I guess an a64 3200+ wasnt for me.. what next?

[Awperator]

I don't like my current setup. It lags like a little girl when I'm running mIRC, outlook express, internet explorer, and excel at the same time. Wtf is that? Oh yeah, and the cd analogy is a dead on hit for me... I just boot up the computer, and then I put a CD in the bay... huuge performance hit. I should be working right now, but I've been reading the SMP stickies, forums, and such, and I think that a SMP system might be what i'm looking for (general responsiveness). I want all my programs to open up like I've just booted up. I dont want to have to wait to open up internet explorer, just because the computer was thinking about downloading an email from outlook. Even with a amd64 3200+, my system is a bit choppy at times.

I've been an AMD kid since my first computer, but I am thinking of going a Xeon route possibly. My question for you experts here is what should I get that will be close to or equal that of my current proc, but have the performance of a dual system? I know that dual 1700's or 1800's have the potential of whupping a 2.8ghz chip while multitasking, but I dont want to wait forever to load up a map or to do something where single procs shine. I'm going to sell my current stuff, so that will help me price-wise (anyone wanna buy??), and I'm looking to spend somewhere in the $600-$1000 range for something relatively nice. Cheap solutions work too, I'm down for that. Are there any boards (for both AMD and Intel) that are as feature rich as my K8v deluxe (onboard sata, onboard sound, onboard lan, firewire, usb, agp 8x)? Xeons, Opterons, Xp's, and Mp's are what i'm looking at. Are current solutions good or shouls I wait for something new coming out (like the 800mhz Xeons)? Finally, what memory will be necessary as well... will getting a fast stick be beneficial, or are there too many bottlenecks associated with dual systems that a pc3200 stick or less will work just as well?
Thanks

- Awperator

 

[wquiles]

I think that an Athlon dually based on the stickie above (Step-by-Step: How to build a cheap and quiet AMD dually) is your best bet, and you should be able to build one within your budget.

 

[DaveB]

Take a look at my Asus PC-DL dual Xeon rig. The $200 mobo now has an AGP/PCI lock, so OC'ing C1 stepping or better Xeon CPUs is a snap. Mine run all day at 3.3 GHz (FSB 165 MHz, DDR @ 206 MHz) at the default Vcore with Retail HS/Fans. The mobo has it all: 4 x SATA, 2 x ATA-100 EIDE, 1 x EIDE ATA-133, AGP 8X, USB 2.0, IEEE-1394, Gigabit LAN, etc. With dual Xeons you get 2 HT CPUs in addition to the two physical CPUs. I have had five different dual AMD setups (up to dual MP2600s @ 2.3 GHz) and the dual Xeon is a lot faster than any of them. But, then again, so is my dual Opteron setup.

 

[Foxie3a]

I'm not sure on what you mean by lag, but I know that "lagging" for those few programs is not normal, for any processor that is modern. My P4 willy does a great job with many things open, and that is considered the "trash" of Intel.

So I think that you have a problem with your setup somewhere, maybe the CPU is too hot, and that's causing errors? I'd check that out before you trash your entire system. Keep us posted on this.

 

[ookabooka]

yeah, what he said. I dont think its normal for your system to lag like that. I would say either cpu/ram/ or mobo. If putting a cdrom in there causes it to lag, check your slave/master settings on your IDE channels, that can do that sometimes. A dually comes in handy if u run a program that goes psyco and demands realtime cpu power. In a regular setup, it would take u 15 minutes to close it down, as the mouse actions would be delayed and stuff. With a dually, you dont even notice. I dont mean to discourage you from SMP, but i think your problems can be aleviated without it.

 

[Awperator]

I've gone over everything. Defragged, optimized raid (16/16), memtested, primed, (even though i'm at stock)... The computer works fine most times... But I have retarded problems. Like winrar, that kills my machine totally. Bittorrent kills my computer. I cant do anything while i rar something or unrar something. Also, if I try to unrar say like 2 things from different rar files to the desktop at the same time, most of the time one or even both wont show up. I'll have to do them one at a time. If I leave it on and then come back to the computer after like 6+ hours, with mIRC or just nothing running, it will seem really slow until I do a restart. Little things like that irritate the hell out of me. Thanks for your help though.

- Awperator

 

[Foxie3a]

This is all not normal. I want to know your voltages and temperatures. Idle, and full load, like when running Prime95.

 

[rezon8]

Are you postive that you dont have some process hogging your resources? Like a virus or trojan. i have seen them hide and hog too many times to count.

also, even with my dualie, if i unRAR 2 different files at once, especially on the same HD, it slows WAY DOWN, due to both instances of RAR trying to access the HD at the same time.

if you use a JAVA based bittorrent client, like Azeureus, that has crashed my rig 1000 times, I always have problems with java...

if it seems that things are running slow, just be sure to check task manager and make sure your CPU isnt pegged at 100%...

...my two cents...
good luck

 

[314]

Don't neglect your drive speed. Duallie really helps, but opening outlook isn't going to happen faster than the drive can scan the folder. Get a SATA setup (with hyperthreading or duallie, either one will work), which rules out the dual athlon setups in the cheap duallie guide chris wrote.

Jaon

 

[bluediamond]

From what you are saying, there is definatly something wrong with your computer because your components shouldn't be slowing you down any. My work computer (2500+ stock with 512 mb pc2700) can run photoshop 7.0, outlook xp pro, macromedia dreamweaver and IE explorer without "lagging". I would check for any viruses. How long ago did you install your os, you may need to do a clean install.

 

[cmcquistion]

You could have a hard drive, controller, or driver issue causing these lags. That is where I would start looking.

 

[Awperator]

Update -

I think the problem of all my lagginess is caused by Norton Antivirus. The 2004 edition is pretty tenacious, it scans anythign that moves on my rig. I transfer a bunch of files around (fansubs of anime) and NAV (Norton AntiVirus) takes forever to scan inside all of those .rar files. Probably causing a lot of fragmentation as well. Thank you for all of your help. Next rig I build will probably be a dualie though, you've made me fall in love with them.

- Awperator

 

[Damian]

Sure, just remember that in this case a duallie won't help a single bit.

 

[314]

Update -

I think the problem of all my lagginess is caused by Norton Antivirus. The 2004 edition is pretty tenacious, it scans anythign that moves on my rig. I transfer a bunch of files around (fansubs of anime) and NAV (Norton AntiVirus) takes forever to scan inside all of those .rar files. Probably causing a lot of fragmentation as well. Thank you for all of your help. Next rig I build will probably be a dualie though, you've made me fall in love with them.

- Awperator

Be sure to turn off the check compressed files option within NAV. It is superfluous if you always have NAV active, since anytime you decompress NAV will snag a virusm, and you have to decompress to make the virus active.