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ATI Radeon X700 XT: More PCIe Midrangeby Derek Wilson on 9/21/2004 5:58 AM EST
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ThePlagiarmaster - Friday, September 24, 2004 - link#39 ianwhthse
Very funny stuff. OK, I don't want a porsche now...LOL. I think I get it. If you own a porsche, you spend so much time working to pay for it you're too wore out to have sex? :)
I get your point on the obvious. I guess I just like to show someone a printout to go along with the stuff I tell them. They seem to like it better when they can SEE it also. Years of dealing with mechanics and appliance repair people (and bad PC people I guess) have taught most people that step into a PC store that the guy selling them anything must be lying or stupid. Which is true in a lot of cases. Can't really blame them for being skeptics. Then again some people are just VISUAL and can't seem to get it when the same thing is SAID to them instead of shown to them.
In any case, I hope they do another review soon with more benches. Reply
ianwhthse - Thursday, September 23, 2004 - link#31, ThePlagiarmaster:
Actually, check this out.
But maybe that's just because you have to be rich to afford one. Then you're old.
#38, (Also ThePlagiarmaster) they were given limited time with the card. With a limited number of cards to pass around, and a deadline to meet, ATi didn't just give them the card and say, "send it back when you're done." In such a situation, Anandtech would need to try and do the most important tests. And which would we rather see? A comparison where every card has the exact same framerates +- .1 frames? Or bench in a fashion where we can actually TELL which card is better?
I totally understand where you're coming from. I just moved from 10x7 up to 12x10 on my 19 incher only about 3 months ago, myself, but you need to face facts, too. You're a smart person, who obviously has a lot of experience with computers, and like you said, we influence the people we talk to. So tell them the obvious point you brought up. That a weaker cpu is gonna limit how fast the gpu will be (to an extent). We all know that, here. Most of us keep that actively in mind when we're reading the graphs. We can figure that out (though not to an exact amount) on our own. It's more important (especially for a limited-time initial review) that we find out what the graphics card is capable of.
I'm sure once retail boards start hitting shelves at a store near you, there will be plenty of "real-world" tests that will check things out at the level you're talking about, but you can't expect them to do what you're asking for in an initial review of a reference card. Reply
ThePlagiarmaster - Thursday, September 23, 2004 - link#37 blckgrffn
ROFL. Depends on your video card AND your monitor. Mine has GREAT text at 120hz@1024x768. If you'd have read my post you'd already know I said it goes to 150 but looks like crap. Do you honestly think I wouldn't know to try other refresh rates? LOL. I'm an A+ certified PC Tech (among other certs, this is the relevant one here) and own a PC business. I've owed a computer of some sort since the apple // (back in the green/amber monitor days). I'd say you don't know that many people if everyone you know runs above 1024x768. I however, SELL these things every day.
I didn't say anandtech shouldn't publish the the numbers they did. I merely suggested they add one resolution to the picture. If the world was using higher resolutions as a whole, the web would be optimized for it. But it's not IS IT? Apparently you don't play many games online. At 1600x1200 a LOT of games out there can't run without tanking. Even without being online a top end machine can't cut it at 1600x1200 (with all the candy turned on) in EVERY game out there as you suggest. Your experience would definitely not be described as BUTTER SMOOTH. I'd further think you don't play that many games, or your just full of crap. Unless everything in your machine is overclocked you don't have a prayer of doing what you say. Congrats, you own a machine that the rest of us haven't figured out how to create yet.
If you don't like people talking back in a comments forum then leave. I merely responded to people that replied to my posts. Discussing the review is what this is all about, or did you not get that? What makes you think your favorite res is more important than mine (and the rest of the world)? Jeez, do you actually think the world revolves around you? Do you actually think most of the world owns the top cpu/gpu in their machines? Get real. I'd venture to guess that less than 5% of anandtech readers own both the top cpu (amd or intel) and the top gpu (Nvidia or Ati). Apparently you have no idea that the "middle class" even exists in our society. Sales of Intel/AMD's top cpu's say I'm right. They're so low they won't even tell us how many they sold in a quarterly report. Reply
blckgrffn - Thursday, September 23, 2004 - linkThePlagiarmaster ENOUGH. We get your argument. I have a 21" and I NEVER play a game under 1600*1200. When the rig can't handle it anymore it is time to upgrade, end of story. This is why I have a pc and not a console. I think that everyone I know plays at higher than 1024*768, even my dad on his 17" plays @ 1152*864. Thank you Anandtech for publishing numbers that I can use. 1024*768 are useless for me, as equally useless the higher res ones are for ThePlagiarmaster. By the way, running ultra high refresh rates tends to make text more blurry than it would be at 75 or 80 hertz. Try it once and you will see what I mean. Try setting your desktop to 1152*864, you will probably like that too. Reply
Staples - Thursday, September 23, 2004 - linkI am kind of worried about Xbox 2. ATI is doing a horrible job of putting a good price/performance card out there. Reply
ThePlagiarmaster - Thursday, September 23, 2004 - link#32 AtaStrumf
Actually I have 20/15 vision with almost 20/10 in my left eye. Lasik surgery is great for $3000 I can almost see like an eagle. If you'd read my post you'd already know I don't enjoy headaches. As such I run at 120hz. My Viewsonic P225F will actually run at 150hz@1024x768 but my vidcard doesn't handle that too well. This is another excuse to run at a lower res (no, not 800x600 or 640x480 mind you), you get a really high refresh rate. Most 19's can't handle 100hz at 1600x1200. Like TrogdorJW said, there isn't much difference in the look above 1024x768. Can you really see the difference at 1280x1024? In most games I can't. I'd rather have a super high refresh rate, and never see that dip in fps that happens in some games when the action really heats up.
Anandtech readers encompass a small number of people. However we advise many people (as is the case with my customers). If I sell someone a $500 videocard and it runs no faster than their neighbors $200 card (because the guy is CPU limited in his games) I look like a fool or worse, get bitched out. Sadly a lot of people do by 17's, and with a $200 vid card or more sometimes. I'd like to have a better idea of where the cpu/gpu line is drawn in the sand.
I'm not saying throw away the high end benchmarks. Just saying I'd like to see the res a HUGE portion of the population runs in tested. Change your res to 1600x1200 and look at anandtech's website (or any other for that matter). See those huge bars of wasted space on the sides? Why does anandtech (and everyone else) optimize for 1024x768? Because 90% of the world runs in this res! On top of this, most don't like switching to a different res for each game depending on the fps they can get in each. It's just a pain in the A$$.
I agree CRT's are superior. But don't agree 1600x1200 is the best res on a 19 or a 21 (well 21 maybe, but only if you're using graphics apps, or cad type apps where higher res is VERY important and useful). You really like browsing the web while losing 1/3 of your screen? I take it you don't mind switching res all day (I highly doubt you browse that high). Most cards can't cut it at 1600x1200 without major frame hits (only the latest and greatest and even then you'll switch to lower res often). The TI4200 (I have a 4400 in one machine) certainly is a card where you must be switching all day long on a game by game basis. That gets old to me, and I wouldn't even want to go there with my PC ILLITERATE customers (as #32 called them - perhaps rightly so).
Perhaps you're happy switching, and i'm not trying to take that away from you here. I'd just like to see a res that benefits recommendations to the average user (the hugest population of pc users that is). Is a hardware review site supposed to cater to the top 5% of the population, or the other 95% of the world? Don't get me wrong I love knowing what the advantage is at the high cpu/high gpu end is, but I don't get the opportunity to recommend that stuff very often. Do game designers make their games for the top 5% of pc users or aim them at the masses? Witness the popularity (still! ouch) of Geforce4MX cards and you'll see my point. I'm not asking them to throw out the highend stuff, nor to add 640x480 or 800x600 (ugh!). But 1024x768 is NORMAL. Of all the people you know, how many have 19's or bigger? If it's more than 50% you have a small circle of affluent people apparently. Again, not all that normal. While high res can be argued on large monitors, I'd argue right back that most monitors sold are 17in or smaller. The percentages just don't lie. Reply
PrinceGaz - Thursday, September 23, 2004 - link#30- The Plagiarmaster
Actually I *don't* have an LCD monitor myself, I was just saying that many people do. My main monitor is a 22" CRT and I would never consider exchanging it for even a top-of-the range 20" LCD (same viewable area) as I feel CRTs are superior.
As #32 said, anyone who buys a 19" or worse still a 21" and only uses it at 1024x768 is nuts. 1600x1200 is usually the best resolution for 21/22" CRTs, and 1280x960 or 1280x1024 for 19" CRTs.
I generally play recent games at 1280x960, or 1280x1024 if that is all that is offered, but do sometimes need to drop that to 1024x768, and even 800x600 for Doom 3 as that is all my Ti4200 can manage. No point my upgrading it as I'm about to build a PCI-e system. In older games I play at 1600x1200 if it is available and it looks great. If not available I play at the highest resolution offered and crank up the AA. There is no point playing at a lower resolution if your card and monitor are capable of working well at a higher resolution.
#33- TrogdorJW
I assume you use an ATI rather than an nVidia card then? If you do use an nVidia card then theres an option in the drivers (since 55.xx I believe) in nView Display Modes -> Device Settings button -> Device adjustments... -> Display Timing tab, where you can tick 'Enable doublescan for lower resolution modes'. For me that makes 800x600 scan just like 1600x1200, and 640x480 is like 1280x960. They look *far* better with doublescan enabled than without on my 22" CRT. It just extends what is done normally at 512x384 to higher resolutions. For me, 1024x768 is unaffected by it because I choose a high refresh-rate (well above what my monitor or card could do at 2048x1536).
If ATI don't have that option available, then they should add it as it can't be very difficult to implement. Like I say the drivers do it anyway at up to 512x384 so its just a case of extending it. Reply
TrogdorJW - Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - link32 - Hey, back off the 21" users! ;) I have a 21" monitor that I routinely use at 1024x768 in games. The difference between that and 1280x960/1024 is not that great, and 1600x1200 is really still too small for my liking. Performance is also an issue. If I can run 1280x1024 at good frame rates, I will, but I also have no problem running 1024x768 where required. 800x600 and lower, of course, are a different story. I start to see horizontal lines on my monitor at those resolutions.
Anyway, the nice thing is that a $200 card is coming out that will have about the same performance as the 9800 Pro, and in some cases better performance. Hmmm... but my 9800 Pro cost $200 back in April. Heheh. The added features might be nice, but I'm not that concerned. If you want a 6600GT or X700XT in AGP flavor, the 9800 Pro is still a viable option if you can find it for $200 or less. JMHO. Reply
AtaStrumf - Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - linkThePlagiarmaster, enough with the 1024x768 rant.
You made your point, but you're forgeting that most of your computer illiterate customers are not reading this site.
People who buy 21" monitors to run them at 1024x768, must have a few screws loose in their heads or are suffering from a serious vision impairment. I suppose you also run it at 50 Hz or sth like that.
Anyho' I bet most AT readers run at least 1280x1024 on a 19" monitor and that includes their games.
And anyway if a customer refuses to part with $50 in return for a much bettter monitor, what makes you think they will surrender $200 for a graphics card???
They deserve Intel's extremely sh*ty integrated graphics engine and nothing else. Reply
ThePlagiarmaster - Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - link#30 PrinceGaz
So what you're saying is, everyone buys LCD's? NO? So everyone buys laptops to play games then? Neither of these is true. Most laptops are sold to business users. It's a rare person that specifically buys a laptop for games. LCD's are too expensive in large sizes (I know I don't sell many), and suck for games anyway. Only a FEW can run fast enough to play games that don't give you headaches (eye aches?..whatever). I hate BLUR. 1280x960 is not common. Unless you think a ton of people have widescreen lcd's at home (or widescreen laptops?) and bought them to play games?
Apparently you missed most of the point of the post. Is it worth upgrading from older cards at a normal resolution (meaning, 1024x768, do a poll, you'll find most run here). Most people buy these things then wonder why they don't run much faster. With which gpu's are we cpu limited at 1024x768? By throwing the 9700pro (and lower) into these super high resolutions it might make someone (eh, a lot of people) think they're card is junk and an upgrade to one of these will solve all problems. NOT...If you tossed a few 1024x768 tests in, someone might find they're cpu limited with the current card already. Tossing on an even more powerful card is pointless to these people. Too bad they wouldn't figure that out in a review such as this.
Why do you think people used to always run in 640x480 when testing cpus (which I hated, it isn't real-world)? Because some games are/were GPU limited above this. In order to eliminate the GPU they would test at 640x480. So yea, running in a lower resolution will sometimes let your cpu run wild (eh, produce high fps :) ). The point was, we're pretty much seeing the highest of both ends here. How does that help someone trying to figure out if a $200 card will help them get more fps? Look at #29's question.
I have a 21in and a 19in, both are in 1024x768. My dad has a 21in he runs in the same res. Most web pages are designed for this res, a lot of games are too. So most people run in this res. A Porsche is designed to do about 150+mph but do you see anyone doing that on the highway? No, but that doesn't mean getting from 0-60 is any less fun now does it? Even though you don't run it at 150mph it still gets the women doesn't it? Not too many high performance cars advertise their top speed. Why? Because nobody uses it anyway.
PC's weren't designed to play games. But some of them sure are fun today eh?
#28, I know that, you know that, but most of the world still saves a buck or two on the monitor. As much as I push 19inchers, people are just CHEAP. I still sell a good number of 15's! Even when I tell them a decent 19 would only cost them $50 more and they have to live with it for the next 5yrs or so at 15in. Even on my 21 I don't see how 1024x768 is tunnel vision though. The web is great, pics are fine, I don't have to screw with font sizes all the time to get some things right, game interfaces are ALL designed to make 1024x768 LOOK perfect. They may design for others also, but they make sure this res is working as it's the most used. Reply
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - link#27 The Plagrimaster:
Do you know what a paragraph is?
Anyway, 1280x960 or 1280x1024 is becoming the more common resolution used by many people with fairly recent systems, even if its only because 1280x1024 is the native resolution of their LCD display, so anything else looks inferior.
How fast someone's CPU is really only determines the maximum framerate that can be achieved in any given game sequence regardless of resolution. The CPU itself won't churn out frames more quickly just because the graphics-card is rendering at a lower resolution. That answers the first half or so of your post.
As the X700 series are upper mid-range cards, they are intended to be used at quite high resolutions, not 1024x768 or less. The tests showed the X700XT was easily capable of producing a more than satisfactory framerate at 1280x1024 in every game tried including Doom 3, so why run more tests at 1024x768? Only if it were a slower which could only manage 30-40fps or less at 1280x960 would tests at lower resolutions be worthwhile. Reply
kmmatney - Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - linkSince these are now "low-end" cards, it would be great to see how they perform with slower cpus. I still have a lowly XP 2400+ thoroughbred...and I'd rather spend money on my Video card than another MB/CPU, if it can perform (at 1024 x 768). Reply
Chuckles - Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - linkI don't know about you, #27, but I think 10x7 is tunnel vision. Decent sized monitors are not all that expensive, and they allow you to do so much more with the space. Reply
ThePlagiarmaster - Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - linkWhat I want to know is how everything performs at 1024x768 with and without 4xaa/8xan. Lets face it 95% of the people running these games are NOT doing it in anything higher. To cut this res out of everything but doom3 (an oddball engine to begin with) is ridiculous. Sure higher shows us bandwidth becomes a big issue. But for most people running at 1024x768 (where most of us have cpu's that can keep a decent fps), does bandwidth really matter at all? Is a 9700pro still good at this res? You have to test 1024x768, because all you're doing here is showing one side of the coin. People who have the FASTEST FREAKING CPU's (eh, most don't - raise your hand if you have an athlonFX 53 or A64 3400+ or better? - Or even a P4 of 3.4ghz or faster? - I suspect most hands are DOWN now), to go with the fastest GPU's. Most people cut one or the other. So you need to show how a card does at a "NORMAL" res. I usually can't even tell the difference between 1024x768 and 1600x1200. At the frenetic pace you get in a FPS you don't even see the little details. Most of us don't hop around in different resolutions for every different game either. Most of my customers couldn't even tell you what resolution IS! No, I'm not kidding. They take it home in the res I put it in and leave it there forever (1024x768). If you're like me you pick a res all games run in without tanking the fps. Which for me is 1024x768. I don't have to care what game I run, I just run it. No drops during heated action. I hope you re-bench with the res most people use so people can really see, is it worth the money or not at the res the world uses? Why pay $200-400 for a new card if the 9700pro still rocks at 1024x768, and that expensive card only gets you another couple fps this low. I know it gets tons better with much higher res's but at the normal persons res does it show its value or not? In doom it seems to matter, but then this game is a graphical demo. No other engine is quite this punishing on cards. A good 70% or so of my customers still buy 17inchers! Granted some games have multi-res interfaces, but some get really small at larger resolutions on a 17in. This article is the complete opposite of running cpu tests in 640x480 but yeilds the same results. If nobody runs at 640x480 how real-world is it? If "almost" nobody runs in 1600x1200 should we spend more time looking at 1024x768 where 90% or so run? That's more real world right? 1600x1200 is for the fastest machines on the planet. Which is NOT many people I know, and I sell pc's...LOL. Reply
AtaStrumf - Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - linkAt the very least have a look at Far Cry and Halo results. They realy seem to be upside down.
I don't know who's making the mistake here, but it's something that needs looking into. Reply
AtaStrumf - Wednesday, September 22, 2004 - linkDerek I think your GPU scores urgently need updateing. We need to be able to compare new cards to old ones and we just can't do that reliably right now. Have a look at xbitlabs test results.
Relative positions between 9800 XT and X700 XT are more often then not different from your results.
In their results it seems like R9800 XT fares much better relative to X700 XT. We might be making the wrong conclusions based on your scores. Reply
Da3dalus - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkQuite clearly a win for nVidia in this match :)
Hey Derek, are you gonna do a big Fall 2004 Video Card Roundup like you did last year? That would be really nice :) Reply
jm0ris0n - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link#17 My thoughts exactly ! :) Reply
DerekWilson - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link#8:
ATI has stated that they will be bridging the RV410 back to AGP from PCIe -- they will not be running seperate silicon. They didn't have any kind of date they could get us, but they did indicate that it should be available before the end of the year. It's just hard to trust having such distant dates thrown around when both ATI and NVIDIA have shown that they have problems filling the channel with currently announced products.
This is likely a result of the fact that only the X700 XT, 6600 GT, and X600 XT were run with the most recent drivers -- the 6800 series cards are still running on 61.xx while the 6600 GT was powered by the 65.xx drivers. We are looking into a driver regression test, and we will take another look at performance with the latest drivers as the dust starts to settle.
Aquila76 - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkOK, I phrased the first part of my post VERY badly. In my defense, I had not yet had any coffee. ;)
What I was trying to get across was that ATI does OK competing with NVidia in DX games, but still gets killed in OpenGL. They used to smoke NVidia in DX, but now NVidia has fixed whatever issues they had with that and are making a very good competitive card to ATI's offering. The 6600GT is clearly the better card here, for either D3 or HL2 engines. Reply
Entropy531 - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkDidn't the article say the pro (256mb) was the same price as the XT (128mb)? It does seem odd that the 6600s are only pci-e. Especially since nVidia only makes motherboards with AGP slots, right? Reply
Drayvn - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkHowever, on this site http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?article... it shows the X700XT edged out a win overall.
What i think is ATi are doing what nVidia did in the high end market, they brought out the X700Pro, which is very close to the X700XT, but cheaper, and probably highly moddable.
Buy a X700Pro with 5 - 10% loss of performance for $60 less? Reply
blckgrffn - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkWhat mystifies me (still) is the performance discrepancy between the 6800 and 6600 GT. In some cases, the 6600 GT is whooping up on it. The 6600GT preview article made some allusions to 12 pipes not be as effeicient as 8 and 16, etc. But if the performance is really so close between them, the 6800 is probably going to go the way of the 9500 Pro. That's too bad, my 6800 clocked at 400/825 is pretty nice. If anyone could clear up why the 6600 GT is faster than the 6800, that would be nice. The fill rates should be nearly identical, I guess. But doesn't the 6800 retain it's 6 vertex shaders and wouldn't the extra memory bandwidth make a noticeable difference? Reply
Resh - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkJust wish nVidia would come out with the NF4 NOW with PCI-Express, etc. a board with two 16x slots, one 6600Gt now, and one later is looking pretty awesome. Reply
rf - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkLooks like ATI dropped the ball - 12 months or more kicking nVidias ass and now they are the ones lagging behind.
Oh well, I am not in the market for a graphics card at the moment (bought a 9800XT last year) but if I was, I'd be switching to nVidia.
I do have to say that the move away from AGP is annoying. What about the people that want to upgrade their components? Are we supposed to ditch kit that is less than 6 months old? Reply
ZobarStyl - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkI must agree all things considered the 6600GT really comes out the winner...I mean, look at the x800/6800 launch, the x800Pro looked like it just massacred the 6800GT, and now no one thinks twice at the 400$ price point which is better because nV put out some massive driver increases. Considering the 6600GT already has the performance AND feature advantage over the x700, there's just no contest when you add in what the nV driver team is going to do for its perf. Can't wait to dual up two 6600GT's (not SLI, multimonitor =) ) Reply
LocutusX - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkJust to be clear, I think #3's statement was invalid simply because Nvidia is winning half the Direct3D games as well as all the OGL games.
LocutusX - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link#3: "Again we see ATI=DX, nVidia=OpenGL. "
Nah, don't think so. Here are the notes I took while I read the article;
d3 (big win) - OGL
far cry (with max AA/AF) - DX9
halo - DX9
jedi academy (big win) - OGL
UT (tie) - DX8/DX9
far cry (with NO aa/af) - DX9
source engine (small win) - DX9
UT (tie) - DX8/DX9
I'm sorry to say it, but the X700XT is a disapointment. I'm not an "nvidiot"; check my forum profile, I'm an ATI owner.
Shinei - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link#11: Probably because you won't have much money left for a video card after you buy all the new crap you need for a Prescott system. ;)
Anyway, this quote made me wonder a bit.
"From this test, it looks like the X700 is the better card for source based games unless you want to run at really high quality settings."
Er, if I can get great graphics at a decent framerate (42fps is pretty good for 16x12 with AA/AF, if you ask me (beats the hell out of Halo's horribly designed engine)), why WOULDN'T I turn on all the goodies? Then again, I used to enable AA/AF with my Ti4200 too, so my opinion may be slightly biased. ;) Reply
Woodchuck2000 - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link#10 - I agree entirely! These are midrange cards. Yet they're released first as PCIe parts. Which is only available as a high-end Intel solution. Why does this make sense? Reply
AlphaFox - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkif you have a PCIe system, why would you waste your $$ on an entry level card???? these cards should be released on AGP if they want any to sell. Reply
manno - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkThe real issue is this, nVidia, has dedicate die space to shadowing functions specificaly requested by John Carmak for use with the Doom 3 engine. Nvidia obliged, yes ATI's openGL drivers are POS's but even if they were up to snuff Doom 3 will still favor nVidia. That said it all boils down to where do you thing the better mods/engine licenses will go Doom 3, or Half-Life 2, and is the small discrepency between the 6600 GT, and 700 XT realy worth those few extra frames in HL2, as compared to the significant frame rate difference in Doom 3, and the subsiquent games based on that engine. Not to mention PS 3.0 support. I'll gladly spend $10 extra for a better card. Reply
coldpower27 - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkThat makes more sense since ATI's has to make a seperate core for the AGP version while Nvidia doesn't and can use thier HSI. Reply
chilled - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link#5: HardOCP's conclusion states that the AGP version of the X700 will be not be available soon, but before Christmas.
I read somnewhere(?) that the AGP version of the 6600 would be available sometime in October...
Make of that what you will. Reply
chilled - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link#3: I think it would be fairer to say that under DX ATI/nV are in a situation of win some, lose some. I wouldn't say the ATI cards are superior - read the Conclusion again.
However, like Derek said it remains to be seen how the cards perform with a mid-range system. Reply
Locutus4657 - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkSo now long before these mid-range solutions are available in AGP? Seems incredibly silly to me that they weren't first released in AGP form! I can't use either nVidia's or ATI's midrange solutions in my midrange system (A64 3000+). Strangly though, if I wanted to blow $400 on a video card I could always get an x800! Reply
shabby - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkThe specs on paper look good, but for some reason the x700 doesnt perform.
With aa/af enabled you'd expect the x700 to beat the 6600gt in dx games thanks to ati's optimizations/cheats, but it doesnt. Go figure. Reply
Aquila76 - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkAgain we see ATI=DX, nVidia=OpenGL. It's interesteing that the gap in DirectX games is narrowing. ATI needs to get better OpenGL support somehow and do it quick. These cards are pretty evenly matched (diff of only 2-4 FPS avg.) - until you get to OpenGL. NVidia comes out on top by 15-20 FPS in those benches. Reply
DerekWilson - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkPlease pay careful attention to the test page -- the 9700 Pro was tested on a (more suited to gaming) Athlon 64 system which makes the results not absolutely comparable.
The Athlon 64 system is our video test rig, and rerunning all our cards on a p4ee system when the A64 gives results we can use as a reference just didn't make sense.
As stated on the test page, the directly comparable cards are the GeForce 6600 GT, the Radeon X700 XT, and the Radeon X600 XT. Reply
skunkbuster - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - linkin some cases the X700 XT scored worse than the 9700 pro... i think ati needs to work on their drivers. Reply


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Results 1 to 20 of 132
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
- Location
- Boston, MA
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- 202
[VS] For Training: If You Want It, Share Your Goals
We're trying to get some training together so I'd like an idea of what sort of program we should create first. If you have some interest in some tutoring, please let us know what exactly you're looking for. Examples would be basic FPS mechanics, PS2 mechanics and UI, squad/platoon play, certification suggestions, class-specific guides, ground vehicles, air vehicles, driving off of cliffs and dying in a fire with everyone in your squad screaming, Sunderer deployment/destroyment, specific base assault/defense tactics and layout, etc. We have members who excel in all of these things and are willing to help. Please post what you're looking for!
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
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- 117
I'd be happy to help out with training.
I have been meaning to organise Galaxy flight lessons. I would be happy to run that.
Can I also add that there is an outfit calendar here:
And anyone can add an event here:
I would suggest Mondays are a good time to hold as training, though we should be flexible to acommodate whoever wants to organise them.
The primary need right now are basic PS2 fighting. Positioning, movement, cover, working together... I have found that my skills in Q3 have not transfered...
Edit: On that note, I am happy to go ahead and run the Galaxy training session tomorrow, in an attempt to kick start the process of regular training sessions."KING GEORGE IS A FROG
le BANG~__-MICHEAL FUCK OFF~~__-INTERPOL KNOW YOU WELLBIENG~
"You will not laugh! You will not graze! You will learn by the nanites! You will teach me!"
PS: Terrible 'shop, but this can be a Silly Mondays on steroids. No need to be too serious, just share experience and pointers. Especially people with experience from more structured games, like BF and tournaments, ArmA2, NS2 etc. What works and how it can be transferred into this game.
Last edited by MrEclectic; 15-04-2013 at 01:39 AM.
I don't consider myself good enough ant anything specific to do any sort of training, but I would like to see some sort of flight training.
I've been flying my scythe more and more since investing in the radar, and although I'm getting good enough to score some ground kills, I suck at dog fighting. If anyone could show us a few tricks I'd certainly appreciate it!
Something I'd like to see would be a platoon of liberators with zephyrs and daltons just carpet bombing, it might not be efficient but the shock and awe would be epic to watch! I know for the most part we're not a flying platoon, so maybe it'd be something for a silly Monday?ARMA, Planetside 2, Steam - Lynche (The 'e' is silent)
PS3, Minecraft - Safilpope
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- Feb 2013
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- Stockholm, Sweden
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Don't know how long you've been on Darkweeble, but there have been a couple of training sessions. One rather improvised and two that were at least announced beforehand. These are hr ones I know of at least. It's been about squad tactics and infantry squad leadership. Our problem right now is that this did not become the regular thing it was meant to be, so thanks for pushing this. What we really need is someone to make sure that this becomes a regularly scheduled event. Not losing the training sessions themselves but finding people to do and making sure it gets done.
Would you want to be that someone? This thread is just the right kind if initiative (although I think there may be an older one, somewhere, lying dreaming beneath the waves).
- Join Date
- Jul 2012
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- Switzerland, GMT+1
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- 156
Basically, I think that commentated squadplay would be great as training and would help a lot of the new players and has-not-played-a-fps-for-real-since-Unreal-Tournament-the-first players to get into the play style required.
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
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- Prope Tripontium
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I said I'd like training - so a couple of thoughts about what would be useful:
- Vehicles. My vehicle skills are literally non-existent, as I have spent less than three minutes as pilot/driver. I don't know what vehicles I would like training on; pick something that would be useful!
- Infantry. I think most people are ok with the very basics of infantry combat in terms of shooting and moving, but anything particularly unique to PS2 would of course be helpful.
Role-specific tips and hints would be welcome in terms of positioning relative to both the terrain and the team, and in terms of specific duties in assault or defence. I'm not sure how much teamwork training is possible without beginning to further define tactics and responsibilities within each squad, which I think is something we're avoiding in order to stay more welcoming and open?
I think the biggest thing for me would be a "guided tour" of some of the larger facilities on the maps, and suggestions as to the best way to assault and defend them. The couple of times I have been involved in fights in or around them I've ended up lost, confused and split up from my squad.
Thanks to those willing to invest time and energy in sorting out training!On Steam - [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/id/kyndylan/"]Kyndylan[/URL]
Infantry Training
It's hard to "train" FPS twitch skills - without it becoming really boring.
I'd be willing (with Mr Eclectic and whom ever else has been shouting about it) to do some very rapid 10 minute squad based "Fire and Manoeuvre" stuff, but that is really squad/platoon level tactics, individually again it's hard to train "Follow my leader" and "work as a group" without it being lame - SLs can say "stick together", "go in as a group", "cover the doors" until we are blue in the face but when we are on the ground fighting there is always a larger objective which we need to accomplish so any form of training gets rolled into the actual fighting 'banter/chatter' and we don't have set units to do 'drills' with.
So perhaps the best thing is just a short sharp 10 minute, talk and walk at some facility behind the lines and then get onto the ground and fight with "commentary" on going?
Further to that perhaps some "So you're an Engineer -this is what RPS expects of you" kind of sessions might be more useful than twitch?
We took a look at the "Standard Air Tower" in some depth and have never really used the drill we planned ever again. But I did think that the time going over the ground just finding the doors and windows and so on helped some people (including me with Dewi and and the boys earlier on!). So perhaps a walk round some of the larger bases isn't a crazy idea?
If everyone knows the layout, what each class ought to be doing in various general situations and a bit of squad based teamwork then it should all gel up. I'm keen to avoid the hour long debate session we had at the air tower training where everyone got a bit bored and started smoke bombing everything. Lets just do very short "train-letts" and then play!
And here is the Grible thought for the day! We have a ready made OPFOR - the Traitors in RTRS - could we perhaps meet up away from the main front and do some fighting/training? Actually I don't know how that would work. Forget it.
tl;dr - Very quick sessions, 10 mins no more, on Squad Cohesion. Class based "objective" bullet points. A look at a each facility.
I would suggest we make sure there is training available for both groups somehow. We need to ensure that the vet don't get bored and leave, so we need to be able to step up our game, without leaving new players behind. But this is another discussion really.
So, to be concrete, I'd suggest that we make two tracks of training, and let players take part in whatever they think will give them the most or interests them the most.
One track is "skills training" or "solo training", where someone experienced with something helps those less experienced with one specific topic related to mechanics, vehicles, classes or so.
Example topics:
- Being a better medic
- Using the Lightning tank
- Flying a Galaxy
- Base layouts
- Basics of Planetside 2
- Using cover and choosing your fights
(All of these would be good to run, by the way!)
The other track is "group training", where we focus on the interplay between players; squad tactics (in squad), squad coordination (between squads) and strategy/PLing.
Example topics:
- Squad tactics:
- using smoke grenades
- taking ground (Ridebird's aggression class!)
- covering each other
- good positioning
- Squad coordination:
- staggered advance: Alpha gives cover while Bravo moves in and vice versa
- flanking: Charlie holds the enemy while Delta flanks
- Strategy and PLing:
- how to counter a heavy push/tank column/overwhelming air force
- learning from other outfits' tactics
- combined arms play
- reading the map
- taking and/or defending a Bio Lab/Tech Plant/Amp Station/tower/outpost
I'm not sure if it would be wise to run these side-by-side (might be), but maybe sequentially, 45-60 minutes of skills training followed by the same amount of group training, and then off into the wild to practice?
Edit: Grible's idea about keeping things short is probably good, so that people don't lose interest and drift off. 10-25 minutes seems like a good target.
Last edited by EsotericReverie; 15-04-2013 at 09:31 AM.
I'd love to see some flying training. Both general handling but also for specific planes. I think we'd benefit from an air squad who can help establish air dominance, cover advances and also function as "eyes in the sky"."Time is a companion, travelling with us on the journey of life, to remind us to cherish each moment as it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we lived."
Air squads are an excellent idea, and one which has been trialled before. We could certainly use one, and we need to combine flight practice with some kind of training on how to utilise it properly. The problem before has been a lack of ground support. Air is terribly vulnerable to infantry AA (Burster MAXes and lock-on launchers) and need ground support to focus on taking these out. Air needs friendly tanks and heavy infantry to take out enemy AA, and tanks need friendly air to take out enemy tanks and heavy infantry. Practicing this kind of coordination would be very good of us on Indar or Esamir, especially.
Hm, ok. Since this is my first FPS, but I seem to have progressed a bit from the total noob stage to not sucking so much, perhaps I can teach even some of the basics.
I agree with the previous suggestions, and I'd like to add this one:
-This is my weapon, this is my gun: Just a short session in the VR, where people shoot down the range with the patterned targets. Just so that they observe the effect of the various stances and movement speeds on the size of their reticule, and the bullet spread pattern. Understanding that is just a brief 5-15 minutes, and is essential.
The curriculum should be:
- Infantry basics:
- Shooting
- Orientation. Spotting and calling out targets
- Cover
- Unit cohesion. Covering each other and sticking together. Single column and skirmish line. Avoiding obstructing each other's firing lines.
- Taking ground (do it like Ridebird). Flanking. Enfilading fire
- Room/small building assault and defence
- Use of classes/kits.
- Squad and platoon coordination
- The highest DPS weapon system in the game: the Sunderer. Usage, transport, deployment. Fallback and forward spawns
- Staggered approach/leapfrogging
- Overwatch, bound overwatch
- Scouting
- Advanced squad and platoon coordination
- Armour warfare. Coordination with infantry (armour cannot survive anymore without the support of infantry)
- Combat Air Patrol/ Close Air Support. Securing airspace with combination of ESFs and a AA squad. Calling in CAS
- Operational and strategic planning
- Tower assault and defences
- Strategic facilities (tech plants, bio labs, amp stations) assaults and defences
- Understanding the map. Key locations. Characteristics of those
- Operational planning and execution. Fronts. Reinforcements. Operational Maneuver Group
- Outfit intel and study
Having mastered the infantry basics, I don't think that a giraffe has to follow the rest. Of course, everyone is welcome and IMHO should. But just with the basics a giraffe can still follow effectively the directions, orders and suggestions of SLs/PLs, and finally overcome the steep learning curve of the game and enjoy it. SLs and PLs though should know their stuff. Even if they have a very particular style. Having a common understanding of the game and metagame, leaders can coordinate better and appreciate a novel approach.
As I've been repeatedly stating, I am a total noob at FPS games. But I enjoy, and thus study this game a lot, even too much. I think that me coordinating with an experienced FPS gamer would be the best setup to get this thing going. Preferably someone with experience from ArmA2 and/or BF or other 64v64/32v32 tournaments. To me a lot of these things are new, so trivial things may seem fascinating, or I may have the tendency to reinvent the wheel, and end up with an odd oval-shaped thingy.
Suggested day is Sunday, starting this Sunday with the infantry basics. Perhaps another day for squad and platoon coordination classes? Infantry basics are suggested for all, squad and platoon coordination for SLs and PLs.
Last edited by MrEclectic; 15-04-2013 at 11:05 AM.
- Infantry basics:
By the by, a lot of the proposed leadership classes could be held as discussions, as Ridebird did when we gathered and discussed leadership, and the information and lessons we get from those could disseminate throughout the outfit through actual play. SLs/PLs hold a short seminar on a particular aspect among themselves, and, when applying the lessons to a particular tactical or operational situation, give a short explanation to their squad and platoon.
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
- Posts
- 117
I have a few ideas to add:
- Basic weapon choice and certs. Planetside 2 is a game of specialisation, there is no overall 'best' weapon, just the best for a certain situation. This is sort of the same for vehicles but there are definitely some outright upgrades. For me, specialising is one of my favourite aspects of the game and it is definitely an important one.
- Vehicle usage. How to use them all, when to use them, when they will be effective. Stuff like, if you're riding out in a mag column, bring a skyguard or two. Also, libs are awesome and rain death from the skies.
- Squad movement. I think this is definitely something you can train. A quick tutorial one best practices followed by going somewhere specifically to fight and drill what you've learned. Having superior numbers is nothing if you all run in one at a time and don't support each other.
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
- Location
- Prope Tripontium
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- 67
I know we have a Weapon Appreciation Society, but how about a Guide to Certing and Weapon Choice? Any volunteers?
I may be wrong - perhaps an in game discussion where people can ask questions and share opinions would be better.On Steam - [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/id/kyndylan/"]Kyndylan[/URL]
I don't think it was effective at all though Eclectic. No one wanted to lead still and those that did changed very little in their leadership. Such a thing should be led by someone else that is better at it then me, and it should be done in a different way.Find me on the Steams
- Join Date
- Jun 2011
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- Prope Tripontium
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I suspect, of course, that you were mindful of this, but I just wanted to raise it as a seperate point.On Steam - [URL="http://steamcommunity.com/id/kyndylan/"]Kyndylan[/URL]
I suggest as follows.
15 Minutes at the very most of talking (To be conducted in a group of <=24, with only at most two "talkers") to cover:-
- Orientation of your Map.
- Radar
- Directions
- Understanding Locations.
- Spotting and calling out targets.
- Unit cohesion.
- Covering each other and sticking together.
- Single column and skirmish line.
- Avoiding obstructing each other's firing lines.
- Enfilading fire and Covering/Suppression fire
- Use of Cover.
- Taking ground
- Aggression.
- Flanking.
- Staggered Advance/Bounding/Overwatch
- Smoke/ other special tactics
15 Minutes to run some drills.(Conducted in the squad play setup with RO/SLs)
- Forming up/Playing "Tag" with your leader
- Bounding/Overwatch by half squads or squad.
- Flanking by half squads or squad
- Timing Building Entry by squad
Then Get out into the game and try it!
I am happy to lead a part or all of a session based on the above. I imagine Eso,Eclectic,Gin will be too? Shall we say next Sunday (22nd) evening? Or sooner?
The first bit in talking is more valid for new players to PS2 than the rest, which is applicable to everyone.
- Orientation of your Map.


text:
The Quest for More Processing Power, Part One: "Is the single core CPU doomed?"by Johan De Gelas on 2/8/2005 4:00 PM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
65 Comments
Back to Article
Zak - Wednesday, August 22, 2007 - linkI seem to remember reading somewhere, probably couple of years ago, about research being done on hyperconductivity in "normal" temperatures. Right now hyperconductivity occurs only in extremely low temperatures, right? If materials were developed that achieve the same in normal temperatures it'd solve lots of these issues, like wire delay and power loss, wouldn't it?
Z. Reply
Tellme - Monday, February 21, 2005 - linkCarl what i meant was that soon we might not see much improved performance with multicores as well because the data comes too late to the processor for quick execution. (That is true for single cores as well).
Did you checked the link?
Their idea is simple.
"If you can't bring the memory bandwidth to the processor, then bring the processors to the memory."
Intresting no?
Currently processor waits most of its time for data to be processed.
carl0ski - Saturday, February 19, 2005 - link#61 i thought p4 already had memory bandwidth problems,
AMD has a temporary work around (on die memory controller) which aids in multiple CPU's/Dies using the same fsb to access the Ram.
Intel has proposed multiple fsb's , one each CPU/die.
Does anyone know if that means they will need sperate RAM dimms for each FSB? because that would prove an expensive system. Reply
carl0ski - Saturday, February 19, 2005 - link[quote]59 - Posted on Feb 12, 2005 at 11:28 AM by fitten Reply
#57 What was the performance comparison of the 1GHz Athlon vs. the 1GHz P3? IIRC, the Athlon was faster by some margin. If this was the case, then there was a little more than tweaking that went on in the Pentium-M line. Because they started out looking at the P3 doesn't mean that what they ended up with was the P3 with a tweak here or there. :)[/quote]
#59 didnt P3 1ghz run 133mhz sdram? on a 133fsb?
Athlon 1ghz had a nice DDR 266 fsb to support it.
Tellme - Monday, February 14, 2005 - linkNice article.
I think dual cores will soon reach hit the wall ie Memory Bandwidth.
Hopefully memory and processors are integrates in near future.
ceefka - Monday, February 14, 2005 - linkThough still a little too technical for me, it makes a good read.
It's good to know that Intel has eaten their words and realized they had to go back to the drawing board.
I believe rather sooner than later multicore will mean 4 - 8 cores providing the power to emulate everything that is not necessarily native, like running MAC OSX on an AMD or Intel box. Iow the CELL will meet its match. Reply
fitten - Saturday, February 12, 2005 - link#57 What was the performance comparison of the 1GHz Athlon vs. the 1GHz P3? IIRC, the Athlon was faster by some margin. If this was the case, then there was a little more than tweaking that went on in the Pentium-M line. Because they started out looking at the P3 doesn't mean that what they ended up with was the P3 with a tweak here or there. :) Reply
avijay - Friday, February 11, 2005 - linkEXCELLENT Article! One of the very best I've ever read. Nice to see all the references at the end as well. Could someone please point me to Johan's first article at AT please. Thanks.
Great Work! Reply
fishbreath - Friday, February 11, 2005 - linkFor those of you who don't actually know this:
1) The Dotham IS a Pentium 3. It was tweaked by Intel in Israel, but it's heart and soul is just a PIII.
1b) All P4's have hyperthreading in them, and always have had. It was a fuse feature that was not announced until there were applications to support them. But anyone who has HT and Windows XP knows that Windows simply has a smoother 'feel' when running on an HT processor!
2) Complex array processors are already in the pipeline (no pun intended). However the lack of an operating system or language to support them demands they make their first appearance in dedicated applications such as h264 encoders.
blckgrffn - Friday, February 11, 2005 - linkYay for Very Large Scale Integration (more than 10,000 transistors per chip)! :) I wonder when the historians will put down in the history books that we have hit the fifth generation of computing org.... Reply
WhoBeDaPlaya - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - linkAin't no way you can get those repeaters out of there - that's already the optimum solution for driving the large load (interconnect). It probably equalizes the stage effort required (you can work out the math and find that for multi-stage logic, the optimal config is that each stage has the exact same effort level). Eg. instead of driving an interconnect with a "unit" inverter, it might be more feasible to drive it with a chain of them, each with different fan in/out. Repeater insertion is tricky and (as far as I know) can't readily be automated.
Interconnects are getting to tbe point where traversal of a die diagonally can take multiple clock cycles. Some folks are suggesting that a pipelined approach could be extended to interconnects, esp. clock trees. But the most fun problem (for me at least :P) is the handling of inductance extraction - how in the h*ll do you model it accurately? High-speed digital design == Analog design. Long live analog / mixed-signal VLSI designers :P Reply
fitten - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - link[quote]Well-written multicore-aware code should have the number of cores as a _variable_, so you just set it to 1 on a uniprocessor platform.[/quote]
Sometimes parallel algorithms aren't very good for serial execution. In these cases, you may actually have one algorithm for multiple processors and another algorithm for a single processor.
[quote]So, if Intel were to use less repeaters the heat output could be lowered significantly. [/quote]
Well... I'm sure the Intel engineers didn't just up-and-say one day, "Hey, I know something cool to do... let's put some more repeaters into the core." I'm sure there's a reason for them being in there. It would probably take a bit of redesign to get the repeaters out. (I'm pretty sure this is what you meant, but I just wanted to clarify that stuff like repeaters aren't just put into a CPU for no reason. Things like repeaters are put in because there wasn't a more viable solution to some signalling problem that's there.) Reply
sphinx - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - linkSo, the reason for the Prescott's shortcomings is the use of too many repeaters as shown in the image of the Itanium 2. If I remember correctly, the article said that the repeaters were using too much power as well. So, if Intel were to use less repeaters the heat output could be lowered significantly. Reply
AtaStrumf - Thursday, February 10, 2005 - linkNice article and pretty easy to understand as well. I'm happy to hear that there may still be hope for controlling the power leakage, because without it I just can't see anybody getting beyond 65 nm, since even 65 nm will, without improvements, leak almost 3 times as much power as 90nm does now.
Anxiously waiting for E0 A64 to see what AMD has managed to cook up. Reply
mickyb - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkThere are plenty of multi-threaded apps out there. I am not sure pure single threaded apps exist any more outside of "Hello World" and some old Cobol/FORTRAN ports that are on floppy.
Quake and UT have been multi-threaded for a while. Quake was multi-threaded when I had a dual Pentium pro. There were even benchmarks. The benefits seen with hyper-threading also show that many apps are multi-threaded. The performance gain was negligible due to the graphics drivers and OpenGL/DirectX not being thread optimized. I am sure that has been worked out by now.
Multi-threading is not all about making use of multiple CPUs. There are many conditions where a program would be stopped dead in its tracks waiting for a response from some outside program or hardware device. You can solve this with events, multi-process, multi-threading, call-backs, etc. Goal wise, they are related. In the Winders world, threading is the method of choice.
I really can't believe there are still arguments going on about programs not being multi-threaded. This is not that much of an issue any more. Even if your apps is not threaded, the OS is and it can run on one CPU while your app runs on the other. Or if you have 2 apps, then they can run on different CPUs.
With all that said, I agree with the thought that creating performance for all applications is better served using a faster single core CPU than dual CPUs. I think this way because when you have a unit of work to be done (even with multiple threads), it is more likely to be done quicker with a single CPU that is capable of the same computing power as 2 CPUs. I single unit of work will ultimately be smaller than a thread in all cases. The smallest is the instruction set.
Now...with that said, if the limiting factor is technology and they cannot obtain the equivalent performance of a dual core with a single core, then it makes since to go dual core to obtain it, especially with the power leakage. I like the thinking behind dual core on a laptop, but am skeptical about the part that says turning the CPU off and on rapidly to keep it cool and efficient. It will probably work if it isn't turned on and off too quickly, but heat spreads pretty quickly. You wouldn't even get past POST without a heat-sink and that silicon insulator keeps everything pretty cozy. Reply
NegativeEntropy - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkJohan, another excellent article, I'm looking forward to part 2. Reply
Evan Lieb - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkIt's pretty much impossible to get a "newbie" explanation of CPU architectures without a least a basic understanding of how CPUs work. Rand's suggestions were quite good, you should start there if you're overwhelmed by Johan's explanations IceWindius. It also wouldn't hurt to start with Anand's CPU articles from last year. Reply
Rand - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - link"I wish someone like Arstechinca would make something really built ground up like CPU's for morons so I could start understanding this stuff better."
You may want to read parts 1-5 of "The Secrets of High Performance CPUs"
A bit outdayed now, as it was written in 99' if I recall correctly but it's still broadly relevant and a nice series of articles if your looking to get a better understanding of microprocessors without being drowned in the technical side of things.
ArsTechnica also has some good articles with a newbie friendly slant.
There are some excellent articles at RealWorldTech as well, but their definitely written for engineers rather then the average person.
Unfortunately most of the more noteable books like those by Hennessy & Patterson assume you've already some knowledge of computer architectures. Reply
stephenbrooks - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - link#46, Well-written multicore-aware code should have the number of cores as a _variable_, so you just set it to 1 on a uniprocessor platform. I also think there already exists a multithreaded version of one of the big engines (Quake, UT?) that apparently does not lose any performance on a single core either.
But I agree with the main thrust of your post, which is "Buy AMD". Reply
Noli - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkNot to belittle dual core development and I know there are a lot of people who run technical programs that will benefit from dual core on this site, but when I spend a small fortune on a pc, the primary driver is being able to play the most advanced games in the world. Unfortunately, I don't feel multi-threaded game code is going to get written for a longggggg time (what's the point of reducing potential customers?). How long till a very large percentage of users have dual cores? End of 2006 at the very earliest? So it's really a just a theoretical interest till then for me... Reply
Momental - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - link#41, I understood what he meant when he stated that AMD could only be so lucky to have something which was a technological failure, ie: Prescott, sell as well as it has. Even the article clearly summarizes that Prescott in and of itself isn't a piece of junk per se, only that is has no more room for evolution as Intel originally had hoped.
#36 wasn't saying that it was a flop sales-wise, quite the contrary. The thing has sold like hotcakes!
I, like many others here, literally got dizzy as I struggled to keep up with all of the technical terminology and mathmetical formulas. My brain is, as of this moment, threatening to strike if I don't get it a better health and retirement plan along with a shorter work week. ;) Reply
Ivo - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - link1. About the multiprocessing: Of coarse, there are many (important!) applications, which are more than satisfied with the existing mono-CPU performance. Some other will benefit from dual CPUs. Matrix 2CPU+2GPU combinations could be essential e.g. for stereo-visualization. Probably, desktop machines with enhanced voice/image analytical capabilities could require even more sophisticated CPU Matrices. I suppose, the mono- and multi-CPU solutions will coexist in the near future.
2. About the leakage problem: New materials like SOI are part of the solution. Another part are the new techniques. Let us take a lesson from the nature: our blood-transportation system consists of tiny capillaries and much thicker arteries. Maybe it could make sense to combine 65 nm transistors e.g. in the cash memory and 90 nm transistors in the ALU? Reply
Noli - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - link"Netburst architecture is very innovative and even genial"
If by genial you mean 'having a pleasant or friendly disposition', it sounds weird. It can mean 'conducive to growth' in this context but that's not so intuitive because a) it wasn't and b) at best it was only theoretically genial.
Presumably it's not genial as in 'of or relating to the chin' :)
Agree monolithic was confusing but it was the intel dude who said it - I thought it meant 'large single unit' rather than 'old (as in technology)' as in: increasing processing power by increasing the size and complexity of a single core is now not as efficient as strapping two cores together - a duallithic unit :)
Sorry to be a pedantic twat. Reply
Xentropy - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkSome of the verbage in that final chapter makes me wonder how much better Prescott might have done if Intel had just left out everything 64-bit and developed an entirely different processor for 64-bit. Especially since we won't have a mainstream OS that'll even utilize those instructions for another few months, and it's already been about a year since release, they could have easily gotten away with putting 64-bit off for the next project. It's pretty obvious by now even the 32-bit Prescotts have those 64-bit transistors sitting around. Even if not active, they aren't exactly contributing to the power efficiency of the processor.
I think one big reason Intel thinks dual core will be the savior of even the Prescott line is supposedly dual cores running at 3Ghz only require equivalent power draw to a single core at 3.6Ghz and should be just as fast in some situations (multitasking, at least). Dual core at 85% clockspeed will be slower for gaming, though, so dual core Prescott still won't close the gap with AMD for gaming enthusiasts (98% of this site's readership), and may even represent an even further drop in performance per watt. Here's hoping for Pentium-M on the desktop. :> Reply
piroroadkill - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - link#36 -- You really didn't read the article and get the point of it. It wasn't a failure from a sales point of view, and this article was not written from a sales point of view, but a technical point of view, and how the Prescott helped in furthering CPU technology.
Thus, a failure. Reply
ViRGE - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkAlthough I think I sank more than I swam, that was a very good and informative article Johan. I just have one request for a future article since I'm guessing the next one is on multi-core tech: will someone at AT run the full AT benchmark suite against a SMP Xeon machine so that we can get a good idea ahead of time what dual-core performance will be like against single core? My understanding is that the Smithfields aren't going to be doing much else new besides putting 2 cores on one die(i.e. no cache sharing or other new tech), so SMP benchmarks should be fairly close to dual-core benchmarks. Reply
Griswold - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkPoint and case as to why the marketing department is the most important (and powerful) part of any highly successful company. It's not the R&D labs who tell you what works and what comes next, it's the PR team. Reply
quidpro - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkSomeone needs to make a new Tron movie so I can understand this better. Reply
tore - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkGreat article, on page 3 you talk about BJT transistor with a base, collector and emitter, since all modern cpu's use mosfets should you talk about a mosfet with a gate, source and drain? Reply
Questar - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - link"The Pentium 4 "Prescott" is, despite its innovative architecture, a failure."
AMD wishes they had a "failure" that sold like Prescott.
stephenbrooks - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - link#28 - that's interesting. I was thinking myself just a few days ago "I wonder if those wires go the long way on a rectangular grid or do they go diagonally?" Looks like there's still room for improvement. Reply
Chuckles - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkThe word comes from Latin. "mono" meaning one, "lithic" meaning stone. So monolithic refers to the fact that it is a single cohesive unit.
The reason you associate "lithic" with old is only due to the fact that anthropologists use Paleolithic and Neolithic to describe time periods in human history in the Stone Age. The words translate as "old stone" and "new stone" respectively.
I have seen plenty of monolithic benches around here. Heck, a slab granite countertop qualifies as a monolith. Reply
theOracle - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkVery good article - looks like a university paper with all the references etc! Looking forward to part two.
Re "monolithic", granted the word doesn't mean old but anything '-lithic' instantly makes me think ancient (think neolithic etc). -lithic means a period in stone use by humans, and a monolith is a (usually ancient) stone monument; I think its fair to say Intel were trying to make the audience think 'old technology'. Reply
DavidMcCraw - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkGreat article, but this isn't accurate:
"Note the word "monolithic", a word with a rather pejorative meaning, which insinuates that the current single core CPUs are based on old technology."
Neither the dictionary nor technical meanings of monolithic imply 'old technology'. Rather, it simply refers to the fact that the single-core CPU being referred to is as large as the two smaller chips, but is in one part.
In the context of OS kernel architectures, the Linux kernel is a good example of monolithic technology... but I doubt many people consider it old tech! Reply
IceWindius - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkEven this articles makes my head hurt, so much about CPU's is hard to understand and grasp. I wish I kneow how those CPU engineers do this for a living.
I wish someone like Arstechinca would make something really built ground up like CPU's for morons so I could start understanding this stuff better. Reply
JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, February 09, 2005 - linkJason and Anand have promised me (building some pressure ;-) a threaded comment system so I can answer more personally. Until then:
1. Thanks for all the encouraging comments. It really gives a warm feeling to read them, and it is basically the most important motivation for writing more
2. Slashbin (27): Typo. just typed with a small period of insanity. Voltage of course, fixed
3. CSMR: the SPEC numbers of intel are artificially high, as they have been spending more and more time on aggressive compiler optimisations. All other benchmarks clearly show the slowdown. Reply
CSMR - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkExcellent article. Couple of odd things you might want to amend in chapter one: "CPUs run 40 to 60% faster each year" contradicts the previous discussion about slowed CPU speed increases. Also power formula explanation on the same page doesn't really make sense as pointed out by #27. Reply
Doormat - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkGood article. The only real thing I wanted to bring up was something called the "X Consortium". I wrote a paper in my solid state circuit design class a few years ago. Basically instead of having all the interconnects within a chip laid out in a grid-like fashion, it allows them to be diagonal (and thus, a savings of, at most, 29% - for the math impaired it could be at most 1/sqrt(2)). Perhaps the tools arent there or its too patent encumbered. If interconnects are really an issue then they should move to this diagonal interconnect technology. I actually dont think they are a very pressing need right now - leakage current is the most pressing issue. The move to copper interconnects a while ago helped (increased conductivity over aluminum, smaller die sizes mean shorter distances to traverse, typically).
It will be very interesting to see what IBM does with their Cell chips and SOI (and what clock speed AMD releases their next A64/Opteron chips at since they've teamed with IBM). If indeed these cell chips run at 4GHz and dont have leakage current issues then there is a good chance that issue is mostly remedied (for now at least). Reply
slashbinslashbash - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - link" In other words, dissipated power is linear with the e ffective capacitance, activity and frequency. Power increases quadratically with frequency or clock speed." (Page 2)
Typo there? Frequency can't be both linear and quadratic..... from the equation itself, it looks like voltage is quadratic. (assuming the V is voltage) Reply
AnnoyedGrunt - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkAnd of course I meant to refer to post 23 above.
-D! Reply
AnnoyedGrunt - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkIt's possible that 22 was referring solely to the grammar of the sentence, which could potentially make more sense if it was rewritten as, "while other applications will REQUIRE exponential investments in develpment....."
Very good article overall, but some portions could be polished a bit perhaps to make it easier for people only slightly familiar with processor details (people like myself) to understand.
Really looking forward to part 2!
-D'oh! Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - link23 - Not at all. Have you ever tried writing multi-threaded code? If it take 12 months to write and debug a single-threaded program that handles a task, and you try to do the same thing in multi-threaded code, I would expect 24 to 36 months to get everything done properly.
Let's not even get into the discussion of the fact that not all code really *can* benefit from multi-threadedness. I had a similar conversation with several others in the Dual Core AMD Roadmap article. You can read the comments there for additional insight, I hope:
http://www.anandtech.com/talkarticle.aspx?i=2303 Reply
cosmotic - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - link"while the other applications will see exponential investments in development time to achieve the same performance increase." Thats a really stupid statement. Reply
cosmotic - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkThat first image really sucks. You should at least make it look decent. It looks like crap now. Reply
IceWindius - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkMath hurts, and thus my head hurts.......
Either way, Intel finally admits they fucked up and AMD spanked them for it. Justice is served. Reply
faboloso112 - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkonly about halfway through the article but this is a damn good article.
not a fanboi of any sort but i certainly do hate intel's pr team.
i think the reason amd has done well for itself is because it doesn't pride itself nor relies of fake product specs and their exaggerated capabilities and scalability...unlike intel...and ill admit...i got cought up in the hype too with the whole 10ghz thing at the time because based on moore's law and how things had been going w/ the clock speed jumps...i thought one day it would be possible...but look at where the prescott stands now...and look at how instead of blabbing about 10ghz..they talk of multi-core cpu.
i think ill stop talking now and return to the article... Reply
erikvanvelzen - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linki eat these sort of articles about cpu's, memory and the like which have references to hardware which i actually use.
If you like this, check out these articles by John 'Hannibal' Stokes @ arstechnica.com:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu.ars Reply
jbond04 - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkAWESOME article, Johan. Good to see someone do some real research regarding the Prescott processor. Keep up the good work! Reply
Oxonium - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkJohan used to write very good articles for Ace's Hardware. I'm glad to see him writing those same high-quality articles for Anandtech. Keep up the good work! Reply
BlackMountainCow - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkWow, very interesting read. Finally some stuff based on real facts and not some "Prescott just sux" stuff. Two thumbs up! Reply
Cybercat - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkIt's sad that software isn't moving in the direction of AMD's architectural emphasis, and instead heading toward a more media-oriented design. As said above, AMD is better at keeping in mind the future of their processors, by keeping up with low-leakage technologies (E0 stepping being a good example).
I do think though that the whole dual-core thing is a gimmick. I certainly won't be buying into it any time soon. Reply
fitten - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkGood read! I'm looking forward to the next installment. Reply
reactor - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkHalf of it went over my head, but was none the less very interesting. The prescott chapter was very informative.
Well Done. Reply
Rand - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkI'm still getting accustomed to seeing your byline on articles published on AnandTech, rather then AcesHardware :)
As always, it's an excellent and fascinating read.
Regs - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkPentium-M can't* Reply
Regs - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkThanks to this article I now know why the PM can reach faster clock cycles, and why AMD is still behind in multimedia tasks like video encoding.
Awesome article! I see some one has been lurking the forums. Reply
FinalFantasy - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkNice article! Reply
bersl2 - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkYay! I get to use some of the stuff from my CS2110 class! Reply
Gnoad - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkThis is one hell of an in depth article! Great job! Reply
WooDaddy - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkI have to say this is the most technical article from Anandtech I have read. Good thing I'm a hardware engineer... I think it could be a difficult read for someone with even average understand of microprocessor development.
Good though. Reply
sandorski - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkWhile reading the article I couldn't help but think that when Intel states something it becomes all the buzz in the Industry and is accepted as fact. OTOH, AMD has been way ahead of Intel concerning these issues, adopting the Technologies in order to avoid the issues while Intel ran ahead right into the wall. Given the history between the 2, I'd hope that AMD's musings on the future become more relevant as they seem more in tune with the technology and its' limitations. Likely won't happen though. Reply
Mingon - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkI Thought originally it was reported that prescotts alu's were single pumped vs double for northwood et al. Reply
segagenesis - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkHeh heh heh, good timing with the recent news. Very well written and good insight on low level technology.
It is starting to become obvious to even average joe user now that computer power for pc's has plataeu'ed (sp?) over the past year or so. You can have a perfectly functional and snappy desktop in just 2ghz or less if you use the right apps.
I think the recent walls hit by processor technology should be an indication for developers to work better with what they have rather than keep demanding more power. We used to make jokes about how much processor power is needed for word processing, but considering MS Word runs no faster really than it did on a P2-266mhz in Office 97... urrrgh.
sandorski - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkhehe, you said, "clocks peed" hehe :D
(Chapter 1)
good article. Reply
Ender17 - Tuesday, February 08, 2005 - linkInteresting. Great read. Reply


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