Hi i currently run a 939 4400+x2 cpu on an n force 4 chipset
i am a gamer and im looking at upgrading my system to get better FPS in
some of the newer games out i.e. crisis COD4 etc..
i have already decided to get a nvidia 8800GTS 512 video card to replace
my existing 7900gtx
ive been wondering whether to use either an MAD 6400+ Black edition Dual
core or an new Phenom 9600+ black edition or against my better judgement
an Intel C2Duo or C2quad then new 45 mm core version's
the primary use of my pc is for Gaming however i also download and
encode DVD's
i have read articles on the net about there being a flaw in some of the
instructions within the current B2 revision Phenom's
also looking at most of the review's ive read the C2Duo's are out
performing both the dual core amd's as well as the quad core intels and
amd's
the last time i used an intel chip was when the pentium first cam on the
market ever since then ive been an avid AMD user but now im wondering if
its time to go back to intel for the extra performance im looking for or
should i stay a Loyal AMD user.
Sir-Les-MP wrote:
> Hi i currently run a 939 4400+x2 cpu on an n force 4 chipset
> i am a gamer and im looking at upgrading my system to get better FPS in
> some of the newer games out i.e. crisis COD4 etc..
>
> i have already decided to get a nvidia 8800GTS 512 video card to replace
> my existing 7900gtx
>
> ive been wondering whether to use either an MAD 6400+ Black edition Dual
> core or an new Phenom 9600+ black edition or against my better judgement
> an Intel C2Duo or C2quad then new 45 mm core version's
>
> the primary use of my pc is for Gaming however i also download and
> encode DVD's
>
> i have read articles on the net about there being a flaw in some of the
> instructions within the current B2 revision Phenom's
> also looking at most of the review's ive read the C2Duo's are out
> performing both the dual core amd's as well as the quad core intels and
> amd's
>
> the last time i used an intel chip was when the pentium first cam on the
> market ever since then ive been an avid AMD user but now im wondering if
> its time to go back to intel for the extra performance im looking for or
> should i stay a Loyal AMD user.
I think the first thing I'd want to understand, is how the particular games
use a dual, versus a quad.
I've read two performance reviews, where the CPU charts showed one core
at 100% loading, and the other three cores at about 30% loading. If you think
about it, it isn't going to be easy for a game to dice up the work, so that
all cores get used equally. So gaming loads will be asymmetric, and perhaps
not a good fit for a quad.
On the other hand, some multimedia applications are nicely divisible.
Photoshop might be an example, of something that can spread the load.
I think Cinebench scales perfectly, and even eight cores can be
occupied equally.
(Depending on where you look for Photoshop benchmarks, it appears some
sites are only getting their filters to run on two cores. There may be
a patch, to get all four cores to work. Photoshop contains a mix of
single threaded, and multi-threaded filters, and the person doing the
benchmarking should watch the CPU performance charts, to make sure their
copy of Photoshop is doing the right thing. For example, the results on
Tomshardware, are suggestive of operation on two cores out of four. Notice
how the E6850, a dual core, is near the top of the chart.)
The other thing to look at is price. Consider what your budget is, and
then decide what to do. If your upgrade budget is small, maybe it
doesn't make a lot of sense to try to upgrade from your current
configuration.
The bug in the processor, was in the Translation Lookaside Buffer. So not
an instruction as such. A BIOS workaround was issued to fix it.
So first I would carefully review whether a quad is the right answer or not.
Make a list of your favorite games, and research how multi-threaded they are,
and whether the loading pattern favors a quad or not. And for a dual, the
decision there, may be influenced by whether you are an overclocker, and
what the current overclocks are like on air, for the contenders. Some
of the very latest Intel offerings, have widely varying overclock results.
> Sir-Les-MP wrote:
>> Hi i currently run a 939 4400+x2 cpu on an n force 4 chipset
>> i am a gamer and im looking at upgrading my system to get better FPS in
>> some of the newer games out i.e. crisis COD4 etc..
>>
>> i have already decided to get a nvidia 8800GTS 512 video card to replace
>> my existing 7900gtx
>>
>> ive been wondering whether to use either an MAD 6400+ Black edition Dual
>> core or an new Phenom 9600+ black edition or against my better judgement
>> an Intel C2Duo or C2quad then new 45 mm core version's
>>
>> the primary use of my pc is for Gaming however i also download and
>> encode DVD's
>>
>> i have read articles on the net about there being a flaw in some of the
>> instructions within the current B2 revision Phenom's
>> also looking at most of the review's ive read the C2Duo's are out
>> performing both the dual core amd's as well as the quad core intels and
>> amd's
>>
>> the last time i used an intel chip was when the pentium first cam on the
>> market ever since then ive been an avid AMD user but now im wondering if
>> its time to go back to intel for the extra performance im looking for or
>> should i stay a Loyal AMD user.
>
> I think the first thing I'd want to understand, is how the particular
> games use a dual, versus a quad.
>
> I've read two performance reviews, where the CPU charts showed one core
> at 100% loading, and the other three cores at about 30% loading. If you
> think about it, it isn't going to be easy for a game to dice up the work,
> so that all cores get used equally. So gaming loads will be asymmetric,
> and perhaps not a good fit for a quad.
I don't think that will be true in the future, the game designers are just
trying to figure out how to do it correctly. If the load is 100%, 30%,
30%,30% on a quad, it's because the game programer multi-threaded it for
two cpus. 100% and essentially 100%.
I would think a good game designer could carve the program up into really
small threads, like 64 threads, then let the multi-core processor split it
up the work. It might run 100% on a single processor, 95% on each of a
dual, 93% on each of a quad.
I've noticed on my quad, the cpu switches from one to another for a
multi-threaded program. It was the two thread pi computation, I wonder what
it cost time wise to switch cpus?
BTW, the NVIDIA card 8600 and 8800 can be programmed in c++, it's called
CUDA. Game designers can actually start using the graphics card for a whole
lot more than just the display.
When is the first Octal processor coming out?
What is the problem with the Phenom, and should he be worried?
>
> I don't think that will be true in the future, the game designers are just
> trying to figure out how to do it correctly. If the load is 100%, 30%,
> 30%,30% on a quad, it's because the game programer multi-threaded it for
> two cpus. 100% and essentially 100%.
I initially didn't make too much of the quad core thing. It was when I saw
a picture of a CPU performance chart, while a game was running, that the
unsuitability for quads and gaming came to mind.
I read a glowing article, where Microsoft was crowing about how FSX SP1 launched
threads on the fly, to make better use of multi-core processors. But the thing
is, a game cannot be chopped into an arbitrary number of threads. You have
rendering, AI, physics, as examples of tasks. Even at that level, they have to
be synchronized (rendering can only be done, when physics says what blew up etc).
Inside of those tasks, there are dependencies that prevent chopping any finer
(like 16 physics threads). Or else, you could create an arbitrary number of threads,
where most of the threads are stopped, waiting on dependencies to be delivered by
another thread. And that would be pointless, because there are still a limited
number of things actually in a running state at any one point in time.
>
> I would think a good game designer could carve the program up into really
> small threads, like 64 threads, then let the multi-core processor split it
> up the work. It might run 100% on a single processor, 95% on each of a
> dual, 93% on each of a quad.
I think finer division is possible in things like Photoshop, or some of the
other multimedia applications, where the image can be chopped into pieces.
It makes more sense that tools like that could make better use of multi
core.
>
> I've noticed on my quad, the cpu switches from one to another for a
> multi-threaded program. It was the two thread pi computation, I wonder what
> it cost time wise to switch cpus?
>
> BTW, the NVIDIA card 8600 and 8800 can be programmed in c++, it's called
> CUDA. Game designers can actually start using the graphics card for a whole
> lot more than just the display.
>
> When is the first Octal processor coming out?
>
> What is the problem with the Phenom, and should he be worried?
>
"A Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) is a CPU cache that is used by memory
management hardware to improve the speed of virtual address translation."
What the actual bug is, isn't stated in articles like the one on theinquirer.net.
If the bug was fatal, shipments would stop. If the bug can be handled by a
BIOS upgrade, with some performance loss caused by whatever part of the
chip is disabled, then the parts can ship.
In terms of hardware, I think the industry is in a "perfect state of chaos".
(For example, trying to run a quad 45nm processor, and use your two SLI cards,
and have a decent overclock using some Nvidia chipset.) It's nice, when there
isn't a single thing you can buy, that doesn't have issues :-(
> i have already decided to get a nvidia 8800GTS 512 video card to replace
> my existing 7900gtx
Well, I'd do this first, and wait on the cpu change. Unless I'm
mistaken, nothing new is due on the videocard market til the fall. BTW,
COD4 runs fine on my 939 dcore opteron (oc'd to 2.9ghz) + 7900gtx at
1024x768. Crysis is another matter, though
Phenom Processor's 
Linear Mode
