Quad/Dual Core Duo Questions [Hardware]

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From: ldiaco on 21 Jan 2008 00:13

Hey all,

I understand most of the basics about hardware, like DIMMs and FSB, and
HD/RPM, caches, etc. and this is dangerous, especially when I decide to
build my own computers, lol. Anyways, here's my tale and questions.

I decided about six months ago to "upgrade" my computer. I thought I
was in a 89' buick compared to what I could be in. And the buick, aka,
my system, was actually pretty good. 2GB RAM, 3.2 GHz Pentium with HT
(< this is important later), and a few too many harddrives. So trying
to get in gear with teh times, I decided to get a new motherboard, new
harddrives (using SATA inplace of my IDE mess), and the crown jewel, a
2.33 GHz Dual Core Pentium. Now, I had done my research on HT versus
Dual Core, and I was convinced that I was going to see a nice biiiiiig
bump in performace, especially that my FSB was huge compared to the old
FSB, and my RAM had better ratings than before.

So I spend two weeks putting the thing together, working out the bugs,
this and that. And when its all said and done, it runs like molasses.
My 3.2GHz w/HT ran WAAAAAYYYY better than the dual core. I am soooo
ticked at myself.

So, here are my questions:

One, what did I do or think wrong..... and what should I know now that
I should have known before I bought the Dual Core?

Two, The Dual Core Pentiums come in three (or four, maybe) flavors. Ya
have your Dual Core, Dual Core Extreme, and then Quad Core (and possibly
Quad Core Extreme sometime soon). Is the quad core simply a dual core
with HT? or is Dual Come Extreme using HT along with its unlocked
ratio?

Three, should I simply forget that there ever was a thing as HT? or do
you think Intel is going to be using it, or is using it someplace in the
future?

From: Brian Cryer on 21 Jan 2008 09:18

From: Paul on 21 Jan 2008 09:40

ldiaco wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I understand most of the basics about hardware, like DIMMs and FSB, and
> HD/RPM, caches, etc. and this is dangerous, especially when I decide to
> build my own computers, lol. Anyways, here's my tale and questions.
>
> I decided about six months ago to "upgrade" my computer. I thought I
> was in a 89' buick compared to what I could be in. And the buick, aka,
> my system, was actually pretty good. 2GB RAM, 3.2 GHz Pentium with HT
> (< this is important later), and a few too many harddrives. So trying
> to get in gear with teh times, I decided to get a new motherboard, new
> harddrives (using SATA inplace of my IDE mess), and the crown jewel, a
> 2.33 GHz Dual Core Pentium. Now, I had done my research on HT versus
> Dual Core, and I was convinced that I was going to see a nice biiiiiig
> bump in performace, especially that my FSB was huge compared to the old
> FSB, and my RAM had better ratings than before.
>
> So I spend two weeks putting the thing together, working out the bugs,
> this and that. And when its all said and done, it runs like molasses.
> My 3.2GHz w/HT ran WAAAAAYYYY better than the dual core. I am soooo
> ticked at myself.
>
> So, here are my questions:
>
> One, what did I do or think wrong..... and what should I know now that
> I should have known before I bought the Dual Core?
>
> Two, The Dual Core Pentiums come in three (or four, maybe) flavors. Ya
> have your Dual Core, Dual Core Extreme, and then Quad Core (and possibly
> Quad Core Extreme sometime soon). Is the quad core simply a dual core
> with HT? or is Dual Come Extreme using HT along with its unlocked
> ratio?
>
> Three, should I simply forget that there ever was a thing as HT? or do
> you think Intel is going to be using it, or is using it someplace in the
> future?

To eliminate any confusion about what you bought, you could quote a
model number, like E6600, E2180, or even an SLxxx code (printed on the
processor box). The thing you bought, could be a Core2 family processor.
For example, it might be an E6550.

http://processorfinder.intel.com/List.aspx?ProcFam=2558

The Core2 2.33GHz, you'd multiply that by 1.5x to 2x, to get some idea of
its "Pentium 4 equivalent" speed. It should feel a little faster
than what you had. And not molasses. More like 3.5 to 4.5GHz or so
in P4 equivalents.

In the past, I've run into a couple people, whose systems seemed to be
stuck at the low multiplier. With EIST (equivalent in its way, to
Cool N' Quiet on AMD), the multiplier changes as a function of system
load. Now, I never did find a definitive step that was missing in their
build. The builders eventually concluded it was fixed, but since they
changed so many things at once, they lost track of what fixed it.

You can use RMClock, to monitor the system. RMClock is supposed to be
able to monitor for throttling, if it is present. I don't really like
the graphical output, but it is better than nothing.

http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml
http://cpu.rightmark.org/download/rmclock_230_bin_upd1.exe
(Screen shot)
http://www.notebookforums.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=8955&stc=1&d=1143767059

"Molasses" can come from a number of things. For example, say your
hard drive was running in PIO mode. The processor would waste a lot
of cycles, any time a file is referenced (since it would use polled
transfer). The bandwidth would be limited (4MB/sec to 8MB/sec).
Programs would be slow to load, but fast once started. You can
test with HDTach or HDTune, and get some idea of the actual speed.
My disk speed ranges from 60MB/sec to 40MB/sec sustained, from the beginning
to the end of the disk. More modern drives manage 70MB/sec or a
little more, in sustained performance. The performance graph
should be a curve - a flat line means cable/interconnect trouble.

Now, if you were to test with SuperPI 1.5 or something similar,
that would spend a good deal of its time using nothing but
processor and memory. Comparing the old system to the new system,
would then give an idea if the CPU and memory was the limitation.
Just the "feel" of the system, may not be narrowing down where the
problem is. (On the machine I'm typing on, SuperPI 1.5 will do the
1 million digits test in 50 seconds. It became that slow, after
I added my antivirus software. I think I might have had maybe
45 seconds at one time, before the antivirus was added. Just if you
want to compare. SuperPI is single threaded AFAIK. My system is a
Northwood P4 3.15GHz/FSB900/DDR450 dual channel. A highly overclocked
Core2 can do the same benchmark in sub 10 seconds, to give some idea
of how good it can be. So my system is 5x out of date.)

http://www.xtremesystems.com/pi/index.php (see super_pi_mod-1.5.zip)

The multiplier is one issue. Processor throttling (CPU instruction rate
drop, to try to stave off overheating), is another mechanism for
losing performance. You want enough cooling, to stay below 70C. About
65C to 70C, is where some of the newer processors start to throttle.
The cooling solution should stay clear of those kinds of temps, in
order to get 100% of the goodness.

Keep the RMClock window open, then run SuperPI, and watch the graph
while it runs.

You can also have a look through this thread, but first I'd prefer
to see you get a handle on exactly what is slow, before going
crazy with unrelated fixes.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=60416

Paul

From: Marcel Overweel on 21 Jan 2008 09:47

"ldiaco" <ldiaco.33jgg4(a)no.email.invalid> schreef in bericht
news:ldiaco.33jgg4(a)no.email.invalid...
>
> Hey all,
>
> I understand most of the basics about hardware, like DIMMs and FSB, and
> HD/RPM, caches, etc. and this is dangerous, especially when I decide to
> build my own computers, lol. Anyways, here's my tale and questions.
>
> I decided about six months ago to "upgrade" my computer. I thought I
> was in a 89' buick compared to what I could be in. And the buick, aka,
> my system, was actually pretty good. 2GB RAM, 3.2 GHz Pentium with HT
> (< this is important later), and a few too many harddrives. So trying
> to get in gear with teh times, I decided to get a new motherboard, new
> harddrives (using SATA inplace of my IDE mess), and the crown jewel, a
> 2.33 GHz Dual Core Pentium. Now, I had done my research on HT versus
> Dual Core, and I was convinced that I was going to see a nice biiiiiig
> bump in performace, especially that my FSB was huge compared to the old
> FSB, and my RAM had better ratings than before.
>
> So I spend two weeks putting the thing together, working out the bugs,
> this and that. And when its all said and done, it runs like molasses.
> My 3.2GHz w/HT ran WAAAAAYYYY better than the dual core. I am soooo
> ticked at myself.
>
> So, here are my questions:
>
> One, what did I do or think wrong..... and what should I know now that
> I should have known before I bought the Dual Core?
>

Per core, I don't think there's much performance difference between your
old and new processor.

I'd running a duo core at 2.4Ghz and compared to a 3.2 HT, the duo core was
noticably faster but I didn't do a real one core cpu test.
I just want to say that it felt much faster right out of the box.

Most programs are not optimized for multi-threading.
Those programs are running on just one core so they don't get any advantage
from the other cores.
You should notice an improvent when running several somewhat cpu intensive
programs at once.

> Two, The Dual Core Pentiums come in three (or four, maybe) flavors. Ya
> have your Dual Core, Dual Core Extreme, and then Quad Core (and possibly
> Quad Core Extreme sometime soon). Is the quad core simply a dual core
> with HT? or is Dual Come Extreme using HT along with its unlocked
> ratio?

The dual core processors (both normal and extreme) are 'true' dual core,
meaning: an optimized design for two cores.

The quad core processors (again, normal and extreme) are two dual cores
merged together in one package.
Some say this isn't 'true' quad, other say: who cares!

Anyway, quad cores have four real cores while hyperthreading is just a
pipeline 'trick' to get a bit more processing power.

Extreme processors (both dualcore and quadcore) have an unlocked
multiplier.
All conroe processors can decrease the multiplier.
Only the extremes can increase the multiplier.

>
> Three, should I simply forget that there ever was a thing as HT? or do
> you think Intel is going to be using it, or is using it someplace in the
> future?
>

Yes, as far as I know, hyperthreading is gone.
Maybe a part of it is still used for optimization, don't really know.

One other advantage of conroe compared to pentium:
conroes can be hugely overclocked.
You can easily increase your FSB and get the processor running
at 2.6 or 2.8GHz.
Just make sure your memory can handle the FSB and your cpu
cooler is up to the task!
(With good cooling you can get much higher, 3.0 or even 3.2
is do-able)

I don't know why your system runs a lot slower than your previous
system.

My guess is there is something wrong with your setup.
How is your harddrive performance?
If you copy a file from/to your harddisk, is your cpu usage ramping
up to 40% or more? If that is true, you might have a problem with
an IDE device and since the harddisk is accessed a lot, your whole
system will suffer.

The same for graphics drivers. When you drag a window, do you get
a smooth update or is everything very sluggish?

Hope this helps.
Marcel

From: GT on 21 Jan 2008 10:02

"ldiaco" <ldiaco.33jgg4(a)no.email.invalid> wrote in message
news:ldiaco.33jgg4(a)no.email.invalid...
>
> Hey all,
>
> I understand most of the basics about hardware, like DIMMs and FSB, and
> HD/RPM, caches, etc. and this is dangerous, especially when I decide to
> build my own computers, lol. Anyways, here's my tale and questions.
>
> I decided about six months ago to "upgrade" my computer. I thought I
> was in a 89' buick compared to what I could be in. And the buick, aka,
> my system, was actually pretty good. 2GB RAM, 3.2 GHz Pentium with HT
> (< this is important later), and a few too many harddrives. So trying
> to get in gear with teh times, I decided to get a new motherboard, new
> harddrives (using SATA inplace of my IDE mess), and the crown jewel, a
> 2.33 GHz Dual Core Pentium. Now, I had done my research on HT versus
> Dual Core, and I was convinced that I was going to see a nice biiiiiig
> bump in performace, especially that my FSB was huge compared to the old
> FSB, and my RAM had better ratings than before.

I assume molasses is/are bad - never heard of it/them?

Either I am missing something, you have phrased your question badly, or you
really have upgraded from a 3.2 P4 to a 2.33 P4 with 2 cores and you are
wondering why it is slower??? 3.2GHz down to 2.33GHz = slower! This is not
an upgrade!

You don't tell us the model of the new CPU. I suspect you have actually
bought a 'Core 2 Duo' chip, but you state it to be a P4 dual core. A Core 2
Duo at 2.33 GHz (probably an 'e6600') should be faster than the 3.2GHz P4 at
most tasks.

> So I spend two weeks putting the thing together, working out the bugs,
> this and that. And when its all said and done, it runs like molasses.
> My 3.2GHz w/HT ran WAAAAAYYYY better than the dual core. I am soooo
> ticked at myself.
>
> So, here are my questions:
>
> One, what did I do or think wrong..... and what should I know now that
> I should have known before I bought the Dual Core?

You should have known what processor you were buying and read performance
tables comparing the old and new processors. TomsHardware.com has loads of
these.

> Two, The Dual Core Pentiums come in three (or four, maybe) flavors. Ya
> have your Dual Core, Dual Core Extreme, and then Quad Core (and possibly
> Quad Core Extreme sometime soon). Is the quad core simply a dual core
> with HT? or is Dual Come Extreme using HT along with its unlocked
> ratio?

P4s and Pentiums, then Dual Core P4/Pentiums went out ages ago. They were
replaced by Core Duo about 18 months ago, then superceeded by the Core 2 Duo
about 12+ months or so ago. The latest Intel processors are called Core 2
Duo and Core 2 Duo Quad. If you have really bought a Dual Core P4 at
2.33GHz, then you have bought a 3yr old processor. It will be slow compared
to the P4 at 3.2GHz that you had before.

> Three, should I simply forget that there ever was a thing as HT? or do
> you think Intel is going to be using it, or is using it someplace in the
> future?

Forget it - Dual and Quad cores are genuine multi-processor units, HT simply
used spare clock cycles on a single processor to 'make out' that there were
two.

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