AMD X2 A Failure, Multitasking, Others

[Porkster]

It's clear from the live stress test, the AMD X2 cannot do tasks given to it equally. Form the data coming through the Divx encoding task is getting low priority. This maybe due to a congested instruction queue at the instruction priority stage of the dual core processing step.

Will AMD do a recall on the poor design, as the fault showing in the test is clearly shocking and makes AMD a poor choice for a multitasking and or business environments.

It maybe good for Tom to get into the live test units and put the thread priority on high for the Divx task. He maybe able to see if he can force the AMD to do the Divx process equally.

This is really shocking news for AMD.

.

 

[P4Man]

its not the X2, its these stress tests that are an utter failure. They attribute any stability issues to the cpu's, when really, any issue in this regard is 99% certainly caused by:
- RAM (they are not even using ECC !!!)
- power supply fluctuations (regardless they used a 850W)
- motherboard issues (also power delivery related)
- software (the apps, the OS and the drivers)

If you want a somewhat meaningfull result, you would need to put at the very least 10 systems of each in a nuclear shelter to minimize chances of cosmic radiation, use ECC ram (and monitor the errors!), with a lab quality and monitored power delivery to the motherboard, using different motherboards and RAM modules, using a truly known stable OS like BSD.

What they are showing you is not stability, its statistics. And please note I made the exact same comment when the P4 was doing worse than the A64 in a previous test; making this an intel versus AMD pissing contest is complete BS. Even in high end servers that require 99.999% uptime, that have mirrored ECC RAM, quad power supplies, hot swap everything, a truly stable OS like VMS, and every RAS feature you can think off, cpu's almost never cause the precious few problems that do occur. You honestly think CPU glitches in this home brew XP game system would be significant part of their stability, or even measureable ? This is THG at its best...

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Ned_Flanders]

OMG J00Z IZ RITE! AMD SUX!

______________
Bow Down (and pray to your God)

 

[edurm]

It maybe good for Tom to get into the live test units and put the thread priority on high for the Divx task so as to see if we can force the AMD to do the Divx process equally.

No, the priority must be set to NORMAL


Go to Auto Gordian Knot page ( www.doom9.org ) download the program, install, follow the instructions and start to Encoding a DVD, you'll see that it sets VirtualDub process to Lowest Priority


By The Way - Why you keep creating new topics to denegrate AMD ?

Why don't you starting answering the others you created and than left away ?

 

[Ned_Flanders]

:frown: I'm sorry :tongue:

______________
Bow Down (and pray to your God)

 

[pat]

Dealing with Michael Jackson stuff will cause instability and weird comportement to otherwise stable person and computer, IMHO..

I did not follow the whole thing, but why the AMD system have beed up for 25 hours and the Intel one for 14 hours? did they take 10 hours to assemble the Intel system?

It is clear that CPU doesnt have anything to do with task priorty, it is the OS that deal with all that. My bet is that HT on the Intel will help to equally distibute the 4 task because, even if the CPU is dual core, HT make 2 more virtual CPU. while task has to be divided for 2 CPU in AMD. This is more an OS issue than a CPU issue. And, it can also be that the memory has not enough bandwiidth to actually keep up with the CPU. If this is the case, then this will be fixed in the new revision of the AMD with the M2 socket an DDR2.

Dual core, as well as HT werent there when XP was created, and I dont call that a failure when apps slow down to a cralw or crash with HT enabled. And, I dont call that a failure when an apps dont give its best on a dual core CPU. And it can be fixed with an OS patch. Will it be? I dont think. With Longhorn soon to be released, I bet that better HT and dual core support wont really be added to XP or if they are, only minimal.

So fanboy, before making sensasional post to bash something, keep in mind that there is people here with much more knowledge than you. Computer did not happen yesterday! Oh, do you remember when Intel did recall their Pentium because of a bug that cause mistake in certain cicumstance? Or their failed P3 1.13 Ghz ? And did you hear about one XP update that could make the computer to slowdown badly if HT was enabled. Did Intel recall their CPU..no. Microsoft did fix their patch. Or game that would crash with HT enabled? Did Intel recall their CPU? no.. Game developpers had to fix their product.

So, will AMD recall their CPU because one apps doesnt seem to have the priority it need? I dont think so.. If there is too much complain then microsoft might issue a patch to have better support and if it if a memory bandwidth problem, then there is nothing that could be done until next revision.



<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

 

[pat]

Yeah.. dont do it again :tongue:

<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

 

[Porkster]

...did not follow the whole thing, but why the AMD system have beed up for 25 hours and the Intel one for 14 hours? did they take 10 hours to assemble the Intel system?

Pat, both systems have needed a restart. The time they have been up is just showing the time since last reboot, which means Intel lasted the longest in staying alive of the first stage.

Please also stay on topic. The issue is X2 FAILURE to do the tasks expected! The AMD CPU is more or less avoiding working on the Divx encoding as it's bottlenecking at the thread priority stage within the CPU.

Maybe they need to bring out a kernel patch so as to fix the AMD problems.

.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

lol.

______________
Bow Down (and pray to your God)

 

[mozzartusm]

I need one of those OFF-TOPIC smiley faces that has that look like hes got a corn cob shoved up his bung hole. OH, and the sign that says OFF TOPIC.

Intel P4 550(3.4)@<font color=green>5Ghz</font color=green>
Asus P5AD2-E-Premium
Crucial Ballistix DDR2 667@<font color=red>DDR2 800<font color=red> DDR2 855 using 3.73EE<font color=red>
TT 680W PSU

 

[pat]

Maybe they need to bring out a kernel patch so as to fix the AMD problems.

This is not AMD problem, it is about how the OS deals with the dual core. I would like to see them disabling HT on intel system to really compare dual core processing. that would give a much more exact value. Then, when the basic has been covered, they could talk about improvement that HT gives to multithreaded operation compared to AMD not having it.

But I dont expect that from THG. Anyway, I dont care about the fact I see on THG, so to me, it is a waste of time discussing about that any longer. Give me real fact, on real base that the problems is with the CPU and not just about the OS failing to fully utilise the X2 potential and not just assumption that you only believe. The CPU is only doing what it is asked for. But for now, without any proof that the problem is the CPU, I will call that an oddity, a particularity, something needed to be investigate to really have a conclusion and a fix to the problem, if there is really a problem.

What if the divx program is optimized for HT and is running in a thread on one core instead of having to share one core not designed for HT? too many thing could explain that, that why I dont put the blame right now on a cpu defect.

<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

 

[Porkster]

Pat, you can't go on about "what if we disable this.. or that" etc.

The test is for real world application testing in a multitasking situaiton. Like I persoanlly don't like them using the AMD suited game Farcry, or WinRAR that also is tailored for AMD CPU's.

Customers can be fooled when functions are disabled in benchtest. How many reviews have you seen where the Hyper Threading on the P4's are disabled and the results published? Readers think the AMD is the better CPU, unless they read the review text that states the HT was turned off.

There is a clear problem and you maybe correct in saying that without HT the Intel may also be doing the Divx encoding slow, but then its other results would be higher in this test.

At the moment there are signs that the AMD X2 has faults.

.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

You know I agree with you...well the first line of your post anyway.

WinRAR and FarCry arn't suited to AMD CPU's, AMD CPU's are just better performing in them.

As for the DVD encoding task, sorry, but task priority is down to the OS, not the CPU.

______________
Bow Down (and pray to your God)

 

[RX8]

i agree \/

As for the DVD encoding task, sorry, but task priority is down to the OS, not the CPU.

<font color=purple> BOW DOWN AND SUCK MY eD!cK </font color=purple>

 

[HansGruber]

At the moment there are signs that the AMD X2 has faults.

It does not have faults, it is designed for multiple CPU intesive threads and currently it's doing more work than Intel XE.
Also that test is NOT normal multitasking, it has 4 very CPU intensive applications running.
In real life no one is: playing a game, encode movies, rip CD's and pack files SIMULTANEOUSLY, that's ridiculous !

 

[BePe86]

As previously stated, this is an os fault, and not the cpu itself.

Also, who uses a desktop processor to play games, rip audios, pack files and encode video at the same time? Even if you did, some of these tasks would have finished eventually, and allocate more cpu-time to the encoding process.

No really, I would rather call a desktop processor that requires 200W at idle a failure, but that's another topic.

 

[pat]

Pat, you can't go on about "what if we disable this.. or that" etc.

Why not? If I want to see how 2 cores perform, then put 2 core. Having HT enabled is not completly fair. But I can understand their choice, because they compare 2 CPU. So, IMHO, because AMD do not make use of HT, seeing the result I'm seeing now do not make me feel like the AMD is screwed or the Intel a master of design. The way you think, AMD should recall every A64 and X2 to make them HT so they can encode divx faster when 3 other task are running..

They benchmark CPU in order to see what they can do. Something that a CPU cannot do, because it is not designed for, as in this case, running equal load to 4 thread with 2 cores as opposed to one designed to run 4 thread, is not a problem.

I would like to see them running something else, a fifth thread, just to see how both CPU will perform. Like compilation or rendering.. How will the Intel perform with more apps than cpu. How do the OS will equalize the load. I cannot elaborate on that, because I never tried that. So I wont speculate on that.

I've been using Intel, AMD and Motorola cpu in the past. I'm not a brand fanboy. I know that each cpu has its strengths and weaknesses. I've been using multitasking since 1990,with the Amiga computer and Amiga OS. Maybe you dont know it, but this one could multitask with only 256KB (yes KB) of RAM. I know what happen in multitasking when apps or OS have problems dealing with sharing ressources. 15 years ago, I was multitasking.. no dual core, 8 MHz cpu at first.. You need to have one good OS to make it happen.

I dont see a problem with AMD cpu just because of that. I do see problem with the OS.

The test is for real world application testing in a multitasking situaiton. Like I persoanlly don't like them using the AMD suited game Farcry, or WinRAR that also is tailored for AMD CPU's.

Customers can be fooled when functions are disabled in benchtest. How many reviews have you seen where the Hyper Threading on the P4's are disabled and the results published? Readers think the AMD is the better CPU, unless they read the review text that states the HT was turned off.

So it is fair to use HT against a no HT cpu, but running an apps that run better on one cpu than another is not. Farcry and WinRAR are both for Intel and AMD. You wont see a version for one brand or another. A64 has always been better for gaming than Intel. This is a fact. Would you rather have seen a test that compress MPEG? they favor Intel after all !!!

I'm smarter that the average customer. When an apps that is optimized perform better on a HT enabled CPU' I dont call that a major improvement. It is only that the CPU is doing what it is intended to do. If others can be fooled, well, I dont care. They should do like me and many more of us and read and learn about CPU. But if they dont want to put the effort, then their bad.

There is a clear problem and you maybe correct in saying that without HT the Intel may also be doing the Divx encoding slow, but then its other results would be higher in this test.

At the moment there are signs that the AMD X2 has faults.

So if I'm correct that the Intel would make the divx encoding slower without HT, I'm correct too if I affirm that Intel design is screwed unless HT is used. And if other result ar faster then, so what. let them be faster. If they were slower, I would call the Intel a screwed cpu. But at least, we could compare result that are issued from the same equation. 4 apps on 2 cores. Apples with apples. bananas with bananas. Not apples against bananas..

So, at the moment there are signs that the AMD X2 is doing what it can with a screwed OS against an advantaged CPU that has HT.

I dont fu&?ing care that the Intel is performing better in this test than the AMD. I dont eve fu%$ing care if the AMD perform better in the 3 other test.

What I can see is that HT help to equalize load between task because the OS suck at this.


<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

 

[Ned_Flanders]

lol, of course it is fair to have HT enabled! So, ae you saying THG should disable the additional pipeline stages (I know its not possible :lol: ) of the PentiumD so it has the same pipeline length?

______________
Bow Down (and pray to your God)

 

[pat]

So, ae you saying THG should disable the additional pipeline stages (I know its not possible ) of the PentiumD so it has the same pipeline length?

With a microscope, a Dremel and lots, lots,lots of dexterity, everything is possible.

Will it works after? well..


<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>

 

[P4Man]

>Form the data coming through the Divx encoding task is
>getting low priority maybe due to a congested instruction
>queue at the instruction priority stage of the dual core
>processing step.
>Will AMD do a recall on the poor design, as it's clearly a
>fault that makes AMD a poor choice for multitasking
>environments.

Maybe intel should then recall every chip they ever produced, except the eight or nine dual core P4EEs they sold to date, because every other intel chip "suffers" the exact same "fault", including, but not limited to all Pentium Ds (non EE), all single CPU Xeons, single cored P4 EE, P4E, P4C,B,A.. Pentium M, Itanium, etc, etc.

Ironically, most of these chips are sold to excell at multitasking and media encoding. Are you saying they suck at it, poor design, require a recall ?

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

 

[Porkster]

We are hearing alot of excuses. You have to consider both systems are the same starting base, therefore if one task is IDLE the it's IDLE on the other system too.

If you purchase a CPU you want it to do the whole workload, not ignore a thread becuase it finds it difficult.

.

 

[Schmide]

I wouldn't want it to stop processing in the middle of the tasks almost a day ago. That would be bad. Take off the rose colored glasses dork.

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

 

[endyen]

You, Intel inside Idiot outside, are the only failure here. Stick around, read and STFU. You may find reality. Most Intel fanboys around here have become performance fanboys. You can to.

 

[BePe86]

This is starting to get embarissing, as you seem to miss the point, and keep repeating your pointless claims every post you make.

The CPU has nothing to to with the allocation of cpu time for the threads, that is the os's responsibility, since the os itself is designed for multitasking.

No, really, as I said in an earlier post of mine, even if you use Windows and X2 as a workstation, you just don't run four this cpu-intensive tasks at the time, for that, you have four-way servers.

 

[P4Man]

>If you purchase a CPU you want it to do the whole workload, not ignore a thread
>becuase it finds it difficult.

True, and this is true for all the masses that constantly run 3 different encoding tasks at once while playing a game and not knowing how to set thread priority in either the app, or in takmanager. This has to be a *very serious* problem for AMD indeed. I can see them lose a ton of marketshare to the 840EE because of this. Similary, I don't think anyone will buy 840s, 830s or any Pentium 5xx or 6xx (let alone Pentium Ms, which can only run a SINGLE thread !) because of this terrible issue.

Irony aside, and ignoring your trolling, one has to credit THG here. They did manage to cook up what is probably the *only* thinkable scenerio where a 840EE can do something an X2 can't do much better. Too bad they didn't put in a regular 840 in there as well. Then I read they used a 840EE "stable transmission" (ROFL).. since we all know you can buy these chips everywhere, surely that wouldn't have been a nice "thank you" by intel, would it ?

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =