[geeks] eek

[joshua d boyd]

On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 05:58:10PM -0400, Zach Malone wrote:
> other name brands, but I have heard it is a problem.  In terms of the
> question regarding processors, the dual P3 600s will offer a more "smooth"
> feeling when you are running applications which support SMP (Like Photoshop)

Err, strictly linux.  Not all that much is threaded I find.  Still SMP
rocks.

> and when you are doing multiple things at a time, but peak speeds will be
> slower (fewer FPS in games, longer filter times in Photoshop, etc.).

Don't have any linux games so not a problem.  Heck, hope to replace
desktop machine with an O2, then the intel box would just be a headless
compute server.

> Personally, I would go for the dual P3s, I have a dual P3 800 machine and an
> Athlon 1ghz @ 1.466 ghz machines, and I must say, the Slot-1/FC-PPGA
> hardware is substantially more stable (and cooler) then the Athlon hardware.

My mobo tops out at the 600a chips (I think the a designates the 100mhz
600s from the 133mhz 600s).  The cost of one of those chips though would
buy me a newer athlon mobo and 700mhz CPU.  For the cost of both chips, I
could upgrade both mine and my sisters computer.

However, I think I'll just save my money for now since I really like dual
procs.  Maybe I'll reconsider when I can get dual proc, 1U Athlon
machines.  Get 16 of those, run a myrinet interconnect, and then we are
cooking with gas.  Not a cray, but then, what is (other than a cray)?:

> At present, most people disagree with that, but the extra 400mhz you can
> pull off the Athlon processer just is not worth the assosiated Via based
> instabilities IMHO.

However, Athlons seem to be faster at FP per mhz these days.  Also, 3DNow
(especially some of the athlon extensions to 3dnow) is rather
usefull for people too lazy to use rational numbers (such as myself often
enough, although I wonder if I can convince mmx to do rational numbers
faster than the FP unit can do FP numbers on an intel chip).

And I take it as a rather good sign that Hammerhead uses athlons.  They do
some really killer special effects work on films such as paulie and x-men.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd
http://www.cs.millersville.edu/~jdboyd/