Speed improvement?
Frank McCoy
Dragon Plus KT600-8237 mobo). I'm thinking of picking up a fairly
inexpensive AMD 3200+ processor (Also socket A) for the thing, now that
the price isn't so atrocious.
I think, that for a reasonably small price (within my almost nonexistent
budget) that I might get a noticeable improvement. Not that I *need* it
mind, with what I do with the thing; but for only a few bucks, why not?
Anybody know if that will give me any significant speed increase?
I'm already running PC3200 memory at 200Mhz, a bus-speed of 133Mhz, and
a "rated FSB" of 266mhz. (That's all from CPU-Z.)
The board lists up to AMD-3200+ for processor, PC-3200 for memory (which
I have), 400mhz for memory-speed, and FSB up to 400mhz.
Will I get those improvements or anything really noticeably faster with
the faster processor? (I'm guessing I will.)
--
_____
/ ' / ™
,-/-, __ __. ____ /_
(_/ / (_(_/|_/ / <_/ <_
Bob Fry
. . .
FM> I think, that for a reasonably small price (within my almost
FM> nonexistent budget) that I might get a noticeable improvement.
. . .
FM> Anybody know if that will give me any significant speed
FM> increase?
Speed increase for what app? Running a relational database, probably
not. Running small-memory floating point apps, yes. Running
large-memory floating point apps, no.
How much memory do you have? What's your OS?
--
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at
least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
~ Rene Descartes
Frank McCoy
>>>>>> "FM" == Frank McCoy <mcc...@millcomm.com> writes:
>
>. . .
> FM> I think, that for a reasonably small price (within my almost
> FM> nonexistent budget) that I might get a noticeable improvement.
>. . .
> FM> Anybody know if that will give me any significant speed
> FM> increase?
>
>Speed increase for what app? Running a relational database, probably
>not. Running small-memory floating point apps, yes. Running
>large-memory floating point apps, no.
>
Compacting the data-base in Agent. (It's HUGE. about 22 gig or so.
Almost all straight text files.) I keep running into the 4-gig limit
for files. ;-{
Compacting my Eudora Database "In" file. (I've broken it down into
several parts already; and it's *still* enormous.)
Displaying large JPEG files.
Very little else I do is computation-bound.
Windows' spooler ties up the *entire* system' 100% CPU usage; but I
don't think that will be affected. (I can hope though.)
>How much memory do you have? What's your OS?
One gig (2-500meg PC-3200 sticks).
Windows XP home.
John Weiss
>
> Compacting the data-base in Agent. (It's HUGE. about 22 gig or so.
> Almost all straight text files.) I keep running into the 4-gig limit
> for files. ;-{
Get rid of your excess messages! How did you get 22 GB of messages?!?
> Compacting my Eudora Database "In" file. (I've broken it down into
> several parts already; and it's *still* enormous.)
> Displaying large JPEG files.
Save the JPEGs to a regular file folder and get rid of the messages they came
in.
> Very little else I do is computation-bound.
> Windows' spooler ties up the *entire* system' 100% CPU usage; but I
> don't think that will be affected. (I can hope though.)
It shouldn't do that. Maybe you have a problem with your printer driver. Have
you looked for an update? Have you defragmented your HD lately? Have you
purged your Temp files recently?
John Doe
> I've got an AMD 2400+ in one of my systems (A Soyo Dragon Plus
> KT600-8237 mobo). I'm thinking of picking up a fairly inexpensive
> AMD 3200+ processor
> I'm already running PC3200 memory at 200Mhz, a bus-speed of
> 133Mhz, and a "rated FSB" of 266mhz. (That's all from CPU-Z.)
>
> The board lists up to AMD-3200+ for processor, PC-3200 for memory
> (which I have), 400mhz for memory-speed, and FSB up to 400mhz.
If you're saying about the bus speed will go from 133 MHz to 200
MHz, it might be noticeable.
I wouldn't expect much. My last very impressive upgrade was going
from ISA to PCI.
Frank McCoy
<jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet> wrote:
>"Frank McCoy" <mcc...@millcomm.com> wrote...
>>
>> Compacting the data-base in Agent. (It's HUGE. about 22 gig or so.
>> Almost all straight text files.) I keep running into the 4-gig limit
>> for files. ;-{
>
>Get rid of your excess messages! How did you get 22 GB of messages?!?
>
Easy. I've been archiving them for well over a decade.
No. I don't WANT to get rid of them.
I don't trust Google or others to keep records.
(And besides, I'm an asshole: If somebody says, "I never said that!"
when I know for a fact they did, it's nice to have a record of just
*where* they said it. Somewhat like the people in this newsgroup
asserting that nobody thought George Bush was wrong for going into Iraq
back when it happened; only AFTERWARDS. I knew that was wrong, because
I pointed out he was lying through his teeth months BEFORE Bush started
that war. It's nice to dig back through the records and find the exact
messages where I said just that.)
Yep ... I'm an asshole. I like to point out when people lie ... or
accuse me of lying. (Actually, twice, it turned out *I* was mistaken
... but only about who I was speaking to at the time. Still, that *did*
make me eat crow.)
Besides, I've got a poor memory. Having complete archives helps make up
for that lack on my part.
>
>> Compacting my Eudora Database "In" file. (I've broken it down into
>> several parts already; and it's *still* enormous.)
>> Displaying large JPEG files.
>
>Save the JPEGs to a regular file folder and get rid of the messages they came
>in.
>
Um ... I'm talking about JPEG files in regular folders.
I *never* keep newsgroup pictures in my Agent files.
I'd run out of space every few weeks if I did.
I either delete them, or archive them separately.
The ONLY long-time archives I keep of Agent files are *pure text*.
Yes, you *can* fill up 4 gigabytes that way, if there's enough
discussion going on.
This particular group I haven't been following for that long ... only a
year or so; so I only have about 33 megabytes of data for it.
I'm referring to *viewing* the files, which are themselves highly
compressed. Shit: The Internet is so bloody FULL of pictures, anything
that saves time decoding them is a blessing. It's amazing how much CRAP
I have to remove from temp files and cache files and such all the time.
>
>> Very little else I do is computation-bound.
>> Windows' spooler ties up the *entire* system' 100% CPU usage; but I
>> don't think that will be affected. (I can hope though.)
>
>It shouldn't do that. Maybe you have a problem with your printer driver. Have
>you looked for an update? Have you defragmented your HD lately? Have you
>purged your Temp files recently?
>
No ... I checked, and it's *NOT* the printer-driver, it's the spooler.
The printer-driver *does* take a bit of time from the CPU; but it only
takes up about 40%. When the driver passes the file off to the spooler
though, the CPU usage jumps to 100% of SYSTEM usage. (And THAT is when
spooling to the LAN; which at most should take up only 10% or less.)
;-{
Yes, I keep updated on all the drivers.
Yes, I defrag fairly often. (Though, thinking about it, that's another
job that takes half-of-forever. But I presume that's pretty much
disk-bound.)
I purge temp files about once a week or oftener.
>
>> One gig (2-500meg PC-3200 sticks).
>> Windows XP home.
>
--
Bob Fry
upgrading your cpu:
>>>>> "JW" == John Weiss <jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet> writes:
JW> "Frank McCoy" <mcc...@millcomm.com> wrote...
>> Compacting the data-base in Agent. (It's HUGE. about 22 gig
>> or so. Almost all straight text files.) I keep running into
>> the 4-gig limit for files. ;-{
JW> Get rid of your excess messages! How did you get 22 GB of
JW> messages?!?
>> Compacting my Eudora Database "In" file. (I've broken it down
>> into several parts already; and it's *still* enormous.)
>> Displaying large JPEG files.
JW> Save the JPEGs to a regular file folder and get rid of the
JW> messages they came in.
Not familiar with Eudora, but can't you save most messages to an
archive file, and only keep the last few months active?
>> Very little else I do is computation-bound. Windows' spooler
>> ties up the *entire* system' 100% CPU usage; but I don't think
>> that will be affected. (I can hope though.)
Nothing you've mentioned so far is computation-bound, it's all
disk-bound.
JW> It shouldn't do that. Maybe you have a problem with your
JW> printer driver. Have you looked for an update? Have you
JW> defragmented your HD lately? Have you purged your Temp files
JW> recently?
Run windows' disk cleanup (right click on a drive letter from Windows
Explorer, Properties, Disk Cleanup). What exactly is Windows'
spooler? The printer spooler? or its indexing? If the latter, turn
it off for all drives (it's broken, doesn't find everything) and use
Agent Ransack or Google Desktop.
>> One gig (2-500meg PC-3200 sticks). Windows XP home.
First hardware upgrade I would make would be to bump the memory to 2
GB, but don't do that yet. Defrag and clean up the disk drive(s)
first. Report back here and let us know how things are running.
--
We live in our desires rather than in our achievements.
~ George Moore
John Weiss
>>
>>Get rid of your excess messages! How did you get 22 GB of messages?!?
>>
> Easy. I've been archiving them for well over a decade.
> No. I don't WANT to get rid of them.
Then you're going to have to get a faster CPU, faster HD, and more RAM.
>>> One gig (2-500meg PC-3200 sticks).
>>> Windows XP home.
First, double the RAM, so disk swapping is reduced. Then get the fastest CPU
you can get (Core 2 Duo 6850 @ 3 GHz). Then get a 15,000 RPM SCSI HD system on
a 64-bit controller.
Frank McCoy
Like I said, I *keep* the drives fairly clean.
I prefer Norton Utilities for that.
What comes with Windows takes almost twice as long to do the same jobs.
I killed indexing *years* ago. What a piece of crap.
The problem is with the SPOOLER. Not sure why yet.
I'm still researching the problem.
All I know *so far* is that CPU usage goes to 99% and 100% once the
printer-driver passes the data to the print-spooler. I'm going to try
various things to see which of three devices is the one taking up the
time. Still, that won't tell me *why* the system does that; as not one
of the three (printer, disk-drive, ethernet) should take up that much
CPU usage, even if saturated.
Yes, adding another gig would *maybe* speed things up.
But, it would cost a *lot* more; since I'd have to drop both 500mb DIMMs
and buy two new 1gig sets (or one 2gig DIMM; which is more expensive
yet).
I'm *not* really looking for "which upgrade is best" at all.
Just wondering if this particular upgrade will do anything at all for
me. I'm thinking it will, for a damned cheap price.
I just wonder how *much* of an improvement; or will it only appear in my
CPU-Z test without any apparent improvement in anything I do?
For *most* things I do, the system is about 1000 times or more faster
than what I need. But, if I can get a *cheap* upgrade (my budget, as
said before, is almost nonexistent) to improve some things, then why
not? Replacing memory or disk-drives at the moment is *not* an option.
Besides, none of the bottlenecks I've been able to identify seems to be
either one. I generally only run one major task at a time; and mostly
*that* is more bound by my fingers typing than the computer. A 2mhz
8080 and 640K of RAM would probably do fine for *most* of the stuff I
do. It's those exceptions where I run things like disk-copies overnight
and walk out of the room while Agent compacts its data-files, or I load
a *huge* picture from NASA, and it takes time to convert it from JPEG to
pixels on the screen, even when it's on a hard-drive.
Even there, I suspect most such jobs are more disk-bound than CPU bound.
A few years ago, that wasn't the truth. It might be now though. I need
something *fast* like a RAM drive to test the theory. Sadly, RAM drives
just aren't something that Windows likes very well. ;-{
Sleepy
"Frank McCoy" <mcc...@millcomm.com> wrote in message
news:94eqg3ld05aptusri...@4ax.com...
I got a very noticeable performance boost going from a Socket A 2400 to a
Socket 939 3000
but then the architecture of 939 chips was part of that. Id say yes you will
see a boost but also
for your needs a decent hard drive is a must - 7200 rpm with a 16 mb cache.
Ed M.
> I prefer Norton Utilities for that.
Norton Utilities in and of itself is a huge resource hog Frank. I am
sure you are aware of that. I don't want to get into any 'flame wars' so I
will just leave it at that. As far as your upgrade is concerned, I think I
would look into more memory with the prices so low right now. I really don't
see any huge performance increase in your upgrade scenerio with a
2400+/3200+ increase. If you were doing some mild gaming you would probably
see a bit more, but with your productivity apps I doubt you will notice much
at all. Much of what you do is memory intensive, so I would probably go to a
couple of gigs there. Good luck.
Ed
Bob Fry
FM> Like I said, I *keep* the drives fairly clean. I prefer
FM> Norton Utilities for that. What comes with Windows takes
FM> almost twice as long to do the same jobs.
FM> I killed indexing *years* ago. What a piece of crap.
Good, but NU sucks. Look, given your budget, get a peer-to-peer
program (e.g. emule) or torrent and get yourself a free copy of
perfectdisk, the best defragger available.
FM> The problem is with the SPOOLER.
You mean spoolsv.exe?
FM> Yes, adding another gig would *maybe* speed things up. But,
FM> it would cost a *lot* more; since I'd have to drop both 500mb
FM> DIMMs and buy two new 1gig sets (or one 2gig DIMM; which is
FM> more expensive yet).
You have only two slots? If you have more than two slots couldn't you
add 1GB to your existing memory?
FM> I'm *not* really looking for "which upgrade is best" at all.
FM> Just wondering if this particular upgrade will do anything at
FM> all for me. I'm thinking it will, for a damned cheap price.
I'm thinking it won't, but then placebos have a well-known positive
affect on patients from the psychological benefit.
FM> I just wonder how *much* of an improvement; or will it only
FM> appear in my CPU-Z test without any apparent improvement in
FM> anything I do?
The latter.
FM> I need something *fast* like a RAM drive to
FM> test the theory. Sadly, RAM drives just aren't something that
FM> Windows likes very well. ;-{
A RAM drive made sense with DOS, which did not have virtual
memory. RAM drives went out many years ago and good riddance.
You're looking for someone to affirm a course of action you've already
decided upon. Keep looking.
--
Why tell me that a man is a fine speaker, if it is not the truth that
he is speaking?
~ Thomas Carlyle
Frank McCoy
>> Like I said, I *keep* the drives fairly clean.
>> I prefer Norton Utilities for that.
>
> Norton Utilities in and of itself is a huge resource hog Frank. I am
>sure you are aware of that.
Well ... That really depends on *which* utilities you're talking about.
But there is a point in what you say.
> I don't want to get into any 'flame wars' so I
>will just leave it at that. As far as your upgrade is concerned, I think I
>would look into more memory with the prices so low right now. I really don't
>see any huge performance increase in your upgrade scenerio with a
>2400+/3200+ increase. If you were doing some mild gaming you would probably
>see a bit more, but with your productivity apps I doubt you will notice much
>at all. Much of what you do is memory intensive, so I would probably go to a
>couple of gigs there. Good luck.
>
Yeah, except a memory-upgrade is in a price-range of about 8-10 times
what this chip upgrade is going to cost me, if not considerably more.
And THAT is buying the cheapest memory that fits my machine around, off
the Net. If I went down to the store and bought it off the shelf ....
<Shudder!>
No budget, remember?
It's only because this particular chip *is* so cheap that I'm even
thinking about it.
I'm also thinking, from the specifications, that the chip upgrade *will*
improve my memory-access times considerably. Or, did I read those
things wrong?
Right now, it says my maximum memory-access times are around 200mhz
(133mhz +66mhz) while the listed maximum for the board is 400mhz ... a
*distinct* improvement. The *only* difference I can see between what I
have on the board and what the maximum-rating for the board would be, is
the CPU.
If I speed up the memory-access by 100%, wouldn't that give me *more*
apparent speed-increase than doubling the memory ... which at present
rarely ever approaches even 40% utilization?
Of course, I *will* find out, when/if I ever do get that chip; which
will likely be a week or more away.
I'm going to take some *serious* benchmarks, using both my standard
programs and normal benchmarking tools, both before and after the
installation, if/when I do install the thing.
It will be interesting to see what happens.
There must be a reason for the rather high price AMD put on that
high-end chip, compared to the previous model, when it came out.
People must have been willing to pay several times the price of more
memory at that time, for the expected greater performance.
I'm wondering why, if everybody here says to not expect much if
anything. THIS in a group of overclockers yet.
Frank McCoy
wrote:
I'm expecting a boost, mainly because the board isn't yet running at
full specifications, even for memory; and the only reason I can see is
the CPU. For what I have, all the settings are at max ... But there are
areas *not* allowed with my present setup but indicated as able for the
board. I'm making the assumption those improvements will become
available with the faster processor ... the max the board says it
supports. I already *have* the fastest memory the board supports ...
and it *did* make a difference, once I changed settings to match.
>for your needs a decent hard drive is a must - 7200 rpm with a 16 mb cache.
Got that. Had to replace my smaller drive about a year ago.
So, I replaced it and my backup drive.
The backup drive keeps getting hot during the backups I do automatically
every night ... up to around 127F during those huge transfers. I'm
considering getting a disk-drive-fan for the front-panel and put in
front of it.
The other (identical) drive I use for the main-drive and backup *from*
doesn't heat up like that; yet it's the one that's more fragmented from
continuous use. Go figure. (Must be location in the case, I think.)
Frank McCoy
>>>>>> "FM" == Frank McCoy <mcc...@millcomm.com> writes:
>
> FM> Like I said, I *keep* the drives fairly clean. I prefer
> FM> Norton Utilities for that. What comes with Windows takes
> FM> almost twice as long to do the same jobs.
>
> FM> I killed indexing *years* ago. What a piece of crap.
>
>Good, but NU sucks. Look, given your budget, get a peer-to-peer
>program (e.g. emule) or torrent and get yourself a free copy of
>perfectdisk, the best defragger available.
>
> FM> The problem is with the SPOOLER.
>
>You mean spoolsv.exe?
>
> FM> Yes, adding another gig would *maybe* speed things up. But,
> FM> it would cost a *lot* more; since I'd have to drop both 500mb
> FM> DIMMs and buy two new 1gig sets (or one 2gig DIMM; which is
> FM> more expensive yet).
>
>You have only two slots? If you have more than two slots couldn't you
>add 1GB to your existing memory?
>
Three.
I'm thinking that if I put in a third DIMM, the system would slow down.
Not sure on *this* machine; but I know it does on some, because of the
way memory is accessed.
> FM> I'm *not* really looking for "which upgrade is best" at all.
> FM> Just wondering if this particular upgrade will do anything at
> FM> all for me. I'm thinking it will, for a damned cheap price.
>
>I'm thinking it won't, but then placebos have a well-known positive
>affect on patients from the psychological benefit.
>
Well, then why the considerably higher price for the faster one?
> FM> I just wonder how *much* of an improvement; or will it only
> FM> appear in my CPU-Z test without any apparent improvement in
> FM> anything I do?
>
>The latter.
>
> FM> I need something *fast* like a RAM drive to
> FM> test the theory. Sadly, RAM drives just aren't something that
> FM> Windows likes very well. ;-{
>
>A RAM drive made sense with DOS, which did not have virtual
>memory. RAM drives went out many years ago and good riddance.
>
>You're looking for someone to affirm a course of action you've already
>decided upon. Keep looking.
Not really looking for affirmation.
Just curiosity.
I thought somebody here would *know*.
I keep hearing, "Get this processor, it's MUCH faster!" and that long
before they had quad or even dual cores. Yet, when I do get a
supposedly *much* faster processor for my machine, it seems everybody
says, "That won't make much difference at all, if any!"
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
;-{
Ah well ... I guess I *will* find out when/if I get the thing.
I still might not get it yet; but so far the price seems right.
John Weiss
>
> Yes, adding another gig would *maybe* speed things up.
> But, it would cost a *lot* more; since I'd have to drop both 500mb DIMMs
> and buy two new 1gig sets (or one 2gig DIMM; which is more expensive
> yet).
You don't have 4 RAM slots? Well, RAM is fairly cheap...
As long as you insist on keeping a 20+ GB database, you're going to have to put
up with the slow compacting. More RAM and a faster HD will certainly help
reduce the disk swapping.
> I'm *not* really looking for "which upgrade is best" at all.
> Just wondering if this particular upgrade will do anything at all for
> me. I'm thinking it will, for a damned cheap price.
>
> I just wonder how *much* of an improvement; or will it only appear in my
> CPU-Z test without any apparent improvement in anything I do?
Which upgrade is that?
> It's those exceptions where I run things like disk-copies overnight
> and walk out of the room while Agent compacts its data-files, or I load
> a *huge* picture from NASA, and it takes time to convert it from JPEG to
> pixels on the screen, even when it's on a hard-drive.
>
> Even there, I suspect most such jobs are more disk-bound than CPU bound.
> A few years ago, that wasn't the truth. It might be now though. I need
> something *fast* like a RAM drive to test the theory. Sadly, RAM drives
> just aren't something that Windows likes very well. ;-{
RAM drives take up RAM. You already don't have enough RAM. A RAM drive is not
your solution.
Frank McCoy
<jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet> wrote:
>"Frank McCoy" <mcc...@millcomm.com> wrote...
>>
>> Yes, adding another gig would *maybe* speed things up.
>> But, it would cost a *lot* more; since I'd have to drop both 500mb DIMMs
>> and buy two new 1gig sets (or one 2gig DIMM; which is more expensive
>> yet).
>
>You don't have 4 RAM slots? Well, RAM is fairly cheap...
>
For certain values of "Fairly".
"Normal" prices for 1gig of PC3200 RAM seem to be in the neighborhood of
$50-$65 a DIMM. 2gig DIMS run more expensive for the equivalent. At a
"normal" price on the net of about $55 each, to go to 2-gigs from my
present 1 (and still retain dual matching DIMMS) I'd have to pay about
$117-$120 (counting shipping).
My budget would be VERY hard pressed to swing even $25.
A used AMD PC3200+ Socket(A) chip is in that budget range.
Memory, is not.
Nor (at a going price of $150 each, for a total of $300+ dollars) is
upgrading my disk-drives. Besides, THEY are already fairly recent and
fast drives I got not that long ago.
>As long as you insist on keeping a 20+ GB database, you're going to have to put
>up with the slow compacting. More RAM and a faster HD will certainly help
>reduce the disk swapping.
>
Got the fast drives.
Newer drives aren't much faster; only bigger.
Got the fastest memory that will fit on the board.
Got the third-from-slowest CPU.
Can't afford more memory.
>
>> I'm *not* really looking for "which upgrade is best" at all.
>> Just wondering if this particular upgrade will do anything at all for
>> me. I'm thinking it will, for a damned cheap price.
>>
>> I just wonder how *much* of an improvement; or will it only appear in my
>> CPU-Z test without any apparent improvement in anything I do?
>
>Which upgrade is that?
>
What the whole question I posed was:
Will there be a noticeable improvement when upgrading my CPU from AMD
2400+ to AMD 3200+.
I'm *guessing* that since my FSB and memory-speed is no where near that
rated for my motherboard (KT600-8237 Dragon Plus, by Soyo) that putting
in the faster (fastest allowed for the board) processor will reach those
limits. I already have PC3200 memory in the thing.
Everybody seems to say, "No!"; and I cannot figure out why not.
After all, there must have been *some* reason for AMD to make the faster
processor in the first place; and for Soyo to have specs up to 400mhz
for the motherboard, in the second. (At present, it's only 200mhz.)
>
>> It's those exceptions where I run things like disk-copies overnight
>> and walk out of the room while Agent compacts its data-files, or I load
>> a *huge* picture from NASA, and it takes time to convert it from JPEG to
>> pixels on the screen, even when it's on a hard-drive.
>>
>> Even there, I suspect most such jobs are more disk-bound than CPU bound.
>> A few years ago, that wasn't the truth. It might be now though. I need
>> something *fast* like a RAM drive to test the theory. Sadly, RAM drives
>> just aren't something that Windows likes very well. ;-{
>
>RAM drives take up RAM. You already don't have enough RAM. A RAM drive is not
>your solution.
>
Um ... I *KNOW* that!
I'm referring to doing a benchmark of *calculation speed* using a HUGE
JPEG file. However, such a file likely takes more time to get from the
hard-drive than it does to decompress. I was referring to using a RAM
drive to make the measurement meaningful.
Like I said: Windows doesn't LIKE such things any more.
But: I don't really know of anything truly *fast* to get a file from. I
think most hard-drives these days are about as fast or faster than USB
stick-drives.
Perhaps by doing it TWICE; so the file is already in cache ....
John Weiss
>
>>As long as you insist on keeping a 20+ GB database, you're going to have to
>>put
>>up with the slow compacting. More RAM and a faster HD will certainly help
>>reduce the disk swapping.
>>
> Got the fast drives.
IIRC, you have a couple 7200 RPM HDs. They are likely not "fast" in this
context (compacting 22 GB databases). "Fast" would be a minimum of 10K RPM
SATA HDs, but preferably 15K RPM SCSI or SAS on a 64-bit controller.
> Newer drives aren't much faster; only bigger.
Not true. Spindle speed and cache are 2 significant improvements. Bus (PATA
vs SATA vs SCSI/SAS) is a significant discriminator.
>>> I just wonder how *much* of an improvement; or will it only appear in my
>>> CPU-Z test without any apparent improvement in anything I do?
>>
>>Which upgrade is that?
>>
> What the whole question I posed was:
> Will there be a noticeable improvement when upgrading my CPU from AMD
> 2400+ to AMD 3200+.
A 25% improvement in CPU clock will likely yield less than 10% system
improvement -- less if your HD I/O is the choke point.
> I'm *guessing* that since my FSB and memory-speed is no where near that
> rated for my motherboard (KT600-8237 Dragon Plus, by Soyo) that putting
> in the faster (fastest allowed for the board) processor will reach those
> limits. I already have PC3200 memory in the thing.
AMD's ratings already factor in the max design FSB and clock speed in their
"xx00+" ratings. You might see a modest improvement with a faster Socket A
CPU, but you can't expect miracles.
> Everybody seems to say, "No!"; and I cannot figure out why not.
> After all, there must have been *some* reason for AMD to make the faster
> processor in the first place; and for Soyo to have specs up to 400mhz
> for the motherboard, in the second. (At present, it's only 200mhz.)
I can't even find references on the AMD site to specs for Socket A CPUs. While
FSB speed is a factor, it is not necessarily the controlling factor in CPU
performance. What are the comparative clock speeds, cache, and any other
differences in the 2 CPUs?
Frank McCoy
<jrweiss98155nospamatnospamcomcastdotnospamnet> wrote:
Well ... That's pretty much what I was asking.
I guess I'll have to wait until I get the new CPU ... *IF* I get it;
which is nowhere near certain.
All I have to go on now, is the specs I have on the present one; and the
specs for the motherboard, which *seems* to indicate things could go a
lot faster. Since I've already upgraded the memory to best it supports,
and the settings to the max the memory supports in the current
configuration, then the only thing left (it seems to me) to get the
specified maximum, would be upgrading the CPU to the top supported.
If that doesn't do it, then I'm stumped.