Just got a 3800 X2, not impressed, am i doing something wrng

[cheetsy]

Just upgraded from a venice 64 3000 to a 3800 X2, and to be honest, i havent really noticed any difference, ive done a clean install of windows etc, but its just some of the things people wrote about it in other posts, like about doing 2 things at once etc, well according to the task manager bit when im doing anything both cores are apparently working just as hard and i cant really see any difference, i dont know, maybe im expecting too much, or maybe ive not set something up? Is the Kingston Value Ram seriously letting it down?

Is there anything you other X2 users had to do to windows to get the full advantages from the X2?


thanks in advance


cheetsy

 

[Craigmandu]

The odds are you aren't doing tasks that are making use of the X2 the way it needs to in order to notice the difference.

Do something like encode a DVD movie to your hard drive and start surfing the net at the same time. Then try that on your stock 3000, I'll bet you'd see a hugh difference.

 

[RichPLS]

You went from a single core at 2GHz w/512k cache to a dual core at 2GHz w/512k cache.
You should get anywhere from the same performance on single threaded apps up to 60% faster on multi-threaded apps.

 

[cheetsy]

actually my 3000 ran at 1.8, but does 200mhz not make a difference anymore? lol, i mean i wasnt expecting nuclear performance differences but, its just my wife says, well was it worth spending that extra money and not feeding the kids for a week, and i have to say no lol

Actually that was a small humerous interlude, i dont have any kids, annnnyyyywayyy, im not overclocking it cos my ram probably isnt up to it, would overclocking it on stock cooling, assuming i had ram capable to handle the faster fsb, make the difference? prob a stupid question lol

 

[Craigmandu]

It really all boils down to what apps you are using and how much you are actually making use of multi-threaded apps.

It could be that what you used with your 3000 was already not under a processor bottleneck. In that case you wouldn't notice much difference from upping the processor speed or moving to a dual core.

That may not be the answer you are looking for. If you want real numbers you would have to run benchmarking software against your computer that will give you actual multi-threaded results. (The windows task manager isn't really the place to make your determinations off of).

Hope that helps a little.

 

[cheetsy]

[quote="(The windows task manager isn't really the place to make your determinations off of).[/quote]

ROFL yeah your right lol, yeah, i guess if i wanted a serious performance increase i should of gone for a faster single core processor, ahh well no matter hehe, thanks for you help mate, and the rest of you, cheers!!

cheetsy

 

[bourgeoisdude]

INSTALL THE AMD DRIVERS! AMD Dual Core driver for 32-bit Windows

That'll give ya a boost. Also ensure BIOS has updated info about your CPU--if not flash to the latest BIOS. Also look here for some other useful cpu utilities and such (or if you use Windows XP Professional x64 edition).

Let me know how it works.

 

[Craigmandu]

Hey mate,

Wasn't trying to kick in your sarcasm gene.

Just hypothesizing about why you may not be seeing the results you want.

The system you describe didn't have many bottlenecks from a performance perspective to begin with:

Good Vid card
Raid 0 Sata 2
2GB DDR 400 (I assume, although most likely slow timing)
Offloaded sound processing via sound card.
Good Motherboard.

All I wanted to get across is that you may need to dig deeper to actually see the gains. Since even with a 3000 the rest of those specs don't leave much for performance enchancements.

 

[cheetsy]

no no, you misunderstand, i didnt take what you said as an insult or owt, i thought what you said was quite funny and correct lol, yeah thats perhaps my next attack, my ram, cos its only Kingstong Value Ram, no idea of timings, yeah its 3200, nah man i didnt take anything you said the wrong way lol

thanks for your reply

 

[cheetsy]

Installed the drivers, ive had them before, i thought they were for the cool and quiet part, do they do more than that?


cheetsy

 

[Craigmandu]

My fault, I apologize.

I happen to like OCZ and Patriot's high performance kits:

OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered Dual Channel Platinum System Memory Model OCZ4002048ELDCPE-K - Retail

Patriot 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Unbuffered System Memory Model PDC2G3200LLK - Retail


They are both 2-3-2-5 which is about as fast as you'll find for 2x 1GB dimms. Of course they aren't cheap, I think those kits are around 200US.

 

[cheetsy]

The only problem i have is that im a brit living in taiwan, and, although i guess most stuff is made in taiwan, its not all sold in taiwan. specialist stuff is quite hard to find, i was lucky enough to get the graphics card, but this is entirely a different problem lol, thanks for the info on the ram, ill keep an eye out!

 

[bourgeoisdude]

Yes. They are drivers--they "supposedly" improve performance of dual-core cpus for apps that aren't designed to utilise both cores. That's according to AMD anyway.

 

[cheetsy]

lol well there in there now so i hope it does make a difference lol
thanks for that mate

 

[mpjesse]

I think you're being a little optimistic about dual core. Right now very few common apps actually take advantage of dual core. Some apps that do (off the top of my head) would be audio and video encoding and a few games.

Doing things like surfing the net, playing with winamp, word, etc... you're not going to see a difference in performance.

-mpjesse

 

[luminaris]

Dude, i'm using cheap RAM and look how far I've clocked my machine on it. You can do it man, just take it nice and slow.

Oh, and if you happen to divorce over buying that processor, tell her you'll give her one core and she can have the other. just kidding of course ..

 

[cheetsy]

lol weep, oh well fair nuff lol, well it improves my pc on paper ROFL ahh vanity!!

 

[cheetsy]

really oh right, oh ill have a crack then! so i just ramp up the fsb 1mhz at a time i take it?


and thanks for the marriage advice lol, or rather divorce advise, good idea, like that movie when they devide the house up exactly in half

 

[luminaris]

Yep, that's all you gotta do man. Just take it one step at a time and test the machine for stability. Use Prime95 or equivalent. Should work out good.

 

[cheetsy]

fair enough mate, ill have a crack, thanks a lot!


cheetsy

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

you need windows NT 4, windows 2000 professional, or windows XP professional to make use of multi-processing/threading (ie: 2 cpus). I beleive dual core is considered 2 cpus.

9x/me/xp-home do not have support for multi-processing.

 

[WINDSHEAR]

ok... was your 3000 slow? if your 3000 was pretty fast, having the 3800 isn't gonna make much difference. It's when you start doing heavy stuff, like playing a game and running a virus scan or DVD encoding/decoding that you'll notice the difference.

 

[cheetsy]

I run XP Pro, and the 3000 was fine I dont remember it being particually slow, i probably just had the wrong expectations of a dual core, mpjesse and most of you are saying, im doing the wrong things with it i suspect, shame i dont convert dvd's anymore lol

 

[WINDSHEAR]

I'd say your harddrives could be slowing things down...

 

[cheetsy]

why? i thought 2 sata II hdd's in a striped raid array would be fairly good...