P4 vs Athlon Xp

[Zak33]

OH...my chip runs cooler than YOUR chip...

What I mean, as you all WELL know is that while the latest P4 might well be a hot little devil I believe that regualr "vanilla" chips like mine and TiG's are actually quite cool.....

Now.....Directhex.....this Encoding thing.......I take it that you are on about the thing Intel flaunted, and I never understood (no suprise there then, it aint got a petrol tank) that the P4 could handle "multi media tasks" faster ....like 3 was supposed to speed up your "Intersurf" speeds ?

I'm not taking the pee, and you know me well enough to realise that, I'm simply asking......is THAT why someone should plump for an Intel system, not an AMD system? Multimedia ability....and an AMD for gaming and Floating Point stuff?

[directhex]

it all depends really, zak. every cpu has a set of commands which it understands - the best compromise for explaining it is in terms of assembler commands. every processor understands basic commands such as add, rotate value left, etc, but extensions exist on top of the standard x86 set. MMX was the first set of extensions, and whilst nobody cared at the time, they made an ENORMOUS difference in the years to come - the ability to apply transforms to a 4x4 matrix in a single command is what has made modern games possible, and is just one of the many commands in the MMX set. pentium 3 and 4 introduced SSE and SSE2 respectively, where SSE2 contains extensions which make encoding MPEG2 and MPEG4 a breeze - a coder only needs to use one line of code instead of 40, and the result is far faster. AMD chips lack SSE and SSE2 - they have their own extensions (3DNOW and 3DNOW+ which are kinda crap) but generic code which runs on both systems uses only basic features. the basic features are faster on an AMD chip (such as Pifast) but extended features are far faster on a P4 - and the P4's extensions lie in media processing power.

--jo

[Zak33]

but HOPW do ya know which programs use these "instructions"?

Cos this P4 sure doesn't encode Windows Media Audio from CD any quicker than my Athlon.

How would "bloke in the forum" know which software was better for P4?

[daverobev]

Minor point: Athlon XPs have got sse, as have morgan-durons...

And Opterons have SSE2 I believe!

[directhex]

DVDx uses it, Virtualdub too. usually programs will make it clear whether they do.

--jo

[acidrainy]

Relistically though.... These chip's both AMD and Intel are very close matched (on an average)

This might be taking the easy option here..... But then, what your really looking at is price....

Taking the price/preformace of these chips gets to be quite an interesting comparison

[elneckio]

Originally posted by BlackSheep
Dunno why but even when both machine are evenly matched on benchmarks - P4 and XP the XP machine always seems faster around the OS (opening appz etc...)

Completely agree, I use an 1800+ and a 2.4ghz P4 daily and the 2 year old XP still 'feels' faster in Windows than the 3 month old P4. Both machines are running 512meg and 5400 spin drives. Its really hard to work out why they 'feel' different but they do, it's nice to hear someone else has found the same as me (I thought I was just going mad )

However if you need a quiet rig or one for lots of video/audio work then I would go with the P4.

[acidrainy]

Originally posted by elneckio
Completely agree, I use an 1800+ and a 2.4ghz P4 daily and the 2 year old XP still 'feels' faster in Windows than the 3 month old P4. Both machines are running 512meg and 5400 spin drives. Its really hard to work out why they 'feel' different but they do, it's nice to hear someone else has found the same as me (I thought I was just going mad )

However if you need a quiet rig or one for lots of video/audio work then I would go with the P4.

Now that you mention it....... The computers at work, although they are 2GHz P4's do seem to be slow as hell at times :/. Never made the link myself before, could possibly be the same thing thats being mentioned, hummm......

BTW what speed you got that 1800 running @ ?

[elneckio]

Originally posted by acidrainy
BTW what speed you got that 1800 running @ ?

Stock, 1535 I think the bios says. It idles at 60c on a hot day so I'm not gonna even think about clocking it lol

[Stoo]

Still, at least you've got somewhere to fry your eggs

[elneckio]

Yep no need for heaters in the winter too

[acidrainy]

Originally posted by elneckio
Stock, 1535 I think the bios says. It idles at 60c on a hot day so I'm not gonna even think about clocking it lol

Heh, that will be a palomino core then ?

[elneckio]

Originally posted by acidrainy
Heh, that will be a palomino core then ?

Thats the one

[Zak33]

I had a Palomino once *thinks back to that horrible day, with the rear window demister repair kit and the attempt to unlock it*

It WAS a 2100

It ended up as an 800mghz...

no kidding...not only did I NOT unlock it, I LOCKED it at a lower multiplier than original....

long long days of nightmares, before discovering Thorobred truth

[TiG]

You do have your fair amount of hassle with computers don't you Zak?!.

Guess the processor enjoyed runnign a bit cooler

TiG

[Zak33]

Its all my own fault......I cant blame the PC....I just try too hard all the time.....

like the time I decidedon SIDE COOLING....I had a Celeron 366 @550 and it was not happy in hot weather....so I cut a rather neat hole in the side of the case and got it all ventilated .....but once it went under my desk.....the sides of my desk blocked the hole....

SO I CUT A HOLD IN THE SIDE OF THE DESK TOO.......

you gotta try real hard in this world ya know