Who said AMD's are better gaming systems?

[HAL9000]

Unless something changes... it won't be for long

[doctorgonzo]

Wow. That's incredibly stupid. If nothing changes, I guess I will be rethinking my next build, where I was going to use a 64-bit Athlon XP.

[glc]

I think we need clarification here - it's my impression that there's no such thing as a "64-bit Athlon XP". There's the Athlon XP, and there's the Athlon 64. I wouldn't expect a hard core gamer that is going to buy a PCI Express video card to try to run it on an "old tech" Athlon XP (Barton, T-Bred, Thorton, whatever).

[doctorgonzo]

Thanks for the clarification, glc. I guess I scanned the article too quickly and came away with the impression that AMD wasn't going to have PCI Express support for either its 32- or 64-bit processors.

[HAL9000]

Yes... this is true GLC... but forcing one to the 64 bit which is higher on the price scale to begin with, just to get PCI-Express which those cards won't be cheap, to run games that aren't 64 bit yet on 32 bit operating systems... doesn't seem too cost effective for the consumer yet.

[SonicVanguard]

Originally posted by HAL9000 Yes... this is true GLC... but forcing one to the 64 bit which is higher on the price scale to begin with, just to get PCI-Express which those cards won't be cheap, to run games that aren't 64 bit yet on 32 bit operating systems... doesn't seem too cost effective for the consumer yet.

But have you seen the benchmarks for the new class of cards? the X800XT and FX6800 are both great cards, but they both showed huge bottlenecks at the CPU level under certain conditions (wide open with Anti-Aliasing and Shading turned off). That won't be acceptable to a hard-core gamer who will put the money out for a 64bit CPU to overcome that bottleneck. For the hard-core gamer, it's the GPU that's the focus and heart of the system - if the CPU is slowing things down, it's time for a upgrade.

Dave.

[Jimmy White]

Originally posted by HAL9000 Yes... this is true GLC... but forcing one to the 64 bit which is higher on the price scale to begin with, just to get PCI-Express which those cards won't be cheap, to run games that aren't 64 bit yet on 32 bit operating systems... doesn't seem too cost effective for the consumer yet.

PCI express is still along way away and within this year AMD are releaseing the AMD 64 2800 and others for the same price as the XP. AMD seem to be completely ditching the XP and carrying on with there 64bit processors and also some games in development have 64bit extensions.

Also the people who will be buying the PCI express card when they are released have alot of money to throw around so i dont think upgrading the CPU will be much hasstle and by the time PCI express is main stream AMD 64 will have matured and have overtaken XP (which will be a low end CPU)

[Propain]

This means that if you are an Athlon XP owner and you want to buy a new graphics card after June/July, you will have to change motherboard and processor too. from article



YES! another good excuse to buy a AMD64 Mobo and CPU !! thanks for the heads up Hal!!

[TeenPcknowit]

Or another excuse to go with the superior pentium 4....

[Jimmy White]

Originally posted by TeenPcknowit Or another excuse to go with the superior pentium 4....

fan boy

[Propain]

Originally posted by TeenPcknowit Or another excuse to go with the superior pentium 4....

hmm lets not go there

[jimmyrules712]

think about it, when pci express graphics cards comeo ut, they're going to be very expensive, if someone is going to put htat much money into one, i doubt they'll be running an athlon xp.

[HAL9000]

I dunno... still doesn't make a whole lotta sense to me to put all your eggs into a 64bit basket right now... kinda like dumping a 454 into your hot rod but running only 4 spark plugs in my opinion.

[Colonel Sanders]

a 454 with 4 spark plugs? That sounds more like a crippeled engine. The way I see it, putting PCI express on an Athlon XP would be more like a 454 with 4 spark plugs.

I think AMD is more or less keeping their top CPUs with top graphics cards, and not developing a PCI-X chipset for the XP because it would be wasted.

[imbest123]

I think both 64-bit cpu's and PCI Express should both be used. The way I see it is the faster they release these new technologies the faster people will accomodate to them so that they can be fully utilized.

[Strider]

Why waste Research & Development on "Old School" technology when it can be better utilized on something better.

[TwoRails]

I don't really see anything shocking there. The XP is now "legacy" stuff. The A64 series is the new line replacement for the XPs as it was intended to be, with the FX series being the top of the line. That's kinda like being shocked that Intel won't do a major renovation on the PIII.

[Nuclear Krusader]

I wonder if Intel is gonna do something similar.

[Colonel Sanders]

Originally posted by TwoRails I don't really see anything shocking there. The XP is now "legacy" stuff. The A64 series is the new line replacement for the XPs as it was intended to be, with the FX series being the top of the line. That's kinda like being shocked that Intel won't do a major renovation on the PIII.

I may be wrong, but didn't Intel make a RAMBUS chipset for the P3?

L J

[TwoRails]

I couldn't say... I never paid attention to RAMBUS, so I don't even know when it came out in the CPU timeline.

[Alienware_Dude]

The Intel 820 and 840 chipsets supported RDRAM and Slot 1/S378 PIII's, I believe.

[DragonNOA1]

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders .. and not developing a PCI-X chipset for the XP because it would be wasted.

Gotch ya. PCI-X is not the same as PCI-Express. Watch the technical jargon...

[HAL9000]

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders I think AMD is more or less keeping their top CPUs with top graphics cards, and not developing a PCI-X chipset for the XP because it would be wasted.

Promoting older tech is not necessarily a bad thing... with PCI express, there is the potential for running dual high bandwidth cards where as with todays AGP solution, you are restricted to an AGP and a 32 bit PCI. Remember the days of the dually Voodoo2? That was some serious power in it's time. Now imagine the power of two 16x capable cards output to one monitor with scanline interleave (one card scanning even lines, one scanning odds)... will it ever come? Who knows, but the potential is there and if the consumer wants it, somebody will manufacture it to be at the top of the graphics line.

[glc]

Originally posted by Nuclear Krusader I wonder if Intel is gonna do something similar.

Yep - when Yamhill finally shows up. This is going to be 64 bit extensions on either the Prescott or the Xeon.

[sleepypost]

Gee, another hidden AMD-bashing thread. I mean, come on, there's no need to make people panic or dismiss a well established company such as AMD. I'm sure they know more about their future than we do. There are a multitude of things this company can do to keep up with or even surpass intel in this market.

[HAL9000]

Nobody's bashing... just kinda baffled as why they would hold themselves back.

Not to mention... don't kid yourself... I see too many comments of "high priced P4's" when I've been able to build a identically equipped P4 system for literllaly a couple dollars more than an AMD based system... thats like complaining that House A is $100,000 and House B is $100,010... really not worth mentioning.. but people still do.

[yellohut]

I tell you what.. after my last two systems were athlons, my next will prolly be intel...
I really like amd, but I think I'm about ready for a change..
it's good to go back and forth now and then..

of course, before that comes I should probably focus on upgrading to windows XP instead of Me

[sleepypost]

HAL, you always make good points, so i'm not gonna make a big deal out this. In fact, this was quite an interesting topic anyways.

I guess I am just really defensive when it comes to brand-consumer loyalty!

[HAL9000]

LOL.. not a prob... you know I'm Intel biased and loyal.... it happens to all of us whether it be CPU's or cars or your favorite pizza or soda.

[tomster2300]

Just think of the level of gaming this'll bring when everything is said and done.