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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Hardware News => Topic started by: System on July 09, 2003, 11:59:38 PM
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OSNews published this great article (http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3997) comparing the X86 platform to PPC.
Source : Osnews.com (http://osnews.com)
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@Nicholas Blachford -
Benchmarks via GCC issues;
- One shouldn’t generalise X86 issues i.e. Pentium 4’s related issues may not be applicable to the K7 and K8 families e.g. floating point instructions (non-SSE/3DNow) and GCC.
- Regarding Opteron only for server staements...
The recently released AMD Opteron 1xx series and nVidia nForce3 are being targeted for workstation markets not just for the server markets.
- Regarding "Pentium M" embedded markets; According to http://www.intel.com/design/intarch/prodbref/25269601.pdf
1.1Ghz @ 12 Watts, 1.6Ghz @24.5 Watts.
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"great article"
ROTFL
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Obviously biased but an interesting article all the same.
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The Article is blatent marketing... full of half truths and errors.
YOU DON'T NEED TO LIE ABOUT THE PPC TO SHOW HOW GOOD IT IS!!!!!
When will people learn :-(
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@bloodline
When will people learn
Never, I guess.
What makes this sort of article junk is that it is passed on as an "analysis", when it clearly is not, and the fact that it 's mostly preaching to the converted, who will readily accept anything that re-inforces their own beliefs without bothering to check whether the facts are accurate or the conclusions justified.
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The article is not biased, it just points out a clear definition that pro x86 advocates (as well as pro PPC advocates) are truly guilty of benchmarketing than anything else. No matter if it's Apple or Intel, they will spread propaganda and fudge benchmarks to sell their products. Nothing wrong with that me guesses :-P
on another note:
great article Nicholas :-D
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The article is not biased, it just points out a clear definition that pro x86 advocates (as well as PPC advocates) are truly guilty of benchmarketing than anything else. No matter if it's Apple or Intel, they will spread propaganda and fudge benchmarks to sell their products. Nothing wrong with that me guesses
I ignore the benchmarks they are irrelevant, the simple fact is that the information in the article is wrong. And it's wrong in all the right places to make the x86 look bad... but there really is no point the PPC does not need this sort of credibility bashing.
The PPC is a neat CPU, if people would just look at it realisticly they would see it's advantages. You don't need to make the competition look worse... :-(
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@bhoggett/bloodline:
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but wouldn't it be a good idea to tell us what is wrong with the article, instead of just complaining about "the usual PPC zealotry"?
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Funny how stuff is always propaganda if it doesn't support one's views and the system one is currently using, isn't it?
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Example:
1.
It highlighted the weakness in the x87 (the FPU), it failed to note that these weakenesses have been rectified in the Pentium+ (Athlon+), with it's "free instructions" and multiple pipes etc... It also failed to note that the new PPC 970 has actually cut back the FPU as it is simply not that important on the desktop, Vector units and 3D GPU's are far more important.
2.
It claims that the PPC has a shorter fatter pipe than the Athlon. Not true the Athlon and PPC have similar sized pipes (which is why their performance is very comparable), it's the Pentium4 that has a long thin pipe. Also the article claims that the PPC 970's pipe is long and thin, but for the PPC some how this is better than the x86... It doesn't explain how or why,(which is not surprising since long and thin has benefits for any architecture when scaling performance, but this article couldn't suggest that the P4 has a more advanced design... could it?)
3.
The Term RISC and CISC has not been used by chip designers for a long time. The chips are now classified by their architecture, rather than the "design Philosiphy". Most CPU's are now "Load-Store". The x86 has a less complex instructin set than some RISCs, and the PPC has the most complex RISC instruction set I've ever seen... Both CPU's share RISC/CISC features, as it's more efficient to use both conceepts.
4.
The Article fails to note that the modern PPC and the medern x86 CPU's are infact very similar chips, they use all the same "tricks" and have all been designed by people who have kept up to date with the latest technology.
5.
The Article says that RISC designs have many more Registers than CISC designs, this is true. But what it fails to mentions is that in order to speed up context switches and due to compiler effieincies many RISC designs implement a register window. That means that the programs on the RISC CPU only see maybe 16 registers not the whole set. (it turns out that 16registers is about spot on foroptimum performance.). This means that the x86 running using register renaming is using it's registers exactly the same as a register window!!!. The x86 has too few registers but the x86-64 has more
There are plenty more, like these.
At the end of the day, I like the PPC, I even own one, and I'm hoping the Motherboard fairy brings me a Pegasos... fingers crossed. But I don't appreciate articles that are just blatent marketing.
You don't need to lie about the PPC to show how good it is!!!
I'm not an x86 Zelot. I simple use what is the most powerful for the money... that's why I bought qan Amiga ad stuck with it for10 years!!!
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@bloodline
No, the 970 is long and fat, combining the strengths of both approaches.
It has multiple pipelines along with many stages for each. The many stages of the P4 turned out to be a blessing in one way, allowing the P4 to get extremely high speeds. The fat pipes of PPC and Athlon allow them to compete with the P4 (PPC not as successfully however due to other issues). Now, what happens when the fat pipes get grown tall?
That is what the 970 has done.
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No, the 970 is long and fat, combining the strengths of both approaches.
Well, then you have just pointed out another error inthe OSnew article. :-)
The fat pipes of PPC and Athlon allow them to compete with the P4 (PPC not as successfully however due to other issues). Now, what happens when the fat pipes get grown tall
I have no doubt that the PPC 970 will be able to compete with the Athlon and the P4, that is why I don't understand all the lies in the OSNews article!?!?!
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@ KennyR
Funny how stuff is always propaganda if it doesn't support one's views and the system one is currently using, isn't it?
What, like some MorphOS users claiming that anyone considering getting an A1/OS4 are just blindly following the name?
Please note that I said some, rather than using generalising terms.
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Yes mike, it cuts all ways.
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Maybe the author of that article should have done some research first?
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/index.html
Some nice stuff there, especially the PPC/x86 comparisons. Hell, 4 years ago they were already talking about the whole CISC/RISC thing being a moot point in modern CPUs:
http://www.arstechnica.com/cpu/4q99/risc-cisc/rvc-1.html
Just about everything that people have brought up in this thread (pipeline comparisons, CPU design methodologies, CISC vs. RISC, PPC vs. x86, in-depth analysis of the PPC970, etc.) has been gone over, in detail, at that site I linked to. And heck, they even have links to their sources that they pulled the information from.
As for the author's assertion that an Alpha beats the P4 in floating point operations, did the author mean SpecFP2000 Peak:
http://www.aceshardware.com/SPECmine/index.jsp?b=2&s=0&v=1&if=0&cf=0&r1f=0&r2f=0&m1f=0&m2f=3&o=0&o=1
...or SpecFP2000 Base:
http://www.aceshardware.com/SPECmine/index.jsp?b=2&s=1&v=1&if=0&cf=0&r1f=0&r2f=0&m1f=0&m2f=3&o=0&o=1
It's interesting that the author originally wrote the article to justify to the management and their customers the choice of PPC over x86. I'm going to guess that PegasOS is trying to position itself to kiosks, embedded systems, the hobbyist market, and maybe business terminals. I make this guess based on:
http://www.pegasosppc.com/tech_specs.php
Now for his PPC vs. x86 article he mentioned Alpha. Alpha is fast, Alpha is neat, Alpha is expensive and not the product that he's trying to compare to x86. It's a totally worthless mention. I'd hate to be a customer who asks "why do you use PPC instead of x86?" and have someone come back with, "did you know that the Alpha CPU is faster than x86?" What's up with that?
Yappin' about power usage, etc. Talking about how the P4 is power-inefficient and then using the PM as a comparison--despite the fact that the PM uses a different architecture and pipeline than the P4. And power consumption, 'ell, it's not only the PM's that is low, there are other low-cost competitors who are also low-power:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/Digital%20Library/PR030708Antaur.jsp
Heck, if the author wanted to actually research power consumption:
http://www.sandpile.org/impl/pm.htm
http://www.sandpile.org/impl/p4.htm
http://www.sandpile.org/impl/k8.htm
http://www.sandpile.org/impl/k7.htm
http://www.sandpile.org/impl/crusoe.htm
I'm too lazy to look up any PPC power consumption figures.
The sad part is that the author DID list Ars-Technica as a reference. I guess he skimmed the articles or something.
The even sadder part is that his business justification of why they chose PPC over x86 lists memory bandwidth as a "problem" for fast x86 CPUs. That's funny. I'm sure the P4 with it's 800 MHz (effective) FSB and dual-channel DDR400 memory subsystem is at a great disadvantage to the G4's 166 MHz CPU interface. Yup, you see, it works out to be more efficient because the G4 only scales to around half the speed of the P4. Heh, yeah, sure.
I also like how the author keeps referring to the Alpha, a dead-end product. Yeah, the 21364 is out now but HP's already announced that that platform has no future. Nor does PA-RISC. Looks like some of the old-school CPU manufacturers are ditching their "RISC" designs, eh? But that's ok, I mean, more and more computing institutions use commodity-level "CISC" CPUs like x86:
http://www.top500.org/list/2003/06/
http://www.top500.org/lists/2003/06/trends.php
"A total of 119 system, up from 56 six month ago, are now using Intel processors."
"149 systems are now labeld as cluster, up from 93."
Now I know many Itanium systems are there, but look at the increase in clusters. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that people are clustering cheap x86 CPUs more and more to get the best computing bang for the buck, supercomputer-wise. Someone else can pull up stats from all 500 installations to either support or disprove my assertion, I'm not quite curious enough to do it myself. ;)
The author does finally admit that the PPC is crippled in terms of memory bandwidth and just plain slower than x86. But then he tries to minimize it by saying that people won't generally notice.
This piece has some facts in it, some bias, and is utter crap if it were originally written as a way to woo customers or provide business justification. The article touches on performance computing of which PegasOS's products are not. It talks about low power consumption, ok, there's a good fit. It tries to make the argument that Linux will equalize all issues and yet there are many many programs that will (and do) have endian issues since they were first developed on x86 and without regard for PPC/68k/Alpha/PA-RISC/MIPS. It's not like there is some magic wand that makes everything in Linux just magically work on all architectures.
Again, as a business justification, this piece tends to spend a large amount of time talking about Alpha and future, unreleased products like the POWER5 and POWER6. If I were a customer, would I not want to know why the PegasOS was the right choice for me NOW? With the CURRENT PRODUCTS? Or are people supposed to buy the current under-performing, bandwidth-crippled systems based on promises that a CPU due in 1 or 2 more years will be better?
The PPC has many strengths. I think many of them play into the PegasOS. However, this article doesn't expose them and spends too much time trying to minimalize the benefits of the main competitor, x86. The comparisons wildly fly to any CPU the author can imagine and somehow comparing a P4 to the Alpha is a reason why the PPC is better. And comparing the P4 to an unreleased CPU (G5) is a reason why PPC consumes less power/generates less heat. Whatever.
If I have enough money when the time comes, I'm gonna get me a PowerMac G5. And if AmigaOS 4.0 ever ships, I'll eventually get an AmigaOne to play around with. I'm no slavish Intel fanboy, honest. However, I do think this article was full of bias and poorly written. The guy might be a good EE but I don't agree with his opinions and I don't think he produced a good quality comparison or business justification, whichever this article was supposed to be.
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I was skimming the comments section of OSNews and noticed the author stated:
Both IBM and the Alpha team announced the addition of Multithreading support was expected to give a 100% boost in performance.
That might be dandy for IBM's POWER5 (and people are disputing that IBM and Alpha ever claimed this), but after the Alpha got gutted, most of the team working on the 21464 and it's vaunted SMT implementation moved over to Intel and have been working on a next-generation Itanium. Another advantage of Intel versus PPC?
And the more I read the comments, the more I see other people brought up the same stuff I did. Spec being a crappy benchmark, for instance. Anyway, for those who want to see some more valid complaints (and lots of flames), check out the OSNews comment section.
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@ KennyR
Yes mike, it cuts all ways.
As you used the terms 'all' and 'always' as part of your point, presumably you think any opinion about anything is just propaganda?
Funny how stuff is always propaganda if it doesn't support one's views and the system one is currently using, isn't it?
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Good grief - great?
An article that completely ignores the state of the market and appeals to those that believe that anything is better than submitting to the Dark Side(tm).
An Alpha, RS6000, PA-RISC, Sparc or potato chip may be better than the x86 but it's fast, offers a low cost of entry and it supports the most widely used and respected operating systems.
Do Genesi (add in Eyetech and Hyperion) really expect anyone to believe that they selected the PPC architecture for a niche platform because it is better designed?
The Amiga succeeded because it offered great value for a cheap price. In 1985 proprietary hardware was a distinguishing factor because it contributed greatly to perceived value -- today it is a liability. Does it really matter when you have more registers or less CPU cycles when there is no software to run on it and a manufacturer that appears disinterested in the technology?
And before anyone screams 'PC zealot' or brings up the need to maintain compatibility with 10 year old hardware and software please dial in to 2003. The x86 may not be the best solution but it is the gorilla in the market.
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I suggest someone take the article and all these good rebutts and put them on a page to make a rather informative take on the situation. Your knowledge is invaluable guys...............
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An article that completely ignores the state of the market and appeals to those that believe that anything is better than submitting to the Dark Side(tm).
Why is it when someone writes an article that doesn't put Microsoft/Intel in the limelight, it's automatically turned into the 'Darkside' issue?! But of course if the shoe was on the other foot, let's say Apple/IBM, this issue wouldn't apply because of whatever reason!?
Do Genesi (add in Eyetech and Hyperion) really expect anyone to believe that they selected the PPC architecture for a niche platform because it is better designed?
Do you think they would have picked the x86 architecture for a niche platform if it was better designed? If you're not anything Microsoft/Windows, then Intel/AMD is a dead market for you (unless you're Linux, which debunks the whole 'corporate' market theory)!
The Amiga succeeded because it offered great value for a cheap price.
If Amiga was so cheap back in the day, then 85-90% of the world would be using it instead of Windows (or DOS in that era)!
Does it really matter when you have more registers or less CPU cycles when there is no software to run on it and a manufacturer that appears disinterested in the technology?
It does matter to those who take technology for more than marketing hoopla and what's the flavor of the week. Besides, if no software ran (whatever your talking about) then millions (if not billions) would companies waste to spend to innovate/market it!
And before anyone screams 'PC zealot' or brings up the need to maintain compatibility with 10 year old hardware and software please dial in to 2003. The x86 may not be the best solution but it is the gorilla in the market.
I see that there is a need for freedom of choice on the computing landscape and if we just had Intel/Microsoft to look forward to, we (the technophiles) would have a boring, dull and tasteless computing experience.
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I see that there is a need for freedom of choice on the computing landscape and if we just had Intel/Microsoft to look forward to, we (the technophiles) would have a boring, dull and tasteless computing experience.
totally missing the issue. There is nothing wrong with the PPC, it's a great chip I think the 970 is going to be a real development.
My problem is with the article, that has not merit or value... it just FUD's the x86 (with, lies, out of date information and half thruths) and does nothing to show the real benfits of the PPC.
Sad, so very sad that it had to come to this. :-(
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My problem is with the article, that has not merit or value... it just FUD's the x86 (with, lies, out of date information and half thruths) and does nothing to show the real benfits of the PPC.
The problem has been going both ways unfortunately. We all know that the main problem with PPC in the performance area was more due to the bottlenecks around it than the actual clockspeed, though you can never have too much clockspeed :-D I like that we all can have a choice and be able throw any kind of system together, especially since PPC has made its way to more open platforms like the Pegasos. I can't wait to be able get one of those and run whatever OS I feel like running.
But your point is well taken, FUD shouldn't be spread either way.