
Originally Posted by
Yamaneko
The old P4s were designed around the NetBurst architecture which stressed high clock speeds. AMD really beat them in the niche gamer market because they were focusing on improving processes per clock cycle and power consumption. So that's why you had things like an Athlon XP 3000+ being on 2.17GHz stock, but able to compete with a 3GHz P4 from Intel. With Yonah (Core Duo), and later with Merom, Woodcrest and Conroe, Intel CPUs have been made with clock cycle efficiency in mind (as well as power consumption). So you end up seeing a Core Duo 2.0GHz beating out a P4 3.0+GHz machine very easily. It's all around better design philosophy and why Intel is back on board with hardcore gamers. AMD still has the price advantage, but that won't matter eventually.