| It is hard to imagine that there is any other processor than Intel. There is a processor called AMD (advanced micro devices) currently leading in the silicon race for the fastest processor at an affordable price. No longer shall Intel lead the market when AMD makes its name superior.
A CPU is a microprocessor that is generally constructed with millions of tiny switches called transistors that are imbedded in silicon. The outer shell is ceramic with gold pins protruding out of the processor to make a connection with the motherboard. The function of the processor is to take the data from memory, (a storage device) or an outside controller like a keyboard, joystick, or scanner. This is determined in the program by sending messages to the processor in binary language. Binary language is sent to the processor commanding the transistors to flip on or off, (on equals one and off equals zero).
The processor is placed on a motherboard with a bus speed of that to match the processor. This allows the processor to go as fast as the wires making up the bus can handle. This means the less resistance in the wire the faster your system can run. The bus is measured in megahertz (MHz) and is connected to the memory for the processor to store in memory. The faster the operation can occur the better the system operates.
The CPU has a clock speed that tells you how many operations can happen in one second. A CPU’s clock is found by multiplying the processor megahertz by 1,000,000. If you have a 500 MHz processor then the operations will equal 500,000,000 per second. The operation, is the individual commands sent by the program. The faster the processors bus and clock speed the faster FPU’s (floating point units). This is the mathematical part of the processor. This allows the binary to work faster.
Now that the processor has been explained. Why is AMD is better? In the beginning, AMD made CPU’s (central processing units) in the second IBM compatible desktop systems ever developed. There are now three competitors in the processor race; AMD, Intel, and Transmeta Crusoe (not yet on the market). The relevance of this is that Intel’s Processor will still be the most expensive CPU with no extras. Intel has had problems in the past as Kam, from the UK says, “It wasn’t until the Celeron fiasco that people started to see through their overpricing/shoddy products.” This forced the worlds leading computer manufacturer (Compaq) to start making their systems with the AMD processor.
In 1994, Intel Pentium had a FPU bug. www.computerhope.com/help/cpu.htm says “This bug evolved the Pentium incorrectly performing floating-point calculations with certain number combinations, with errors anywhere from the third digit on up. This issue can occur on 120MHz and above Pentium computers”. The FPU scare is enough to make a person not want to purchase Intel products again. They’re more than just the FPU bug, There is also a security scare. Intel’s Pentium III processor put individual number tags on each chip that could search the programs on a system when a person goes online. Zdnet at www.zdnet.com reviews the scare as being an invasion of privacy!
The Invasion of privacy issue as talked about above can be a huge problem for several reasons. It can irritate people who are already irritated with the problem of an insecure Internet. Also, it can get people in trouble with the law, for copy-right and pirating of software. It’s kind of like a little tattle tail that sits over your shoulder and monitors every little thing that a person does. The problem with this is people would not want to buy a computer with a little tattle tail in it. This was what gave AMD its second big break in processor history.
In Intel’s mind this gave them the initiative to start building better more reliable chips without the privacy bug CPU’s like the Pentium III’s later model processors. This processor comes closer to the AMD Athlon’s speed, price, and reliability. AMD K7 Athlon with its 200MHz-bus speed does not let the Intel Pentium III compare with its 133MHz-bus. The increased bus speed increases the bus bandwidth. (Like a pipe and fluid flowing through it, the bandwidth can be slowed down. The factors are the media or wires that transfer the information). Also doubling the speed of the Intel brand processors and creating a bandwidth from one point six to three point two gigabytes per second. This is fast compared to Intel’s bus speed of point five three to one gigabytes per second.
Mickey Smith of Denver Colorado say’s “ABSOLUTELY! I’ll buy the Athlon. It’s a better product, period. And, true to ZD publication bias towards Windows & Intel, you just had use the term “squeaked by in performance” to intro. Read any legitimate review, (tomshardware.com for instance) and you will see that the K7 substantially outperforms the PIII in every area, including benchmarks optimized for Intel products. Well-Done AMD!” if you where to go to this site you would find the most current information on the CPU race to 1GHz. Their AMD is still at the top due to the Kryotech technology that adopted the AMD K6. They continued to use AMD K7 Athlon processors.
Kryotech is a CPU cooling case that helps in over clocking the CPU to higher levels, a means to make the processor perform at higher levels than they are supposed to. Brent Kerby, Silvino Orozco, Thomas Pabst from Kryotech states, “After the introduction of the Cool Athlon 800 and then the Cool Athlon 900 systems, it marks the crescendo of a long and sometimes difficult cooperation between ‘processor-underdog’ AMD”. Underdogs meaning lower sales than Intel and there add campaigns (that reflect on their high CPU prices). The Intel has never had a good history for over clocking processors due to the massive amount of heat they put off.
The Athlon 800MHz FPU mark is at 4360 and substantially greater than the Pentium III processor that at 800MHz has an FPU mark of 4233. The Athlon has an advanced Floating Point Engine, which is best described by AMD, “The AMD Athlon processor includes the first fully pipelined, superscalar floating point engine for x86 platforms. The resulting floating point capability is the most powerful ever delivered in an x86 processor, and it rivals the performance of many RISC (RISC is a type of architecture that is used in network multitasking) processors used in workstations and servers.” Both CPU’s are made for different purposes AMD for graphics and numeric data and Intel is just for numeric. The AMD still beats the Intel in both areas. Both systems are configured with the same amount of memory and hard drive space and video cards. This makes the data more reliable. The graphics on the other hand is a major deal for the extreme gamer and for graphics editing.
Graphics is a major consideration to the creators of the AMD Athlon. The Enhanced 3D-Now technology was created for the graphics fanatic. AMD describes 3d-NOW as “The AMD Athlon processor’s enhanced 3Dnow! Technology takes 3D multimedia performance to incredible heights and builds on the 21 instructions of AMD’s original 3DNow! Technology the first x86 instruction set to use superscalar SIMD floating point techniques. Enhanced 3DNow! Adds 24 new instructions-19 to improve MMX integer math calculations and enhance data movement for Internet streaming applications and 5 DSP extensions for soft modem, soft ADSL, Dolby Digital, and MP3 applications.” This is out-standing for the newest technology, high graphics, processor intensive games. This is a feat that Intel would not dream of attempting.
Lately, motherboard manufacturers have proven themselves to be more willing to step out of the shadows, and offer Athlon motherboards. Hailing from a new generation of such boards, the EPoX EP-7KXA makes use of the KX-133 chipset from VIA – a set that was specifically developed for the Athlon platform. The EP-7KXA is an ATX form-factor board that supports PC133 memory, 4X AGP, ATA66 drives, and an entire range of other interesting features. As you may expect, the KX-133 set is a fitting replacement for AMD’s Irongate 750 chipset, which was developed by AMD only due to necessity for an Athlon-compatible chipset. The advanced chipset provides the most advanced gaming the world has ever seen.
A chipset supplies a platform for a processor to work and is connected to the processor through the bus. The quality of the chipset can have a great effect on how programs install and perform. A chipset allows special features that help the system, for example, like programmable BIOS features, high speed PC133 memory, increased bus speed, 4X AGP, and ATA66 drive support, all to help a system run faster. A BIOS is what configures your hardware and special plug-n-play devices. 4X AGP (Advanced Graphics Port) is a special feature for video cards, it increases speed to the AGP slot, for higher graphics and better system achievement. The ATA66 is another hardware feature for the hard drive (Where all system information is stored such as programs) and CD-ROM’s (Reads Optical Disks) that can double ATA33 technology. This combined with a 72000-RPM (Revolutions Per Minute) drive can yield a very high performance system. PC133 is extremely fast memory (currently the fastest). It runs at 133MHz, which is about 67MHz slower than that of the bus speed. However, this is still better than the older style PC100 memory.
The games that the gaming industry rely on is Quake I, II, Wheel of time, Unreal tournament, and in the future, Drakan and Quake III. Most of the games will not run well if you do not have an AMD processor with a super video card. Like its ally Voodoo when put together make a super system with the KX-133 chipset. This combination is unstoppable in the computer industry. AMD is a good system for numeric processing to break down the programming language in a game.
Cache is an important feature when talking about computer systems. It stores information used often or recently. It is very important when dealing with large amounts of information, and a high speed bus. The AMD Athlon includes the largest L1 cache (128K total) for x86 platforms. AMD says “The AMD Athlon also features a high-speed, 64-bit backside L2 cache controller that supports L2 cache sizes ranging from 512K to a massive 8MB. This high-performance cache design takes advantage of the processor’s high-speed system bus and minimizes bandwidth bottlenecks.” The 8MB is awesome, unsurpassed by Intel and any other brand that might even think of being successful.
The hardest thing to do is notice the values and how they add up. Systems all need a motherboard, CPU, memory, hard drive and floppy, video card, and CD-ROM. The faster each part is the more your processor can increase in strength. Such as adding more memory or faster memory the bus can carry more information. Hard drive can improve the speed of your system also. This all makes Intel even more behind in the CPU race because all the motherboard parts are slower or should I say substantially slower than the AMD’s. This means if you gave an Intel and an AMD the same amount of memory than the Intel would be slower. If you spent two to three times more on the Intel for memory then in reality the Intel could run as fast as the AMD. This is an unethical thing to do when you could just go out and buy an AMD Athlon.
Networking is a complicated job with older slower computers; the Athlon is the key to the networking stability. Using the fastest networking components with the fastest PC (Personal Computer) in the world. This makes a network with minimal problems and high-end data pass through possible. There is a bottleneck theory that is related to memory and networking. In memory it is caused by having to slow of memory on to fast of a bus. This will not happen if the AMD Athlon System has PC133 memory. Intel had programs made by the monopolization of Microsoft Windows 3.1x, 95x, 98x this made it hard for AMD to compete in the past. Microsoft Windows 2000 will now incorporate programming made to run windows faster more reliable and be compiled to run better on the Athlon systems. With Intel out of the way, on top end networking AMD can pull into the lead in one more area. Listen to what AMD has to say about this project. “Microsoft and AMD worked together throughout the design process to help ensure the combination of floating-point performance of the AMD Athlon processor and Microsoft’s Windows 2000 Professional will provide a reliable and high-performance business platform that meets the needs of business customers today and well into the future.”
The AMD Athlon processor and AMD Athlon processor-based systems have received 35 awards from eight different countries spanning four continents. This is one good reason you should buy an AMD K7 Athlon, of-course there are many other reasons for buying an Athlon. One reason is that you can over-clock the Athlon and still come out with a stable running system without a huge heat sink. The Intel being over clocked is horrible on their Pentium processors. The problem is the amount of heat generated can make a system crash or melt system components. Intel has no company to make a cool case like Kryotech technology.
AMD, the quality is unbeatable, the price is right! Compare the price of the two processors, this gives an idea why AMD is ranked the best. Intel’s CPU Pentium III 550MHz should cost about $270 this is an outstanding defeat by AMD’s CPU K7 550MHz that would cost around $220. If you do the math correctly the difference is about $50. AMD’s processor is better than the Pentium III but comparable to the Xeon Pentium Industrial strength 550MHz that cost about $ 1,200. The Athlon is a processor with the power to be a super computer all in a PC. Can there be a better PC than this? The answer is no. Even Macintosh was left in the dust compared to the Athlon. AMD K7 Athlon x86 makes it all work, the power has been felt.
AMD. http//www.amd.com. March 2000
AMD. http://www.amd.com/news/news.html. March 2000
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Intel. http//www.intel.com. March 2000
Null, Christopher “Ready for 2GHz CPU’s?” PC Computing. March 2000.
“Transistor.” Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia.
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