Breakthrough Processor or Marketing Scam?
Written: Aug 14 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Relatively High Quality processor, SSE2 optimizations, great memory bandwidth
Cons: Low Mhz-Performance ratio, dependence on RAMBUS, NO upgrade path
The Bottom Line: For the average uneducated consumer, Intel's Pentium4 looks like the best chip. But, the high mhz speed bundled with lower performance show AMD's offerings seem much more desirable currently.
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| dan9993's Full Review: Intel Pentium® 4, 1.8 GHz (BX80532PC1800D) Pr... |
The Pentium4 processor's main goal was to reach High Mhz speeds. Well higher Mhz means higher performance, right? Wrong! Why not you ask, well because Mhz simply state how many clock cycles the compute goes through in a second. How much work actually gets done by the processor in every clock cycle depends on the architeture of the processor. Intel designed the p4 with the thoughts that the consumer would go through this train of though ---
Well I am a consumer. I turn on the TV and see some blue men hitting golf balls and using a vacuum cleaner telling me to buy a nice shiny Pentium4 for my computer. I have money to spend, so I am going to get the fastest computer on the market. AMD's fastest computer is 1.4ghz while Intels fastest is 1.8ghz. Well this isn't a very hard choice is it.
And the average consumer doesn't know any better. In fact it was a brilliant idea by Intel. The problem is, a 1.4ghz Athlon processor is equal to or better than a 1.8ghz processor in most daily office/workstation applications. In applications which require high memory bandwidth, the p4 can beat the Athlon, but at a price. In order to gain this high memory bandwidth, the p4 was linked up with RDRAM, which is ram designed by RAMBUS. Currently a person could purchase 256mb of SDRAM for under $40. It would cost an average consumer $100 for 128mb of RDRAM. As you can see, a big price gap.
What else is wrong with the p4, the lack of an upgrade path. If you buy an AMD PC now or in a few years, they (probably) will be using Socket A. Intel on the other hand changes the socket for every processor. In fact, Intel changed from the Socket-423 (the old p4) to Socket-478 for a new revision of the p4! Changes are you would upgrade the motherboard anyways in a few years, but it is nice to know that the currect socket will remain in use just in case you feel inclined to upgrade the processor.
I would like to complain about the price, but really cant because the price currently of the p4 isn't that bad considering that the p4 has a lot of silicon and therefore is expensive to make. But one would think if the processor was high enough quality they wouldn't have to repeatedly cut the price to make it desirable for the consumer.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
dan9993
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Reviews written: 5
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