Originally Posted by SSE4

It depends on what you do with a computer that accounts for the biggest difference between the two.

Originally Posted by SSE4

What can I say, I work for the people. If you ever feel obligated to learn more, don't hesitate to ask.

Originally Posted by Lansing Kai Don

Without the bias, I agree completely. It depends on what you do with a computer. You have to remember AMD was an Intel clone for a long time, when they went their own route (sort of), there was confusion as to which is faster. The answer, as with nVidia and ATI, is DEPENDS. Not the diaper, it really depends on what instance and where. It's like asking if parallel is better than serial, depends on application.

Lansing Kai Don

Originally Posted by SSE4

Definitely. AMD (As most don't realize it) has built itself up on a series of failures and shortcomings, but what they have made now is an excellent processor worthy of mention. It has definitely changed Intels policy on the future make of its processors. Intel simply went for climbing MHz because they were stopped with the Pentium III architecture. But they made it less efficient in order to do so, and thus the "MHz Myth" was born. Some people simply use the benchmarks as a sole determining factor, but the truth of the matter is that it makes very ignorant "followers" of AMD, because they don't even really understand enough of their own processor. Don't get me wrong, AMD processors are extremely good processors, and due to their efficiency will top an older Pentium 4 easily in benchmarks and real-time application, but it doesn't mean the Pentium 4 has absolutely no use, it's actually quite the opposite.

I don't technically work "for the people," and I don't work for any computer-related company like AMD or Intel. I'm simply an enthusiast. I just love computers, and dedicate a fair bit of my time learning about them, although I intend on becoming a computer engineer.

Originally Posted by Lansing Kai Don

With that enthusiasm you'll make it. Just don't come across as a know it all. Next semester I will be starting my Master's Degree in Electrical Engineering after receiving my Computer Engineering Degree with a Minor in Mathematics and Computer Science at Wichita State. I'm assuming your young then. It's funny that you know AMD had shortcomings and failings... but they weren't as bad as Intel's. I don't know if you'd read about the early days MMX fiasco, and the floating point arithmetic problem. Then there was the lawsuit against AMD (which made them divert away from cloning intels), basically what AMD did ( for those that don't know) in the early days of processors was take Intel's design and reverse it and call it their own and sell it cheaper. Ownage. At the PII stage after the PI MMX architecture was already cloned, it nearly killed AMD when the lawsuit came. The court ruled in favor of Pentium and AMD had to find a way to make its own processors. But then there was Pentium who tried to slap a trademark on a number lol, so that noone could use the number w/o permission from them

Lansing Kai Don

P.S. Also an avid computer fan and fellow researcher

EDIT: I work at Engenio Technologies (used to be LSI Logic and they mostly deal with large-scale data storage). PM me if you want my email and/or dept, I'm not going to post it.

Originally Posted by SSE4

Unfortunately I don't mean to come off like I know it all, but certainly the way I "talk" (Or type rather) makes it seem like I'm completely sure of what I say. Sometimes I just say it because that's what I think I know through research, but if I'm proven wrong then I will, of course, accept my mistakes. Nobody knows everything, but I at least know a fair bit in consideration to some. I remember that Intel has also had some shortcomings as well, and they both have their faults, both now and in history. I'm not aware of some of the older mishaps between the two, I just know that until the Athlon XP line, AMD has pretty much been a "budget" alternative in comparison to Intel. Most of the time they were just underperformers in most respects. And Intel has made a lot of mistakes (Like it's current direction, which it seems to be quickly changing) and I'm sure there are plenty others I don't know about.

Originally Posted by Lansing Kai Don

Intel's recent mistake was:
Itanium (ouch.. investing that much time & hundreds of millions in a processor noone can afford, and underperforms)

AMD's recent mistake was:
AMD-Mobile (there just isn't a market for an AMD mobile processor, unless they did the same as the P4-M and just used the cream of the crop, that money can be invested more wisely.. has anyone seen a mobile AMD used in a major retailer?)

I like the way Intel is going with their processor's actually, serial has proven to be faster in many applications (but I don't know how they will manage with size constraints... shudders on the EMF calculations). But if anyone can do it, its Intel. Oh, and something I believe I saw somewher in public so I know I can divulge it, Intel is putting a good sum of money in Fibor Optics (the ultimate processor, no heat, therefore no limit on speed). Problem is the interpreting still is in electrical signals (I guess they haven't figured out how to teach light multiplication tables joke, has nothing to do with the problem)

Lansing Kai Don

Originally Posted by SSE4

Oh the Itanium! Was that the processor that was mainly for 64 bit but sucks really badly at 32 bit? Not sure everything about it, but I did here it was a piece of junk. I think the Itanium 2 is supposed to be extremely good (Especially at floating-point calculations, or at least so I've heard)

Haha I think I had heard something some time ago about them talking about using fibre optics for processors. It would be amazing, we can't deny that. Also have you heard about AMDs "Turion"? The one they bragged so much about? It turns out it's just a revamped (Weakened and dumbed down) Socket 754 AMD64 desktop processor with advanced "level 3 deep sleep" capabailities, like a makeshift SpeedStep. I was hoping it would be a "Pentium M killer" like they had bragged. Personally, that's a big mistake. They can't compete with Centrino with something like that, but they can trick the public into getting it solely on the "64 bit ready" campaign.

Originally Posted by Lansing Kai Don

That's the problem, whoever said Intel contains 75% of the market share is wrong. They actually have over 90% of the market share. This makes it where AMD literally can't make a mistake in the publics eye. Oh, they can make little ones, but not like Itanium (basically they can't spoil their visage). That's why you probably didn't hear much about it, AMD has a knack of not opening their mouths till their sure of what they got. Yeh, Itanium was a complete disaster, many articles will give you the clean and cut (remember that the Itanium was supposed to be the holy grail, don't put too much stock in the Itanium 2.. but anything would probably be an improvement).

Lansing Kai Don

Originally Posted by SSE4

It's difficult for me to say how things really are, because as you probably know, the second you speak out against AMD you're instantly branded a "Intel fanboy". It goes the other way as well, but Intel users aren't nearly as bad for it.

Originally Posted by Droniac

Intel users aren't nearly as bad for it, because Intel controls a larger marketshare - and the share AMD controls (likely) consists mostly of gamers, not major corporations and the like.
People that work at major corporations (and aren't gamers) won't go on forums like these and start calling everyone a noob for using AMD's, a portion of the online gamers (unfortunately) will.

On forums like these it seems like AMD controls a vast marketshare, because amongst gamers - the AMD processors are popular (virtually all gamers I know in real-life have AMD processors in their rigs).
That's not the case when it comes to actual companies, where you'll be hard-pressed to find any AMD processors.

Originally Posted by SSE4

Definitely. I use Intel processors for servers. The majority of the market aren't people who play games a lot, but they're more like the kind of people who go and buy a Dell or other company in which Intel has a strict relationship with.

Originally Posted by Lansing Kai Don

That number 90% plus actually came from this year. That's total marketshare including laptops, companies, all processors sold (not produced). Intel=Ownage. Like Microsoft, where Intel sighs, we all fall down. Before my current AMD 3200+ XP system, I had a P4 1.7 Ghz, and so far that has outperformed the AMD (with SDRAM instead of DDR and a Geforce FX5200, I got better marks on 3dMark with that system).. but to be fair there was 1 GB of RAM in it, so I purchase another 512 stick, and going to dual channel a lil earlier than anticipated (I need to know if this system is literally running slower like it behaves). I'll let you know next week when I get the stick in. Then I'll stick the Radeon 9800 Pro in the old system and try to find the source of the bottleneck.

Lansing Kai Don