1-25-05: 64bit < HT ?

[housecat]

Originally posted by: everydae

Originally posted by: housecat
I think an A64 with HT would rape. On the other hand, a P4 with 64bit wouldnt be so woo-woo. It'd just be nice.

A64 with HT (Not HTT ) will never rape anyone. If A64 had HT, I think its performance would be worse than now, since A64 already uses its short pipe-line most of time anyway. With no idle pipe-line, HT is useless.

Thats actually incorrect, i believe there is quite a bit of idle exec units on the A64. It'd work well together.
The short pipes should work well with HT as well, as on false branch predictions it would be flushed much faster, with much faster recovery.

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: 1stoff

Originally posted by: housecat
all it is really about is this: would you rather have 64bit or HT on your current processor.

if you have a AXP, choose between one of the two.
if you ahve A64, keep 64 or take HT instead.
if you have P4, keep HT or take 64 instead.


I'd take a A64, but give up 64bit anyday for HT. I think an A64 with HT would rape. On the other hand, a P4 with 64bit wouldnt be so woo-woo. It'd just be nice.

Not that there arent P4s with 64bit.. I'm just saying given the option to have any processor, and give or take one of the given options.

by your own words 64bit OS is not available as yet (you seem to conveniently forget Linux) so how can anyone honestly compare the two then make a choice

if you are comparing hardware then it is a fact that the A64 is ahead of the P4 in nearly every benchmark. if you compare 64bit to HT then there is no comparison, HT is a feature that "helps" the very poor P4 architechture that is specifically designed to ramp/scale MHz as dictated by the marketing /pr department of intel, 64bit is a totally different animal that cannot be compared, but when it is fully adopted, as was 8bit to 16bit, then to 32bit (can you remember that far back??, i can) then it will be awesome

that part in bold is funny.


1. i see no proof it will be awesome. show me a shred of proof showing that it "will" be awesome. i've seen marginal gains, and the gains that are there are due to the extra registers, not crunching data in 64bit chunks.

2. there is a OS available, its just in beta. and sure, theres linux.
so how can you say it will be "awesome" when gains are marginal today, at best?


im being serious, and not trying to be sarcastic when I ask "where are the gains going to come from?"
plz fill me in.. because all of my reading has led me to believe its overhyped and obviously, underused.

 

[Avalon]

I voted for 64bit because I have no use for HT. I do not multitask or use anything that benefits from HT, nor will I in the forseeable future. However, I do plan on running Windows 64 when that does release and shows tangible benefits vs. 32 bit performance.

 

[1stoff]

why do you find that funny??, it is a fact of life and if you did not know this then you must have been hiding in a cupboard for the last 4 years

you also seem to ignore the transitions from 8bit to 16bit to 32bit, were you able to walk/were you born yet??

how can you talk about "marginal gains" when software to compare is in its infancy ??

reading, no matter how much you do, is only of any use if you can come to a sensible conclusion............reading in bulk does not equal reading and totally understanding

 

[housecat]

o geez. mr. sensitive here.

my first computer was a commodore64. yes i was walking. and i think i was born, let me check that calender..

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: housecat

Originally posted by: 1stoff

Originally posted by: housecat
all it is really about is this: would you rather have 64bit or HT on your current processor.

if you have a AXP, choose between one of the two.
if you ahve A64, keep 64 or take HT instead.
if you have P4, keep HT or take 64 instead.


I'd take a A64, but give up 64bit anyday for HT. I think an A64 with HT would rape. On the other hand, a P4 with 64bit wouldnt be so woo-woo. It'd just be nice.

Not that there arent P4s with 64bit.. I'm just saying given the option to have any processor, and give or take one of the given options.

by your own words 64bit OS is not available as yet (you seem to conveniently forget Linux) so how can anyone honestly compare the two then make a choice

if you are comparing hardware then it is a fact that the A64 is ahead of the P4 in nearly every benchmark. if you compare 64bit to HT then there is no comparison, HT is a feature that "helps" the very poor P4 architechture that is specifically designed to ramp/scale MHz as dictated by the marketing /pr department of intel, 64bit is a totally different animal that cannot be compared, but when it is fully adopted, as was 8bit to 16bit, then to 32bit (can you remember that far back??, i can) then it will be awesome

that part in bold is funny.


1. i see no proof it will be awesome. show me a shred of proof showing that it "will" be awesome. i've seen marginal gains, and the gains that are there are due to the extra registers, not crunching data in 64bit chunks.

2. there is a OS available, its just in beta. and sure, theres linux.
so how can you say it will be "awesome" when gains are marginal today, at best?


im being serious, and not trying to be sarcastic when I ask "where are the gains going to come from?"
plz fill me in.. because all of my reading has led me to believe its overhyped and obviously, underused.

Those extra Registers will make it awesome. In a previous post your "friend" suggested that AMD could enable those extra Registers, the truth is that isn't true. x86(32) does not support them, but x86-64 does, which is why they don't currently work.

If you had started this thread a few years back before details of x86-64 were known, your position would have had merit. However, in light of the details x86-64 isn't just about 4gb+ ram capacity or 64bit chucks of data are moot points

 

[housecat]

I dont think my position is wrong or bad. You are sucker punching HT and its merits quite a bit here. I think its an equally useful feature as AMD64, if not more so..

but I wish ppl would quit seeing me as a Intel fanboy. Do I like their stuff? YES! I like all the "stuff".

A P4 is NOT a bad processor. Its not THAT far behind the A64s, seriously even in gaming. Is it slower? Yes but its not unplayable, lethargic or pathetic by any means.

Its a great gaming CPU, with capabilities that the A64 is not capable of. And the response would be "but it doesnt have the capabilities the A64 has".. and thats true, unless you get the EMT64 version.
Even then, the A64 is the superior processor. But it does not mean HT is useless, or somehow less of a feature because A64 overshadows the P4 overall.

 

[Zebo]

HT is a joke in multithreaded apps, but show some benefit in certain multitaking events. But then AMD64's win natual speed wise over HT in many multitaking benchmarks...64bit? well A64 will trounce HT in 64 bit envrioment Also remeber HT slows you down in some apps...


Seriously a better poll I think is: HT p4 vs. Low latency provided by A64. It's true that HT can provide a large benefit in some multitasking situations, however it's less responsive than the Athlon 64 incredibly LL which you see all the time, even in some situations involving heavy multitasking.

 

[clarkey01]

Didnt Duive do a massive test with HT and it showed massive gains ?

 

[clarkey01]

Didnt Duive do a massive test with HT and it showed massive gains ?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: housecat
all it is really about is this: would you rather have 64bit or HT on your current processor.

if you have a AXP, choose between one of the two.
if you ahve A64, keep 64 or take HT instead.
if you have P4, keep HT or take 64 instead.


I'd take a A64, but give up 64bit anyday for HT. I think an A64 with HT would rape. On the other hand, a P4 with 64bit wouldnt be so woo-woo. It'd just be nice.

Not that there arent P4s with 64bit.. I'm just saying given the option to have any processor, and give or take one of the given options.

And here is exactly where your poll is flawed. You want to take 64-bit processing in general, not the AMD64 feature set, and compmare it to Hyper-Threading, which is a proprietary feature like AMD64.

If you want to compare things in general, it would be 64-bit vs. multi-threading... NOT Hyper-Threading. In which case I would chose multi-threading.

If you want to compare specific features, it would be AMD64 vs. Hyper-Threading. In which case I would chose AMD64.

 

[housecat]

well fair enough.

i like the 64bit vs multithreading comparison.


i've decided to build a A64 rig, does that mean I'm now forced to join in with these hordes?

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: housecat
well fair enough.

i like the 64bit vs multithreading comparison.


i've decided to build a A64 rig, does that mean I'm now forced to join in with these hordes?

No, it means if/when you do any benchmarking, you're obligated to make fair comparisons

 

[otispunkmeyer]

HT is useful now, 64Bit will be usefull later

 

[housecat]

im getting SLI 6800GTs/3000+ A64/320gig RAID-0 array.. should be zippy.

i want what some people are getting out of the winchester.. like FX55 speeds, or near. little extra mhz to make up for less cache, 2.6-2.7ghz, if not, who cares. 3000+ is really nice. just not enough for SLI madness.

that one is cheap to replace is i break it, and cheap enough to replace with dual core in '06 as well.. win/win situation.


but anyway, i would trade the 64bit capabilities (even the whole package, registers included) for HT.. thats just me. it'd be immediately useful today, in XP Pro.. I (like most ppl) will have moved on from this 3000+ A64 stuff to something newer by the time XP64 is ever mainstream anyway (if ever).

i just fail to buy into that part of the tech of the A64.

 

[stevty2889]

This entire argument of which is better, will be worthless in the near future anyway, because both AMD and Intel will have dual core CPU's with 64bit extensions, so both will have the 64 bit, and both will have the multitasking capabilities, supperior to hyperthreading since they will have 2 physical cores, and it will all come down to which one performes better over all, since their capabilities will be the same.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: housecat
im getting SLI 6800GTs/3000+ A64/320gig RAID-0 array.. should be zippy.

i want what some people are getting out of the winchester.. like FX55 speeds, or near. little extra mhz to make up for less cache, 2.6-2.7ghz, if not, who cares. 3000+ is really nice. just not enough for SLI madness.

that one is cheap to replace is i break it, and cheap enough to replace with dual core in '06 as well.. win/win situation.


but anyway, i would trade the 64bit capabilities (even the whole package, registers included) for HT.. thats just me. it'd be immediately useful today, in XP Pro.. I (like most ppl) will have moved on from this 3000+ A64 stuff to something newer by the time XP64 is ever mainstream anyway (if ever).

i just fail to buy into that part of the tech of the A64.

I still don't think Hyper-Threading would do anything for an Athlon-64.

 

[housecat]

well, either way. im tired of this topic. you might be right, and might be wrong.

but we'll settle on: you're right, I'm wrong.

i think dualcore will be close enough. but i think HT would be even more beneficial on dualcored CPUs.. even more opportunities to place threads.
but HT will prob be dropped in all the new dualcores, it will be nice to have everyone "standardize" around dualcore and 64bit.. finally.

 

[MrK6]

Why the heck are you comparing 64 bit and HT? THat's like comparing apples and a bottle of motor oil, no parallels. If you wanted a good discussion, how about HT vs. the AMD64's on-chip memory controller. Man fanboys annoy me...

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: MrK6
Why the heck are you comparing 64 bit and HT? THat's like comparing apples and a f***ing bottle of motor oil, no parallels. You are an Intel fan boy, there's no way around it. If you wanted a good discussion, how about HT vs. the AMD64's on-chip memory controller. OH WAIT, WE CAN'T DO THAT, INTEL WOULD "LOSE." Pick a good comparison and quit being a fanboy. I own both kind's of CPU's and there's no way around it, AMD is better than an Intel right now. Live with it.

Wow that was a tirade.. boy.

I actually do like AMD. And I actually am openminded. AMD doesnt have all the cards, HT is not useless. And AMD does not dominate in every area.

live with that.

 

[Vee]

There's a couple of things to consider. One of them is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, of make or break nature.

A Windows32 application cannot work reliably, using more than 1½ GB memory for data and code!
And by 1.8GB I would have expect it to already have terminated with out of memory.

Forget that silly 4GB figure that is so often quoted around the 32 vs 64 issue. It's wrong, and is derived from a simplistic, incomplete enough to be false, belief of how software and cpus handle ram.
It doesn't matter how many PC rags or web articles you see making the same claim: "32bits = 4GB".
It's still false! A 32-bit processor and 32-bit software can access more than 4GB ram. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think current 32-bit cpu's are good for 64GB?

But a particular software format, like Windows32, is NOT able to access that much.
This is a price Windows32 pays for having a flat virtual space. And it's worth it!
To break the 1½ GB 32-bit barrier, we have to migrate to another software format.

We could go to a 32-bit software model that can use, like, 64GB. But it would be horrendously crippled, in ever respect. Basically, we would be back to Windows3.11 technology.

That's why everybody, Apple, Windows and Linux, is going 64-bit instead.
And in order to be able to use more than 1½GB memory, a bunch of heavyweight apps and games are going 64-bit asap. Mark very well, that this is NOT ram that I'm talking about! I'm talking about memory in the apps virtual space! When you run out of virtual space, you do so regardless if you have only 1Gb ram, - or surprise, surprise, 4GB ram. It will make absolutely no difference at all!

I would suggest anyone who plans to still use the computer in some future years, even in a secondary role, even if you insist on Intel and ht, to seriously consider 5x1 or 6x0 series P4s, to get 64-bit support.

Hyper threading feature, compared to this, is utterly below the horizon, complete nonsens.



Then there's the other side of this poll. - Is Intel's HT feature preferable to Athlon64's superior 32-bit performance?

That depends entirely on what you do, and what applications you use.

I've used both as budget engineering workstations. The A64 is on my applications utterly superior. It MAULS the P4. The A64 is such glorious working comfort, that ht is definitely a nonissue.

It may very well be due to that the software is poorly optimized for the P4. It doesn't matter. This just illustrates another of AMD's big advantages. You don't NEED special P4 optimized software. It's still fast. And that counts for a lot of software floating around. The margin is often huge, like +40%.

Multitasking doesn't change this picture for me. I'm well aware that it could, for some purposes.
But the way I do this is, when I have a large computation running in the background and also do interactive work in an app that also demands lot's of cpu power, during editing, is this: I drop the base priority for the background process in the taskmanager. Then the foreground app works so smooth, it's hard to impossible to know that something is running in the background. This works for me and the current app.

It's far from ideal solution though. Apparently, it's not guaranteed to always work for all apps. There's a number of preferable solutions. One of them would be that any software is smart enough to realize that timeconsuming computations should be done in a thread with low enough priority, not to disturb any other processes. (Why are so many Windows programmers so multithread stupid?) Another preferable solution would be hyper threading or multicore or dual core.

But it's not a given thing that the later ones are competitive in terms of performance and cost. My choice between A64 performance and Intel ht, is A64. But that's not why I voted for 64-bit. The reason I did that, was entirely due to the future addressing capabilities of 64-bit software.

 

[Jeff7181]

It doesn't matter how many PC rags or web articles you see making the same claim: "32bits = 4GB".
It's still false! A 32-bit processor and 32-bit software can access more than 4GB ram. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think current 32-bit cpu's are good for 64GB?

To be fair, people often use incorrect terminology when talking about this. It's been a while since I read up on it, but more informed sources use the correct term, "physically address" rather than "access." Because as we all know, the Xeon is a 32-bit processor and is capable of using more than 4 GB of RAM. I'm guessing it's better (easier, faster, etc.) if the processor has the native ability to physically address more than 4 GB rather than have it be able to use more than 4 GB with software "tricks."

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: Vee
There's a couple of things to consider. One of them is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT, of make or break nature.

A Windows32 application cannot work reliably, using more than 1½ GB memory for data and code!
And by 1.8GB I would have expect it to already have terminated with out of memory.

Forget that silly 4GB figure that is so often quoted around the 32 vs 64 issue. It's wrong, and is derived from a simplistic, incomplete enough to be false, belief of how software and cpus handle ram.
It doesn't matter how many PC rags or web articles you see making the same claim: "32bits = 4GB".
It's still false! A 32-bit processor and 32-bit software can access more than 4GB ram. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think current 32-bit cpu's are good for 64GB?

But a particular software format, like Windows32, is NOT able to access that much.
This is a price Windows32 pays for having a flat virtual space. And it's worth it!
To break the 1½ GB 32-bit barrier, we have to migrate to another software format.

We could go to a 32-bit software model that can use, like, 64GB. But it would be horrendously crippled, in ever respect. Basically, we would be back to Windows3.11 technology.

That's why everybody, Apple, Windows and Linux, is going 64-bit instead.
And in order to be able to use more than 1½GB memory, a bunch of heavyweight apps and games are going 64-bit asap. Mark very well, that this is NOT ram that I'm talking about! I'm talking about memory in the apps virtual space! When you run out of virtual space, you do so regardless if you have only 1Gb ram, - or surprise, surprise, 4GB ram. It will make absolutely no difference at all!

I would suggest anyone who plans to still use the computer in some future years, even in a secondary role, even if you insist on Intel and ht, to seriously consider 5x1 or 6x0 series P4s, to get 64-bit support.

Hyper threading feature, compared to this, is utterly below the horizon, complete nonsens.



Then there's the other side of this poll. - Is Intel's HT feature preferable to Athlon64's superior 32-bit performance?

That depends entirely on what you do, and what applications you use.

I've used both as budget engineering workstations. The A64 is on my applications utterly superior. It MAULS the P4. The A64 is such glorious working comfort, that ht is definitely a nonissue.

It may very well be due to that the software is poorly optimized for the P4. It doesn't matter. This just illustrates another of AMD's big advantages. You don't NEED special P4 optimized software. It's still fast. And that counts for a lot of software floating around. The margin is often huge, like +40%.

Multitasking doesn't change this picture for me. I'm well aware that it could, for some purposes.
But the way I do this is, when I have a large computation running in the background and also do interactive work in an app that also demands lot's of cpu power, during editing, is this: I drop the base priority for the background process in the taskmanager. Then the foreground app works so smooth, it's hard to impossible to know that something is running in the background. This works for me and the current app.

It's far from ideal solution though. Apparently, it's not guaranteed to always work for all apps. There's a number of preferable solutions. One of them would be that any software is smart enough to realize that timeconsuming computations should be done in a thread with low enough priority, not to disturb any other processes. (Why are so many Windows programmers so multithread stupid?) Another preferable solution would be hyper threading or multicore or dual core.

But it's not a given thing that the later ones are competitive in terms of performance and cost. My choice between A64 performance and Intel ht, is A64. But that's not why I voted for 64-bit. The reason I did that, was entirely due to the future addressing capabilities of 64-bit software.

And I'd completely agree. But my point was that by the time the future addressing capabilities are needed (and actually addressed in mainstream software like Windows64), I'll have moved on from my A64 3000+ to a faster one, or a dual cored one.

Thats why I say: I'd trade the 64bit on my processor today, and take HT.. by the time this all pans out, a 3000+ will be ancient, and I will surely have moved on from this $150 processor..

i'd hope.

 

[Jeff7181]

Thats why I say: I'd trade the 64bit on my processor today, and take HT

You're assuming you'd see the same performance increase on an Athlon-64 that you do on a Pentium 4, and I just don't see that happening... I don't even think you'd see half the performance increase. If you're saying you'd rather have the performance increase HT gives you on a P4 than 64-bit processing gives you on an Athlon-64 RIGHT NOW, ok then... that's stating the obvious since 64-bit processing does nothing to increase speed by itself unless you're working with HUGE numbers that a 32-bit processor would normally have to split up to crunch.

 

[housecat]

yes it is stating the obvious.
my poll was about seeing if anyone else got it or not.

but if you get hypothetical, i do think AMD64 would do well with HT.. IIRC the A64 rarely uses all of its execution units. i think the number was 7 out of 9 tops or something.
either way, it could not hurt performance.

but i would probably agree that its a safe bet HT wont be used on any dual cores. its not nearly as efficient as dual cores due to the increased contention over cache access. while dual cores only contend for main memory, IIRC.


I cannot remember the exact numbers for the number of A64 exec units.. but I did find this in my firefox history:

. In fact the execution units in both AMD and Intel chips really are not being used to capacity, and designers actually have to think about giving the execution units enough to do. Intel confronted this problem through their Hyper-Threading technology, which will allow multi-processor operating systems to use a single processor as if it is actually two processors. By sending twice as much data at the thing as usual, they will keep the execution units busier.

(http://www.pcmech.com/show/amd/64/)


Part of the reason I pulled out from my own thread is because I got a bit tired of people saying I was a noob. When I know full well THEY are the amd fagboy fanboy noobs. Its clear most here have their head up AMD's arse, and I dont have to back up every statement I make.. I know I'm right damnit.
for the most part.

jeffy, you seem to have done your research. :beer: