can an AMD Athlon 2 X2 be snappier than an E8500?

[toyota]

I am mainly referring to things like normal daily task like opening documents and such. I know that sounds silly but it looks to be true for those things unless there is something else at play here. now I had an E8500 for over 2.5 years so I know exactly how everything responded and felt. well with the Athlon 2 X2 something as simple as opening a text document is instantaneous where on the E8500 there was always a slight delay. I even remember noticing that coming from my old 5000 X2. it cant be the hard drive since my E8500 pc had a WD Black where this is just entry level Hitachi.

also I had spent over 4 hours playing Fallout 3 on my E8500 pc and it always would hitch every few seconds when walking around no matter what settings I used. well on this Athlon 2 X2 pc there was none of that when I played a couple days ago. it would only hitch when it had to load that new area but the other time no hitching at all. that was on the same version of the game and video card drivers.

and no that was not in my head because I spent hours just trying to figure out why it was hitching on my old pc and this played perfectly smooth in the same exact spots.

is it possible that the old FSB was responsible for that stuff? I know Anandtech even mentioned it while back in a cpu review.

 

[nonameo]

no, more likely it's a driver thing. Or something like that.

 

[pkilway01]

Difference in RAM memory size/speed? I know when I went from 2GB to 4GB for the first time I was AMAZED at how much faster my system responded. I think it might be a combination of variables from going from one platform to the other that's giving you a better overall experience.

 

[toyota]

Difference in RAM memory size/speed? I know when I went from 2GB to 4GB for the first time I was AMAZED at how much faster my system responded. I think it might be a combination of variables from going from one platform to the other that's giving you a better overall experience.

both have 4gb of ram. honestly I expected this cheap pc to be less responsive in every way but the exact opposite is true.

 

[Tuna-Fish]

It's not the CPU. I think it's probably software -- bad drivers, more demanding OS, a more stupid and resource-intensive virus scanner, a "helpful" tool installed with print drivers or something. Have you removed hardware without properly removing the drivers? Some of the more stupid ones poll all the possibilities every few second just in case you add it back. What software differences are there between your old computer and the new one? If the new one has a factory installed windows with some preinstalled crapware, reinstall windows now.

If there are noticeable hitches every few seconds, you might find the culprit by graphing the cpu usage of all processes, and looking which one has spikes where your hitches are.

Remember that it really can be something completely stupid like buggy network drivers or something (even if you are not using the network). Anything, even completely unrelated to what you are doing, can slow down the computer by consuming resources.

 

[GaiaHunter]

There has been talk in the past that the phenoms felt more responsive than Core2, but since it can't be measured and most people don't have 2 or more systems side by side to compare, it never got much attention and probably was dismissed as amd fanboyism.

 

[toyota]

It's not the CPU. I think it's probably software -- bad drivers, more demanding OS, a more stupid and resource-intensive virus scanner, a "helpful" tool installed with print drivers or something. Have you removed hardware without properly removing the drivers? Some of the more stupid ones poll all the possibilities every few second just in case you add it back. What software differences are there between your old computer and the new one? If the new one has a factory installed windows with some preinstalled crapware, reinstall windows now.

If there are noticeable hitches every few seconds, you might find the culprit by graphing the cpu usage of all processes, and looking which one has spikes where your hitches are.

Remember that it really can be something completely stupid like buggy network drivers or something (even if you are not using the network). Anything, even completely unrelated to what you are doing, can slow down the computer by consuming resources.

sorry but that makes no sense. my E8500 pc had NOTHING on it where as this pc has tons of bloatware. so if anything the opposite should be true. and again things like opening a text document were faster even on my old HP pc with 5000 X2 than on my E8500 pc.

 

[AtenRa]

Athlon has an IMC, Core 2 Duo dont have an IMC, I believe thats making the difference.

Since all Intel Core i processors have an IMC you will not see any difference between Athlon/Phenom now.

When i had the Core 2 Quad 9450 i had to OC more than 3.2GHz in order to get the same feeling in windows as i had with AMD Athlon/Phenom CPUs at lower frequencies.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I had dismissed this as just coming from AMD fanboys, but knowing you, perhaps there really is more to this story.

I know that my C2Q Q9300 @ 3.0, still has really bad DPC latency, with my GTX460 card installed. Bars that go to 4000us using the DPC latency tool.

Could you check the DPC latency on your new machine? App screenshot would be preferable.

That could explain the "hitching" of the C2Q system.

Edit: I see that you posted in that thread.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2176345&highlight=dpc+latency

 

[toyota]

I had dismissed this as just coming from AMD fanboys, but knowing you, perhaps there really is more to this story.

I know that my C2Q Q9300 @ 3.0, still has really bad DPC latency, with my GTX460 card installed. Bars that go to 4000us using the DPC latency tool.

Could you check the DPC latency on your new machine? App screenshot would be preferable.

That could explain the "hitching" of the C2Q system.

Edit: I see that you posted in that thread.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2176345&highlight=dpc+latency

what do I with that latency checker? I have it running and 452 is the max it has hit. am I supposed to try and run a game while its on?



image upload

 

[Arkaign]

Hmm yeah something definitely wrong. I played FO3 on an old overclocked E5200 on a cheapie microatx mobo w/Intel IGP (had a 9600GT installed at the time IIRC), and it was buttery smooth, no hitching at all. It was on generic DDR2-800 as well, although I lowered the speed to 667 prior to overclocking, I think it ended up back around 800 after OC.

I have seen systems that just don't seem to work as well as they should given their components. About the only thing I've seen that's dependably successful in getting rid of problems like that is moving to a new mobo and reloading windows and drivers from scratch (obviously I try a fresh load of windows/updates/drivers on the existing config first).

Oddly, I had an opposite problem, I had a PhII 805 setup that ran like poop on a 760G mobo (using GTS250), and changing nothing but the mobo to a different model and reloading changed everything. Went from sluggish to great.

 

[nonameo]

sorry but that makes no sense. my E8500 pc had NOTHING on it where as this pc has tons of bloatware. so if anything the opposite should be true. and again things like opening a text document were faster even on my old HP pc with 5000 X2 than on my E8500 pc.

All it takes is one driver. It's not the same hardware so the drivers won't be the same. You should try another c2d computer, I think then you will understand that it is not something that can be associated with the processor.

 

[soccerballtux]

I am mainly referring to things like normal daily task like opening documents and such. I know that sounds silly but it looks to be true for those things unless there is something else at play here. now I had an E8500 for over 2.5 years so I know exactly how everything responded and felt. well with the Athlon 2 X2 something as simple as opening a text document is instantaneous where on the E8500 there was always a slight delay. I even remember noticing that coming from my old 5000 X2. it cant be the hard drive since my E8500 pc had a WD Black where this is just entry level Hitachi.

also I had spent over 4 hours playing Fallout 3 on my E8500 pc and it always would hitch every few seconds when walking around no matter what settings I used. well on this Athlon 2 X2 pc there was none of that when I played a couple days ago. it would only hitch when it had to load that new area but the other time no hitching at all. that was on the same version of the game and video card drivers.

and no that was not in my head because I spent hours just trying to figure out why it was hitching on my old pc and this played perfectly smooth in the same exact spots.

is it possible that the old FSB was responsible for that stuff? I know Anandtech even mentioned it while back in a cpu review.

I've always felt that an overclocked Athlon64 series or similar architecture CPU felt much more responsive. Cause of the IMC.
For some reason my Ph2 doesn't feel like that.

 

[toyota]

All it takes is one driver. It's not the same hardware so the drivers won't be the same. You should try another c2d computer, I think then you will understand that it is not something that can be associated with the processor.

I will do that later today or tomorrow. I can almost guarantee it will behave like my E8500 and not this X2 pc. I may even bust out the camera so you don't think I am making it up.

 

[nonameo]

I don't think you're making it up. I just don't think it's the CPU.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

You're not making anything up, and yeah, an AMD X2 system can feel more responsive than a C2D system, because it is more responsive. Not saying that's always the case, but on fresh installs with good driver deployment, the AIIX2 250 is definitely snappier than the E6850. (I had those side by side for a while.)

IMC.

The contrast was even more stark back in the original dualie days - the IMC and lower memory latency of DDR made the X2s feel so much more responsive than the Pentium Ds with DDR2.

 

[Arkaign]

I've always felt that an overclocked Athlon64 series or similar architecture CPU felt much more responsive. Cause of the IMC.
For some reason my Ph2 doesn't feel like that.

After working with literally tens of thousands of systems from the XT/AT days to today, I can tell you this just isn't the case on a wide basis. I can understand the idea of it though, and similarly to people who swear that their experiences with C2D are much better than PhII or whatever, that it's simply because some setups don't run like they should. I have a Presario CQ50 (1.9 AMD64 DualCore, 2GB DDR2) sitting here waiting for MSE updates, and it is certainly not any snappier or even quite as responsive as another old HP with a similarly obsolete Intel Core Duo 1.66ghz w/2GB DDR1, I think the HP has a slightly better hdd (160GB 7200 vs. 160GB 5400). Examples abound, particularly in the big-box OEM world, of systems just not performing correctly.

Unfortunately, just like the 'butt dyno' of the car world, it's just not a reliable indicator of performance, and certainly not indicative of a CPU being better or worse overall. The funniest ones are when you find a system that should theoretically run terribly, but it runs like a champ.

 

[bridito]

I'm not going to get into the "AMD or Intel faster" discussion but IMHO the first thing you should do is a full reformat and reinstall Win 7 or XP (no Vista) from original CD/DVD and then check it all out again. My mom in law had an E4600 (I think) that ran at Commodore 64 speeds. A complete reformat/reinstall and it zoomed.

 

[toyota]

well again this is measurable as for as opening something like a document. it is absolutely instantaneous on this pc. even when I first built my E8500 pc I remember thinking the double click did not take because there was always this slight delay when opening something like a text document.

 

[Arkaign]

You're not making anything up, and yeah, an AMD X2 system can feel more responsive than a C2D system, because it is more responsive. Not saying that's always the case, but on fresh installs with good driver deployment, the AIIX2 250 is definitely snappier than the E6850. (I had those side by side for a while.)

IMC.

The contrast was even more stark back in the original dualie days - the IMC and lower memory latency of DDR made the X2s feel so much more responsive than the Pentium Ds with DDR2.

It doesn't really hold up with real-world tests :

http://hothardware.com/Articles/AMD-Athlon-64-X2-6000/?page=3

Think about the logic of what you're saying.

(1)- An AMD X2 system *is* more responsive.
(2)- I'm not saying that's always the case.
(3)- On fresh installs the AII 250 is > E6850, because I had these side by side. (single test sample?)

First, the IPC of the old X2s was really nothing compared to the IPC of the PhII-derived products like the Athlon II.

Second, there are too many variables to make a blanket declaration like this, outside of referencing your own particular experiences. Ultimately it comes down to a nuts and bolts technical reason that isn't ethereal or vague, and because we know for a fact that both A64, C2D, AII, PhII, i5, etc-based systems can all be incredibly fast when everything is humming along perfectly (this is backed up by app-loading benches, latency testing, etc, etc), it's really impossible to blame the slowness on the CPU alone, unless the CPU simply doesn't have enough power for a single app to work correctly (eg; like trying to run the Witcher 2 on a P4 or A64 single-core).

In terms of :

Running a current or recent OS, and running common tasks, if the system has no serious defects and has an average to good hdd and memory configuration, any of the recent CPUs should offer roughly equivalent performance. When this doesn't occur, something is wrong. As to what, that can be excruciatingly aggravating to figure out. Sometimes it's easy to locate the issue, other times literally everything you check turns out okay, you do upgrades, load a fresh OS, change out memory, etc, and the system still just runs poorly for what it is. Of course there is a real underlying reason, it's just a pain to find sometimes when every diagnostic and examination finds nothing wrong.

 

[AnandThenMan]

After working with literally tens of thousands of systems...

:sneaky:



FYI, the IMC does make a noticeable difference.

 

[Arkaign]

well again this is measurable as for as opening something like a document. it is absolutely instantaneous on this pc. even when I first built my E8500 pc I remember thinking the double click did not take because there was always this slight delay when opening something like a text document.

Yeah that's terrible, and I notice you say it's even with a WD black. For reference, opening Office Word 2010 on this client's Dell Inspiron 530 (ugh) is nearly instantaneous, and it's a lowly E7400 at stock speeds with presumably some low end hard drive. This is even with the terrible endpoint installed.

 

[toyota]

Yeah that's terrible, and I notice you say it's even with a WD black. For reference, opening Office Word 2010 on this client's Dell Inspiron 530 (ugh) is nearly instantaneous, and it's a lowly E7400 at stock speeds with presumably some low end hard drive. This is even with the terrible endpoint installed.

well we are talking about the E8500 maybe taking just over a second and maybe close to two which if you had nothing else to compare it would seem normal. I was coming from a 5000 X2 back then and without a doubt the old 5000 X2 was actually a bit quicker at doing the same thing. and on this pc it is basically instantaneous so when you are used to the same thing for 2.5 years it seems very noticeable.

 

[Arkaign]

:sneaky:



FYI, the IMC does make a noticeable difference.

Not in my experience when you compare processors of the same era (obviously comparing i7 against Athlon X2, or PhII against ~2006ish C2D E4000-series is uneven).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2045/5

"Intel's Core 2 processors now offer even quicker memory access than AMD's Athlon 64 X2, without resorting to an on-die memory controller. While Intel will eventually add one, the fact of the matter is that it's simply not necessary for competitive memory performance today thanks to Intel's revamped architecture. Update:As many astute readers have pointed out, Core 2's prefetchers are able to work their magic with ScienceMark 2.0, which results in the significant memory latency advantage over AMD's Athlon 64 FX-62. This advantage will not always exist; where it doesn't, AMD will continue to have lower latency memory access and where it does, Intel can gain performance advantages similar to what ScienceMark 2.0 shows."

Which follows my experience exactly. On systems that are working correctly, both an AMD or Intel-based system on modern processors (ie; A64 X2 / C2D and up, let's call it the last 5 years) you should have no notable latency/performance issues with common tasks. And heavy multitasking/heavy load should always go to the more powerful processor.

 

[Arkaign]

well we are talking about the E8500 maybe taking just over a second and maybe close to two which if you had nothing else to compare it would seem fine. on this pc it is basically instantaneous so when you are used to the same thing for 2.5 years it seems very noticeable.

Yeah that's hugely noticable. On this crap Dell 530, on the second double-click the frame of Word appears, and over the next 1/10th of a second or so everything is ready to go. Opening Excel and Powerpoint are equally fast, even if I've left the others open.

Something is horribly horribly wrong with that E8500 setup.