Athlon always stomps the P3. > > > > > > > > > > The Athlon can take more advantage of higher memory bandwidth than the > > > > P3 > > > > > > (but probably not the P4), thus you can get a greater performance > > > > benefit in > > > > > > some cases using DDR RAM. > > > > > > > > > > Speaking about DDR RAM, what kind of performance hits would there > > > > > be using DDR versus non-DDR RAM? > > > > > > > > If I remember correctly, depending on the type the best SDRAM gets about 800 > > > > megs/sec. DDR SDRAM comes in two flavors, 1.6 gigs/sec and 2.1gigs/sec. > > > > > > > > > > The Athlon is much, much cheaper. Motherboards, however, are more > > > > expensive. > > > > > > The overall cost ends up lower with the Athlon, especially if you are > > > > > > considering the price/perormance ratio. > > > > > > > > > > Yeah, that's what I realized as well. It seems like the VIA and > > > > > AMD chipset based motherboards costs a lot more than the Intel variants. > > > > > > > > You can get an Athlon motherboard for $100. Even if the Intel motherboard > > > > was half that, at $50, the difference in the prices of the cpus is FAR more > > > > than $50. Up to $200 in the higher end processors. People always speak of > > > > the higher cost of Athlon motherboards but I don't see the point if the AMD > > > > cpu is 40% cheaper and the difference in motherboard prices is relatively > > > > pennies when you're speaking of a multi-hundred dollar purchase. > > > > > > > > > Thanks, I'm familiar with all of those. I guess I just wanted to > > > > > know how they do under FreeBSD since all the sites really benchmark it > > > > > under Windows. > > > > > > > > It's the same. If the code is written and compiled properly, the difference > > > > should be seen in all OSes. > > > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > > > > > > -- > > > Garbage Collection... the bell bottoms of programming.. > > > > > > > > > > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > > -- > Garbage Collection... the bell bottoms of programming.. > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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