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Rogue Leader

Rogue Leader's Hardware Guide Returns!

Who rules, Intel or AMD?  

6 members have voted

  1. 1.

    • Athlon FX
      3
    • P4EE
      3


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After a nearly 10 month hiatus, my Hardware Guide returns in all its splendid glory. For this incarnation, I've decide to post it on the forums rather than in article form for you to provide your feedback and ask your questions. And don't forget to cast your vote for who you think rules the processor world.

 

Processors

 

The Processor war was taken to the next level last week with the launch of both the P4 Extreme and the Athlon 64. The Athlon 64 FX is the flagship model, and shows the close tie between AMD and Nvidia - Athlon FX and Geforce FX. Coincidence? I think not. The big draw of the Athlon 64 is the fact that it is compatible with both 32- and 64-bit applications. Software applications are already in the works that will take advantage of those extra address leads, including 64-bit versions of WinXP, Redhat Linux, and even some games. To take real advantage of the power, though, you need to be running the system in Dual-Channel DDR400.

 

The P4 Extreme is still running on 32-bit, but it is still a competitor thanks to the large 2MB L3 cache. The processor is really just a Xeon processor with a few modifications to make it desktop-oriented, and it performs well in all the usual categories.

 

So, which processor is better? Well, since the P4EE is not available yet, the Athlon FX is the undisputed king. However, the line is really split for the performance crown between the two. Many games perform slightly better on the Althon FX, aside from Q3 which has always favored Intel processors for some reason. The P4EE seems to favor desktop applications like Video and Audio encoding. So the choice is really up to price, and the P4EE is about $50US more than the Athlon.

 

For actual numbers, be sure to visit http://www17.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030923/index.html for all the charts and graphs to make your day.

 

Video Cards

 

The release of the Radeon 9800 XT earlier this week adds fuel to the flame as ATI continues to trounce Nvidia in the graphics market. The GeforceFX just can't keep up, especially in DirectX 9 games, and ATI is relentless in its assault on the king. So, without a doubt, the Radeon is the way to go.

 

Conclusion

 

That's it for this incarnation! Hopefully hardware news will pick up over the next little while, so I can do more of them. If you want to know more about anything I've talked about here, or if you want me to talk about anything else in particular, post 'em below ;)

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ATI can't assault themselves, you fool! They became the king and heven't allowed nVidia to take it back. They are doing the job nVidia has forgotten to.

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Nvidia always had them beat, until the DX9 cards came out. They are only now taking the crown from the king.

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You're a year late on that, they took it with the 9700, nVidia never came back for the crown. It's only now that the DX9 games are coming out that most of the world is realising it.

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Phreakly is right - it's been around a year since the 9700 came out, and with it came the performance crown for ATi. They haven't lost it yet.

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It's not the performance crown I'm interested in, I'm much more interested in stuff like GPU tempature and noise level of the fan. And if you look at that, then the Geforce FX 5900 is a total disaster if you ask me.

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I guess I should have worded that better. When I refered to Nvidia as the king, it involved more than just the performance of their flagship cards. It involved their market share, marketing strategy, and production capabilities.

 

Nvidia still controls more of the graphics market than ATI, though ATI grows stronger every day. In many ways, ATI is like AMD going after Intel. AMD has really great product, and if industry switches over to AMD products it will save them millions. But AMD doesn't have the production facilities to crank out enough processors to fill that kind of a need - Intel does. Same with ATI. If gamers switched over completely to ATI products, they'd get faster performance at a better price. Unfortunately, ATI doesn't have the production facilities to do that, and they won't for some time. The best they can do is shake confidence in Nvidia, and force them to re-evaluate the quality of their product.

 

It's good to see ATI supporting the Linux community by providing official drivers for Linux machines, but they haven't jumped on the 64-bit bandwagon yet, so users of the Athlon64 and AthlonFX are better suited with an Nvidia product which has drivers designed for 64-bit processors in Linux, with 64-bit WinXP drivers ready to roll out when Microsoft launches it.

 

Yes, ATI is winning the performance battle, but they are a long way from winning the war. With all things considered, Nvidia remains the king overall, although they do have something to worry about.

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Production capacity has nothing to do with it anymore, not since AMD came along, the quality product is what matters, not the ability to produce it. Asus has officially dropped their nVidia contract and we'll be likely to see them trying to develop ATi chipsets onto their Motherboards very soon, completely eliminating any advantage nVidia had in that department. nVidia is slowly diying, and it almost seems like they are in an uncontrolable spiral.

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On the other hand Phreakly, it would be unwise to write off Nvidia. I'm sure they're working feverishly on the NV40, trying to regain the performance crown. And if they do- good on them!

 

I guess I should have worded that better. When I refered to Nvidia as the king, it involved more than just the performance of their flagship cards. It involved their market share, marketing strategy, and production capabilities.

ATi is actually the clear market leader in graphics chipsets for laptops. Something like 57% market share, compared to 25% for NVIDIA IIRC. They also make chipsets for PDAs and other mobility devices. There's no doubt however that NVIDIA still dominate the PC add-in card market in terms of pure number of parts sold (and all those OEM deals help a lot).

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I said almost, but from preliminary results it seems like the NV40s are suffering from similar problems as the NV38s. I bleieve it has something to do with ATi's architechture and it's capabilities within DX9 compare to what nVidia does with theirs, which makes me think there are some really stupid people at nVidia.

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There are stupid people at ATI, too, so don't go making assumptions. They are still battling the insider trading case from what I hear, and that doesn't bode well for its management.

 

The notebook market is on the rise, but it still doesn't compare to desktop, where Nvidia still rules. Production means alot, and once ATI expands more agressively and is able to go after more of the desktop/workstation market, then you will see the fall of the king. ATI is poised to take the crown, they just need a little time.

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