I could care less about clock for clock. A 3.2 GHz Northwood trounced an Athlon XP 3200+ in power consumption and performance, but it didn't have a clock-for-clock advantage. Hell, IBM's Power5 chips are expected to go to 4 and 5 GHz. I might add, the Power-series chips have been laying the smackdown on both Intel and AMD for server popularity for quite a long time.

That said, I'm compelled to say, whether or not K8L is AM2 or not is immaterial. The basic K8's on the AM2 socket, judging by preliminary benchmark results, are not "competitors" to Conroe. K8L might be, but it depends -- adding twice the floating point units (that makes six total), and adding a degree of power consumption.

-Pikl

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29890

Just think of it this way, the K8L will have 1.5x more Floating Point Performance then the Opterons right now. That is a very good performance boost.

The way Intel is moving, that is all there is "Clock 4 Clock.

And let me remind you that the P4 @ 3.2 performed well, but the Athlon XP 3200+ also performed well, wasn't faster, but ran on slower speeds, and lesser L2 cache. The Athlon XP also had a lower FSB speed of 333 & some with 400 where as the P4 had 533 & 800.

Either way, the Athlon XP's were the best Price/Performance CPU's & ram amazing in games.

*cough*

There's a reason I own a Pentium 4....

"I wouldn't have much of a problem with that if the Athlon XP 3200+ offered a friendly price-performance ratio, but as of today, that's not quite the case. The Athlon XP 3200+ will sell for $464 in lots of 1000 units. To compare, the Pentium 4 3.0GHz currently lists for $417. AMD may well push street prices for the 3200+ below those of the P4 3.0GHz, but the actual list price for the 3200+ looks mighty steep right about now. For that kind of money, I'd rather have a fast Pentium 4 with an 800MHz bus." - Scott Wasson, Tech Report.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2003q2/athlonxp-3200/index.x?pg=12

-Pikl

@A_Pickle: And even at the time, when the Pentium 4 3GHz was cheaper than the XP 3200+, AMD was the leader in Price/Performance on all CPUs, that where not the absolute high end and because Price/Performance is allways bad for high end products, AMD always had the lead in Price/Performance, after they introduced the Athlon XP.

And I the Athlon XP-M 2500+ OC'ed @ 2.60 GHz, I was untouchable (Bone Stock was around 1.86GHz)

--Julian Innerhofer


Provide links proving that, and I'll believe you. In the meantime, I'll post some more links proving my point.


--Scott Wasson, The Tech Report


Source:
http://techreport.com/reviews/2002q2/athlonxp-2200/index.x?pg=9

--Scott Wasson, The Tech Report


Source:
http://techreport.com/reviews/2002q3/pentium4-2.8/index.x?pg=11

--Super XP


I'm sure you were... against stock opponents. Overclocked benchmarking is dumb as it is, because every processor is a little different than other processors -- you can never guarantee "fairness" with overclocks. One chip might have more headroom than another, etc. Even dumber still is benchmarking an overclocked component against a stock one. That doesn't prove anything.

-Pikl

Why is it dum, when I buy a $149 XP-M 2500+ & overclock it rock stable with unlocked multi to 2.60 GHz which would cost a lot more money? And it outperformed anything Intel had to offer at that time?

No, OC'ing & Benchmarks are great, and if they were not, then you wouldn't be seeing several mobo companies giving major OC'ing options & advertising them too

I also agree that the Athlon XP's were the best in Price/Performance. If they were not at that time, then AMD would of been out of the game, but they were not. At one point they held more market share then they ever owed with the A64's & Opterons

--Super XP


Because you can overclock the stock part you're comparing it to. You can't up and say, "The Athlon XP 3200+ is better than the 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 because I overclocked it to 2.5 GHz." That's a foolish statement -- most 3.0 GHz Pentium 4's can happily go to 4 GHz with a decent air cooler. Overclocks are also non-uniform from part to part -- one Athlon XP 3200+ might go to 2.6 GHz, while another Athlon XP 3200+ might only go to 2.4 GHz. I reiterate -- saying that Component A is better than Component B because Component A-overclocked beats Component B-stock is just stupid.

Now, saying Component A-stock is better than Component B-overclocked isn't a fair test either -- but it demonstrates that Component A is so good even rigged tests don't phase it. Remember the Pentium 4 at 5.2 GHz losing to an FX-55? Remember the FX-60 at 2.8 GHz losing to a Conroe? Those weren't fair, but you really can't complain.

-Super XP


Here's some news for you: They weren't the best in price to performance. If they were, post some links to prove that. Until you do, however, the referenced and sourced statements I've posted above carry far more weight than your baseless statement.

-Pikl

Umm, I am comparing an OC'ed 2500+ vs. an OC'ed 2.4GHz @ 3.4GHz or a 3.2GHz @ 3.8GHz. My XP-M 2500+ @ 2.60GHz was faster in gaming performance, but slower in synthetic benchmarks which mean jack anyway.

Um, my friend had a P4 2.4GHz, you know the moster of a OC'er for cheap? the thing I realized it that with the Athlon XP's every bit of MHz was a quality OC which you can see a nice performance increase where as for the P4's back then, they were not. I guess it is because the P4's always needed @ least 1000MHz more then the Athlon XP's to either keep up with them or defete them.

Either way, the Athlon XP "WAS" the gamers choice at home where as the P4 was used in offices & such. WIth the A64's that all changed, but that is a different story.

Anyway, this is going nowhere, I know my info to be correct & you seem to think yours is correct right

<Blank cause i posted 2x (its been eons since i visited here)>

Im ROFLMAO right now, Its just sad to see ppl forecasting crap like this..Of course the tested cpu suxors, it was deigned or a different socket, what? you think AMD didnt test it first b4 sending it out to the media? Its a newsocket, therefore they are developing the cores and procesors. Did Newcastle go 939 at some point? The only reason... Clawhammer didnt make it until way later on in the game... so if they are using the dual sandiego (toledo) on the AM2 its cause they dont want to disclose the "venice" or "san diego" of AM2... Its like Intel putting out a new socket and sticking prescotts on it to show the media that they are actually developing it... AMD sent this out to show the market that they have gotten the socket done, now they need to develop a core for the socket... And 4 all of you who love figting about crap like "AMD over Intel" ive got sth to say: AMDs overclock different to Intels, Intels go further in Hz. So? My 3000+ clawhammer @ 2.2Ghz out performed (in sandra) a 3.8 Intel.. (all im saying is, "touché i guess Hz dont really matter") Intels make better (singlecore) office products (xcept that optherons pwn) for "opening files" "saving files" and "video compression"; and intels are better mobile procesors for buisness ppl (less power consumption)... the Intel dualcores are also a heaper dualcore solution, but why go dual core when you could just by Hyper threading? where as AMD makes a Psycho 64bit gamer cpu (like mine, Oced from 3000+ to 4000+ on watercooling) and also some insane server cores. and lets not forget the beasts that are the turions as high power low conumption mobile 64 bit CPUs. But it all biols down to waht ur doing... video editing calls for intels high frequencies (generally) whilst gaming and *cost* (semprons) are clearly AMDs strengths... I cant say much bout the X2s, only that they cost too much. but they are also beasts. But with the realease of the super expensive "conroe" (1100+ USD, http://www.newegg.com) and its competition, the 4800X2 and FX60 i believe that the high-end battle is yet to have a decisive winner. I just have a prefference towards AMDs cause im a gamer.

I wonder how the new AM2's will perform when they are finally released?

[/quote]super expensive "conroe" (1100+ USD[/quote]

Conroe is a core design, not a single CPU. Conroe based products will fill the whole product line, so to try to insist that Conroe will cost 1100 is Bull.

Yes, a top of the line Conroe may cost that much, in comparison to a top of the line AM2 Dual core of 1200-1400.

Sorry, i was confused concerning the whole Conroe deal... my bad, ignore it... i got it confused w/ the pressler. I hope you all can still understand the rest of my post. Just replace cnroe with pressler, ok?

I must also mention the intel pd 805 for its overclockability. Intel finally made a good cpu 4.1GHz and stable (http://www.tomshardware.com). If you are reading this and wanna have some overclocking fun... get it!