if amd doesnt focus on thier clock speeds wht do they focus on cause i know intel focuses on thier clockspeeds

Question

i have a amd athlon x2 3800+ is tht a good processor?

Answer 1

I recall some years ago when AMD released their 1800 series processor everyone thought that it meant that it was 1.8Mhz. It was really a 1.4Mhz that could outperform an intel 1.8Mhz processor.

The bus width of the P4 and other comparable processors far exceed the capability of Windows and most windows applications. So if you were to hypothetically get a P2, P3, and a P4 that were all running at the same speed, they would perform the same because the buswidth of the processors are much wider than what windows was designed to utilize.

Given that, if you visualized a snow shovel that was 36 inches wide, you could progressively shovel the sidewalk on a snowy day much more efficiently than if you had a shovel that was only 12 inches wide. But say that the shovel was 48 inches wide- You could still probably shovel the 36 inch sidewalk but no matter how much wider you made the shovel, you could only shovel the same amount. AMD on the other hand claims that their technology is better because they turn the blade of the shovel 90 degrees and can shovel far more ahead of themselves per scoop rather than wasting the extra width on shoveling the grass.

So in a nutshell the are able to focus more on the amount of work that actually gets accomplished vs. how fast the processor is really going.

Answer 2

Its known as the "Megahertz Myth". The clock speed isn't the only thing that matters on a processor. The way AMD marketed their processors was a 3800+ would be the equivalent of an Intel running at 3.8 GHz. Other factors, such as the L2 cache (a high speed memory on the processor, non-upgradeable) can affect performance.

But now Intel has changed their naming system, so its harder to tell now.

Answer 3

hypertransport --> 1000 mhz fsb (2000 m/t).

x2 is always good. dual core is faster for dvd burning but not much difference in single applications. oc it to 2.5 and it'll be really good.