leileilol wrote:

A VIA SS7 + WinChip with a PowerVR PCX1 and a Rush and a bad WSS should be interesting. Even better with unpatched Windows ME on top. That way, you get all API (that are popular) support, CPU features (MMX+3DNow) support, and it's all bad hardware!

Via super seven boards kick ass. Not all, but most - especially rarer ATX versions. There's quite a few crappy boards out there - quite a few more then for any other chipset. Good boards are Lucky Star P5MVP3, Aopen AX59PRO, Epox EP-MVP3G5, FIC PA-2013 (rev B0 upwards), FIC VA-503+ and the DFI K6XV3+. Out of all MVP3 boards I've tested these are hassle free. I have a couple of ALi boards but apart from the Asus P5A it's hard to recommend anything. The only advantage Ali boards have over VIA counterparts is memory performance - but somehow they take a big CPU and cache subsystem performance hit. Agp on these is a joke and installing ALi AGP cause more trouble.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

-
- most Athlon 64 x2 builds

This needs clarification. If you're talking about AM3 athlon X2 CPUs, then yes they suck. If you're talking about socket 939 and early AM2 CPUs used whey came out, you are dead wrong. I had a 939 A64 X2 3800+ rig back in the day and it was a BEAST. I was running vista comfortably on the thing and enjoying smooth OS operation w/o the need to reinstall / refresh every couple of months (like I had to do with XP) on that machine - and it played everything I threw at it. Later I upgraded to an AM2 4800+ with DDR2 and it ran everything I played on it perfectly - in fact that machine paired with a 7950GT was so fast I was running games at 1600x1200 and higher... Until 2007 hit and stuff like STALKER and Crysis came out... dayum...

My last high AMD CPU was a X2 6400+ then I switched to an intel Q6600... I remember I was running a two 8800GTX cards and I still could not get games like Stalker, Crysis and Lost Planet to run w/o huge frame-skipping and lag on the X2. FPS was all over the place - from 10 to 80 making it very tiresome to play. I was a die-hard AMD fan (still am - I'm getting ZEN when it launches even if my 3770k is still very competitive) but I had four boxed Q6600 CPUs on had I got from a relative working in germany. I went out and loaned a MSI P35 board from a friend and build a system around it. DAMN!!! I was blown away at how fast the thing was. At 2.4GHz those twin Conroe dies put out much better minimum frames per second then the 6400+ and at that very moment I new I had my next build - and my first intel PC witch I didn't hate (there was a socket 478 2GHz Celeron debacle back in 2002? but I won't get into that). Needless to say I sold my X2 6400+ (wish I kept it but I wasn't into collecting hw back then) + mainboard and payed my friend for the MSI P35 Neo2 and bought an Antec Truepower Quattro 800W PSU to round up the build. It was my second high end build after the X2 4800+ / 7950GT.

Point is - the X2 lasted a couple of years and performed great wen it was new. It felt faster then my sister's Pentium D 820, especially in games - and it didn't have as many issues as that machine had (it killed two PSUs and one mainboard - thankfully all under warranty).

I was referring to the AM2 and prior 64x2s. 😜 To be fair, I didn't encounter a machine using one until around ~2010. Now, I had no idea there even were AM3 versions, I thought the only AM3 CPUs were the Athlon II, Phenom/Phenom II, and Sempron lines. There's also the FX series, but that's really AM3+. You're probably right about it being a superior chip to the Pentium D, though both of my parents bought Pentium D boxes around 2006ish and they seemed to perform fine.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I was referring to the AM2 and prior 64x2s. 😜 To be fair, I didn't encounter a machine using one until around ~2010. Now, I had no idea there even were AM3 versions, I thought the only AM3 CPUs were the Athlon II, Phenom/Phenom II, and Sempron lines. There's also the FX series, but that's really AM3+. You're probably right about it being a superior chip to the Pentium D, though both of my parents bought Pentium D boxes around 2006ish and they seemed to perform fine.

Yup, Pentium D machines are nice. They're equivalent to similarly rated AMD chips, but they get hotter and use more power. The issues I had with my sisters 820 went away after I got her a proper 450W PSU (made by Thermaltake I think?) and an Arctic Cooling Silencer 120mm tower cooler. It ran really well after that.

The socket 939 A64 X2 were pretty good for the time. One was my main computer for several years around 2006 or so.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

leileilol wrote:

Probably referring to the pre-Phenom Athlon64 x2 which needed a "dual-core optimizer" program for it

That's exactly what I was referring to. The Athlon II was actually a good chip, since it was basically just a cost-reduced Phenom II. 😀

I am using an AMD Opteron 180, which I believe is the server edition of an Athlon 4800 X2. Should I be using the dual-core optimizer?

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I was referring to the AM2 and prior 64x2s. 😜 To be fair, I didn't encounter a machine using one until around ~2010. Now, I had no idea there even were AM3 versions, I thought the only AM3 CPUs were the Athlon II, Phenom/Phenom II, and Sempron lines. There's also the FX series, but that's really AM3+. You're probably right about it being a superior chip to the Pentium D, though both of my parents bought Pentium D boxes around 2006ish and they seemed to perform fine.

FX series on S939 : LINK
Mind=blown, right 😉

There are no Athlon64 x2 chips for AM3(+), because there can't be.
Athlon 64's doesn't have DDR3 IMC, which is required or AM3(+) platform.
AM2+ is the highest you can go with Athlon64 x2 (AM2).
Pentium D's 65nm are quite OK, but still slower than Athlon 64 x2 counterparts.

@up Dual-Core optimiser is for Win XP only (if my memory serves right).

Does my AMD Opteron 180 also require the optimizer when using XP Pro SP3?

feipoa wrote:

Does my AMD Opteron 180 also require the optimizer when using XP Pro SP3?

After some google search, according to this : LINK and this : LINK - SP3 should have it already inside.

agent_x007 wrote:

FX series on S939 : LINK Mind=blown, right ;) […]
Show full quote

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I was referring to the AM2 and prior 64x2s. 😜 To be fair, I didn't encounter a machine using one until around ~2010. Now, I had no idea there even were AM3 versions, I thought the only AM3 CPUs were the Athlon II, Phenom/Phenom II, and Sempron lines. There's also the FX series, but that's really AM3+. You're probably right about it being a superior chip to the Pentium D, though both of my parents bought Pentium D boxes around 2006ish and they seemed to perform fine.

FX series on S939 : LINK
Mind=blown, right 😉

There are no Athlon64 x2 chips for AM3(+), because there can't be.
Athlon 64's doesn't have DDR3 IMC, which is required or AM3(+) platform.
AM2+ is the highest you can go with Athlon64 x2 (AM2).
Pentium D's 65nm are quite OK, but still slower than Athlon 64 x2 counterparts.

@up Dual-Core optimiser is for Win XP only (if my memory serves right).

Technically there is - The Athlon II X2 series. They perform very close to their AM2 counterparts (my Athlon II X2 640 scores ~10% more then my X2 6000+ in some CPU benchmarks, 15% faster in others)

agent_x007 wrote:

FX series on S939 : LINK
Mind=blown, right 😉

I always wanted one FX CPU for my s939 build, those were the ultimate upgrades for that platform when AMD decided to drop s939. Eventually I bit the bullet and went to LGA1156 for a short while, then jumped back to AM3.

kanecvr wrote:

Technically there is - The Athlon II X2 series. They perform very close to their AM2 counterparts (my Athlon II X2 640 scores ~10% more then my X2 6000+ in some CPU benchmarks, 15% faster in others)

Technically there isn't.
Athlon II x2 is a K10 derivative, and that's why they have DDR2/DDR3 IMC.
Athlon 64 x2's are all K8 architecture (and are limited to DDR2 only for AM2 socket).
They may perform similary, but to me as much as Core i5 (4 core) isn't a Core 2 Quad, an Athlon II x2 isn't a Athlon 64 x2.

@up I do own FX-57 and FX-55 (130nm) as well 😀
Here's FX-55 in action : LINK

agent_x007 wrote:

Technically there isn't. Athlon II x2 is a K10 derivative, and that's why they have DDR2/DDR3 IMC. Athlon 64 x2's are all K8 arc […]
Show full quote

kanecvr wrote:

Technically there is - The Athlon II X2 series. They perform very close to their AM2 counterparts (my Athlon II X2 640 scores ~10% more then my X2 6000+ in some CPU benchmarks, 15% faster in others)

Technically there isn't.
Athlon II x2 is a K10 derivative, and that's why they have DDR2/DDR3 IMC.
Athlon 64 x2's are all K8 architecture (and are limited to DDR2 only for AM2 socket).

details 😊

agent_x007 wrote:

They may perform similary, but to me as much as Core i5 (4 core) isn't a Core 2 Quad, an Athlon II x2 isn't a Athlon 64 x2.

That's a very poor comparison. The core i series is very different from the core 2 series. The K8 and K10 are identical sans memory controller and cache subsystem.

agent_x007 wrote:

Athlon II x2 is a K10 derivative, and that's why they have DDR2/DDR3 IMC.
Athlon 64 x2's are all K8 architecture (and are limited to DDR2 only for AM2 socket).
They may perform similary, but to me as much as Core i5 (4 core) isn't a Core 2 Quad, an Athlon II x2 isn't a Athlon 64 x2.

Similar were the first K10 derivative Athlon X2s which were cut down versions of the Phenom X4 (first generation).

gdjacobs wrote:

agent_x007 wrote:

Athlon II x2 is a K10 derivative, and that's why they have DDR2/DDR3 IMC.
Athlon 64 x2's are all K8 architecture (and are limited to DDR2 only for AM2 socket).
They may perform similary, but to me as much as Core i5 (4 core) isn't a Core 2 Quad, an Athlon II x2 isn't a Athlon 64 x2.

Similar were the first K10 derivative Athlon X2s which were cut down versions of the Phenom X4 (first generation).

Athlon X2 were only a Phenom X4/X3 with cores disabled (it could even be called "Phenom X2")

Athlon II are Phenom IIs with the L3 cache disabled, although there several Athlon II X2s with 1 MB L2/core instead of the usual 512 KB/Core

Tom's Hardware made an achiterture comparasion back in 2011 by locking each CPU to 1 core and 3 ghz

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/processor … hmark,2974.html

It seems the Athlon II (K10 based) do really have better clock per clock perfomance than the older Athlon 64 X2 (K8)

kanecvr wrote:

That's a very poor comparison. The core i series is very different from the core 2 series. The K8 and K10 are identical sans memory controller and cache subsystem.

And if you "sans memory controller and cache subsystem" from Core i5 1-st gen what you will end up with ?

Socket and QPI are all memory controller related (you can't have integrated RAM controller without new socket, and having FSB is pointless if you integrate IMC into CPU + it was really outdated bus).
You could argue about PCI-e integration for LGA 1156, but to me, it's just "bolted on" because it doesn't do anything to make actual CPU cores any faster.

Hyper Threading (and what it needs), is the only big difference between a Core i7 series cpu core and C2Q series cpu core.
I don't count SSE4.2 (since it's underutilised to say the least, just like SSE4.1 from 45nm Core 2 series), and small tweaks like bigger "Out of Order buffers".

That's why Core i5's and Core 2 Quad's can perform similary.

agent_x007 wrote:

And if you "sans memory controller and cache subsystem" from Core i5 1-st gen what you will end up with ? […]
Show full quote

kanecvr wrote:

That's a very poor comparison. The core i series is very different from the core 2 series. The K8 and K10 are identical sans memory controller and cache subsystem.

And if you "sans memory controller and cache subsystem" from Core i5 1-st gen what you will end up with ?

Socket and QPI are all memory controller related (you can't have integrated RAM controller without new socket, and having FSB is pointless if you integrate IMC into CPU + it was really outdated bus).
You could argue about PCI-e integration for LGA 1156, but to me, it's just "bolted on" because it doesn't do anything to make actual CPU cores any faster.

Hyper Threading (and what it needs), is the only big difference between a Core i7 series cpu core and C2Q series cpu core.
I don't count SSE4.2 (since it's underutilised to say the least, just like SSE4.1 from 45nm Core 2 series), and small tweaks like bigger "Out of Order buffers".

That's why Core i5's and Core 2 Quad's can perform similary.

wrong. The whole architecture is different. A core i5 is allmost 100% faster (if not more) then a core 2 quad at the same clocks. Architecturally, Core 2 Quad CPUs use a slow FSB interface. The core i series use Quick Path interconnect. The Core "i" series also has an integrated memory controller and some even integrate the voltage regulator.

Core 2 Quad (Conroe q6xxx / Yorkfield q9xxx )
- not a native quad core part - conroe is literally two dies on the same package - yorkfield is two dual core cpus on the same die
- FSB interface
- 2 stage cache subsystem
- short 14 stage pipeline similar to the P6 Pentium
- macro operation fusion only works in 32-bit mode
- requires separate dedicated memory controller in NB

Core i7 Nehalem (i7 9xx)
- native quad core / hexa core
- QPI interface
- hyper threading
- 3 stage cache architecture
- very long pentium4-like 24 stage pipeline
- macro operation fusion now works in 64-bit mode as well
- improved floating point unit - new design, vastly different from the one used in the Pentium M / Core series witch is based on the one used in the Petium 3.
- integrated memory controller and PCI-E interface - no need for a dedicate NB
- QPI linked PCI-E 2.0 controller

Core i5 / i7 (Sandy Bridge 2xxx / Ivy Bridge 3xxx)
- improved QPI interface
- hyper threading (on i7 models)
- 3 stage cache architecture
- long 19 stage pipeline
- improved floating point unit - faster then the Nehalem FPU by up to 50%.
- integrated memory controller and PCI-E interface - no need for a dedicate NB
- QPI linked PCI-E 3.0 controller (ivy bridge only)
- integrated video controller

They are vastly different - it's like comparing the Core 2 Duo to a Pentium Pro.

^I'm not 100% on all details above but I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will correct me.

Yeah, Core i5/7 is way faster than Core 2 clock for clock. In a few workloads (even single threaded), Core i series processors can be over 100% faster than Core 2.

They're absolute beasts in terms of video encode/decode performance. I'm not sure if the difference is in SIMD throughput or elsewhere, but something in the architecture makes them almost DSP-quick at handling video. A Core i7 4930K (Ivy Bridge @ 4.5GHz) can handle a 58 mbps 4K video stream--with software decoding--on a single thread. Core 2 at 4GHz does not even come close, and adding 500MHz would not save it. It's not that the C2Q can't play the video file (it can, and does so quite easily), it's just that it requires more than a single thread to do it.

Running games at stupid low resolutions also reveals the much better single-threaded performance on the 4930k.

I didn't write that Core i series won't be faster.
I only pointed out, that C2Q can be almost as fast as Core i5 because on Core level, they are quite similar (like K10 and K8).

Here's a interesting fragment from Anandtech's architecture review of Nehalem :

The execution engine of Nehalem is largely unchanged from Penryn; just like the front end was already wide enough, so was the execution end of the architecture...

Front-end and Back-end of CPU were left almost untouched going from Penryn to Nehalem.
Why ?
Intel focus was on cache and memory controller (+ return of HT), this time arround.
Reason ?
Nehalem was targeted at server workloads - that's why it's SOOO Awesome in decoding/encoding, large data processing, virtualisation, etc.

But all that gain comes mainly from better cache (sharing to four cores) and IMC.
If you let out cache and memory subsystems from Nehalem (just like in K8 vs. K10 case earlier), there really isn't much left (HT, better branch predictions, LBT).

The QPI thing :
In single socketed LGA 1366 CPU's, QPI is used only for PCI-e communication (to/from X58 chipset).
It isn't even build-in the LGA 1156 CPU's : LINK (because there is no PCI-e bridge chipset needed).

PS. Nehalem has 16 stages : LINK
Sandy Bridge has 19, but it also has uOP cache that can shorten it to 14 (if it get's "cache hit").

Haswell leaves the overall pipeline untouched. It's still the same 14 - 19 stage pipeline that we saw with Sandy Bridge...

Source for quote: LINK

agent_x007 wrote:

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I was referring to the AM2 and prior 64x2s. 😜 To be fair, I didn't encounter a machine using one until around ~2010. Now, I had no idea there even were AM3 versions, I thought the only AM3 CPUs were the Athlon II, Phenom/Phenom II, and Sempron lines. There's also the FX series, but that's really AM3+. You're probably right about it being a superior chip to the Pentium D, though both of my parents bought Pentium D boxes around 2006ish and they seemed to perform fine.

FX series on S939 : LINK
Mind=blown, right 😉

I forgot about those chips. 😜 The FX chips I was referring to were the modern multicore ones that succeeded the Phenom II.

If you could scoop up a few lumps of dog poop and mold them into a CPU with integrated VGA, SB16/Pro compatible audio, PCI controller and memory controller you'd get the Cyrix MediaGX GXm-233GP. I've been playing with it this weekend and it performs about as well as a Pentium 90. And yes, it is a 233Mhz CPU with MMX instructions. It's an amazing concept and neat execution for 1998 but it's really only good for 486-class games. It's amazing that most of our modern CPUs are based on this same concept today.

I'd actually call this the most-interesting-worst CPU ever made.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/MediaGX/Cyrix-M … 3GP%202.9V.html
http://www.cpu-collection.de/?l0=co&l1=Cyrix&l2=MediaGX