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C2D v X2 = Not as good as you think?

FatRakoon said:
It does not say anything in the manual about me having to have ACHI mode on though?

That previous line also points out the fact that I have RTFM
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ACHI is an integral part of the functionality of the Sata controller. The manual does mention the ACHI option quite clearly. Expecting it to tell you to switch it on, is I would say very unlikely. My point is that a little research on your part my have lead you to the conclusion something is missing, having read the manual, surly it should have at least raised the question "what is AHCI?". I suggest you read it again. Oh and btw, the drivers can only be install during the operating system installation.

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

 
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Thanks fornowagain, But doesnt that only apply to the 2 ports? - the Purple ones?

I thought this does not actually apply to the orange ones?

AFAIK the orange ones are standard and dont actualyl use this ACHI option???

Also, forgive my stupidity here, but how the hell do you get the drivers to do this? My SATA RAID Drivers, but no ACHI drivers? - I'm lost on this one?
 
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FatRakoon said:
Thanks fornowagain

But doesnt that only apply to the 2 ports? - the Purple ones?

I thought this does not actually apply to the orange ones?

AFAIK the orange ones are standard and dont actualyl use this ACHI option???
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I've no idea, I don't own the board. ACHI covers all the Intel Sata ports on my ICH7 975 and it is definitely used for single Sata drives on mine. However, reading your manuals it looks like its just the purple ones as you say. Mine needs a floppy disk for the drivers btw, used at F6 during XP install, have you had to do that? Curiously it refers you to Intel, go figure.

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scr...tid=2529&dwnldid=10749&agr=n〈=eng&prdmap=2529

It may have nothing to do with it, but its worth checking it out. Its there for a reason. On mine I end up with an AHCI Sata controller.



Just for a laugh, I opened dual prime SP2004 large FFTs. A TV window, an HD movie in another. 4 x 4GB repairing PAR/RAR files. A virus file scanner and 2 more spyware scanners. Then opened Notepad. No delay at all, it opens faster than I can move the mouse from the Start menu to the enter of the screen. Considerably less than a second. There's nothing wrong with the multitasking, very fast.
 
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OK does sound like there is something funny with folding at home, unsure if FatRakoon is aware but prime is a program that hammers the cpu and memory to test for stability this with an encoder along side this is very cpu intensive. So technically prime is doing more work than folding at home should be doing as its demanding as much CPU as possible all the time where FAH is taking free cpu cycles that are not being used.

I tried the same test again but loaded up two versions of cce encoding avis once on each core. Then opened two dvd shrinks shrinking two dvds down, started lame encoding some wav files and had itunes running playing a song.

Then did the same burning to disks, I still got the same result that I could flick between windows OK, start menu, sub menus and notepad opened instantly.

This time however there was a bigger delay going to the desktop maybe 2 to 3 seconds but memory allocation was over 2 gig by this point so would be paging a bit.

So the next part of the test is I will get folding at home setup on my system, I have been looking into this for a while anyway but we will see what happens this should give a fair picture. Does sound like AMD is still the king for folding at home.
 
DanF said:
heh,

Well more likely that FaH hasn't been optimized for the C2D architecture yet. The C2D does great in most multi-threaded apps like Photoshop filters etc.
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yes it does do well in that app, but thats only if that app is run on its own and nothing else is running at the same time.

this is very interesting now, someone mentioned that intel has only designed a system for benching and at the end of the day the only real way someone will test to see the speed of the system is via benchmarking.

but this is all speculation so far and nothing solid. will see how this thread develops now and may email review sites like anand and firingsquad and point them in this direction.
 
hmm that does seem interesting about the super pi.

since its a unified cache it can slap everything in there and run from the cache since a cache miss hurts performance real bad. so thats why super pi runs really well on conroe un a unrealistic way.

i think when you have lots of multiple apps running the usefulness of the cache starts to die and memory fetches are involved. on die memory controller has far more efficiency and could be whats making up the difference.

again nothing solid here so still need to see how things develop.
 
Don't use things that require too much disk access, cause there's too many variables there. How about you run dual-Prime, a looping demo in FEAR or Q4 or something, then put 4-5 encoding tasks on simultaneously and see on which PC they finish first?
 
Cyber-Mav said:
yes it does do well in that app, but thats only if that app is run on its own and nothing else is running at the same time.
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Of course, if your trying to do 2-3 things at a time with a cpu where one program wants to use up both cpu's to 100% then it will slow down, only natural.

Not sure how a company could make a cpu that only does well at benchmarking, games etc but not at "real" things ;). It's not like the old dodgy driver optimizations that ATI/Nvidia where pulling out for improved 3D scores.
 
OK I've set up folding at home (console version) per the setup guide on this site. (Two version one for each core)

With FAH running I then carried out the original test as before with FAH at home in place of the two primes (so encoding a avi with CCE, burning multiple disks in separate neros) I still get the same result in that the start menu, sub menus and notepad open up instantly.

I then started two primes one on each core, I checked the processes and both FAH sessions went down to around 8-10%. CCE was taking about 40-50% and each prime about 20% each.

Even with everything running the machine was still very reponsive and CS2 loaded up again in 19secs (I used this as an example as CS2 is very disk intensive when loading) disks burned fine. I cranked up the two dvdshrinks again every seemed fine FAH still around 10% CCEs let slip for the dvdshrinks, primes churning along. I am running pretty much every intensive app I can think of twice and running disk intensive stuff at the same time and the system is running fine with no delay in menus/notepade open instantly.

I don't know what kind of performace the folding at home is doing until its finished as I'm using FahMon to monitor. I assume its running OK as both clients are churning away with 50% each in the processes window (after I stopped everything) and the log file has shown its started. Still at 0% through just now.

I think there must be something funny going on with FahMons intel system I still think its down to the drives or maybe the disk controller/drivers etc. It could be simply the disks in the Intel system have a slower seek time than the ones in the amd system or the files aren't balanced out as much.

I am willing to run any other test you want me to however I don't play games so don't have any installed. I can't run anymore CCEs as you can't open the same version twice and I only have two versions installed, I don't have any other encoders installed as CCE is the best encoder I have found.
 
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Hmmm seems theres a lot of reports of conroe's multi threading ability's cropping up..............I shall watch with interest

Im guessing its perhaps to do with the way the processors communicate with the rest of the system (my personal hypothesis), I know AMD's hypertransport is awesome for dual core CPU due to the bandwidth and the way it handles stuff, also on die mem controller. I know intels fsb is 'advanced but old school fsb tech' if that makes sense.........conroe isn't on die mem controller is it ? or is it ?
 
Cyber-Mav said:
i think when you have lots of multiple apps running the usefulness of the cache starts to die and memory fetches are involved. on die memory controller has far more efficiency and could be whats making up the difference.
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That makes sense to me. The relitive influence shifting towards the memory subsystem where the C2D isn't as good as the AMD.
 
Dangerous... Im gflad your system is running so well... Hopefully this can only point to something amiss on mine surely, and I have only good news in front of me.

Right now, I dont though.

Im currently doing some HTML stuff for a friend for his site, Im not doing any hard coding of any kind, both FAH clients of course, and I am using Namo to do the HTML, and guess what? Its pausing the occasional time, perhaps for about 4 to 5 seconds I will click on something and it wont register for a while.

Thats serious.

I am also looking at the teskmanager all the time now and keeping an eye on exactly what gives, and I see that Spyware Doctor takes upa hell of a load. Now the other week, I noticed that when it does its automatic run, even if I am not doing anything else but playing a game, the game becomes jerky as hell. I have not displayed the FPS in these games, but you can see that its dropped to something below about 5 thats for sure... Much like 3DMark2005.

This does not happen on my AMDs, so...

The thing is, that I have gone through the BIOS in this system many times now and sure, its improved here and not there most are the obvious bits to do, some are less obvious, but nothing I have seen ( yet? ) have caused me to have such drastically poor performance?

I know people have pointed out that the Disk access seems to be the issue, and sure, it does sound like it is, however, the disk access in itself is perfectly fine in all areas such as Program loading, Windows startup/shutdown and defragging.

The CPU also in itself is fairly ok... Ok, now that I have gone and overclocked it with the Geil, I have lost a couple of seconds ( Annoying and weird ) with SuperPI, but the figures are indeed reassuring to say that the CPU is on par.

Back to the RAM though?

Im a little concerned at this for a few reasons...

1 - I just simply cannot for the life of me get the RAM to go in very well.
The PC just wont start up, and I often mess about for yonks nudging it that tiny little bit each time... Swapping the corsair for the Geil for example took me just over an hour... Does anyone else have this problem?

2 - The Geil vs Corsair
I have been running it at 400FSB on *** corsair and I have been getting as low as 18 second 1MB SuperPI with the corsair, however, I have thrown the Geil all the way up to 430 and I get nowhere near 18 Seconds... In fact I am getting 21??? - Cant be right surely?

With both of those, could it be possible that my board might simply be faulty?

I have run MEMTEST and it primes 24/7 just fine so its confusing me there.
 
FatRakoon - when you set up FAH did you go into advanced and set the client priority to Idle? It sounds like its set to normal or low from what you describe.
 
Normally I tend to just press return on most things.

However, I did set something the last time I ran it...

I just had a look at the config file on all my clients and on the conroe, priority is set to 96!! - Im sure this is in % on both cores.

The priority option is NOT present in the AMD clients

Ill alter that one and see what happens?
 
It should be an option in both clients. Are you running an X64 version of Windows? Ive got both Intel, not a Conroe but still Intel crunchers and when it asks you whether you would like to configure advanced settings if you go into this it asks for the priority, either low, normal, or idle. Idle is the best one obviously.

If you are running the console none GUI client create a shortcut on the desktop from the FAH_Console.exe file, then goto properties of the shortcut and in the target at the end after the last quotation mark leave a space and write -configonly.

Now when you run the client you will be asked to re-enter your details and you will be given the option to change the advanced settings without losing the status of the current WU.

Regards,
ghgh
 
Im currently running XP Pro but I do also have a XP64 Licence that I have for this PC too and I found that to be a little more reliable, especially when I was trying o actually get Need For Speed games to play without crashing, but at this time, its XP Pro.

Yes, I mean to have a play about, but later on with the AMD & C2D with the FAH priority settings.

Actually, when I want to change any of the settings, I just simply kill off the process in TaskManager, delete the config file and re-run the console... I enter my usual garb and it continues where it left off.

However, if I am doing a basic change, then I drag it into notepad and alter thefile and the next time it starts up, the new settigns will be done.... Thats the idea I was going to look at with the PRIORITY setting... I was going to have one on 5 and the other on 95 and then run DVDSanta as a very quick test and see what it does there ( Hey, It might be usefull might now, oyu dont know till you try do you? )

I was going to do this on the x2-3800, the C2D, and the Opteron ( Why not? )
 
I've got a 4mb Cache conroe, (E6700), and it multitasks really smoothly (XP64 bit edition).

I've not had any issues with the system slowing down much when multitasking. Ok sure if you load both cores to 100%, its clearly not as nippy as when it's idle, but thats because its working flat out.

Corsair memory, Intel BadAxe motherboard, Seagate 7200.10 HDD(non raid)

Its a very nice computer, no complaints at all and smokes all my friends PC's. (except my gf.. she got the exact same setup as me)

Still GPU limited for gaming, but I use my PC for many things, gaming is just one side, and I needed a quick computer.
 
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