May 1999... It Seems Like Only Yesterday

Back in the near forgotten past of May of 1999, the Hard Edge mailbag was invaded by e-mail from reader B. Johnson. He wrote:

“I have noticed that over the years that you are very Pro-Inte and Anti AMD/Cyrix as well as others. This hurts their credibility with your readers. I don't want to read how great Intel is in theireyes. I want to read how each stacks up to the other.”

It’s not that the note is necessarily atypical of the type of letters that show up from people who just don’t have clue about the intricacies of the politics of business economics. It wasn’t. It’s not that the note ignores the fact that Intel has taken its share of knocks in the Hard Edge and that Mr. Johnson was just reacting emotionally to a topic of the moment rather than looking at an historical perspective. That happens quite a bit. There’s always that group of readers (thankfully small) who can’t see beyond what’s in print right now. But the reason that particular note stands out is because of the follow-ups that occurred.

Not long after the actual release of the Athlon, another note arrived with the heading: “Gee Just a couple of months ago you said AMD would never make a chip faster the Intel.” And, in the course of e-mail exchange, Mr. Johnson added:

“I will wait for the day when you have to admit in your column that AMD has arrived. Their new chips blow away the best Intel has to offer right now and by the time Intel responds, AMD should have the next round waiting to unload on Intel. This is going to get good. Just remember there is no shame in admitting that you were wrongabout AMD.”

Well, in response to Mr. Johnson, there’s also no shame in admitting that you weren’t.

If you’re wondering what the deal is here, it sums up something like this: Bill has had an eye on AMD for years and years –before it marketed its own chips, when it was just a subcontractor for Intel. Its behavior since selling its own CPUs hasn’t been very promising. Basically, AMD sold into markets that Intel was about to abandon. It offered very little that resembled technical support for end-users of its products, leaving the bulk of it to the actual CPU and processor-upgrade sellers who weren’t really very good at it. And the processors themselves, although hyped to unbelievable heights, rarely performed as implied outside of testing arenas.

To be perfectly honest, at about the time that Mr. Johnson’s first letter arrived, Bill was just as tired of hearing about new revisions of the K6 as he was of Intel’s novel ways of repackaging the Pentium Pro.

So what’s up with the Athlon, AMD’s K7, you ask. It’s difficult to say. Bill has only seen two of them so far, in 650MHz and 700MHz systems. If you’ve been reading the usual sources, which is probably where Mr. Johnson got his “blow away” concept, you’ve probably heard a lot of hype. Well, it’s AMD, right? But let’s see if we can push our way into truth, at least as Bill has seen it by poking and prodding at his Athlons.

The first and foremost thing is that the Athlon is probably the best processor that AMD has ever made –without exception. If it had released the Athlon while Intel was still bumming around with the Pentium II it could have done some horrific damage. It didn’t. Is the Athlon faster than the Pentium III? Yes and no. Keep in mind that, up to this point, Bill’s reference system has been a 600MHz Pentium III in a Dell Dimension XPS. At the time this is being written, that’s the fastest Pentium III available from Intel.

On a processor-only basis, using CPUmark 99 and FPUmark 99 results, the Athlons are well ahead of Intel's 600MHz Pentium III. In fact, the advantage is so great that it would be difficult to think that Intel could catch up just by increasing the speed of the Pentium III to match those of the Athlons. As well, the Athlon appears to do good things for graphics and 3D performance (although better with the former than the latter). However, when you start throwing business applications (Microsoft and Corel stuff, for example) at it, the Athlon's superiority disappears. It doesn't get any worse than we assume a 650MHz Pentium III might be, but it doesn't really do any better than we suspect a Pentium III of similar speed would do.

What this means, in a nutshell, is that AMD has designed and produced a CPU that is truly competitive with Intel's current line of processors. No hype, no view from skewed facts, no marketing speak. That's the way it is. "Oh, but what about the high CPU and FPU results, huh? Doesn't that make it a better chip?" Forget about it. The extra graphics and 3D performance is just icing on the cake. Believe it or not, your average 13-year old is not the major purchaser of the bulk of commuters produced.

What this also means, based on the test results we've seen, is that mom and pop (who, surprise, still control the money in the house) can buy a computer powered by an Athlon with the same confidence they'd feel if buying an Intelbox. They can feel even better about themselves if they buy the AMD-based computer because they're giving their kids a faster graphics environment for their games, possibly letting them finish playing quickly enough to maybe do some homework.

Both AMD and the vendors selling systems powered by the Athlon still have a good chance to shoot themselves in the foot, however. So far, AMD's chief assault on Intel has been from a price perspective. If Athlon systems start showing up with similar pricing as Intelboxes, the folk at AMD might as well pack up their things and head for a remote monastery. Before they can even begin to hope to reap some financial benefits, they'll need to establish a track record first --at that's something they haven't done prior to this. If things have actually changed, they will now.

If you're wondering why I chose to reprint this segment, you should read my latest Best Bits Columns on CMP:

		Best Bits: Quantifying the FX60, Part 2 Desktop Pipeline, January 26 2006 A quick test shows the AMD dual-core FX60 outrunning Intel's Pentium D 955 Extreme. But closer looks show them more evenly matched.
		Best Bits: Quantifying the FX60, Part 1 Desktop Pipeline, January 12 2006 AMD's FX processors have had the street cred with gamers. Now the FX60, a dual-core CPU, could break through to productivity respectability on the desktop.