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Author Topic: Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up  (Read 38394 times)

Reznor007

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Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up
« Reply #75 on: 2001-12-28 02:32:00 »
Quote

On 2001-12-26 22:03, Threesixty wrote:

Do you guys remember when Athlon first came out? They where saying that their FSB was at 200mhz......what  they didn't tell you was that they meant it was 200mhz with DDR Ram. I imagine that they thought that when the DDR was finally put out on the streets (Back then DDR was experimental) that all you would have to do is plug it in your current Athlon motherboard and it would work.....guess they were wrong, huh.

You see....Intel isn't the only one guility of playing the numbers game. Those older Athlon systems really had a 100mhz FSB (SDram), and AMD was claiming it as a 200mhz FSB.(DDR SDram)


The 200MHz figure is correct. Sort of... AMD licensed the Alpha EV6 data bus technology for use in the Athlon. It operates at 100MHz physical, 200MHz effective because it sends data at the beginning and end of each pulse. 133-266 for the newer ones.
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Threesixty

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Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up
« Reply #76 on: 2001-12-31 06:48:00 »
Well, I think it's fishy.

Especially since Intel claims their P4 has a 400FSB and the chip itself is running at 100mhz bus (basicly, saying that the Rambus allows the multiplication of four). And Athlon is using a 133mhz Bus, and using that DDR memory and comes up with a number of 266. (I have no proof, I'm just ranting.....using my own logic)

And isn't it said that DDR Sdram sends data at the beginning and end of each pulse....could it be that that Alpha EV6 data bus was just the highway....but needed a car that could actually go that fast....the car being the DDR Sdram? I think.....yes.
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Sephiroth 3D

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« Reply #77 on: 2001-12-31 10:33:00 »
That's it! I've decided to upgrade my lowly Celeron 300A overclocked to 450. I'm gonna get myself a P4 1.8Ghz chip (maybe a 2.0Ghz chip) and a compliant motherboard... probably an Iwill. (I've NEVER had a problem with those boards.) Only thing I'll have to get other than those two things: an Antec Server case. (1030 SX I believe... The one with a switch on the back.) I already have the RAM... 256 should suffice for now...

(Checks prices...) That's gonna cost me... about $600. Let's see... if I work full time... I can have that in... 6 weeks. (I dump half my earnings into my savings account for school.)

Well... Looks like I'll be busy soon... Probably after New Years...

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

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Reznor007

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Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up
« Reply #78 on: 2002-01-01 06:00:00 »
Don't go for the P4...way overpriced. Get an AthlonXP 2000+ (1.67GHz). Much better performance.
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Sephiroth 3D

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« Reply #79 on: 2002-01-01 19:21:00 »
Really? My Athalons are crap unless you're rendering, in comparison to our P4s that is.

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

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Reznor007

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Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up
« Reply #80 on: 2002-01-02 03:29:00 »
An Athlon will perform better clock for clock than a P4. Hence the naming convention on the AthlonXP. The 2000+ really runs at 1.67GHz, but performs on the same level as a P4 2GHz. And is usually cheaper.
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Sephiroth 3D

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« Reply #81 on: 2002-01-02 06:14:00 »
(See above post.)

Sephiroth 3D

"I don't understand..." "You don't have to understand." - Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

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Threesixty

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Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up
« Reply #82 on: 2002-01-02 08:13:00 »
Athlon what against P4 what?
Athlon Rev-C with what motherboard and what Gigahert, against P4 what gig. with same components?

Get whatever you want.....

And I don't think they have a 2000xp yet, the 1.6 is rated at 1900xp.
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Sephiroth 3D

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« Reply #83 on: 2002-01-02 16:38:00 »
Let's see...

Athlon T-Bird 1.2Ghz w/ 256megs RAM (non-DDR) & 2 45gig HDs VS P4 1.5Ghz w/ 512megs Mushkin (DDR?) RAM & 36gig SCSI HD. Otherwise identical...

(Lightwave Loading & Rendering test)
P4 loaded scene in about 10 seconds. Athlon took about a minute to load identical scene. In rendering time, Athlon rendered identical scene in 6:37 while P4 took 7:10. (minutes:seconds)

Even taking into consideration the differences between these two systems, this is why I say Athlons are good for rendering, a bit of gaming, and not much else. That's my opinion based upon evidence I have personally collected. You can never really trust what companies say about their clocking, cause they tend to distort the truth. Get other opinions, and give it a try yourselves. A field test of the chips is always better than "clocking" the chips. Keep that in mind...

Sephiroth 3D

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ficedula

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« Reply #84 on: 2002-01-02 18:24:00 »
Seph3d: The loading time difference there is quite possibly due to the hard disk. For a fair test they should be the same; but the P4 disk is SCSI (faster) and smaller (faster) than the Athlon's.
And also the RAM! If the scene involves calculating 200MB of associated data, or something, the P4 gonna do that in RAM while the Athlon's swapping...

In impartial benchmarks (I tend to go by PC Plus and Toms Hardware) the *only* things P4's have proved faster in is running programs designed specifically for the P4. That's all, and I'd hardly call that an achievement...

And yes, the PC Plus benchmarks are carried out on real world user tasks: gaming, 3d rendering, database searching, audio/video compression/decompression...and of course, they try to use as near-as-possible identical hardware to make it fair.

The *only* valid reason to buy a P4 would be  a) if you did a LOT of stuff which involved a program heavily optimised ONLY for the P4. I don't think anyone does, though...    or b) For it's better thermal protection, if you can't wait for Athlon mobo's with proper thermal protection to come out. P4 is still better in that sense.

For the rest of us - which is most users! - the Athlon kicks much ass compared to the P4.
[edited] 68 2002-01-02 19:26
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Threesixty

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Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up
« Reply #85 on: 2002-01-02 23:14:00 »
Yeah....double the Ram would make a difference.

And a slow harddrive can make all the difference in the world....The biggest bottleneck on a PC is the Harddrive. They make me use a P3 866 at work....The guy in charge of all the PC's, there, just slapped it together with components laying around the office (we are talking very old stuff...It has a Dimond Media 8meg video card...gee-whiz, Wally.), the only thing new was the motherboard and the CPU. The computer I had before was a P3 500mhz with a TNT2 card. I'm a draftsman, and do a lot of work in Autocad. Guess which one was faster.....the 500mhz. It had a better harddrive, and loads files a good 50 seconds faster on huge drawings....the 866mhz is quicker on those small drawings. I don't know what the Harddrives are....but I do know that the old 500mhz one had a very quiet harddrive and the 866's is very,  very noisy. So I'm going to guess that the 500mhz has a 7200rpm U66 (drive index = 17000). It may be a u100 7200rpm (Drive index = 24000), but I doubt it, the place I work at is kinda cheap. The 866mhz probably has a 5400rpm  U33 (drive index = 8000).  A slow harddrive will kill performance....That's why I use two U100's in Raid 0 mode (drive index = 36860).

And the 1.2 Athlon's came in Rev C and Rev B. Rev C is the 133 bus, Rev B is the 100 bus....that, too, would make a difference.

Tell me one more difference....what's the 'price' between the two computers. :D
[edited] 65 2002-01-03 00:17
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Goku7

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« Reply #86 on: 2002-01-03 00:57:00 »
Wouldn't the bottleneck in any new system be the CD-ROM drive?  I mean, unless you're running a game or program completely off the hard disk, then the cd-rom would be the "weakest link".

I just got a shiny new 52x cd-rom drive, and the box says its sustained transfer rate is 7megs per second.  I don't know if that's using DMA or not, though.  However, it's still WAY slower in terms of data throughput compared to today's hard disks.
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J*** H*******

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Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up
« Reply #87 on: 2002-01-03 01:38:00 »
Message.
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Goku7

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« Reply #88 on: 2002-01-03 02:09:00 »
Ok.  Mine comes with a speed-adjust utility.

But, what's up with XA audio decoding?!  While the new 52x drive claims to support the XA audio format, the hard drive is still running like crazy when it plays it!  I can't play MegaMan X5 anymore on bleem! or ePSXe because its XA audio was practically the entire soundtrack, so the hard drive's heads were in use for a good solid hour or however long I played the game.  My old 6gig drive (a Quantum Fireball model) completely failed after prolonged use of that game.  Why can't it simply use just the cd-rom, like when it plays a normal cd-audio track?
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Reznor007

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Yes, it's now my turn to ask for advice on a major system up
« Reply #89 on: 2002-01-03 03:52:00 »
The XP2000+ just recently came out :)
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