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For all you AMD guys

Rock Hydra

Rock Hydra

Diamond Member
Alright...I haven't had an AMD CPU since the K6-2 until recent.
I got a notebook last week which runs a Moblie Athlon XP 2800+ and I built a machine with an Athlon XP 1900+ out of parts given to me for my mom.
Anyway, I was surprised how snappy and responsive the laptop was. Well, I was burning a CD the other day on my laptop and trying to surf ATOT 😀, well I noticed it bogged down.
Something I'm not used to with my P4. I'm used to burning CDs, surfing, listening to music, having apps like photoshop and numerous IM windows open and not taking a performance hit.
I'm in the market for a new gaming computer, and well, my budget doesn't allow for the expense of a P4, so I'm going to buy an Athlon 64. I've seen multitasking apps and benchmarks where the A64 does just as well as or better than the P4 in multitasking....But I want real people's word for it. What kind and how many apps do you guys have running on your Athlon 64 systems and how does affect them...?

Edit: System info is in Sig.
 
Originally posted by: RockHydra11
Alright...I haven't had an AMD CPU since the K6-2 until recent.
I got a notebook last week which runs a Moblie Athlon XP 2800+ and I built a machine with an Athlon XP 1900+ out of parts given to me for my mom.
Anyway, I was surprised how snappy and responsive the laptop was. Well, I was burning a CD the other day on my laptop and trying to surf ATOT 😀, well I noticed it bogged down.
Something I'm not used to with my P4. I'm used to burning CDs, surfing, listening to music, having apps like photoshop and numerous IM windows open and not taking a performance hit.
I'm in the market for a new gaming computer, and well, my budget doesn't allow for the expense of a P4, so I'm going to buy an Athlon 64. I've seen multitasking apps and benchmarks where the A64 does just as well as or better than the P4 in multitasking....But I want real people's word for it. What kind and how many apps do you guys have running on your Athlon 64 systems and how does affect them...?

Edit: System info is in Sig.
Click to expand...



Sounds like you ran out of RAM on your laptop not CPU. I've got a GB of RAM and I have no problems have many programs open at once. Mind I think my computer gets somewhat less responsive when burning something.
 
Intel's hyperthreading should make some difference (of course, what frequency was your Intel processor) but ram deficiency is a majory hard-drive swapping thrashing performance death knell. 512mb ram for XP minimum.
 
512MB won't do for that kind of multitasking. I've messed around with systems and the sweet spot seems to be 640MB for multiple non-game applications. For games, go with 1GB.
 
What is the HDD rpm speed? A 4200rpm HDD is much slower than a typical 7200rpm 8mb cache for desktops, even a 5400rpm laptop hdd isn't going to perform near as well.. I'd check to be sure the burner is indeed in UDMA mode too, though it is unlikely it isn't.
 
Alright, now that I know it's not the CPU, I can make my desktop purchase without a nagging thought in the back of my mind.
 
Well I burn DVDs and I have still have total responsiveness....I think it is the system....I run a heck of a lot more then what you listed and I blow through it...usually boggy down is related to IO intensive apps and on a laptop everything is sharing one slower rpm HDD then on a desktop like mine with more then 1 HD...I spread my task out and make sure my drives are primaries on their own channels...this avoids the crunch of 2 drives on same channel limited to one read or write command at a time....really slows things down...

YOur problem is likely more HDD then ram, but like iti s mentioned above winxp and a few apps loading at prestart take 200-250mb right off the bat. The slower the drive I believe if you are burning too fast of a speed iti s going to try to buffer it all in the ram and suck it right up. When feel the "bog down" click ctrl-alt-del and go into task manager under performance and see what the memory available is....It will also show you if you are HDD swapping...

Sidenote...the P4 is not that expensive.....
 
Originally posted by: RockHydra11
Alright, now that I know it's not the CPU, I can make my desktop purchase without a nagging thought in the back of my mind.
Click to expand...



If you have a 2.6c and an athlon 1900+ xp why dont you hold on for awhile...It is absolutely a terrible time to build a system until the dual cores come out....Talk about multitasking freedom.....The P4 models will not be that expensive though the platform and DDR2 may be...however until we see the pricing for the A64 x2 chips we dont know how cheap dual cores will b. It could be quite chea since the athlons will not require a new platform and buying most socket 939 boards should work fine and use existing DDR ram....
 
Actually hyperthreading is probably what's making the difference - even AMD fans like the hardop editor use P4's in their work machines just for that reason. If you want to play games and get top performance you'd have to go with an A64 however.
2.6C is a classic overclocker. If you want a performance boost for cheap try overclocking it (I would have thought it'll reach 3.2 on standard heat sync, volts, etc). Spend some of the money you've saved on a gig of good quality low latancy DDR memory (which you can keep using when you upgrade to an A64 in the future) and the machine should give quite acceptable performance on any game available today.
Now is a bad time to buy a single core A64 anyway with all the dual core ones coming out in a few months. Personally I'd just do the above and keep saving till I can get one of the dual core A64's for reasonable money sometime at the end of 2005/early 2006.
 
Originally posted by: sbuckler
Actually hyperthreading is probably what's making the difference - even AMD fans like the hardop editor use P4's in their work machines just for that reason. If you want to play games and get top performance you'd have to go with an A64 however.
2.6C is a classic overclocker. If you want a performance boost for cheap try overclocking it (I would have thought it'll reach 3.2 on standard heat sync, volts, etc). Spend some of the money you've saved on a gig of good quality low latancy DDR memory (which you can keep using when you upgrade to an A64 in the future) and the machine should give quite acceptable performance on any game available today.
Now is a bad time to buy a single core A64 anyway with all the dual core ones coming out in a few months. Personally I'd just do the above and keep saving till I can get one of the dual core A64's for reasonable money sometime at the end of 2005/early 2006.
Click to expand...


Well, I'll live with my current system. I'm not going to invest anymore in my current rig. I'm probably going to buy a venice system and then sell the CPU or keep it for a backup of some sort when I'm ready to purchase a dual core processor, although I'm not going to finalize my purchase until June/July.
 
I am sorry; I think no one read "I'm in the market for a new gaming computer,";

The reccomendation would then follow:
1.- Extremely tight Budget: Athlon 64 2800+ skt754
2.- OK Budget: Athlon 64 3000+ skt939
3.- $700USD+: Athlon 64 3500+ skt939 w/LL memory.

That should do pretty well for your gaming computer.
 
Originally posted by: Aenslead
I am sorry; I think no one read "I'm in the market for a new gaming computer,";

The reccomendation would then follow:
1.- Extremely tight Budget: Athlon 64 2800+ skt754
2.- OK Budget: Athlon 64 3000+ skt939
3.- $700USD+: Athlon 64 3500+ skt939 w/LL memory.

That should do pretty well for your gaming computer.
Click to expand...


Nooo..we read that... we were answering his obvious concerns for multitasking and his issues....I think from reading this he would really like to balance both...dual core AMDs may do that....fast gamer plus all the advantages of the multitasking world....
 
Originally posted by: Duvie


Sidenote...the P4 is not that expensive.....
Click to expand...

You're right, but the combined cost of the processor, motherboard and decent DDR2 RAM, you betcha it costs quite a bit.
 
True...However there is no real need to use DDR2 platform unless you will be runing the EE 1066fsb versions or overclocking the piss out of it....many of the prescotts are 800fsb chips and reasonably priced in the 3.0-3.4ghz range and can work with DDR platform.....Just truying to keep it honest for the INtel fans...I dont recommend it but just stating a opint....
 
Originally posted by: Duvie
many of the prescotts are 800fsb chips and reasonably priced in the 3.0-3.4ghz range and can work with DDR platform.....Just truying to keep it honest for the INtel fans...I dont recommend it but just stating a opint....
Click to expand...

I wouldn't recommend a prescott to anyone fan or not. Once my northwoods run their course, I'm jumping to A64.
 
Originally posted by: Duvie
True...However there is no real need to use DDR2 platform unless you will be runing the EE 1066fsb versions or overclocking the piss out of it....many of the prescotts are 800fsb chips and reasonably priced in the 3.0-3.4ghz range and can work with DDR platform.....Just truying to keep it honest for the INtel fans...I dont recommend it but just stating a opint....
Click to expand...

As much as I want a P4 to be a viable option...I can't find a decent reason to purchase another one right now. It took me a long time to accept that the A64 has the P4 on its knees.
 
Originally posted by: RockHydra11
Originally posted by: Duvie
True...However there is no real need to use DDR2 platform unless you will be runing the EE 1066fsb versions or overclocking the piss out of it....many of the prescotts are 800fsb chips and reasonably priced in the 3.0-3.4ghz range and can work with DDR platform.....Just truying to keep it honest for the INtel fans...I dont recommend it but just stating a opint....
Click to expand...

As much as I want a P4 to be a viable option...I can't find a decent reason to purchase another one right now. It took me a long time to accept that the A64 has the P4 on its knees.
Click to expand...



And in that sense I agree with you...hence why I went from a p4c to and AMD64...I didn't wnat to make the prescott leap...wasn't impressed....

I just want it stated that P4's are reasonably priced as well...down in the lower and middle ends, excluding the EE versions for the small-penis morons!!!
 
Originally posted by: Duvie
And in that sense I agree with you...hence why I went from a p4c to and AMD64...I didn't wnat to make the prescott leap...wasn't impressed....

I just want it stated that P4's are reasonably priced as well...down in the lower and middle ends, excluding the EE versions for the small-penis morons!!!
Click to expand...

Yeah, EE. What a joke. The only thing that was "extreme" was the price.
 
Sig for system. When I'm on the desktop, I usually have the following running simultaneously:

Firefox
AIM
WinAmp
Creative Surround mixer
P2P Software
MS Word/Excel

And I don't have bogging problems. I doubt the CPU is the issue.

 
Heed Duvie. He has returned from the Dark Side.

Also, if you're going to upgrade, and if you want decent but cheap boards, check out Foxconn's SiS-based ones.
 
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