DualCore Lunchbag Letdown

[CaptRobertApril]

As I've mentioned in another thread, I had to plunk together a quick and dirty system for temporary use while way out in the middle of nowhere. No point spending serious bucks on it since it was likely gonna stay here when I left. So for just under $200 I got an X2 3800+, Gigabyte motherboard and 1GB DDR-667. I had all the other bits so after a few minutes of connecting all the connectors it went "ding" and I was back in business.

The prob is that this system compared to my equally equipped San Diego 3700+ at home is a slug! Not just in singlethreaded apps which would be expected but even in Photoshop which should fly on both cores!

Both cores are being accessed according to Task Manager. Everything else is normal. But overall, I would say that this system is anywhere between 40 and 60% slower than my singlecore!

Is this an unique situation or have other users seen the same slowdowns when "upgrading" to lower end dualcores?

While we're on the subject of help... I've posted these on the appropriate sections days ago (one in an alias I made up when I couldn't find my password) and didn't draw a single fly. I KNOW THAT THEY'RE OFF TOPIC, DUH! but I'd really appreciate some assistance!

1) I have Casper XP which is working really well on "regular" ghosting, but I've never used it to ghost a boot disk. I have a Fujitsu HD that I have just set up as the boot drive on a new system but it sounds like there are bicycle spoke clickers in it. Unfortunately I have spent almost a full day setting up XP SP2 and loading all the software on it and I really don't wanna do the whole thing over again. Can I just buy another HD and use Casper XP to ghost it over and pray that it works?

2) I have one folder with about 400 subfolders. Each subfolder has a font in it. What I wanna do sounds simple but it turns out to be next to impossible. I wanna just merge the contents of each subfolder into a single main folder, in other words, I just want the subfolders to disappear and dump all their fonts into one single folder. Yeah, I know I can open each folder and move the fonts manually but I'd really rather not do that 400 times in a row. By my reckoning there has to be a simple way to automatically merge subfolders into one folder but I'll be damned if I can find it!!!

Thanks in advance for the replies!

 

[r0ck]

3700+ is 2.4GHz
X2 3800+ is 2GHz.

Do you have dual core patch thing?

 

[CaptRobertApril]

3700+ is 2.4GHz
X2 3800+ is 2GHz.

Do you have dual core patch thing?

I have my XP SP2 updated to the minute by "my friends" at Microsoft. I was under the impression (perhaps wrong?) that the dual core patch would already be in there.

I'm aware that each core of the X2 is slower than the San Diego, but with Photoshop I should be accessing both cores which would make it faster than the single. As it is, it's running at about half speed!

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

What's the cache size comparison?

I know the X2 3800 has 1MB L2.

 

[magus_gr]

You don't mention anything about the amount of ram in your San Diego, the chipsets each machine is using, whether you have integrated graphics in the dual core (which I assume you do) etc.

Keep in mind that anything less than 800Mhz DDR2 (and preferably with decent timings) cripples the AM2 processor's performance

 

[magus_gr]

The x2 3800+ has 2x512 - the 3700+ (as well as the 4000+) has 1MB

 

[ajfink]

The 3700+ has 1MB of cache as well, and is 2.2Ghz, not 2.4. The 3800+ single core is 2.4Ghz and 512kb of L2.

It seems to me like there are driver issues if you're taking that big of a performance hit. It should not be happening.

 

[Valdis]

hahahahah about those fonts..

go to the folder where are all the subfolders and click on search and then type *. [the file type youre looking for] hit advanced options and make sure it is searching only that folder you are in and all the subfolders. when the search is done ctr+a , cut them and paste them into a single folder

et viola!

 

[dasgoat]

Have you tried AMD's dual-core optimizer app? it says its for games but may help with other apps as well.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_13118,00.html

looks to me the integrated video with DDR2-667 is the biggest issue.

 

[RichPLS]

List other specs of the two PC's...

Like the RAM type and speed you are running it at and what ratios, IE 1:1?

What about graphics?

What about HD's and controller types?

Are the O/S's same with same updates? Are they both defraged and have had checkdisk run?

There can be many reasons, but to find out what/which, the details are needed, including current benchmarks you performed illustrating difference.

 

[Valdis]

i think its ONLY the integrated video. he could run the memory even at ddr400 and it wouldnt be the cause.

 

[Thanatos421]

I had a San Diego 3700 as well, and upgraded to an Opty 185. I can honestly say that they seem to be equals in single threaded apps, and only really 20-30% faster in multi-threaded apps. It wasn't really a letdown, but definitely not the jump in performance that I expected. I got a much larger boost in overall performance when I put the 1950 in.

 

[m25]

I'm aware that each core of the X2 is slower than the San Diego, but with Photoshop I should be accessing both cores which would make it faster than the single. As it is, it's running at about half speed!

What version of photoshop; for what I know, only CS3 is fully multithreaded and can use both cores, then....
^The mobo chipset matters a lot when you do memory intensive jobs like Photoshop stuff; what is your current and hom chipsets?!
^Memory; there would be a more or less noticeable difference if you had CL5 DDR2 667 on this build and CL4 DDR2 800 at home.
^on-board graphics?!

@Thanatos421:
You have to do REAL multithreading to get all the benefits of a dual core; I get a ~78% max. boost rendering with 2 cores compared to 1 and that is very near the max. of 80% that dual core CPUs are said to give.

 

[1Tanker]

Cap'n: I would be very leery...ghosting a drive which sounds like it's about to calf. The reason being that, if it's that bad, it may be corrupting files. I would just do a fresh install with the new drive(PITA...i know), and start with a completely fresh system.. GL buddy.

 

[magus_gr]

Having 2 1GB low latency DDR400 dimms on the Sandy in dual channel mode and 1 stick of crappy DDR2-667 on the AM2 board (single channel) makes a hell of a difference

 

[CaptRobertApril]

Here are the answers I've been asked for:

- RAM, 2x512MB in both rigs. PC2100 DDR266 in San Diego (SD). Both running stock as their mommas made 'em. Just plug em in and forget em. No OC anything ever.

- X2 motherboard Gigabyte GA-M61VME-S2, GeForce6100/nForce 400 chipset. SD motherboard MSI RS480M2-IL, Xpress 200/SB400 chipset.

- X2 running integrated video, SD not. However SD set up with only 64MB RAM dedicated to graphics.

- OS identical, XP SP2 updated to the day. Defragged, checkdisked and perfectly happy.

- Haven't tried the dual-core optimizer. I think I should.

- Haven't run benchmarks yet. This is just seat of the pants feel so far.

- Both HDs EIDE. X2 has new Fujitsu MPG3307AH. I know it's just an ATA-100 but I was running an ATA-100 in the SD. The Fuji makes a gawdawful noise and that's why I wanna exchange it. IMHO it's not the noise of the drive about to fail, but it is as grating as hell. (Remember the X2 was an el cheapo temp system until the 2xQuads get sorted out)

- Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium. Legit and paid for, believe it or not...

- I wanna do a full reinstall like I wanna have root canal without anaesthetic but I will if I have to. Tanker bud, PITA is a relative term. I've updated my sig in your honour. :lol:

Valdis, you deserve the :trophy: of the day, week, month and year. It's such a simple process and one that I probably wouldn't have come up with on my own in a month of Sundays. After 26 years on PCs and Macs I feel like a total n00blet as I've never seen/thought of that before. We are not worthy. We are not worthy. We are not worthy.