AMD more responsive still?

[m6894]

I was just wondering I run a 3200+ @ 2400mhz 240fsb, and a T2400 stock. the AMD is way more responsive with the onboard memory controller and cas2 1t. Anybody get a feel for if the conroe chips compare to the overall snappy feel of a low latency high memory bandwith A64 or X2.

I am planning on getting one of those Koolance v1000 cases and buildind something later this year. I think I would take the feel of the memory bandwith over the sporadic speed I get with the Yonah.

 

[lithium726]

Honestly dont know what youre talking about, my P4 system is just as snappy as my X2 was.

 

[gerbiaNem]

The lower latency might be slightly more responsive, but nothing someone could notice. I remember seeing conroe latency even slightly better than AMD now.

 

[(cf)Eclipse]

I remember seeing conroe latency even slightly better than AMD now.

depends on the data set, but yeah, conroe has interesting prefetching

 

[Serge84]

You won't tell the difference from any cpu now adays if it has 64bit and 2 cores.

 

[joemama]

I would say the Core 2 Duo has not only caught up in this area but probably surpassed AMD. However..as others have said you probably won't notice outside of benchmarks.

 

[Dan_D]

I would say the Core 2 Duo has not only caught up in this area but probably surpassed AMD. However..as others have said you probably won't notice outside of benchmarks.

I'll find out this weekend. I'll be trying out an E6700 vs. the machine in my sig.

You won't tell the difference from any cpu now adays if it has 64bit and 2 cores.

Not true. I went from dual Opteron 246's to dual Opteron 254's and I noticed a world of difference in most everything.

 

[dnottis]

I've also seen that the Conroes just aren't smooth in games, (lots of stuttering) might be a chipset or mobo issue but I know my 64's are always smooth in games.

 

[lithium726]

I've also seen that the Conroes just aren't smooth in games, (lots of stuttering) might be a chipset or mobo issue but I know my 64's are always smooth in games.

sounds like a configuration error.

 

[Dan_D]

Both the Socket AM2 Athlons and the Core 2 Duo CPU's should all give great performance in games if configured properly.

 

[dnottis]

sounds like a configuration error.

Dunno - not mine, some of the c2d reviews mentioned this. That gaming wasn't as smooth on conroe as it was on AMD.

ah - found one of the references...

"However, there is still one thing that disturbs me about the Intel Conroes. The load times on our Far Cry tests simply took ages, regardless of whether we used a NetWurst craptecture or Core marchitecture. AMD loads FarCry in a matter of seconds, and in this particular game, we feel like watching Athlon 64 to complete SuperPI after running Conroe for three years. B-o-o-o-ring. A big surprise for me was the fact that Quake 4 gameplay also experienced more hiccups on Conroe platform than it did on a competing AMD platform. After all, it is a fight between GeForce on an nForce motherboard and LinkBoost is a nice improvement as well."

Source: http://theinq.net/default.aspx?article=33049

 

[lithium726]

I wouldnt trust the Inq to setup a computer. I'll bet they didnt even install the chipset drivers, which likely would have fixed their loading issue. That has absoutly nothing to do with the processor, yet they still managed to fit a netburst insult in there

The chipset drivers would likely also cause the "hiccups," it could very well be that the driver for the intel memory subsystem was not installed.

I find it hard to believe that while my i875p keeps my games very smooth the i975x cannot.

on a side note, I really wish they would stop saying "marchitechture," it's really fucking annoying.

 

[dnottis]

I wouldnt trust the Inq to setup a computer. I'll bet they didnt even install the chipset drivers, which likely would have fixed their loading issue. That has absoutly nothing to do with the processor, yet they still managed to fit a netburst insult in there

The chipset drivers would likely also cause the "hiccups," it could very well be that the driver for the intel memory subsystem was not installed.

I find it hard to believe that while my i875p keeps my games very smooth the i975x cannot.

on a side note, I really wish they would stop saying "marchitechture," it's really fucking annoying.

Point taken about the Inq - however there was another review I remember reading that mentioned games not being as smooth as they were on the AMD platform. 875 and 975 are totally different birds man.

 

[HighTest]

You know, the OP had an interesting point.

Almost all of the X2 versus Conroe articles that I read used the newer AMD AM2 processors in the shoot out with the Conroe. AM2 also uses DDR2 memory.

Socket 939 X2's use DDR memory. DDR has a lower latency than DDR2, but DDR2 has a potential for higher clockspeeds and thus bandwidth.

Could there be an impact on some titles in regards to latency?

I'm not sure about that as there have been socket 939 to AM2 shootouts and I think it was in favor of the AM2, so the newer memory along with good cache sizes seem to have a benefit over DDR.

But it would be interesting to compare an X2 939 rig to a Conroe. Again most likely benchmark decimation but similar results in the real world due to GPU limits.

 

[InternalStorm]

I have used an A64 3000+ with very good memory overclocked to about 2.3GHz, and I can say that it definately wasn't snappy. Slower P4 systems felt much more snappy, especially with Hyperthreading. I have been using a Sempron 64 at 2.3GHz now for a while and I can say it is not snappy.

The C2D I have now is definately snappy, best I have ever used. As for gaming, I don't really care about that but I know it performs much better than anything else Intel has had out and I can't see an Athlon beating it.

 

[HighTest]

That has absoutly nothing to do with the processor, yet they still managed to fit a netburst insult in there

The conroe is an excellent and amazing processor, there is no doubt there at all.

But in my opinion, iNteL should be teased for decades over NetBurst. That was their worst decision ever. I remember articles that showed those wondering if they should get a Petium III 1.33GHz CPU or the first Pentium IV and then having benchies that showed the Pentium III actually performed better. The major reason for NetBurst was to increase the clock, not the performance, and the Pentium III couldn't be pushed much higher.

Now look at the Pentium M, opps, I mean Conroe. Clearly the leader. Noticed my earlier mistake? The Pentium M had a significant design impact on the Conroe and that team took Intel to the lead. Hope they let the NetBurst team go and that AMD doesn't accidentally hire them.

 

[lithium726]

The conroe is an excellent and amazing processor, there is no doubt there at all.

But in my opinion, iNteL should be teased for decades over NetBurst. That was their worst decision ever. I remember articles that showed those wondering if they should get a Petium III 1.33GHz CPU or the first Pentium IV and then having benchies that showed the Pentium III actually performed better. The major reason for NetBurst was to increase the clock, not the performance, and the Pentium III couldn't be pushed much higher.

Now look at the Pentium M, opps, I mean Conroe. Clearly the leader. Noticed my earlier mistake? The Pentium M had a significant design impact on the Conroe and that team took Intel to the lead. Hope they let the NetBurst team go and that AMD doesn't accidentally hire them.

This is not a bash NB thread... I think it sucks just as much as the next guy, I thought it sucked when they launched it. Only reason I have one now is 'cuase I got it free and I needed the money from the X2. But lets not turn this into a NB sucks thread, mkay? You also really cannot compare Willamette to the Netburst or Prescott processors, Willamette was a disaster compared to both of them, and that is saying a lot.

Oh, and bullshit about not being able to clock the P3 much higher. My two 1.4's can easily hit 1.8ghz, probably 2ghz with a better board that actually had some voltage adjustment... you see, my dual board doesnt like to clock all that much. The move to NB was about streaming media which was most prominant at the time, and the P4 happened to rape the P3 on. Shit, the P4 raped the P3 on some things, you guys act like gaming is the only thing that computers can do.. I'm not saying the P4 was a good move, I dont think it does, but if it didnt exist we wouldn't have conroe, period.

BTW, the Pentium M is a completly different animal than NGMA. You cant really say that Conroe is based on it anymore than you can say that Conroe is based on the Pentium Pro, how would anyone get ahead if evolution was not allowed? Conroe is as much an evolution of Pentium M as much as it is an evolution of the P4 with a dash of new technology.

Point taken about the Inq - however there was another review I remember reading that mentioned games not being as smooth as they were on the AMD platform. 875 and 975 are totally different birds man.

Yeah, 875 is 3 years older. I refuse to believe that in those 3 years Intel forgot how to make a chipset. I've used i955XE, There are no performance hiccups in games.

 

[dnottis]

Yeah, 875 is 3 years older. I refuse to believe that in those 3 years Intel forgot how to make a chipset. I've used i955XE, There are no performance hiccups in games.

Intel couldn't make a competing chip for shit the last few years... why would you think they could still make a chipset??

 

[lithium726]

Intel couldn't make a competing chip for shit the last few years... why would you think they could still make a chipset??

Becuase while they were making the shit processors they were focusing on improving the platform - it was all they really had left, the general belief that intel systems were more stable/reliable. Beside, Intel has very good engineers, they could just not forsee the things that went wrong with NetBurst. Saying that Intel cannot engineer a chipset because they made a poor design decision with a series of processors is asinine.

Their processors competed fine (even here, it was just benchmarks. My P4 plays my games just fine, I honestly cannot tell a difference between this rig and my old X2 when it comes to games). Just not in gaming aplications.. and HT was more than the gimmik the AMD idiots say it was. If you actually use it, it makes a difference and I would take one over a singlecore A64 any day of the week, I owned one of those too. The AX2 was really when AMD started kicking ass, they took every advantage Intel had away from them.

Disclaimer: I am not an Intel/AMD fanb0y, I am a fan of technology - at least Intel had the balls to do something like NB, and it taught them quite a few things about microprocessors which are now inside the NGMA architechture. I HATE when people bash something based on a second loss in some benchmark they'll never make use of; the Intel and AMD idiots are guilty of this - the AMD people since the A64 came out (since the aXP didnt really compete, the entire platform was sluggish and rather shitty, I had quite a few of them - this was no fault of AMD's though... aside from the fact they couldnt make a goddamn chipset for the desktop market) and now the Intel/Conroe idiots bashing the AMD X2. In both cases, the other company came out with a COMPLETLY NEW PROCESSOR, WHILE THE OTHER WAS STILL RIDING THEIR OLD TECHNOLOGY OUT. Just becuase Intel wasnt competing well at that time does not mean they cannot engineer silicon well.

 

[dnottis]

I'm not bashing the chipset or the technology - I just don't think spending $250 on a decent 975x motherboard, $400 for a decent set of 2GB DDR II and another $200+ ($1100 for x6800) is stupid for the little gain it really offers over a decent 939 setup. I acknowledge it's faster - but cmon it's not worth that much money for the performance gain over a well tweaked and overclocked 939 setup.

 

[lithium726]

um, since when was this thread about the sensability of upgrading from an X2 to an NGMA chip? Far as I can tell, it was never about that...

I agree with you, but its kinda like bringing up computers in a car discussion..

(BTW: people could use the same argument with the P4/D and the A64/X2. Sure, the A64 is a bit faster but its definatly not worth the parallel upgrade...)