Hyper Threading..........

[EdzAviator]

I am a Multi-Tasker....By that I mean I want to do multiple applications at the same time.....Most of my work includes audio/video encoding while surfing the net or playing winamp...archiving winrar while running norton anti-virus scan..sometimes I want to try burning CD/DVD while scanning norton, archiving winrar, playing winamp and surfing the net....Mostly when I multi-task, my PC gets slower and slower..the responsiveness i mean is very slow...I am curently using an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (S939) and I admit it is very fast in gamings, i played Doom 3 and Half Life 2 with it but it disappoints me when it comes to Multi-Tasking and which I usually do with my PC most of the time..I only an occational gamer..

I am planning to buy an Intel Pentium 4 630 because I think Hyper Threading is the answer to my Multi-Tasking problem...AMD A64 is fast in gamings but not in my multi-tasking experience...

Any recommendations folks???? How effecient is hyper threading? how many average percentage will I benefit for a P4 630 w/ HT than a A64 3000+?????

 

[Bassyhead]

You should list the rest of your system specs. RAM will be a large factor in how smoothly those applications run together.

 

[Duvie]

audio/video encoding while surfing the net or playing winamp.....not cpu intensive...I dont think you would see a diff...

archiving winrar while running norton anti-virus scan....IO dependent and a conflict if you are using same drive....this can be an issue on any system...

sometimes I want to try burning CD/DVD while scanning norton, archiving winrar, playing winamp and surfing the net....still not very cpu intensive and IO dependent....



I think you need to use multiple drive configurations...SATA drives on own channals and cd drives on their opwn IDE channel....The more things that dont share channels the better. Also the more things that use different drives (reading and writing the info) you wont have IO conflicts.....

I have not seen any real need for an HT processor based on the items you listed.

This topic is also discused evry few days...use search command....

I like HT, but I know where it helps and doesn't, and I dont see an overwheming need for you at this point...

However please do list specs...

 

[kini62]

Since you have a socket 939 system, just wait a few months for dual core Athlons, then all your multi-tasking "problems" will be answered. No need to change out you whole system. Just stick the new chip in and multi-task till your heart's content.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Didn't you just post this same question a couple of days ago with a number of answers?

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=28&threadid=1549652&enterthread=y

 

[carlosd]

HT won't help in your case. As Duvie said it is more a IO limitation than a CPU limitation, Norton and Burning DVDs doesn't use 100% of the CPU, but takes a lot of memory an disk resources. Also playing winamp and surfing the web use =0% of the CPU most of the time, also archiving winrar will be a lot slower in a P4. and in my case winrar doesn't take 100% CPU and doesn't slow down my PC while surfing the web, compiling VHDL project in the background, playing winamp with special visualization on, and scanning with the antivirus. Ohh!! I am sorry I forgot, I had dual Raptors in Raid 0 configuration. Now you know what I mean.

 

[Jeff7]

When encoding video, the encoding program uses as much CPU time as it can get, which makes the system slow down. Open up Task Manager when encoding video, find the program doing the most CPU work (example, for Ulead Videostudio, its exe file does the actual work, so vstudio.exe is at 99% CPU utilization), right-click on it, and set the priority to Below Normal or Low. The encoding might take a bit longer, but that's because it's running in the background. Now when another program wants the CPU, it gets it right away, pushing the encoding program aside briefly. I do this to make the computer usable when I'm encoding video, and I've only got a 2.3GHz Athlon XP-M. Videostudio runs at low priority, while the rest of the system runs normally. I can even run Homeworld 2 if I want to, while the video encoder makes use of whatever little bit of CPU time is leftover.

 

[Brian23]

Get more memory

 

[batmanuel]

You might perhaps could upgrade to an nForce 4 board coupled with a NCQ-capable hard drive (Seagate has some nice models). The native command queing could help you keep your system from getting bogged down so much during the I/O intensive multitasking. Having a dedicated drive for your data could also help keep things from getting bottlenecked as well.