P4 2.4 --> Athlon 64 | Some advice please

[sun.moon]

Hello all,

For some time now, I have been playing with the idea to upgrade my system (see sig.).

Now, could anybody give me some reason's why I shouldn't upgrade to say for example a 3200+? I don't want to dish out tons of dough and from what I've read, this CPU has a good bang for the buck.

But I don't game. I use office apps - (sometimes large complex excel files), surf, mail, listen to music and edit pictures/graphics.

I read here that AMDs are generally snappier and faster than P4s.

Question is, would I notice a difference with my use to make the upgrade worthwhile? - It would mean also new board, memory...

It's not that I am complaining about performance (or cooling or quietness) with the P4 2.4 - it's just that, if you don't have anything to compare to, you don't know what your missing! Know what I mean?

Any advice welcome.

[Devonavar]

You're not missing anything. Wait until multi-core becomes cheap and maybe your multi-tasking will improve, but that's about it. Beyond ~1GHz, processor speed is almost irrelevant IMO. Witness the huge number of people who run Cool'N'Quiet 99% of the time because they don't do anything processor intensive.

The only thing that you might want a better processor for is graphics work ... but unless you're doing some heavy filtering or multi-layer editing I doubt you'll see much difference. Oridinary things like cropping, tweaking colour balance and removing red-eye doesn't take much juice.

[Devonavar]

I just thought I'd add some anecdotal evidence to back up what I said.

For a long time, I had an Athlon XP 1700+. I have since upgraded CPUs twice, once to an Athlon 64 3000+, and I now have a 3800+.

For ordinary 'net browsing and office-type activities, including all the writing and photo editing I do for the SPCR articles, there is precisely no subjective difference between my 3800+ and the 1700+. Both are equally fast ... and equally slow when trying to load two applications simultaneously. If I had to guess, I'd say that my hard drive is the limiting factor in performance when starting multiple apps.

The only difference I have noticed is encoding and rendering video. The 3000+ can encode an equivalent video file slightly more than twice as fast as the 1700+, and the 3800+ is maybe 10-20% faster than the 3000+. This is a big deal, since it changes it from a day-long job to an overnight job. But, unless what you're doing requires a long, linear process, extra processor speed is overkill, and it's just harder to cool.

If you're not doing video work or gaming, I see no point in upgrading.

[sun.moon]

Thanks Devonavar, for your answers. If that's the case, I'll hang out with the P4 for a while longer.

It always nice to have something nice new and shiny, but for that amount of cash, it needs a decent price/performance ratio and value-added character.

There are other things that seem now to have a higher priority, like a child seat for my daughter for instance.

I appreciate your input!

[NoNameFace]

^ What they said.

I have a Pentium 4 2.4 myself (paired with 1GB of RAM and a 9800 Pro video card) and I see absolutely no compelling reason to upgrade anytime soon. This computer still runs anything I throw at it just fine, hell, even Black and White 2 runs fine.

[widman]

I had pentium 4 2.4B.

Migrated to AMD 4000+ clawhammer early this year in quest for better computing, less noise and less power consumption. I only see incremental enhancement. But amount I spend was quite big consider complete overhaul.

Now just use X2 3800 for the same reason. I can't see huge advantage either. I may stick to AMD 4000+ as this chip easily undervolted to 0.85V. X2 core just refuse to take < 1.1V.

I'm not lost of touch of 2.4B. I'm still using it at office. And for daily use I recommend not to upgrade to X2. Intel 2.4B still very descent processor for current application.

If I can rollback the time, I'll stick for 2.4B until I decide to adopt Windows Vista.

For cooling and quiteness, you can undervolt 2.4B/C to around 1.2V. It quite stable and quiet. I used XP 90 with 92mm 1000rpm fan will adequate enough to cool this chip.

Maybe you can think upgrading when X2 5200 become mainstrean. hmmm 2 more year?

hopefully my story can save your money.

[mshan]

"I read here that AMDs are generally snappier and faster than P4s. "

Would it be true to say that the snappiness (latency or instantaneous responsiveness, not quickness to load a large file) of a system would be dependent on memory timings alone?

And would snappiness be the same at fsb 166 vs. fsb 200 (assuming that you're not using up all available bandwidth)?

[Devonavar]

"I read here that AMDs are generally snappier and faster than P4s. "

Would it be true to say that the snappiness (latency or instantaneous responsiveness, not quickness to load a large file) of a system would be dependent on memory timings alone?

And would snappiness be the same at fsb 166 vs. fsb 200 (assuming that you're not using up all available bandwidth)?

That sounds about right in theory, but in practice I find that there's very little difference. It would certainly make sense that instantaneous responsiveness would rely on memory latency at least some of the time, and you're correct in thinking that channel bandwidth has very little to do with it.

I think you might have overlooked a more important factor though: Keyboards and mice have latency attached to them, and if they're poor quality (or wireless), that latency can go up.

[Ryan Norton]

I upgraded from a 2.4GHz P4 with 865PE mobo to a 3500+ on the new 90nm Venice core. I like the processor a lot, but there isn't much subjective difference in browsing, word processing etc.

[sun.moon]

How do you tell, and what's the difference between a P4 2.4 B, C and D?

[ronrem]

Being practical,a P4 2.4 is able to do plenty and you won't often do tasks using it's full power. An A64 Venice or X2 is more powerful,faster-and runs a bit cooler too-especially with Cool+Quiet,also a 939,NF4 gets you into Hypertransport,Dual Channell Ram,SATA2 with optional Raid,PCI-e,a bunch of other newer/faster tech. The X2 adds the dual core. What's beyond what you can get out of an X2 3800,on a good NF4 mobo,is there another step YOU need? Probably not. In a year a 3800 X2 will be quite a bit cheaper-as will a nice Mobo and a big SATA-2 HD. Get it then and resist more changes for 3 or 4 years. Plan well and it will be very quiet and fast too.

The fact you are at this forum says you dig the technology,want it quiet,use your computer-so you will want to upgrade,it's inevitable,but your 2.4 is newer than my current machine and I figure I'll upgrade next summer.

[Morpheusman]

If your current motherboard and memory are up to the task, and don't mind taking risks, you could temporarily overclock your current system to see if an upgrade might be worth it.

Many of the 2.4B processors are able to overclock to arount 3.0Ghz by increasing the FSB from 133.33 to 166.66 (assuming your motherboard has the necissary tweaking options). Sometimes a voltage increase is required, sometimes not. I actually have a 2.4B that can run at 3.0 while undervolted.

This might not get you to the overall performance of an AMD64 3200, but it should be close enough to help you see if an upgrade might be worthwhile. If you don’t notice much of a difference at 3.0, there wouldn’t be much point in upgrading.