Re: P4 VS. Athlon

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@xxxxxxxx>]

Samir Badani wrote:
> I just bought a new AMD 1.33 GHz running on iwill
> kk266-r motherboard.

That's the new ALi MAGiK 1 chipset:
http://www.iwillusa.com/products/spec.asp?ModelName=KA266-R&SupportID=

> I am currently running on redhat 7.1 but i had tried
> 7.0 and both did exceptionally well. The system booted
> up much much faster.

> The motherboard comes with onboard(hardware) RAID 0, 1,
> 0+1 capable.

This is via an AMI Ultra100 controller.  This is really still
"software" RAID because your main CPU does it all.  The "trick" is
the BIOS does some little things, but your main CPU still does all
the dirty work.  You can tell this is true because you're still
limited to the IDE/ATA-4 limitation of <=128GB disks and volumes. 
And most don't support Linux because a the vendor has to write a
driver to tell the OS how to "trick" the controllers, because they
are still just "dumb" IDE devices.  The Promise and many other "PCI
card" IDE-RAID controllers are in the same boat.

To get "hardware" RAID using IDE, you must go with either Adaptec's
AAA-UDMA or 3Ware's Escalade 5000/6000 products.  These products
have an on-board microcontroller and cache (fixed in 3Ware's case). 
The uC handles all the setup and drives the disks directly, then
looks like a "SCSI target" from the rest of the system, including
the OS.  That means you can have upto 2TB volumes (although the
disks themselves are still limited to the IDE/ATA-4 <=128GB).  The
~$400 Adaptec card has 4 channels (4 disks, *NO* master/slave
combination option because of the performance degredation) that can
do RAID-0/1/0+1/5 and the 3Ware has 2, 4 and even 8 channel versions
(~$150/250/450, respectively -- again, 1 disk per channel -- no
slave option) but only does RAID-0/1/0+1 (a future version with
RAID-5 is planned).

> And RH 7.1 detects the RAID device.

Really?  So AMI has a "trick driver"?  The last time I tried using a
High Point HPT368 (Ultra66 like the HPT366 but with some extra,
"enhancing" logic for RAID operations -- still offloads much to the
CPU though), it didn't.  Or was it just that the IDE controller was
supported as a regular IDE controller?

[ Note:  I have NOT used the AMI product, but it's still a simple
IDE controller with "trick" BIOS. ]

> This combination also boosts the performance of the system.

RAID itself does, but not over software RAID.  StorageReview
(http://www.storagereview.com) has done reviews of NT using these
cards and software RAID and has shown not only is there no
performance difference, but CPU utilization is just as bad.  They
also showed software RAID to be the same (in the absence of drivers
for Linux).

> The Iwill motherboard is very much recommended if u r
> planning to upgrade. It does come with motherboard
> integrated sound which is supposed to be good but it
> still has few problems.

ALi has always had memory controller problems, just like old Aladin
V for Pentium systems.  A lot of people are seeing DDR SDRAM
compatibility issues.

> The 1.33 GHz can also be easily overclocked to 1.5 GHz
> easily(with a better heat sink). The BIOS makes over
> clocking easier as it has the options in it(no more
> jumpers).

You still have to "bridge" the "L1 golden bridges" of the Athlon to
change the multiplier, but you can change the FSB to push it without
doing such (although you'll run your AGP, PCI and memory beyond
spec).

> The normal 1.33 GHz beats p4 1.5 GHz in many benchmark
> areas(for more information refer to www.anandtech.com).

Not only Anand, but even Ziff-Davis has taken identically configured
Micron Athlon 1.33GHz and Dell P4 1.5GHz and 1.7GHz machines and
shows the Micron can beat the pants off the Dell 1.5GHz at anything
(upto 24% faster in some benchmarks) and holds its own or beats even
the Dell 1.7GHz as well.

> AMD is the cheapest solution I found even with P4 prices
> dropping recently. Performance on the AMD is also much
> better achieved than on the P4. I got my upgrade a
> month back for motherboard, cpu , 256 RAM and 300W
> case i paid $500(cheaper now).

There is also the fact that Athlon has more mainboard and chipset
options.  And all Athlon's use the same Socket-A/462 interface,
including forthcoming Athlons (the only exception will be for the
8-ways, which use a Slot-B like the Alpha 264/364 chips).

The P4 has only the i850 chipset which is RDRAM only (although
ServerWorks will have a DDR SDRAM chipset for the P4 by year's end).

-- TheBS

-- 
Bryan J. Smith, President        mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
(407)366-7013 pager:(888)694-5793 chat:thebs413@AOL/MS/Yho
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