AMD vs Intel

[drizzt]

In an effort to occupy my time, and stay an active member here, thought illd try a new debate.

So wich do you prefer and why? Im an AMD man myself(running a a socket940 Fx-53) . There just overal better processors, with shorter pipelines, vastly superior memory controllers etc.

Come on i know there are other computer dorks on this forum(actualy i go a step beyond dork, im a proffesionaly certified tech but hey....). I might also have to post pics of the new casemod im fixing to start(have to get the link cable for my phone)


BTW flames may not be were you would first think of for a thread like this,But if you think that, youve never seen a computer dork battle royale.........techno babble is a fun language to argue in :)

[DarQik]

This is definite flame topic. It's fully as much religious zealotry as the Mac vs Windows vs Linux topics.

I'm using AMD where possible, I use Intel for my high powered embedded toys, VIA on low power embeddeds. AMD is currently my personal CPU choice for price/performance. Yeah, I might squeak an extra 5% performane out of a similar Intel system, in some cases, for only 80% more cost.

I'm also on the lunatic conspiracy theory fringe with the Wintel empire, especially with the timing of WinXP 64... just after Intel starts shipping and over a year after I had my AMD64.

:) And Drizzt... just ignore that other thread...

[h2o]

I am a "I don't give a shit as long as it runs fast" kind of person. I am currently running a Pentium 4 of 3,2 GHz which I am very pleased with.
Next processor might very well be a AMD, but that will be in quite a few years. Probably after I get my Masters in Computer Engineering (only three and a half years to go, weee!), until then I don't think I'll have the money. Especially not since kendo and iaido takes up a lot of my money ;)

[drizzt]

Dont worry im ignoring more than that thread(btw i haent put anyone on my official ignore list......but im not going to respond to certain people but on a limited basis....like this thread)

Yes, the jackasses at microsoft have been in cahoots with intel for a lng time. look at the xbox, its nothing but a crappy p3 setup. However thats changing.....the new one is an IBM processor they use in the g3 i beleive lol.

I wonder how many people can actualy explain the difference in the two procesors lol. What system are you running btw?

I love how loyal intel fan boys are when the amd's outbench them at every step :)

[sparc]

I'm an AMD convert actually. I used to be an Intel fan-geek but thats a different story. I'm running an AMD64 which is great, and operates at a low temperature. And the best thing of all, the price is right. :)

Unless Intel can pull off something totally cool that outstrips the AMD, I think I'll be sticking to AMD.

And why slag off the XBOX? Yeah sure it's a P3 733, but the XBOX makes such a nice little network fileserver once you've removed the cut back Windows 2000 OS and installed something like GentooX (Linux). :)

[DarQik]

Yes, the jackasses at microsoft have been in cahoots with intel for a lng time. look at the xbox, its nothing but a crappy p3 setup. However thats changing.....the new one is an IBM processor they use in the g3 i beleive lol.

I wonder how many people can actualy explain the difference in the two procesors lol. What system are you running btw?

I love how loyal intel fan boys are when the amd's outbench them at every step :)Don't dump on the xbox, unless you're talking about gaming, in which case dump on all consoles evenly... ;) I won't discuss my xbox setup, but suffice it say it's very efficient at it's function and I like it. A P3-733 is a lot of horsepower for such a small number of pixels (although I'd lik3 128mb instead of 64).

You have to take an interest to understand the tech under the hoods, and spend a lot of time at it. I don't know much about autos, but I do understand CPU's to a certain level. :evolved: MIT has a couple of guest speakers that lecture about things. They've had a couple of good ones there, like one of Intel's architecture guys discussing marketing and it's effect on CPU design... Blue Crystals....

As per the other thread, my gaming rig is still an aging Biostar IDEQ 200(?), AMD64-3200+, NF3, 1GB, 300GB SATA Raid0, ATI9800Pro-AIW. Strangely, my 2+ year old machine isn't dusty enough to require an upgrade, but I'm still shopping for newer video cards.. (but I'll probably skip that and get bogu this year)

Most of the Intel fans love the stability argument. Which since everyone codes from Intel's cheat sheet isn't terribly off the mark. Some things are more stable on Intel. I really love the Intel P4 heat system; the way it scales back on power rather than power off when it overheats. It was a good thing to put that into the desktop CPU. Fortuneately they can always find a tweaked benchmark that shows some Intel CPU that might even be shipping next year (ignoring cost completely) beats that AMD CPU you can buy now.

Sharky Extreme does a cute little ~$1000 game system design article every month or so. They do an Intel and an AMD system; one typically has a bit more power for the money...

[drizzt]

yea ive seen the shakry artices :). And im not knocking the xbox perese, i was commenting on the fact A.)they fanboyed for intel, and B.) they could have had better hardwar for a comparable price at the time :).


THe thing i have issues with is thrown together design of the p4. the chip wa designed to produce the big numbers, but it was weaker than the older p3's(note the guys who designed the thing actualy admitted to that). AMD kept the right idea by using a 12 step pipeline vs a 20 in the p4. plus that sweet little dual 800mhz FSB shure makes things nice. I wish I had waited now on this fx until the s939 version came out though.its a great chip but i wish i could look forward to pci-e video cards .....

i want a fx-57 though .....god i want one :)

[Grenamier]

I'm quite happy with my PowerPC G5.

[Lloromannic]

In an effort to occupy my time, and stay an active member here, thought illd try a new debate.

So wich do you prefer and why? Im an AMD man myself(running a a socket940 Fx-53) . There just overal better processors, with shorter pipelines, vastly superior memory controllers etc.

Come on i know there are other computer dorks on this forum(actualy i go a step beyond dork, im a proffesionaly certified tech but hey....). I might also have to post pics of the new casemod im fixing to start(have to get the link cable for my phone)


BTW flames may not be were you would first think of for a thread like this,But if you think that, youve never seen a computer dork battle royale.........techno babble is a fun language to argue in :)

AMD all the way. Cheaper and nicer. And some people say it is better for overclocking, but I wouldn't know that.

[drizzt]

ive had two different ones that overclocked well, and most of the serious oc guys use them...

whe i get my W?C stuff done, ima oc mine again

[DarQik]

I'm quite happy with my PowerPC G5.That's a different war... :smoker:
im not knocking the xbox perese, i was commenting on the fact A.)they fanboyed for intel, and B.) they could have had better hardwar for a comparable price at the time :).<flame value=on>What are you talking about? When the xbox got put together it was a deal at $250-300-- P3 733, 64MB, 20GB HDD, nvidia GPU, 10/100NIC. I couldn't even source the parts that cheap then. It's not like it doesn't have a decent GPU too. Sure, by today's standards it's way behind, but at the time it was first popping out. There was no such thing as better hardware for the price at the time; common theme was that they were losing money on every sale (something sony never did).

Come to think of it you mentioned "vastly superior memory controllers". Are are aware that those improvements are very recent, right? Even while losing the CPU title, Intel's had faster RAM throughput on the mb. The real bonus is that they put the memory controller on die, thus it's closer which means faster and better controlled. </flame>

I can't think of any more argumentative contrary positions to take without becoming even more contrived in order to keep this going, so.... ;) Oh wait...

i want a fx-57 thoughAmateur... :beard: I want a quad Opteron 854 rig (4GB of CL2.0 RAM/CPU) with a 7800GTX SLI config... and of course, with the fancy vapor cooling system...

Who needs to overclock when you have more power than you can use?

[drizzt]

actualy, a quad or even 8 processor system is nearly useless oin 99% of all aplications, unless you want to tear into source coding.

HAve you seen a Dual cahnnel A64 memory benchmark compared to an intels? the onboard controller nearly doubledthe memory bandwith. Ill look for a benchmark graph and scores for you. Maybe i should reword, not the controller but the bandwith. that was the big argument when my processor and the older EE came out, the fx's memory bandwith scores made the intels look like a joke. HAving duall 800mhz busses does that for you lol...

[drizzt]

i just thought about something, we need to get a folding team running on this board......thats actualy a good cause and alot of people might get into it

[Berugijin]

actualy, a quad or even 8 processor system is nearly useless oin 99% of all aplications, unless you want to tear into source coding.

You are somewhat misinformed.

Some explanations first:

1) CPU context switches are expensive operations.
2) A single core can run only one thread (hyperthreading isn't 'true' dual core)
3) Core = A single unit that can execute instructions. The die of a dualcore processor (Athlon 64 X2 for example) has two cores. There are even processors with eight cores such as Sun's Niagara.
4) Thread = A series of instructions (an application or part of it)

If you're have 8 running threads and just one core the scheduler will swap out the threads (costly operation) and let each of them run a certain amount of time, since this happens so fast it appears that everything is running at the same time.

If you have 8 threads and 8 cores available there will be much less context switches and thus more time to crunch numbers.

Most applications have only one thread that executes instructions. There are also multi-threaded applications that split work in two or more parts, for example one thread handles the drawing of a landscape while the other deals with user input. Applications such as these benefit greatly from multicore systems.

However twice the number of processes doesn't equal twice the performance. One thread will frequently have to wait for another thread to finish accessing a piece of memory. If both were to access and modify a number in memory at the same time chaos would ensue...

Since you can only make transistors so small processors are moving to a multicore design to increase performance.

I don't see why you keep mentioning a "sweet little dual 800 MHz FSB" because the memory controller of the Athlon 64 (and FX & Opteron) is "ondie" not "onboard", replacing the traditional FSB. There is however the HyperTransport bus that links the CPU to the northbridge and operates at 800MHz.

[piggy]

<flame value=on>What are you talking about? When the xbox got put together it was a deal at $250-300-- P3 733, 64MB, 20GB HDD, nvidia GPU, 10/100NIC. I couldn't even source the parts that cheap then. It's not like it doesn't have a decent GPU too. Sure, by today's standards it's way behind, but at the time it was first popping out. There was no such thing as better hardware for the price at the time; common theme was that they were losing money on every sale (something sony never did).


The xbox was made to be a game machine. Not a computer. Even if it does have good software, it was still much less popular than the PS2 (which might i add was released some years before the xbox.) So putting aside all the design flaws and functionality of the xbox, it still lost to Sony. Too much time was spent on useless features of the xbox that frankly, noone even cares about. I'd rather Microsoft copy the Playstation and slap the green X sticker on the side over PS2 than have them continue producing sub-par gaming machines. All the technology in the world means nothing if noone even cares about what it does. As for me, i'll spend 300$ less on a computer with slower components and wait a fraction of a second more on everything than the alternative.

Maybe with the money saved, I can buy myself RBSO bogu and fulfill my wildest Tom Cruise/ Uma Thurman dreams of recklessly swinging a shinai at a tree.

<flame-mode, deactivate>

[Hai_hai]

I'm quite happy with my PowerPC G5.
Macs are going the way of Intel chips in the future.

[Hai_hai]

Most applications have only one thread that executes instructions. There are also multi-threaded applications that split work in two or more parts, for example one thread handles the drawing of a landscape while the other deals with user input. Applications such as these benefit greatly from multicore systems.
You would also need a multiple-CPU operating system for the multi-threaded application to work faster on a dual-proc CPU or else it would still run as if it were on a single proc CPU.

However twice the number of processes doesn't equal twice the performance. One thread will frequently have to wait for another thread to finish accessing a piece of memory. If both were to access and modify a number in memory at the same time chaos would ensue...

Since you can only make transistors so small processors are moving to a multicore design to increase performance.

I don't see why you keep mentioning a "sweet little dual 800 MHz FSB" because the memory controller of the Athlon 64 (and FX & Opteron) is "ondie" not "onboard", replacing the traditional FSB. There is however the HyperTransport bus that links the CPU to the northbridge and operates at 800MHz.
Without dual-proc operating systems and multi-thread applications that will work with the multi-proc operating systems, it's not easy to say whether Intel or AMD's dual proc CPU is better.

As for single-proc CPUs, AMD has the lead somewhat because their chips run cooler and are better for serious gamers who are getting top-of-the-line AMD CPUs on mobos with dual SLI video-card slots. As Berugijin has stated, chip makers have hit a physical boundary on chip speed with single procs and so the high-speed single-proc war is kind of over.
AMD has better low-end chips than Intel, but there is a bit better reliability when mating an Intel CPU with an Intel motherboard.

[drizzt]

You would also need a multiple-CPU operating system for the multi-threaded application to work faster on a dual-proc CPU or else it would still run as if it were on a single proc CPU.


Without dual-proc operating systems and multi-thread applications that will work with the multi-proc operating systems, it's not easy to say whether Intel or AMD's dual proc CPU is better.

As for single-proc CPUs, AMD has the lead somewhat because their chips run cooler and are better for serious gamers who are getting top-of-the-line AMD CPUs on mobos with dual SLI video-card slots. As Berugijin has stated, chip makers have hit a physical boundary on chip speed with single procs and so the high-speed single-proc war is kind of over.
AMD has better low-end chips than Intel, but there is a bit better reliability when mating an Intel CPU with an Intel motherboard.

thank you for the explination. Im aware the mem controller is on die, and yes i know it no longer is a FSB, but it replace the function of one.....no need to be nasty about it

hai hai i didnt know you were a computer wiz......you a pro or just like toying with them :)

BTW cre to make a guess how many games are multithreaded?

[drizzt]

I don't see why you keep mentioning a "sweet little dual 800 MHz FSB" because the memory controller of the Athlon 64 (and FX & Opteron) is "ondie" not "onboard", replacing the traditional FSB. There is however the HyperTransport bus that links the CPU to the northbridge and operates at 800MHz.

btw there are tw hypertransport busses if remember correctly......

there was no need for the "threading" explination, my statement stands. how many home applications do you run that can multi-thread to a SMP system?

[Berugijin]

btw there are tw hypertransport busses if remember correctly......

there was no need for the "threading" explination, my statement stands. how many home applications do you run that can multi-thread to a SMP system?

Media applications (xmms, gstreamer, encoders&decoders), math applications, webservers, Java VM... Something more familiar to you is perhaps Star Wars Galaxy where on thread handles the drawing and the other all the rest.

GUI applications too, most of these just sit idle waiting for input, move the event loop into a thread that sits mostly idle and the behind-the-scenes-work into another.

There aren't that many but an SMP system is still superior because you can avoid the costly context switches. With linux I can easily set an "affinity mask" to allow certain processes to only run on certain CPU's, surely you can see the use of this?

The amount of HyperTransport links depends on the processor. Perhaps you thought there were two because the HT link is double data rate, i.e. sends data on the rising and falling edges of the clock signal? The Athlon64, FX have only one useable HT link and it connects to the northbridge. For the Opteron line there are three, which connect to the CPU's to eachother giving every cpu access to the other cpu's memory (in contrast with traditional SMP configurations where all CPU's shared the same memory, the Opterons each get a share of memory).

[Berugijin]

And I prefer AMD, always have. You just got to love coding for x86-64 and its 16 GPR's.

[drizzt]

Media applications (xmms, gstreamer, encoders&decoders), math applications, webservers, Java VM... Something more familiar to you is perhaps Star Wars Galaxy where on thread handles the drawing and the other all the rest.

GUI applications too, most of these just sit idle waiting for input, move the event loop into a thread that sits mostly idle and the behind-the-scenes-work into another.

There aren't that many but an SMP system is still superior because you can avoid the costly context switches. With linux I can easily set an "affinity mask" to allow certain processes to only run on certain CPU's, surely you can see the use of this?

The amount of HyperTransport links depends on the processor. Perhaps you thought there were two because the HT link is double data rate, i.e. sends data on the rising and falling edges of the clock signal? The Athlon64, FX have only one useable HT link and it connects to the northbridge. For the Opteron line there are three, which connect to the CPU's to eachother giving every cpu access to the other cpu's memory (in contrast with traditional SMP configurations where all CPU's shared the same memory, the Opterons each get a share of memory).

the fx is an opteron(well the 940 version was....it was a hopped up opteron. Thats why its supported a dual channel memory controller when the a64 did not, once 939 came out they began supporting the dual transport with both....) ive also never heard of swg running as an smp application. and yes, the afinity mask is a useful tool in linux, but most home users dont run linux. THe whole issue with smp is, you have to be doing something SPECIFIC for it to be vaguely useful... and you have to be running an os designed for it. If you want to argue that, we could argue that a cluster is even more effecient

[drizzt]

On further reflection of your post, get down off your high horse man. You come off as a real prat with the inference through swg......

I understand WHAT applications require it, i asked for specific apps YOU run at home. I dont know what put the burr under your saddle with me but come off it...

[Berugijin]

THe whole issue with smp is, you have to be doing something SPECIFIC for it to be vaguely useful... and you have to be running an os designed for it. If you want to argue that, we could argue that a cluster is even more effecient

No it doesn't have to be specific, see the context-switching issue. What OS does not support SMP these days? Even OpenBSD supports it. I can only think of crippled Windows versions that impose artificial limits on the amount of CPU's that tasks can be scheduled on.

I didn't mean to belittle you but you really give off the impression (being vague or just wrong with the use of terms, or maybe your English just isn't clear enough to me) of being a gamer that just stares at benchmarks, puts neon-lights in his case, bought the rounded IDE cables to improve airflow and all that. Anyways sorry.

For example, what kind of cluster? In this context I suppose you meant HPC clusters. I used to run a three-node openMosix cluster at home just for kicks but it's very specific in its use. Mosix just exports jobs from one box to the other based on load averages, for applications that require a lot of IPC this is cleary not the ideal approach (far from) because your standard Ethernet is too slow and I don't think anyone here can afford InfiniBand (and if you could you wouldn't be running Mosix). If you're running Folding or SETI@Home then it's ideal. A virusscanner doesn't have to run on your node so can easily run it on another and have it access your filesystem using MFS.

What is more efficient depends on the problem (can it be solved in parallel? is there a lot of IPC?). If I'm going to simulate particle interaction I'll be using BlueGene/L and not a Beowulf.

For home users SMP is good, you can run your word processor on cpu0, all your spyware and porn dialers on cpu1 and cut back on those context switches which is far from "vaguely useful". To make it even more clear to you, if your media player runs on cpu0 then it doesn't have to share time with everything else you're running so you can keep the video fluent.

[drizzt]

the vaguity was more form the fact i didnt know i was speeking to someone with an extensive knowledge of the subject(MOST people lost you way back there......admittedly youve probably played with the cluster side of things more than i have)

I will point something out, and you may disagree, but your being overtly knitpicky in some of your terminology......but thats another issue and im not going to argue.

You must be a linux only man....hate to tell you, you dont get by with running just linux over here except in the proffesional world. And yes i mod my cases, but mine are aimed a little more at overclocking(wich i wish i could afford to take the chance on this cpu)than looking cool.

I hate to bring myself down and say it, you remind me of a foreign exchange student we had from Germany.......actualy you sound just like him. He liked to correct everyone on everything.....it got old. dont assume becasue someone was trying to shoot the bull on the internet and didnt describe something to your satisfaction there stupid, and im fixing to just start ignoring your posts if you dont stop condescending me...its that simple. I've had it with that crap out of more than just you....

[DarQik]

I understand WHAT applications require it, i asked for specific apps YOU run at home. I dont know what put the burr under your saddle with me but come off it...It's a tech flame thread, have fun with it don't get offended. ;) I was just trying to spark more activity, and it looks like we've managed to get some more people out of the closet.

Going back a bit... AFAIK, the current the FX is not the Opteron core anymore; I am pretty sure that with the dual cores, they are no longer the same die (I could go look, but why bother touting facts I've actually checked). I've had lost of issues with HT and multiple cores. The same programming issues for SMP are made worse with HT as the locking and tasking is different. Pure SMP is better (I hope AMD went down the SMP on die path rather than HT path).

As for why I like SMP... First off, I can't afford it which makes it better. :wink: Secondly, I never have enough horsepower, and rarely have enough RAM. Beyond massive gaming (which I'm slacking off on now for Kendo), I do dev work, and I tinker with photo/video rendering as yet another hobby. I never have less than 5 apps running, unless I've gone back and unloaded to tweak for more playing cycles. Even my base Winxp office load here has 580 threads, 51 procs, 570MB of RAM in use right now. Just think Windows core - CPU1, AV/IM/Junk -CPU 2, Game -CPU 3/4. :) The architecture for that class of system is quite different from a base PC, even for the PCI bus.

For those lost on SMP and HT/SMT, there's a nice article here (http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/hyperthreading.ars). WinXP should support dual CPUs (or HT's virtual dual CPUs).

The latest on die memory controllers for AMD are showing the promise that the original ones hinted at. It took a bit for them to get there, but it's really impressive where they got to with it. Now the challenge is to get affordable chips to populate it. Intel hyped their memory superiority for so long, it's nice to seem some challenge there finally.

The xbox was made to be a game machine. Not a computer. Even if it does have good software, it was still much less popular than the PS2 (which might i add was released some years before the xbox.) So putting aside all the design flaws and functionality of the xbox, it still lost to Sony.Xbox was going to lose to Sony regardless of it's functionality. Sony has an entrenched fan base. I tend to recommend consoles by age or target audience--Kids GameCube, Mix (kids-adult) PS2, Older Teen/Mature Xbox. It's interesting how the game availability follows those trends. I try not to comment on the quality of software...

:evil: Uh, sure the xbox was made to be a game machine... One built with a standard PC motherboard, PC processor, USB interface, modified PC video system with TV out, and a specialized version of Windows 2000. So, it was made to be a game machine out of PC parts, and it can make a functional PC as a result (although the disk/network throughput isn't too impressive though).

And I prefer AMD, always have. You just got to love coding for x86-64 and its 16 GPR's.:rolleyes: No, nobody needs more than just a couple GPRs, we need more unique specialized registers that won't be useful most of the time... and more out of order pre-emptive cache guesswork execution down long CPU pipelines. Oh, and I want my MEM:Offset addressing back...

Where the heck are you guys getting the AMD's run cooler than Intel? Or did I miss the memo about Intel cranking up the wattage to keep up? I don't recall Intel's heat advantages being shored up anytime soon. My AMD64 is stinking heater--beats my stack of 7200rpm drives.

As for SWG (you asked about SMP capable games and there aren't many), hopefully it's the beginning of a good trend (like farcry). There is goal of moving to more thread based game design so have individual threads for things like physics, rendering, AI, networking, and etcetra in order to support HT and SMP. Lots of chatter about benefits, cost/complexity, and value going on, but things should improve over time.

... I'll readily admit that I'm a PC gaming bigot. I find consoles about as good as cell phones for gaming.

[drizzt]

Going back a bit... AFAIK, the current the FX is not the Opteron core anymore; I am pretty sure that with the dual cores, they are no longer the same die (I could go look, but why bother touting facts I've actually checked). I've had lost of issues with HT and multiple cores. The same programming issues for SMP are made worse with HT as the locking and tasking is different. Pure SMP is better (I hope AMD went down the SMP on die path rather than HT path).


ah but i clarified, the socket 940's are opty's :)

[ScottUK]

AMD San Diego chip and a £250 Radeon graphics card - I do CAD, surface and solid modelling. Oh, and Quake/Doom... :D

Stick your Pentiums up your arse - good for etch-a-sketch though...

[Berugijin]

The same programming issues for SMP are made worse with HT as the locking and tasking is different. Pure SMP is better (I hope AMD went down the SMP on die path rather than HT path).

To the host OS there is no difference between SMP and HyperThreading, both appear as if there are two physical CPU's. So logically the locking issues remain the same, i.e. a pain in the ass to debug.

The Linux kernel on the other hand can recognize whether there are two CPU's or just one with HT and adapts to this to optimize scheduling.

Pure SMP is indeed a lot better. Also, if you're a terrorist and use RSA to encrypt your evil plans of world domination you're screwed with HT: http://kerneltrap.org/node/5103

AMD did not go the HT way (thank [insert deity]), the Athlon 64 X2 has two cores on one die where each core can execute a single thread. It's definately a nice and clean implementation, not a clever hack like HT.

[Hai_hai]

hai hai i didnt know you were a computer wiz......you a pro or just like toying with them :)
I am not a wiz, or wizard if you will. I am a professional on the software side of things, but not in the hardware arena. I just keep tabs on what goes on in the hardware biz. The two are mutually dependent on each other.

I really don't care if AMD or Intel is better because I play old-fashioned, low-resolution games like Tetris and Dig Dug.

[DarQik]

I really don't care if AMD or Intel is betterSacriledge! Don't need to read further! (Is there a Sanrio ninja character? or is the ninja demonstrating the art of disguise?)

To the host OS there is no difference between SMP and HyperThreading, both appear as if there are two physical CPU's. So logically the locking issues remain the same, i.e. a pain in the ass to debug.In theory sure, but I (and others) have observed some really quirky server behavior with HT enabled that didn't occur on other full SMP units. Result: disabling HT on all new incoming units.

I will simply nod on your dev comments, as I've avoided such dirty things as SMP or overly complex threading. I find the old standard race conditions annoying enough without adding more complexity to mix. I was referring not so much to user space dev after the OS virtualization, as to low level scheduling which I think is different, but again I shudder even consider working on that stuff... (I typically want very robust and long lived stuff for my projects--embedded or industrial toys. More complexity makes it harder to get them out the door correctly and quickly.)

[Berugijin]

I really don't care if AMD or Intel is better because I play old-fashioned, low-resolution games like Tetris and Dig Dug.

That's old-fashioned? Geez you young whipper-snappers these days.

*goes back to playing nethack*

[Neil Gendzwill]

I am in a twisty room of little passages.

[Paikea]

I am in a twisty room of little passages.All the cube farms I ever work in look just like that.

[Hank]

All the cube farms I ever work in look just like that.Mmmmmmm...live-action nethaaaaaack.

Hank.

[drizzt]

Berugijin i have to agree with your assesment of the newer dual core setups...im actualy shooting for one around xmas(more for the overclcoking potential in honesty). Im afraid.......we agreed....;) LOL. Actualy, i was talking to a member of the US army stationed in germany last night who has one hes working on OC'ing right now....ill see if i can dig up the link to his thread on ocforums....

Well if nothing else, i now know why hai_hai is such a cynical smartass at times.....hes one of the freakazoids who programs for a living.......As far as im concerned, all programmers had to be three screws short of a full box to volunteer to do that :) LOL. I dont honestly understand how in the world you can keep you sanity even remotley there while doing that for a living....

No wonder some of ya'll chose a hobby that involved yelling and beating people with sticks....

I love the fact my main usage of an 800$ processor is to talk on this and one other forum, and to play blast billiards on ebaumsworld.........

[Lloromannic]

Well if nothing else, i now know why hai_hai is such a cynical smartass at times.....hes one of the freakazoids who programs for a living.......As far as im concerned, all programmers had to be three screws short of a full box to volunteer to do that :) LOL. I dont honestly understand how in the world you can keep you sanity even remotley there while doing that for a living....


Hmmm. Both Neil Gendzwill and Hai_Hai appear to have divine amounts of knowledge and be software geeks. Is it perhaps a case of split personality? The wise man and the smart punk (in the good way)? Are they the same person? That would make their combined posts somewhere over 5000.


Still no one from Intel has picked up the gauntlet?

[drizzt]

Im suprised as well, usualy you get at least on eperson who knows it all and thinks intel is better because of numbers and or the fact they caught more

[Hai_hai]

Hmmm. Both Neil Gendzwill and Hai_Hai appear to have divine amounts of knowledge and be software geeks. Is it perhaps a case of split personality? The wise man and the smart punk (in the good way)? Are they the same person? That would make their combined posts somewhere over 5000.
I do not have a divine amount of knowledge. I am an expert to some degree in only some programming languages and applications. There are so many languages, database programs, programming tools, etc. that you never get exposed to them all and you really only focus on a couple.

I am not a software geek. I don't spend my free time programming.

No, we are not the same person. I believe that our jobs allows us to access Kendo World often, thus, our high post count.

[Neil Gendzwill]

I'm long past the level of geekiness where I have any desire to code at home, aside from maintaining a couple of simple websites. I first coded using punch-cards, so it's been a while... Like Hai-hai, I have a fairly narrow area of expertise - kind of have to, there's just too much out there.

[samurai999]

And why slag off the XBOX? Yeah sure it's a P3 733, but the XBOX makes such a nice little network fileserver once you've removed the cut back Windows 2000 OS and installed something like GentooX (Linux). :)

Did the XBOX exhibit the blue screen of death yet?

Tim

[drizzt]

hai hai i wasnt making fun of you, just picking :)

[Hai_hai]

hai hai i wasnt making fun of you, just picking :)
Programming is kind of crazy. Coding is easy, debugging can drive you insane. Working with other non-technical people on the same project can drive you insane. I won't get into the details. Let's just say the job allows me to pay the bills and then some.

[Berugijin]

Programming is kind of crazy. Coding is easy, debugging can drive you insane. Working with other non-technical people on the same project can drive you insane. I won't get into the details. Let's just say the job allows me to pay the bills and then some.

And the women. Don't forget the women.

[DarQik]

Did the XBOX exhibit the blue screen of death yet?Not sure if it was blue, but mine flashed the error codes... So it was rebuilt--better, stronger...

Like Hai-hai, I have a fairly narrow area of expertise - kind of have to, there's just too much out there.Hmmm... Perhaps that's my problem. Despite my efforts I still can't marry myself to one piece of tech as I keep seeing them replaced every few years. I have an internal urge to work with everything...which takes an inordinate amount of time just to keep up with the literature.

Oh well, at least I'm not an expert on 3D Glide programming. :wink:

[drizzt]

i hate programming.....i tend to break things when trying to debug code....