Hardware Analysis - Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

Preston Richey — 2006-05-02T07:36:16-05:00

Well i did what you suggested and set it on one processor. Now when the game loaded all the way it blue screened on me and did a physical memory dump and restarted. I tried to switch the affinity to the other processor and it did the same thing. Kinda at a loss here. One more thing when i load the game normally and it just sits on opening screen it is running the processor at full load and then instently after i clock off the game to normal windows it cuts down the load to 2% work load on the processor. hope this is enough to point somone in the right direction for a solution. thanks

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

guru Shane — 2006-05-02T04:48:18-05:00

If you bring up your task manager, you could set the affinity of one game process to one core and set the affinity of the other game process to the other core. Some games do not take advantage of dual core technology (it might not be a multithreaded game), but you should still be able to 2-box and set one game to one core and one game to the other. If you are truly 2-boxing on the same computer, then you should have two separate processes, (one for each game that's running.)

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

Preston Richey — 2006-05-02T03:45:14-05:00

I can clain that i try to run my game in 2 boxing and it still does not run my dual. one sits idle as one trys to run both games on the same comptuer. Is there a way to force it to run one in the background as u play the one in the foreground? jsut wondering. well if anyone can help me with taht that would be helpful or i might jsut be stuck with jsut gettign a FX 57 to game and wait for technology to catch up to my dual core

AMD X2 +4400
7900 GT
2GB RAM
250 GB SATA
ABIT AN8 32X

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

Alex-E-C-396 — 2005-11-02T05:40:28-05:00

Everybody on this chat is always WRONG, the only thing that makes this thread interesting is everyone can tell a different way to skin a cat. It doesn't matter if Uncle Intel does it or Aunty AMD does it it all gets done.

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

Super XP — 2005-11-02T02:11:12-05:00

LOL,

Quote from A_Pickle
The Intel dual cores have 64-bit support, and they are FAR cheaper than their AMD counterparts.

Ya, Intel Dual Cores are cheaper, but slower. And they are not true Dual Cores. Only AMD has True Dual Cores LOL

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

guru Shane — 2005-11-02T01:20:03-05:00

Cool, someone brought this up again. I had deleted the e-mail and couldn't remember which thread it was.

I can tell you that I have been FOOLED by the market place into thinking that Intel was the best thing on the market. I can also tell you that 3 of my PC's are configured as servers and it is common for me to have 20 programs and/or windows open at the same time. I will listen to music, watch videos, and surf the net on MULTIPLE windows all at the same time REGULARLY on a daily basis. Your wife is dead wrong if she thinks that the Intel dual core is the solution. I've looked at all of the benchmarks and I am probably more of an avid computer user. I use my machine(s) all day long.

Looking at the benchmarks, the power use, and the heat problems, AS WELL AS the DDR2 that has crappy latencies, I can tell you that my DDR RAM at 400MHz is FASTER than my DDR2 at 533MHz and perhaps even 600MHz, even though I haven't tried that test yet. I can also tell you that my 2.4GHz dual core AMD is running at 46 degrees Celsius under FULL LOAD while my 3.6GHz Intel processor is running at 56 degrees Celsius IDLE. The dual core Intel processors ARE EVEN HOTTER.

Sure, you can get less performance for less cash, but when you are shortening the lifespan of all of your hardware, are paying more on your electric bill EVERY MONTH for the lifetime of the system, and getting less performance overall, ISN'T IT WORTH THE $100 or so extra to get something SO MUCH BETTER? What's even $1,000, when you're talking about an investment that will have to last AT LEAST the next 3 years? I choose the next 3-5 years performance over a small price difference now.

Re: AMD doesn�t trust Intel, should you care?

Everett Williams — 2005-11-02T00:11:30-05:00

Dark,

You are being a little bit disengenuous by talking about price sensitivity for you and your wife, when you go through so many intermediate systems in your process, and ultimately change hardware quite regularly in a way that few price-sensitive customers would. Building 1,000 systems with something so hot as the Prescott seems a sure way to have end-life problems for those people who run their computers until they drop. Your warranty may be your concern. Decent performance for as long as my customer wants to keep a system is mine.

It is absolutely clear that the Intel dual-processor design is a paste up, hardly worthy of the name. I suspect that anything in SiSoft or PCMark is influenced so greatly by the Intel compilers and too close ties that it cannot be relied on at all. Also, the dearth of dual-processor ready applications makes most of the benchmarks not great tests of the dual processor part of the setup.

All that said, I have been a long term proponent of AMD on that price-performance grounds and on the grounds that if Intel pushes them out, we will suffer greatly within a very short time. Those are my concerns, and I present them to my customers when the decision is marginal. Right now, though, there is absolutely no question of what is most price-performance effective for my business customers who run multiple apps at once (almost all, now...who doesn't leave their email and browser open at almost all times, regardless of what else is running). That means a P4 2800 Mhz with HT and on a 775 mount. It is cheap, smooth, reasonably cool and fast enough for most purposes. It's nice to get the 521 w/64 bit support, but 64 bit really isn't meaningful for most uses and won't be for several years now, so the 520 is fine. Nothing will force the move to 64bit any time soon., and I mean anytime within 5 years. Unfortunately, AMD has nothing that is competitive in this what would normally be called a niche, but is really a major segment of the commercial and home market.

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

dark — 2005-10-28T04:38:27-05:00

I'm not sure what your point is, other than you have unlimited funds to spend on your systems. To say that I'm wrong about how we have chosen to build my wife's system implies that you have a similar budget, similar puter usage, and that you know for a fact that the 4800+ X2 will last for 15 years or a 3800+ X2 will last 6 years (because that's how long it would take to make up the cost of the P4 3.2 single core).

The results I posted from Sisoft Sandra '05 are a P4 3.2 dual core and AMD 4800+. You're the one who's comparing a 3.6 on a 915 chipset to a 4800+ on and Nforce 4 chipset. You said the 3.6 P4 is slow compared to the 4800+ X2, which is hardly a fair comparison with your setups. You seem intelligent enough to know that a chipset has an effect on performance and benchmark scores, so not sure why you chose your comparison. Also, I wasn't implying that a 3.6 dual core exists. I said that it should blow away a 4800+ because the 3.2 dual core already holds its own and beats the 4800+ in some tests.

Sisoft Sandra uses the optimal chipset for each CPU for their scores. I didn't make the numbers up. Its an unbiased program which compares components, rather than a fan of one manufacturer or advertising sponsored reviewer. (Gotta love HWA's approach to that!) Who would you expect AMDzone.com to favor? cdrinfo's results from Sisoft Sandra 05 don't jive with what my copy of sanpro2005.SR2a-1060-JOK.zip shows. They also made their own graph to list the results, not a print screen, so yea, I can't apologise for being skeptical of those results.

At any rate, a benchmark is simply a test which generates a score. They don't reflect real life performance. EG: My high score on 3dmark05 was 10,955 on my SLI system. The screen was full of artifacts during the test. It wouldn't be tolerable or enjoyable for me to play those games at that OC. However, it did nothing to hinder the benchmark score. So I post the scores that showed no artifacts and played smoothly as my high scores (10,454). I wonder how many others do the same. ;-) I've learned to take benchmark scores with a grain of salt, as real life is often contradictory to benchmarks.

As for a 3.6 being on a 955x chipset... You couldn't find benchmarks to compare to, or you couldn't find anyone running a 3.6 on a 955x, or you don't believe that a 3.6 can run on a 955x? Because the system specs for CPU on the 955x say:
*LGA775 socket for Intel Pentium 4/Celeron CPU (which would include a P4 3.6 LGA775)
*Intel Pentium 4 Processor Extreme Edition & Intel Pentium D Processor ready (includes P4 3.6 Extremes)
*Compatible with Intel 05B/05A and 04B/04A processors
*Intel Hyper-Threading Technology ready

I'm concerned with 2 things for our situation:
1) bang for the buck
2) multi-tasking

I can't justify a 50% increase in performance for a 250% increase in investment. Having the 'best' isn't a priority. Who said anything about having a champion? Getting our work done as cheaply and efficiently as possible is or priority. So my comparison is whether having hyper-threading on a single core CPU is more cost effective than a dual core CPU (either with or without hyper-threading). From our own experience and various test scores, we don't believe the cost for dual core is justified at this time.

I haven't found a good comparison for mutli-tasking including video capturing, anti-virus, firewall, and office apps running at the same time. A single core P4 3.2 might not do any 'one' of those things as fast as a single core AMD, but that's not relevant to my wife's needs.

I know for a fact that a single core AMD 64 'won't do all of those things at the same time as well as a single core P4 with hyper-threading does'. Her 3.2 does not lag, skip, freeze or show any ill effects whatsoever. Sure, the video captures may take longer, but they work. My 3700+ and 3500+ both suffer from all of the above. In fact on either A64, when running video capture and having AVG kick in for a scan, they both skip repeatedly before freezing completely. Even if a dual core AMD does run all these apps without problems, is it worth the $ now? Not for us. Someday they may be comparable in price though.

The initial thought of the 'experts' was that dual cores wouldn't effect benchmark scores in apps that weren't designed specifically for dual core CPUs. We now know that has been proven to be wrong. The experts also said that a dual core would only shift work to the 2nd CPU after the first CPU was 100% utilized. True? Don't know.

As for heat, its the number one killer of computer components. Agreed! Its also a sign of inefficient processes, or wasted energy. You're willing to give up DDR2 (the only benefit being less heat, nothing to do with speed) for DDR. Your choice. Probably offsets any gains for your other components by running the AMD dual core though. The Prescott socket 478 was the hottest running CPU that I'm aware of. I've seen 478 Prescott 3.2s reaching 75C under load. Having said that, every system we've built in the past 2 years + has had that CPU in it, until the LGA775s came out. We're talking over 1000. 'We have yet to get one back for failure of any component.' If they don't survive until their 3 year warranty is up, I'll eat crow since I risked our business reputation on it. So far, its looking like $ well spent. Our 3.2 775 idles at 35C and the highest I've seen to date is 59C under load. Same case and air cooling. So the heat issues were addressed to some extent on the LGA775s.

On the other hand, I have a 3500+ Winchester that's been RMA'd (and replaced) once, after about 3 months of run time with liquid cooling on it. Never got above 35C. We've just started getting back into testing AMDs since the nightmares we experienced with the Duron and prior models failing after about a year. Hmmmmm.

Our customers are looking for 'bargains', which I think is common everywhere today. So bang for the buck is the biggest factor in our systems, also why the bulk of our personal systems are using these same components. Until dual cores become more affordable, they're not worth the extra $ IMO. And any customer who wants to multi-task is better off with a P4 than an AMD single core. Any customer who wants to play a game or load an application or 2 quickly would be better off with an AMD single core. Depending upon how they may want to upgrade in the future also has an impact. Might want DDR2? Then you don't want AMD. Might want dual core later? Then you want A64 or Intel 955 chipset.

I'm not wrong about our decision. I now have a happy wife = priceless. The performance of the 3500+ only made her more skeptical of AMD in general. Honestly, I'd have avoided that situation had I known up front that it wouldn't perform the way she was used to.

Granted, my basis for making this decision may not resemble the basis of most readers of this forum. Enthusiasts and gamers don't use their computers in the same way that my wife does (generally). At some point after they become more affordable we'll get a dual core AMD to toss in my system for testing. For now, the single core AMD still has to prove it can take a licking and keep on ticking. As long as I don't try to do too much at one time, it works for now.

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

guru Shane — 2005-10-27T16:53:12-05:00

You might be convinced, but you are far from right. I mean, if you get it cheaper, then perhaps it's your best bet. It certainly isn't a champion, though.

Ok, check out these benchmarks:

http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Section...;artid=124
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Print.aspx?ArticleId=14832

As you can see, the Intel's dual core doesn't really hold a candle to the x2 4800+ in the benchmark THAT INTEL NORMALLY WINS.... Also note that it is using your precious 955 chipset.

(On a side note, there is no 3.6GHz processor on a 955 chipset, or at least I didn't find any with a Google search, and there definitely isn't any 3.6GHz dual core processor.) If you are looking toward the future of Intel's dual core processors to give you something more powerful, then you might be waiting a while. Go back up to the Intel benchmark that I linked. Please note the 71 degrees Celsius of the 3.2GHz dual core processor while under load. My x2 4800+ gets to about 49 degrees Celsius under load... As system builders, you should know that heat is the primary killer of hardware. Not only are you increasing the temperature of your CPU to a high level, but you are also increasing the temperature of your other hardware by a great deal...

Just to add a little salt to the wound, with a dual core 3.6GHz processor, (if they ever did make one), might be slightly faster than an AMD dual core at 2.4GHz, but the heat would be outrageous and the cost would be ridiculous.

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

dark — 2005-10-27T08:42:48-05:00

Blue,
I'm not sure what benchmarks you're referring to, but on Sisoft Sandra '05 and PCmark05 Intel dual cores have the highest overall scores. The margin increases dramatically with simultaneous processes benchmarks on PCmark05.

At any rate, we're buying parts in AU at whole sale prices, since we're system builders. AMD 4800+ X2 is $1300AUD. You don't want to know what retail is. ;-)

A P4 XE 840 3.2 is $780AUD.

Bang for the buck is still heavily in Intel's favor, as well as many of the top scores.

For example,
Sisoft Sandra '05 CPU Arithmetic Benchmark:
4800+ X2: Dhrystone ALU = 20,630 MIPS, Whetstone FPU/iSSE2 = 7618/9970 MFLOPS
P4 XE 840 Dual Core: Dhrystone ALU = 18,752, Whetstone FPU/iSSE2 = 7801/13,307 MFLOPS
Actual P4 3.2 single core:
11,500 FPU/iSSE2 (55% of the 4800 X2 score)
4024-7021 MFLOPS (70% of the 4800 X2 score)

Another example, (on this benchmark the top 4 scores belong to Intel with even the 3.0 Extreme beating the 4800 X2)
Sisoft Sandra '05 CPU Multimedia Benchmark:
P4 XE 840 3.2: interger X8 iSSE2 = 46041 it/s, Floating-Point X4 = 60,878 it/s
4800+ X2: interger X8 iSSE2 = 45955, Floating-Point X4 = 49,481 it/s
Actual P4 3.2 single core:
24,672 FPU/iSSE2 (53% of the 4800 X2 score)
32,212 (53% of the 4800 X2 score)

Those are P4 3.2 dual core scores. A P4 3.6 dual core should blow away the 4800 X2.

Our 3.2 single core cost us $250AUD and has 70% of the score of the 4800+ X2. So not only does she think she has the best bang for the buck, but so do I. No way we're spending $1300 on a CPU when our $250 CPU does the job. We wouldn't get twice the speed for 3 X the money for the Intel, let alone 5 X the price for the AMD.

For your systems, you're comparing a 915 chipset to an Nforce 4. Apples and oranges. A 915 is slow compared to a 925, let alone compared to a 945 or 955. Nforce 4 is slightly faster than a 955x. The wife was temporarily on a 915 chipset (Gigabyte 8GPNXP-Duo) while I pieced together the 3500+ (Gigabyte K8NS-Ultra, Nforce 3). She noticed a big difference on how slow the 915 was compared to her old 925 chipset (Abit IC7 Max3).

Get that 3.6 on a 955x to see what it can really do and then you've got as fair a comparison as you can get.

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

guru Shane — 2005-10-27T02:38:22-05:00

Wow, you should have talked her into an AMD dual core. They use a lot less power. They are a lot cooler (temperatures). They out-bench the Intel dual cores by a long shot, even with Si-Soft benchmarks. I bet she now thinks that Intel is a much better processor for what she wants to do with it. She is totally missing out. Hyperthreading doesn't hold a candle to my x2 4800+. I have a 3.6GHz P4 with the 915 chipset and DDR2, and it is totally slow in comparison. I have both, so I can tell you this from personal experience.

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

dark — 2005-10-27T00:42:33-05:00

Many thanx to PCGeek for the help in trying to get my system operating correctly.

Just as an update: I've changed quite a few hardware pieces to get maximum performance from my system. Included in this was changing from a 3500+ Winchester to a 3700+ San Diego, OCZ RAM, OCZ PSU, and SATA II hard drives (RAID 0). A nice option in the newer MBs is ability to run PC4000 @ 250MHz with FSB @ 200MHz. This system still gets lag, skips, and occasionally locks up while doing virus scans and playing a game. So I'm convinced that this is a single core, non-hyper-threading, AMD issue.

We also put the 3500+ in a system for the wife since her MB died. Big mistake. Lasted a week before she insisted on going back to her old P4. We benchmarked that system on Sisoft Sandra '05, PCmark05, and 3dmark05 extensively. It fails miserably for what she does. She's the queen of multi-tasking. Her 3.2 P4 simply performs much better for what she does. Her desktop typically has MYOB 410, 2 MSN messengers, Yahoo Messenger, MS Excel, DVD Shrink, 5 to 10 browser windows, and Winamp open.. all at the same time. That's a slow day for her. ;-) The poor 3500+ kept freezing under these conditions. If AVG kicked in with many of the other things at the same time, it needed to be rebooted to unlock it.

I tried very hard to talk her into a dual core CPU, but she couldn't justify the cost. So we've gone with an ASUS P5WD2 Premium, in case she decides later to upgrade to dual core. She's now very happy with the 955x chipset, hyper-threading, DDR2, her old 3.2 P4 and the possibility of upgrading to dual core later.

The prices for dual core are coming down, but still not where they need to be for either of us to switch over yet. In the mean time, I'm just reading everyone else's results with AMD and Intel dual cores to see which is the best bang for the buck, when the time comes.

The lesson I take from this is that if you're only playing games or doing a few things, a single core AMD is unbeatable. However, if you're into multi-tasking, an Intel with hyper-threading or a dual core AMD is a requirement.

Benchmarks do seem to imply that AMD dual cores improve game performance as well.

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

Ian Yeoh — 2005-10-26T19:23:36-05:00

Well, the statement that dual core will not aid gaming is not correct. If you check with BF2, Fear and Far Cry, you'll see that the second core is being used as well. Not fully, but it is being used.

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

guru Shane — 2005-10-26T18:58:00-05:00

Dual core all the way!

Now that it is October and benchmarks have been posted everywhere, it is quite obvious that the dual core processors are the way to go. I have one and it is totally awesome.

While I'm here, I might as well laugh at the very first post in this thread that said, "you'll never use the second core." LMAO

Dual cores are the absolute best processors on the desktop market, and AMD made their version much better than Intel's version.

Re: Re: Dual core processors, AMD takes the lead?

paul riley — 2005-10-26T18:44:00-05:00

AMD 3800 �228.00 AMD X2 3800 �228.00

So Which one should I buy?