The 4.1 had HT enabled, which reduces performance somewhat in Q3A (according to Toms only btw). So the actual increase for both HT enabled processors from 3.06 to 4.1 was 58.2 fps in the case of demo001 at 640x480x16. It should also be noted that the 3.06 was put on a rambus platform while the 4.1 was on a Granite Bay platform, which doesn't seem to perform as well.
Yes I can see that, except that under the tests we've seen, GB was still able to tie Rambus occasionally. Yet here we see that even CAS2 timings, and I still mention againa aggressive ones, are not helping.
The FSB and memory were synchronized at 175 MHz QDR and DDR respectively. That is a 31.6% increase in theoretical memory bandwidth. In order for a microprocessor to maintain a linear scaling (i.e. a 33.6% increase in clockrate, as is the case for 3.06 to 4.1, you get a 33.6% increase in performance), you'd need an equal scaling of all other critical components. And with a game like Q3A, the memory bus is the critical component.
You are the one saying that the bus is a critical thing for Quake III. The R9700 PRO has yet to flex its muscles in that benchmark btw and it would seem to me more CPU speed would still yeild high results and bottlenecks are not there yet. So please explain why here we do not see any advantage? You are 1GHZ higher than the current market processor, you have a higher bus speed, YET you yeild a small improvement?
I am really starting to wonder at why some are even arguing against this, the scaling was horrible, it is clear and there. And I know it is an OCed P4. But I am ranting this far because of how THG's writers of the article added such comments, they seemed to think it was so spectacular. This is pure bias, the P4 4.1GHZ OC system shows that it is not performing up to speccs, despite having better memory timings and higher bandwidth.
That's rediculous. Processor trace paths limit clockrate. Everything inside an MPU must follow the clock timing or you'll have an unstable MPU. What you're suggesting is that certain components fail to meet their timing and perform slower than 4.1 GHz. If this were the case, the system would crash and you'd get a BSOD in Windows. The fact that the chip runs stable at 4.1 GHz means it is reaching that timing and all components (and paths) are working up to spec.
Did you see the benchmarks?
Everyone saw them, everyone knew there was something inside the AthlonXP that was not working anymore right at the high clock speed of 2.66GHZ. Unless you'd tell me it's normal. The XP3400+ had a higher bus and memory, so that is not the bottleneck. It seems clear to me that it has something inside that needs fixing. It's not like a silicon can perform anytime at top speed no matter what frequency you set it at.
To me it sounded there was a possibility the P4 is also having such silicon problems and that perhaps the architecture needs some tweaking for higher speeds. Is it so much impossible for that not to happen?
As someone else noted, the setup did scale around 20% on average. Not bad considering a 33.6% boost in clockrate. Although the test results were pretty much useless in judging such. It used different setups (including different motherboards and memory types) for differently clocked processors.
I still see it as horrid performance. If I OCed my P4 to 4.1GHZ with such expensive cooling, and aggressive memory timings yet found out my scores merely jumped by 20%, I'd be so disappointed, I wouldn't bother for a refund, I'd just throw the whole setup out the window and depress myself. Would you pay over 1000$ for the CPU setup alone and get a mere improvement and then still try to justify yourself as that being normal?
Provided that the processor is the only critical component, this would be true.
Were you agreeing with me that it isn't necessarily proportional? Unless someone would prove me that you really need 6GHZ to double the performance when upgrading a 3GHZ CPU. And I am fully aware of bottlenecks and all, but to me it'd seem as generations advance (nowadays a P4 2.4GHZ can be twice more performing than a 1.2GHZ Tualatin, so it seems to me everything is coming back to normal)the IPC does as well, so a 6GHZ CPU could as well be over 3 times more performing than the 3GHZ one. So again, it's not proportionally, because otherwise, the physical limits would really create a problem, because to double a 10GHZ's performance, we'd need 20GHZ and I doubt any pipeline can manage that in a few rounds of advancements and scaling.
It didn't bother to disable HT on the 4.1 and in doing so, skews the results in ways we will never know in comparison to older models.
I agree on that one, perhaps, just perhaps, HT enabled played a huge role here. After all the HT enabling under Q3 did take off 9FPS at some point. But I somehow have doubts about this one.
It was more of a "look what I have done" article.
Which I have said many times, but I wish it were! Unfortunatly it was shadowed by the benchmarking part that just removed all dignity in calling it that, an enthusiast article. Do you at least see what I am saying?
In reality, it proves nothing about the scalability of either the P4 or Athlon
Which I also have been saying and keeping in mind, however I am looking at it objectively here based on the comments (on THG and THGC) that seemed to make those results look amazing and normal!
(not directed to you)
Please people, I said this too many times, if this article was purely about the achievement and the enthusiast content, it'd been praised by me a lot, and it'd have been a classical THG one. BUT the fact they added such unprofessional comments after each benchmark literally trashes the initial goal and really destroys the article. It is sad that it was this way, really. No pride in the end.
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