AMD vs. Intel question/experiment (long)

[thinger62]

I don't want to start any wars, but I have a 3 questions about comparing the two. Last night I did a rendering experiment with 2 pc's. One is a 2.8 800 fst ht intel, one is an AMD 2500+ Barton. I took a short avi file (1.5 gig, rendered to 442mb, about 7 minutes I think), and made a disc image of it using MF2. The intel machine finished in 12 minutes (roughly 2 hours for full dvd?). Strangely enough, I did it twice, once using the same hard drive for source/destination, once using separate hdds. Both times it took 12 minutes (very unscientific, using only the clock in the task bar). Then I put the same file on the AMD machine and did the same thing. It took 18 minutes (3 hours for a full dvd?). Then I oc'd it to 2200 mhz (a 3000+ or 3200+) and it took 15 minutes (and got a little warm I might add). So here are my questions. Can an AMD render video at the same rate as an Intel? Why wouldn't I see a difference when using separate hdds on the intel machine (or was it less than a minute difference, which I missed because I was using my system tray clock)? Lastly, the only hardware difference was the memory setup. The Intel has a gig of 3200, the AMD has 512 of 2700 (I know that's unfair). I'm wondering if upgrading the memory in an AMD to 3200 (for oc purposes, as the stock fsb is 333) would drop the oc time down to the intel's time. This is both for my own interest, and so I can advise 2 friends for whom I'll be building machines. The difference is processor price is about $120.

[lechtin]

My guess is you will get many differing opinions on this and the result will probably not be conclusive, but I'll give it a go. Pick what you need from my answer (and the ones that will surely follow) and do away with what you don't beleive or agree with.

1. Can AMD render video at the same rate as Intel? I use Tom's Hardware for this kind of comparison, and it seems that Intel always comes up on top for equivalent models (that is a Athlon XP 2800 vs a P4 2.8GHz). It seems the SSE2 instruction set in the P4 gives it an edge. Of course, you might find a Athlon XP 3200+ for the price of a P4 2.8GHz, which might give the same performance for the same price. I suggest you check out the microprocessor comparisons at www.tomshardware.com - they do a video and audio conversion test as part of their benchmarks.

2. In rendering, I don't think your results wich the different hard drive configurations are unusual. Think of it this (simplistic) way - assuming you can capture your 7 minute AVI file in real time without dropping frames (1.5GB in 7 minutes), what kind of load are you really putting on the drive(s) writing your MPEG2 442MB file in 12 minutes? It is normal that even one drive for both reading and writing can keep up.

3. Not familiar enough with overclocking for this question, but again you could just compare the performance of upper-level AMD models equivalent to your overclocked settings.

Have fun building.