During the last 12 months there have been significant and tumultuous changes and advances in the PC processors industry. Intel revamped its entire product line yet again. AMD - despite financial troubles - has come on strong, first at the low end and now on the high. Cyrix, after a good showing in the least expensive PC's during 1998, saw its market share collapse and found itself on the auction block.
As a PC buyer or integrator one is faced with increasingly complex decisions. Even after prices dropped tremendously during the past three years, there is still a significant price difference between Intel and AMD's top performers and Cyrix' low-end CPU's. The questions that arise are: Is it worth specifying an Intel Pentium III, or will a Celeron get the desired job done equally well - for a lot less money? Or instead of a Celeron, is an AMD K6 or a Cyrix M II a better deal? And is the new Athlon the hot ticket AMD represents it to be? The purpose of this article is to answer these questions and, most important, to determine which chips are best suited for which types of users.
The first step in finding the right processor is determining the purpose and tasks the CPU will have to complete. If you are an occasional gamer or if your business entails simple word processing and accounting work, you would be ill advised to spend the money on the newest Pentium III or Athlon chip. These chips are designed to give the user the required power for extremely graphically and processing-intensive applications such as games, digital content creation, digital imaging, and server/workstation applications. The bucks spend on these chips would consist of a simple waste of money. On the other hand, if you are buying a new PC for such CPU-intensive applications as those mentioned above, an AMD K6-II or Intel Celeron may just not do the trick. Fortunately, the processor market features a wide range of CPU's at many different speeds and prices, so the problem posed is simply which one suits your needs best.
PC users can be grouped into the following categories: a) home users; b) corporate users; c) mobile users; d) small office users; e) professional users; and f) server/workstation users. The following table will further identify these groups:
a) Home Users
Tasks: Internet browsing (with some streaming and 3-D content), word processing, home finance, gaming, digital imaging, DVD
b) Corporate Users
Tasks: Internet browsing, word processing, spreadsheets, data access, presentations
c) Mobile Users
Tasks: Internet browsing, word processing, e-mail, light gaming
d) Small Office Users
Tasks: Accounting, desktop publishing, Web content creation
e) Professional Users
Tasks: Digital content creation (video, music, Web, desktop publishing etc.), digital imaging, 3-D gaming
f) Server/Workstation Users
Tasks: Software engineering, 3-D content creation, application and file server, Web hosting
Now that we have defined the categories of users looking for the right CPU, let us go through the various processors that are commercially available on the market. This will enable us to assign the right CPU to the right user.
Intel
· Pentium III
Pros: fast, scalable
Cons: Expensive
Available at: 450/500/550/600 MHz
The only substantive difference between the Pentium II and the Pentium III is Intel's new Streaming SIMD (single instruction, multiple data) Extension, or SSE. SSE expedites the transfer of long streams of data to and from memory. This ability adds tremendous power to 3-D imaging, multimedia, and applications involving large data sets such as database managers. In addition, SSE contains a few new instructions that are essentially extensions of Intel's older MMX instruction set, which enable the processor to perform integer computations. They speed up video processing, games, and speech recognition engines, to name a few.
It is important to mention that users can only benefit from SSE if the application used was written specifically to take advantage of these new instructions. Any other application will only run faster if the actual frequency is higher. However, if the application was written to benefit from SSE, the difference is tremendous: tests run on Ziff David's ZD 3-D WinBench showed that a Pentium III 450 MHz performed a stunning 62 percent faster than a Pentium II running at the same speed.
The Pentium III features 16K of L1 cache and 512K of L2 cache. Memory Bus runs at 100 MHz and the maximum memory accessible is 64 GB. Maximum amount of CPU's that can be employed on one motherboard is 2.
Intel has stopped its production of Pentium II processors since the release of the P III, so we will not discuss the P II in detail. However, as mentioned above, their specifications are similar except for SSE.
Bottom Line: The right choice for performance-oriented users skittish about AMD.
· Xeon
Pros & Cons: see Pentium III
Additional Con: very expensive
Available at: 500/550 MHz
The Intel Xeon chip is designed for server/workstation usage. This is due to the larger and faster L2 cache (up to 2 MB) which makes the CPU better suited for multiprocessor servers, where the large caches reduce bus usage and provide better multiprocessor scaling. A total of 8 Xeons can be scaled together in one server. The Xeon also fits into Slot 2, while the Pentium III uses Slot 1. Other than these differences the Xeon and P III are identical.
Bottom Line: A good choice for servers in need of multi-scalable processors.
· Celeron
Pro: Affordable; fast enough
Cons: No SSE (yet)
Available at: 233/266/300/333/350/400/433/466/500 MHz
Where home and corporate users are concerned, the biggest development in the past year has been Intel's newfound commitment to the low-cost PC market. The first Celeron chip, released in spring 1998, had no L2 cache and was a horrible performer. It wasn't until the late-1998 launch of the Celeron processor with on-chip L2 cache - code-named Mendocino - that Intel's offerings became competitive with the low-cost processors from AMD and Cyrix.
The Celeron processor takes the same processor core that is in the Pentium II and adds 128K of on-chip L2 cache that runs at full processor speed. By contrast, the P III has a larger 512K cache, but it is off-chip and thus runs at one-half of the processor speed. Consequently, the Celeron's performance is much closer to that of a Pentium III than the four-to-one difference in cache size might suggest.
In fact, for many applications, a Celeron processor is nearly as fast as a P III at the same clock speed. For example, a ZD Business Winstone 99 test revealed that a Celeron 500 delivered the same performance as a P III 450, while a Celeron 466 trailed the Pentium by only 3 percent.
Of course, if the L2 cache were the only difference between the Celeron and the Pentium III, there would be very little reason for PC makers to pony up as much as $300 more per chip for the Pentium III. To maintain greater differentiation, Intel has limited Celeron's bus speed to 66 MHz, whereas P III processors use a 100-MHz bus.
Bottom Line: A good bet for all but the most power-hungry users.
Intel Prices at lots of 1000, as of mid-1999:
Celeron 333 $67
Celeron 400 $93
Celeron 466 $147
Celeron 500 $167
Pentium III 450 $268
Pentium III 500 $482
Pentium III 550 $658
Pentium III 600 $669
Xeon 550 $931
AMD
· Athlon
Pros: Faster, cheaper than the Pentium III
Cons: Not all SSE instructions supported; no dual-processor support yet; AMD's
spotty
delivery history
AMD made a name for itself with its K6 family of processors, low-cost alternatives to the Pentium II and Celeron that helped create the sub-$1,000 PC market. AMD's latest offering, the Athlon (known as the K7 while in development), changes the game entirely. Although the exact advantage depends on the benchmark test, the bottom line is clear: AMD is no longer just a supplier of inexpensive alternative processors but also the source of the fastest x86 CPU ever produced.
The Athlon is based on an entirely new processor core. Like the Pentium II and III, the Athlon's 512K L2 cache runs at one-half of the processor's speed. However, it's design and architecture has a number of advantages over the P III. It has four time as much L1 cache as the P III. It can decode more x86 instructions at a time than the P III, and it has the ability to dispatch up to nine internal instructions per clock cycle to its execution units compared with the Pentium III's five. In addition, the Athlon can issue both a floating-point multiply and a floating-point add every cycle, while the P III can only do one or the other but not both.
These microarchitectural advantages mean higher performance for integer-based business application and server processing, as well as higher floating-point performance for workstation and gaming applications. ZD's benchmarks confirmed Athlon's superiority: The Athlon 600 was 4 percent faster than an equally clocked Pentium III on Winstone 99; 27 percent faster on CPUmark 99; 8 percent faster on FPU (floating-point unit) WinMark 99; and 2 percent faster on 3D WinBench 99.
The Athlon 600 also beat Intel's Xeon 550 with both processors running Windows NT. The Athlon was 16 percent faster on High-End Winstone 99, and 26 percent faster on CPUmark 99. Thus, the Athlon is a strong offering for workstations and entry-level servers as well as for PC's.
The Athlon's lack of SSE instructions are countered by AMD developed 3DNow! technology. These instructions provide equivalent functions to enhance the same type of applications that benefit from SSE.
Another unique Athlon feature is it's lightning-fast 200 MHz bus. At this speed it is twice as fast as Pentium CPU's bus. Even though Intel plans on raising its system buses to 133 MHz in the near future, AMD will still be 60 percent faster. Another pro of higher bus speeds is the ability of AMD's CPU to use higher memory speeds. Today, memory runs standard at 100 MHz; therefore, the higher bus system gives AMD lots of headroom for future, faster running memory modules.
The major concern of computer manufacturers is AMD's spotty history of delivering its goods. In the past there has often been a shortage of chips coming out of AMD's manufacturing plants. If AMD can keep up with demand and at the same time keep its prices below Intel's, the effects on the CPU market could be sweet indeed: Intel will be forced to lower prices in order to compete with AMD, and AMD will gain more market share. This will lead to higher quality products for less.
Bottom Line: A real alternative - if AMD can keep its act together.
· K6 Family
Pros: Affordable; fast enough
Cons: MMX and FPU (floating point unit) performance below Intel's CPUs; K6-2
falls short on integer performance as well.
Available at: K6-2: 300/333/350/366/380/400/450/475 MHz K6-III: 400/450 MHz
AMD has made a huge impact with its K6-2 processor, especially in the U.S. retail market, where AMD's share is neck and neck with Intel's, according to InfoBeads, Ziff-Davis's market-research service. The K6-2 also rocketed to a greater than 40 percent share position in the U.S. retail market for notebook computers, though its share of corporate notebooks remains small.
The K6-2 uses the Socket-7 bus - the interface Intel defined for its older Pentium processors - but runs at 100 MHz instead of the 66 MHz Intel used. AMD calls systems using this bus the Super7 platform. Unlike Pentium II and Pentium III, the K6-2 does not have a separate interface for the L2 cache, so the cache speed is limited to 100 MHz. Thus, as CPU speeds increase, its performance does not rise as steeply as that of Intel's processors. The K6-2 475 MHz CPU, for example, scored only 3 percent above the K6-2/400 on the ZD Business Winstone 99 test, whereas the Celeron 466 beat the Celeron 400 by 7 percent. The Celeron also outperformed the K6-2 at the same clock speeds by 5 to 10 percent. The K6-2 also has slower floating-point and MMX units than Intel's chips, slowing down 3-D, image processing, and multimedia applications.
AMD's follow-up, the K6-III, debuted in early 1999. It added an on-chip, 256K L2 cache, providing a huge performance boost. For example, a 450-MHz K6-III was 21 percent faster than a 450-MHz K6-2 on ZD Business Winstone 99. The K6-III 400 also performed 11 percent better on the same test than a Celeron 400.
Bottom Line: A perfectly acceptable choice, especially for home users. Also a good choice for corporate users, who rarely have any need for MMX or floating-point performance. AMD Prices at lots of 1000, as of mid-1999:
AMD K6-2/400 $82
AMD K6-2/450 $112
AMD K6-2/475 $152
AMD K6-III/400 $185
AMD K6-III/450 $220
Athlon/600 $699
Cyrix
· M II
Pros: Affordable; adequate for low-end machines
Cons: Sale of company may make PC makers wary
Available at: 250, 285, 300 MHz
The Cyrix M II was quite successful in the low-cost PC market in 1998, especially in the least expensive systems. As Intel became more aggressive with Celeron prices and clock speeds, though, Cyrix's market share plummeted. National Semiconductor, Cyrix's parent company, decided in May to exit the PC processor market and put Cyrix up for sale. As of September 1999 the sale of Cyrix to chip set maker VIA Technologies is pending.
Unlike AMD's chips, the M II is rated by its "equivalence performance", not its clock speed; the M II/433 actually runs at 300 MHz. On the various benchmark tests, however, the M II performed 5 percent slower than its closest AMD competitor and 8 percent slower than the closest Celeron. It fell even further behind on tasks using MMX or floating-point processing.
The M II design is clearly showing its age, and Cyrix plans to replace it by the end of 1999 with a new chip code-named Gobi. This new device uses an enhanced M II-based CPU core, code-named Cayenne, and adds faster floating-point and MMX units and 3DNow! instructions (see AMD). In addition, the Gobi will include 256K on-chip L2 cache which will run at full processor speed.
Bottom Line: Worth considering for a budget-priced home machine.
Cyrix Prices at lots of 1000, as of mid-1999:
M II/400 (300 MHz) $85
Now that we have gone through the CPUs available on the market and defined their specifications and unique characteristics, we can assign the right CPU to each user group.
· Home Users (a)
If you are a typical home user - browsing the Internet, managing your finances, and playing a few games - nearly any processor will do the job. AMD's K6 family, Cyrix's M II, and Intel's Celeron and Pentium II will prove perfectly adequate. The exception: If you like to play sophisticated 3-D games, spring for an Athlon or a Pentium III CPU. The increased performance can significantly boost the realism of advanced games.
· Corporate Users (b)
Most corporate users won't benefit from moving to a Pentium III or Athlon from a less expensive 300- to 400-MHz Celeron, Pentium II, or K6-2. Typical business applications don't take advantage of the performance booster in the higher-end chips.
· Mobile Users (c)
While the Athlon and Pentium III are not yet available in mobile configurations (to be changed soon, though), the choices are: if you need a fairly powerful machine to serve as your only system, look for a high-speed Mobile Pentium II or Mobile Celeron (up to 400 MHz). If cost is a concern, specify a slower P II or Celeron, or an AMD K6-2 CPU.
· Small Office Users (d)
If running business entails calculation-intensive accounting tasks, Web-site creation, and video work, you'll want an Athlon or Pentium III system. Bust most users won't need that kind of power. If the most sophisticated application you run is a desktop publishing program, then a Celeron, AMD K6-2, or Cyrix M II will do the trick.
· Professional Users (e)
If your work involves image editing, high-end desktop publishing, video work, or Web-site creation, then you are a candidate for an Athlon or Pentium III system. If you are a PC enthusiast - a serious gamer or someone who dabbles in technology for technology's sake - then Athlon or Pentium III is the right path for you, too.
· Server/Workstation Users
Workstation-class Windows NT machines for computer-aided design and engineering (CAD/CAE), software development, 3-D content creation, professional video editing, and special effects designing all require the unsurpassed power of the Athlon and Pentium III CPUs. This is due to the high floating-point and MMX/SSE/3DNow! processing these applications typically require. File, application, and Web hosting servers also require the power of these high-end chips. If you want to run your workstation or server using a dual-processor system, the Pentium III or Xeon is your only choice for now; dual-processor Athlon systems won't emerge until next year.
Today's CPUs are up to 80 percent faster than those that were newly released and considered top- notch just a year ago. Intel has already shipped its latest 'Coppermine' .18 micron 733 MHz Pentium III CPUs to computer manufacturers and AMD kept pace by releasing the 700-MHz version of the Athlon. This trend will continue for the foreseeable future, as we will see more advanced technologies appear by the week. CPUs, memory, and mass storage will get smaller, faster, and more powerful. In these times it is important to seriously weigh the benefits of purchasing a new system against the option of waiting a few months until prices drop due to a newer, more powerful system that the market has to offer. The decision should depend on user needs, compatibility issues, prices, and future upgrade options. The best way to avoid getting stuck with a system that does not suit one's needs is simply to keep oneself informed of the computer market. Magazines and Internet browsing are an excellent way to stay informed on recent developments, and careful consideration and research are highly advisable before completing the purchase. Times have never been better for users - prices are low, speeds are high and rising, and the market rich with options. A careful buyer will no doubt take full advantage of the computer industry and return home a smiling owner of a new system.