Intel Netburst based CPUs at the time (like Pentium 4) were simply slower clock to clock, offered much less performance-per-watt. The highlights of AMD64/X86-64 werer 64-bit integer arithmetic and memory addressing whilst being natively compatible with older x86 (32-bit) instruction set. The Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX were a big hit then with new features like AMD64/x86-64, Hyper Transport Technology (HTT) and an Integrated Memory Controller (IMC) which Intel did not have at the time. AMD in mid 2003, after the introduction of their K8 architecture based Opterons, Athlon 64 and Athlon64 FX following shortly were dominating Intel in the CPU performance arena from top to bottom. Intel has conveniently dominated the higher end segment since the introduction of Conroe. Since the introduction of AMD’s K10 architecture, AMD has for the most part has been pushed into the mid and low-end CPU arena.
![amd k10 ssse3 amd k10 ssse3](https://p.xfastest.com/~sinchen/ASUS-TUF-GAMING-FX505/ASUS-TUF-GAMING-FX505-38.jpg)
Before we do that, let’s turn the time machine to July of 2006.ĪMD and Intel both have been trading blows for quite a while now.
![amd k10 ssse3 amd k10 ssse3](http://valid.x86.fr/cache/screenshot/0f8rew.png)
Here, we have a dual AMD Opteron based (AMD Quad FX-like) system also known as the AMD Lisbon Server platform with us – we shall be taking it through a bunch of tests and comparing it to an Intel Gulftown based system.