Inexpensive quad core?

[frozentundra123456]

Well, an i3 desktop or Aio can definitely drag at times.

I guess at bottom I'm curious about the Cherry Trail quads -- z8700, z8500, z8300. Don't understand about the x3, x5, x7 yet. What kind of laptop do you think they'll go in? I know MS has some limits on the size/specs of 'tops having free Windows. I know that paying for Win 10 (it will be that when I get one) will jack the price up. But I feel like I've spent $180 on a machine I won't use again -- to far down the food chain. So I'm wondering what I should look for to quat a Cherry Trail quad; or will there be another cheap chip that will overtake Cherry Trail the way Skylake will overtake Broadwell?

That stream 11 is actually one of the faster clocked atoms, although only a dual core. But I dont think going from 2 slow cores to 4 slow cores is going to give you the performance you are looking for. As for cherry trail, I dont think it is even available yet, another causality of the 14nm delays. In any case, I think the cpu performance increase will be minimal, but graphics should be improved. Still, they are really tablet chips being foisted off in laptops.

 

[jhu]

The way this thing is going..Via quad-core is kick-butt

I prefer my Snapdragon 801 (MSM8974).

 

[ehume]

The way this thing is going..Via quad-core is kick-butt

How so? One of the saving graces of the Stream 11 is the battery life. What foundry makes the Via cpu, and at what node? Is it shipping on a product so we can know the battery life?

 

[soccerballtux]

Mostly incorrect. Single-threaded performance is what improves the user experience, makes it "snappy". My G3258 @ 3.8 is much "snappier" for what I use my PC for than my Q9300 @ 3.0. Both rigs have 8GB of RAM and SSDs. Raw compute performance is roughly the same or less for the G3258, as far as my DC goes.

reformat the q9300 box

 

[TurtleCrusher]

What model did you get?

ASUS x205. The wife loves it and our roommate wanted it to replace her old MacBook. A very nice keyboard, screen, speakers, incredible battery life... There's nothing about it that I can knock. Especially for being $149 and $199 respectively for both.

 

[VirtualLarry]

reformat the q9300 box

why? I don't install any bloat or malware. Don't you believe me when I say Waterfox is single-threaded, and Haswell's arch is "snappier" than Core2?

 

[Shivansps]

why? I don't install any bloat or malware. Don't you believe me when I say Waterfox is single-threaded, and Haswell's arch is "snappier" than Core2?

Them dont use waterfox, there are mt browsers out there.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Them dont use waterfox, there are mt browsers out there.

I'm not aware of any, except for Chrome, because of their one process per tab architecture. Which means that individual tabs are still single-threaded. I'm not aware of any JS engines that are MT.

Edit: And why would I stop using the fastest web browser out there?

 

[TurtleCrusher]

I'm not aware of any, except for Chrome, because of their one process per tab architecture. Which means that individual tabs are still single-threaded. I'm not aware of any JS engines that are MT.

Untrue. Do you even use software before talking negatively about it? Open up one tab of chrome and check your process manager. 7 chrome.exe processes. When clocking down to 1.4ghz, several of them utilize 30% of the entire CPU on their own. That's over 2 cores on a single process.

Edit: And why would I stop using the fastest web browser out there?

You do realize that's their catchphrase and not a fact at all, right?

 

[NTMBK]

The way this thing is going..Via quad-core is kick-butt

Shh, don't say that too loud or tralalak will turn up.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You do realize that's their catchphrase and not a fact at all, right?

You do realize, if you expand their webpage, they do (or did) have benchmarks of all of the major browsers, to back that statement up.

Edit: Yep, I just checked, the benchmarks are still there.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

You do realize, if you expand their webpage, they do (or did) have benchmarks of all of the major browsers, to back that statement up.

Their benchmarks are non-sense. Just looking at the first three benches i did...

(A) Waterfox 64-bit
Intel Core i5 3550
NVIDIA Quadro K600
16GB DDR3 1600MHz

vs

(B) Chrome 32-bit
Intel Core i5 3550
NVIDIA Quadro K600
16GB DDR3 1600MHz

vs

(C) Chrome 32-bit
FX-8350 at stock
Radeon R9 270
8GB 1866Mhz

Bmark
A=1288
B=2038
C=2543

Browsermark
A=4630
B=4627
C=5017

Octane
A=20144
B=25102
C=20973

In Bmark, waterfox is literally half as fast on a well single threaded i5 vs an FX. The other tests I ran? Chrome is indeed faster. Larry, you buy systems with cores then refuse to use software that will utilize it. Especially on a slower or outdated quad, the multithreading is crucial.

 

[jhu]

You do realize, if you expand their webpage, they do (or did) have benchmarks of all of the major browsers, to back that statement up.

Edit: Yep, I just checked, the benchmarks are still there.

What makes Waterfox different?

Waterfox is built with Intel's C++ compiler. This enables us to make the fastest possible web browser without changing too much of the core code.

OMG! It's so Intel optimized it's not funny! Why you hate AMD so much?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Their benchmarks are non-sense.

Their benchmarks are non-sense? And yours are better, changing out the browser and the hardware in the same comparison?

At least they know how to benchmark.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Their benchmarks are non-sense? And yours are better, changing out the browser and the hardware in the same comparison?

At least they know how to benchmark.

Are you joking? I used their own provided data and then benched with the FX. You can plug your ears and cover your eyes but the numbers don't lie.

Nothing about their own provided benchmarks says it's faster. It's a round-robin on an i5. Chrome smokes waterfox is some, and is nearly identical in others.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Are you joking? I used their own provided data and then benched with the FX. You can plug your ears and cover your eyes but the numbers don't lie.

Nothing about their own provided benchmarks says it's faster. It's a round-robin on an i5. Chrome smokes waterfox is some, and is nearly identical in others.

You took their browser-comparison benchmarks, benched your own FX hardware (different hardware), and are using that to make a point of comparison between web browsers? LOL!

You can't have two independent variables. You fail at benchmarking.

Edit: I would add comments about trolling, cherry-picking, ADF, etc., but that's probably not even necessary at this point.

Yes, you love your FX, and you wish that it was more competitive. But that doesn't change the benchmarks on their site, of which the majority (it's not a clean sweep) show that Waterfox is the fastest browser out there, on most benchmarks.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

You took their browser-comparison benchmarks, benched your own FX hardware (different hardware), and are using that to make a point of comparison between web browsers? LOL!

You can't have two independent variables. You fail at benchmarking.

Edit: I would add comments about trolling, cherry-picking, ADF, etc., but that's probably not even necessary at this point.

Yes, you love your FX, and you wish that it was more competitive. But that doesn't change the benchmarks on their site, of which the majority (it's not a clean sweep) show that Waterfox is the fastest browser out there, on most benchmarks.

Test B is an impartial median for comparing data. Between A-B and B-C there is one variable. If test B wasn't there then sure. If you can't make the connection then I guess I no one is getting through to you. What you're not realizing is that the i5 supposedly is 30-40% faster than the FX in single threaded tasks and yet the fx can be 100% faster using chrome than using waterfox with an i5. I'd fully expect an i7 using Chrome to completely obliterate the scores of an i7 using waterfox. Absolutely no contest if an FX can do it.

 

[VirtualLarry]

there is one variable.
and yet the fx can be 100% faster using chrome than using waterfox with an i5

perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't your conclusion there showing two variables?

Wouldn't you need four benchmarks, FX with Chrome, FX with Waterfox, and then i5 with Chrome, and i5 with Waterfox?

Edit: And then you could say, with an FX, Chrome is/isn't faster than Waterfox, and with an i5, Chrome is/isn't faster than Waterfox, and then you could also say, FX is/isn't faster than i5, using Chrome, and likewise, with Waterfox. But you wouldn't be able to make a conclusion like you did, across two variables.

I still think that you fail at benchmarking.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't your conclusion there showing two variables?

Wouldn't you need four benchmarks, FX with Chrome, FX with Waterfox, and then i5 with Chrome, and i5 with Waterfox?

Edit: And then you could say, with an FX, Chrome is/isn't faster than Waterfox, and with an i5, Chrome is/isn't faster than Waterfox, and then you could also say, FX is/isn't faster than i5, using Chrome, and likewise, with Waterfox. But you wouldn't be able to make a conclusion like you did, across two variables.

I still think that you fail at benchmarking.

Unless you're inferring that magically waterfox would run faster on a single thread on an FX-8350 than an i5-3550 in a program compiled using Intel's own C++ compiler... Then absolutely not. That fourth data point is not necessary.

You can say I "fail" at benchmarking all you want but you don't see how test B (provided from waterfox) is a correct median of comparison. It allows for two variables to be logically compared since it shares commonalities with both A and C.

 

[ArisVer]

It is not nearly as simple as fewer cores are better or multicores are better.
Multicore is always, always, always better, IF the performance of a given core is at an acceptable level. What that level is I'm sure warrants a forty page thread of it's own.

Slightly off topic, but what would you consider an acceptable performance level? Would that be over 2GHz or over 3GHz?

 

[Shivansps]

I'm not aware of any, except for Chrome, because of their one process per tab architecture. Which means that individual tabs are still single-threaded. I'm not aware of any JS engines that are MT.

Edit: And why would I stop using the fastest web browser out there?

Every browser do the 1 tab per process thing except maybe IE8 i think, or a crashing tab will also crash the entire browser, we are not in the 90s anymore.

Chrome uses all cores, even if there is only 1 tab open, the only problem i have with chrome is that it does not do HW acceleration for youtube in my BT tablet.

Later tonight ill test another browsers in my BT tablet.

 

[ninaholic37]

Their benchmarks are non-sense. Just looking at the first three benches i did...

(A) Waterfox 64-bit
Intel Core i5 3550
NVIDIA Quadro K600
16GB DDR3 1600MHz

vs

(B) Chrome 32-bit
Intel Core i5 3550
NVIDIA Quadro K600
16GB DDR3 1600MHz

vs

(C) Chrome 32-bit
FX-8350 at stock
Radeon R9 270
8GB 1866Mhz

Why would you care what speed your browser runs at on an i5 or FX-8350? Chances are your probably don't even notice. And wouldn't you rather use Chromium that doesn't come with all the extra bloat then? Someone who owns small cores like Bay Trail or Cat Core and really old machines would be better to judge which is faster and more reliable from experience as they know all too well the pains that you'd probably never experience with any browser.

 

[Ramses]

I can't believe anyone is or feels the need to still benchmark a browser in 2015.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I know someone that got an N3540 4GB laptop for his woman, and he told me she said it was "slow". And I don't even think that she had any experience with an i3 or faster laptop.

Let me guess. With a "cheap-class" 5400RPM HDD? If so, then it doesn't matter what CPU you use.

I'd much rather use a Bay Trail-with-SSD then a Haswell-with-5400RPM HDD laptop.

 

[Enigmoid]

I can't believe anyone is or feels the need to still benchmark a browser in 2015.

Important for mobile or the low power market.

Which browser is the least laggy on a low end tablet? Which browser uses the least power and gets the best battery life?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8327/browser-faceoff-battery-life-explored-2014/3

Pretty darn important on a notebook.