Analysis and Comparison of Athlon XP v Pentium 4
Introduction Choosing an architecture for computers is not a glamorous decision,but the choice can have long-term and significant ramifications fordecision makers. For many, the choice is little more than Apple v. PC,although the issue of Linux v. Windows is gaining increased visibility.However, once the choice has been made to use a PC rather than an Apple,there are still several architecture choices that must be made. AMD andIntel are the two giants in this industry, offering the flagship Athlon andPentium processors. Both companies also manufacture other processors, butthese are the two powerhouse brands associated with each company. Thisresearch considers the Athlon XP and Pentium 4 processors and whichprocessor is appropriate for today's business environment. Athlon XP Analysis The Athlon XP has slower clock speed than the Pentium 4, but becauseof its unique architecture, including DDR memory, the performance is notnoticeably slower than the Pentium 4. For example, although AMD marketed a1.6GHz Athlon XP, its performance rivaled that of the 2.2GHz Pentium 4 inmany benchmark tests. Lower clock speed does not alwa
The use of DDR memory is particularly important when comparing thePentium 4 with the Athlon XP. The Celeron chip is slower and less expensive, and is considered anacceptable trade-off for casual users who need to run basic applicationssuch as word processing or spreadsheets, but who do not need the power orspeed of the more expensive Pentium. By 2004, the Pentium 4 boasted a clock speed of2. This makes the chips betteroptions for the multimedia and gaming environments. This made it possible for Intel to put more and better transistors onto itsPentium 4 chips and increase the clock speeds. 8GHz and the Athlon XP had increased to a clock speed of more than2. Cache at this level increases the sequential tasks that can be performed,and is particularly useful for multimedia operations. However, thePentium 4 continued to undergo modification by Intel so that it grew to bea full GHz faster than the Pentium III within a year while its price camedown considerably (Metz 107). In head-to-head tests, the differencesbetween the two machines depends on the type of application being run, andeven on the manufacturer of the application. The Athlon XP is used in both traditional desktops as well as inlaptop machines using the Athlon XP-M. The advantage here is thought to be gained fromthe SSE2 instruction set as well as from the chip itself (Ribnikov &Mayorov 3). DDR memory, which stands fordouble data rate. ys translate intoslower performance in the AMD environment (Metz 108).
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