For surfing the net? As fast as possible.

It isn't like in the olden days anymore, where CPU speed didn't matter at all for internet access. Today's web pages probably are the most inefficient software ever written. If a fast Core 2 Duo struggles with this, how on earth do you plan on getting away with it with a simple Athlon XP (not to mention getting a somewhat current browser for it)?

oerk wrote:

For surfing the net? As fast as possible.

It isn't like in the olden days anymore, where CPU speed didn't matter at all for internet access. Today's web pages probably are the most inefficient software ever written. If a fast Core 2 Duo struggles with this, how on earth do you plan on getting away with it with a simple Athlon XP (not to mention getting a somewhat current browser for it)?

I've to say.. I'm actually using the 2000+ solution with Opera 10 and considering to disable java/flash and probably thank to the ssd, it's MUCH better than everything I've used lately, even if sometimes you'll have page visual errors (not really that much). I don't know how to explain but I feel it even better than latest Ubunt 14 64bit browsers on Dual 1,4 Ghz modern cpu...better not necessary means faster and faster not necessary means better. I would find "slow" to use the best browser on the most powerful 64bit cpu if we expect perfection of zooming while scrolling while streaming while listening music while using peripherals etc.... 😀

I'd go with the 3200+ 512k Barton. Its the fastest of the Socket A's and not to common as consequence.
No real reason to bottleneck yourself if you have it.
Thunderbirds and lesser Athlons don't support SSE, and are gonna be less fun on the net... Then even a pentium III would be.
You won't even be able to fire up Steam, to mess with stuff there either.

If you have the parts and room, go for both, tho.
Slot-A Athlons aren't that common, compared to socket A.
If your going for rarity, and own a Slot-A mobo+cpu I would kit that thing out 😎 !

Eheh I would certainly go for rarity but I don't have many rare components. I decided to test both and now I'm trying the Athlon 1000 on the same SIS745 mb. Well 666Mhz + SSE are certainly visible on the XP+ side. I like so much to see at boot Athlon 1000Mhz, 🤣 I remember when these cpu went out on the Slot A and they seems to be so powerful .. 🤣
I am going to do some test.

The Barton 3200+ is surely fast even if I think that you can feel more the SSE difference that the same 600Mhz boost with the other 256kbyte of L2. The problem is that this mainboard can't go up to the Barton (266Mhz...) and the other mainboard I have has the AGP 8X 1,5v bus so no old cards... and I am actually testing the Riva 128ZX 😁

I'm not sure SSE matters, but SSE2 is becoming a requirement for web related software to even run. And that means Athlon 64 or P4.

Interesting!

I think it would be best to use fastest CPU and the program CrystalCPUID. It lets you choose multiplier on AMD processors K7 and higher. It has even multiplier settings for low, medium and hard CPU loading which you can tune fine as you wish.

swaaye wrote:

I'm not sure SSE matters, but SSE2 is becoming a requirement for web related software to even run. And that means Athlon 64 or P4.

I haven't experienced that much.

smeezekitty wrote:

swaaye wrote:

I'm not sure SSE matters, but SSE2 is becoming a requirement for web related software to even run. And that means Athlon 64 or P4.

I haven't experienced that much.

Chrome, Flash and Silverlight require SSE2 IIRC.

Another thing is HD video acceleration features of various video cards requires SSE2.

swaaye wrote:

smeezekitty wrote:

swaaye wrote:

I'm not sure SSE matters, but SSE2 is becoming a requirement for web related software to even run. And that means Athlon 64 or P4.

I haven't experienced that much.

Chrome, Flash and Silverlight require SSE2 IIRC.

Another thing is HD video acceleration features of various video cards requires SSE2.

There is still a reasonably current version of flash that doesn't need SSE2

Not sure of the version off hand. I believe firefox still works without SSE2

Depending on where you live if you hunt around a bit you should be able to pick up a half decent dual core machine for daily web browsing. I have been given around 6 xp dual core machines in the past year ranging from 2.0ghz Athlon64's (lot of these) to 3.0ghz Core2Duo workstations. Your best bet is to get something like that for free-cheap and just relegate the old Athlon xp to a retro role.

oerk wrote:

For surfing the net? As fast as possible.

It isn't like in the olden days anymore, where CPU speed didn't matter at all for internet access. Today's web pages probably are the most inefficient software ever written. If a fast Core 2 Duo struggles with this, how on earth do you plan on getting away with it with a simple Athlon XP (not to mention getting a somewhat current browser for it)?

Well, as the owner of a "fast Core 2 Duo", what you're saying is a bit of a stretch, but you do have a good point. Modern websites are horrendously inefficient, and it makes me wonder why they are coded in such a way with the proliferation of lower-power devices like tablets and smartphones. If anything, I think web developers should be trying harder to make their sites work on low-power devices, rather than relying on the brute strength of modern x86 desktop CPUs.

You don't need Flash, HD video, latest Chrome or any such crap to consider a PC web capable. Anything that is actually useful can be viewed with such things turned off.

I think also that "CPU matters more" because a.) people are spoiled and consider minute delays "unusable", b.) people are noticing the effect of CPU speed because cities and rich countries are getting 100 Mbps and faster connections. I remember browsing the net in 2006 with a 1 Ghz Celeron and a 128 kbps EDGE modem, and the modem had a far, far greater effect on the speed than the relatively slow even then CPU.

Core 2 Duo "struggles" with modern webpages? Seriously? My parents use a "slow" C2D (late 2006 iMac) for daily use and it works perfectly well.

Up until half a year ago we used an old P4 3.2 Ghz to work with an online database. It was a bit slow, but usable, even through it is a piece of badly programmed crap that is not really quick even on an i7. But it was usable on a P4. Too many people make the fallacy of extrapolating "oh, I have to wait a second on my i7, that surely means I'd wait a trillion seconds on an old PC!". A 5x faster PC does not mean 5x faster software.

When we're talking web on a K6, we're not talking about autoplay videos, "HD" etc. I remember regular webpages in 2004 worked okay with JPGs even on my uncle's 75 Mhz Pentium and 2004 top CPUs vs a P75 was a FAR larger gap than Athlon XP or even K6 vs a modern CPU.

It all comes down to whether you want to watch YouTube or not. My Athlon64 3000+ is useless in YouTube nowadays, even SD crawls and gives me horrendous CPU usage. You can get by using an old PC for browsing, but anything lower than a Pentium D will severely limit your ability to watch videos online.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Modern websites are horrendously inefficient, and it makes me wonder why they are coded in such a way with the proliferation of lower-power devices like tablets and smartphones.

Because more and more websites are owned by big companies that want to gather as much information about their users as possible, and to make as much money as possible, which leads to websites being infested with tracking code, animated ads and ads that also do tracking on their own. And I'm not talking about 1 or 2 ads, but tens or even hundreds of HTTP requests to various tracking services and data gathering code that all runs in your browser, using up memory and CPU power like there's no tomorrow. All of this when you're trying to view a single page.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

If anything, I think web developers should be trying harder to make their sites work on low-power devices, rather than relying on the brute strength of modern x86 desktop CPUs.

It's not like they don't try, but there's just so much that can be done when the higher-ups demand all this tracking and ad code. Seriously, try some of the ad and script blocker add-ons that exist and you'll be amazed by just how much unnecessary crap is being thrown at us. Of course there's always the poorly coded and ineficient website that uses a ton of javascript libraries for even the simplest of things, but even then it's nothing compared to the rest of the stuff I mentioned.

For an old computer browsing the web it's vital that these ad and script blockers be installed. It will make for a perfectly good browsing experience in most sites.

PS: And forget about Flash and streaming video. That is really taxing on its own.

alexanrs wrote:

It all comes down to whether you want to watch YouTube or not. My Athlon64 3000+ is useless in YouTube nowadays, even SD crawls and gives me horrendous CPU usage. You can get by using an old PC for browsing, but anything lower than a Pentium D will severely limit your ability to watch videos online.

Have you tried SMPlayer? Like your PC, my 3400+ Venice CPU was running YouTube badly. SMPlayer has a built-in YouTube player that has breathed new life into the machine and I can continue using it as an HTPC for at least a few more years.

I'm not sure what "SD" is.

KT7AGuy wrote:

I'm not sure what "SD" is.

He was talking about YouTube, so: Standard Definition. 😀

Modern websites are horrendously inefficient, and it makes me wonder why they are coded in such a way with the proliferation of lower-power devices like tablets and smartphones. If anything, I think web developers should be trying harder to make their sites work on low-power devices, rather than relying on the brute strength of modern x86 desktop CPUs.

Its visuals above functionality nowadays. That and the ad thing.

Have you tried SMPlayer? Like your PC, my 3400+ Venice CPU was running YouTube badly. SMPlayer has a built-in YouTube player that has breathed new life into the machine and I can continue using it as an HTPC for at least a few more years.

I wouldn't doubt it. If Mplayer can make a 486 play 144p smoothly, I am sure an Athlon could play atleast 480p

alexanrs wrote:

It all comes down to whether you want to watch YouTube or not. My Athlon64 3000+ is useless in YouTube nowadays, even SD crawls and gives me horrendous CPU usage. You can get by using an old PC for browsing, but anything lower than a Pentium D will severely limit your ability to watch videos online.

It shouldn't be that slow. My A64 3700+ (overclocked to 2.64, but still a single-core) can handle 720p with Flash 16 and Firefox 35 under Win7. 480p and lower only uses around 45% of the CPU. And this is with an AGP 6800GT, so it's not like the video card is lending a helping hand, either. Chrome and its HTML5 player is a completely different story though--it nearly maxes out the CPU even with 480p!