Doesnt the Mhz myth also apply to AMD?

[couch potato]

I am an avid mac user, and i mostly use my PC for gaming. But anyway, in the world of macs we used to use the old phrase "mhz dont matter" (trust me, most of us are over that). But this brought me to thinking about AMD Athlons. My friend says they are faster than P4's, but how can that be if the Mhz myth is false? The Athlon is cheaper, but its not as fast. er, i think its cheaper anyway. so whats the deal with this anyway

[Telexen]

It's designed differently so even though it runs at a slower clock speed, it does more work at a set MHZ speed than it's competing processors (P4). That's where the ratings come from, a 2500+ AthlonXP runs at 1.83ghz and, according to AMD, is able to perform similar to a 2.5ghz Pentium 4 with similar hardware.

Read up on how the two CPUs actually compare and you'll see that AMD processors do more work per clock cycle.

[Urban_Squrill]

MY 2600+ benches about the same as my friends 2.6p4

[ShawnD1]

The Athlon will only compete with P4's that run on the slower bus (133, they say 533).

In answer to the question, the mhz myth does apply to AMD.
Look at these benchmarks comparing the Opteron to the P4.
http://anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1818&p=6
In UT, the 1.8Ghz Opteron can hold its own against a 3Ghz P4. That's a significant gap in Mhz but the actual processor speeds are similar.

The Opteron isn't exactly common right now but the benchmarks speed for themselves. Mhz is not everything .

[couch potato]

ok. thanks. i have been wondering that for a looong time. i was thinking about building an athlon computer, so...just wondering. thanks again