AMD to Intel????

[Jun aka Pekto]

Last Sept '06, my Asus P4P800-E (865PE) prematurely conked out. Bec. I didnt have the budget to do an all-out upgrade, I made it a point to reuse parts as much as possible. In other words, I just needed to get a socket 478 motherboard, but at that time the shops in Gilmore no longer carried such boards due to the fast-paced or planned obsolescence. To make it short, I got myself a AMD64 3200+ (venice) and ASrock 939Dual-SATA2 (motherboard). I just sold my now "useless" and "old" P4 3.0E ghz socket 478 cpu.

I noticed the AMD is much cooler and quieter (both by a big margin) than the P4 "PresHOT" cpu that it replaces. And those are the only good I think of, for the AMD. With all things equal (as in the only diffs bet. my AMD and Intel setup are the CPU and MB), I find the AMD so much slower in normal WinXP usage and esp. during multi-tasking (ie. browsing the net (ie and firefox), word, excel, win explorer, and divx running). There would be a few seconds of pause or "freeze", which is really annoying (even a Piii-500mhz/256MB ram will not do that).

So I'm contemplating to move back to Intel by getting either a P4 (65nm "Cedar Mill" core) 631 or 641 cpu and another Asus 865G based mb (P5PE-VM). Although the Core 2 Duo is tempting, it is disregarded bec. its cost is more than the double the budget. So is this a good move or should I just keep the AMD?

I doubt the cpu is directly involved unless its bus setting isn't set right in the bios. Assuming the bus speed is set correctly, I'd take a look at the amount of ram, the video card and which drivers it's using, the virtual memory settings, the size and speed of the hard drive.

Granted, XP flies in this AMD dualcore pc. But, it also flies in my wife's old Athlon XP 1700+/768mb ram/100gb hard drive/30gb hard drive/128mb agp nVidia GF4-Ti4200+. XP is on the 100gb hard drive while the virtual memory is on the 30gb.

I also disabled any unused ports like the serial and parallel ports in the bios.

My next pc will probably be a Core 2 Duo as a replacement for my wife's pc unless AMD drops its prices to make it more attractive.

[mikmik316]

There is no performance gain... the Intel CPU you mentioned is a downgrade from your current AMD... Reason why you feel that Intel is much faster in 2D operations + multitasking is due to the fact that you are using an Intel CPU + Intel chipset + correct Intel drivers for XP

The solution for your AMD CPU + ULI (which is ALi before *gasp*) should be new drivers + new bios updates...

Also, don't plan an upgrade if your not getting a Core Microarchitecture CPU paired with an Intel 965 or Nvidia 6xx or ATI Crossfire 3xxx chipset...

For budget PCs, CPU will be a Core Solo CPU or a Core Duo CPU with lower secondary (L2) cache + a 945 chipset..

If you still want an AMD solution, probably an AM2 Motherboard + the cheapest Athlon X2 that you can buy...

[number001]

Spec of my current setup

Amd64 3200+ venice rev DH-E6 - 2 Ghz (10-multiplier x 200 bus speed) single core.
ASrock 939Dual-SATA2
2 x 1 GB Corsair TwinX DDR 400 - 2 gb
GeCube Ati Radeon 9550 Extreme edition 128mb AGP8x
Coolermaster Centurion 5 w/ Coolermaster 350 Watts PSU
120GB Seagate 7200 PATA
80 GB Seagate 7200 SATA
300 GB Seagate 7200 SATA
NEC 2510A 8x Dvd-/+ r/rw/dvd9

===========================

All things equal with my old Intel cpu/mobo set-up, then and now. Not the latest drivers, but only four months old or less.

I really think its the MOBO/chipset, that's abit pokey. I would stay away from the N-force chipsets bec. it never seem to run out of problems plaquing it.

[boybi]

I find the AMD so much slower in normal WinXP usage and esp. during multi-tasking (ie. browsing the net (ie and firefox), word, excel, win explorer, and divx running). There would be a few seconds of pause or "freeze", which is really annoying

i also have this annoying freeze right now. i'm also using AMD Athlon 64 3200+. i only experienced this 'freeze' the past 2 weeks. and last night, i reinstalled my WinXP OS to WinXP MCE, and the 'freeze' is still there and i haven't installed everything yet. is this a problem with the hardware?

[number001]

i also have this annoying freeze right now. i'm also using AMD Athlon 64 3200+. i only experienced this 'freeze' the past 2 weeks. and last night, i reinstalled my WinXP OS to WinXP MCE, and the 'freeze' is still there and i haven't installed everything yet. is this a problem with the hardware?

My hunch is that its CPU related, despite what other people may think otherwise. Well for me, this annoying "freeze" occurs during multitasking operations. During this time, the CPU Usage will spike to 100% and normal operations resume only after the CPU Usage goes down. Looks to me, the cpu is choking.

Funny even, when viewing DiVx or Xvid video clips, there is a noticeable slow down, something which never happened in my Intel P4 mobo/cpu.

About three or so years ago, I remember reading about the webmaster of techreport.com commenting that his AMD cpu (which was an Opteron matched with 4GB Ram) on his primary workstation did get bogged down once in while on multitasking operations. In an unrelated comparison, he also mentioned that the P4 w/ hyperthreading he used briefly did not have much problems with multitasking.

Btw, pls post your PC specs so we can compare.

[boybi]

My hunch is that its CPU related, despite what other people may think otherwise. Well for me, this annoying "freeze" occurs during multitasking operations. During this time, the CPU Usage will spike to 100% and normal operations resume only after the CPU Usage goes down. Looks to me, the cpu is choking.

Funny even, when viewing DiVx or Xvid video clips, there is a noticeable slow down, something which never happened in my Intel P4 mobo/cpu.

About three or so years ago, I remember reading about the webmaster of techreport.com commenting that his AMD cpu (which was an Opteron matched with 4GB Ram) on his primary workstation did get bogged down once in while on multitasking operations. In an unrelated comparison, he also mentioned that the P4 w/ hyperthreading he used briefly did not have much problems with multitasking.

Btw, pls post your PC specs so we can compare.

My PC's specs:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1GB RAM
MSI K8N SLI
nVidia GeForce 6800GS 256MB

[Syuryuken]

Intel Pentium - multitasking
AMD Athlon - for gaming

My PC's spec:

P4 3.0
MSI 865PE Neo2-p
512 RAM
MSI FX5500 256MB 128 bit

AMD Athlon 2.8
MSI K7N2 Delta/MSI KT6 Delta
512 RAM
MSI FX5200 128MB 128 bit

Gamit ko sa gaming for 4 years now. No problem so far.

BTW I'm using branded memory and power supply.

[number001]

i also have this annoying freeze right now. i'm also using AMD Athlon 64 3200+. i only experienced this 'freeze' the past 2 weeks. and last night, i reinstalled my WinXP OS to WinXP MCE, and the 'freeze' is still there and i haven't installed everything yet. is this a problem with the hardware?

I just read your post closely just now. So you are saying you only noticed the "freeze" just two weeks ago?

As for me, I have noticed this "freeze" the very second I first booted winxp with the amd cpu/asrock mb.

[Horsepower]

*metatron: please don't say "peace" at the end of your statement because it's so gay. Just a friendly suggestion.

Anyway, all i know is, the E6600 ($200) can annihilate the AMD FX-62 ($800-1000) in most apps and benchmarks. Of course, i assume you're not one of those clowns who spend all their time and sorry asses benchmarking their computers. We use these in the real world for real apps that produce real work because we have lives. hehehehhe

But you are right, AMD should be thanked for what it did (copying Intel when the former had some of its procs manufactured by AMD) then later developing its own. Intel practically copied the AMD64 architecture but did it too late. Talk about twist of fate. Too many people got the AMD because of the 64-bit hype (not many even know that you need at least 4GB of ram to fully utilize 64-bit LOL!!!).

It sparked the processor war, prices plunged, I remember a classmate of mine was sooooo proud of his 486DX which he bought for 100K, right now, it can't be even sold for 1K hahahaha!). I thank God we can't afford a new computer back then. For a hundred grand, i was able to have THX 5.1 digital speaker for my setup (Logitech z5500).

Now, almost everyone has a computer. I thank AMD for that and all those poor fellas at IBM, Cyrix and Texas Instruments who did their best to stick their heads out of the water but eventually had to pull out or minimize production.

Unfortunately, Monopoly is still a big part of the IT business. Software developers favor Intel (probably because of monetary benefits which Intel is infamous for). Example: Adobe. You'll instantly notice the performance reduction on a similar platform AMD and Intel that's because Adobe "looks" for the intel processor. A few years ago, some nice guys from Sourceforge developed a registry hack to counter this and the Adobe indeed worked faster (i dont have a link, sorry).

Currently, it puzzles me why AMD with their revolutionary* on-die memory controller is reducing cache. In contrast, the E6600 and above are very fast because of these 4MB. It is predicted they will double to 8MB or 16MB after the 4x4 (Kentsfield Quadcore).




*Actually intel had an on-die prototype pre-P4 days but decided to bin it. Not sure why. AMD is first to market it and it indeed proved to be revolutionary.

[metatron]

Too many people got the AMD because of the 64-bit hype (not many even know that you need at least 4GB of ram to fully utilize 64-bit LOL!!!). [/I]

its the other way around. you don't need 4gb of ram to fully utilize 64bit cpus. instead, you need 64 bit processors to page more than 4 gigs of ram. what you need to fully utilize a 64bit processor is a native 64bit os with native 64bit programs.

too many people adopted the optys and athlons with the 64bit extensions because of the fact that the k8 architecture offered considerably better performance with 32-bit applications.

Currently, it puzzles me why AMD with their revolutionary* on-die memory controller is reducing cache. In contrast, the E6600 and above are very fast because of these 4MB. It is predicted they will double to 8MB or 16MB after the 4x4 (Kentsfield Quadcore).

*Actually intel had an on-die prototype pre-P4 days but decided to bin it. Not sure why. AMD is first to market it and it indeed proved to be revolutionary.

its amd's implementation of DCA (Direct Connect Architecture) that made the platform revolutionary. the incorporation of an on-chip memory controller would almost be useless (fsb limited) unless paired with an extremely high performance point to point interconnect (HyperTransport).


peace :butterfly:

[Alpha_One]

Currently, it puzzles me why AMD with their revolutionary* on-die memory controller is reducing cache. In contrast, the E6600 and above are very fast because of these 4MB. It is predicted they will double to 8MB or 16MB after the 4x4 (Kentsfield Quadcore).




*Actually intel had an on-die prototype pre-P4 days but decided to bin it. Not sure why. AMD is first to market it and it indeed proved to be revolutionary.

AMD cutting back cache: Supply-and-demand. AMD has a HUGE disadvantage over Intel when it comes to production capacity, not to mention that they're slightly behind in smaller manufacturing processes. Dual cores = less production = more expense. AMD is simply FORCED to cut back cache to save space on their chips. Otherwise, either their chips will be too expensive, or they'll just run out of chips to sell.

Intel not implementing the on-die controller. Two main reasons, I would guess:

a) Technical: Fabrication technology wasn't quite advanced back then. The first Intel P3 and AMD Athlon Classic had the L2 cache off-die for a good reason: the on-die L2 caches were BIG. BIG means EXPENSIVE. Any on-die memory controller would significantly add to the size of the (back then) very large dies, making them very expensive. Another thing is that a memory controller produced to partner SDRAM, would only partner SDRAM. Just like 939 and AM2 processors, which is, for all intents and purposes, the same thing with different memory controllers.

b) Politics. This were the days when Intel was aggressively pushing RDRAM. If RDRAM flopped (as it did), it would be EXTREMELY expensive to switch back due to reasons outlined in A.

P.S. On-die memory controllers are hardly revolutionary, in the same sense that variable valve timing isn't revolutionary. I mean, by World War II lots of gizmos and witchcraft on a modern internal combustion engine were already thought up - it just doesn't make sense to make them. On-die memory controllers are not a new idea, some small companies during the Pentium One days (was Cyrix one of them?) were attempting to implement what was a primitive example of what the A64 has today and then some. i.e. EVERYTHING (cache, memory controller, drive controller, PCI interface, the lot!) on one chip. Not practical (back then) though.

P.P.S. Benchmarks or no benchmarks, the E6600 clobbers the FX-62 on the most important measure of all: price. The performance can go at most a few percent either way depending on the application, but the E6600, at 1/5 the price of the FX-62, would comparatively be a steal. I'd go for the E4300 though. Or just stick with my loud, hot P4 530 (it still works, anyway), and see if Core or K8L or whatever new thing there is in a few months would be attractive.

[Jun aka Pekto]

Spec of my current setup

Amd64 3200+ venice rev DH-E6 - 2 Ghz (10-multiplier x 200 bus speed) single core.
ASrock 939Dual-SATA2
2 x 1 GB Corsair TwinX DDR 400 - 2 gb
GeCube Ati Radeon 9550 Extreme edition 128mb AGP8x
Coolermaster Centurion 5 w/ Coolermaster 350 Watts PSU
120GB Seagate 7200 PATA
80 GB Seagate 7200 SATA
300 GB Seagate 7200 SATA
NEC 2510A 8x Dvd-/+ r/rw/dvd9

===========================

All things equal with my old Intel cpu/mobo set-up, then and now. Not the latest drivers, but only four months old or less.

I really think its the MOBO/chipset, that's abit pokey. I would stay away from the N-force chipsets bec. it never seem to run out of problems plaquing it.

I haven't had any problems with mine either in XP Home or Vista RC1. But my setup's substantially different from yours.....
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4200+
MBOARD: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (S939, pci-e, non-SLI, nForce 4 Ultra)
PSU: Antec Truepower II 480
VIDEO: 256mb pci-e ASUS AEX800XL ViVo
RAM: Corsair 2 x 1gb DDR-400
SOUND: SB Audigy 2 Value and built-in Realtek AC97 7.1 audio
HARD DRIVES: WD Caviar 200gb IDE (XP Home) - IDE 1 Master
WD Caviar 250gb IDE (Storage and Page File) IDE 1 Slave
Maxtor 40gb IDE (Vista RC1) IDE 2 Slave

OPTICAL DRIVE: Pioneer DV-109 IDE 2 Master
OTHER DRIVES: External Firewire 120GB 3.5" hard drive (Storage)
External USB2 60GB 2.5: hard drive (Storage)

It's the same exact setup I had when I first assembled it in Jul 2005 It's been rock-solid since day 1.

I'll have to assume you're correct in determining it's your hardware at fault. But, yours have ULi as the chipset listed while mine has the nForce 4 Ultra plus, I'm using a dualcore cpu.

Since your freezes happen during multi-tasking, have you taken a look to see which programs hog the most cpu resources at that point? Traditionally, it's been during the antivirus scan and scanning huge images that took up the most cpu resources in my older pc's. It's not much of an issue with the dualcore X2 4200+. The pc just keeps going. Also, have you tried a Linux Live CD and see if the same problems persist? If it still does, then it's definitely mobo/cpu/hardware related.

The software setup of this pc:
WinXP Home
AVG
Windows Defender
ASUS latet video drivers for X800XL
Built-in XP Firewall - I had the nVidia Active Armor firewall. But I uninstalled it after I mistakenly thought it was at fault for slow internet. The actual culprit was a cable splitter. Cox Cable did an upgrade and forgot to tell me about taking the splitter off.

As for multitasking........no issues. In fact, I've been on a Divx---->iPod mp4 binge, converting all my Divx recordings (with Ulead Video Studio 10) for use on an iPod. I've been surfing here and watching You Tube caps all at once...

[Lucius]

Yup lakas kumain memory Limeware. Kaya u******* nalng hahaha un nga lang pahirapan if MP3s. Per album kasi usually.