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Does a P4 really run multi apps better than AMD?

N

Neos

Senior member
Background.

My son has a new job as an IT Administrator at a large church. He built himself a new AMD 64 on a socket 939 board for his office. After he built it, he noted that the other Intel units that other staff was using were much faster when multiple apps were open. He commented that when he would open three or more apps/programs - that the AMD would bog down.

He did comment that when running a single app - the AMD 64 was much faster. So what gives? He said the systems are alike as far as speed, ram - etc.

Since he built this one - I am wondering if he may have missed something as far as bios settings for the ram - or possibly something else. He plans that his next home unit will be an Intel P4, Prescott 2.8 Gig.

Look forward to some opinions on this.
 
intel single core processors handle multiple apps better than amd single core cpu processors do to hyperthreading. But if went dual core amd cpu, it'll mulitask just as well as a dual core pentium processor maybe even better.
 
Try turning off the hyperthreading on the Intel CPU, it will get just as sluggish. Non-hyperthreaded P4's, and P4's with HT turned off get just as sluggish when you start to run a bunch of things. Dual Core A64's take care of that problem, and whoop Intel in almost everything.
 
Having multiple apps open is not multitasking. When having multiple apps open at the same time, the A64 is just as fast if not faster than the P4. The difference is when each of the open apps is doing something, like encoding video/audio in the background while playing games.

If your son is so concerned about multitasking, he can drop an A64 X2 into that mobo without much trouble.
 
Originally posted by: Neos
Background.

My son has a new job as an IT Administrator at a large church. He built himself a new AMD 64 on a socket 939 board for his office. After he built it, he noted that the other Intel units that other staff was using were much faster when multiple apps were open. He commented that when he would open three or more apps/programs - that the AMD would bog down.

He did comment that when running a single app - the AMD 64 was much faster. So what gives? He said the systems are alike as far as speed, ram - etc.

Since he built this one - I am wondering if he may have missed something as far as bios settings for the ram - or possibly something else. He plans that his next home unit will be an Intel P4, Prescott 2.8 Gig.

Look forward to some opinions on this.
Click to expand...

If he does build a single-core P4, make sure it's a 600 series cpu. They oc very well, while running much cooler than the 500 series Prescotts.

In the single-core world, hyperthreading helps a lot when it comes to multi-tasking.
 
Hyperthreading offers very little benefits to the serious multi-tasker, but it does help alot when opening two things at once. For example, installing a game while playing chess online or someting along those lines.
 
Before dual-core cpus came out, the A64 3200 Winny couldn't handle the stuff I was running but the Intel 640 handled very well. I'm talking running a sql database w/ 8 connections to the internet updating/querying the database while at the same time I could play a game, have outlook express and firefox open.

Hyperthreading helps a lot, not a little. Just like how the 840 EE can handle four intensive applications at once better than a X2 4800+. It's the hyperthreading.
 
I have used HT P4s as well as dual cpu machines and A64s and the HT is nice for light multitasking(I.E. if you have a few windows open it feels close enough to a duallie that its not irritating). If you do try to do two or more "heavy" tasks, then it bogs down just as much as any other single-cpu machine.
 
I recently went from a 3.0E @ 3.6 to a Venice 3000+ @ 2.45. There is a noticable loss in multitasking performance. That being said, the AMD system does extremely well in games so far.
 
I guess I have not been as open minded as I should have been, as I did not know this. If this is the case - I can see why many that use thier pc for business prefer Intel.

Aw, heck! And I was a stanch soldier in the war against the evil empire of 'INTEL' !!!

Live and learn.

OH - a question. In light of this revelation (to me anyway) - where does HT start (lowest price) in the P4 lineup? I have never been one to need mega speed, as I do not do games - but I do open a good # of windows and apps while working here.
Thanks
 
I see that - Zebo. That is the upper end of the chain though - as far as CPU pricing goes.

One thing that attracted me to AMD years back was the price. Back then the 586 was a real alternative to the 486 - as it was faster - and cheaper - if I recall right.

Now I wondering if there is a P4 with HT that is fast enough (for multi tasking) that is down the line a bit as far as price? It might be that something in the P4 1.5 - 2.0 Ghz. range would be a better buy than one of the newer AMD Socket 939 skus. Of course the cost of the mainboard and any extras needed to change over adds it's own factor.

This is interesting. Has intel become a really good buy for someone that wants good multi-tasking without going to the top of the AMD lineup?

 
Define multitasking. There are a few situations right now where dual core is advantageous. But 99% of what home users do won't benefit from dual core or HT. Dual core is technology for the sake of technology until there are quality multithreaded apps for typical home use (gaming being the primary "home use" apps that have significant user bases.) In the words of countless reviews of dual core procs... "Gaming drives the technology of personal computers, and until there are games that benefit from it, dual core really isn't necessary for most home users."

You can't really say that Intel with HT is better at multitasking than AMD X64's. You can say that it's better at a few programs, and you can say that it's better at averaging it's performance between two high-demand apps. But most of the "reviews" showing HT's advantages do so by letting the NonHT proc put all it's effort into one app, then focusing on the performance of the other app.
 
Hmm.. seems to me at every price point Intel is more money.

Look at that $170 3400 beating $600 660 on the first test and last, tying $250 640 most of the time.

Your memory is still there😉
 
You're not going to find any HT enabled p4's in the 1.5-2.0GHz range. I think they start at 2.8GHz preshotts, but don't quote me on that.

I don't get what you guys are saying about multitasking with the 64's. Mebbe I just don't use my compy hard enough, but I've Never had my computer lag with a decent load. (Excel spreadsheet, Word Doc, 5-6 firefox tabs, winamp, F@H in the background, skype, trillian, etc all running at once.)


Folding is the number one reason I plan to have a X2 in my next system. nice to have F@H running 100% on one core while gaming it up (just as long as you don't have large WU enabled xD )
 
The P4 2.4C is the processor with the lowest frequency that supports HT. All 800 MHz fsb P4s support HT, while the P4 3.06 533 fsb is the only proc other than the those that supports HT.
 
The lowest-clocked HT-enabled P4 is the 2.4C, but that uses the old socket 478, and won't work with newer motherboards.

There can be no doubt that Hyperthreading is very beneficial when it comes to multitasking. Speaking from personal experience, I can say that HT just gives a more pleasant computing experience. I don't have to worry about background tasks stealing CPU time when I'm gaming, for example. I was able to run Ad-aware while gaming, with no noticable slow-down, which is something I simply wouldn't have been able to do on my old rig.
But the P4 itself is not naturally a better multitasker than the Athlon.
Without HT, the P4 is actually a poorer multitasker than the Athlon 64, due to the Athlon 64's fast context-switching ability, thanks to its IMC.
An SMT-enabled Athlon 64 would have been a fantastic multitasker, but with the advent of dual-core and AMD's reluctance to implement SMT, I don't think we'll ever see it on the Athlon.
 
I'd be interested to see if they HT dothan. It's my understanding HT does nothing for short pipe chips such as P6/K7/8 from reading ars technica CPU articles.
 
I'm using a p4 prescott at work, and an a64 at home. From everyday use of multi-tasking, I personally cant tell the difference - my a64 never seems bogged down, even with multiple apps open. The p4, as far as I can tell, has no apparent advantages over the a64. However, I'm using win2k at work, so does HT work under win2k or only in win xp? When I open task manager, I can only see one processor, and everywhere I look, it seems to show up as a single processor. Does win2k not support HT or not?
 
Originally posted by: munky
I'm using a p4 prescott at work, and an a64 at home. From everyday use of multi-tasking, I personally cant tell the difference - my a64 never seems bogged down, even with multiple apps open. The p4, as far as I can tell, has no apparent advantages over the a64. However, I'm using win2k at work, so does HT work under win2k or only in win xp? When I open task manager, I can only see one processor, and everywhere I look, it seems to show up as a single processor. Does win2k not support HT or not?
Click to expand...

Windows 2000 doesn't support hyperthreading.
 
Quote:
Without HT, the P4 is actually a poorer multitasker than the Athlon 64, due to the Athlon 64's fast context-switching ability, thanks to its IMC.
An SMT-enabled Athlon 64 would have been a fantastic multitasker, but with the advent of dual-core and AMD's reluctance to implement SMT, I don't think we'll ever see it on the Athlon.
end Quote:

Well, this seems to be a failing of AMD. To indicate (indirectly, of course) that HT gives Intel and unfair advantage - is ludicrous in my estimation. Heck - that is a part of the package. If AMD cannot come up with something of equal value to make thier product do as well in this area (multi-tasking) at simular pricing - well ...kudos to Intel. Trust me - I hate to say this. The last Intel chip I used was a 486.
 
I dont see why multi-app performance would be such a big deal to the home user, anyways. Why on earth would you want to encode a movie while playing a 3d game? I'm sure even with dual cores, the fps would not be as fast as without encoding the movie, so are you gonna run 2 things at once just because you can? Multiple cores are the way of the future, and it's good that AMD has em, but from the multi-tasking I do, like browsing the web and listening to mp3's while burning a dvd, a single core a64 does the job pretty well. I don't see what's all the fuss about a single core a64 being bad at multi-tasking.
 
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