AMD 3700+ Multitasking?

[Mr. Plow]

I just upgraded a couple of weeks ago and got a 3700 San Diego. My previous system was a P4 2.8, IC7-G and i had no problems multitasking. Anyway, since i "upgraded" doesn't really feel like an upgrade tbh. I could rip dvd's and do many things at once with the P4, but with this chip the CPU usage is always at 100% whilst ripping a dvd and i can't even listen to music without it stuttering. I did have a few problems getting my Corsair XMS 3200CL2 to run in dual channel mode, but i've sorted that and running with 2-3-3-6 timings.

I can't figure out why i can't multitask at all. Even the simplest things like browsing, listening to music and installing a few small programs makes it grind to a halt. I did some benchmarks, in PcMark05 my score was 3754 nothing to shout about really. In 3DMark05 my score was 6171 and the CPU score was 4720. Now i've seen reviews of the 3700 and it scored well over 5200 in the CPU part.

I am running stock, but i don't think i should have to overclock to be able to beat my last cpu. There is a serious bottleneck somewhere and i can't figure out where. I've done a few benchies in everest too, and the mem bandwidth is aroun 6200 read and write.

My specs:
AMD 3700+ San Diego
AV8 3RD Eye
Corsair XMS 3200CL2 1GB - 2x 512 Sticks
ATI Radeon X800XT AGP
Hiper 480W Type-R
2x Seagate 120GB Sata
1x Western Digital Caviar 80GB Sata
Hercules Fortissimo III 7.1 Sound Card

Any ideas anyone?

 

[spine]

Intel's P4 and up have always been way better than AMD for multi tasking and that's that.

You can, however, do well with an AMD chip if you're prepared to continually play about with application priorities in task manager. Things like video encoding, cd ripping etc I will always run at lowest/idle priority since they're not time critical and I don't want other apps to suffer on their behalf.

That's cpu usage covered, but when it comes to hard drive usuage, there isn't a lot you can do. If a certain app is grinding away at your drives, low priority or otherwise, it's still gunna grind away.

If hard drive speed is an issue for you, I'd highly recommend you look into getting a RAID array set up.

 

[ufster]

I don't know much about troubleshooting performance problems but if that had happened to me, I would find the latest drivers for mb & cpu, update bios and even reinstall windows, the problem might be with your ide/sata drivers since one of the tasks you mentioned is dvd ripping also cool and quiet might be acting funny... as i said i am just trying to be helpful and i don't know much about troubleshooting poor performance so you might want to try upgrading your drivers (amd cpu driver for windows also) and bios while someone else gives you much better guidance
gl with that...



edit: I have an a64 system and it is no slouch in multitasking if you consider multitasking listening to music, browsing the web while doing sthing cpu intensive... I think that is the case with most a64 users.

 

[Mr. Plow]

Thanks for the replies...

I've updated everything i can think of, bios, chipset drivers, cpu. I turned off cool'n'quiet since it doesn't even work anyway. I've reinstalled windows also but no luck. For some reason i think it's either a ram problem or a Via driver problem. I know intels are better at multitasking, but surely the 3700 shouldn't be this bad...Even my 1ghz Athlon years ago was better...Oh yeah, my gaming performance seems fine, only problems in windows...

 

[Volkswagen]

get an X2 3800+ which is under $300 these days and you should be able to multitask

 

[Mr. Plow]

get an X2 3800+ which is under $300 these days and you should be able to multitask

I'm not asking for sales advice...I'm asking for help with a bottlenecked 2 week old system