New computer

[Anonymous]

:rotfl: that is so freakin hilarious!!!!!! :rotfl:


i knew you could pull something out of your ass... awesome 8)

[jatos]

and if you want something that is compact get a pen drive; and 5 1/2 fd's; aren't those called zip disks?

[Rhiannon]

anyone remember the 8 inch laser discs? :lol:

[na_th_an]

On topic: Z!re, maybe you are confusing threads and processes. In your example, you are switching between processes, and HT technology has nothing to do in that field. HT works only for threads, which share the same memory space hence the parallelism can be hardware-simulated without problems.

Where HT works? In multi-threaded applications which benefit of paralelism such as server applications, for example. Out of those applications, HT performance falls 'cause of the added decoding circuitry (the more fancy stuff you add, the more it takes to decide what to do).

Just don't fall in the "HT" hype, it is not what they say. For your personal desktop computer I'd go for AMD as it is really cheaper and performs way better in the average.

And what Rhiannon said: 512 Mb minimum. The more RAM, the better performance. And if you want even more performance, take an old 2 Gb HDD, format it using FAT32 and use it just for swap memory.

Back on offtopic, I have here several 8 inch diskettes used in TRS80s and IBM PCs. And that's not a joke, they were 8 inch.

[Z!re]

I'm not in the HT hype, I have only used AMD and I'll probably stick to it.

Like I said, AMD is probably enough for him.


And I can't find the site where they had tested P4HT vs AMD. They did test Q3, AMD had a higher FPS, then they started rendering a movie in the background. and AMD sunk to 3fpx (in Q3) and the P4 sunk to 7fps, thus the P4 HT is better at multiple apps running, while the AMD is better on single apps.

I don't know if it works on threads or processes, but HT is faster when runin 2 programs.

For example, if you have a process running that require 100% processing power, then ion the HT it will only use 50%, but the program does in fact use 100%, it's hard to explain, but it's true. I've seen it, doesent matter much though does it

My friend ran a test program (just a random prorgam we knew took 100% processor capacity) and X reported that the program was using 50%, while the program was reporting 100%

And the program did not run at half speed or anything.


But like we have said, go for AMD, it's cheaper and faster in most cases (unles you run a lot of apps)



Another cool thing about the P4HT is multiscreening, one screen get's 50% of the processor, and the other get's 50% (in reality both get 100%, but it's divided among them or something, I'm not really sure how it works)

It was kinnda cool to see, him playing Halo on one screen, and watching Anime series on the other, everything floating perfectly.

[na_th_an]

What you get is the processor fooling windows. With or without HT, a Pentium IV or an AMD can do exactly what you are doing. Plus, the test you claim maybe were that way 'cause DivX is optimized for the Intel architecture. No HT here, just the normal Pentium IV core.

As I told you before, HT works for different threads inside the same memory space. Two applications are two processes in different memory spaces, so no HT will work here, but the normal Pentium IV core.

You can find comparison charts in the AMD site. In most of cases, HT is outperformed even by Pentium IV without HT, I mean, in most cases (playing games, running office suites, calculation programs, etc...), AMDs perform better than Pentium IVs without HT, and Pentium IVs without HT outperform Pentium IVs with HT.

HT is not magic. You still get one processor that only can run 1 task at a time. HT works when there is lots of I/O (so the processes/threads have to wait until the data is ready and the CPU can switch process/thread) and lots of thread interaction. The focus on HT was to make it easier for threads to share data, for example running apache or in a real time system where multiple sensors have to be in communication. When you have to switch in the CPU, the registers and more stuff have to be saved in order to be retrieved then the task gets the CPU again. With HT you have duplicated registers for threads so if you switch thread you also switch banks and you don't need to save stuff, so you gain time. But only in that framework.

When you are using plain applications in your PC (say you are downloading something while you play a game and print a document, with the antivirus and the firewall running as well) those are different processes that don't share data at all so HT just does not work here.

Anyhow, speaking of performance, the difference without AMDs, PIV and PIVHT is not so huge. The main difference comes in the price you have to pay. PIVHTs are incredibly more expensive than Athlons, so it's a nonsense to pay the difference for something that you are not gonna take advantage of.

[Z!re]

Thanks for the info Nath =)...


But atleast we agreed on the AMD part =)... AMD are cheaper, and you don't really need a 3ghz to be like... 2 % faster then another 3ghz, it doesent really matter. Unless you are like, rendering movies, creating huge 3D models or anything like that.

For gaming and programming a good 'ol 1ghz is enough, and like Rhia said, RAM, RAM and then more RAM.

I only have 128MB RAM, and it's slowing everything down, my HDD's are used as swap all the time. So a game that would work fine on the exact same computer as mine (with 256mb ram though) will not work at all for me.


AMD
and a lot of RAM

[TheBigBasicQ]

nathan you are reasoning well against HT, but thats only theories. I just got a new 2.8C GHz HT 800MHz FSB, Northwood core. It runs quite cool(40-55C). Also I have only 256MB of RAM so I cant use the dual channel ddr configuration which will really give AMDs a run for their money.

Redmarvin you have to understand here that only GHz dont matter but the FSB, L1, L2, L3 cache matter also the amount and configuration of RAM matters.

Incase you decide to go with the P4 HT 800MHz FSB then you *will* outweight even the latest AMD FX53 64Bit CPU. Thats because you can use Dual DDR400 mode which gives a data transfer of 6.4GB/s while if you use Dual DDR with a AMD CPU you will not get more than 3.2GB/s(except the 64bit ones, but they are overly expensive) thats because max FSB of the AMD CPUs is not more than 400MHz while the P4s have a quad pumped 200MHz FSB i.e. 800MHz effectively =P. So a dual ddr400 configuration will get the most out of your CPU while Dual DDR400 with an AMD CPU will reduce your performance because there wont be any synchronization of data transfer with the CPU thats because its an overkill for the AMDs.

My friend just got a 3.06C GHz HT 800MHz FSB CPU with 512MB RAM in Dual Channel DDR400 configuration along with one of the best Radeon cards(dunno exactly which) and he could watch anime(streamed) on one of his monitors while playing UT2004 on the other without performance loss.

Personally, I can run UT2004 games with even a virus scanner(doing a complete system scan) running in the background but only if I have a dual channel ddr400 i.e. atleast 512MB and running WinXP which has full support for HT.

Athlon XP 3200+ when benchmarked by independent companies found that it is overly rated. It should be rated as 2800+ because its performance is that of a 2.8GHz P4.

Also, nath I just realised that if HT is a gimmick then Athlon 64 too is a gimmick since very few apps are really optimized for the 64bit operations =P.

[Rhiannon]

Also, nath I just realised that if HT is a gimmick then Athlon 64 too is a gimmick since very few apps are really optimized for the 64bit operations =P.

So is the Itanium. However, the Athlon 64 can run 32 bit programs just fine, while the Itanium has to emulate them at about a 10 to 1 ratio.....oooohhhh a whole 100MHz on a 1 GHz processor. :roll:

[na_th_an]

Man, not just theories, I know what I am talking about I don't theorise, I just use what I've been learning those years about hardware and operating systems, plus comparison charts.

There aren't comparison charts in the Intel site. Why? Guess...

Sure, but 64 bits applications are the future, and in two years 32 bits games and applications will have to be ran with all the hassle you have now with 16 bits ones

HT has been sold very well. Sure they are great for servers, but not worth the price for a plain desktop computer. Windows XP can't take full advantage of HT 'cause it was compiled for Athlons and Pentium IIIs (that's what makes it perform worse in PIVs, 'cause they changed all the core and the optimizations are wothless). Windows 2003 server does, but it is not a OS for a desktop (you have to ask the king if you may shut down the computer, for example ).

And that dual bus memory is so incredibly expensive that is a no-no for me. Y'know, every € I have is so valuable, and the use I make of my computer doesn't need that. I don't wanna run a bit torrent server or a StarWar Galaxies servers at home, so paying 200 to 300 € less for an AMD configuration with 400Mhz memory is far enough for me. 800 Mhz memory may sound astonishing, but if you look the comparison charts, the difference of performance is not that astonishing.

In my country, for example, that RIMM craze began when PIVs came out, but it lasted a month when people realized that they were paying tons of money for something that was not what they were waiting for.

Incase you decide to go with the P4 HT 800MHz FSB then you *will* outweight even the latest AMD FX53 64Bit CPU

Simply no.