Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?

Posted on Friday, August 26 2005 @ 18:24 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck


AMD, and its users, sometimes try to make fun of Intel but it looks like he (Intel) who laughs last, laughs best. AMD beat Intel by delivering its 64-bit processors Athlon 64 and Opteron two years ago and by having a slight overall performance edge over Intel's offerings. AMD's offerings also have a better dual-core design and on average they use less power. The only segment where Intel is still the obvious number one is the mobile segment, where their Centrino continues to score high.

There used to be a MHz race in the past but AMD couldn't keep up with Intel's high clockspeeds so they introduced performance ratings. The main reason for this is Intel's Pentium 4 NetBurst architecture which focused on high clockrates. Back in 2003 the chip giant claimed to be able to deliver 10GHz processors by 2005 but high power consumption prevented Intel from doing so. So Intel recently decided to make a drastic switch by developing a new processor architecture which combines the best features from the NetBurst architecture with the Pentium M architecture.

Anyway, these performance ratings are based on a formula and were introduced by AMD to show consumers that AMD's processors are as fast as Intel's, despite having a lower clockrate. This was called the 'busting the MHz myth', as many people used to believe MHz was the only thing that matters. But it isn't. Intel later followed by introducing performance ratings as well.

To many people's surprise AMD recently sued Intel for unfair competition and a few days ago they also posted a challenge in several big U.S. newspapers. AMD challenged Intel to a dual-core server processor duel but Intel's CEO Paul Otellini said at the IDF he wasn't interested in this. He said he always thought that companies and products are best judged in the marketplace, and that he will leave it at that.

Intel, who owns more than 80 percent of the x86 desktop processor market, wants to be on top again and presented very impressive plans for the coming years. Their new marketing buzz word appears to be Performance per Watt. The main plan for Intel's future appears to be offering more performance and a lower power consumption. Today's high-end desktop processors have reached a huge thermal design power of 130W and Intel will try to reduce this to 65W for future generations. There are even plans for a whole new category of processors for devices called handtops, which will only consume 0.5W.

At the Intel Developer Forum the chip giant presented impressive plans with their next-generation power-optimized processors which will be launched in 2006. They claim the upcoming Conroe processor for desktop systems will offer five times the performance/watt of the Northwood which was introduced in 2003.

Woodcrest will give the server market more than 3 times the performance per watt of Intel's Nocona which debuted in 2004 and Merom will mean a 3x performance per watt boost for the mobile market since Intel presented the first Pentium M Banias in 2003.

It will be interesting to see how AMD will react to Intel's next-generation processors. When asked about it AMD just said they introduced their next-generation processors two years ago with the Athlon 64 and Opteron. The only new thing recently presented by AMD is its dual-core Turion 64 for notebooks which will be available by early 2006.

It isn't sure how AMD will react to Intel's performance per watt buzz as this is something were Intel will have a clear advantage over the next few years and AMD's plans for the future are quite vague. Although AMD recently said it will try to reduce the power consumption of its future processors and they are also working on a new core which will be released somewhere in 2007 with larger cache memories and support for DDR3 memory.

AMD managed to boost its marketshare with its 64-bit Opteron, Athlon 64 and Turion 64 processors but they are still a small player and I guess they will have a hard time to keep up with Intel's new power-optimized processors.

What do you think? Are Intel's new plans just a big bunch of marketing buzz or will they really run over AMD this time?


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Saturday, August 27 2005 @ 6:20 CEST
theres no need for a reaction by AMD, they already have proccesors that offer what "intel will offer" in the next year, anyway is funny to see how intel is trying to survive, because is clear that their marketing programmes arent enough.

anyway i just wonder how many glitches these "new" processros would have, i mean everytime that intel launches a new product this has some problems in their firmware, compatibility with other technologies, anyway these guys only make ma laugh and i dont se why AMD has to take any action against this new crap.



Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Saturday, August 27 2005 @ 10:39 CEST
Pure marketing BS as usual.

AMD has the current lead simply because Intel became complacent. Their dual core solution is a hurried mish-mash, and AMD is slowly but surely beating Intel on all fronts.

If you want to talk about Power per Watt, the current Pentium D's are truly awful - less performance than the AMD X2's and twice the wattage!

If you want to talk future offerings, instead of concentrating on catch phrases, Intel needs to actually deliver the products to market. If they do, I'll be happy to switch from an AMD X2 to the equivalent Intel product.

For the moment, even if AMD CPUs do end up using more power, they are simply architecturally better designed and perform much better in games - which is what most high-end CPUs are bought in the consumer desktop market.



Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Saturday, August 27 2005 @ 11:26 CEST
intel market BS speach 101 since the netburst has burst like the dog it always has been
pump some hype about our new stuff which dates back to the pentium pro.
there new chips are goin to be better ,well duh amd will be matching them or beating them like they have for the last 2 years.
hell the last time intel held a lead over amd was the k6 v p3 6 years ago ,amd have been beating them on every from bar MHZ since then



  • Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, August 27 2005 @ 12:02 CEST

    It's quite feasable... and a smart move forward. i am VERY dissapointed with Intel for even considering bringing out 3.2 and 3.6Ghz CPU's

    Just read the performance of a OLD mobile Chip with an ASUS CT-479 adaptro running insde an 865 chipset board it beats the P4 3.2 hands down... with less power less heat and LESs mhz... wait.. dost that sound like am AMD cpu right there?

    Deffinalty a good move. High mhz high power is a very sloppy way to make cpu's


Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Saturday, August 27 2005 @ 11:45 CEST
Intel , Intel when you gonna stop your marketing Buzz. Remember RAMBUS marketing ?

At the moment AMD lead the processor war, Intel just try to catch up with AMD.
If intel want to lead this war, they need to release new core , not the Pentium-M or the out of dated Pentium 4.

Poor Intel , they just run of ideas and keep on changing their plan.

10 Gig in 2005 yeah right ...



Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Saturday, August 27 2005 @ 12:53 CEST
PR Marketing BS, Intel knows they're behind this time..its something they hav to do.

Didn't they said this abt Prescott? bfore it was release..suppose to run cooler etc etc etc..

Until Intel release a processor that is what they claim to be then all this is just marketing BS..

& its abt bloody time they adopt things from their Pentium M counterparts ..Pentium M is actually very good.

Pentium 4 is the biggest absolute crap ever.

AMD64 atm rocks & everyone knows it.



  • Reply by Anonymous on Saturday, August 27 2005 @ 17:52 CEST

    Intel ISN'T behind, though. Open up a Best Buy catalogue: you'll see 3 or 4 Intel-based systems for every one AMD. AMD may be "winning" in performance, but some people don't even know what an AMD processor is; they've simply never heard of them. Not everyone (read: hardly anyone) is a hardcore, AMD die-hard gamer.

    It's genious, really. With energy prices getting steadily higher, Intel is pushing the idea that power consumption is a big issue concerning today's microprocessors. AMD can put out a better product, but they had better start their "Power-smart Processor" line right quick.


Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Saturday, August 27 2005 @ 22:35 CEST
Well it's clear Intel can't keep up in the performance dept. or the wattage use dept. but 2- 1.5ghz dual cores is only a hair faster then a 4800+ X2 in cinibench, and I bet these 2 dual cores cost more then one 4800+, plus a dual socket mobo wont be cheap either.

Intel is leas impressive every year!



Waiting on fab36 dual core Opterons on 65nm.



  • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 1:18 CEST

    AMD fan boys trying to deny the facks. LOL. Who are the sore losers? Who is suing Intel because they cant get market shares. haha. Also who first made the 'over rating' ratings so they could try to trick the consumers into thinking that their processors were higher speeds than they were. HAHA. Yes, AMD caught Intel and surpassed them for a few years through 64bit (wich only few software companys support 64bit but are testing and releasing for the future). Intel will be back on top and hopefully for good. Why deny it? Fan boys? I think compition is great for the consumers and bussinesses. But AMD whining and crying makes me laugh. What will make me cry is when CHINA surpasses Intel and AMD in processor power, that will be a very sad day. It will happen with the billions they are spending on the foundations and research for their own processors. :( Yes, im a intel fanboy! LOL


Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 1:20 CEST
AMD fan boys trying to deny the facks. LOL. Who are the sore losers? Who is suing Intel because they cant get market shares. haha. Also who first made the 'over rating' ratings so they could try to trick the consumers into thinking that their processors were higher speeds than they were. HAHA. Yes, AMD caught Intel and surpassed them for a few years through 64bit (wich only few software companys support 64bit but are testing and releasing for the future). Intel will be back on top and hopefully for good. Why deny it? Fan boys? I think compition is great for the consumers and bussinesses. But AMD whining and crying makes me laugh. What will make me cry is when CHINA surpasses Intel and AMD in processor power, that will be a very sad day. It will happen with the billions they are spending on the foundations and research for their own processors. :( Yes, im a intel fanboy! LOL



  • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 1:49 CEST

    intel fanboys suck they are only jerks, laugh
    they say that their future processors will offer such kind of things that are already in the market too much time ago, thats why AMD doesnt have to care with intel shit, they must be working on the k9, while shittel is trying to catch the k8.

    anyway the only day that AMD beats intel in everything is when they launch a real marketing plan, thats where intel is really good, M A R K E T I N G, NOTHING ELSE!!!THATS THE ONLY FACT, sorry intel moron.


    • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 2:08 CEST

      they say that their future processors will offer such kind of things that are already in the market too much time ago

      ---------------------------------------------
      HAHA, that sounds like AMD 3 years ago. And thats whats going to happen to AMD again in less than a year. Sorry, AMD dumb ass. And AMD dont have good marketing? If you cant sell shit, they get out of the bussiness because your not going to make it. Yeah, lets sue the biggest manufature so we can have the courts give us market share. WOW, your my hero AMD. Next AMD will sue businesses for not buying AMD. That explaines AMD's marketing, no wonder people and businesses aren't buying AMD products. Oh by the way, AMD fanboys are the most stuckup people I have ever saw/seen, even when Intel had the best product they still denied it. Get a freaking life! Get off the computer and get out of the house, there is no need to be on the computer 12+ hours a day you freaking AMD geek. I can careless who wins because its good for the consumers (cheaper prices).


      • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 5:35 CEST

        It is ok u can still change to AMD it is to late.

        It's not our fault u end up with INTEL cpu and now u defend your mistake.

        Take it like a man and admit intel sucks it is a fact everybody sees it so. The longer u are in denial the more u suffer (mentally & performance & money wise)


        We suggest u come clean from shitel and join AMD and if INTEL makes better stuff GOOOO back nobody is stopping u!

        WELCOME BROTHER


  • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 2:04 CEST

    well i leave you guys with a intel fan video, have fun cheers!!!

    http://www.servertt.com/gordi.html


    • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 2:10 CEST

      haha, figures it would take a AMD fanboy to post that. Now thats funny.


  • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 11:11 CEST

    How much intel pay you to do this bs ?


  • Reply by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 30 2005 @ 7:37 CEST

    apart from the fact that you cant spell to save your life you come across as an uneducated moron. Im not a fanboy of either party i go with the better product. which is amd and has been for some time.

    get your "facks" straight, get a real processor instead of making excuses for some intel house heater you own and most of all get a life ffs. you sound like some rabid apple lover :P


Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 3:03 CEST
Did Intel pay you well to write this BS



  • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 5:51 CEST

    i dunno they're just basicaly spittin' out the PR crap that Intel did at IDF, don't think it's their opinion.

    AMD isn't well known because of Dell. That's the one truth. Ask someone who has a Dell they won't tell you anything about it except "it has a P4". Ask them how fast? "3gigabytes" Ask them how much RAM? "258 gigs". Honestly ask them. They just got told from their idiot friend who downloads Mp3's so he knows about PC's to buy a Dell.

    The only ones who know about their Dell are the nerdy kids who's parents would only buy a Dell.


  • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 22:09 CEST

    Extremely well.



    A few thousand dollars and a new AMD Opteron based server ;)


Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by johndoe on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 21:45 CEST
In the least possible words, I'd say Intel, too little, too late! Now all you can do is play catch-up to AMD which keeps gaining market share day by day. The only way Intel could get ahead now is if AMD were to somehow manage to shoot themselves in the foot, a strategy very familiar to Intel!



  • Reply by Anonymous on Sunday, August 28 2005 @ 22:18 CEST

    AMD isn't gaining marketshare day by day.

    Check out this article. In the second quarter of this year AMD lost 0.7 percent of the x86 desktop processor market. But this was mainly caused by Microsoft who ordered quite a lot of Pentium 3s for its Xbox consoles. If this hadn't happened AMD's and Intel's marketshare would have remained roughly the same as the first quarter.

    So in Q2 2005 AMD held 16.9 percent of the market and Intel 86.1 percent. The remaining 1.5 percent goes to VIA and Transmeta.

    The only segment where AMD posted a huge gain was the server market.

    If Intel's next-generation will be as good as they promise then I guess AMD's share will decline. Huge OEMs like Dell haven't really adopted AMD yet and if Intel's offerings keep improving on par (or beyond) AMD's offerings then they don't really need to adopt them.


Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Tuesday, August 30 2005 @ 17:00 CEST
Intel may be behind in the desktop market but the Centrino platform is simply superior to AMD's mobile offerings and for the first time notebooks are actually outselling desktop systems!

So you could say Intel still has a lead in the PC market!



Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Saturday, September 03 2005 @ 15:41 CEST
Amd overall has the Better product, in desktop, server, and even in he notebook sector. Intel always promotes their CPU's and say how great they will be, only to come out with something that is sub-par. Also the misleading PAPER launches of intel tries to make it seem they are as current as AMD. As for the marketshare, Intel has billions on advertising and power to muscle AMD out of markets and has been proven. Reason japan banned them for a month, also there are investigations done in europe as well against Intel. Amd probably wont win the lawsuit, but will bring certain things to light. Both CPU's are great, but for now AMD is better and has been on the right track. Most AMD's releases have had little problems, in where intel keeps running into problems. That will keep going as proof with dual cores, until the restructured Intel starts working again. Also those who think the Pentium M is a better CPU (Centrino is not the name of the PM, but the combination of the PM, the intel chipset and intels wireless in a laptop) are wrong. The reason why the PM was winning over Turion initially is because it was tested in a desktop setting. New tests and benchmarks done in a Notebook setting shows that the Turion is a better performer. Also the Turions are more cost effective
here is one site for proof
http://www.laptoplogic.com/resources/articles/42/1/1/
In the last few years, AMD has released more technology advances as Intel. Maybe once Intel gets back on its feet, we may see a good competition. But if the past can tell the future, when AMd said they would have a good product, they were good on their word, and Intel.....well, they talk a lot and dont really havent lived upto the expectations.



Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Sunday, November 27 2005 @ 11:11 CET
Intel is best ;)

AMD only 4 games ( puzzel, maybe PAINT and minesweeper )



  • Reply by Anonymous on Tuesday, April 04 2006 @ 0:31 CEST

    they *AMD* keep whinning about fps
    whats the use of 200 fps if you can only see about 30 fps human eye

    counter strike source 50 or 150 fps i cant see the difference. can you?


  • Reply by Anonymous on Thursday, May 17 2007 @ 20:35 CEST

    we live in the era of gaming technology amd is better cos it support everything with more powerful cpu's than intel & they are cheaper


Re: Intel's Performance Per Watt to be bad for AMD?
by Anonymous on Friday, May 15 2009 @ 16:32 CEST
Those articles meaning nothing to a customer such as me. what I would concern is that someone of hardware expert can recomand me a piece of pc that suit my best requirement. actually performance per watt sounds good idea to me. but the word "performance" is not good enough to me. a gaming pc for example, I want fps per watt. this involve g. card as well not just cpu.... or shortest windows vista (default setting) start up latency per watt, this involve harddrive and lots tests. also if I want both factor above that gives a index value or somewhat... oh, my head hurts...