AMD to Intel????

[number001]

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?

[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?

[metatron]

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?

Unless you're moving up to core 2 duo, you're still better off with the amd setup you already have. Also, consider nforce4 motherboards from msi and gigabyte (if you're not into overclocking. dfi if you want to try your hand in the art of processor flambé ) the nforce4 boards from these manufacturers are top notch and almost bulletproof. i have been personally using nforce4 boards from msi (k8n neo4-f) and dfi (lanparty ut ultra d) for almost 2 years now. haven't experienced problems since the first day i set up my amd systems.

unfortunately, you're going to have to purchase a new pcie graphics card if you decide to adopt these nforce4 motherboards. if you plan to take advantage of dx10 in vista within the next few months you could altogether defer upgrading until the midrange g80 models from nvidia and r600 from ati/amd are released sometime this may (hopefully).

for the meantime, you can always tweak virtual mem, defrag your disks (powerdefrag is a great freeware utility), install the latest drivers and make sure your PC's free from malware (try bitdefender8 online scanner - unlike other free online scanning services, bitdefender also removes malware after detection).

and by the way, nag clean install ka ba ng xp since nag-migrate ka from intel to amd o driver patch lang ng existing os?

[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.

[number001]

Unless you're moving up to core 2 duo, you're still better off with the amd setup you already have. Also, consider nforce4 motherboards from msi and gigabyte (if you're not into overclocking. dfi if you want to try your hand in the art of processor flambé ) the nforce4 boards from these manufacturers are top notch and almost bulletproof. i have been personally using nforce4 boards from msi (k8n neo4-f) and dfi (lanparty ut ultra d) for almost 2 years now. haven't experienced problems since the first day i set up my amd systems.

Although I feel that I should get a N-force4 board now but unfortunately the shops are already not selling this kind of board with socket 939. And imagine if the board conks out in less than a year, the shop will not be able to provide an exact replacement.

unfortunately, you're going to have to purchase a new pcie graphics card if you decide to adopt these nforce4 motherboards. if you plan to take advantage of dx10 in vista within the next few months you could altogether defer upgrading until the midrange g80 models from nvidia and r600 from ati/amd are released sometime this may (hopefully).

Having to buy a new pci-e vga was one of the reasons why I settled for the ASrock and therefore the ULI chipset. Btw, I'm not into 3D games or anything. The most stressful thing my PC does is playing DiVx video clips, burning DVD's, or unzipping large .rar files, which is why I'm contended with the AGP.

and by the way, nag clean install ka ba ng xp since nag-migrate ka from intel to amd o driver patch lang ng existing os?

I always perform a clean install everytime there is a major hardware change such as in this case.

Currently, my drivers are four months old and there is really no major upgrades in these new drivers/bios other than support for new chips.

[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.

[oldblue]

been experiencing that 100% CPU spike with dell centrino laptop since last May-Aug '06 pa. re-installed it more than a couple of times, pero bumalik din . parati yan freezing eh d ko malaman kung ano dahilan. the OS that came with the laptop is orig.

my suspect was limewire. basta na-install na, kahit i-uninstall mo, pababalik-balik na 100% cpu spike kahit nag-word or nag-inet ka lang


i stopped using Windows since.

[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.

[Horsepower]

Get an Intel Core2 Duo E6600 (4Mb L2 Cache) and you can forget any CPU that AMD will ever release. hehehehehehehe

[metatron]

Get an Intel Core2 Duo E6600 (4Mb L2 Cache) and you can forget any CPU that AMD will ever release. hehehehehehehe

Not to spark an amd vs intel flame war pero huwag naman. Even the x2 5600+ and 6000+ cpus based on a 3 year old architecture can trounce the conroe e6600 on some apps - and its not even based on the next gen microarchitecture (slated for 2nd half '07 release) amd's been developing to counter conroe and penryn.

by virtue of monopoly, if amd goes down, we'll end up paying so much more for intel cpus (remember early 90's intel cpu pricing?).

peace

[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.

[Jun aka Pekto]

remember early 90's intel cpu pricing?

Yeah. They're $1000 (that's early 1990's dollar prices) apiece retail. How many here would be able to pay those prices if AMD wasn't around to provide competition? I still remember paying $700 for a P2-266 in 1997 and it wasn't even top of the line.

Add: I've been assembling my own DIY pc's since 1992. One thing I've learned is that one brand of cpu will often hold a lead for a time and then another will counter it later.

I started out with AMD because of the better bang for the back (386DX40) through the DX2's. Then, I switched to Intel with the Pentiums up to Pentium 3's. I switched back to AMD when the Athlon XP's came out and stuck through this AMD X2 4200+ back in 2005. Looks like I'll be going Intel once more with the next pc I assemble.

Based on newegg.com prices which is the most reliable US online parts store, the most expensive dualcore FX is $525 while the least expensive is $325. The X2 6000+ is $529 while my own X2 4200+ is down to $155.

The E6600 retail is $314 while the E6700 is $512. The E6300 is $184 while the E4300 is $169. So yes, I'd say bang for the buck is now with Intel once more.

[mbt]

the cpu should not be causing a 100% spike in cpu usage in light WinXP multitasking... there's something in windows or some app running in the background or foreground that's causing the spike. a Venice-core Athlon is more than enough for Windows XP

[Jun aka Pekto]

Personally, I'd still try loading a Linux Live CD and find out if it is indeed the hardware.

Sometimes, drivers are at fault which makes it a software problem. Also, the page file may also be taking up too much resources if control is left to Windows XP. I always keep my page file permanent and located in a different hard drive from where XP is installed. There has not been any sign of similar cpu spikes whatsoever.

With Vista, the page file is contained in the same 40gb hard drive where Vista RC1 is. I do keep it permanent as well.

Add: I'd also keep an eye on hard drive activity the next time the spikes occur.