[Stealth]

Intel > AMD

and don't start arguing that. there's no competition these days.  i used to be a hardcore AMD fan, until i started seeing dual core machines running circles around my quad

[Ghostavo]

From what I've seen in these past few years, AMD seems to get the general architectural decisions right but doesn't seem to be able to do good (compared to the competition) implementations. Intel uses strange, legacy-like architectural decisions but the implementation is light years beyond AMD's.

As for dual core machines "out-running" your quad core, it really depends on the processors CPI/frequency and how threaded the program is. I'd waged you've never ran something like Fritz which scales almost linearly to the number of cores.  

[chief1983]

Xeon is whatever they have at the time.  I have a Xeon X3350, it's virtually identical to the Yorkfield Q9450 Core 2 Quad.  Not an i7 at all, and actually I wouldn't even say it's optimized.  They're basically the same CPU, I think they ship a different form factor heatsink designed for server motherboards because mine didn't fit.

[Bob-san]

Pentium Dual-Core E6300
It's a Wolfdale-2M, but I called it Core 2 Duo because I'm cool like that. And it's running at 4GHz. It's a new upgrade, actually. But at 4GHz, it's blazing fast!

[newman]

Core i7 920. 4 cores with HT equals eight buckets when rendering, which is nice.

[Bobboau]

ahhh that's better

[CP5670]

Core i7 920. 4 cores with HT equals eight buckets when rendering, which is nice.

I have turned off HT since it actually hurts performance in the computation programs I use, and not always by just a trivial amount.

[Stealth]

As for dual core machines "out-running" your quad core, it really depends on the processors CPI/frequency and how threaded the program is. I'd waged you've never ran something like Fritz which scales almost linearly to the number of cores.  

and you, sir, underestimate me, or what i do for a living.

I spent 2 years working for AMD, working on a team designing the 7 series northbridges... i'm well aware what processors outperform them.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

In that case, you should tell us.

[Kosh]

From what I've seen in these past few years, AMD seems to get the general architectural decisions right but doesn't seem to be able to do good (compared to the competition) implementations. Intel uses strange, legacy-like architectural decisions but the implementation is light years beyond AMD's.

As for dual core machines "out-running" your quad core, it really depends on the processors CPI/frequency and how threaded the program is. I'd waged you've never ran something like Fritz which scales almost linearly to the number of cores. 

AMD has had a number of implementation issues, starting with the notorious burning thunderbirds, paper launches, and the not so phenominal launch of the phenom. Combining that with its hemorreaging of cash I wonder how long it can last.

[Bob-san]

From what I've seen in these past few years, AMD seems to get the general architectural decisions right but doesn't seem to be able to do good (compared to the competition) implementations. Intel uses strange, legacy-like architectural decisions but the implementation is light years beyond AMD's.

As for dual core machines "out-running" your quad core, it really depends on the processors CPI/frequency and how threaded the program is. I'd waged you've never ran something like Fritz which scales almost linearly to the number of cores. 

AMD has had a number of implementation issues, starting with the notorious burning thunderbirds, paper launches, and the not so phenominal launch of the phenom. Combining that with its hemorreaging of cash I wonder how long it can last.

AMD has always had these problems. They're getting better now, thank God.

[chief1983]

I just read the other day they were originally supposed to buy nvidia (would have been a better match I think) but that fell through, and since they had already borrowed the cash they had to buy Ati instead.  Not sure how true that is, but at least it makes a little more sense to me now.  Both Ati and AMD went downhill after that merger for a while.

[S-99]

Necro.
I just voted again. No longer tied down to atom on eeepc or the arm in my zipit z2 (the $50 laptop that runs debian now in the palm of my hand).

I just got my new amd athlon 2 X2 2.9ghz and geforce gts 250 (yay, nvidia finally integrated physx on the damn card, ati did something similar too) off the ground. It's nice for the first time in my life using the latest technology for once, and i actually have some games to give the system a little bit of stress. Although unreal tournament 2007 has the boxed mouse crap in wine, and that leaves the fso.

The only thing old about my computer really is the ide hard drive. The motherboard only has one ide channel used for the dvd burner, and a pci add in card that has two ide channels used for the 200gb never used maxtor

Running linux mint (but waiting for mepis 8.5), everything's damn skippy with the latest of fso. Quake 4 at ultra settings is rather dull, it doesn't look much better than high quality (but ultra requires 500mb or more of graphics memory, and quake 4 sucks).

I do like AMD better than intel nowadays. Intel was really slow on the uptake of the 64 bit architecture for consumer grade pc's while amd implemented it first among other things incorporating and onboard memory controller, putting out the first x86 dual core processor, and implementation of direct connect architecture being hyper transport. AMD is a little slower, but i like the innovation.

[Angelus]

Xeon with 2 x 2.40 GHz CPU.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

Still better than anything I have, though.

[Turambar]

Q6600, quad core.

supposed to run at 2.4ghz, mine is running stable at 3.6 with no extra cooling.

[IronBeer]

Core 2 Duo E4600, clocked at 2.4 GHz.

Whoo for being in the middle.

[S-99]

Another thing i discovered about the AMD processor i use is that it's actually a quad core, but with two of the cores disabled, among no L3 cache, but it's the same thing as the phenom II. In fact all of their current processors are just redone phenoms.

So, in other words, people who have bought certain really cheap semprons have been able to turn them into dual core athlon 2's. People who have bought certain athlon 2's have been able to turn them into phenom II's quad core.

The unlocking process is really easy, you just need to turn on advanced clock calibration in the bios. I'm able to do this, but technically i have a variant of the athlon 2 dual core called regor that most likely wont be able to be unlocked into a quad core. But, i figured i might as well try since there is nothing for me to lose.

There is a way to know if you do have an AMD that can be unlocked, it's called find out which processor you actually have.

[Hades]

Mobile Core 2 Duo T5800 running at 2.00 GHz normally. I may be upgrading to a better duo or Q9000 quad core sooner or later.

[Klaustrophobia]

Athlon X2 5600+ @3.2 ghz