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UnseenMenace

UnseenModerator
Joined
Apr 23, 2001
Ive just brought the parts for a new system that I am building for myself and have decided to buy a slower processor for the simple reason that for what I do with a PC I genenerally notice the amount of RAM and the amount of time the system spends writing swap files and data to the hard disk more than out right processor speed.
I can remember upgrading from 500 mhz to a 1Ghz and the difference in performance feeling was massive however no the applications seem to run well on 1500 mhz which makes 2Ghz less impressive in performance even though there is still a 500 mhz improvement in both cases
Have processors reached a point now where the speed improvement is not largely noticable now... I think so what about you ?
 
Anything over 1.5 is excessive, in my opinion....unless of course you use your system as a high end server/3d rendering/programming/video editing system...then every mhz counts.

The only exception is folding, where the faster processor you have, the more unused cpu cycles you have. :D:D

I think that processors have reached the point where the MHZ is a worthless improvement, but other aspects are.....such as hyperthreading on the intels, massive cache and onboard northbridge on the upcoming AMDs....stuff like that where it makes an actual difference.

There is much more to a processor than MHz, and its getting to the point where a processor that is simply 500 mhzfaster is not going to give you a huge performance boost.

EDIT:

When I say excessive, I say it in the same way that having a Ferrari is excessive. You have a ton more car then you will EVER use, but it's still a lot of fun to have. :D:D:D
 
I agree. We're at a point now in technology, for the majority of people and for most situations, where we have more computing power than necessary. Having a fast processor doesn't significantly enhance the web surfing experience as other upgrades could, and how fast does a computer really need to be for email and online chatting? Newer versions of MS Office had higher hardware requirements, but who really needed to upgrade to the latest and greatest Office? We had such a explosion in computer sales in 2000 but nothing to compare to that in the last two years, mostly, I think, due to the fact that the people who bought those 500MHz-1GHz machines back then are still able to do what they bought those machines for today, without upgrading.
 
Well the reason why we want to make faster CPU's is because

1) Better gamming
2) Androids hopefully :D

If u have programs now that start fast.....and in 5 years u have the same machine and u get better software...u will then notice the speed difference...
 
DaveSauce said:
I think that processors have reached the point where the MHZ is a worthless improvement, but other aspects are.....such as hyperthreading on the intels, massive cache and onboard northbridge on the upcoming AMDs....stuff like that where it makes an actual difference.

Very valid point indeed, and perhaps this begs the question of should processor development be more focused towards features at this time than Mhz
 
I personally feel that the biggest improvement one could put into a newer system is a RAID 0 array. I don't know why no computer manufacturers out there don't even offer this little addition.

I built a system for a friend a couple weeks ago. The faster cpu and better video card didn't do a whole lot extra compared to my system, but the RAID array I put in there and the 333Mhz memory bandwidth (with a quick wire trick on the cpu socket) really seemed to do a lot.

Besides, my 1600+ could probably make it to 2400+ once I reinstall my water cooling:p

Also, on an interesting side note involving hyperthreading: It was not origionally called hyperthreading. It was called simultaneous multithreading --and my current machine architecture teacher was the primary contributer to the idea of simlutaneous multithreading. His dissertation for his doctorate degree was on it. Just thought I'd throw out that interesting bit of information.
 
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UnseenMenace said:


Very valid point indeed, and perhaps this begs the question of should processor development be more focused towards features at this time than Mhz

I think the biggest thing processor development needs to start doing is replacing the x86 architecture with something bigger and better. The x86 architecture as a whole isn't even that wonderful. Only a small portion of the instruction set is actually used because the rest of the instruction set is too slow and can be simulated with the faster portion. Every processor made today is a super cool, innovative processor that is jammed into an x86 architecutre wrapper. I think it's time we got rid of the wrapper, moved on to 64 bit, and designed an emulator for all our old 32 bit applications.

We moved from DOS to Windows 95 relatively well. Perhaps it's time we all slid into windows 64. That is where the big improvements in cpu design will be found. There's only so much we can cram into our current standards.
 
Krusty said:


I think the biggest thing processor development needs to start doing is replacing the x86 architecture with something bigger and better. The x86 architecture as a whole isn't even that wonderful. Only a small portion of the instruction set is actually used because the rest of the instruction set is too slow and can be simulated with the faster portion.

Similar to the human brain, which only uses 10% at max, has on average the same processing power as an Intel i386DX-25, yet, based on rough guesstimates, has a few petabytes worth of data storage. :) :D :cool:
 
Penguin4x4 said:


Similar to the human brain, which only uses 10% at max, has on average the same processing power as an Intel i386DX-25, yet, based on rough guesstimates, has a few petabytes worth of data storage. :) :D :cool:

I wish my brain had some sort of better file allocation table then. All the data in my brain seems to be lost pretty easily.




what was I talking about again?:confused:
 
There aren't processors made that run at the slow slow Hz (not gHz, mHz or kHz) our brains run at. Guess who can beat who at a game of Go.
Computers are very good at doing very simple stuff very quickly. People are very good at doing very complex stuff slowly. You can't really compare them.

As for computers, I think I'll put off my next upgrade until PR 45-4700 in favor of a nice stable RAID5 fileserver. There's really not much point in upgrading a perfectly good system.
 
Penguin4x4 said:


Similar to the human brain, which only uses 10% at max, has on average the same processing power as an Intel i386DX-25, yet, based on rough guesstimates, has a few petabytes worth of data storage. :) :D :cool:

yeah and when computers can reason, send me a PM lol :D

i think that the case of diminishing returns from CPUs is natural. like crusty said, until something new comes out that will challenge us to develop better hardware, then what we have now is all thats necessary. its the same issue with if there is a point of overclocking for performance reasons. what can we do with a 2.7ghz computer than we can't do with a 2.26ghz computer (in my case)? for anyone except for the superusers (granted, a lot of the people on this board), i think that processor speed has kind of topped out for now for what is necessary.

i think that GPUs and video cards overall is where the next big jumps will be seen. when we're running GPUs at the same speed as our CPUs, what will that entail? i'm just trying to say that other things have room for development and improvement.

its the same thing with burners...40-52x...so what? 30 seconds difference? give me a fast DVD burner and i'll be a happy camper.

jeff
 
Another thought is that of having a faster FSB with small multi. For instance an Intel 3.06 would runn alot faster at, say, 250x12.26 than at default 133.333x23...
 
I think having a really fast system is kinda pointless right now. The only real reason to have one is if you do graphics, video editing, and intense gaming. Does your mom really need a 2.4Ghz P4, 512 megs of PC 2700, 80 Gig HDD, AGP 8X 128Meg 3D video card, to send you E-mail telling you to come over and fix her computer. Because she can't play bridge with her friend's on the internet? Most people IMO, don't really need anything past a 1.4Ghz CPU with 256Megs of memory, and a 64meg video card. Anything past that is just gravy.
 
I need the fastest system possible otherwise the cards in Solitaire move too slow.






:D I do agree with the gist of things though: chips are so fast now that cpu upgrades are less noticeable then ever.

When I went from a 233 to a 450 the difference was INCREDIBLE!
Every thing that the computer did was noticeably faster.
Switching from a 900 Mhz rig to one at 1.8Ghz is much less noticeable than that old 233/450 pair, and I have run XP Palominos from 1.4 to 2.0 Ghz: not a huge difference in most daily tasks.

Of course, I'm still sticking with KT266a mobos since their hasn't been enough improvement for me to shell out for anything newer yet:D
 
rogerdugans said:
Of course, I'm still sticking with KT266a mobos since their hasn't been enough improvement for me to shell out for anything newer yet:D

Not even for a /5 pci divisor? I'm still on a kt266a mobo myself, but would love to get myself some nice pc3200 memory, a kt333 motherboard, and get myself a juicy 185-200Mhz fsb.
 
the higher fsb helps athlons alot more than added clockspeed does. a kt333 chipset is a good investment. even more so when you can grab a refurb from newegg for 39 bux. im runnin just over 2ghz right now at 180x11.5 and it does many cpu intensive tasks like folding and encoding much faster than my 1.4 tbird did. other than video/photo editing folding or mutitasking you just dont need it. ohhh but to have it is so much fun
 
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