Computers: The Technical Thread [!OT]

[mrwiseman]

Posting bits of a thread from world4ch /comp which delivers both fun and useful information. Recommended read for everyone. Posts aren't mine unless otherwise expressed. Great posts in bold text.


Thread title: What can make a 2.4GHz run like a 486?

Replies:
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I know! I know! Have a fucktard browse the intarweb with Internet Explorer for a week.

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A great example of this is when shutting down GTA 3, the computer routinely slows to a crawl, and whatever windows I have open are painfully, slowly re-drawn.

--My view:

You shouldn't have other applications running in the background when playing newer games. You don't want background applications, nor you want system tray bullshit or Internet Explorer-installed malware.

P.S.: Speed is not measured in megahertzzlolol

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Look, cheapo supermarket computers are cheap for a reason; they're no fucking good. They're put together with the cheapest possible components and sold on their MHz figures rather than their actual performance.

--Reply:

Either way, despite the lack of quality if most items you find in the lower-end computers they sell at retail scores, with a little bit of money put into them, you can get a pretty decent machine.

--My view:

The best computers are the ones you make yourself, thoroughly deciding on components based on empirical, serious benchmarks on a set of applications that relate to your needs, and deep knowledge of hardware and software technologies. Tom's Hardware Guide is a good source of information for this.

Since this is not always a possibility, you may want to get an HP, Dell, etc., or stuff from more reliable stores like AlienWare. Try to ask for a trusted geek's approval before buying. Be careful with computers sold in supermarkets or small ungeeky hardware stores; you can get them, but chances are you'll want to replace at least one component by a better one.

Quick, generally applicable tips (which WILL vary with time) are: go for AMD processors, don't get the fastest of the bunch as performance/price will be lower, get 1 GB RAM, get an AGP8X video card if you can, prefer better graphics core to more video RAM (video RAM is another easy number to catch users).

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Why is 2000 not an option? It would probably solve a lot of your problems; most of the functionality of XP, equally (or more) stable, and less of the memory-hogging crap (yes, even compared to XP's classic theme).

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Add more memory, first and foremost. Go up to 512MB or a full gig.

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You can get XP to run like 2000 (which is, after, the core of XP), but why bother if you have the option of simply _installing 2000_?

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"make a 2.4GHz" "make my 2.9GHz respond"

ZOMG, windows error!

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what cracks me up is how most gamer retards only focus on clock speeds

dude its 5ghz! so what.

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ANY number you want to measure something as complex as a computer is, is gay.

OMG my PC is 23740 megahetrz!!111lolol

[Dreamer7000]

My ISP has been acting werid lately, going away for 20-30 minutes. Last night, there was no internet for 3hours, they were working on something big, and they did a good job. I can access Hostboard freely again! [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

[melfice]

how true is that Wiseman's post about computer's speed.

To begin with, the true speed of a computer is on the main board chipset. It is, the speed that the SYSTEM BUS has. The system bus connects every peripheral, included the memory, where the system stores every information generated, or loaded from the hard disk, and the operations with memory are done at SYSTEM speed, not at processor's clock speed. What does this mean? that every operation which involves the memory of the system MUST be done in SYSTEM speed, no in processor speed. Truly, if systems are faster is because the memory transfer has become also quite faster, system now a days are able to transfer quite a lot more of memory than before (and so, big applications may seem to run faster, games included), but, even that, is still biased and changed, to tell people that their main bus runs at 800MHZ while it really runs at 200MHZ, but only loads 4 times more.

But after all this is learnt, the question arises, what does it matter? for real. The answer is "It matters much less than you'd expect"

A system with little amount of memory will need constantly to update the memory, so, even if the system bus is fast, with little memory, you have very few chances to get the maximum speed of the system (if you're not relying in hard drive swaping, if so, directly, say good bye to speed advantages) So, a system, to be good, must be BALANCED, you need a lot of system memory to make that speed not to be wasted just because you need to load every now and then. Indeed, speed is important, but also, how it is used. A simple formula for the memory which would be optimal for a system (it is not demonstrated in anyway, is merely empiric) is that you need 1/3 of your processor speed to have a, more or less, balanced system, and of course, you need a good system main board which is able to keep up with the memory and the processor.

[mrwiseman]

That's good news; when recommending good, cost-effective systems to friends, and since I no longer build computers for them as it takes too much time which I don't have, I usually had a hard time finding branded PCs with AMD processors.

Intel really needs to make a move now as they're just shyly following AMD as of late. I suggest they ditch the Itanium architecture (what a failure that was) and move more valiantly towards AMD64 (which they realized they must support but were ashamed to, so they gave it a small name as it was just another small instruction extension and avoided talking about it too much). Now it's the time to come up with an all-new core (i.e. not yet another Pentium 4 revision) and introduce something new on top of AMD64 (not necessarily a new instruction set).

[DarkLinkClone]

Dell has finally started selling AMD processors! This is really good news for AMD and for consumers. With Dell's frequent coupons, you can now get the best prices on AMD procesoors.

I'm just glad that AMD is finally expanding to give Intel even more pressure.

[Cataferal]

I just pity Gateway 2000. They made the switch to AMD almost a decade ago, and as a result went bankrupt. The brand just wasnt popular enough back then, but im glad to see it is now.

[mrwiseman]

Besides, AMD was not always the best. It was like this, IIRC:

AMD 386 → Intel 486 → Intel Pentium → Intel Pentium ][ → AMD Athlon → AMD Athlon XP → AMD Athlon 64

[Cataferal]

As always in a competitive market, the consumer is the winner. Well, despite what our constant whining about game localisation and region blocks would lead you to believe. ^_^;;

I wonder. Hypothetically, would it be possible to upgrade my Pentium 4 to an AMD 64? Im not entirely sure if it can be done on a Dell PC's motherboard, but i dont see why not if it can be done with a custom built PC.

[mrwiseman]

Well, I'm an avid supporter of capitalism, liberalism, and globalization. And it's exactly one of the reasons why I hate region systems: these protectionistic, regulatory, counter-globalization practices are contrary to the pillars of capitalism and free markets. It's not fair for the capitalist economy, not fair for customers, not fair for the first world, not fair for the third world, and not fair for anyone at all. Region systems and all Stalinist practices should be illegal just like other evil practices such as monopolism, and the companies who try to do that should be heavily punished.

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You can upgrade a custom built PC into anything you want, although certain modifications will require more than one component to be replaced. For example, to upgrade from an Athlon XP or a Pentium 4 to an Athlon 64, you'll need to replace your motherboard and CPU fan as well (very few CPU fans will support both socket 775 and 939 and I don't think Dell's in particular will), and depending on the type of RAM, your memory too. An Athlon 64 requires a socket 754 (older models) or socket 939 (newer models) motherboard, DDR400 RAM (which you probably have), and a suitable fan.

You can upgrade to a faster processor of the same family and socket (socket 775 in modern Pentium 4's case) without changing anything else, according to what's supported by your motherboard (check the board's specification in the vendor's website), but this is hardly recommended, because:
- There's not that big a performance gain
- During the first 2-3 years, you don't really need to do it
- After the first 2-3 years, you will need/want a larger upgrade and performance increase, which a faster processor of the same technology won't provide. You'll want a faster front side bus and RAM, and a new generation processor supporting new instruction sets/multiprocessing/etc, which requires a new motherboard and usually a new CPU fan.

As for Dell, HP, etc. PCs: I'm not updated on how are they built nowadays, but I've heard comments that they're going more and more generic because of their smaller margins, high component availability and short life cycle. You may be able to upgrade them however you wish; I suggest you check other boards or Google for information.

With regards to your system, I don't think you need an upgrade now, nor two years from now. Your system will run any game (including Oblivion) fine, as far as the processor and FSB are concerned. You might want to consider a faster graphics card than the one you got with the system, but since Oblivion has been delayed, I'd wait. Right now they're changing graphics buses (technologically unjustified, but this is marketing).
- If you have an AGP motherboard/card, you can wait till Christmas, then see if you can find enough variety for AGP cards, and if so, wait another month and repeat the process; else buy one then.
- If you have a PCI-E motherboard/card, just wait until the game is released, try it with your current graphics card, compare your performance to the available benchmarks from other boards (I'll be sure to post mine), and evaluate how much good would an upgrade do. Then buy it, after the game has been released.

If you're buying a graphics card, my recommendations at the moment is:
- Do not go for the latest generation cards (nVidia 7xxx and ATI's equivalent) since they are too expensive, less cost-effective, and obscenely underused by today and tomorrow's software. Unless you get a really, really, really good deal, that's how I got my 6800 back in March.
- Don't buy two graphics cards if you have two PCI-E slots; it's a waste of money. Buy just one, as fast as you can/want to afford.
- Try to go for an nVidia 6800, you can probably afford it, and it's an awesome card in all aspects.
- Cheaper alternatives that will still work great are then nVidia 6600 or so I hear. It does anything the 6800 does, which is important for textures and image quality.
- Go for 256 MB VRAM unless you're counting on saving the difference for 128 MB so you can afford a 6800 or something like that. 128 MB will still work fine, although games in the following years might have to be set to something like "High detail textures" instead of "Maximum detail textures". Nevertheless, I'd go for a 6800 with 128 MB rather than a 6600 (or a slower one) with 256 MB.
- nVidia's cards have been more cost effective since the 6xxx generation, and their drivers are very stable and high quality. I'm very happy with their drivers and support, and the features that come with them for free.
- Tom's Hardware is your best friend.
- And like always, you can ask/post before buy, in case somebody has heard something terrible about product X or something great about product Y.

Here's how I decide what to buy, using Tom's Hardware guide (note: requires basic spreadsheet knowledge). This process takes time, but it's the smartest way to buy and get the most from your money.
- I create a new spreadsheet, listing all available products and their total price from various stores within the range of money I'm willing to spend, as well as the most expensive/newer one and the one I currently have (even if the later is no longer on sale).
- I decide what do I want to do with my hardware. For example, for a graphics card, I wanted to consider games alone, and I wanted to focus on newer games with forests and advanced pixel shaders.
- I check the latest Tom's Hardware article on graphics cards, and see what benchmarks do they currently have. Let's suppose they have 3DMark 2005 (synthetic benchmark, D3D9), FarCry (game, D3D9), and Quake 3 Arena (game, OpenGL, simpler), all of them on AA and no AA.
- Here's the difficult part: I decide what will I measure and how will I ponder it. I try to give some weight to a futuristic synthetic benchmark that will try to toast even the most powerful graphics cards, but I avoid giving it too much weight. I avoid all benchmarks where you can see the top of the chart is too flat, which means the graphics card is mostly idle and it's not being the bottleneck. I want to measure graphic cards. In this case, I would avoid Quake 3 Arena, and choose FarCry with AA (since I want to play with AA) and 3DMark 2005 without AA (since it's an experimental, synthetic benchmark and I want to balance things), but I'd ponder them as FarCry 75%, 3DMark 2005 25%. (Given they are only two, I'd try to throw another game in if there are more available. Synthetic benchmarks shouldn't make for more than 25% of the total.)
- I create a column for each and note the performance of each card for every game in whatever units it is, it doesn't matter.
- I create an extra row at the bottom, averaging every column.
- I create new columns for each benchmark I noted, which equal to the value in the original column divided by the average in the bottom row. You do that in Excel with something like "=D3/D$20", where D is the column I'm refering to, 3 is the current row, 20 is the average row. Once you enter this formula, you can copy and paste it to adjacent rows and columns without problems (that's what the $ is there for, it fixes the 20 so it won't move around when you go to the next row).
- I create another column to average these adjusted columns however I wanted; for example "=G3*0.75+H3*0.25". Now I have a reliable overall performance column, all normalized so that "1" is the average of the products in your list, "1.20" means 20% faster than average, and so on.
- I create another column to divide performance by price. This is the PERFORMANCE TO PRICE ratio, higher is better.
- I may create another column with a function to manually draw a bar chart of it to better view the results.

I'll post a screenshot of how I'm evaluating processors when I'm back at Windows (I'm currently doing stuff on Linux and I don't have an Excel replacement at hand).

<font color="#345E81" size="1">[ November 07, 2005 01:03 PM: Message edited by: -Wiseman- ]</font>

[Cataferal]

Well, ive been forced onto the PCIe boat, and so far the fare is looks to be setting me back quite a bit. My Radeon X600 is simply an average card, but if im going to play the upcoming Oblivion (and actually have fun), im going to need at least an above average card. Im going to have to pay ?70+ on ebay just for a new Radeon X700 or Geforce 6600 model, which isnt that much of an upgrade considering the price. Looking at this chart of graphics cards, im thinking my money would be better spent on a DS and a game, unless i stumble across a stellar deal like Wiseman's.

<font color="#345E81" size="1">[ November 07, 2005 01:06 PM: Message edited by: Cataferal ]</font>