Ok, a little history on AMD & intel..comparing processors from similar generations

AMD K6-III vs Pentium III
-for the first time, AMD's chips outperformed intel at similar clock speeds (mostly in floating point operations)
-budget version of P3, Celeron comes to overclocking fame as most of the lower speed models can be easily overclocked by about 50%, effectively getting the performance of a P3 at half the cost
-Intel starts multiplier locking chips due to unscrupulous vendors remarking lower speed chips as higher speed ones.
-AMD chips remained unlocked, overclockers start favouring AMD over Intel (except for the unusually overclockable P3-based Celerons)
-widespread use of AMD chips in overclocking reveal a fatal flaw-poorly installed cooling will result in burned processors (go watch the videos at toms hardware) because AMD chips did not have safety auto shut off when processor overheats.

Athlon/Duron (Thunderbird) vs Pentium 4/Celeron (Willamette)
-AMD extends performance lead over Intel chips, suceed in reaching 1GHz first but with increased heat production (first water cooling systems appears due to this).
-P4's long 20 stage pipeline allows it to clock at high speeds, but does very little work per clock cycle, requiring P4's to clock very high to match Athlon's performance.
-Willamette fails to clock high enough (to outperform Athlon) due to limitations of 180nm technology, remaining P3s hit limits of processor architecture.
-AMD's chips remain overclockable, overclockers desert Intel by droves.
-AMD's chips have upper multipliers locked, but are easily unlockable (pencil trick)

AthlonXP (Palomino) vs Pentium 4 (Northwood A)
-change to 130nm technology allows P4 to clock beyond 2GHz, Intel regains a small performance lead.
-Palomino brings improvements in instruction sets, introduces prefetch, heat production reduced slightly, however are now complicated to unlock higher multipliers
-both AthlonXP & P4s overclock with similar gains in performance, competition here is neck to neck, P4 occationally pulling a small lead.

AthlonXP (T-bred/Barton) vs Pentium 4 (Northwood C)
-AMD switches to 130nm technology, heat production reduces slightly, however overclockability is increased.
-Intel introduces higher fsb & dual channel DDR, P4s pull ahead of AMD for higher speeds near & above 3GHz.
-P4s start to hit limits of architecture, overclocking beyond 3.5GHz requires effort.

Athlon64 (Hammer) vs Pentium 4 (Prescott E)
-Pentium 4 switches to 90nm technolgy, however struggles with severe power consumption & heat issues
-P4's pipeline increased to 31 stage to allow higher clocks, but backfires due to heat & power issues limiting clock speed
-Athlon 64 has a huge reduction in heat production & a notable increase in performance, Athlon64s pull ahead of P4s.
-Athlon 64s can no longer be unlocked, however lower multipliers are still available.
-Overclockers are divided, Athlon 64 has more overclock options (lower multipliers, better RAM controls), while Pentium 4 can clock higher but with heat & power issues.

Beyond this point I'm no longer sure of the developments as I don't have the budget to get the stuff. Pointless to read up in detail when I can't play around with the stuff. Generally, AMD has catered better for overclockers with Intel producing only a few overclocking gems (the classic Celeron, lower speed Pentium 4 Northwood), so most overclockers tend to be pro-AMD. From what I've heard, the higher end processors starting from dual-core onwards don't overclock that well compared to older processors.

This post has been edited by lohwenli: Oct 3 2006, 12:37 AM

wow.. u have a very good explanation and description on their history...
thanks for everyone who post the reply..
i slightly get what is the OC trend now...
So far AMD processors is cater for the ocers, and intel is not..
but since the c2d is coming out with high ocer capabilities, i think they will have a very hardcore VS next year after the AMD new proc come out...

Not really, just that people go with the higher clocking and performing processors which is available. When Intel has better chips overclockers go with Intel and when AMD has good chips, they go with AMD. Now overclockers are moving to Intel coz their chips are just superb!

Just have to wait and see la, how the overclocking scene will change. Overclockers going for Core 2 Duo to max out their performance, but who knows, maybe AMD's 65nm chips coming end of this year may be even better overclockers. Since Pentium 3, Intel multiplier lock its chips, can't set higher or lower, whereas AMD's chips till today can still set multiplier lower (good for fsb overclocking). Only times when Intel chips were overclocking gems were the classic celeron and Pentium 4 Northwood-buy the low speed chips..damn easy to overclock to get the high speed chips performance & save big money..rosak also can still afford another. Prescott & its relatives were also good overclockers but need damn good fancy cooling & power, puts off some people. Core 2 Duo still to expensive for most overclockers to have accidents (usually when voltmodding). But if AMD's next chip is an overclocking failure, then I guess people will start moving back to Intel.

hello im also a noob here i have one question to ask

the amd phenom and the core 2 quad...highest of both ! and if i were to oc both of them....which will produce :

Highest Speed : ?
Lowest TEmperature : ?

Definitely Core 2 Quad..
WHY DID YOU BUMP 2 YEARS OLD THREAD?

Wow...2 years old thread...

In my opinion... Intel is more simple to OC... AMD is tougher....

THis is based on reading... not trial

I see more intel ocer here.

closing a really old thread