Is this normal? My budget a64 3800+ system is beating my new conroe system?

nx02nx02

Senior member
Dec 26, 2001
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Well I just got done earlier today building my new conroe computer. It was kind of expensive but I felt spending a little extra money would pay off.

So I have spent the day comparing it to my other computer which is a Athlon 64 3800+ single core Venice. with 1 gig of ram. 512 of it is pc3200 corsair Valueselect and 512 of it is pc2100 PNY. actually 4 sticks in all 1x512 2x256. this computer also has a Asus A8nvm motherboard, ($50) and a EVGA 7600GT. 80 gig Maxtor HD with 8MB cache and a 450 watt generic power supply.

Now this a64 computer of mine is pretty good. I built it for a budget gaming pc right when the prices of AMD's were going down a few months ago.
I have been using it as a gaming PC playing all sorts of games for the past 4 or 5 months.

Well I wanted 2 computers for gaming for when friends come over, LAN etc.

So I decided to build a new Conroe computer and I went all out on it. So far it's probably about 3 times as expensive as the AMD system and im not even done yet. (I still want to put a 500 GB hard drive in it and a 8800 GTX. But these will have to wait for a few months.

To be honest I had extremely hi expectations for the Conroe system and so far I am underwhelmed. I am hoping something is wrong with the Conroe system because this cant be right.

In most tests my A64 system is beating the Conroe system and in others it's matching it.
As far as these 2 computers are concerned all I really care about is gaming as that's what there for.

I have both computers running side by side and both are running Sony G420 monitors and EVGA 7600GTs. Exact same cards and monitors on both PCs

I am hoping some of the good people here at Anandtech can help me figure out whats wrong with my new Conroe system. It is fast it just isn't nothing like I was expecting. It doesnt blow the A643800+ out of the water and in at least half of the cases it loses to the a64.

So far I have tested Battlefield 1942, Battlefield 2, Company of Heroes and a couple of older games. PCMark05 and CPUMARK 2.1

In the CPU Mark test (theres 3 seperate tests) the Conroe won 2 of them and the a64 won 1.

In Battlefield 2 I am getting about 15 frames higher with the A64 system.
Company of heroes I dont know the framerate but it feels smoother on the A64 system.

I am about to run some more tests. Can anyone please recommend some good test to ensure that my Conroe is functioning correctly? Are there any good CPU benchmarks?

Can anyone please recommend some games or software or game demos that can show off the Conroes power?

What could possibly be wrong with my Conroe Computer? Could it be something in the BIOS or my RAM timings? The RAM I got for it does have somewhat hi timings.

I do plan on overclocking this new computer but that wont be for a few months until I can get a new CPU Cooler and new case.


Exact Specs of both computers.


Conroe System.

E6600 @ 2.4 GHZ stock cooler for now
2X1GIG Crucial Ballistix PC8000 Dual Channel
Asus P5B Deluxe
Seasonic M12 700 Watt Power Supply.
EVGA 7600 GT
Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2 32 Bit
Western Digital 80 GIG 8MB cache
Pioneer 16XDVDR

Athlon 64 System.

Athlon64 3800+ @ 2.4 GHZ Venice single core stock cooler
1 gig of mismatched memory in 4 slots
Asus A8NVM Socket 939 Motherboard ($50 New)
450 Watt Generic Power Supply
EVGA 7600 GT
Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2 32 Bit
Maxtor 80 GIG 8MB
Pioneer 16DVDR



Someone please recommend some games or game demos or some software program that I can run on both of these to prove that the Conroe is better? Because right now I just dont see it.

Or please help me figure out what is wrong.


Thanks for reading all of this and sorry it's so long. I wanted to be thorough.

Thanks again everyone I sure do appreciate any help.
 

oynaz

Platinum Member
May 14, 2003
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Have you checked for malware?
Do you have some kind of CPU hog installed, like Norton Antivirus?
 

AstroGuardian

Senior member
May 8, 2006
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so the situation is like this friend:

1. In games with your 7600GT's installed, you will NOT see difference AT ALL. In this case your VGA cards are bottlenecks in both computers. The present situation shows that Athlon 3500+ is enough to suit all games as far as CPU is concerned.

2. Try Everest Ultimate 3.5 to do some synthetic benchmarks on your system. The Conroe should win in all possible tests except the memory bandwidth tests.

3. What Oynaz says is true but not exactly true with dualcore systems. Since all games are single-threaded, that means that games will use ONLY one cpu core. CPU hogs can slow down systems but not the dual core Conroe. Maybe a little but nothing significant. However some malware are also multithreaded which can slow down the entire system.

Do some tests with the Everest Ultimate 3.5. You will see that it can export reports. Send the report to my e-mail which is written below in my signature. I will tell you then whether something is wrong. Trust me i do this all the time :)
 

Noubourne

Senior member
Dec 15, 2003
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I'm not sure the Conroe rig will win the bandwidth tests. He's got 1Gb in single channel on his A64 rig. It's got half of its potential bandwidth as is.

The Conroe would only need 512MB in dual channel to match it for memory bandwidth.

And SuperPi is a good way to see how much muscle is in the Conroe vs. the Venice.

I agree that a 7600GT is a bottleneck, and since the 7600GT is fed fine by the Athlon rig, you're not going to see much difference in frames. I'd use proper benches though - not just FRAPS or whatever. That's bound to be misleading. Use 3dMark to bench them against each other.
 

nx02nx02

Senior member
Dec 26, 2001
539
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0
I believe that you are correct and I really really appreciate you bringing this to my attention. :):)

It is the only logical conclusion.

This is most likely the case because I have been running more tests, cpu tests and in some of them the conroe is beating the a64 by alot, others by alittle and in a few tests the a64 is winning.

SuperPI my conroe got 20 seconds in the 1M test and the a64 got 50 seconds.

I believe you are correct about the 7600GT's bottlenecking both systems.

It does seem to make sense now. I panicked at first when I seen more frames on the a64 computer.

After running more tests and reading up on the internet it seems like the conroe is running right in specs of where it should be.

At first I was expecting huge framerate increases but I didnt know that the 7600 GT would bottleneck that bad.

It makes more sense now.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention guys. A huge relief knowing that the new system is working the way it should. Now if that 8800GTX would hurry and get here. :):)
 

nx02nx02

Senior member
Dec 26, 2001
539
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Originally posted by: oynaz
Have you checked for malware?
Do you have some kind of CPU hog installed, like Norton Antivirus?

I should also mention that both are fresh installs of XP with no spyware or viruses. :)

I was expecting huge frame rate increases and kind of panicked when I wasnt seeing it.
I always thought it was the CPU that was the bottleneck? So it's the cards that the major bottleneck in games.

I actually have one further question though.

What about in games like Civ4 and Hearts of Iron 2, Simcity4 etc.? Strategy games that use a ton of CPU power but not alot of Video Card power?

Will these types of games see huge increases with a Conroe over a A64?

I do play alot of these strategy games and they always end up not having the CPU power but plenty of Video Card power.

Will I see a huge gain in these games with the new conroe?
 

AstroGuardian

Senior member
May 8, 2006
842
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so it will be like this:

3D games requite MORE vga and LESS cpu. (Requires lots of 3D rendering power which comes out of the VGA card. for example dark corridors with variable lighting and explosions also. The same matters to flying or driving simulations)
Strategy 2D games require MORE cpu and LESS vga. (Requires lots of computing power which comes out of the CPU. For example you have 300 soldiers on the battlefield and the CPU has to think for all of them in the same time).

As i said before. Games are currently single threaded. So there is no noticeable change between single and dual core systems. At least not yet.

However the Conroe is better cpu anyways, so that makes him a favorite.
 

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
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Originally posted by: nx02nx02
Originally posted by: oynaz
Have you checked for malware?
Do you have some kind of CPU hog installed, like Norton Antivirus?

I should also mention that both are fresh installs of XP with no spyware or viruses. :)

I was expecting huge frame rate increases and kind of panicked when I wasnt seeing it.
I always thought it was the CPU that was the bottleneck? So it's the cards that the major bottleneck in games.

I actually have one further question though.

What about in games like Civ4 and Hearts of Iron 2, Simcity4 etc.? Strategy games that use a ton of CPU power but not alot of Video Card power?

Will these types of games see huge increases with a Conroe over a A64?

I do play alot of these strategy games and they always end up not having the CPU power but plenty of Video Card power.

Will I see a huge gain in these games with the new conroe?

With at least CoH and SimCity 4, they are both RAM hogs, you won't see a huge boost since you only have 1GB RAM in both systems.
CoH certainly gets a massive improvement from going above 1GB RAM (mine used about 1200MB total when I had 2GB installed), another 1GB is really something you should look at getting.
 

Boyo

Golden Member
Feb 23, 2006
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Just wait until you get that 8800GTX. Then you will be seeing a huge difference.
 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
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There is extremely little difference in gaming between A64/C2D systems, as right now, the majority of games are still GPU-limited, & 7600 GT = low end card.
In multitasking situations, the C2D will feel faster & more responsive.
Anything to do win encoding/editting video/audio/photos will be faster on the C2D.

You seriously need a better video card though.

You shoulda have went with maybe the E6300/E6400, & spent more money on the GPU.
 

NuroMancer

Golden Member
Nov 8, 2004
1,684
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Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
so it will be like this:

3D games requite MORE vga and LESS cpu. (Requires lots of 3D rendering power which comes out of the VGA card. for example dark corridors with variable lighting and explosions also. The same matters to flying or driving simulations)
Strategy 2D games require MORE cpu and LESS vga. (Requires lots of computing power which comes out of the CPU. For example you have 300 soldiers on the battlefield and the CPU has to think for all of them in the same time).

As i said before. Games are currently single threaded. So there is no noticeable change between single and dual core systems. At least not yet.

However the Conroe is better cpu anyways, so that makes him a favorite.

Don't forget that some games are infact SMP (dual core) aware. As newly developed games come out we should see more and more.
 

hurtstotalktoyou

Platinum Member
Mar 24, 2005
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My E6300 at stock was about 7-15% faster in various non-gaming benchmarks than my old Sempron 2800+ (s754) @ 2.32GHz. It turns out my motherboard was defective, so that may have been hindering performance. But I'm not convinced that was the problem.

I'm curious why some folks' Core 2 Duos are so gosh darn slow when compared to the professional benchmarks. It makes me suspicious.
 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
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Originally posted by: hurtstotalktoyou
My E6300 at stock was about 7-15% faster in various non-gaming benchmarks than my old Sempron 2800+ (s754) @ 2.32GHz. It turns out my motherboard was defective, so that may have been hindering performance. But I'm not convinced that was the problem.

I'm curious why some folks' Core 2 Duos are so gosh darn slow when compared to the professional benchmarks. It makes me suspicious.

No offense, but you are making yourself look silly.

I'm a lot more suspicious about just how you measured performance & figured out that it was only 7-15% faster :roll:

I don't think people quite comprehend the difference between real world benching & theoretical maxes.

To show minute differences, reviewers have to run tests that are incredibly CPU taxing, because in normal use, you'd never see the difference.

Now to put things into perspective, i can tell you that i see absolutely no difference in normal tasks between my Opteron 165 @ 2.5 GHz & my E6400 @ 3.4 GHz.

Even gaming feels the same, since at 1600x1200, my video card is the main bottleneck, not CPU.

WinRAR does seem significantly faster on my C2D, & DVD-RB + CCE encoding is a whole world of a lot faster.

But if you expect MSN Messenger to magically open faster or your games to suddenly skyrocket in performance, you're misunderstanding just how much of a role the CPU has in performance...
 

hurtstotalktoyou

Platinum Member
Mar 24, 2005
2,055
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Originally posted by: n7

No offense, but you are making yourself look silly.

I'm a lot more suspicious about just how you measured performance & figured out that it was only 7-15% faster :roll:

I don't think people quite comprehend the difference between real world benching & theoretical maxes.

To show minute differences, reviewers have to run tests that are incredibly CPU taxing, because in normal use, you'd never see the difference.

Now to put things into perspective, i can tell you that i see absolutely no difference in normal tasks between my Opteron 165 @ 2.5 GHz & my E6400 @ 3.4 GHz.

Even gaming feels the same, since at 1600x1200, my video card is the main bottleneck, not CPU.

WinRAR does seem significantly faster on my C2D, & DVD-RB + CCE encoding is a whole world of a lot faster.

But if you expect MSN Messenger to magically open faster or your games to suddenly skyrocket in performance, you're misunderstanding just how much of a role the CPU has in performance...

WinRAR was one of my benchmarks. I encoded a 696MB CD image to "best" quality *.rar using a Sempron 2800+ @ 2.32 GHz and a E6300 at stock. The E6300 was 7.45% faster. Hardly the performance I expected.
 

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
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Well, you can always sell your crappy C2D to me for cheap ;)

WinRAR also is very HDD limited in some situations.

Make sure you are rarring the files onto another HDD on separate channel when testing performance.

I haven't actually compared my C2D to Opty with actual benches myself, so i might just be imagining the performance improvement too, who knows.
 

hurtstotalktoyou

Platinum Member
Mar 24, 2005
2,055
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Originally posted by: n7
Well, you can always sell your crappy C2D to me for cheap ;)

WinRAR also is very HDD limited in some situations.

Make sure you are rarring the files onto another HDD on separate channel when testing performance.

I haven't actually compared my C2D to Opty with actual benches myself, so i might just be imagining the performance improvement too, who knows.

But that's not how I do it in real life. The whole point of benchmarks, for me at least, is to find a quantified idea of real-world performance. Running a benchmark that would never happen elsewhere wouldn't help with that.
 

nx02nx02

Senior member
Dec 26, 2001
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Can anyone recommend some good apps or benchmarks to run on my 2 computers to show off the conroes performance?

I have both computers here side by side and I just want to see what the Conroe can do.

So should I use Winrar for a performance test? Although I dont have seperate Hard Drives just the ones that are in the computers already. Both are about the same. 80 GIGS. one WD one Maxtor.

Winrar does seem like it would be a good test unless the Hard Drives are going to interfere with the tests.
 

AstroGuardian

Senior member
May 8, 2006
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Originally posted by: AstroGuardian
Do some tests with the Everest Ultimate 3.5. You will see that it can export reports. Send the report to my e-mail which is written below in my signature. I will tell you then whether something is wrong. Trust me i do this all the time :)

I recommend you do this.
 

Twsmit

Senior member
Nov 30, 2003
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I concur with the others. Games really benefit from faster GPU, not so much CPU. Essentially for simplicities sake you have a 2.4ghz computer, and a 2.8ghz computer, everything else is roughly the same. Looking at your specs there should be very little difference between both machines in most games, both are GPU limited because you have a midrange card, with a 8800GTX you would probably see more of a difference.
 

ForumMaster

Diamond Member
Feb 24, 2005
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just asking, since both systems have fresh installs of Windows XP, did you install all drivers for it? aren't there some patches for the conroe's just like there were for the dual core AMD cpus?
 

nx02nx02

Senior member
Dec 26, 2001
539
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I sure didnt. All I installed on the Conroe Computer is the Motherboard Drivers, Directx 9, graphics card drivers.

Is there some Software of patches that I need for the Conroe?
 

Tom

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
13,293
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i don't have a conroe so I'm just speculating, but i would think the best way to show off a dual core would be to test more than one benchmark at the same time.