P180 Upgrade Article

[GoatMonkey]

How can it be possible to upgrade to an AMD 4000+ from an Intel 3 GHz CPU and not see benchmark improvements? What is this guy doing wrong?

 

[mpasternak]

sounds like another THG writer in Intel's pocket. this is by far the most retarded article i have read in ages

he took a case article and bashed AMD. I don't get where they find these inbred asshats.

I'll give you MY upgrade experience going from Intel to AMD recently. and I mean last month so i'm not bsing.

for the last decade i've been an intel fanboy due to a rather burning experience i had with the Ahtlon 1400 (1.4 gig prior to XP.) I got 2nd degree burns on my finger from a dead P.I.B. Cooler. well Over the last year I've been running a P4 Prescott based 3.2ghz with Hyperthreading processor. I'll will give it credit that the thing ran and ran very smoothly. it DID however run hot. I was forced just to run watercooling in order to keep the temperatures under 50c. But it ran like the dickens. following are the system specs of what else was attached to this machine.

P4 3.2ghz, Prescott Core w/ HT enabled
ASUS P4P800-SE
OCZ Performance Series Dual Channel Kit (2 x 512mb)
Geforce 6800GT
Western Digital Raptor series 74Gb at 10,000rpm

OUT CAME the asus board and the P4. and in went the following. Note I stayed with AGP interface because there's no discernable perfomance difference and i didnt feel the need to replace the 6800GT which had cost me $500 canadian.

AMD Ahtlon 64 3700+ at 2.2ghz San Diego Core w/ 1mb Cache.
Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939 (Nforce3 ultra)
Everything else I had.

Putting it together was easy since i kept the same case and had experience with it. I also stayed with stock cooling at this time to see what the default cooling was like. I noted immediately that idle temps were just around the 40c mark. which amazed me since it was summer and that wasnt all that bad. under load the temps did go up to around 55c. I decided that although this was perfectly acceptable.. didnt Quite meed my desired temps.

I added two new Zalman Coolers to the CPU and GPU. on the CPU i added their 120mm pure copper thing. HUGE, and on the GPU the mixed copper / Aluminum cooler. and imediately temps dropped and stabilized like you wouldnt believe. Idle temps around 35c and under load around 45c. overclocking is in the future, but i need better ram.

now for performance. Incredible difference in MOST areas. not all. here are some real world numbers. Windows XP Sp2 takes approximately 15 seconds to run apposed to around 25 with the P4. Once windows was loaded, things are smooth. Counterstrike Source takes under 15 seconds to start, and map changes around 7 seconds. This makes me the first in virtually EVERY Round. Running this setup at 1600x1200 with 6x AA and 8x AF and my Counterstrike Source video test (on the main menu) reports anywhere from 70 - 90 FPS depending. this is up from approximately 50 - 60 of the P4. 3D mark 05 performance went up by over 700points. from approximately 4200 to almost a whopping 5,000 now. whwen running games exclusively there is no doubt that the AMD outperforms the intel. sure there the argument the P4 3.2 is not even rated as high as the 3700 real world. But the increases in performance are far grater than that of the ratings.

But! there is always a but. there is noticable decrease in performance with more applications running at once. the lack of hyperthreading technology has a serious detriment aginst the A64. I am used to World Of Warcraft in a window so that I may use my IMs and look game related information up on the web at the same time. this can still be done and the game is still playable, but there IS noticable lag to the game when firefox is doing stuff as well as IM's come through on MSN. FPS will drop and the system will chug away. this did NOT happen before with the intel. there was no dip in performance of the game when other stuff happened.

my conclusion. in Single threaded gaming and pure gaming. the A64 hands down is the best processor to date. if you need to do minor Multitasking it is suitable but a P4 with hyperthreading is a reasonable choice too. but if you HAVE the money. the X2 would perform the best with the power of the A64 alongside multi-threading support

 

[slvr_phoenix]

How can it be possible to upgrade to an AMD 4000+ from an Intel 3 GHz CPU and not see benchmark improvements? What is this guy doing wrong?

I'm confused. He <i>did</i> see a bunch of benchmark improvements. He even made a <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/200509191/antec_p180-03.html" target="_new">nice little table</A>.

He just also saw a significant degrade in the one game that he actually plays and didn't even try to determine if it was in fact the CPU or a just a difference in his network hardware/settings.

I can't say that it's a good article, because frankly it seemed pretty amateur. But the one thing that you're faulting him for happens to be something that he actually did (even if badly).

یί∫υєг ρђœŋίχ
<i>The <font color=red>Devil</font color=red> is in the details.</i>
@ 198K of 200K!

 

[GoatMonkey]

This section in the table...

CPU Score (CPU marks) 4,089 4,059 -0.70%
CPU Test 1 (fps) 2.3 2.4 4.30%
CPU Test 2 (fps) 3.2 3.1 -3.10%

I don't see how it is possible that he got a loss or only 4% gain. The benchmarks in other articles on this web site do not reflect this. I think he has significant bad settings in his bios or something.

As for the multi-tasking performance, well he should've gotten an X2 if that's what he wants.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

sounds like another THG writer in Intel's pocket. this is by far the most retarded article i have read in ages

he took a case article and bashed AMD. I don't get where they find these inbred asshats.

While I agree with you that this is a rather bad article, and one of the worst I've read in ages as well, I think you're exceedingly over-sensitive about the AMD bashing.

First of all he showed rather clearly the performance advantage in several softwares. Second he also made it clear how much colder the AMD system was compared to Intel, which in turn, combined with the spiffy case, also made it quieter. So he made several good points to <i>support</i> AMD.

His only <i>one</i> beef with AMD was that his second EQ client constantly lagged badly, something which was rare on his Intel box. Of course I consider him an idiot for not proving without a doubt that HT was what made that difference. For all we know he could have different network settings and/or his ethernet could be at fault. But at least his annoyance is understandable as the one game he plays now runs <i>worse</i> after the upgrade.

Still, with so many positive things said about AMD, and even making a few shots at Intel (such as "<font color=red>I don't get assaulted by the blasts of heat like I used to</font color=red>"), I'd <i>hardly</i> call him a "writer in Intel's pocket". Tit for tat, he really racked up more points for AMD in that article than for Intel.

As for him being an "inbred asshat" however, I can't really comment one way or the other than to just repeat again that the article really was crap.

یί∫υєг ρђœŋίχ
<i>The <font color=red>Devil</font color=red> is in the details.</i>
@ 198K of 200K!

 

[ChipDeath]

I would like to know how you can possibly build a northwood-based system and complain about the amount of heat it generates.... Unless he's overclocking, but he doesn't mention it, and doesn't sound like he'd know what to do anyway...

He doesn't come across as anywhere near experienced enough to write the article he's tried to. I'm no wiser about anything after reading that.

A friend of mine should get his P-180 soon.. And reading that I feel no more prepared than I did before (since I've agreed to assist him as he's never done anything so major as move everything to a new case).

Well, actually I've learnt that if you buy the wrong PSU your system won't work...

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[mpasternak]

completely agreed

the article is pretty lousy. looks like something one of my users at my site would write. which is acceptable from them, but not as a front page article on THG

 

[ChipDeath]

Yup. I mean, <i>we</i> know that generally THG is a mere shadow of it's former self, but I'm sure there's still plenty of people who recognise the 'brand' and expect better. There's misleading and biased articles, and then there's stuff like this, which is simply amateurish. It looks like it belongs in a 'readers reviews' section or something.

It's a completely pointless article. Almost more like a BLOG entry.

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<pre> (\_/)
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|_____| This was bunny. He was tasty.
/\/\/\/\</pre><p>

 

[slvr_phoenix]

It's a completely pointless article. Almost more like a BLOG entry.

You know, when I read it (and I don't even know why I did) that was my exact thought, so I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thought it. It really just reads like a blog on Joe Blow upgrading his system. It's definately not professional.

Hell, for that matter, it's not even a review. I mean what do we even learn about the 'reviewed' case from the article? Nada.

I would like to know how you can possibly build a northwood-based system and complain about the amount of heat it generates.

Oh, I don't know. With a completely inadequate airflow your PSU's exhaust (especially if it's the only fanned exhaust) could be quite hot.

I've learnt that if you buy the wrong PSU your system won't work...

**ROFL** Right. Because we never knew that. :O But actually, I laughed when I read that too, and not because it was necessarily the wrong PSU, but because I thought that there was an adapter to handle that exact situation. (And it was probably sitting there right in the PSU's packaging.) Am I mistaken or was he an idiot?

یί∫υєг ρђœŋίχ
<i>The <font color=red>Devil</font color=red> is in the details.</i>
@ 198K of 200K!

 

[mpasternak]

he was an idiot. dont' know who this guy is, but he's definately not a professional writer. the article was pure BS as it didnt outline any of the cases strength's nore weeknesses. just his inadequecy at buildng a system

 

[Crashman]

Take it easy, this is a USER review. If he goes pro, he'll get better first. If he doesn't, at least Tom's gave him a chance.

You should try one yourself!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[function9]

Well I have the case, you think I should? If you can work your magic to get it hosted somewhere, I'll do one up.

 

[Crashman]

Honestly, this guy probably just showed it to a THG editor and got it published.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[function9]

I see, I'll do one up and try to bug the hell out of someone

 

[Crashman]

Remember that the focus of these user articles so far has been experience, not performance. I'm sure the guy put in the benchmarks just to make his review seem more site-relevant, but the main focus for user articles has to be, you guessed it, users.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

Did you not know THG is abandoning enthusiast?

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[endyen]

I dont think this is a USER review. First off how many users

on the Sunday after a lovely six-hour drive back from IDF

how many users do that kind of a drive. Then again

However, with a looming deadline on a large feature story, I had to hold off on finishing construction because down time was not in the cards. The main system is also my work computer. So the following day I finished my feature

how many users write large feature stories.
The big question I have though is how the hell did he get 150+% for his 9800p, but only 80% of normal for the X800xl. I mean seriously, he would need an impossible oc to get that high a 3D 05 with a 9800p, while an xp could easily get the score the 4000+ got, using an X800xl.

 

[Crashman]

Hmm, I didn't read the whole thing, but did notice he used the word "I" an awefully lot, lending to him not being a professional writer for publications. Now there is a chance he's a professional in the computer industry in some other capacity, but it still seems unlikely that he's a professional author in this capacity.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>