AMD X2 4400+ Bottleneck

[Refractoryman]

What causes the bottleneck in systems. I have the AMD X2 4200+, 1gb ram, ATI Radeon 8500, Asus A8V deluxe mobo? Also (3) ide hardrives. I was running a Norton virus check, Ad-Aware Scan and making an Adobe file at the same time and my system came to a crawl. Even though the cpu, ram and mobo are ltest tech. does the hd's or video card create a bottleneck?

 

[imported_Kensai]

What kind of hard drives?
That 8500 is... A fossil..

 

[Duvie]

Your HDD's...The 2 scans alone, along with writing the adobe file are all IO intensive. Your HDD's can only do one thing at once. If you were doing the scans on separate drives it should have been fine, but if you did the first 2 things on the same drive there is your issue...

X2 and no other cpu is going to correct your issues there....

 

[Gamingphreek]

That is a HDD bottleneck. You aren't even straining the CPU. You are scanning the HDD with 2 seperate programs as well as writing. So there are 2 Read Operations and 1 Write Operation going on at the same time.

THe only possible way to alleviate this, somewhat, is NCQ...which will, for lack of a better word, "organize", these tasks.

-Kevin

 

[Refractoryman]

Thats kind of what I thought but wanted confirmation. So then what does "MULTITASKING" entail? And is it more CPU or hard drive intensive?

 

[Duvie]

It is cpu intensve apps....It can control HDD speed and the fact the HDD's own mechanical parts can only do one thing at a time...

Do you want to alleviate this?? Run multiple HDDs...That is what I do. It can actually speed up time in certain application where you are reading a file and writing a new file. I have tested this...

I like to get a fast raptor drive for OS...loading all my apps...but keep files I work on on the backup drive or drives of 80-120gb...I dont raid...

 

[bersl2]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
THe only possible way to alleviate this, somewhat, is NCQ...which will, for lack of a better word, "organize", these tasks.

How about "schedule"?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

NCQ degrades performance in a lot of tests. Best leave it off like I do.

 

[TGS]

Older but good info.

For a simple home setup it would be a better solution to run specific disk intensive operations on a seperate disk. OS on one, Games/Apps on a second, Adobe on a third. With your existing setup. It would still be a good idea to avoid running a decent amount of high IO operations against the disk, with that particular setup.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: DLeRium
NCQ degrades performance in a lot of tests. Best leave it off like I do.

By likw 2%. However when doing a lot of HDD intensive tasks performance increases can be upwards of 25%.

It doesn't degrade performance in a lot of tests, i dont know what you are talking about.

-Kevin

 

[seanp789]

HDD bottleneck all the way, im surprised you didnt guess the before your posted. I mean come on, GPU bottleneck? all those 3D intensive spyware and virus scans?

 

[Novercalis]

hrmm, okay than, question:

I plan on doing lots of video editing, video encoding/decoding, tons and tons of rendering, ripping, burning, photoshop, maya.

I was in the impression that X2 would cover all those grounds in "multitasking".
so I figured him scanning and whatnot would beokay.
but since its not the X2 but the HDD, will I run into that as well?

If so, how can I increase my effiency of multitasking and writing/reading.

---------------------------

Let me try and answer my question and see if Im right on this now:

I assume, with my future rig im building:

not sure if the case I have or having enough cable to allow it:
2x250g HDD, 60g HDD, 40g HDD

40g HDD = OS, adaware, benchmarking programs, minor programs, games

60g HDD - mp3, Avid, primere, Maya, Photoshop

2x250g HDD - video editing workplace, inconjuction with the 60g HDD as well

is that a good setup to relieve stress on bottlenecking?

should I place Avid in 1 HDD, Adobe in another and Maya in another if I tend to do multitasking all 3 programs at once? so its not reading from the same HDD but from seperate HDD?

Whats the pro and Con of a Raptor? will it be efficient for me to have it or too much to bother due to cost.

 

[Gamingphreek]

plan on doing lots of video editing, video encoding/decoding, tons and tons of rendering, ripping, burning, photoshop, maya.

These are not HDD bound. With the Scans you are doing very intensive reading on the HDD.

-Kevin

 

[Novercalis]

okay, thank you, and as far as:
4 HDD, is it better to have all 4 programs I tend to use consatnly open and running from 1 individual HDD or from 4 seperates HDD?

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek

plan on doing lots of video editing, video encoding/decoding, tons and tons of rendering, ripping, burning, photoshop, maya.

These are not HDD bound. With the Scans you are doing very intensive reading on the HDD.

-Kevin

He might want another gig of ram though.

 

[Gamingphreek]

With all the stuff he is planning on doing it couldn't hurt.

I wouldn't invest in 4 seperate HDD's. Just schedule the scans at night at different times or something. Buying 4 more HDD's is IMO a waste of money to simply finish an adware/spyware scan.

-Kevin

 

[Novercalis]

well I have the 60g and 40g I wasn't planning to use the 40g at all.

it was going to be 2x250g hdd because I do need it.
60g hdd for OS, apps, games.

but now when I was thinking about it.

40 gig for the os, apps, games
60 gig mp3, video apps, work apps

than again, i shouldn't talk since currently both are ide and I believe im going for SATA, SATA2 or Raid?
granted once again, I know jack sh!t on those..
im still stuck with computer knowledge of 1999...
where Raid were just in the talks, 9600 ati pro was the IN thing. lol.

 

[sandorski]

That reminds me, if you are using Maya, upgrade the Video card.

 

[Novercalis]

im going to get the 7800 gtx, eVGA

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: Novercalis
well I have the 60g and 40g I wasn't planning to use the 40g at all.

it was going to be 2x250g hdd because I do need it.
60g hdd for OS, apps, games.

but now when I was thinking about it.

40 gig for the os, apps, games
60 gig mp3, video apps, work apps

than again, i shouldn't talk since currently both are ide and I believe im going for SATA, SATA2 or Raid?
granted once again, I know jack sh!t on those..
im still stuck with computer knowledge of 1999...
where Raid were just in the talks, 9600 ati pro was the IN thing. lol.

Just get a huge 400gig HDD. RAID isn't worth it for the average person. In fact RAID-0 (which you would be using with 2x 250) has lower read speeds and higher write speeds which probably isn't what you want

-Kevin

 

[Novercalis]

havent seen a 400gig HDD..
max I seen was maxtor 300gig.

hrmm, 400 - partition + 40 or 60 dedicated OS n crap..

okay so forget RAID, IDE vs SATA vs SATA2... whats the difference.

or...

400 gig partitioned and the smallest raptor for OS and apps?
btw the 40 gig is a external hdd, so I can throw that in the mix anytime.

 

[Gamingphreek]

400Gig SATA Seagate Barracuda should be at Newegg.

As for the 36.7 raptor. Biggest waste of money. It is on average slower and louder than your standard 7200 drive. The 74gig isn't worth it either but it is MUCH improved on the first gen 36gig raptor. I still wouldn't recommend it.

If you have the money a SCSI drive will really speed everything up.

-Kevin

 

[Novercalis]

arrrgghh!!! rolfmo.. stop recommdening new things! espically terms I havent heard/read, know about.
its hurting my ego making me feel like a newbie.
wait, I am a newbie at this point.

so um.. SCSI what?. link or info please lol....
grr grr

thanks for your time helping me.

 

[Markfw]

SCSI ? Calling Mechbgon !!!!!! I think most 15k SCSI, U320 drives, and a good caching controller will do. An LSI U320-2 (I think thats the current name) and a Maxtor 15k.4 will kick butt, but maybe mech will chime in and help. If you really have the bucks, uses that in taid0x 4 drives or so. Believe me, you can't kill that ! (I know, see sig)

 

[Gamingphreek]

Originally posted by: Novercalis
arrrgghh!!! rolfmo.. stop recommdening new things! espically terms I havent heard/read, know about.
its hurting my ego making me feel like a newbie.
wait, I am a newbie at this point.

so um.. SCSI what?. link or info please lol....
grr grr

thanks for your time helping me.

SCSI has been around forever.

Google this. It is just another interface, but much more expensive (but much faster).

-Kevin