|
|
Intel Vs AMD
Once upon a time, Intel made the 8088. Then they made the 8086, which IBM liked enough to put in PCs. However, the US government didn't like having all it's chips in one basket, especially during the cold war. So they told Intel to be nice and friendly and sharing. So AMD and friends also made chips for the PC. Later on, Intel patented several improvments on it's i80486 chips. However, the big people in court said Oi! Intel! No! Although you make a good IBM PC or compatible chip, you DO NOT patent something with a generic name! And AMD and the like had free run of the 486.
Then Intel had a bright idea. They called their next chip the Pentium. As it was trademarked, the design could not be copied. AMD called their equivilant the K5. Cyrix made the 6x86. But Intel had the best FPU, AMD's was ok, and Cyrix's was very poor. Intel made the "fun sized" Pentium II, and AMD made the K6, and the K6-2. The FPU improved with each one. Now we have the Pentium III and K6-3.
But Intel are worried. Notice how they advertise the Pentium III as giving "the best Internet experience". So... you can run the Net perfectly well on a 386. What can they mean? VRML? Have you ever been to a site that uses VRML? Me neither. But it sounds good to the inexperienced user, dosen't it? So why do they need to say something which isn't exactly the whole truth?
Could it be that AMD-powered desktop PCs are starting to outsell Intel-powered ones in the US? Could it be the unique serial numbers present in both the Pentium II and Pentium III, that you can never be sure that it's switched off, and that no-one's switching it back on? Could it be AMD's 3D Now!, already supported, unlike Intel's new instructions? Could it be the K7, with improved floating-point instructions, three levels of cache, copper interconnects and a new style connector, physically the same as Slot One, but with new protocols? Is it simply that AMD chips are cheaper for the same performance?
If the best thing you can do with a Pentium III is visit VRML worlds, Intel would be right to be worried.
My last PC was an Intel. My current PC is an AMD. Intel are going to have to do something pretty special to get me back. What's that? Merced is 64-bit? Well, rumour has it that the K8 is 64-bit as well. Lower their prices? The K6-3 outperforms the Pentium III on integer calculations already, even when the Pentium has a 50Mhz head start. If the K7's FPU is as impressive as early reports suggest, then AMD could well be leaving Intel for dust. Ah yes, you say, Intel have another new chip too, between Pentium III and Merced. But that's not out until months after the K7.
Of course, if you have pots of cash, you could fork out for the latest Intel which may slightly be faster than the latest AMD, depending on who released what last. But when I recently upgraded, the option of fitting Intel was £200 more. I could quite easily have fitted a decent Open GL graphics card for that, and had faster 3D than any non-accelerated Intel. The FPU is mainly used for complex 3D. If I had chosen wisely, I could have found a card whose drivers supported 3D Now! as well.
Visit AMD and Intel and see what they have to say.
Enjoy my cartoon I've made. Intel lawyers please note: It's a joke.
MHz Zombies / PCs Vs The Consoles
There are some people who believe the only measurement of a chip's speed it its clock. The chip manufacturers try to find ways round this. Intel's fancy dancing MMX guys only confused people. The general policy is to increase clock speed at the same time as improving something else. The stupid MHz zombies think "faster... must get brains...". Cyrix have it in their minds that FPUs don't do anything. They have produced some figures, which "prove", for example, that their 150MHz chip deserves the "clock speed" 166. Very few Cyrix users find this.
The zombies also tend to compare completley different chipsets using clock speed as a guide. "The PC is faster than the Dreamcast because the Dreamcast runs at 300MHz, while Intel will have made 1GHz by the end of the year," say the Zombies. Hitatchi claim that their chip's FPU is four times as fast as an Intel FPU for the same clock speed. So we need a 1.2Ghz Intel to be the same speed. Of course, the claim might be inflated, and the FPU on the PC could be improved. But it just goes to show you need to look at the overall performance of the system. MHz is meaningless when comparing different families of chips, OK?
How To Compare Chipsets For Gaming:
Of course, the clock speed of the main CPU tells you all this. Fools!
If people would look at the overall big picture when comparing PCs and consoles, no-one would get hurt. A new console is released. Everyone says the PC is about to die. The idiots are out in force for a few months, making boneheaded comparisons of mostly made up statistics. They then point out what great software the PC has.
Nintendo originally quoted the N64's power as "Equivilant to a Pentium 133" (as I remember reading it) when the P133 was new, and £2000 for a machine. By the time the N64 hit the UK, you couldn't buy a P133 new if you wanted to. But the N64 was now equivilant to some higher spec Pentium. OK, Nintendo must have increased the power of the N64 from it's early development. But it would be useful if people didn't make wrong comparisons to the PC.
In the wars of words for each new console, some PC owners insist on quoting the specs of a £2500 PC to "prove" the PC is better. Equally, console owners say this one is the one that's going to kill the PC. Apparently, the new machines will be able to access the Internet. So... do they have RealPlayer, Shockwave, ICQ, offline cache reading, 800x600 displays? No. Try putting 800x600 into a TV and see where it gets you. TV screens are designed for fast changing images only. PC monitors are better for text. Cache? Are consoles going to have pathetic caches on memory cards, or large caches on £200 hard discs? Take the price of a console to be £199 on release. Add £200 for a monitor, and add £200 as the PC has the benifit of a hard disc. Result? £599. Can you get a £599 PC? Yes. Does it have AMD and 3D acceleration? If you look, yes. Modem? Pushing it, but it's possible? Yamaha-based sound card? Yes, some of the lower end ones use Yamaha chips.
Hang on, says Console User. Yamaha? Lower end?
Yes, if you put forward a few hundred more, then you can fit a nice Creative Labs or A3D piece of kit, plus some nice premium speakers that cost almost as much as the console. Yamaha have never really made mainstream PC audio. They've made a couple of low-end chips, plus some professional gear, nothing really in-between.
Yeah, but consoles are easier to use, and don't go wrong.
The only faults I've had with my PC are a faulty fan and the cache chip blowing. The chip on a console is just as likely to fail. And if it's true that consoles will be 300MHz, then it will need a fan, which can fail too. PCs can be hard for the new user, but then so are VCRs
What about DVD?
So, the PlayStation 2 has DVD? When will we see it? 2000? 2001?. As we know, PCs keep on falling in price. 1999 will see the virtual death of new CD drives. This increase in sales will push down DVD prices, getting them into cheaper and cheaper machines. CD-R and CD-RW will stick around untill a DVD-RAM standard is agreed on. But it's quite unfair to compare current PC stats with forthcoming console stats. By the time a DVD-enabled console hits these shores, DVD will be in most new PCs
What about the magic £1500 price, then?
OK, most PCs are around £1500. But what you get for £1500 is rapidly increasing. If you stick with AMD, then the manufacturers will probablary throw in every extra going. But beware! A decent digital camera costs least £500. Work out how much a "free" digital camera worth "£199" is really worth. Especially if it's mail order price is £100. Some people would prefer a "free" camera to no camera. Your money's better off getting a meatier video card or more RAM. You could even take the money and save up for the real one. It's the same with "free" scanners. Why get stuck with the cheapest one going?
You're better off with a company that names and lets you pick your components. At least that way, you know what you're getting, and can often get a good deal on the components. On the plus side, the "free" printer with many systems is now the excellent Epson Stylus 640. That should be OK for most people, but some may prefer an upgrade to the Photo range, or the ultra-fast 940. If you dump the camera and scanner, you really can have the moon on a stick for £1500. (if you draw it in Paint Shop Pro)
Aren't all PCs going to blow up next year?
No.
Well, the old ones then?
Look, nothing's going to blow up. If there was a "self destruct" command built into computers, viruses would already use it. The nearest thing is the CIH virus. If your motherboard allows flash upgrades without a jumper setting, then your BIOS could become a bit scrambled.
Computers don't blow up due to being a bit confused about what date it is. While I'm on the subject of things that don't happen, you don't get viruses from opening e-mails. If you open e-mail attachments then you can get a virus. Viruses can only infect programs and documents with attached macros, such as Word and Excel documents. Some viruses infect special parts of your disks, but you don't get sent whole disks by e-mail.
