Suggestions for Core 2 Duo systems that use PCI - not PCI express?

Right now I'm running a 2.4 gig P4 on a Soyo Dragon mobo. I could
upgrade to a socket 478 3.4gig processor and get about a 30% bump in
speed which wouldn't be bad, but it's my understanding going to a Core
2 Duo chip I could see a much bigger increase.

I dont need to be on the cutting edge, what Core 2 chips should I look
for that would net me about 3x the speed of that 2.4gig P4? I'm
favoring Intel unless you feel there's a really compelling reason to
go with someone else. .

I still want to run XP - all my software works with it and I'd like to
stay with PCI slots, not PCI express so I can swap over hardware I've
already got. The more PCI slots the better - like 5 or more. Does such
an animal exist - i.e. Core 2 duo system with lots of PCI slots?

Thanks for all input

"muzician21" wrote...

I dont need to be on the cutting edge, what Core 2 chips should I look
for that would net me about 3x the speed of that 2.4gig P4?

None.

While you would see improvement from any C2D over 2.4GHz, you won't likely
see anywhere near 3X the speed on anything.


I still want to run XP - all my software works with it and I'd like to
stay with PCI slots, not PCI express so I can swap over hardware I've
already got. The more PCI slots the better - like 5 or more. Does such
an animal exist - i.e. Core 2 duo system with lots of PCI slots?

If you stay with PCI, then you will choke your I/O to graphics, HDs, and
other peripherals that use the PCI bus. There's no sense in staying with
PCI if you want performance.

In message "JR Weiss"
was claimed to have wrote:

"muzician21" wrote...

I dont need to be on the cutting edge, what Core 2 chips should I look
for that would net me about 3x the speed of that 2.4gig P4?

None.

While you would see improvement from any C2D over 2.4GHz, you won't likely
see anywhere near 3X the speed on anything.

Why not? Except under very specific workloads, the P4's pipeline length
all but crippled the processor's responsiveness for day to day usage.

Hyperthreading partially addressed this, although it caused it's own set
of slowdowns.

A single Core 2 core is roughly 1.5x-2x faster then a similarly clocked
P4 CPU, one of the higher end Core 2 Duo processors should easily offer
3x-4x processing improvements over a P4.

In fairness, we're rarely CPU bound at all these days, so when it comes
to desktop performance comparing CPUs isn't always the best way to
start.

I still want to run XP - all my software works with it and I'd like to
stay with PCI slots, not PCI express so I can swap over hardware I've
already got. The more PCI slots the better - like 5 or more. Does such
an animal exist - i.e. Core 2 duo system with lots of PCI slots?

If you stay with PCI, then you will choke your I/O to graphics, HDs, and
other peripherals that use the PCI bus. There's no sense in staying with
PCI if you want performance.

Depending on what sort of devices are connected, the PCI bus'
limitations may not matter. Sound cards, fax boards, even
SCSI-connected scanners and similar won't get near the PCI bus'
bandwidth limitations. Higher performance devices will make use of a
faster bus, but for most users their video card and possibly an
additional drive controller are about all that fit into that ballpark.

(okay okay, ethernet too in theory, but in practice how many users have
hardware that can sustain over PCI's practical transfer speeds over
ethernet?)

On Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:51:20 -0700, DevilsPGD
wrote:


Depending on what sort of devices are connected, the PCI bus'
limitations may not matter. Sound cards, fax boards, even
SCSI-connected scanners and similar won't get near the PCI bus'
bandwidth limitations. Higher performance devices will make use of a
faster bus, but for most users their video card and possibly an
additional drive controller are about all that fit into that ballpark.

(okay okay, ethernet too in theory, but in practice how many users have
hardware that can sustain over PCI's practical transfer speeds over
ethernet?)

Historically, people running a combination of Creative Labs
sound card and either GbE NIC, hard drive controller, or
video capture/tuner PCI cards have ran into problems, though
it also depends on the chipset as some have better PCI
performance than others.

Regardless, if the OP needs to use PCI cards then within
that requirement there would still be a significant
performance boost moving to a modern Core2 platform if the
right motherboard can be found.

On Apr 9, 1:32*pm, "JR Weiss" wrote:
"muzician21" wrote...

I dont need to be on the cutting edge, what Core 2 chips should I look
for that would net me about 3x the speed of that 2.4gig P4?

None.

While you would see improvement from any C2D over 2.4GHz, you won't likely
see anywhere near 3X the speed on anything.


Hmm. Looking at a chart like this

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

gives the impression there are CPU's that are many times faster.

What I'm mostly looking at is rendering times for processing video
such as through VirtuaDub and for creating DVD's. You feel I I won't
see "anywhere near" 3x the speed? If that's correct maybe just maxing
out the board with a faster socket 478 CPU isn't such a bad idea.

muzician21 wrote:
On Apr 9, 1:32 pm, "JR Weiss" wrote:
"muzician21" wrote...

I dont need to be on the cutting edge, what Core 2 chips should I look
for that would net me about 3x the speed of that 2.4gig P4?
None.

While you would see improvement from any C2D over 2.4GHz, you won't likely
see anywhere near 3X the speed on anything.


Hmm. Looking at a chart like this

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

gives the impression there are CPU's that are many times faster.

What I'm mostly looking at is rendering times for processing video
such as through VirtuaDub and for creating DVD's. You feel I I won't
see "anywhere near" 3x the speed? If that's correct maybe just maxing
out the board with a faster socket 478 CPU isn't such a bad idea.

A magazine article, or a web site now, will tend to use
benchmarks that emphasize processor performance this way.

(clock_speed * instructions_per_clock) * number_of_cores

What they do, is test multithreaded software. Multithreading works
best in multimedia applications, because a number of problems there
(processing large data sets) benefit from a divide and conquer
algorithm.

For example, Photoshop could split a picture in two pieces, and
a processor core could work on each half of the picture.

But the truth is, activities on a computer consist of a mix
of single threaded ones and multithreaded ones. So a typical
user doesn't see the huge speedup the above equation might
suggest. For single threaded computing, you'd see an improvement
proportional to just a single core. The Core2 "instructions_per_clock" is
how some of the speedup occurs.

(clock_speed * instructions_per_clock)

So if you wanted a 3x speedup at all times, I'd have to pick a
processor that offers that improvement at all times. To do that,
I'd use a single threaded benchmark. If your target was 3x performance
increase only while you were rendering or shrinking a movie, then a
multithreaded benchmark would tell you that.

I can pick a "Pentium 4 2.4GHz C Northwood" on hwbot.org, and then
look at the collected benchmarks. The "C" means FSB800 (front side
bus speed), which would be about as good as it gets for a S478
processor. A much earlier processor, say one for socket 423,
might be FSB400, making it harder to get data in and out of the
processor.

http://www.hwbot.org/ResultBrowseByP...puModelId=1425

SuperPI 1M ( 1 million digits) 80 seconds at 2.4Ghz
SuperPI 32M (32 million digits) 58 minutes 59 seconds at 2.4GHz

Now, compare to an E8400 Core2 Duo 3GHz processor.

http://www.hwbot.org/listResults.do?...pplicationId=3

SuperPI 1M ( 1 million digits) 15-16 seconds at 3.0Ghz

http://www.hwbot.org/listResults.do?...pplicationId=7

SuperPI 32M (32 million digits) 14:10 to 15:59 at 3.0GHz

The scaleup there implies a factor of 5, in the 1 million digit
benchmark. But the thing is, SuperPI uses about 8MB of data in
main memory, and the E8400 has 6MB of shared L2 cache. I don't know
what the locality of reference is like in SuperPI, but I would be
a bit suspicious that the benchmark is overestimating the speedup.
A lot of the SuperPI data, might end up stored in L2, giving
an unfair advantage and a less than honest performance ratio.

So I can try the 32 million digit benchmark. This still seems a
little on the high side.

If we compare 58:59 to 15:59, that is a factor of 3539/959 = 3.69

Your P4 consisted of a single core, and it could have had Hyperthreading,
which makes a second, virtual core. The virtual core, on a good day,
contributes only an extra 10% to performance, as it runs when the
other core is "blocked". Now, you can buy quad core processors,
and if the software you use can actually use all four cores, then
you should see a good improvement.

The Q9650, is two E8400s inside the same CPU package. It is a quad for $324.
The Q9550 is comparable, and is 2.83GHz for $270.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115130

core core core core Q9550, Q9650
| | | | Block Diagram
-+----+- -+----+- Two silicon die, joined inside.
| 6MB L2 | | 6MB L2 |
----+--- ---+----
| |
+-----+------+
|
LGA775 FSB (used for memory access and I/O)

Nehalem (Core i7) is the most recent generation, and the motherboard
and RAM for it, may add to the upgrade costs. This is an example of
one of those. Socket is LGA1366 instead of LGA775 for the other one.
The extra pins support a direct memory interface.

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz 4*256KB L2 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad $289
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115202

core core core core Core i7 is a single die
| | | |
256KB L2 256KB L2 256KB L2 256KB L2
| | | |
-+-----------+----------+----------+-
| 8MB L3 |----- triple channel memory
-------------------+---------------- interface on processor
| (like AMD does it)
LGA1366 FSB (used for I/O)

Using the HWBOT again... 14.5 seconds for SuperPI 1M (when the
entire data set could fit in L3. That is 14.5 seconds at 2.66GHz.

http://www.hwbot.org/listResults.do?...pplicationId=3

The SuperPI 32M is 12:45 at 2.66GHz, and ratio to P4 2.4Ghz is
58:59/12:45 = 3539/765 = 4.6x single threaded.

http://www.hwbot.org/listResults.do?...pplicationId=7

An E8400 is $165, and a motherboard with DDR2 memory makes for
a more reasonably priced alternative. It really depends on
what your budget is. The pricing is such, that buying low
end Intel platforms may not make much long term sense.
(You'd only be looking at upgrading again.)

As far as I know, all the current benchmarks on Tomwhardware charts
are multithreaded, intended to let the extra cores show their stuff.
It is too bad they don't try to be more balanced, and throw
in a less impressive speedup from a single threaded benchmark.
I've used SuperPI above, as an example of a single threaded one.

Paul

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Paul wrote:
muzician21 wrote:
On Apr 9, 1:32 pm, "JR Weiss" wrote:
"muzician21" wrote...

I dont need to be on the cutting edge, what Core 2 chips should I
look for that would net me about 3x the speed of that 2.4gig P4?

See below. I'd say an E7300 or better, depending on what you are doing with
it.

None.

While you would see improvement from any C2D over 2.4GHz, you won't
likely see anywhere near 3X the speed on anything.


Hmm. Looking at a chart like this

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

gives the impression there are CPU's that are many times faster.

What I'm mostly looking at is rendering times for processing video
such as through VirtuaDub and for creating DVD's. You feel I I won't
see "anywhere near" 3x the speed? If that's correct maybe just
maxing out the board with a faster socket 478 CPU isn't such a bad
idea.


VirtualDub is multi-core aware no? If that's right then even the entry-level
core2 Duo should do what you want.

A magazine article, or a web site now, will tend to use
benchmarks that emphasize processor performance this way.

(clock_speed * instructions_per_clock) * number_of_cores

What they do, is test multithreaded software. Multithreading works
best in multimedia applications, because a number of problems there
(processing large data sets) benefit from a divide and conquer
algorithm.

For example, Photoshop could split a picture in two pieces, and
a processor core could work on each half of the picture.

But the truth is, activities on a computer consist of a mix
of single threaded ones and multithreaded ones. So a typical
user doesn't see the huge speedup the above equation might
suggest.

[snip]

I use a benchmark designed by Australian PC User magazine (they made it
available to their users on a cover disk) called 'UserBench Encode 2009'
http://darrenyates.com.au/?p=573 that uses a mix of single threaded and
multi threaded work, to simulate real-world use. It only benches
CPU/FSB/RAM. They set the score of 10 to represent a 2GHz Pentium 4 with a
533 FSB running 1GB RAM running XP SP2.

Examples of machines I'm using here, all running XP SP3:

[IBM R51 ThinkPad] Dothan 1.7GHz/400MHz/2GB RAM. Sco 13.82
Flatmate's desktop. E4500 2.2GHz/800/2GB RAM. Sco 29.77
My desktop. E7300 2.66GHz/1066/4GB RAM. Sco 39.45
The above with the FSB raised to 1333. Score 48.81


As it's the same benchmark that my favourite magazine uses to test it's
review machines I find it very useful.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire, and he`ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
he`ll be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchett, Jingo.

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:12:32 +1200, "~misfit~"
wrote:


What I'm mostly looking at is rendering times for processing video
such as through VirtuaDub and for creating DVD's. You feel I I won't
see "anywhere near" 3x the speed? If that's correct maybe just
maxing out the board with a faster socket 478 CPU isn't such a bad
idea.


VirtualDub is multi-core aware no? If that's right then even the entry-level
core2 Duo should do what you want.

I don't know about the app itself, I don't use it for
special effects but as described the task the OP seems to
want to do is decompress various video formats, possibly
resize, and re-encode to MPEG2 for the DVD. I'd suspect
then that the majority of the processing is encoding.

Whether multiple cores are used effectively for that will
have to do with whether the decompressing and/or compressing
codecs are multi-core capable. Virtualdub may be able to
use multiple cores for multiple threads but the video
compression thread tends to be the bottleneck if it's not
using a codec with multi-core capability itself.

To put it another way, with a semi-modern version of Divx
claiming 2 core support, I have been able to keep both CPUs
in a dual core system pegged at 100% using Virtualdub, but I
would not be confident this will happen with all Virtualdub
jobs depending on exactly what they are.

"~misfit~" wrote...

VirtualDub is multi-core aware no? If that's right then even the entry-level
core2 Duo should do what you want.

The author's web site indicates it is NOT.


I use a benchmark designed by Australian PC User magazine (they made it
available to their users on a cover disk) called 'UserBench Encode 2009'
http://darrenyates.com.au/?p=573 that uses a mix of single threaded and multi
threaded work, to simulate real-world use. It only benches CPU/FSB/RAM. They
set the score of 10 to represent a 2GHz Pentium 4 with a 533 FSB running 1GB
RAM running XP SP2.

Examples of machines I'm using here, all running XP SP3:

[IBM R51 ThinkPad] Dothan 1.7GHz/400MHz/2GB RAM. Sco 13.82
Flatmate's desktop. E4500 2.2GHz/800/2GB RAM. Sco 29.77
My desktop. E7300 2.66GHz/1066/4GB RAM. Sco 39.45
The above with the FSB raised to 1333. Score 48.81

Unfortunately, taking HD I/O out of the equation will tend to grossly overstate
relative performance gains. VirtualDub's author even warns that on a fast CPU
the app can become "disk-bound," and the faster CPU will then work at much less
than full capacity.

Hello,

It seems more complicated than I thought. I have a 2 ghz pentium M laptop,
with 2 gigs of RAM and XP.

It can run single task apps ok but it also has some programming environments
that multi-task.

If one were to build a desktop with:
1. vista 64-bit
2. case
3. PS
4. MB
5. CPU - at least dual core

.. . . (no monitor) that was 4x faster, total price under $500, which CPU and
MB would you use?

--g