Intel P4 vs AMD

baltekmi

Iuse Super mp3 Recorder Pro. At the time I got it there weren't many recorders out there but things might have changed. It's kind of like AnyDVD once you get it the updates just keep on coming for free.

http://www.supermp3recorder.com/

 

Oh dear, bottom line of my signiature.
I'm sorry the jazman, everything else is great, but I think you may have wasted a few dollars...

 

sammorris

He's got over $2000 in CPU's alone, he can afford and when he assembled it 7800's were still top of the hill it so let's be nice.

 

That's not the point I'm making. SLi never was top of the hill. In most of the games that matter to me it seems to run worse than a single card.

 

sammorris

It's probable that your CPU and memory were overrun, SLI does net performance gains although it's not worth it to me. I'm happy with my X800 Pro and it's played everything that I've thrown at it for now.

You don't have an SLI board?

 

Talking about memory overrun, I'm on here with a real beast tonight. I've got a 400MHz P2 with 64MB PC100 SDRAM. It was a gift that I finally got around to getting operational as something to do. It's got a few hundred dollars worth of adapter cards, it was a server. It has a DIGI Acceleport card with an 8 port connector. So, 8 stations could work off of it. It also has a 3Com ethernet card. It handles DSL and surfing the net with ease. It can hold 768MB of RAM, so it could be useful as a little office server. It came from an old med practice. My only use for it now is getting on the net when I have everything else torn apart. It's worth adding 2 or 3 256MB RAM cards. Did I mention it has a huge 6GB hard drive. I've got an 80GB setting idle, so that upgrade is a freebie.

It came with a Linux Red Hat OS. I had nothing to run on it, so I switched over to 98SE. Then I had to load new drivers. I had to take the cards out, ID them and then get on the net to track down the appropriate drivers. 3Com and Digi have excellent support, so that was a snap. Now it's completely functional with the 98SE operating system. Something to do on a snowy afternoon. Now for a Bloody Caesar.

 

And what a speed demon it is! LOL

You won't able to use that 80 gig hard disk because the system is probably limited to 8.5 gigs. It is possible that a bios upgrade will solve it if you can track it down but 80 might be a little too much anyway. Also there's no point in buying more memory for it because the amount that can be cached in older systems depends on the chipset but 64 megs may be all that it can use effectively. But if you have to have more memory, let me know before you buy, I probably have some sticks of PC100 or PC133 lying around and either will work. The PC133 is back compatible and because of it's higher settings you can set even CAS3 to CAS2 settings and even little have a little head room left over for overclocking.


I'll be looking forward to your benchmarks. LOL

 

LOL I did a bench already, though I don't have the RAM to run the capture software. Only a little over 1000 on the math bench. I ran Sandra and the board is upgradeable to the limit I mentioned. The P2 systems benefit well from RAM upgrades. I did one on a 350MHz P2. I upped it from 128MB up to 512MB and it did wonders. It does well burning CDs and handles a lot of 98SE apps. One of my sons still has that one going. With the FAT32 file system and the 98SE, the limit should be about 137GB for the hard drive. If you've got some 168 pin PC 100, I'd appreciate it. I'd hate to throw something out that's still usable, but I'd hate to put any money in it either.

 

brobear


I don't think that the system can cache very much and even if it did Windows 98 can only cache about 96 megs of RAM effectively but it is also application dependent. The problem is that memory over 96 megs starts to actually slow your memory response down.

Regarding hard disk the FAT32 system has only 524,208 clusters and no matter how big your disk gets you won't store much more because as the clusters become larger they begin to waste space. Each cluster can only hold a single file so if you're storing a 2KB text file then nothing else can be written into that cluster 4kb space. The idea that FAT32 can store up to two terabytes is a long standing joke among builders. A cluster on an 8 gig hard disk will rise to about 4 kb and on an 80 gig hard disk each cluster would be enourmous in comparison. When you install software it rarely fills up a cluster so you 'll be using only about half of your space and the access times will make you think you were back in the days before hard disks when cassette tapes were used. LOL

 

I think the P2 I gave my son only has about a 10GB HD. With the 128MB RAM, it was constantly hitting the wall. When I put in the 2x256MB cards, it started working well. As I mentioned, it was good for doing most apps and burning audio CDs. Check and see if you have the PC 100 or 133 RAM and we'll see what this old dog can do. LOL

 

Sophocles
On the matter of RAM, a person has to have enough to handle the software. With AV ware running in the background and running IE with a couple of windows, any system needs 256MB to 512MB to keep from locking up. As I said, the 350MHz I gave to my son was working well with 512MB, so this one shouldn't have a problem. Now if it can only handle the larger HDD.

 

maybe that's why it to so long for your last post to hit the forum with your barton oooz i mean core...lol


Sophocles thanks for the info.
i'll post my cpuz and sissoft numbers tonight and hopefully I can get some constructive criticsism?!

 

You guys shouldn't go criticizing each others systems. That 3000
Barton if tweaked properly could smoke a 3.2 Prescott. The Prescott when properly cooled can be OC(ed) successfully as theonejrs has proven. However, it is a hot running CPU and isn't the choice for most custom builders. That said, neither is the 3000 XP. Both are getting to be old tech. The new dual cores are where the performance is now. The high end single cores are faster, but they're task specific. They can do one thing well and faster. For extreme gaming they are good. But for those working in the real world, a dual core can't be beat. That is until there's a multi core.

 

brobear, I was giving sarcasm a shot. Me of all people would never intentionally anger anyone more seriously, I have a cooler and fan that you could try if you would like. its a thermal take, loud as all get out but is a good cpu cooler. it has a manual fan speed control so you could run it as fast as you want. I goig to post my benchmarks next and maybe get some help.

 

this is temps playing call of duty 2 everything full for about 3 hours. by the way all these are stable for the last 7 days or so.

 

here are the rest

 

Sophocles,

I had no problem installing an 80Gb hard Maxtor in my old G-1 400 Optiplex. I used the installation software that came with it and it worked just fine. No drive overlay either. I had a WD 40Gb in it but it had a drive overlay. The Maxtor even showed in the BIOS of the G-1.

By the way, I am looking for some Rambus Ram for the 420 Workstation. I sold it to a good friend and I am trying to find some 800-45 for it. It has 4x 128 now. I have the original 800-45 2x 128 and 2 terminator RIMMS that came with it. I'm looking for 2x 512 or 4x 256 si I can up it to 1 Gb. 2 Gb is Max. I'm also looking for a 1 GHz slot 1 P3 as one of the CPUs is starting to act up. Some times you get a CPU Failure on boot up. Re-boot and it runs fine It's sort of still my baby. It's the best computer I ever owned. It wasn't the fastest but it did everything well, even at the ripe old age of 6! It does an average size DVD with DVD shrink in under 20 min. Now that I share a house with my friend I sold it to, I sort of look after it. The original video card was a Matrox Dual Monitor 450 which I replaced with a TNT Riva 64. Now I have a perfectly good FX5200 PCI card w/128 DDR Memory that I'm not using, so I'm going to surprise him and install it in the 420. I also have a spare 16x DVD-Rom handy too so I'm going to surprise him with that as well. He's a pretty good guy who was there for me when I needed a friend. The smile on his face will be a nice bonus for me, as well.

I've been trying to get him to join AD, "Hounds" and "Zentarium". He wants to learn but feels he doesn't know enough yet to contribute to a thread. I told him just to go there and read through the threads that interest him. I told him to read the threads that talk about things you want to know about until your brain can't handle any more without getting some answers to a lot of questions. Then I told him to join and go to the threads, tell them you're a Newbie and ask your questions. I told him that in the process he will meet a pretty rounded bunch of guy's (not as in male). I told him that we would all help him understand the answers. I also told him that if he just kept reading the threads every day that gradually he would learn enough to understand all the answers and even contribute to some other Newbie! He's a "people person" so I think he would throughly enjoy the reparte' of this group and all of it's interesting contributers and their personalities!

Sophocles,
Before I forget it. I don't remember where I saw it but I read something you wrote about a "View"!
It touched me!!! Thank You.

 

theonejrs
Check StarMicro, the old CPUs are dirt cheap.

 

Baltekmi,

If you can access it in the bios, change your memory settings starting with the 2.5 to 2 2 2 5. Your memory should easily run at these settings even with the mild overclock you have right now. This will definately improve your Memory Bandwidth and performance.

After you have installed the new settings check in the bios and see if there is a 5% setting. or do it manually by raising the fsb. Run the usual benchmarks on it and check the memory speed. On my Asus it's 220x2=440 in Dual Channel. Any higher fsb and the memory speed drops to 320. Anyway, if it runs all right you can start raising the fsb until the temps start to go up, then back it down a little. Should run Sweet!

Happy Computering,

theonejrs

 

Sophocles
I tracked down a newer BIOS for the old P2 and flashed it. I got it right or I wouldn;t be typing this message right now. All I need now is some more memory.

Baltekmi
Thanks for the offer of the cooling fan.