On 21 Apr 2002, at 3:38pm, Rich Cloutier wrote: > 1. If your heatsink falls off or your CPU fan dies, the processor just > slows down and stops. I doesn't die like AMD processors do.
If the CPU fan dies, or you power-on without a heatsink, an AMD system should halt safely. The "heatsink falls off" case is real. AMD considers the over-temp protection function to be the job of the motherboard, not the CPU. I -- and pretty much the rest of the world -- disagree, but that is the way it is (for now, anyway). For the "heatsink falls off" scenario, the sensor/monitor AMD provided in their reference design does not react fast enough, resulting catastrophic, permanent failure of the chip package -- i.e., it literally burns up. If the fan dies, or you power-on without a heatsink, the temperature rise is (in theory) slow enough that the monitoring electronics can see the problem and kill the power before any permanent damage occurs. Supposedly, AMD is working with motherboard OEMs to create a better sensor/monitor design which can react fast enough for all scenarios. Note: This is all based on what I have read online from various sites. I only have one AMD Athlon, which I paid good money for, and I am not about to test it by pulling the heatsink off while it is running. ;-) (I'm not about to do it for the Intel PIII I'm typing this on, either.) > 2. There don't seem to be too many chipset choices for AMD processors > besides VIA ... VIA, SIS, ALI, and AMD all make chipsets for the K7 (Athlon/Duron) series. > ... based on MY experience and those of others I have read, VIA are not > the best chipset manufacturers out there. My analysis of the situation has not so much been that the chipsets stink, but that some motherboard OEMs do a lousy job of integrating them. There is a lot more flexibility of design in the AMD world. Since AMD's products have a lower price, there also tend to be a lot more "entry-level products" (read: cheap pieces of junk) in the AMD world. The result is that there is a much greater opportunity to buy a lemon. As with Linux, more available choices means more bad choices as well as more good choices. I still prefer choice. > 3. With Intel, you NEVER have to worry if there is a software comatibility > issue. Bull. Remember the F00F bug? How about the FDIV bug? There are others, too. All chips have bugs, including Intel's. If you want, you can declare "whatever Intel's chips do is correct", but you can do that for AMD, too. It is a pissing contest either way. What really matters is, "Can you get your work done?" Both brands provide a "yes" answer in nearly every case (with the errata being evenly distributed for both as well). > The prices of equivalently perfoming Athlons are generally cheaper than > Intel P4, although this could change in the coming weeks with Intel's > recent and upcoming price cuts. Back in the days when RAMBUS was your only option for the P4, the price/performance ratio for an AMD Athlon solution was about twice that of the Intel P4. In other words, for a given amount of cash, you could buy twice as much AMD system as you could Intel system. Now that Intel has decided that RAMBUS was a Bad Idea(TM), P4 SDR and DDR SDRAM solutions have leveled the playing field. The fact that Dell is selling P4 systems at what has to be below cost helps, too. :-) -- Ben Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not | | necessarily represent the views or policy of any other person, entity or | | organization. All information is provided without warranty of any kind. | ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
