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Publisher: Jonathan Leger Issue #014
mailto:jleger@... # of Subscribers 880

======== This Week's Feature Article ================================
---------------------------------------------------------------------
AMD VERSES INTEL : WHICH PROCESSOR SHOULD I BUY IN MY NEXT PC?
=====================================================================

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-----------------------[[[ ADVICE FROM JON ]]]-----------------------

Advice from the Editor, Jon Leger:

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-----------------------[[[ ADVICE FROM JON ]]]-----------------------






------------------------------------
READER FEEDBACK ABOUT THE LAST ISSUE
====================================

"I have some great news for you. I loved this issue and will be
running it in the next issue of my newsletter."
--Bill Platt <bplatt@...>

"I just read your latest PC Tune Ups article on wireless networking.
It was very fascinating. I learned some new concepts in networking
and solidified the basic concepts I already had down."
--Dave Mehler <awesome-dave1@...>

======== Feature Article ============================================
---------------------------------------------------------------------
AMD VERSES INTEL : WHICH PROCESSOR SHOULD I BUY IN MY NEXT PC?
=====================================================================
by Jonathan Leger

"A Celeron or a K6-2? A Pentium III or an Athlon? Which processor
should I get in my next PC?"

That is definitely a timely question given all of the competition
between the two most popular processor manufacturers, Intel and
American Micro Devices (AMD). This article will focus in on the
home-user level comparison between the Celeron and the K6-2. Next
week's article will compare the Pentium III and the Athlon, or K7,
which is AMD's latest-greatest processor.


-----------------
About the Celeron
=================

This is what Intel says about the Celeron at their web site
(www.intel.com):

"Get great performance for your personal computing and the quality
and reliability you expect from the Intel Inside brand with
Intel Celeron processors for desktop PCs—now available at 500MHz.
Intel also continues to bring more value to mobile computing with
new Mobile Intel Celeron processors at 466MHz and 433MHz."

I'll be honest with you: the Celeron is not popular amongst
computer buffs, because, in a word, it's slow. Now, compared to
your old 486 or early-model Pentium computer, the Celeron is
blazingly fast, but when held up against other processors, it's
not. Intel doesn't mind this because they are aiming their
advertising guns at the home user, not the techie, and they are
sure that their name backing the processor is enough to sell it (and
they are being proven correct by the Celeron's popularity).

The Celeron has a 128k cache. A cache is a buffer used by the
processor to store a bunch of instructions for execution by the
chip. Compare a processor using a cache to throwing stones. Now,
if you bend down and grab a handful of stones to toss into a lake,
you can throw stones a lot faster than if you were to bend down
and pick up just one stone each time (and your back would be killing
you by the day's end!)

A processor does the same thing, "picking up" a bunch of "stones"
(instructions to execute) at one time, rather than "bending over" and
grabbing one at a time. This makes the processor work much faster.

However, although the Celeron has 128k cache, it only uses 64k at a
time. I'm not sure of the technical aspects of why it does this.


--------------
About The K6-2
==============

The K6-2 is AMD's rival to Intel's Celeron. The Celeron was
actually created to battle the K6-2 in the low-cost processor market.

The K6-2 is fast, powerful and compatible, and is cheaper than the
Pentium II and III by far. It's actually even cheaper than the
Celeron, though the Celeron was designed to compete with the K6-2.

The AMD K6-2 is definitely for graphics buffs, with the best 3D
performance in its class (based on AMD K6-2 and Pentium II processor
performance measures). With its new 3Dnow! technology, the AMD K6-2
processor delivers cutting-edge performance and a powerful 3D
experience for Windows computing. The AMD K6-2 processor works hand-
in-hand with today's leading 3D graphics accelerators to maximize 3D
processing power.

Version 6 of DirectX is optimized for the AMD K6-2 and K6-3's 3Dnow!
technology, and so 3D web environments give you great images and
sound. The K6-2 has a 128k cache (a cache is explained above in the
section about the Celeron), and it uses 100% of its cache (unlike the
Celeron).

Some might question the compatibility of the AMD processor with
Windows. Not to worry. We build computers here at our shop, and our
tests with the AMD processor have showed zero compatibility issues.
AMD has done extensive internal and external tests evaluating their
processors' compatibility with Windows 98 and Windows NT, as well as
with more than 60,000 software applications. Microsoft supports AMD
as well, so compatibility is not an issue.






-----------------------[[[ ADVICE FROM JON ]]]-----------------------

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===================================================

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Editor, Jon Leger

-----------------------[[[ ADVICE FROM JON ]]]-----------------------






----------
Benchmarks
==========

Here are some benchmarks between various processors, including the
Celeron and the K6-2, in 3D graphics:

AMD K6-2/400 ============================================== 5,694

AMD K6-2/333 ====================================== 4,954

Pentium II 450 ============================== 4,416

Celeron 400 ========================== 3,830

Celeron 333 ====================== 3,269

So in the graphics field, the K6-2 basically has the Celeron beat
really bad. I personally would buy a K6-2 over a Celeron any day.


----------
In Summary
==========

The Celeron's top speed to date is 500 Mhz, and the K6-2's top speed
is 450 Mhz. Intel's lack of comparison benchmarks on their site
furthers my belief the the Celeron is slower than the K6-2 in all
respects (AMD's site is covered with comparisons of the K6-2 verses
other processors). If Intel's Celeron was faster or better than the
K6-2 in some ways, I'm sure it would be posted at their site, but all
I could find were benchmarks comparing the Celeron to, well, the
Celeron.

So if you don't mind buying your processor from the underdog, the
K6-2 is probably the way to go for your next home PC.

A lesson to learn from these comparisons is that a higher number of
megahertz (Mhz) does not necessarily mean that one processor is
faster than another. Take a look at the benchmarks above, and you'll
notice that the 333 Mhz K6-2 is faster than even the Pentium II 450
in graphics, and a lot faster than the 400 Mhz Celeron.


----------------
About the Author
================

Jonathan Leger is a partner in United Technologies, a computer sales
and service firm engaged in cutting-edge technology such as wireless
LAN networking, traditional LAN networking in Windows workgroups, and
custom database programming.

Please direct all questions and comments regarding this issue, or any
suggestions for subject-matter that you would like to see appear in
PC Tune Ups to:

mailto:jleger@...?subject=WTU_Feedback


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=============================

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-----------------------[[[ ADVICE FROM JON ]]]-----------------------

Advice from the Editor, Jon Leger:

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I know you will appreciate these machines!

-----------------------[[[ ADVICE FROM JON ]]]-----------------------






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