Re: Disappointing upgrade: Sempron 2200+ --> Phenom II 4X 840

[Paul]

DK wrote:
> Wanting more raw computing power, I went from Sempron 2200+
> in ASUS Asus A7V400-MX (socket A) to Phenom II 4X 840 in Asus
> M4N68T-M V2 (socket AM3).
>
> I must say I am quite disappointed. I was hoping for about 10X speed
> boost even with applications that can only use a single core. After all,
> more than six years separate the two (expected boost suggested
> by Moore's law would be 64X). The real life tests show nothing
> of this sort! Not even close to 10X.
>
> DIVX encoding using VirtualDub and DivX 5 codec became
> faster by only about 3X. OK, this may also have something to do
> with the video card change (does it? - I don't really know; went
> from dedicated nVIDIA Quadro FX 3000, 256 MB to integrated
> nVIDIA GeForce 7025, 512 MB - not sure what is supposed to be
> better; I need occasional hardware stereo so Quadro will be
> going back into the slot).
>
> To make sure it's not GPU, I also tested using a program that does
> no graphics (multiparametric fitting anf FFT; essentially raw numbers
> crunching). Alas, a fairly common task that took 23 min on the
> 6.5 years old cheap system now took 9 min - only ~2.5X faster.
>
> Granted, programs that can use SMP run correspondingly faster
> (about 3.3X over just using a single core) but still... Are my results
> observations fairly typical? If not, what gives? This $200 upgrade
> pales in comparison with the $160 upgrade 6.5 years ago when I
> went from dual Celerons 366 in ABit BP6 to the Sempron 2200+.
> There, the speed boost was of near cosmic proportions.
>
> Any comments? Thanks!
>
> - Dima

While DivX encoding is running, arrange a copy of CPU-Z running
at the same time, and verify the CPU clock value is correct.

(A "no-install" version is fine...)
http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

Using Cool N' Quiet, the processor will switch to the low multiplier
when the system is quiet. When busy, the processor should be
running at the high multiplier. And this should be reflected
in the core clock speed value listed in the main panel of CPUZ.

You can try disabling Cool N' Quiet, which should leave the
processor at the high multiplier.

Depending on the OS used, a "cpu driver" may be required.
I'm not sure where to get the best information on that now.

This CPU driver is for WinXP. I would expect Vista or Win7 to
already have this driver as a hidden built-in. It took a
number of steps on the AMD driver download page to find this.
It wasn't that easy.

http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamicDetails.aspx?ListID=c5cd2c08-1432-4756-aafa-4d9dc646342f&ItemID=173&lang=us

*******

3.2GHz quad core L1=128Kx4 L2=512Kx4 L3=missing 95W

http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=745

Performance ratio (as via this benchmark)

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

AMD Phenom II X4 840 3,735 (Passmark)

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/low_end_cpus.html

AMD Sempron 2200+ 336 (Passmark)

So according to that, the ratio is supposed to be 10x.
And for that to be true, the benchmark would have to
be able to run on multiple cores.

Paul

[Wes Newell]

On Thu, 05 Jan 2012 16:27:13 +0000, DK wrote:

> Any comments? Thanks!

Do the math. 366MHz celery to what, 1800MHz? Sempron 2200+ to what~
2500MHz X4 Phenom. And core speed is only one factor of many in system
speed. That said, check your cool n quite settings. It's possible your OS
is not set to run the cpu at max speed.

[Paul]

DK wrote:

>
> I also haven't realized that Cool'n'Quiet can get in the way of things -
> will investigate this further. Does it work on a per core basis or does
> it look at the whole chip?
>
> - Dima

As far as I know, it applies to the whole chip. You never know
though, they could change that. It just makes it more of a pain
for the CPU cores to use shared resources, if done that way.

In this article, it implies application to the whole chip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_multiplier

Paul

[Yousuf Khan]

On 1/5/2012 1:53 PM, DK wrote:

> In article<je4mec$qqf$1...@dont-email.me>, Paul<nos...@needed.com> wrote:
>
>> This CPU driver is for WinXP. I would expect Vista or Win7 to
>> already have this driver as a hidden built-in. It took a
>> number of steps on the AMD driver download page to find this.
>> It wasn't that easy.
>>
>> http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamicDetails.aspx?ListID=c5cd2c08-1432-4756-a
>> afa-4d9dc646342f&ItemID=173&lang=us
>

> Thanks, Paul!
>
> I did install something called "CPU driver" off Asus DVD. Will go back
> and see what happens if I don't install it or install an updated version.

The CPU driver usually is there to take advantage of newer power-saving
modes, and stuff. Even with a generic CPU driver (afterall, these are
all just x86 processors, no matter what), I doubt that performance will
be affected all that much. Power consumption on the other hand might
become significantly better though.

>> AMD Phenom II X4 840 3,735 (Passmark)
>>

>> AMD Sempron 2200+ 336 (Passmark)
>>
>> So according to that, the ratio is supposed to be 10x.
>> And for that to be true, the benchmark would have to
>> be able to run on multiple cores.

I wouldn't base too much importance on synthetic benchmarks. Synthetic
benchmarks typically measure individual component performances to the
exclusion of other components, such as RAM speed vs. CPU speed vs. I/O
speed, etc. Real-world benchmarks involve real applications, and real
applications are a combination of CPU/RAM/IO. Even if the CPU part is
10x faster, doesn't mean that the RAM is, and certainly not the disk.

> Yeah, that's the numbers I was looking at when planning an update.
> Sounds like this is exactly what I would see if I get my 2.5-3X boost
> for a single core and multiply it by 3-4X. But then, at work
> I have Core i7 950 and its Passmark is value 6,365. I just tested
> DivX encoding on it using the same test as done for my Phenom
> home system. At home I was getting ~ 40 FPS (versus around 15 with
> the Sempron), while at work it is around 125 FPS - considerably
> more than what the 1.7X difference in Passmark scores would
> suggest.

The DivX codec uses an Intel compiler that's purpose built to exclude
non-Intel hardware. It does this by turning off most modern instruction
sets such as SSE on non-Intel processors, even if the non-Intel
processors have those instruction sets available. It was the subject of
an anti-trust suit between Intel and AMD, which Intel lost and was
forced to pay AMD $1.2B. Intel used the compilers to gain unfair
advantages in benchmarking suites.

Divx using Intel compiler? - AnandTech Forums
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=1655714

> As the other reply points out, I guess I simply did not appreciate the
> fact that CPU clock frequency in modern processors seems to have hit
> a wall and that the main inroads into increasing computing speed is
> now in SMP scaling.

>
> I also haven't realized that Cool'n'Quiet can get in the way of things -
> will investigate this further. Does it work on a per core basis or does
> it look at the whole chip?

I think CnQ and other clock-throttling technologies are there to save
power, but they dynamically scale speed of the processors to the
workload needed. I can't see CnQ would interfere with ultimate
performance by more than a few percent (I'm guessing less than 5%,
probably less than 3%).

Yousuf Khan

[Paul]

Yousuf Khan wrote:

>
> I think CnQ and other clock-throttling technologies are there to save
> power, but they dynamically scale speed of the processors to the
> workload needed. I can't see CnQ would interfere with ultimate
> performance by more than a few percent (I'm guessing less than 5%,
> probably less than 3%).
>
> Yousuf Khan

I've run into a couple cases of "stuck multiplier" problems in
the newsgroups. The sad thing in one case, was the problem
resolved itself, and the OP couldn't say exactly what
step fixed it (changing too many things at the same time,
to be sure). So it does happen, that a user finds
their CPU stays at the low multiplier, and they don't
know why.

You can achieve that result artificially, by using a power
schema. For example, the RMClock utility, will install it's
own power schema (that's in addition to the ones already
there like "Always On" option). If a user cranked the
multiplier values down in their RMClock schema and left
the RMClock schema selected in the Power Options control panel,
that could give a "stuck multiplier" effect. I occasionally
run into people, who get a machine from a relative, which
is hacked to bits, and full of surprises. Like the
guy with a funny multiplier problem, which was resolved
when he pulled the Athlon processor, and found a jumper
wire stuffed into the socket holes (wire mod). I didn't
even suggest he look there, but he managed to find it.

So there are ways to mess it up, given enough effort. It
just depends on how clever the previous owner was.

Paul

[SC Tom]

"DK" <d...@noemail.thankstospam.net> wrote in message news:je4rj6$bv0$1...@news.albasani.net...

> In article <je4mec$qqf$1...@dont-email.me>, Paul <nos...@needed.com> wrote:
>

>>This CPU driver is for WinXP. I would expect Vista or Win7 to
>>already have this driver as a hidden built-in. It took a
>>number of steps on the AMD driver download page to find this.
>>It wasn't that easy.
>>

>>http://support.amd.com/us/Pages/dynamicDetails.aspx?ListID=c5cd2c08-1432-4756-a
>>afa-4d9dc646342f&ItemID=173&lang=us
>
> Thanks, Paul!
>
> I did install something called "CPU driver" off Asus DVD. Will go back
> and see what happens if I don't install it or install an updated version.
>

>> AMD Phenom II X4 840 3,735 (Passmark)
>>

>> AMD Sempron 2200+ 336 (Passmark)
>>
>>So according to that, the ratio is supposed to be 10x.
>>And for that to be true, the benchmark would have to
>>be able to run on multiple cores.
>

> Yeah, that's the numbers I was looking at when planning an update.
> Sounds like this is exactly what I would see if I get my 2.5-3X boost
> for a single core and multiply it by 3-4X. But then, at work
> I have Core i7 950 and its Passmark is value 6,365. I just tested
> DivX encoding on it using the same test as done for my Phenom
> home system. At home I was getting ~ 40 FPS (versus around 15 with
> the Sempron), while at work it is around 125 FPS - considerably
> more than what the 1.7X difference in Passmark scores would
> suggest.
>

> As the other reply points out, I guess I simply did not appreciate the
> fact that CPU clock frequency in modern processors seems to have hit
> a wall and that the main inroads into increasing computing speed is
> now in SMP scaling.
>
> I also haven't realized that Cool'n'Quiet can get in the way of things -
> will investigate this further. Does it work on a per core basis or does
> it look at the whole chip?
>

I was following this since I upgraded from an Athlon 64 x2 4800+ (2.5GHz) on an Asus M2NPV-VM MB (4GB RAM) to a Phenom
II x2 555 Black Edition (3.2 GHz) on a M4N68T-M V2 (4GB RAM). I have noticed quite a difference in speed, and when I
used the Asus unlocker to open two more cores, I noticed a real difference in most applications I use (some, no change
at all, but that's mostly older small-footprint apps that weren't too slow anyhow). Windows now has it listed as a
Phenom II x4 B55. In Device Manger, open each core and update the driver. Let it go to the MS site to get it. The link
that Paul provided points to a driver for XP SP2, and is dated 2009. I'm afraid that driver would be counterproductive
on a XP SP3 system with a processor manufactured after 2009. I may be wrong, but I got better results with the MS driver
(which I normally don't use for driver updates). The "CPU driver" on the MB DVD is nothing more than Cool 'n Quiet. If
you run the setup again, it will ask if you're sure you want to uninstall it? I left it on mine. I don't find that it
interferes with what I do.

My Passmarks are: B55 3,857 (left as a stock x2 555 = 1,993)
Athlon 64 4800+ 1,312
I have no way to scientifically prove it, but the system runs a lot faster than the 3-times difference in Passmark
scores.

I haven't done any DIVX editing, but I've done a few home movies and movie editing with Microsoft Movie Maker, and found
that processing and saving the movies is at least 5 or 6x faster than with my old MB/CPU combo. Movies that used to take
3/4 to an hour to process are now done in 5-10 minutes.
Part of your problem may be the onboard video. I found it to be clunky and slow, and I took my Nvidia GT 240 out of my
old system and use it with this one. Tremendous improvement in hard-core video-intensive games like Modern Warfare
(which was unplayable on the onboard 7025) , and in overall PC speed.

Some other things to look at are your RAM timing speeds, whether they're set up as ganged or unganged, etc. You can find
your current settings using CPU-Z and go from there.

Overall, I am very satisfied with this upgrade. Plus the fact that I got the MB, CPU and 4GB of G-Skill DDR3-1333 Ripjaw
RAM for $170 including shipping (Black Friday sale from Newegg).
--
SC Tom

[Paul]

<<snipped>>

There was an extremely long thread on this topic a while back,
but I haven't been tracking it. The Version 4 update is mentioned here.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/60416-windows-xp-multi-core-config-does-your-oem-do-you.html

You have to go to the end of the thread, to get the latest experiences
with that stuff. I don't know if the original poster in that thread,
continues to update the first post with the "answer" or not (last update
stamp says 2007).

It could be the current AMD driver, checks the update status of the
OS before installing anything, so just about any behavior in 2011 is
possible. It really depends on whether AMD felt like deferring to
Microsoft or not. AMD is always playing cleanup it seems (like
getting Bulldozer support - patch listed by Microsoft, then
withdrawn).

Paul

[Flasherly]

It's a difficult job, programming for multiple cores, not to mention
BIOS and MB implementation between features and microprocessor model
enhancements constantly being added to multiple cores. When a chip
design is capable of automatically routing a linearly constructed
program, written and compiled on a single core, through a networked
die of multiple cores at x64 a factor of speed, either we'll be ready
and can sign up for a brain-implanted chip for vastly improved AI-
augmented intelligence, or begin to cover our asses when the first
Terminators are released.

While watching a PBS show on DNA, one of the researchers noted for her
work in statistical reduction sets over intersecting gnome patterns in
coupling the animal world generally to humankind, mentioned she is as
well a computer programmer. Her claim then being, is she wrote a
program, on camera for such as might a you academic be prone to say -
"I got geeky" [to accomplish the above task] - while presumably on and
using university facilities, at a factor of one a single afternoon
connotes, to do what she claims an average desktop would accomplish in
35 years!

-
"There are liars, there are damn liars, and then there are the
statisticians." -anon.

[SC Tom]

"Paul" <nos...@needed.com> wrote in message news:je560r$qkp$1...@dont-email.me...

As usual, you go above and beyond in your research, and I for one appreciate it.

I read a few of the 64 pages of the article, including the version 4 patch and the other articles toward the end of the
article. They all mention SP2, including the version 4 patch. Also intimated in the article is that it was all included
in SP3, and that everything was taken care of with it also. Don't know about that since some people still have
multi-core problems.

Also, since the article seems to deal more with dual core than with 3 or more, I don't know how much of it would be
appropriate to 3+ cores. Some of the optimizing tips might be useful; if I get brave, I may try some of them. Kinda
scary playing with the boot.ini. If I do decide to mess around with it, I'll be sure to have a new image of my drive
before starting on it :-)

I did find this troubleshooting guide:

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ThecorrectnumberofProcessorcoresisnotrecognizedcorrectlyinaMicrosoftWindowsbasedsystemafteraprocessorupgrade.aspx#toc

And even though the AMD driver file from your earlier link says "Updated 2009", the setup file inside the zip is dated
9/7/2007. I think I'll leave mine alone for now; it's working fine for me :-)
--
SC Tom

[Bob F]

DK wrote:
> Wanting more raw computing power, I went from Sempron 2200+
> in ASUS Asus A7V400-MX (socket A) to Phenom II 4X 840 in Asus
> M4N68T-M V2 (socket AM3).
>
> I must say I am quite disappointed. I was hoping for about 10X speed
> boost even with applications that can only use a single core. After
> all, more than six years separate the two (expected boost suggested
> by Moore's law would be 64X). The real life tests show nothing
> of this sort! Not even close to 10X.
>

Is your hard drive 10x as fast?

[Paul]

Benchmarking, after a hardware upgrade, is all part of the fun.

You want to verify your system is tuned up properly, and also
that you got your money's worth.

All it takes is a benchmark which isn't disk limited, and you
can get some idea how much the new gear is helping.

An example is Cinebench, a synthetic benchmark that scales
perfectly (so doesn't really stress much except the processor
cores). That's better than nothing.

http://www.maxon.net/downloads/cinebench.html

Another test you can use, is 7ZIP in ultra mode compression. My
puny machine can only do about 5MB/sec compression, which means
the hard drive isn't stressed at all. 7ZIP or WinRAR testing
is good for including memory subsystem performance as a component
of the test. The Phenom without an L3 may be marginally slower
than a Phenom with 6MB L3 (at the same clock speed). In many other
situations, the missing L3 isn't a factor. While those benchmarks
are running, you want to pop open Task Manager and make sure the
graphs are well filled (in case your test case is only using one core
by accident).

Paul

[Paul]

DK wrote:

> In article <je5ht2$3oa$1...@dont-email.me>, Paul <nos...@needed.com> wrote:
>
>> Another test you can use, is 7ZIP in ultra mode compression. My
>> puny machine can only do about 5MB/sec compression, which means
>> the hard drive isn't stressed at all.
>

> Just tried 7ZIP ultra compression. The version I have seems to only use
> a single core for the ~1.3 MB/sec on average (Task Manager shows no
> more than 30% CPU utilization and that is with email, browser and
> newsreader). Is your 5 Mb/sec for a single core as well? If yes, what
> CPU do you have?
>
> Dima

To do a fair comparative test, we'd have to start with
the same data file. My processor for the test was
the E8400 dual core.

7ZIP is a bit picky about using multiple cores. In some cases,
the interface claims it will use multiple cores, when at runtime
it is obviously not doing so. That's why it is important to
use Task Manager, to make sure it's working.

The slower compression options, like Ultra, are the ones that
may trigger multi-core operation.

If you wanted another benchmark, there is "pigz" for Linux,
which is a multithreaded GZIP. If I need to compress entire
disk drive images, that's my tool of choice. It's a good
tradeoff between compression speed, and amount of compression
achieved. I don't know if there is a Windows port. In Linux,
you get this from your package manager and install it there.

http://www.zlib.net/pigz/

OK, there's a Windows port here, just found it. I won't
be testing this until later.

http://web.archive.org/web/20100107031935/http://www.leszer.net/index.php/my-software/58-downloads.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20100107031935/http://www.leszer.net/scripts/download.php?download=pigz_2.1.4_win32.zip

*******

To have a fair test, we can create files with similar entropy.

Download a copy of "dd".

http://www.chrysocome.net/download

http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.5.zip

Unzip the file. Open an MSDOS (command prompt) window and "cd"
(change directories) to the directory holding the dd.exe file.
Then try

dd if=/dev/random of=test.bin bs=1048576 count=1024

That will create a 1GB file of pseudo-random numbers. Since the seed used
isn't likely to be the same, we won't have exactly the same file.
On my machine, it takes 24 seconds to make the test file.

To test the seed, I created two files with the tool, and the
checksums don't match. So it uses a new seed for each file.

Now, for the test. (If I wanted to do this right, I'd compute
the md5sum of a 7GB movie.iso file, to flush the file cache. But
that's not necessary as this test is CPU bound.)

I did an "Add to archive" in 7ZIP version 4.60 beta (from 2008).

Archive format 7z
Compression level Ultra
Compression method LZMA
Dictionary size 64MB
Word size 64
Solid Block size 4GB
Number of CPU threads 2 (E8400 3GHz Dual Core 6MB L2 cache)

The test uses about 700MB of memory (of 4GB of DDR2-800 CAS5 memory).

Basically, the file is incompressible (high entropy), and the
output file "test.7z" is bigger than the original. The
1048576 KB input file "test.bin", becomes 1062758 KB on output as "test.7z".

The test completes on my machine in 7 minutes 13 seconds.
1,073,741,824 bytes in 433 seconds is 2,479,773 bytes/sec
compression rate. During the test, the CPU runs at only
75%, meaning there is 25% of the dual core not used. (And that
means this test does not scale well, apparently.)

You should be able to beat me, with a quad core, by a bit.
Assuming 7ZIP scales to four threads. I don't know if it
does or not. If you see "Number of CPU threads 4",
the contest should be interesting.

*******

I'm going to run it again now with one core instead of two.
I'm seeing the Task Manager at 50%, which means running with
one thread is much more efficient for this version of software.
Two threads should have run at 100%, but only manage 75%, which
means the threads aren't independent of one another.

That wouldn't happen with the Cinebench CPU test, which scales
perfectly, and doesn't really measure bottlenecks in the processor
quite as well. 7ZIP or WinRAR put more pressure on the cache levels.

Archive format 7z
Compression level Ultra
Compression method LZMA
Dictionary size 64MB
Word size 64
Solid Block size 4GB
Number of CPU threads 1 (E8400 3GHz Dual Core 6MB L2 cache)

In this case, I feel I should be able to beat a single core on
your processor. My time on this one is 11 minutes 17 seconds.
1,073,741,824 bytes in 677 seconds is 1,586,029 bytes/sec

Paul

[SC Tom]

"Paul" <nos...@needed.com> wrote in message news:je5ht2$3oa$1...@dont-email.me...

Mine has the 6MB L3, and the 7Zip score is 8.6MB/sec. using 4/4 CPU threads. I watch all 4 cores in Task Manager and
they are like synchronized swimmers at the Olympics.
I love the decompression rate of 135MB/sec.
--
SC Tom

[Paul]

DK wrote:

> In article <je5pmf$3pn$1...@dont-email.me>, Paul <nos...@needed.com> wrote:
>> I did an "Add to archive" in 7ZIP version 4.60 beta (from 2008).
>

> I had version 4.65 installed but just to be sure downloaded and installed
> version 4.60 beta. And for some strange reason I do not see quite the
> same GUI options as you list:
>
>> Solid Block size 4GB
>
> Only option is "Create solid archive" - I checked it.

>
>> Number of CPU threads 2 (E8400 3GHz Dual Core 6MB L2 cache)
>

> Only option I see is "multi-threading" - I checked it.

>
>> The test uses about 700MB of memory (of 4GB of DDR2-800 CAS5 memory).
>

> Using 670 Mb here.

>
>> The test completes on my machine in 7 minutes 13 seconds.
>> 1,073,741,824 bytes in 433 seconds is 2,479,773 bytes/sec
>> compression rate. During the test, the CPU runs at only
>> 75%, meaning there is 25% of the dual core not used. (And that
>> means this test does not scale well, apparently.)
>>
>> You should be able to beat me, with a quad core, by a bit.
>> Assuming 7ZIP scales to four threads. I don't know if it
>> does or not. If you see "Number of CPU threads 4",
>> the contest should be interesting.
>

> Alas, I am not even close, confirming my first impression that
> this system is considerably slower than it "should" be:
>
> The test took 18 min 36 sec with the overall CPU usage between
> 30 and 33%.
>
> Without multi-threading, CPU usage is 25% and it takes
> correspoindingly slightly longer (canceled before it finished).
>
> CPUZ show stock bus speed (200) and multiplier (16), so
> nothing fishy in the CPU setup. Same for memory - no OC,
> expected frequency.
>
> Hmm, what going on?
>
> - Dima

That motherboard seems a bit weird. Check out this suggestion.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20110512070915414&board_id=1&model=M4N68T-M+V2&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

*******

If that doesn't help, I'd try setting a few BIOS things to manual. I
have a couple Asus motherboards, where "manual" exposes the
most settings, and some of those settings can be interesting.

For example, I'd set "CPU Overclock" to [Manual] rather than [Auto].
It may allow you to observe clock frequencies, while in the BIOS.
And check if something isn't right.

Your memory "DCT Unganged Mode" is set to [Always] by default, which
is best for a processor like a quad core. I don't even see an option
to disable it, which might be beneficial if you were using
a single core processor. Maybe there aren't any single core
processors that work in the motherboard ?

Do you have two sticks of RAM, or only one ? Using one stick,
might drag down the multithreaded efficiency.

I was toying with the idea of suggesting a "cache and memory" type test,
which gives bandwidth curves. But the problem is finding a program
that does a nice job. My copy of SiSoftware Sandra didn't do a good
job. It took me forever to figure out how to get the displayed
results to appear (copy of Sandra from 2009).

Paul

[Rodney Pont]

On Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:38:13 -0500, Paul wrote:

>I was toying with the idea of suggesting a "cache and memory" type test,
>which gives bandwidth curves. But the problem is finding a program
>that does a nice job. My copy of SiSoftware Sandra didn't do a good
>job. It took me forever to figure out how to get the displayed
>results to appear (copy of Sandra from 2009).

Memtest86+ shows the speed of the memory and the three levels of cache
(if present).

--
Regards - Rodney Pont
The from address exists but is mostly dumped,
please send any emails to the address below
e-mail rpont (at) gmail (dot) com

[Paul]

Rodney Pont wrote:
> On Fri, 06 Jan 2012 01:38:13 -0500, Paul wrote:
>
>> I was toying with the idea of suggesting a "cache and memory" type test,
>> which gives bandwidth curves. But the problem is finding a program
>> that does a nice job. My copy of SiSoftware Sandra didn't do a good
>> job. It took me forever to figure out how to get the displayed
>> results to appear (copy of Sandra from 2009).
>
> Memtest86+ shows the speed of the memory and the three levels of cache
> (if present).
>

I was looking for something with graphs, but you're right,
memtest86+ will give the answer. I was thinking maybe the
shape of the graph would be important. I'm not sure whether
memtest86+ determines the numbers by actually disabling cache levels,
or uses an inflection point method.

Maybe my results would have looked better if I had the graph in
linear mode rather than log. That could have been why it
didn't look too good.

http://fileshosts.com/intel/Asus/P5K_Deluxe/results/Nautilus500/Q6600_B3/Corsair/10000C5D/9x/5_8divider/388-620_55515_8-30-888_1.475-1.5-2.4-1.4-1.55-1.2/sandraxi/cache_mem_tn.png

Paul

[Rodney Pont]

On Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:02:13 -0500, Paul wrote:

>I was looking for something with graphs, but you're right,
>memtest86+ will give the answer. I was thinking maybe the
>shape of the graph would be important.

Being colour blind I prefer the AIDA 64 benchmarks:

http://www.aida64.com/product/aida64-extreme-edition/overview

The blue section at the left shows the performance, the faster it is
the longer the blue section.

[Darklight]

you should have looked at cpu passmark

cpu passmark
for $109.95 £85.52 JBO solutions phenom x4 840 3.2 ghz rank 190
for $109.99 £96.99 Ebuyer phenom x4 960T 3.0 ghz rank 160
for $109.99 £83.99 overclockers uk amd FX-4100 x4 3.6 ghz rank 141

Phenoms AM3
FX AM3+

second question whats your PSU

[Darklight]

for £60 to £65 Athlon x4 640 AM3 rank 193 cpu Passmark

[Krypsis]

On 6/01/2012 3:27 AM, DK wrote:
> Wanting more raw computing power, I went from Sempron 2200+
> in ASUS Asus A7V400-MX (socket A) to Phenom II 4X 840 in Asus
> M4N68T-M V2 (socket AM3).

I used to have a Sempron 2800+. It was a dog! Just about anything would
run rings around it. I gave the whole computer away a year or two back
after having it in storage. It is still in use today. Did put a braver
video card in it for the new owner though.

>
> I must say I am quite disappointed. I was hoping for about 10X speed
> boost even with applications that can only use a single core. After all,
> more than six years separate the two (expected boost suggested
> by Moore's law would be 64X). The real life tests show nothing
> of this sort! Not even close to 10X.
>

I upgraded to a @6600 Quad in a Gigabyte G33M-DS2R motherboard with an
NVidia 8500GS video card (now Nvidia GeForce GT430) and 2 Gig of RAM
(now 8 Gig). It was way overkill for what I do these days.

For my day to day stuff, I use a Pentium 4 HT @ 3 GHz with 4 GB of RAM
and that seems to cope more than adequately with my workload. The
Quadcore rarely even gets turned on

> DIVX encoding using VirtualDub and DivX 5 codec became
> faster by only about 3X. OK, this may also have something to do
> with the video card change (does it? - I don't really know; went
> from dedicated nVIDIA Quadro FX 3000, 256 MB to integrated
> nVIDIA GeForce 7025, 512 MB - not sure what is supposed to be
> better; I need occasional hardware stereo so Quadro will be
> going back into the slot).
>
> To make sure it's not GPU, I also tested using a program that does
> no graphics (multiparametric fitting anf FFT; essentially raw numbers
> crunching). Alas, a fairly common task that took 23 min on the
> 6.5 years old cheap system now took 9 min - only ~2.5X faster.

On board graphics are always a bit of a dog though there have been some
significant improvements in recent years. I will always favour external
graphics adaptors even if, in my usage, it only provides for snappy
screen updates.

>
> Granted, programs that can use SMP run correspondingly faster
> (about 3.3X over just using a single core) but still... Are my results
> observations fairly typical? If not, what gives? This $200 upgrade
> pales in comparison with the $160 upgrade 6.5 years ago when I
> went from dual Celerons 366 in ABit BP6 to the Sempron 2200+.
> There, the speed boost was of near cosmic proportions.
>
> Any comments? Thanks!
>
> - Dima

I have found that what I need to be done fast is handled adequately by
my P4. For the rest, I have plenty of time so I can afford to wait. I
could overclock my Quadcore and get an even greater speed boost. In
fact, that was one of the reasons I picked this particular CPU as it has
loads of headroom but, apart from some experiments when new, it has
always run at a standard clock speed.

If I was into some serious gaming, I daresay the Quadcore would be more
useful.

--

Krypsis

[SC Tom]

"DK" <d...@no.email.thankstospam.net> wrote in message news:je74hd$phs$1...@dont-email.me...

> In article <je5ps8$4js$1...@dont-email.me>, "SC Tom" <s...@tom.net> wrote:
>
>>Mine has the 6MB L3, and the 7Zip score is 8.6MB/sec. using 4/4 CPU threads. I
>> watch all 4 cores in Task Manager and
>>they are like synchronized swimmers at the Olympics.
>>I love the decompression rate of 135MB/sec.
>

> What version of 7Zip do you have? The old 4.6 beta only
> uses 33% of the 4 cores and they are definitely not sybchronized.
>

4.65. It doesn't say Beta, so I assume it's the standard released version. Which reminded me to check for an update.
I'll let you know how 9.20 goes once I install and test with it.
--
SC Tom

[SC Tom]

"DK" <d...@no.email.thankstospam.net> wrote in message news:je74hd$phs$1...@dont-email.me...
> In article <je5ps8$4js$1...@dont-email.me>, "SC Tom" <s...@tom.net> wrote:
>

>>Mine has the 6MB L3, and the 7Zip score is 8.6MB/sec. using 4/4 CPU threads. I
>> watch all 4 cores in Task Manager and
>>they are like synchronized swimmers at the Olympics.
>>I love the decompression rate of 135MB/sec.
>

> What version of 7Zip do you have? The old 4.6 beta only
> uses 33% of the 4 cores and they are definitely not sybchronized.
>

I installed 9.20 and ran the benchmark on it. Pretty much the same as before- 8.7MB/s and all 4 cores synchronized
within 3 or 4% of each other. It would start at ~60%, then ramp up to 100% and stay there until the next pass. Memory
used was 851MB (forgot to mention that on the last reply).

I ran the 1GB "create a 7z file" as in one of the other sub-threads. Mine took 3 min. 35 sec. to complete, with the 4
cores fairly balanced from 48-53%. Towards the end of the compression, core number 1 (I think) dropped off to about 10%.
But that may have been because OE6 was checking for new mail. The other cores picked up the slack, increasing usage by
about 7-8%.

I did mistakenly start creating a .zip file instead of a .7z one and it took considerably longer, even though it still
used all 4 cores, fairly balanced across them all. I quit it after 6 or 7 minutes with it being about 50% done. Don't
know why there would be such a disparity in time, unless 7ZIP doesn't create WinZip files that well. Is that possibly
what you did that took 18.5 minutes?
--
SC Tom

[SC Tom]

"DK" <d...@no.email.thankstospam.net> wrote in message news:je82m6$iku$1...@dont-email.me...

> Even more weird. 4.65 is what I had before and it was definitely not
> using all cores. I now tried 9.2 and in it I can at least see options that
> Paul said he had in 4.60. In the 9.2m it has "Number of CPU threads"
> but bor some reason only 1 and 2 shows in the pulldown list. The CPU
> utiization with 2 threads is 40% and consequently the compression
> rate is a little faster but nowhere near yours. And we have identical
> MB and RAM, same OS (XP SP3, right?) and very similar albeit
> not identical CPU.

Yep, I'm running XP Home SP3. The only "tweaking" I've done to my system is unlocking the other two cores (like I posted
earlier), and changing my RAM timing from 9-9-9-25-34 to 8-8-8-21-31, but I don't see where that would make as much
difference as there seems to be between our two systems. The only other real differences I see are that I'm running an
add-in video card (GT 240) and SATA HDD instead of PATA. Do you have the latest BIOS and other drivers from the ASUS
site?

Here's a greatly snipped text report from CPU-Z for comparison, if you want:

CPU-Z version 1.58

Processors
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of processors 1
Number of threads 4

Processors Information
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Processor 1 ID = 0
Number of cores 4 (max 4)
Number of threads 4 (max 4)
Name AMD Phenom II X4
Codename Deneb
Specification AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 B55 Processor
Package Socket AM3 (938)
CPUID F.4.3
Extended CPUID 10.4
Brand ID 29
Core Stepping RB-C3
Technology 45 nm
TDP Limit 160 Watts
Core Speed 3215.1 MHz
Multiplier x FSB 16.0 x 200.9 MHz
HT Link speed 1004.7 MHz
Instructions sets MMX (+), 3DNow! (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4A, x86-64, AMD-V
L1 Data cache 4 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 4 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 4 x 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L3 cache 6 MBytes, 48-way set associative, 64-byte line size

Chipset
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Northbridge NVIDIA GeForce 7025 rev. A3
Southbridge NVIDIA nForce 630a rev. A2
Graphic Interface PCI-Express
PCI-E Link Width x16
PCI-E Max Link Width x16
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Size 4096 MBytes
Channels Dual, (Unganged)
Memory Frequency 669.8 MHz (3:10)
CAS# latency (CL) 8.0
RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 8
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 8
Cycle Time (tRAS) 21
Bank Cycle Time (tRC) 31
Command Rate (CR) 1T
Uncore Frequency 2009.4 MHz

Memory SPD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
DIMM # 1
SMBus address 0x50
Memory type DDR3
Module format UDIMM
Manufacturer (ID) G.Skill (7F7F7F7FCD000000)
Size 2048 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3-10700 (667 MHz)
Part number F3-10666CL9-2GBXL
Number of banks 8
Nominal Voltage 1.50 Volts
EPP no
XMP no
JEDEC timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
JEDEC #1 6.0-6-6-17-23 @ 457 MHz
JEDEC #2 7.0-7-7-20-27 @ 533 MHz
JEDEC #3 8.0-8-8-22-31 @ 609 MHz
JEDEC #4 9.0-9-9-25-34 @ 685 MHz

DIMM # 2
SMBus address 0x51
Memory type DDR3
Module format UDIMM
Manufacturer (ID) G.Skill (7F7F7F7FCD000000)
Size 2048 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3-10700 (667 MHz)
Part number F3-10666CL9-2GBXL
Number of banks 8
Nominal Voltage 1.50 Volts
EPP no
XMP no
JEDEC timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
JEDEC #1 6.0-6-6-17-23 @ 457 MHz
JEDEC #2 7.0-7-7-20-27 @ 533 MHz
JEDEC #3 8.0-8-8-22-31 @ 609 MHz
JEDEC #4 9.0-9-9-25-34 @ 685 MHz


Display Adapters
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Display adapter 0
Name NVIDIA GeForce GT 240
Revision A2
Codename GT215
Technology 40 nm
Memory size 512 MB
PCI device bus 2 (0x2), device 0 (0x0), function 0 (0x0)
Vendor ID 0x10DE (0x1043)
Model ID 0x0CA3 (0x8328)
Performance Level Default
Core clock 135.0 MHz
Shader clock 270.0 MHz
Memory clock 135.0 MHz
Performance Level 2D Desktop
Core clock 405.0 MHz
Shader clock 810.0 MHz
Memory clock 324.0 MHz
Performance Level 3D Applications
Core clock 550.0 MHz
Shader clock 1340.0 MHz
Memory clock 1700.0 MHz
--
SC Tom

[Paul]

DK wrote:

> Even more weird. 4.65 is what I had before and it was definitely not
> using all cores. I now tried 9.2 and in it I can at least see options that
> Paul said he had in 4.60. In the 9.2m it has "Number of CPU threads"
> but bor some reason only 1 and 2 shows in the pulldown list. The CPU
> utiization with 2 threads is 40% and consequently the compression
> rate is a little faster but nowhere near yours. And we have identical
> MB and RAM, same OS (XP SP3, right?) and very similar albeit
> not identical CPU.

Just out of curiosity, have you looked at your BIOS screen recently ?

First, you should have "full screen logo" disabled, in case the
motherboard presents an image instead of text. (A couple of my
motherboards default to presenting the full screen logo, so this
has to be disabled.)

Next, I'd want to check the BIOS declaration of the processor identity.
Is the processor mis-identified, or is the model information and
frequency right ?

Either 7ZIP is only offering "1" and "2" as options, because the program
can only handle two threads of execution. (Some algorithms can't be
"divide and conquer" indefinitely.) Or, the program might be offering
those options, because it thinks the processor only has two cores.
And it might get that information from the operating system.
I understand as well, from watching Linux boot screens (dmesg), that
the BIOS passes information about the number of cores in some kind
of table. So it might be possible for the BIOS to mis-inform the OS.
This wouldn't be a problem, if the OS also had its own identification
procedures. So it's a matter of whether the OS places all its trust in BIOS
tables, or whether it also does some of its own detection.

For example, when I boot Linux in a virtual machine on my PC, Linux
complains that the BIOS table "reports one core" which is correct,
but "the core number is 1 instead of 0", implying the virtual BIOS
isn't passing "core0" as the identity of the virtual processor. That's
how I know that at least with Linux, Linux is inspecting some info
from a BIOS table, and in that case, did not like what it saw. Linux
didn't crash or anything, and the message was more of a warning than
an error. It didn't actually affect the operation of the OS.

Paul

[Darklight]

DK wrote:

> In article <g0ANq.92441$_W7....@newsfe27.ams2>, Darklight

> <nglen...@netscape.net> wrote:
>>you should have looked at cpu passmark
>>
>>cpu passmark
>>for $109.95 £85.52 JBO solutions phenom x4 840 3.2 ghz rank 190
>>for $109.99 £96.99 Ebuyer phenom x4 960T 3.0 ghz rank 160
>>for $109.99 £83.99 overclockers uk amd FX-4100 x4 3.6 ghz rank 141
>>
>>Phenoms AM3
>>FX AM3+
>

> I thought that AM3 offers more choices of inexpansive mobos and CPUs.
> Also, I got the 840 for $86. I like keeping things frugal.

>
>>second question whats your PSU
>

> Nexus Value 430. I bought it for its inaudible fan. Has been rock solid in
> the previous setup and all voltages in the current are as expected and
> stable.
>
> Dima

here read this:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/Phenom_II_X4_840/

[Yousuf Khan]

You were indeed lucky to be able to unlock not just one, but two whole
cores on your X2. I had a Phenom X3 prior to this one (X6), and when I
used the Asus unlocker to get just a single additional core, it locked
up. It was indeed a bad core and not just a core locked out for
marketing purposes, it could not be unlocked.

> The link that Paul provided points to a driver for XP
> SP2, and is dated 2009. I'm afraid that driver would be
> counterproductive on a XP SP3 system with a processor manufactured after
> 2009. I may be wrong, but I got better results with the MS driver (which
> I normally don't use for driver updates). The "CPU driver" on the MB DVD
> is nothing more than Cool 'n Quiet. If you run the setup again, it will
> ask if you're sure you want to uninstall it? I left it on mine. I don't
> find that it interferes with what I do.

When you use the Core Unlocker (i.e. Unleashed mode) it's been suggested
that you should not use CnQ in combination of Unleashing. You should
also disable Turbo Core (if available on your processor), and C1E
support, while unleashed.

Yousuf Khan

[Yousuf Khan]

On 05/01/2012 11:27 AM, DK wrote:
> Wanting more raw computing power, I went from Sempron 2200+
> in ASUS Asus A7V400-MX (socket A) to Phenom II 4X 840 in Asus
> M4N68T-M V2 (socket AM3).
>

> I must say I am quite disappointed. I was hoping for about 10X speed
> boost even with applications that can only use a single core. After all,
> more than six years separate the two (expected boost suggested
> by Moore's law would be 64X). The real life tests show nothing
> of this sort! Not even close to 10X.

<snip>

Slightly on a tangent, I've been disappointed with all of my CPU
upgrades after my first one. My first processor was an 8088-10MHz on a
PC-XT clone. My first processor upgrade went from that, straight to a
386DX-25MHz! It felt like I just strapped a rocket to my machine --
everything felt faster, even the typing! Every other processor upgrade
since then has felt somewhat unworthwhile. I never noticed the
performance in day-to-day work.

Even though my current processor is probably literally at least a 1000
times faster than that first processor, they all seem to just barely be
noticeable from the previous processors, in my opinion. And I'm not one
to upgrade every year either, I usually wait about 3 years between
processor upgrades. So 386/25 was still the biggest kick in the pants
ever, even after all of this time.

Yousuf Khan

[SC Tom]

"Yousuf Khan" <bbb...@spammenot.yahoo.com> wrote in message news:4f0e230b$1...@news.bnb-lp.com...

As it turns out, I'm not running the software, but it is enabled in BIOS. Seems to work just fine that way. I don't have
Turbo mode enabled- I figure it's not going to give me that much of a boost for what I run anyway.

I haven't seen too many failures on the Phenom II x2 CPU's. I believe there were more instances of non-working extra
cores on the x4's. If I have a problem with any of them, I can always turn one or two cores off. Until that time, I'll
enjoy what I have. I'm glad I upgraded my PSU a while back since the 4 cores double the power requirement.
--
SC Tom

[geoff]

In 1985, I had an IBM XT and used it to run an assembler for Motorola 6809
code. It took about 20 minutes to complete. A few years later, my company
bought us Compaq Deskpro 40 machines. BIGGGGGGGGG DIFFERENCE! The
assembler took about 30 seconds.

However, I've never experienced that kind of upgrade joy since.

--g

[Yousuf Khan]

Yeah, I know what you mean, things were going so fast, you almost felt
that maybe it didn't work right or something. These days, you might see
something go from 30 seconds down to 15 seconds, it'll feel like a nice
boost for a little while, but after two days you'll already be used to it.

I think it took me months to get over how much faster the new system was
over the older one.

Yousuf Khan

[Bob F]

My first computer was based on the intel 8008, made with hardware hauled out of
the dumpster where I worked. I then designed and wire-wrapped a processor board
for the 8080 chip. Now that was an increase!