lost track a bit...who is who?

I liked the days up until about a year ago on the keeping up with current
processors. I am an avid AMD user who currently has a 3000+ chip on a kt400
motherboard. Yep, its at 333fsb.

But I am losing touch with the competition, Intel. I followed every chip
that both camps were making. But now its gettting a little fuzzy on which
one stacks up against which one?

I can understand the reasons that I read from each for their justification
of the ratings they use. And it makes sense from both. But then try to put
a side by side comparison, and its not that easy. Will this trend continue?
Ive had friends who dont know that much, but can see the "3200+" written on
their new Dell or Compaq and get it. The Intels tend to confuse them. Its
starting to do so for me as well. Im not as in tune with the changes as I
was when I was 20...Im 36 now. Yes, I know, 36 is almost like a baby

Any good comprehensive sites on the net I might want to look at (not
reviews)?

Thanks all,
Sl

AMD 3000+ (333fsb)
Abit Kd7a
80 gig HD
9800 Pro
1 gig pc 3200 (at 400mhz)
All parts running stock speeds and performing excellently.

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 16:01:07 -0500, SL wrote:

> But I am losing touch with the competition, Intel. I followed every chip
> that both camps were making. But now its gettting a little fuzzy on which
> one stacks up against which one?
>
And that's the way they want you. The numbers mean very little these days,
even with AMD, as they've started using 2 different PR rating systems, one
against the P4 and another agaunst the celeron (AMD Sempron series). and
then at the top end, they just use model numbers. About the only way to
really compare them is to look at the benchmarks. Luckily, there's many
sites that do this for you. That's how you need to base the comparison.
You can't even compare AMD's to AMD's own model numbers anymore if you
want an accurate comparison. A real good explw is the socket 754 3400+. It
has a clock speed of 2.4Ghz. Now compare that to the 939 4000+. It too is
2.4GHz, But it has dual channel ram and a larger 1M L2 cache. Does it
deserve a 4000+ rating? Not IMO. The 3400+ will actually outperform it in
certain apps. So what software you are going to run plays a huge role in
which cpu is best. Why would you want to pay over $700 for a 4000+ when an
under $200 3400+ will run the software you use most faster? Sorry, there
just isn't a simply way to compare, but the main thing to be concerned
with with the cpu within each group of cpu's is the raw clock speed.
That's where real performance comes from. Extra cache and dual channel
don't provide near the performance boost as the clockspeed does. This does
not mean compare intels clockspeed to AMD's as they aren't anywhere close
to being in the same group. They aren't even the same base core.

--
Abit KT7-Raid (KT133) Tbred B core CPU @2400MHz (24x100FSB)
http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.htm