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  • tennesota - Sunday, November 7, 2004 - link

    Thanks for the informative article. I'm sure many would agree that "we appreciate your hard work work". Thanks!
  • ThePlagiarmaster - Friday, November 5, 2004 - link

    #59 I agree pcie will be much better for boardmakers (I don't think we'll see price cuts...not much anyway). Boardmakers will just take the profits and I can't say I blame them with razor thin margins. At least they have a good excuse to take it. I also agree that pcie will be great for OTHER cards. I may have misunderstood your msg. It seemed to me you were extolling the virtues of it as a new video card bus. In this regard I think AGP was fine. It's not even used. We haven't even tapped 256mb cards yet (witness the 6600gt's scores @128mb onboard). So plenty of room to grow on agp if you ask me as everybody fears going to the 'dreaded' bus :) But as long as it keeps board costs down I guess I see the point.

    What I meant by not needing ddr2 is Intel should have waited for a technology (ddr3?) that would have actually made a difference over todays memory. To release a product that doesn't outperform yesterdays product is stupid (the P4 vs. P3 comes to mind, 3 die shrinks on the P3 would have made one hell of a chip). DDR2 is [and will be] slower than DDR1 until 667 (barely a victory if at all) and probably 800mhz. Perhaps they'll be able to get DDR2 to dizzy heights like ddr1 (DDR2 1200?) and finally make it really worthwhile.

    A dualcore could probably do the same as a dual cpu does now. Each opteron has it's own bank of memory. You can get one of these boards for only $216 or so (and you wouldn't need all the routes for the 2nd cpu socket so it should be cheaper still). So one bank for the right side of the chip and one for the left :) Nevermind, technology marches on and I accept it LOL. I shouldn't even be talking I guess, I have an A64 939p (3200+ probably), Koolance Exos, 6600GT PCIe, and the K8N Neo Platinum/SLI on the books as an xmas gift to myself...ROFL. Or I mean a gift to my EARS! OK the performance will be nice too, but my ears will love me for sure.
  • slashbinslashbash - Friday, November 5, 2004 - link

    #57 I'm fully aware that PCI-E offers no current benefit for graphics cards in terms of bandwidth. My point was about the underlying PCI-E architecture. You're forgetting that PCI-E is *not just for graphics cards*. Normal PCI (and its bastard offspring AGP) have been around for too long. Like Parallel ATA is being removed in favor of Serial ATA, PCI (a parallel architecture) is being removed in favor of PCI-E (a serial architecture). Look at all the traces on your motherboard that go to a single PCI slot. A x1 PCI-E slot (analogous to a regular PCI slot) needs 4 wires. This clears up huge issues for motherboard manufacturers and will ultimately make motherboards cheaper. It's also point-to-point, and the bandwidth is much more scalable. PCI hardly even has the bandwidth for gigabit ethernet. A new technology is needed to replace PCI/AGP. Even though graphics cards will see no benefit today, the fact that there are now lots of motherboards on the market with PCI-E slots (both x16 and x1) means that the peripheral manufacturers can move to PCI-E and dump the outdated PCI. Yes, I know about 64-bit and 66MHz PCI. Those are better performing than normal PCI, but they're even more of a pain to route and implement on a motherboard. That's why you only see them on expensive server motherboards.

    I also question your statement "So we could have just skipped DDR2 and waited for DDR3." What makes you think that we'll get to DDR3 if nobody uses DDR2? Surely the same sorts of issues that now cause headaches with DDR2 will also be in DDR3. I agree, it doesn't seem to make much sense for Intel in the long run since they're likely moving to a new architecture that won't be as bandwidth starved. However, don't forget that the upcoming dual core processors will likely need more bandwidth even if they run at a lower clock speed. Dual-core Athlon64s might even benefit from DDR2, even if single-core A64s don't need the bandwidth.
  • Ivo - Friday, November 5, 2004 - link

    Hi Anand, great review! Thanks!

    As for what I want: I'd like to build an upgradeable, micro-ATX size, cool and quite home-PC (something like DTR, but with separate screen). Will anybody produce a micro-ATX (or BTX) Socket 939 motherboard in the near future?
  • ThePlagiarmaster - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    #53 PCIe is NO better than AGP. Yes it has more bandwidth BUT it's the same thing as before. If you never go onto the bus who cares? We'll keep seeing bigger and bigger amounts of memory on the cards (because memory makers keep shrinking the chips like everyone else, thus making bigger amounts cost the same as the last smaller revs) thereby killing the very point of more bandwidth for the bus. I don't forsee ANY time in the future where ANY game maker will want to go out onto the bus when there is a ton of memory on the card that runs circles around main memory with to-and-fro bus access. It's just a completely BAD idea. It will never be good. The only purpose that would serve is CHEAP systems playing an old game or two. Or business systems that want to keep costs down. It will never work for gamers. Even crap cards come with 128meg today.

    AGP could have been good (and was a decent idea before cheap graphics memory killed it) if memory would have stayed expensive. But it was already getting really cheap before AGP even hatched. So the whole thing was a moot idea forever all the way through 8x. Just a BS line Intel could say they were always ahead of AMD in. Marketing hype and thats about it. It got cards off the PCI bus, but Micron showed you could do that with a 66mhz PCI slot.

    You could argue it raised the voltage/watts to the cards (agp and pcie), but anybody could have pulled that off with a 66mhz pci slot also. However Intel is always looking for a way to claim some technology advantage so we keep getting all these BS changes (DDR2 anybody?). Let's face it, AMD could run on DDR1 until at LEAST 533 (1066 hypertransport and DDR 533 perfect match). You could even argue for DDR1 600 as it's around now (no doubt a die shrink again would make this memory cheap too). So thats two more revs of A64's, a stop at 1066 and 1200. Neither of them would starve the A64 either. It's nowhere near starved at DDR400.

    So we could have just skipped DDR2 and waited for DDR3. DDR2 won't show anything for the P4 until 800mhz really and Intel will be talking DDR3 by then (ROFL - AMD doesn't have it but we do - nana nana nana). Just more marketing hype again. Though I like the idea of the power savings for notebooks. But not much more than that. We haven't even proven how many extra minutes that gets you yet (may be a puny savings, who knows). By the time they get DDR2 rolling the P4 will be dead and a P3 dual core (eh, I mean Pentium M, heh) that isn't bandwidth starved won't need the extra bandwidth Intel will be telling us we need. I see joke after joke after joke coming. The joke's on the consumer who buys into this load of BS every time they tell us we need it.
  • quasisnig - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    Anand,
    Excellent, I can only imagine the number of industry analyst that read your articles.
  • jiulemoigt - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    #47 people switched to the NForce2 chipset because of soundstorm... plus if Nvidia simply pkged it as both digital and analog PCI-E 1x riser card it would have the bandwidth it needed and met the needs of those you want an add on card and those who just want cheap sound. Personaly I'd love to see SoundStorm2 be dug out of what ever file they left it in and made it avalibe and a chipset that could be added to mobos, the way the SATA controllers were added and the AC97 chips are added, that cheap boards could have AC97 and mobo mkg who wanted to offer high end boards with it could. I paid $250 for my DFI Nforce2 board despite having an Asus dlx already because i liked it better. I have seen people all across the net who have wanted better audio without giving into creative which makes horible drivers.
  • quanta - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    #41, nowhere I have claimed that Intel processors will stop supporting the rest of SSE3 if HyperThreading is turned off. However, those workstation application developers can write (and have written) boneheaded pro-Intel detection routines that don't turn on advanced AMD features that are supported by CPUs of both companies (eg: SSE in Windows Media Encoder 4 through 7.1), which will be used by Intel to fool uninformed buyers (though it won't be as bad as BAPCo SysMark 2002).

    Even without Intel's 'help' in marketing department, AMD does not work as tightly with complier builder as Intel does (after all, Intel does makes its own compiler). That can mean those dumb CPU detection routines are likely to cripple AMD CPUs a lot more than Intel's will.
  • slashbinslashbash - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    Great article. I'd just like to comment on the people who are hating on Intel for forcing the move to DDR2 and PCI-E. It's just one of those things that more or less had to happen. Dell is going to sell whatever Intel tells them to. Dell sells more computers than anybody else in the world. That means that Nvidia and ATI will have to make PCI-E cards available in mass quantities, and memory makers will have to make DDR2 chips available in mass quantities. PCI-E in particular is a much better technology than the hack that AGP was. I know it doesn't perform better today; neither did AGP8X or even 4X. The underlying bus is the big improvement with PCI-E; it makes motherboards easier and simpler to lay out, as well as offering higher performance.

    So, Intel was using its position of power as the market leader to break the chicken-and-egg problem of PCI-E and DDR2. Now that there are PCI-E graphics cards available, ATI/Nvidia/VIA are all starting to come out with PCI-E chipsets. Once DDR2 matures a bit more, we are certain to see a move to it as well. On the AMD side, we may not see a move to DDR2 very soon because the A64 is not bandwidth limited like the P4. But one day, it will happen, because DDR2 will be better-performing, and RAM manufacturers will hit the wall with what plain ol' DDR can do.

    Really, Intel has done us all a big favor by forcing the move to DDR2 and PCI-E. It's perhaps not in Intel's best interests, but it's definitely in our (the consumers') best interests. BTW I mostly use AMD procs, so I'm not an Intel fanboy by any means -- I run AXP desktops and dual Opteron servers.
  • bhtooefr - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    #22, the processor codename was Shelton. It was a 1GHz Banias without any cache (in other words, the REALLY fscked up ones). The chipset was a bog-standard 845GV. Also, it wasn't QUITE Mini-ITX.
  • ThePlagiarmaster - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    Would definitely like more of these articles.

    I'd have to disagree with the statements on the Pentium M beating an athlon64 though (in any benchmark). You're forgetting that it was running against a SINGLE channel system that had it's memory running on a 266mhz bus if memory serves. It should get soundly trounced by a REAL desktop A64/FX. A faster FSB (800mhz?) won't help the Pentium M much either (It's not bandwidth starved like a P4), so unless they can ratchet up the clock quite a bit it won't be a top performer (which it's not designed to do BTW. It was meant to use low power not ramp up in mhz).

    Great chip for low power laptops but you just can't shove it into a desktop and expect it to change it's spots. This is akin to Intel trying to shove the P4 into a dualcore. Which of course, it wasn't designed for. Can you say shared bandwidth? Moral of the story is, don't expect anything special from a desktop Pentium M except a decent SFF system.

    I'd also have to wonder about the FX57 in 2H05. One chip in 8-9 months or more? I know there is no need for more, but I'd hope AMD would release an FX59 and just stack the price on top of the current chip at that time (the 57). Even if Intel isn't keeping up. Who cares, just charge more, some of us would want it anyway. Why stop at domination? Why not completely obliterate Intel and gain the all important MINDSHARE along the way? We saw just a feature or two of strained silicon make 2.9 on air do-able on OLD .13 tech (fx55). Clearly this process on .09 with SOI should easily do 3.2ghz or so. I hope they release some and just jack up the price. Vendors like voodoo/falcon would surely like to sell them. Hope the roadmaps you guys saw were OLD :)
  • jonp - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    Anand. Yes, it was a great article. Well written and packed with valuable information. I, for one, would vote for more trips and more reports. Thanks for going and writing so well. Jon
  • newfc12 - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    Very intersesting article, its very hard to find this kind on info through the normal media channels.Keep up the good work.
  • KrazyDawg - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    #31

    I forgot to add one more thing. You might not have the need for 4+ USB ports but other people might. I personally have 6 USB ports in use. I can have 7 with my MP3 player. They're not used 24/7 but I rather not deal with swapping devices and purchasing a USB hub.
  • KrazyDawg - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    #31

    "To answer the MB maker's question about what would make me get off the dime and purshase a new motherboard...

    One that has 5.1 digital out in either Dolby or DTS so I could set it up with other audio equipment. Without that feature they can put most anything they want on a board and I won't upgrade.

    A digital out that just does stereo PCM does not cut it.

    And any more than 4 USB ports is overkill. Firewire IS required."

    If you're idea of upgrading to a new motherboard is based solely on sound you can always purchase a soundcard such as the SoundBlaster Audigy2. I don't think it's reasonable for companies and consumers to pay a "premium" cost for "better" sound. The integrated sound on most motherboards are fine for most users and if you want better you can always install a card. Integrated anything is for cutting down costs which means it won't be offering the best performance most of the time.

    #44

    "What competes with Microsoft's Windows XP? Linux?? pfft....have u ever tried using that crap? You need a doctorate in 'command line' editing just to get the bloody thing to install."

    I hope you're not that ignorant and your comment was an attempt at a joke because these type of comments seem to be everywhere. I've successfully installed Mandrake Linux and RedHat Linux without any problems at all. In fact, it uses a GUI based installation. There's an option for using the command line but there's one for GUI as well. I hope more people do their research instead of basing all their research on one person's opinons. That's one reason everyone is "misinformed" about a product nowadays.
  • Pete - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    Fantastic article, Anand. More, please. :)
  • GeekGee - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    Great article... keep 'em coming.
  • Wesleyrpg - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - link

    You'd think intel would of learnt from their mistakes (aka the i850 fiasco), and not try to shove SO much 'new' technology down our throats at the same time.

    DDR2 has no real performance gains, well not yet anyway and plus it's a hell of a lot more expensive, and do be honest why do we need PCI express when AGP cards are just as fast.

    Maybe they should of released a 'migration' chipset first where it supported both DDR, DDR2, and both AGP and PCI Express. You just can't release a chipset these days where you HAVE to replace RAM, CPU, motherboard AND video card in one hit.

    Intel the Microsoft of hardware? yeah right, with so many other good chipsets out there, i don't think that they have the monopoly that you guys think they have, (well maybe for the intel platform) At least there are other chipsets out there competing. What competes with Microsoft's Windows XP? Linux?? pfft....have u ever tried using that crap? You need a doctorate in 'command line' editing just to get the bloody thing to install.

    Whoops i have gotten off the track here.....great article by the way!
  • K money - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    I, like #40, registered just to comment on this wonderful article (and I'll probably be visiting the forums now often). Anand - you are very informative and insightful, keep up the good work even if that means flying out to Taiwan every other week!
  • AussieGamer - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    #4 "Intel thinks they are the microsoft of the chipset market... "

    They are.
  • ArneBjarne - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    #36

    HyperThreading is not a part of SSE3, two instructions for thread synchronization are:

    "Monitor and mwait instructions provide a solution to address Hyper-Threading Technology performance of the operating system idle loop and other spin-wait loops in operating systems and device drivers."*

    Somehow I don't think the AMD processors have any issues with Hyper-Threading Technology that need to be addressed in the first place. Furthermore are you suggesting that Intel processors will stop supporting the rest of SSE3 if HyperThreading is turned off? I don't think so.


    *http://developer.intel.com/technology/itj/2004/vol...
  • ShadowVlican - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    wow.. i registered just to comment on how true and great this article is... great stuff Anand!

    it's true intel should know better than that... who in their dumb minds would pay MORE for something that's SLOWER... answer? the dumb public. nasty intel is targeting the average and ripping them off... GO AMD!!! i'm glad i have a XP-M 2400+ in my rig
  • PrinceGaz - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    A superb article, this kind of news straight from the troops (mobo manufacturers) on the front-line is far more informative than what you get from the generals (Intel and AMD). At least two, ideally three of these a year would be fantastic for giving us a look at what is really happening in the computer market. Any more than that would probably reveal little new.

    btw- my use of military terminology above does not mean I condone any real action occuring, it was just a good way of describing my point in a way everyone would understand.
  • thebluesgnr - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    #36,

    dual-core. ;)

  • Live - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Very nice report. I want more, more, more...

    This kind of articles is basically the only place I want to read about Intel. They have nothing to offer the enthusiast right know and probably wont until late 05. Since Intel very well might be what Microsoft is on the OS side they will continue to be the market-leader and earn more money then all the rest put together.

    But for us AnandTech readers AMD is the CPU of choice and should be treated like that.

    While we are on the subject of wants: follow ups to motherboard and GPU reviews when new bios/drivers appear would be most appreciated. Since you here at AnandTech often are very fast with getting out the reviews when products are new (which is a good thing) many bios/driver related problems seem to crop up. Are they later fixed? If so that might make a bad product shine. Now I don't mean you should follow every new bios or driver. But just do a re-roundup once in a while. Helps a lot cause when the prices of products have fallen and the time has come to buy the reviews are often old. Certainly nowadays when the next generation seem to offer less and less over the old follow-ups seems like a good idea, or?

  • quanta - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    I doubt the revision E of Athlon 64 will truly be SSE3 compatible. AMD did not show any signs of including HyperThreading, which is part of SSE3 instruction sets. You can expect workstation apps are going to cripple this CPU because of this technical issue.
  • glynor - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    [Q]In fact, many of the Taiwanese manufacturers were confused as to why DTRs sold so well in the U.S., with ultra portable designs selling much better in Japan; after all, who wants to lug around a 10+ lbs laptop?[/Q]

    I suppose they aren't taking into account the sheer lazyness of the American public. They don't want to lug around a 10+ lbs laptop ... but they don't [i]walk[/i] anywhere anyway. What difference does it make if you have a 1 lb. laptop or a 15 lb. laptop when you only ever transport it in your SUV?
  • Marsumane - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    I am also in favor of these types of articles. Very informative. Good work! :)
  • Gnoad - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    We need more articles like this more often.
  • avijay - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Great Article Anand! Many more of these kind of articles would be very welcome! Its a pleasure to read your articles.
  • YellowWing - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    To answer the MB maker's question about what would make me get off the dime and purshase a new motherboard...

    One that has 5.1 digital out in either Dolby or DTS so I could set it up with other audio equipment. Without that feature they can put most anything they want on a board and I won't upgrade.

    A digital out that just does stereo PCM does not cut it.

    And any more than 4 USB ports is overkill. Firewire IS required.
  • Houdani - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    [SNIP]
    I hope you enjoyed this little update on the industry, if you'd like to see more of these types of articles just let us know - the flight to Taiwan isn't too bad and the information is usually top notch :)"
    [/SNIP]

    By all means continue. This is great insight into the real industry, and is immeasurably more entertaining than the one-sided, questionable fluff which PR departments typically pawn off on us.

    This is real information, sans polish, and I truly appreciate that you provided us with this report.
  • Rekonn - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Great article, really enjoyed reading this, just facts without marketing BS. Gives real insight into what the market will be like in the next couple of months. You mentioned pcie shortages, any news about the AGP version of the 6600GT ?
  • CrystalBay - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Pebkac, BTW how's the food in TW...? Well I'm pretty excited about P4M DTR's MB's from DFI and others. It could stop some of the hemmoraging for Intel...
  • CrystalBay - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

  • KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Don't forget to check our Insider section for more articles like this one.

    Kristopher
  • BigT383 - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    I'd like to see more of these types of articles... just letting you know.

    ;-)

    Seriously, these types of articles are great. I'd just make sure before you take the trip that there will be enough new information to cover while you're there. I like the fact that you're bypassing the PR departments this way. Generally, Anandtech readers are smarter than the average consumer, and don't deserve to be fed the same PR crap that Johnny Uninformed gets... For evidence of this see post 17 by MAME.
  • mlittl3 - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    #21, 2005 won't be all that boring. I agree that there won't be much excitement from Intel or AMD but some things will be cool. Here is a quick list of cool things to look forward too in 2005.

    AMD 90nm processors with better memory controller, bug fixes and SSE3

    More AMD Semprons from socket 754

    AMD 2.8 and maybe 3.0 GHz CPUs

    Dual core processors from both AMD and Intel

    Intel 6xx series CPUs (this is not so exciting)

    Possible Win XP for 64bits might be released

    R5xx and NV5x GPUs released (R5xx with SM3.0)

    And will all this cool new hardware, we can play the games released in 2004 at higher frame rates (Doom3, Half-life2, etc.).

    :)

  • piasabird - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    About 6 months ago I also saw some articles on Intel that claimed they wanted to bring the Mobile chipset to the desktop. Is this a viable option?
  • piasabird - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    I recall an experiment Intel was doing with a new chipset similar to the MINI-ITX motherboards. Are they going to sell these to the end consumer. It was suppose to be a motherboard with a Centrino PIII type processor similar to the VIA C3 but lots faster. I saw a couple of benchmerks on it. I think it was the Shelton Chipset.
  • AtaStrumf - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Great info Anand! More of that whenever possible.

    He, he, we thought 2004 was gonna be slow, but it turned out quite nicely, but 2005, man, that is gonna be SLOOOOOOW! Only one new desktop CPU per company before dual core madness begins in late 2005. The biggest story in GPUs is gonna be SLI and we will be watching chipsets mature and GPUs become more available and affordable. None of these things are gonna be terribly interesting be it for eighter speed, price or bugs. I guess I wont be pulling out my wallet all that much in 05, but hey, that's a good thing right?

    The biggest drawback for new Intel's platforms is not PCIe graphics, its DDR2. It's slower and more expensive. Don't these people learn anything? RDRAM anyone? That was at least faster! This is bad even for OEMs, who don't care if nothing is compatible with previous HW since they build whole new system, but they sure as hell care if they have to pay more for less. But then again, they can sell it as if it were faster, but it stil automatically puts PC based on DDR2 in a higher price class and shrinks their profit margins.
  • blckgrffn - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Go to Taiwan more often, for sure! I love this kind of stuff :-)

    Nat
  • dextrous - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Great article Anand! I think more of these gems would be awesome.
  • Dasterdly - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Good article, just go to taiwain when theres much good info. Hire some locals to cover the rest.
    All the people Ive seen interested in the new intel chipsets want the 925XE. Why are they so excited about ati/intel? Did they hire the soundstorm team or something?
  • MAME - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    I was reading reviews about the Intel P4 3.x GHz chip on newegg. One user review said (I sh!t you not):
    "I heard somewhere that AMD's are better for gaming, but they run at suck low clock speeds, maybe they meen the 64 bit version at 2.2 GHz. Why not get a P4? 800FSB HT. If you ever want a 2.4 Ghz Amd prepare to pay $750+"

    With morons like this, Intel is not going to lose much market share.
  • manno - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    About destop replacements. I have a laptop that is just that it literaly replaces my desktop. It has a HUGE screen, good grafics card. I played through Doom 3 and FarCry on it, and it stays in my house exclusively. I like it because it has the power I need, I can use it in any room in my apartment (wireless network) and I don't need to be tethered to a desk to use it. It's an emachines m6805 with a 754 A64 @ 1.8 GHZ with 1MB of cache. It's surprisingly cool, and I frequently use it on my lap without a problem, unlike my Dell 1.6 GHZ P4M that gets extremly hot. Is it like an imac? I guess you could say that. But it's very convenient for me because I can move from room to room without needing the space required by a huge desk somewhere. It never leaves the apartment though, and I could loose the batery and not notice the difference, so maybay that's where the incongruity between the laptops they're thinking of, and the "laptop" I'm thinking of. They think people are getting laptops to take the computer with them out of the house/office. I bought my laptop to stay in my apartment but to let me use it away from my desk. I know for a fact that 2 of my brothers are looking for DTR's, and not desktops, because they have the same user habbits as me, so from personal experience I don't see the market dissapearing. Though I also see the usefulness of a laptop that could run for 24 hrs on 1 charge, that's 12' x 9' x 1' and weighs just a pound. But I realy don't see me leaving the apartment to go surf the net. I leave it to get away from the computer, not to use my computer in new places.

    -manno
  • emailauthentication - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    great article, its good to know what the people that actually produce this stuff have to say, instead of just feeding us press releases, more articles like this would be greatly appreciated. keep up the good work and thanks for the imformative article.
  • 4lpha0ne - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Here is a small list of possibly fixed bugs:

    http://aceshardware.com/forum?read=115106142
  • 4lpha0ne - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Am I blind or why am I inable to find any mention of fixed bugs in the former article (Oct 14th) except in the related discussion thread on aceshardware, where Dresdenboy brings up this idea?

    See http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=115105861
  • ceefka - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Great article!

    I see again bad news for Intel. They are still big, but this must hurt some way. Intel wouldn't want you to know of course.

    #11 There are also totally ignorant users that buy AMD64, like a few of my neighbours.
  • Degrador - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    More of these articles would be great. Any chance you'd have a more specific idea of when SSE3 A64s would be available? I was thinking of upgrading in Jan, but might wait a bit longer for those, but I'd prefer not to have to wait too long (might get a 3000+ and wait for next upgrade for SSE3).

    Btw, #3, the forum attendees make up a rather small section of computer buyers. Most people purchase from OEMs, and are more familiar with the Intel label. Hence Intel can be as demanding of mobo makers as they like. 915 and 925X give them more advertising power (all advertisers seem to love techno babble and product code names), so Intel want to make it available as much as possible. Even recently I had a friend - who I thought was pretty cluey as far as computers were concerned - buy an Intel 3.0 instead of A64 simply because he's always had Intel machines (didn't believe or trust me in A64 suggestion).
  • KHysiek - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    I don't get why all mobo makers are so quick to use nforce4 for all segments and exclusively for high-end market (includint enthusiast). Chipset is still buggy (HT 800 only), and after few years on the market they drivers lack a lot of maturity. It will also probably be the most pricey of all.
    Except SATA2 there is nothing really interesting and standing out in this chipset (SLI is very minor thing, wanted by >0.001 percent of potential customers).
  • drifter106 - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    I must say this was a well written and informative article. Your style of writing is very much appreciated!! I strongly urge you to continue providing readers and members of this community with technological information. Its icing on the cake!!

    Decalores!!!
  • Jeff7181 - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Anand, what are you doing next week? Up for another trip to Taiwan? (that means I want more articles like this... but don't forget about reviews... Far Cry 1.3 has been out for a while now and a certain other website has a very extensive review of it)
  • IceWindius - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Its quit obvious that Intel has overestimated themselves, the market and the simple fact that you can only shove so much stuff down peoples throats before they become annoyed.

    In this case, they tried to hard and to fast to push and shove new technology that showed little to no increase to not only their previous chipset and CPU generation, but showed worse performance in comparions to AMD's offerings, which are much cheaper in every shape and form.

    Just goes to show that no corporation is perfect and the fact that Intel, the mother of all that is CPU related is getting its ass reamed in desktop, server and chipset area's show that over confidence and cheast heaving in the end will leave both you and the customer bitterly dissapointed.

    Go AMD go!!!
  • phaxmohdem - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    AMD rules, Intel sucks big donkey dong.....

    ermmmm. That said I am extremely interested in the release of "desktop" Pentium M Mobo's. I'd love to see desktop comparisons putting this chip up against intels and AMDs finest desktop procs and chipsets. I'm thinking compact, kick ass cluster? Too bad the chips are so frigging pricey. however the energy savings may pan out to help justify the cost a little. Did I mention intel sucks big donkey dong for pricing so damn high? (Whistles and pretends Athlon FX chips don't exist)
  • Spacecomber - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    I appreciate this "straight from the horse's mouth" reporting. It takes things a step beyond the usual efforts to "read between the lines" to try and figure out what is going on behind the scenes.

    Keep up the good work.
  • jimmy43 - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Intel thinks they are the microsoft of the chipset market...
  • Beenthere - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    It's amazing that Intel has NOT learned from past mistakes... They still falsely believe they can strong-arm the Asian Mobo makers and get away with it forcing them to buy 915 chipsets to get 865's. Intel is their own worst enemy and their poor sales show that reality has caught up to the huge egos and their arrogance has cost them dearly.

    I suspect the Mobo makers will warm up to ATI's PCIe RS480 Mobo chipset REAL fast when they see that no one is interested in Intel products and everyone is demanding AMD Mobos with Via890/nF4/ATI RS480 and PCIE. All you need to do is look at the forum activity for proof.

    I'm sure with ATI selling their own Mobo as they do graphics cards, some Mobo companies will try to use the nF4 as leverage, but that could be a huge mistake. There is plenty of room for VIA/Nvidia/ATI Mobos for AMD's S754/939/940. Since ATI claims they will ship PCIe Mobos first and that these Mobos will be AMD CPUs with Intel RS480 Mobos coming some time next year, it looks like the Asian Mobo companies are gonna have a lot of 915 chipset Mobos they can't sell while ATI cleans up with AMD PCIe Mobos.

    The Times, they are a changin for the better. With AMD owning the desktop market and now making serious inroads in the server segment, and Intel without a clue or a canoe for two more years, consumers are the real winners. Any Mobo company that wants to still be in business in 6 months better be offering the latest and greatest AMD processor Mobos or they'll be suffering the same financial woes as Intel is finally admitting.
  • Kaji - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Nice one! Would definately be cool to get more of these... it gives a great insight into the current "state of industry"

    Maybe you could videoconference instead of flying to taiwan everytime :)
  • Sapiens - Wednesday, November 3, 2004 - link

    Great article Anand! I wouldn't want to put you through too many trips to Taiwan, but whenever you're ready... ;)

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