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Experiments done, lessons learned.
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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Orpheus on Sun Feb 20th at 12:14am 2005

just over 1.5 years ago i built my last PC. it also happen to be my first time doing so. then, as now, i was short on cash, a bit shorter then now obviously

the point is, i only bought what i did not have laying around in spare parts. so i got a tower, a motherboard and a processor, the rest i had.

my goal, was to buy the biggest i could afford, which i thought was the 2.6 celeron i ended up with.

the purpose to this whole thread? well it is contained within the next 2 screens.


screen #1 is my machine as it was when i did the critique. it was a 2.6 celeron with 512 megs of PC133 ram and a 64 meg radeon 9000 video card.

screen #2 is its current configuration of 1.8 P4 with 512 megs of PC2100 and the radeon 9000 card.

the moral? i could have originally gotten the P4 chip, for the price of the 2.6 (since at that time the 2.6 was the biggest celeron speed and more expensive than now)

the parts were given to me from a machine also recently upgraded. the map now runs at twice the frames per second, due to only two parts that i swapped.

bottom line, bigger, or faster doesn't mean better.

[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Tracer Bullet on Sun Feb 20th at 3:22am 2005

I'm almost positive that difference is RAM related rather than CPU dependant. [addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Crono on Sun Feb 20th at 4:54am 2005

Those stats pertain to the video card mostly ... unless I'm reading them incorrectly.

Tracer is correct, by the way. Video card = 1st prominent determination of latency in games, Ram = 2nd, then the Bus, then the CPU, cache, and HDD are all about the same in "effect".

But, the other thing you have to remember is that a Celeron isn't "bigger" then a P4 even if it says it runs "faster" because that term is really relative when talking about CPUs. But, they have different registers. If I remember correctly, the Celeron is one less a multiplication register then the P4 (Or something like that). Multiplication is a very useful operation because it's faster most of the time (or something, it's been awhile since I did that low level of work).

I remember a friend of mine talking about the new L68 (Mac) CPUs and how they don't "have" addition registers. Just lots of multiplication and division with increment and decrement. I'm not sure if that's true though.

Just so you know. [addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Orpheus on Sun Feb 20th at 10:23am 2005

*stands looking at monitor with glassy eyes*

uhhh, ok then.. BTW, the FPS went from 8 to 17 in that exact position.

*mumbles*

you guys are to damned smart. makes me wonder why you hang out here, and with people as obviously far behind as i. :/

sometimes you guys put me in mind of those people who give to the needy. they dole out small amounts of cash to the homeless. in this case, you pass along tid-bits of knowledge instead.

[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Dred_furst on Sun Feb 20th at 10:40am 2005

Sounds pretty true, but always look at the amd chips, ?100 for a 3ghz intel equal that is 64bit now (by intel equal, i mean the 3000 at the end is what speed of an intel chip it is equal to, it actually runs at 2ghz)

Clock speed is becoming less important anyway, The size of the tracks on the chip are, along with the size of the board. 4ghz is currently the max processor clock speed because how big the tracks are and the speed of light. over 4ghz, you can have a 1 at one side of the board, and a 0 at the other, so weirdness will occurr, and the weirdness is unknown to me.

anyway, im buying thatplus a board that supports the 800mhz FSB, and 512 of ram when i can, and i'm pretty pleased with my ATI raedon 9200SE's preformance at HL2, vis lag in places, as my HD needs seriously defragging, and its got to load stuff.

Probably one of the best ways to make your PC run faster is to defragment and increase the vitrual memory space.

Happy computing!
[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Orpheus on Sun Feb 20th at 11:03am 2005

? quoting Dred_furst
4ghz is currently the max processor clock speed because how big the tracks are and the speed of light.

well that settles it, i refuse to play HL2 on a 4ghz machine. it would be akin to my sex life, over before the lights even go out.... but thats a story best left to another thread.. :/

[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Dred_furst on Sun Feb 20th at 11:29am 2005

You'll probably be getting AMD 64 4500+ very soon that runs at 3ghz imo

AMD has by far the more powerful chips.

If anyone has noticed, the AMD chips run hotter because of the smaller parts, so the bigger heatsinks.
[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Crono on Sun Feb 20th at 12:31pm 2005

Last time I checked the P4 chips were smaller ... I don't know how large the 64 bit AMDs are.

Orph, FPS is directly related to BUS speed and probably the only really noticable effect a CPU has on video performance (everything is "directly" related to the BUS, what I mean here is video performance).

By the way, don't even bother with getting chips as high as 4Ghz ... really, there will be new architectures in the next few years. I'm thinking everyone's next upgrade (which should normally last you 2 - 4 years if you put together a good set of parts) will be their last X86 machine ... at least, that's what I'm hoping. [addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Dred_furst on Sun Feb 20th at 1:47pm 2005

by smaller, i also mean the track size, the amount can be packed in. I know AMD pack in a lot more computing into their chips than intel.
[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by fraggard on Sun Feb 20th at 2:18pm 2005

? quote:
by smaller, i also mean the track size, the amount can be packed in. I know AMD pack in a lot more computing into their chips than intel.

I would like to buy some of this "computing", please. Where can I find some?




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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Dred_furst on Sun Feb 20th at 3:05pm 2005

by computing i mean power to compute, i.e. power.
[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by $loth on Sun Feb 20th at 3:22pm 2005

? quote:
You'll probably be getting AMD 64 4500+ very soon that runs at 3ghz imo

AMD has by far the more powerful chips.

If anyone has noticed, the AMD chips run hotter because of the smaller parts, so the bigger heatsinks.


AMD chips don't run hotter than intels AFAIK.
[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Tracer Bullet on Sun Feb 20th at 7:20pm 2005

? quoting Dred_furst
by computing i mean power to compute, i.e. power.

You mean more transistors. As far as I know Intel and AMD do not use significantly different process sizes. What are they at now? 0.13-0.09 Micron?

I would also challenge the idea that the speed of light is a major limiting factor in CPU clock speed. Surely heat dissipation issues play a bigger role at this point.

[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Dred_furst on Sun Feb 20th at 7:56pm 2005

the wavelength of light is "reduced" when the hz of the changes size. elecricity travels at the speed of light, and so has the same maximum speed. the length/width of the current ATX boards are equal to this "reduced" wavelength. therefore any higher frequency means the same track can have both a 1 and a 0 on the same track.

Happy understanding!
[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by $loth on Sun Feb 20th at 8:17pm 2005

So basically there going so fast that you cannot tell if it's a one or a zero?
[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Dred_furst on Sun Feb 20th at 8:21pm 2005

no, it knows wether its a 1 or a zero, its that one end of the board sees a 1 and the other end sees a 0.
[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by $loth on Sun Feb 20th at 8:36pm 2005

*nods and agrees*
[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Tracer Bullet on Sun Feb 20th at 10:05pm 2005

? quoting Dred_furst
the wavelength of light is "reduced" when the hz of the changes size. elecricity travels at the speed of light, and so has the same maximum speed. the length/width of the current ATX boards are equal to this "reduced" wavelength. therefore any higher frequency means the same track can have both a 1 and a 0 on the same track.

Happy understanding!

Boy that made sense. You seem to have left out some critical noun. I think I'd understand a bit better if you were to use complete sentences.

The wavelength of light has no bearing on it's velocity... I've no idea what you are trying to say. I don't know much about how computer chips function, but I am clear on the basic physics.

The "wavelength" of an electric signal is determined by the clock frequency. 4Ghz means 4 billion (4x109) cycles per second. An electric signal (or light) could travel 7.5 cm in one cycle at that frequency (0.25 ns). I presume they use a square wave signal (clock pulse) so you would have a high signal for .125 ns (3.75 cm).

The way I understand your statement is that you have both a high and a low signal in the track at one time. I'll ignore the fact that it is impossible to avoid this at some time interval, and just think about whether it is possible to have all high or all low. I am envisioning a track as a single circuit within the chip. Given that, the only way for the track to avoid having states of all high and all low sequentially is if it is longer than 3.75 cm. I find it hard to believe that these circuits are that long.

[addsig]



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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by willow on Mon Feb 21st at 2:20am 2005

It's funny, that no one mentioned the whole problem with these "tests" is one chips is a celeron while other is a P4.

Celeron is an OBSOLETE chip compared to P4 or any of the AMD XP's. Celerons have horrid architecture and ONLY 128 or 256K of L2 Cache, back in the day of the sub ghz processors, this didn't mean much, seeming how games would rarely use the 128K of cache, while apps, would, now however, Many games use a whole 512, and even more.
Most of the results you have their come from the P4 having the better architeture, and moving away from ghetto PC133 SDRam and going to PC2100 DDR.




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 Re: Experiments done, lessons learned.
Posted by Jinx on Mon Feb 21st at 4:07am 2005

yeah Celerons are basically P4's that were rejects and are missing some math instruction sets. From what I have heard the AMD Semprons are a better choice for a budget chip; they look comparable to a pre-Barton Athlon XP from what I can see, and are not 'reject' chips. Still, a P4 or Athlon64 is optimal and will maul either budget chip in the same range.

To give you an idea.. my friend has a Celeron 800mhz... but my old Pentium II 400mhz is a noticably better machine, even though it runs at half the speed.




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