so whats with AMD?

[SonnHalter]

I just know that it's a processor but I also know that
1) people think they're garbage
2) people who have them love them
3)software comes out later for it.

[handy]

If it wasn't for AMD, intel would have all but totally dominated the CPU market.

This would have meant that we would be using what it suited intel to provide, whether they would have gone 64bit by now or not is questionable as intel opposed the 64bit processors that AMD introduced.

AMD made computing cheaper & for a good while lead the performance race, which forced intel to compete.

I for one am grateful to AMD, & when I was in business, during the Athlon era, I only used AMD processors in the new & upgraded machines I put together.

[Grant A.]

1) There is a common misconception that AMD 64 can only run 64 bit programs, and because of this, many are deterred from buying AMD processors. In reality, AMD 64 is compatible with 32 bit programs, and can even install 32 bit OSs to your system with no penalty, other than you can't access more than 2GB of RAM. You can't access more than 2GB of RAM in 32 bit anyways without specific kernel mods, anyways.

2) Most modern AMD processors are dual core, and because they are normally 64 bit, they can compile things much faster, and can also access more than 2GB of RAM without kernel mods, thus helping the overall computer's performance, especially in virtualization since almost all AMD processors come equipped with a modification that can be activated via the BIOS to take advantage of the RAM to make the virtualized OS run smoother.

3) That depends on whether or not you use a 32 bit or 64 bit operating system with your computer. Java and Flash are incredibly buggy on 64 bit, but are slowly making progress. If you install a 32 bit OS on your computer, however, they will run perfectly. 64 bit OSs can even run 32 bit programs provided that you compile them with special flags, they may be very buggy, though.

[Rumbl3]

i'm a amd fanboi i'll admit still running my 939 rig (when amd dominated). I love it. But i will say am2 was a failure. Now that the P2's are out next end of this year i might make the jump to a new p2 since there actually pretty good.

[igknighted]

I just know that it's a processor but I also know that
1) people think they're garbage
2) people who have them love them
3)software comes out later for it.

1) They don't perform as well in benchmarks, but are cheaper, and fast enough. Price/performance ratio puts them competitive with intel's offerings.

2) They're the underdogs, everybody roots for the underdog.

3) This is false.

[Skripka]

1) They don't perform as well in benchmarks, but are cheaper, and fast enough. Price/performance ratio puts them competitive with intel's offerings.

2) They're the underdogs, everybody roots for the underdog.

3) This is false.


Pssss:

AM3 is out

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1071614

Psssssssss2-See the Benchmarks ;)

[handy]

I run a 939 rig also. I have never needed more grunt than the Athlon 3500 64bit CPU puts out, the only thing I wish I could get around is the AGP slot. :-)

[Dekkon]

I have been using AMD for aslong as I have been building computers. I love there price vs performance ratio, they have a good balance in my opinion.

[blackened]

i'm a amd fanboi i'll admit still running my 939 rig (when amd dominated). I love it. But i will say am2 was a failure. Now that the P2's are out next end of this year i might make the jump to a new p2 since there actually pretty good.

Dude, I hate to be the one to tell you, but the p2 came out in 1997. C'mon, get with the times! :biggrin:

I've always been a bit of a fanboy as well. Granted I'm all Intel right now since my 2200+ went the way of the dodo, but my next desktop will likely be AMD.

[igknighted]

Pssss:

AM3 is out

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1071614

Psssssssss2-See the Benchmarks ;)

Not sure what you mean... I'm a huge AMD fan, I'm not trying to put them down. I think many benchmarks are biased in favor of intel chips anyways, but they do typically perform better on them (superpi, for example)

[DougieFresh4U]

I do not know any thing about AMD as I have used Intel for years.
I just last week had an AMD put together for me

AMD Athlon(tm)64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ 2.70GHz
320 GB Hard Drive
4.00 GB RAM
3200 ATI Graphics

I am dual booting (trying Windows 7) and I am very happy and machine is performing better than any Intel machine I have had!

[Skripka]

Not sure what you mean... I'm a huge AMD fan, I'm not trying to put them down. I think many benchmarks are biased in favor of intel chips anyways, but they do typically perform better on them (superpi, for example)

I'm pointing out under the tomshardware page they benchmarked the new AM3 chips against the new i7 in a couple video games...and the AMD chips came out on top :D

[Bart_D]

I'm pointing out under the tomshardware page they benchmarked the new AM3 chips against the new i7 in a couple video games...and the AMD chips came out on top :D

If you go read the recent reviews on tomshardware, anandtech & xbitlabs in the last 14 days or so & now with the AM3 reviews out they all are saying that the 45 nm phenom II's of whatever initial speed will net you a at least 3.5 ghz cpu if you plan to oc & still low power consumption vs a core i7 build.


I just know that it's a processor but I also know that
1) people think they're garbage.....

Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! !!!! Oh boy, I needed a good laugh.......=D>=D>=D>

[MaxIBoy]

Intel would be nowhere near what it is today without AMD. AMD was able to sell at cheaper prices, forcing Intel to act competitively. AMD brought 64-bit architectures to the desktop. Because the two companies are trying to compete with each other, they are both forced to innovate. Intel and AMD are now competing to be the first to release CPUs made with a 32 nm process. If AMD hadn't entered the picture when it did, we might still be on a 180 nm process (about Pentium III level technology.)


1) There is a common misconception that AMD 64 can only run 64 bit programs, and because of this, many are deterred from buying AMD processors. In reality, AMD 64 is compatible with 32 bit programs, and can even install 32 bit OSs to your system with no penalty,There is a penalty; you need to be in 64-bit mode in order to use the larger amount of registers per core. This can speed up performace a lot. See the wikipedia article for register (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processor_register) for details. However, a 64-bit processor in 32-bit mode doesn't run any slower than a 32-bit processor would. It was a similar situation going from 16 to 32-bit processors; the 386 could run in 16-bit mode faster than the 286 could, so even if you didn't want to use a 32-bit OS, there was still a good reason to upgrade.
other than you can't access more than 2GB of RAM. You can't access more than 2GB of RAM in 32 bit anyways without specific kernel mods, anyways.In theory, a 32-bit address size would give you 4 Gb of RAM. In reality, the number is much less. It depends on your CPU's memory controller and your operating system, but 3.2 Gb is typical. The kernel mods, if I understand correctly, result in a 64-bit operating system that runs 32-bit binaries. That way, a single program can use no more than 4 Gb of RAM. I think that's the approach taken by Mac OS X.
2) Most modern AMD processors are dual core, and because they are normally 64 bit, they can compile things much faster, and can also access more than 2GB of RAM without kernel mods, thus helping the overall computer's performance, especially in virtualization since almost all AMD processors come equipped with a modification that can be activated via the BIOS to take advantage of the RAM to make the virtualized OS run smoother. The virtualization stuff is basically a standard feature, most processors have that.
3) That depends on whether or not you use a 32 bit or 64 bit operating system with your computer. Java and Flash are incredibly buggy on 64 bit, but are slowly making progress. If you install a 32 bit OS on your computer, however, they will run perfectly. 64 bit OSs can even run 32 bit programs provided that you compile them with special flags, they may be very buggy, though. There are only problems if the code is written badly.

Programmers, When performing memory allocation, always remember:

int *foo = (int*)malloc (4); //this is bad, will fail on 64-bit OSs
int *bar = (int*)malloc (sizeof (int)); //this is good, will work on any bit depthNot that difficult, people!

[6star.org]

Some people would find out that AMD processor will perform better for their task.

[sloggerkhan]

I love AMD CPUs because I can get a very decent relatively low power multicore CPU for under $100.
(Keep in mind that the way Intel and AMD traditionally measured power draw is different and a '45W AMD' and '35W Intel' could have actually had very similar power draws because AMD always rated it by max draw while intel did it by some sort of expected draw formula.)

[bufsabre666]

i think the OP is confuzzling the architecture AMD64 and the processors made by AMD. software comes out at the same time for the chips that are both running the same architecture, i386 or amd64. its just some (linuxmint for example) release the amd64 version later. it confuses people cause intel386 version and the amd64 versions are just the generic named of the company that pioneered that architecture. thats why most are moving away from i386 and amd64 and moving to x86 and x86_64, which is much better.

[nrs]

I wouldn't go as far to call them garbage, but after the Core 2 they certainly looked that way. :P This is coming from someone who has used them exclusively since the K6-2. I almost jumped on the Intel bandwagon, then they released the Phenom II -- no where near the i7 (which was too much $ for me) but very competitive with the Core 2 Quads, ESPECIALLY after all the price cuts. So I picked one up. :-)

[Martje_001]

1) There is a common misconception that AMD 64 can only run 64 bit programs, and because of this, many are deterred from buying AMD processors. In reality, AMD 64 is compatible with 32 bit programs, and can even install 32 bit OSs to your system with no penalty, other than you can't access more than 2GB of RAM. You can't access more than 2GB of RAM in 32 bit anyways without specific kernel mods, anyways.

2) Most modern AMD processors are dual core, and because they are normally 64 bit, they can compile things much faster, and can also access more than 2GB of RAM without kernel mods, thus helping the overall computer's performance, especially in virtualization since almost all AMD processors come equipped with a modification that can be activated via the BIOS to take advantage of the RAM to make the virtualized OS run smoother.
Should be 4 GB of RAM.

[bufsabre666]

Should be 4 GB of RAM.

i never really liked this, cause its gigabits not gigabytes, which everyone thinks in. thats why the 4gb shows up as 3.2gb, and a 1TB harddive is 930gb.

i wish we could drop the bit and adopt the byte (looking at you harddrive makers, alot of ssd makers already dropped bits for bytes, your turn)

[dBuster]

Okay for those of us old enough to remember the 8086/8088 days of processors all the chips that had Intel stamped on them were made by AMD. hmmm interesting isn't it. AMD made chips for intel...

Also, the benchmarks have gone back and forth over the years from whether you wanted gaming performance or office type (number crunching) related performance. I guess you build for what you desire with the ease of building systems now a days.

Personally, I can not see paying the high price for an Intel chip and never have owned an intel based pc. Have used many of them and have seen perfomance issues for what I use the computers for. So for me I would stick with the AMD first and foremost.

Remember the days of Intel trying to compete with AMD for price and coming out with the celery sticks? Have the power but claiming to be as strong? Yeah right....

I do agree though with going to tomshardware and checking out the data. You might be surprised. Also, how many are there out there that need 200 fps video? Only the true hard core gamers would notice. I think throughput and bandwidth are more important.

Just my 2 cents worth...

p.s. I still have the guts to make a working 8088!!!

[japju]

Java and Flash are incredibly buggy on 64 bit, but are slowly making progress.

As a professional Java developer of many years, I disagree about Java from SUN being extremely buggy on 64b platform. Now, then some other Java JVMs might be.....

Or are we talking about JavaScript :-)

[Slug71]

I love AMD. My next machine is gonna be an AMD dual processor Opteron.

[Bart_D]

As a professional Java developer of many years, I disagree about Java from SUN being extremely buggy on 64b platform. Now, then some other Java JVMs might be.....

Or are we talking about JavaScript :-)

Yeah, I think he meant JavaScript.

[zolookas]

I just know that it's a processor but I also know that
1) people think they're garbage
2) people who have them love them
3)software comes out later for it.

1) It is true that AMD is having a hard time now completing with intel, but their strategy is to offer best value for your money. As far i can tell from the reviews of Phenom II processors, you can compare them to Intel's Core2 family, but not with Core i7 (which is faster and a lot more expensive).

3) Software for CPU? What do you mean?

[japju]

In refence to "Should be 4 GB of RAM."


i never really liked this, cause its gigabits not gigabytes, which everyone thinks in. thats why the 4gb shows up as 3.2gb, and a 1TB harddive is 930gb.


I think there are two different confusion in here:

1) bit vs. byte
2) decimal vs. binary prefixes

E.g.

4GB = 4 giga bytes which officially should mean 1 000 000 000 bytes or 10^9 except I have never seen it being used in that sense EXCEPT by disk manufactures.

(E.g. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte)

When talking about memory 4 GB = 4 * 1 073 741 824 bytes

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte)

Giga bits would be abbreviated Gb or Gbit e.g. Gb Ethernet....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit

Oh then there are also bauds: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baud

[Martje_001]

i never really liked this, cause its gigabits not gigabytes, which everyone thinks in. thats why the 4gb shows up as 3.2gb, and a 1TB harddive is 930gb.

i wish we could drop the bit and adopt the byte (looking at you harddrive makers, alot of ssd makers already dropped bits for bytes, your turn)
Not really. It's the 1000/1024 story. IIRC it has nothing to do with bits/bytes.

Edit: japju beat me :)

[Skripka]

1) It is true that AMD is having a hard time now completing with intel, but their strategy is to offer best value for your money. As far i can tell from the reviews of Phenom II processors, you can compare them to Intel's Core2 family, but not with Core i7 (which is faster and a lot more expensive).

3) Software for CPU? What do you mean?

Actually the PIIs and AM3s are besting i7s in gaming benchmarkes. This aside from the fact that the AM3 hardware is not yet fully optimized, nor is software optimized for it either.

[zolookas]

Actually the PIIs and AM3s are besting i7s in gaming benchmarkes. This aside from the fact that the AM3 hardware is not yet fully optimized, nor is software optimized for it either.

Ok, I've checked game benchmarks and it does perform really well.
I guess that optimizations does mean support for CPU specific instructions.

[MaxIBoy]

i never really liked this, cause its gigabits not gigabytes, which everyone thinks in. thats why the 4gb shows up as 3.2gb, and a 1TB harddive is 930gb.

i wish we could drop the bit and adopt the byte (looking at you harddrive makers, alot of ssd makers already dropped bits for bytes, your turn)
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/kilobyte.png