Just found this, probably old-news for some, which uses ntreal.pov and
chess2.pov:

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2001q4/athlonxp-1900/index.x?pg=5

Working myself up for a rebuild and having always used Intel, I'm now
convincing myself that perhaps an Athlon is worth a try this time.


--
Alf

http://www.peake42.freeserve.co.uk/
http://www.qsl.net/gw3srg/
gw3### [at] thersgbnet

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"Alf Peake" <alf### [at] peake42freeservecouk> wrote in message
news:3c39c440@news.povray.org...
> Just found this, probably old-news for some, which uses ntreal.pov and
> chess2.pov:
>
> http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2001q4/athlonxp-1900/index.x?pg=5
>
> Working myself up for a rebuild and having always used Intel, I'm now
> convincing myself that perhaps an Athlon is worth a try this time.

I seriously considered Athlon when I finally got a notebook computer but it
was just plain unavailable for what I could manage to buy (DELL) and still
get all the stuff I wanted to go into one.

That benchmarking sure shows how must the compiler trims times down.  And of
course Athlon proves to be the chip with a significant difference.  I'd
really like to see that kind of improvement in person so I could believe it
once and for all.

bob h

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Alf Peake <alf### [at] peake42freeservecouk> wrote:
: Working myself up for a rebuild and having always used Intel, I'm now
: convincing myself that perhaps an Athlon is worth a try this time.

  AMD made huge improvements to the so-called P6-family of processors
(P-II, P-III, Celerons based on those and all Athlons and Durons all belong
to this processor technology type, with just minor differences in details)
for its Athlon processor. (Although Athlon is called K7, it really is just
another P6 processor; the change in number is quite misleading.)
  Athlon could be called the top-of-the-line P6 processor. AMD made huge
efforts in eliminating some big problems of previous P6 processors (many of
these problems made the processor slower than necessary, eg. by causing
unnecessary stalls or penalties, one example being the so-called partial
register stall, which AMD succeeded in removing from the Athlon).
  Athlon is practically as fast as a P6 processor can be (if we count the
number of executed instructions per clock).

  The Intel Pentium 4 uses a truely newer technology. However, Intel made some
really strange compromises and perhaps even mistakes (whether intentionally or
unintentionally is a mystery) which makes Pentium 4 a really slow processor
(when counting as executed instructions per clock). Pentium 4 can try to
compete with Athlon only because it can use a 50% higher clock rate and also
because it uses only the highly expensive type of faster memory. But even
then it doesn't really match an Athlon with one third slower clock rate and
slower memory (and half of the price).
  Pentium 4 really wastes huge amounts of clock cycles for things that should
be faster. For example a simple shift operation (which is used in
compiler-generated code a lot) has taken 1 clock cycle since 486 (up to P-III),
but in Pentium 4 it can take something like 8 cycles.
  Even when a compiler can optimize specifically for Pentium 4 and it can gain
a lot of speed, it still doesn't get all the speed it *could* get for that
clock rate. Practically the optimizing compiler has to avoid all those
compromises which make the code slow (eg. shifts).

  The new technology might be promising, but the current implementation is
just a waste of money. Don't waste your money in it.

-- 
#macro M(A,N,D,L)plane{-z,-9pigment{mandel L*9translate N color_map{[0rgb x]
[1rgb 9]}scale<D,D*3D>*1e3}rotate y*A*8}#end M(-3<1.206434.28623>70,7)M(
-1<.7438.1795>1,20)M(1<.77595.13699>30,20)M(3<.75923.07145>80,99)// - Warp -

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before I saw your text I was about to blindly type Athlon in
here, and now that I've seen your text and link, I WILL write
Athlon inhere.

I abandoned Intel for my latest build and got an Athlon.  It's
wonderful spending half the money and getting twice the power in
your CPU! :o)

-peter
-- 
Current obsession: "Ballet pour ma fille."
http://www.applesnake.net

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Thanks for your comments Warp. My knowledge of CPU architecture
doesn't extend much further than the 6502 and Z80 :-/ I'm more
concerned these days with how fast the car goes, not how it works :-)

The number of CPU benchmarks I have seen lately are persuading me to
try an Athlon. Whether the tests are real world or under laboratory
conditions is no longer an issue for me. At one time you also had to
trade performance against cost. For POV-Ray, it would seem that the
Athlon fits both requirements now. I'm not too sure about its
reliability but suspect that is due to false economy with the CPU fan.

--
Alf

http://www.peake42.freeserve.co.uk/
http://www.qsl.net/gw3srg/
gw3### [at] thersgbnet

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Alf Peake wrote:

> Athlon fits both requirements now. I'm not too sure about its
> reliability but suspect that is due to false economy with the CPU fan.

  You hit one of the keys on a AMD Athlon system. The other is the P/S. 
Look at AMD site and be sure the system you are buying has CPU fan and P/S 
according to the recomendations. It's very important, as I know *NOW* by 
own experience (CPU burning literally). Fortunately, I managed to get all 
replaced in warranty, and with the proper specifications. Now it is fast 
and reliable, altought no yet so cheap (but still cheaper than Intel at 
same performance, IMHO).

-- 
Jaime Vives Piqueres

La Persistencia de la Ignorancia
http://www.ignorancia.org

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"Dearmad" <dea### [at] applesnakenet> wrote in message
news:3C3A3A61.E26A62E3@applesnake.net...
> before I saw your text I was about to blindly type Athlon in
> here, and now that I've seen your text and link, I WILL write
> Athlon inhere.

Last week, looking for benchmarks and info I tried giving Google
chess2.pov and got around 300 hits. How about chess2, 800*600 in 46
secs?
http://massiveparallel.com/Webimages/chess2_full.jpg

It doesn't make me feel any happier seeing results like that :-(


Alf

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> The number of CPU benchmarks I have seen lately are persuading me to
> try an Athlon. Whether the tests are real world or under laboratory
> conditions is no longer an issue for me. At one time you also had to
> trade performance against cost. For POV-Ray, it would seem that the
> Athlon fits both requirements now. I'm not too sure about its
> reliability but suspect that is due to false economy with the CPU fan.

I've been runnning my Athlon 1.33Ghz since about April(ish) last year and 
I've had no stability problems.  Peak CPU temp according to the M/B 
sensor was 54C or so, but that may go up a bit due to the new video board 
that went in over Christmas.

I'd definitely make sure you get a good HSF and a good quality PSU 
though.  I had a crappy cheap PSU that came with the case initially, but 
I swapped it out for an Enermax 350Watt unit when I spotted certain 
voltages runing more than 10% out from waht they should have been.

I'll stop rambling now, but suffice it to say that I for one am more than 
happy with my Athlon.

Bye for now,
     Jamie.

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Sigh... hopefully this won't produce a new thread. I am using Opera as my news reader
and it seems to have an odd behavious when trying to follow threads. :p

Figured I would throw my 2 cents in and say that when the new 64 bit systems start
coming out you won't have much choice. The new 64 bit AMD is supposed to extend the
existing op-codes to include 64 bit capabilities, but Intel has decided 
to completely redesign things. So if you upgrade from an existing system your current
software will only run on the AMD chip, while switching to Intel requires new versions
of everything from the ground up. If you are using Linux this is not a big 
deal. They have been cooperating with both teams developing the chips and already have
a working version emulated for both, but Windows (which sadly I use) will have two
completely different compiles for the different chips. Which should 
add ten fold to the defects and support issues involved with it, especially since they
refuse to provide Intel or AMD with enough info on its internals for either company to
provide them with decent developement support.

I kind of imagine MS as a dragon crouched over a heap of gold, but starving to death
because it is worried someone will steal something if it moves even the few feet
necessary to reach a cow that has wander into its cave. Now if we could just 
keep those stupid nobles from sacrificing clueless virgins to it... lol

Was not aware of the melt down problems though, which living in the Arizona desert is
somewhat scary.

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