Multitasking

[Youssef]

I'm planning on switching to AMD next time I upgrade but the whole Intel vs. AMD at multitasking issue has gotten me confused. People keep saying that Intel's better at multitasking and they're more "solid" or whatever, and that it depends on what you're using the system for. But does that mean that AMD totally sucks at multitasking? I've never gotten a chance to use an A64 system for long enough to judge but I wanna hear from some of you guys with A64's.. Particularly FX's? How are they at multitasking compared to Intels that you've used before? Is the difference really noticable? Like would your song on Winamp become choppy or something just because you're doing something else?

 

[pandora's box]

i cant vouch for amd 64. but the amd xp processors suck at multitasking. i was running ut2k4 and decided to play some music in background. alt-tabbed out of u2k4 (took about a minute). open up windows media player (took about a minute). play some music (took a while to start). alt-tab back into ut2k4 (pretty fast). slooooow. that was the final straw for me. grabbed a amd 64 and mobo yesterday. should be here next week. will report back.

 

[(cf)Eclipse]

no, it doesn't mean that amd sucks at multitasking, it just means that ht allows intel to balance the workload when you're doing something extremely cpu intesive along with some other things at the same time. turn off your ht in the bios, and you'll be simulating what amd cpu's are somewhat like.

 

[CastleBravo]

First of all, what do you mean by "multitasking"?

Whem most people talk about multitasking, what they really mean is having a bunch of windows open with Word and Excel and Internet Explorer open, and switching between them. For that kind of stuff, there is no difference, except that Athlon 64's run most of those applications faster than comparable Pentium 4's. Those kind of things just aren't demanding enough for either processor to care.

"Real" multitasking is when you are running several applications at once, that are each doing something independently. For instance, if you are compressing files, de-fragging your hard drive, encoding video, and playing MP3's all at once, that is "real" multitasking. A Pentium 4 *can* be better at that sort of thing, because of Hyperthreading.

Hyperthreading lets a P4 simulate 2 processors instead of 1, allowing it to divide up moderate processor loads for several things at once better than an A64. Basically, it makes the processor more efficient under certain load conditions.

Thing is, your total processing power isn't changed. The pie is the same size, you are just cutting it up differently. So if you are doing any one thing that is very demanding, hyperthreading is of little or no use, and the overall computing power advantage that A64's often have over comparable P4's then becomes the dominant factor (e.g. in games). Furthermore, the fact that at a given price point the A64 is sometimes a "bigger pie" tends to mask any advantages of Hypertransport in real use.

I went from a P4 3.2E to an A64 3500+, and I would never have guessed that the P4 had a magical feature that made it multitask better than the A64. Except for certain users doing certain things under certain circumstances, Hyperthreading doesn't actually do much for you. It is a nice feature, but the blanket statements people make about this sort of thing are stupid.

 

[Brad4321]

With a single opteron, I often have a bottleneck at my disks than with my processor. With the same disks on my 2600 the processor was obviously the bottleneck in multitasking.

Now, once I get my other opteron...

*makes list for santa*

 

[ameoba]

i cant vouch for amd 64. but the amd xp processors suck at multitasking. i was running ut2k4 and decided to play some music in background. alt-tabbed out of u2k4 (took about a minute). open up windows media player (took about a minute). play some music (took a while to start). alt-tab back into ut2k4 (pretty fast). slooooow. that was the final straw for me. grabbed a amd 64 and mobo yesterday. should be here next week. will report back.

Your problem is more than likely the fact that you're using onboard sound. While you're doing the upgrade, get yourself a decent sound card with an audio processor (SB Live! OEM's are like $30 on New Egg). It'll make a world of difference.

 

[thelarry]

One thing that seems odd to me is that a lot of P4 users on this board report their cpu usage is usually 50% or less. On a AMD it is easy to get 100% usage. I wonder if hyperthreading just allows the cpu to use more cycles.

People talk of "smoothness" being better on a P4. A properly configured AMD machine is about as smooth as you can get in that there are no delays is non demanding computing. If your machine is not configured right, especially the network and internet connection the system will seem choppy. You can also have a system run choppy when the hard drive is heavily fragmented or almost full.

 

[NEVERLIFT]

@Youssef

Can you tell use what you call multi-tasking? And what are gonna be doing with this computer?


I can tell you from first hand experience the Athlon64 is faster in almost everything compared to a P4. It is not till the P4 is running 3.6ghz or faster that it can really hold its own.

The P4 is smoother (also slower while it feels smoother) when doing certain tasks that are very cpu dependent. I have used my friends P4C 3.4ghz o/c 3.9ghz and we tested it as we o/c it and compared to my 2.2ghz Athlon64 it was not till he got 3.6ghz did he even start to tie me or beat me in benchmarks. I have his screenshots and will posts them if the mods don't mind. At 3.9ghz he beats me bad in Cli bench and Sandra and thats it.
We have the same videocards and harddrives. At 3.9ghz he just tied me in Super Pi and in games like Farcry and COD I still get better fps.

Getting back to the multitasking. We did numerous tests where we would have torrents going and listening to mp3, watching XviD movies and doing stuff. I can leave my torrents going and still play games while he cant. Doing basic stuff his pc feels very responsive. When two things are using very high cpu usuage the P4 does respond a little better, but at the same time do it alot slower. Besides the games... the best example I can give you is using winrar v3.3 to unrar a 780mb file. With no multi-tasking I beat him by 1min 15sec, and when we multi-task I beat him by 3min 33sec.
I had 8 torrents going, my ftp running with clients on it, mirc, msn several web pages and the game Hoyle Casino 2004 running in a window. He had the same going. My friend could not believe the difference. It was not that big of deal with the games really.

PS: My friend is so impressed with my Athlon64 (and its only a s754) that he is giving the P4 to his son and building him a s939 based pc using the new MSI mobo and a 3200+
Another one saved from the darkside... bwahahahahahahahaha!


The Techreport, PCStat and Xbit labs and a few other sites have done reviews and benchmarks while multi-tasking and the P4 always loses.

 

[zandor]

There was a setting in Windows NT that helped a *ton* playing mp3s in the background on an older machine back in the day. I forget the exact name, but basically what it did was turn off the feature that gives the foreground application priority in CPU time allocation.
Looks like it's still there in XP:

Control Panel -> System -> Advanced Tab -> Performance -> Advanced Tab -> Processor Scheduling

I haven't really played with this in a while, as I started using a dual CPU box around the time I got Win2k.

 

[Brad4321]

that a lot of P4 users on this board report their cpu usage is usually 50% or less.

The same often happens with duallys. It is quite possible that recording is off "one processor" formed by HT.

 

[Youssef]

NEVERLIFT:

What I mean by multi-tasking is pretty much what CastleBravo was talking about.. defragging, playing mp3's, using kazaa, having several browser windows open, using msn messenger, raring/unraring files, and maybe being able to have one instance of prime-95 running.

My P4C is very very smooth and isn't choppy at all when doing all that, but obviously it does do it a lot slower than it would if it was doing less work. But then again, it's the choppiness that gets to me, it sucks when your computer just isn't responsive and your mp3's keep chopping up. So I hope A64's don't really get THAT choppy when making them do all that work simultaneously

I guess you can say it's like comparing a 5.7 liter engine car (A64) to a 1.3 liter engine one (P4). The 5.7 liter one is a lot faster and more powerful but definately not as smooth as the other one. I don't know if that's a good analogy, but you get my point

I multi-task more often than I game but I still want to switch to an A64 (FX or something), I don't like intel anymore

Please post your screenshots NEVERLIFT, lemme see them. I need someone to make me feel completely confident about switching to AMD

Thanks everyone!

 

[NEVERLIFT]

All I can tell you is mine is smooth and fast. It's just very very fast and good and thanks to AMD's hypertransport and on die memory controller I just dont see why or how anyone can say the Athlon64 is not good at multi-tasking.
http://www.pcstats.com/releaseview.cfm?releaseID=504
http://www.hypertransport.org/consortium/cons_pressrelease.cfm?RecordID=63


The P4 needed its Hyperthreading cause of its low IPC, and so much bandwidth it just was being wasted(bloated). I always pick about the P4 and its HT but it really is something the P4 needs.

About the screenshots, the mods have asked me to tone it down so if a mod gives an ok I will post them. If you like I can just email them to you rared up (1.05mb in size).

 

[Youssef]

All I can tell you is mine is smooth and fast. It's just very very fast and good and thanks to AMD's hypertransport and on die memory controller I just dont see why or how anyone can say the Athlon64 is not good at multi-tasking.
http://www.pcstats.com/releaseview.cfm?releaseID=504
http://www.hypertransport.org/consortium/cons_pressrelease.cfm?RecordID=63


The P4 needed its Hyperthreading cause of its low IPC, and so much bandwidth it just was being wasted(bloated). I always pick about the P4 and its HT but it really is something the P4 needs.

About the screenshots, the mods have asked me to tone it down so if a mod gives an ok I will post them. If you like I can just email them to you rared up (1.05mb in size).

sure man, please do send them: youssefabdelaal@gmail.com
thanks

you could also add me on messenger if you use it: ufess@hotmail.com

 

[NEVERLIFT]

Done

 

[burningrave101]

All I can tell you is mine is smooth and fast. It's just very very fast and good and thanks to AMD's hypertransport and on die memory controller I just dont see why or how anyone can say the Athlon64 is not good at multi-tasking.
http://www.pcstats.com/releaseview.cfm?releaseID=504
http://www.hypertransport.org/consortium/cons_pressrelease.cfm?RecordID=63


The P4 needed its Hyperthreading cause of its low IPC, and so much bandwidth it just was being wasted(bloated). I always pick about the P4 and its HT but it really is something the P4 needs.

About the screenshots, the mods have asked me to tone it down so if a mod gives an ok I will post them. If you like I can just email them to you rared up (1.05mb in size).

NEVERLIFT have you ever actually used a Pentium 4 w/ HyperThreading?

I realize you really like AMD and all but i just went from a Pentium 4 3.0c to an Athlon 64 3500+ 90nm and the Pentium 4 OWNZ the Athlon 64 in multitasking abilities.

HyperThreading only affects performance in multithreaded environments and multitasking.

If your a hardcore gamer then the Athlon 64 is the best choice. If you multitask heavy and run productivity software then your better off with a Pentium 4 w/ HyperThreading because alot of popular applications in use today are multithreaded to improve performance on dual processor and HyperThreading configurations. They are also optimized for SSE/SSE2 so FPU performance plays little part.

The K8 core has very few differences from the K7 core except for the main difference which is the on-die memory controller. This improves performance alot in areas where latency is important such as gaming.

Your always talking about sites showing the A64 beating the P4 in multitasking and yet you have never once linked me to a single one of them.

 

[Tazman2]

NEVERLIFT have you ever actually used a Pentium 4 w/ HyperThreading?

I realize you really like AMD and all but i just went from a Pentium 4 3.0c to an Athlon 64 3500+ 90nm and the Pentium 4 OWNZ the Athlon 64 in multitasking abilities.

Dual core amds are coming out i believe next year so then it'll be like running two cpus but yet it'll be one and that = win on multitasking! Not to mention wtf needs to type a report while playing a game?! Most of the time if i do switch out to say to go to IE or checking winamp, etc. it does take alittle time to change over BUT it depends on how big the app is because i'm almost 100% sure that its just that slow because its swapping on the hardware because hl1 mods switch almost instantly and hl2 defintly alot slower but then again it does take alot more ram and resources thats why it takes awhile to quit as well as compared to hl1 stuff.

 

[burningrave101]

Dual core amds are coming out i believe next year so then it'll be like running two cpus but yet it'll be one and that = win on multitasking! Not to mention wtf needs to type a report while playing a game?! Most of the time if i do switch out to say to go to IE or checking winamp, etc. it does take alittle time to change over BUT it depends on how big the app is because i'm almost 100% sure that its just that slow because its swapping on the hardware because hl1 mods switch almost instantly and hl2 defintly alot slower but then again it does take alot more ram and resources thats why it takes awhile to quit as well as compared to hl1 stuff.

Dude those aren't even CPU intensive tasks. Why dont you try running applications like 3ds max 6 and Photoshop and stuff like that and switch between open windows rendering large files and see which processor is able to do it more efficiently lol. Not to mention the fact that encodeing will put an Athlon 64 on its knees when you try to go do something else at the same time.

Dual core Intel processors will be out next year as well and Intel will most likely add HyperThreading to each core. They will be EM64T compatible and they might even add an on-die memory controller down the road because of the fact the Northbridge controller limits the performance capabilities.

You surely dont think AMD is going to stay on top of Intel for very long do you? It was just early 2003 when the Athlon XP's were being spanked by the Pentium 4 "c" series CPU's. The tied shifts back and forth continuously over the years.

 

[Sju av Nio]

What I mean by multi-tasking is pretty much what CastleBravo was talking about.. defragging, playing mp3's, using kazaa, having several browser windows open, using msn messenger, raring/unraring files, and maybe being able to have one instance of prime-95 running.

I seriously question the necessity of running all those things at the same time (and often enough that it should be an issue), and then using it as an argument for buying P4 over A64.

 

[thelostrican]

Youssef:i have both an fx55@ 2.9 and a p4c @ 3.8, both are similar systems, and they behave more or less the same in multitasking...though the p4c feels a little smoother, but the amd can and does acces programs faster, and i am saying this because my 3.8 system is fast and i can tell the difference.

it is very smooth so far, also and very important, i got it with a msi neo 2 and the set up was painless, no problems what so ever, which was nice too. have in mind that my fx is running at 2.9...

i bought the fx to replace my old xp system that i use as a lan rig, i ended up putting the p4c as lan rig and i am using the fx as my everyday rig. go figure. i wouldnt upgrade however , a system like yours just yet, is not really worthy.

 

[Tazman2]

You surely dont think AMD is going to stay on top of Intel for very long do you? It was just early 2003 when the Athlon XP's were being spanked by the Pentium 4 "c" series CPU's. The tied shifts back and forth continuously over the years.

Well considering at 32bit the amd64s slap the p4s around like a cheap hooker i can't see why a dual core amd 64 won't be even better considering the only real big thing intel is doing to their 64 bit cpus is adding "32" to it and using the same OLD SLOW cores! Not to mention the spanking was done with what 1.5x+ the mhz? Thats not spanking. Lets not forget the p4 1.6 ghz that got owned by the piii 1.0 ghz!

 

[Youssef]

I seriously question the necessity of running all those things at the same time (and often enough that it should be an issue), and then using it as an argument for buying P4 over A64.

not ALL those things at the same time, but a lot of times you can end up browsing through a whole bunch of shit while downloading pirated music D) and listening to mp3's, chatting on messenger, and defragging... i dunno bout you but i do it a lot.. i wasn't using it as an argument for buying a P4 over an A64.. i wanted to know whether A64's can do that stuff without disappointing me, cuz i really do wanna make that switch to AMD.. i'm convinced now... for my next rig, AMD it is... can't wait for those dual cores too

 

[Youssef]

Youssef:i have both an fx55@ 2.9 and a p4c @ 3.8, both are similar systems, and they behave more or less the same in multitasking...though the p4c feels a little smoother, but the amd can and does acces programs faster, and i am saying this because my 3.8 system is fast and i can tell the difference.

it is very smooth so far, also and very important, i got it with a msi neo 2 and the set up was painless, no problems what so ever, which was nice too. have in mind that my fx is running at 2.9...

i bought the fx to replace my old xp system that i use as a lan rig, i ended up putting the p4c as lan rig and i am using the fx as my everyday rig. go figure. i wouldnt upgrade however , a system like yours just yet, is not really worthy.

thanks for the info lostrican... i'm even more convinced now.. and nah.. i'm not thinking of upgrading my system NOW... my system's good enough.. but i like to think of the future.. in a year or so maybe.. i'll get me an FX

 

[Tazman2]

not ALL those things at the same time, but a lot of times you can end up browsing through a whole bunch of shit while downloading pirated music D) and listening to mp3's, chatting on messenger, and defragging... i dunno bout you but i do it a lot.. i wasn't using it as an argument for buying a P4 over an A64.. i wanted to know whether A64's can do that stuff without disappointing me, cuz i really do wanna make that switch to AMD.. i'm convinced now... for my next rig, AMD it is... can't wait for those dual cores too

I run a BT client all day, have winamp running while i run ut2k4 with bots when i don't feel like turning off my BT to get my pings back to play online and its fine! The only thing that might slow the PC down is defragging but thats because of the high disk usage.

 

[NEVERLIFT]

Your always talking about sites showing the A64 beating the P4 in multitasking and yet you have never once linked me to a single one of them.

Here you go, I guess you're still in DENIAL or maybe you just overlooked it the first time around?
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=722282

Here's two threads that personally show it takes a 3.7ghz p4 or faster to beat my lowely 2.2ghz A64.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=839328

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=837943

FYI I just ignor the rest of your remarks.

 

[FreiDOg]

There's more to multitasking than a few media benchmarks,
there's feel, which is much harder to measure, and certainly harder to quantify and equate.

My AXPM feels slugish when throwing a couple of heavyweight tasks at it. It doesn't move between (or off, to say a browers window) the applications well. And I'm not talking about little background tasks like folding or seti which run largely in cache and seamlessly in the background, real threads, VS builidng a project with a few thousand files, spice sims that chew up a few hundred mb of ram before all is done.

I've never had a problem with a P4/w HT feeling responsive.

Both systems get the work done fast, but the P4 feels quick and responsive and ready to do my bidding even when I've got a heavy load on it. The AXP, it seems like I'm waiting for it to respond alot.

Just my perception and opinion.

 

[NEVERLIFT]

There's more to multitasking than a few media benchmarks,
there's feel, which is much harder to measure, and certainly harder to quantify and equate.

My AXPM feels slugish when throwing a couple of heavyweight tasks at it. It doesn't move between (or off, to say a browers window) the applications well. And I'm not talking about little background tasks like folding or seti which run largely in cache and seamlessly in the background, real threads, VS builidng a project with a few thousand files, spice sims that chew up a few hundred mb of ram before all is done.

I've never had a problem with a P4/w HT feeling responsive.

Both systems get the work done fast, but the P4 feels quick and responsive and ready to do my bidding even when I've got a heavy load on it. The AXP, it seems like I'm waiting for it to respond alot.

Just my perception and opinion.

I agree with you about the AthlonXP.

 

[PureBooYah]

Here you go, I guess you're still in DENIAL or maybe you just overlooked it the first time around?
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=722282

Here's two threads that personally show it takes a 3.7ghz p4 or faster to beat my lowely 2.2ghz A64.

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=839328

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=837943

FYI I just ignor the rest of your remarks.

those threads don't show or prove anything about multitasking which is what burningrave was talking about and this thread is talking about.

Almost any cpu can handle a couple IE windows, mp3 playing, IM programs, and downloading at the same time. At least any early P4 or AXP can. The new P4's and A64's do it even faster. But when it comes to cpu intensive multitasking a P4 will be the best choice. Just an example, whenever i encode DVD's with my A64, the only things i can really do with my computer during the process is surf the internet, chat on IM's, or listen to music. I can really do anything else that cpu intensive because 90%+ of my cpu is being used. A P4 w/HT could handle much more.

pic of my cpu encoding dvd:

 

[iddqd]

With a single opteron, I often have a bottleneck at my disks than with my processor. With the same disks on my 2600 the processor was obviously the bottleneck in multitasking.

Now, once I get my other opteron...

*makes list for santa*

With enough Opterons, you can destroy the world

 

[NEVERLIFT]

those threads don't show or prove anything about multitasking which is what burningrave was talking about and this thread is talking about.

Almost any cpu can handle a couple IE windows, mp3 playing, IM programs, and downloading at the same time. At least any early P4 or AXP can. The new P4's and A64's do it even faster. But when it comes to cpu intensive multitasking a P4 will be the best choice. Just an example, whenever i encode DVD's with my A64, the only things i can really do with my computer during the process is surf the internet, chat on IM's, or listen to music. I can really do anything else that cpu intensive because 90%+ of my cpu is being used. A P4 w/HT could handle much more.

pic of my cpu encoding dvd:

Thats funny I use CCE or DVDShrink and dont have any problems when encoding. Yes I dont recommend going and playing any Farcry or Doom3 but my pc is far from slow to respond or sluggish.


FYI them links show a very cheap cpu made by AMD beating intel's very high priced cpu.
If you want to live in denial then thats fine but any hardware review site will show you the same info over and over again. I just dont buy into all this BS that a slower cpu from intel is so much smoother. (slower and smoother thats the intel P4)


I'm not even sure the new P4's run at full speed when being used? It looks like they throttle at the drop of a dime, even if gaming!
http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=630

 

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

If an encoder is slowing your system down set it to Below Normal priority and you won't know it's there. Better than forking out the $ for a different CPU.

 

[PureBooYah]

Thats funny I use CCE or DVDShrink and dont have any problems when encoding. Yes I dont recommend going and playing any Farcry or Doom3 but my pc is far from slow to respond or sluggish.


FYI them links show a very cheap cpu made by AMD beating intel's very high priced cpu.
If you want to live in denial then thats fine but any hardware review site will show you the same info over and over again. I just dont buy into all this BS that a slower cpu from intel is so much smoother. (slower and smoother thats the intel P4)


I'm not even sure the new P4's run at full speed when being used? It looks like they throttle at the drop of a dime, even if gaming!
http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=630

never said i had any problems econding anything, just that it uses more CPU than a P4 with HT would. I also didn't comment about your pc being slow or fast or whatever or that an A64 is "sluggish." The A64 is an awesome CPU, but you have to let go of your bias against Intel to see the whole picture. We know the A64 is awesome with gaming which you have stated in everyone of your posts, but the A64 doesn't dominate every catagory, multitasking being one that it doesn't. You have to realize there's more to a cpu than gaming and synthetic benchmarks, but because a cpu dominates both of those catagories doesn't mean it's the best all around cpu. That and I doubt you'll notice any difference when playing HL2/D3/FarCry/etc. with a P4 than you would an A64. They'll both play the game.

Sounds to me like you've never owned or used a P4 system for a long period of time so you're arguements are only from one point of view, the AMD side. And you're just looking at numbers. This A64 is my first AMD setup and I love it, but the one thing i truly miss is having HT. HT was great with my P4 setup. For everyday use i can't notice a single difference between my 3800+ @ 2.6 and my 2.4c @ 3.5. When gaming i couldn't notice a difference either (when i had a 9800pro in both machines) , both machines ran the same games at the same exact settings and there was no difference in gameplay, no slow downs or anything, and load times where pretty equal. The A64 might have been faster, but fps is just a number, if you have a high end cpu of either company it's going to play the game without any difference in gameplay.

 

[Brad4321]

Dual core Intel processors will be out next year as well and Intel will most likely add HyperThreading to each core. They will be EM64T compatible and they might even add an on-die memory controller down the road because of the fact the Northbridge controller limits the performance capabilities.

You surely dont think AMD is going to stay on top of Intel for very long do you? It was just early 2003 when the Athlon XP's were being spanked by the Pentium 4 "c" series CPU's. The tied shifts back and forth continuously over the years.

From what I have seen so far, dual core from the intel camp doesn't look that thrilling. I also think I read somewhere that they are dropping HT on the dual cores. It will loose its effectiveness anyway.

My AXPM feels slugish when throwing a couple of heavyweight tasks at it. It doesn't move between (or off, to say a browers window) the applications well. And I'm not talking about little background tasks like folding or seti which run largely in cache and seamlessly in the background, real threads, VS builidng a project with a few thousand files, spice sims that chew up a few hundred mb of ram before all is done.

The XP really sucked at multitasking. The 64's (or at least my opteron, which is all I have to compare to in the 64 line, although I suspect the regular 64's are the same in this aspect) do one whole hell of a lot better.

I haven't been completely impressed with HT. When comparing my old athlon xp 2600 to my grandma's 3Ghz w/ HT, for example, I was impressed completely. However, when comparing her pentium to my opteron 246, I see much less of a difference. Yes, I know there is an overall speed difference, but when pushed to the max the responsiveness should be similar enough for a feel comparison.

Truthfully, IMO at least, if you compare an athlon 64 to any intel w/HT, I wouldn't consider multitasking much of an issue. They are both pretty close at this point, and once dual cores come out, they should be the same for obvious reasons. Now, if you are comparing an athlon xp to any intel w/HT, multitasking should really be an issue.

If you want to live in denial then thats fine but any hardware review site will show you the same info over and over again. I just dont buy into all this BS that a slower cpu from intel is so much smoother. (slower and smoother thats the intel P4)

It is "smoother" in the since of the word, but don't take that as to be "faster" in multitasking. Although HT does help reduce waste in the pipelines and thus make the processor a little faster, HT's main thing is to make everything smooth. You can jump around with windows without any delays. This is why you can take dual P3's and have smoother multitasking than an OC'd fx55. However, by no means is the dual P3's faster, just smoother.

However, as I said before, the difference really isn't that great anymore.

 

[NEVERLIFT]

I have said it before, I have owned 1 P4 and hated it. It was slower in everything. And the Athlon64 is one helluva a multi-tasker
After using P4's at work and my friends P4 o/c to 3.9ghz I would not have one unless it was running 250mhz fsb or higher and running 3.7ghz or faster. This the only way it can compare to a Athlon64 IMHO.

PS: when encoding you should pick the best software, CCE and DVDShrink are the fastest and best out to date.

 

[NEVERLIFT]

@Brad4321

I agree with the comments about the AthlonXP, I used a AXP 1800+ for a while and it was a good performer and mine was on level with a 2.6ghz P4 none HT and it was not a good multi-tasker. Encoding and unrarring files chewed it up. Now when encoding with my Athlon64 I cant even tell I'm doing it. I have never seen files rar and unrar so fast

I used to hate torrents on my AXP also, now I can have them running in the background and barely notice it.

It will be interesting to see what happens when AMD has dual cores out....

 

[burningrave101]

I have said it before, I have owned 1 P4 and hated it. It was slower in everything. And the Athlon64 is one helluva a multi-tasker
After using P4's at work and my friends P4 o/c to 3.9ghz I would not have one unless it was running 250mhz fsb or higher and running 3.7ghz or faster. This the only way it can compare to a Athlon64 IMHO.

PS: when encoding you should pick the best software, CCE and DVDShrink are the fastest and best out to date.

Your "reviews" that you linked to NEVERLIFT didn't show or prove a damn thing lol.

The things that you link to have absolutely nothing to do with multitasking and you continuously try to stray from the topic of multitasking every time the subject comes up. If your not going to discuss multitasking and provide benchmarks that emulate multitasking then dont bother sending us all on a wild goose chase to see benchmark results that the rest of us were already completely aware of.

For the people that use productivity software and do alot of CPU intensive tasks the Pentium 4 w/ HyperThreading is a better choice then an Athlon 64.

Here is a good review at Tech Report that covers alot of different CPU performance areas:

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/pentium4-570j/index.x?pg=8

It will give you an idea how the different CPU's perform in some of the most popular applications.

http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2004q4/pentium4-570j/index.x?pg=12

Notice the WinZip benchmark. The Pentium 4's have the best time. I was under the impression that the Athlon 64's were better at compression? I guess it just depends on the individual application that is tested.

 

[NEVERLIFT]

For the people that use productivity software and do alot of CPU intensive tasks the Pentium 4 w/ HyperThreading is a better choice then an Athlon 64.

I disagree and think any P4C running slower than 250mhz fsb and 3.7ghz or slower is not up to pare even compared to an Athlon64 2.2ghz.
My computer is faster when multi-tasking than my friends P4. I dont know how much smoother it can get than this.

Here maybe these link will help you get over your HT complex.
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1557.7/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/3dmax5-p4-ht_2.html
(slower and smoother... thats the P4) Total BS IMHO
A64 multi-task faster and better. A P4 can give you the impression its smooth but its actually running slow.


This review shows it all.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-fx55_16.html

 

[burningrave101]

I disagree and think any P4C running slower than 250mhz fsb and 3.7ghz or slower is not up to pare even compared to an Athlon64 2.2ghz.
My computer is faster when multi-tasking than my friends P4. I dont know how much smoother it can get than this.

Here maybe these link will help you get over your HT complex.
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1557.7/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/3dmax5-p4-ht_2.html
(slower and smoother... thats the P4) Total BS IMHO
A64 multi-task faster and better. A P4 can give you the impression its smooth but its actually running slow.

You really aren't doing a very good job at proving anything. If anything your just helping to prove my point of the Pentium 4 being better for heavy CPU tasks because of HyperThreading.

Conclusion
Well, Intel managed to move from the simple increase in the core clock frequencies to introduction of optimized algorithms, which will definitely make the further frequency increases much more efficient. In 3ds max 5 application Hyper-Threading technology proved highly powerful, as it ensured at least 10%-20% performance growth during single-task final rendering and a multiple performance increase during multi-task viewports processing.

This review shows it all.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-fx55_16.html

You do realize that <<< better underneath the graphs means LOWER IS BETTER right? lol

 

[NEVERLIFT]

You really aren't doing a very good job at proving anything. If anything your just helping to prove my point of the Pentium 4 being better for heavy CPU tasks because of HyperThreading.

You do realize that <<< better underneath the graphs means LOWER IS BETTER right? lol

Yep I just showed you a cheaper CPU thats running over 1ghz slower is beating or damn tied the P4's in those certain benchmarks. If you look at the whole review you see the AMD's beat the P4's in pretty much all the benchmarks.


I rest my case.
P4 is bloated and discontinued. intel is moving on with the Pentium M and dual cores.

 

[The_Mage18]

There's one fact that no one can argue with that will settle this matter. A processor can only execute one instruction at a time. It doesn't matter if it's 64-bit or 32-bit or RISC or Sparc or PPC it only executes 1 instruction at a time. Now recent enhancements have allowed modern processors to have several different areas that can complete a DIFFERENT instruction but each area can only do 1 task.

Hyperthreading re-routes instructions to unused portion of a chip allowing another instruction to be executing or nearing completion at the same time the main core is completing its current execution. For software designed to take advantage of this, it leads to more efficient processing as several instructions can be completed in a smaller amount of time.

A faster processor could achieve the same results by simply muscling through it.

The whole reason SMP was created was to allow for multiple instruction execution to achieve more efficient computing. There's a reason why many high end servers are dual processor or more. More processors mean more executed instructions in the same time frame (within limits. There ARE diminishing returns).

Is an Intel w/ HT smoother an an A64? Yes in software that can take advantage of HT as it can run more instructions at once. Are we likely to notice much difference between the two? Probably not. The A64 has enough muscle to make up the difference.

Anything you do that requires a lot of calculations (Video editing, CAD, drafting, encoding) will benefit from a strong floating-point of the A64. Multiple tasks running at once will tend to perform better on a HT Intel where the OS can run lower priority tasks through HT portions of the chip instead of giving up main core cycles to them.

 

[NEVERLIFT]

Well said.

I foresee both intel and AMD doing socket changes and rolling out the dual core's.


I'm just curious why the prescott's are so cheap now? They run hotter and seem to throttle the cpu at the drop of a hat. I asked about this in another post and I wonder if anyone here can shed some light on this?
http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=630

Is there away to turn off the throttling or stop it? I dont want a cpu that throttles even when your gaming and runs so hot it has to throttle to stay cool.