Athlon64 X2 and gaming

[Pabster]

Originally posted by: ElTorrente
I stress tested my PSU a few times - running defrags, HDtach, SiSandra benches, a couple instances of Prime95, etc.. all at the same time in order to push the PSU.. and it doesn't flinch. My system is totally stable and I can thank my PSU for much of that.

:thumbsup:

PC P&C are as good as it gets, period.

 

[Furen]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
[A "hyperthreading bit?" I've never heard of that. If by hyperthreading you mean SMP, then ok... I understand. But hyperthreading is actually "SMT," not SMP, which is what dual cores are.

From what I understand (which I'm not absolutely sure about since I dont have an X2) software that is optimized for hyperthreading (SMT) but not for SMP uses the second core on the X2s because AMD enabled the CPU ID bit for hyperthreading. Basically the X2s advertise themselves as HT capable to take advantage of HT optimized software.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Furen

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
[A "hyperthreading bit?" I've never heard of that. If by hyperthreading you mean SMP, then ok... I understand. But hyperthreading is actually "SMT," not SMP, which is what dual cores are.

From what I understand (which I'm not absolutely sure about since I dont have an X2) software that is optimized for hyperthreading (SMT) but not for SMP uses the second core on the X2s because AMD enabled the CPU ID bit for hyperthreading. Basically the X2s advertise themselves as HT capable to take advantage of HT optimized software.

Do you have any links or anything about that? I can't find any, but I'd like to read about it. It doesn't make sense at all to me that anything would be identified on the hardware level as supporting "hyperthreading." Supporting SMT or SMP would be more logical since Hyperthreading is more like Intel's proprietary name for using SMT. Maybe I'm just being anal about the terminology.

 

[Furen]

Here's an old forum link:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59766&highlight=opteron

X86 secret (or whatever the website is called) did an article on this a long time ago so I'll paraphrase it a bit:

Basically whenever a program asks the bios if the cpu is HT capable it looks up this one bit at a certain address (which I dont care to look for right now). This does not mean that the A64s are SMT-capable, it just means that the cpu tricks programs into thinking it is. You ask why use "Hyperthreading"? AMD is not using hyperthreading at all. They use the same CPU ID bit because they want to take advantage of Intel's HT optimizations on mostly singlethreaded programs that dont support SMP, there's nothing on the CPU that has anything to do with HT except for that CPUID bit being 1 instead of a 0.

 

[marciorr]

I'm running SCCT, GTR and Battlefield 2. All OK.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Furen
Here's an old forum link:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59766&highlight=opteron

X86 secret (or whatever the website is called) did an article on this a long time ago so I'll paraphrase it a bit:

Basically whenever a program asks the bios if the cpu is HT capable it looks up this one bit at a certain address (which I dont care to look for right now). This does not mean that the A64s are SMT-capable, it just means that the cpu tricks programs into thinking it is. You ask why use "Hyperthreading"? AMD is not using hyperthreading at all. They use the same CPU ID bit because they want to take advantage of Intel's HT optimizations on mostly singlethreaded programs that dont support SMP, there's nothing on the CPU that has anything to do with HT except for that CPUID bit being 1 instead of a 0.

So the programs look for "HT" and not SMT or SMP? Sounds odd... but it would work out well for Intel, wouldn't it?

 

[chinkgai]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1668175

new thread about possible solutions and maybe reasons why

 

[rage12345]

Asus A8N-SLI Premium (1.06 Bios)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (Manchester) Retail
2GB (2x1GB) OCZ Platinum PC3200 2-3-5-2 1T @2.6v
Asus 7800GTX 256MB PCIx16
Dual Maxtor 300GB 16MB Cache SATA-II Hard Drives (Mirror)
Antec True Power 2.0 550W Power Supply
Creative SB Live 5.1
Coolermaster ATC-201 Aluminum Case

Windows XP Professional SP2 w/ Latest Patches (Clean Install)
Nvidia 77.77 Drivers
Latest Creative Drivers

Games Played: Soldier of Fortune II, Warcraft III, Doom3, HL2, BF2, and Guild Wars - All play without any problems

 

[Bull Dog]

Originally posted by: n7

Originally posted by: klah
Not always.
Lineage 2 for example: http://forums.amd.com/index.php?showtopic=53288

Oh crappy...
Unreal Engine games have issues with X2s 🙁

I think i'll be putting my X2 ideas on hold, since i play UT2k4 almost daily, & the thought of having issues with it would make me very annoyed...

My UT2004 has 0 problems with my 4400+

Pariah, based on the Unreal 2.1 engine, does have start-up problems (it crashes unless affinity is set). I havn't reinstalled Windows or installed the X2 drivers. Or the latest patch for pariah.