pentium 4 2.4 northwood or Venice 3000+ decision help

[imported_UncivilizedAMD]

Hi,

I always multitask and always run binary news reaper, and repair large dvd binary archives using par2. Sometimes I also author mpeg1/2 files into dvd using tmpgenc dvd author or ulead dvdworkshop.

I'm stuck deciding whether to get a pentium 4 2.4c HT northwood or an AMD venice 3000+. I will be overclocking the CPU. From what I heard the 2.4c can easily reach at least 3.2 ghz and the Venice 3000+ can easily reach at least 2.5 ghz.

Assuming I OC to 3.2 and 2.5ghz for the pentium 4 and the venice respectively, how much faster do you guys think the pentium 4 will be compared to the Venice?

 

[Link]

If you multitask, P4 wins hands down. A64 is very weak when it comes to mutitask.
o/c 2.4 to 3.2..well, you'll need a good cooling and memories.

 

[josh1413]

Originally posted by: Link
If you multitask, P4 wins hands down. A64 is very weak when it comes to mutitask.
o/c 2.4 to 3.2..well, you'll need a good cooling and memories.

What?? HT helps very little. So little in fact it wont be noticable. Get the athlon 64 3000+ and overclock if you need too.

 

[Link]

Take a look at this article.
Unless you have X2, A64 always loses to P4 when mutitasking.

 

[ryanv12]

hyperthreading actually helps quite a bit. I would never give up my 3.2c Pentium 4 for a single core A64 because my Pentium 4 renders 3dsmax faster than a comparable A64. With that said, I will be getting one of them X2's

Oh yeah, for the OP - That's tough, but I would get the Pentium 4 as well.

 

[stevty2889]

Actualy hyperthreading is helpful for true multitasking, if you are running multiple CPU intensive applications, not sure about getting a 2.4c to 3.2ghz easily, but mine ran at 3.1ghz, so I would say 3ghz would be the average.

 

[bjc112]

Originally posted by: ryanv12
hyperthreading actually helps quite a bit. I would never give up my 3.2c Pentium 4 for a single core A64 because my Pentium 4 renders 3dsmax faster than a comparable A64.

Comparable A64 meaning 3200+?

 

[bjc112]

Originally posted by: Link
Take a look at this article.
Unless you have X2, A64 always loses to P4 when mutitasking.

Some of those results seem a little tough to believe..

3x + faster in Web Browsing and Multitasking..

The 630 comes in @ 3ghz.

And completely FAILED the 3d + multitasking..

 

[BitByBit]

Originally posted by: Link
If you multitask, P4 wins hands down. A64 is very weak when it comes to mutitask.
o/c 2.4 to 3.2..well, you'll need a good cooling and memories.

Is this from experience?
Most of the reviews I've read tend to suggest that the Athlon 64 has a very responsive, smooth feel to it.
Certainly, if the A64 is a very weak multitasker, then the XP must have been absolutely dismal!

Multitasking performance is mostly dependent on context switching speed, that is, the time it takes to switch threads. Since new threads must be fetched from the memory, memory interface speed is obviously going to heavily impact this, and I'm inclined to suspect that the Athlon 64's ultra-low memory access latency gives it a huge advantage here.
There is also a question of instruction latency - the time it takes to fill the processor pipeline. Obviously, lower instruction latency is better, but we're not talking a perceptible delay here - we're talking nanoseconds.

The P4's only advantage is of course, Hyperthreading.
Without it, the A64 would be multitasking champ - something that is reflected in Anand's multitasking scenarios.

 

[clarkey01]

Originally posted by: BitByBit

Originally posted by: Link
If you multitask, P4 wins hands down. A64 is very weak when it comes to mutitask.
o/c 2.4 to 3.2..well, you'll need a good cooling and memories.

Is this from experience?
Most of the reviews I've read tend to suggest that the Athlon 64 has a very responsive, smooth feel to it.
Certainly, if the A64 is a very weak multitasker, then the XP must have been absolutely dismal!

Multitasking performance is mostly dependent on context switching speed, that is, the time it takes to switch threads. Since new threads must be fetched from the memory, memory interface speed is obviously going to heavily impact this, and I'm inclined to suspect that the Athlon 64's ultra-low memory access latency gives it a huge advantage here.
There is also a question of instruction latency - the time it takes to fill the processor pipeline. Obviously, lower instruction latency is better, but we're not talking a perceptible delay here - we're talking nanoseconds.

The P4's only advantage is of course, Hyperthreading.
Without it, the A64 would be multitasking champ - something that is reflected in Anand's multitasking scenarios.

3000+ OVER a 2.4C, you have an Intel user above telling you to go AMD, there's no bias there. Just like I'd tell someone to get a 3.2C over an 3200AXP.

 

[clarkey01]

Originally posted by: Link
If you multitask, P4 wins hands down. A64 is very weak when it comes to mutitask.
o/c 2.4 to 3.2..well, you'll need a good cooling and memories.

Can you back that up ? "very weak" is a bit OTT, they perform just fine, but P4C's do take the cake and hypertheading is a elegant solution to the P4's deep pipeline stalls.

 

[Link]

and another one

Originally posted by: clarkey01

Originally posted by: Link
If you multitask, P4 wins hands down. A64 is very weak when it comes to mutitask.
o/c 2.4 to 3.2..well, you'll need a good cooling and memories.

Can you back that up ? "very weak" is a bit OTT, they perform just fine, but P4C's do take the cake and hypertheading is a elegant solution to the P4's deep pipeline stalls.

Here is one

and another one

 

[BitByBit]

Obviously you're talking about the performance of the single-core Athlon 64 in those benchmarks vs. the P4s.
As the article states, the better multitasking performance of the P4 is down to a more efficient use of Windows' scheduler thanks to HT.
If that article featured an HT-disabled P4, then it would be the one trailing.
You can see from most of those multitasking that the dual core Athlon gives over twice the performance of the single core, despite operating at the same speeds.
This tends to suggest that the scheduler is indeed holding back the single core, which is why I believe AMD should have pursued SMT technology.
It has nothing to do with the Athlon's core architecture.

Oh, and that article was comparing an Extreme Edition dual-core P4 to the X2, not a regular dual core.

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: Link
Take a look at this article.
Unless you have X2, A64 always loses to P4 when mutitasking.

Did anyone notice that they refer to a CPU called the A64 XP, more than once? What's up with that? I wouldn't trust a site that doesn't even know what CPU they're reviewing...

 

[Zap]

What CPU are you using now?

I had a 2.4c and a 2.6c. At the time I always multitasked, running Agent newsreader and Bittornado. Switched to a 2.4A (no Hyperthreading) and system got bogged down. My ultimate solution? Got a VIA C3 system to do the downloading. The second system is a really slow system on it's own right but does what I need it to do and my main rig felt faster than it ever did even with Hyperthreading.

I personally don't have a problem with multiple systems. A friend of mine feels that was inelegant and built a dual Opteron system.

 

[phaxmohdem]

Seems as though we've strayed a bit from the original topic. I've never had any experience, with binary news reaper, or binary DVD repairs, It sounds to me that projects like that would benefit a lot from the shorter pipeline/fast memory interface design of the athlon, however you also mentioned you do encoding, which would most likely be performed best on the OC'd intel chip. However, if you are able to crank up the athlon chip to 2.4-2.5 GHz like you suspect, I would definately go that route. I've been running a 2.2GHz AThlon 64 FX-51 for the better part of 2 years now, and it will render just BARELY slower in lightwave 3D than my 3.0GHz Northwood w/ hyperthreading enabled (no hyperthreading and my FX edges out the P4), and it encodes DVD video using Adobe Encore just a tad faster actually not by much granted. In general I've found my FX-51 system to perform anywhere from 5-35% faster than the P4 system depending on the task.

If you pair that OC'd 3000+ (@2.4GHz) and some FAST CL2 RAM, I'd say you have an unstoppable duo you will not regret at all for the $.

 

[Link]

Originally posted by: BitByBit
Obviously you're talking about the performance of the single-core Athlon 64 in those benchmarks vs. the P4s.
As the article states, the better multitasking performance of the P4 is down to a more efficient use of Windows' scheduler thanks to HT.
If that article featured an HT-disabled P4, then it would be the one trailing.
You can see from most of those multitasking that the dual core Athlon gives over twice the performance of the single core, despite operating at the same speeds.
This tends to suggest that the scheduler is indeed holding back the single core, which is why I believe AMD should have pursued SMT technology.
It has nothing to do with the Athlon's core architecture.

Oh, and that article was comparing an Extreme Edition dual-core P4 to the X2, not a regular dual core.

You're right on one thing, but wrong on two things here.
Yes, the articles are about x2 vs D-EE, but the article also shows single core results and HT enabled. On this thread, we are talking about single core A64 vs single core P4 w/HT enabled. So let's stick to the subject.

 

[Link]

Originally posted by: Goi

Originally posted by: Link
Take a look at this article.
Unless you have X2, A64 always loses to P4 when mutitasking.

Did anyone notice that they refer to a CPU called the A64 XP, more than once? What's up with that? I wouldn't trust a site that doesn't even know what CPU they're reviewing...

I've supplied 2 articles that show P4 winning over A64 when it comes to multitasking. Please direct me to 2 articles that tell opposite result.

For the record, I have both A64-3000+ o/ced to 2.6 and P4-3.2E o/ced to 3.84, both with exactly the same hardware configurations, excluding motherboards.

 

[imported_UncivilizedAMD]

Originally posted by: Zap
What CPU are you using now?

I had a 2.4c and a 2.6c. At the time I always multitasked, running Agent newsreader and Bittornado. Switched to a 2.4A (no Hyperthreading) and system got bogged down. My ultimate solution? Got a VIA C3 system to do the downloading. The second system is a really slow system on it's own right but does what I need it to do and my main rig felt faster than it ever did even with Hyperthreading.

I personally don't have a problem with multiple systems. A friend of mine feels that was inelegant and built a dual Opteron system.

I'm using an athlon 1ghz. I've been hesitant to upgrade because I've been hoping to get an AMD chip with great multitasking ability for a cheap price but the X2 is definitely out of my budget. The venice is within my budget but I'm skeptical of it's multitasking abilities. I'd rather do all my work in one machine rather than doing different work on two machines.

 

[imported_UncivilizedAMD]

Originally posted by: phaxmohdem
Seems as though we've strayed a bit from the original topic. I've never had any experience, with binary news reaper, or binary DVD repairs, It sounds to me that projects like that would benefit a lot from the shorter pipeline/fast memory interface design of the athlon, however you also mentioned you do encoding, which would most likely be performed best on the OC'd intel chip. However, if you are able to crank up the athlon chip to 2.4-2.5 GHz like you suspect, I would definately go that route. I've been running a 2.2GHz AThlon 64 FX-51 for the better part of 2 years now, and it will render just BARELY slower in lightwave 3D than my 3.0GHz Northwood w/ hyperthreading enabled (no hyperthreading and my FX edges out the P4), and it encodes DVD video using Adobe Encore just a tad faster actually not by much granted. In general I've found my FX-51 system to perform anywhere from 5-35% faster than the P4 system depending on the task.

If you pair that OC'd 3000+ (@2.4GHz) and some FAST CL2 RAM, I'd say you have an unstoppable duo you will not regret at all for the $.

I don't think I will benefit from a shorter pipeline such as the technology AMD uses. Since I am using quickpar to repair files and tmpgenc and ulead to encode mpeg 1 & 2 to dvd then its pretty much redudant data processing and number crunching, which I've heard is the pentium's specialty because of its longer pipelines. I have used a friend's amd 64 3000+ at stock speed and it isn't fast enough for my tastes. So I am still contemplating the athlon 3000+ because it is a great overclocker, but it doesn't look like a strong multitasker even at high speed according to the articles provided in this thread.

 

[imported_UncivilizedAMD]

Originally posted by: BitByBit
Obviously you're talking about the performance of the single-core Athlon 64 in those benchmarks vs. the P4s.
As the article states, the better multitasking performance of the P4 is down to a more efficient use of Windows' scheduler thanks to HT.
If that article featured an HT-disabled P4, then it would be the one trailing.
You can see from most of those multitasking that the dual core Athlon gives over twice the performance of the single core, despite operating at the same speeds.
This tends to suggest that the scheduler is indeed holding back the single core, which is why I believe AMD should have pursued SMT technology.
It has nothing to do with the Athlon's core architecture.

Oh, and that article was comparing an Extreme Edition dual-core P4 to the X2, not a regular dual core.

If the scheduler is a problem, anyone know if Windows 64 has any changes to the scheduler that will enable the Athlon 64 to be a better multitasker?

 

[BitByBit]

Originally posted by: Link
You're right on one thing, but wrong on two things here.
Yes, the articles are about x2 vs D-EE, but the article also shows single core results and HT enabled. On this thread, we are talking about single core A64 vs single core P4 w/HT enabled. So let's stick to the subject.

You described the Athlon as "very weak when it comes to multitask".
It isn't a weak multitasker as much as Windows is poorly optimised for running demanding foreground applications along with demanding background apps, certainly on non-SMT single cores.
The only reason the Athlon does poorly here is because Windows simply isn't giving it the thread(s) to work on.
It has nothing to do with its pipeline, nor any other detail of its architecture.
As I've stated previously in this thread, the Athlon's IMC makes it a very fast context-switcher - far faster than the P4.
What you should have said is that HT gives the P4 a huge advantage in multitasking, such that it surpasses the Athlon in many areas as a result of that, nothing else.

UncivilizedAMD:
I doubt it.
Single-threaders should check their registry to make sure Windows gives priority to foreground apps.
The setting is in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\PriorityControl
There should be a DWord setting called Win32PrioritySeparation, and it should be set to 0x00000026 (38).
This basically gives foreground threads 3X the the CPU time of background apps.

 

[Goi]

Originally posted by: Link

Originally posted by: Goi

Originally posted by: Link
Take a look at this article.
Unless you have X2, A64 always loses to P4 when mutitasking.

Did anyone notice that they refer to a CPU called the A64 XP, more than once? What's up with that? I wouldn't trust a site that doesn't even know what CPU they're reviewing...

I've supplied 2 articles that show P4 winning over A64 when it comes to multitasking. Please direct me to 2 articles that tell opposite result.

For the record, I have both A64-3000+ o/ced to 2.6 and P4-3.2E o/ced to 3.84, both with exactly the same hardware configurations, excluding motherboards.

I'm not knocking on you, just the article, and just that one. You still have 2 other articles to your credit, though I haven't looked at them yet.

 

[raskren]

I have a 2.4C in my home computer. It is overclocked to 3.3 Ghz with a Thermalright SP-94 cooler and a very small voltage bump, although it has reached this clockspeed with the OEM cooler.

I have to say that everything is far faster with this chip than my Athlon XP 3200+ at work or my 1.86 Ghz Dothan notebook.

Things seem to just stall on other machines. I'm a heavy multitasker. I often have Lightwave (rendering), Photoshop, an email client and a web browser open at any given time which wouldn't be possible on the other machines.

As a professional (read: not a gamer) I will never buy a non-multithreaded CPU for doing work.

 

[fatty4ksu]

Dear Lord, do NOT TOUCH that 3000+ if you encode/mulitask.

You will NOT be happy. Trust me.