PII vs PIII

Great even more claims and nothing to back them up.

You haven't done any backing up, either. All you've done is say "I was at
someone's site and saw some benchmarks, dood!"

We have experience with SMP systems, and you don't. You'll understand, of
course, if we find it hard to take you seriously.

Are you starting to get the picture yet. Why are there all these
claims
about dual CPU systems and nothing to confirm them with. The fact is their
slow and not worth the money spent for the desktop regardless of what is
said about them.

Translation: "I'm too poor to buy an SMP system, I've never used one, and
I think I know what I'm talking about."

steve

In article ,
Lane Lewis wrote:

"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote in message
...
snip


Why do you keep asking about benchmarks? Who said anything about
benchmarks? Dual processor machines are about twice as fast on Photoshop
filters than a single processor of the same type, those sorts of stats
get thrown around comp.sys.mac.advocacy now and then. But we're not
talking about number crunching speed.

Dual machines make good servers and
ok single app workstations but they are terrible desktop machines.

Everyone I've talked to (including people in real life) seem to think that
dual processor machines make wonderful desktop machines -- smoother and
more responsive. And faster. Certainly faster even for a single
application if it's multithreaded, but also just because it doesn't have
the operating systme interrupting it all the time.

Two processors versus a single processor of the same type, of course. Two
processors of half the clock speed as the single processor may or may not
be as fast depending on things like how well factored the code is and how
important it is to have twice the cache. It depends on what you're doing
with it.

I happen to have a machine sitting beside me that I can plug a second
processor into. Can't think of a reason not to.

Great even more claims and nothing to back them up.

[qt]
"Dual processor machines are about twice as fast on Photoshop filters
than a single processor of the same type."
[end]

It's something I saw from benchmark tests quoted on comp.sys.mac.advocacy.
They're always arguing about PowerPC versus x86 performance over there.
But I can't think of a reason to track down the reference for you. Feel
free to follow up on it yourself, though.


This one here is blatantly false, nothing runs twice as fast on a dual
machine due to overhead. At best you might see a 10 percent improvement and
a 1.2 gig single will smoke a dual 600 in loading and processing Photoshop
filters.

You just made that up. If there were *that* much overhead, nobody would
be making 4000 processor supercomputers! There's overhead when a single
processor switches from one task to another, too, you know.

I could believe a mere 10 percent improvement or less if you're running
only one, single-threaded task. And I think it was only recently that
Windows got decent multithreading, so it would be only recently that
Windows could take real advantage of more than one processor. But that
has nothing to do with overhead. Maybe for what you do (video games?)
there's little to be gained. But when you're doing more than one thing
at a time (e.g. background tasks, multiple users), or have a problem that
can be factored and multithreaded, there can be a substantial advantage
to having as many processors as you can get.

There's also the matter that if your data sets are so large or your cache
so small that you have to hit main memory all the time, you're going to be
slowed down by how fast you can push data through. If you're data-starved
at 850 MHz, then it won't do you any good to push the clock speed higher
than that, will it? You must know that, all else being equal, performance
just doesn't scale linearly with clock speed.

And all performance arguments aside, if everyone that uses multiprocessor
machines say they're smoother and more responsive in user interface
issues, why would you think it isn't so?


Are you starting to get the picture yet. Why are there all these claims
about dual CPU systems and nothing to confirm them with. The fact is their
slow and not worth the money spent for the desktop regardless of what is
said about them.

The picture I see is that dual processor machines bug you for some reason,
but you know little about them and have no references of your own to
support your claims, so you're trying to assume an air of faux scholarship
by demanding references from everyone else and hoping they don't notice
you're making **** up.

I can't help thinking your knowledge of multiprocessing comes from
Quake frame rates, and that you're missing the subtle point that it
depends on what you're trying to do.
--
"Is that plutonium on your gums?"
"Shut up and kiss me!"
-- Marge and Homer Simpson

You're telling me that when you run X, and you have the X server trying
to get CPU time, your app trying to get CPU time, your kernel using CPU
time for disk I/O, your kernel using CPU time for network I/O, and quite
a
few others, that one CPU is going to get left idle? Like I said, you've
never used a dual-CPU desktop, have you? Go home and play with your
toys.

steve

I'm telling you for the second time here to back up your statements.

I've made plenty of assertions, you've ignored every one. I've asked you
questions, you've refused to answer them.

Why did
you ignore the first request. Are you one of those people who thinks they
can make any claim they want and never have to support those claims.
Theories are nice, facts are better.

I've stated plenty of facts. You've ignored every one of them. You've
ignored the increased responsiveness of the APIC circuitry vs. the PIC
circuitry. You've ignored my facts about interrupt flooding. I have no
reason to believe that you are going to accept any other facts I've stated.
You just keep ignoring them.

I'll bet that you read Tom's Hardware a lot, don't you?

steve

SMP takes some load of the foirst CPU and makes it possible for one CPU
to
deal with real time data and enables other to go for performance.

ALL my machines will be at least dual CPU in future (workstations,
servers
etc). I'm still waiting for a decent dual CPU Opteron board for good
price...

And even more nonsense, but not even one website, datasheet, review,
anything to back up any of their claims.

There is absolutely nothing there that is nonsense. You make a lot of
noise about not backing up our statements, but you have not *once* given a
single bit of evidence to back up your position, you simply say "nonsense".

Does anyone else start to see a pattern here. The reason they can't
provide
any proof is because it doesn't exist.

I'm seeing a pattern. You've never used an SMP desktop system, and you
ignore all of the facts we provide.

steve

"John-Paul Stewart" wrote in message
...
Lane Lewis wrote:

This one here is blatantly false, nothing runs twice as fast on a
dual
machine due to overhead. At best you might see a 10 percent improvement
and
a 1.2 gig single will smoke a dual 600 in loading and processing
Photoshop
filters.

If you're so adamant that others post evidence, it is high time for you
to do likewise. You keep making claims with *nothing* to back them up.
Prove your case (thereby disproving ours) by posting *your* evidence.

As to my own evidence that dual CPU's are faster than a single one, let
us take a look at kernel compile times on a dual 3.06GHz Xeon system.
Using only one of the two CPUs it took 2mins 42sec to compile my test
kernel. Using both CPUs, the compile time dropped to 1min 29sec.
That's about an 80% speedup on that task. Get it?


Sorry, but they made the assertion its their job to back it up. I'll
post any contradictory evidence as soon as they post the evidence to back up
their claims which were made first.

Do you really want to defend the nonsense quoted below. I think people
should take some kind of responsibility for what they post here. People come
here looking for honest advice to build a new system or upgrade or repair an
old one. Do you believe its OK to give false or misleading information. I
didn't request his advice by any means, he took it upon himself to educate
me on the wonders of dual CPU system with a bunch of nonsense that he in no
way could back up. Then instead of admitting his mistake he tried to cover
it up with even more nonsense. If you want to help your friend it might be
best to explain to him what he did that was wrong rather than jump on me.

[qt]
I have a dual Pentium 133 that is still *very* useable as a desktop, be
it under Linux or NT. A Pentium 233 would not be as usable.
[qt]
In fact, given the choice for a desktop system where I wasn't going to play
3D games, I'm much prefer a dual P3/600 over a 1.4 celeron.
[qt]
You can take a single-CPU system and flood the processor with
interrupts, and while the processer does very little actual work, the
machine will slow to a crawl.


Lane

But since Opterons are around corner, I'll better wait for one decent
board
and stick two 24x in it...


Still no benchmarks
Still no real world tests

I told you about real-world performance that I've encountered. You
ignored it. Why should I expect anything different?

Still no stats
Still no reviews

Just because it isn't on your favorite fan-boy benchmark site doesn't mean
that there aren't any reviews. When you said that nothing took advantage of
the second CPU, and I pointed out just how many processes are actually
trying to get CPU time, you ignored it.

Please, oh great one who knows everything. Expound to us the cost of
context-switching on x86 hardware, the effects of high levels of interrupts,
and the difference between PIC and APIC interrupt handling.

steve

"Steve Wolfe" wrote in message
news:1065901901.201638@cache1...

Great even more claims and nothing to back them up.

You haven't done any backing up, either. All you've done is say "I was
at
someone's site and saw some benchmarks, dood!"

We have experience with SMP systems, and you don't. You'll understand,
of
course, if we find it hard to take you seriously.

Are you starting to get the picture yet. Why are there all these
claims
about dual CPU systems and nothing to confirm them with. The fact is
their
slow and not worth the money spent for the desktop regardless of what is
said about them.

Translation: "I'm too poor to buy an SMP system, I've never used one,
and
I think I know what I'm talking about."

steve


Actually I've owned two.

And where are the stats to back up what you said?

Lane

"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Lane Lewis wrote:

"Gregory L. Hansen" wrote in message
...
snip


Why do you keep asking about benchmarks? Who said anything about
benchmarks? Dual processor machines are about twice as fast on
Photoshop
filters than a single processor of the same type, those sorts of stats
get thrown around comp.sys.mac.advocacy now and then. But we're not
talking about number crunching speed.

Dual machines make good servers and
ok single app workstations but they are terrible desktop machines.

Everyone I've talked to (including people in real life) seem to think
that
dual processor machines make wonderful desktop machines -- smoother and
more responsive. And faster. Certainly faster even for a single
application if it's multithreaded, but also just because it doesn't
have
the operating systme interrupting it all the time.

Two processors versus a single processor of the same type, of course.
Two
processors of half the clock speed as the single processor may or may
not
be as fast depending on things like how well factored the code is and
how
important it is to have twice the cache. It depends on what you're
doing
with it.

I happen to have a machine sitting beside me that I can plug a second
processor into. Can't think of a reason not to.

Great even more claims and nothing to back them up.

[qt]
"Dual processor machines are about twice as fast on Photoshop filters
than a single processor of the same type."
[end]

It's something I saw from benchmark tests quoted on comp.sys.mac.advocacy.
They're always arguing about PowerPC versus x86 performance over there.
But I can't think of a reason to track down the reference for you. Feel
free to follow up on it yourself, though.


This one here is blatantly false, nothing runs twice as fast on a
dual
machine due to overhead. At best you might see a 10 percent improvement
and
a 1.2 gig single will smoke a dual 600 in loading and processing
Photoshop
filters.

You just made that up. If there were *that* much overhead, nobody would
be making 4000 processor supercomputers! There's overhead when a single
processor switches from one task to another, too, you know.

I could believe a mere 10 percent improvement or less if you're running
only one, single-threaded task. And I think it was only recently that
Windows got decent multithreading, so it would be only recently that
Windows could take real advantage of more than one processor. But that
has nothing to do with overhead. Maybe for what you do (video games?)
there's little to be gained. But when you're doing more than one thing
at a time (e.g. background tasks, multiple users), or have a problem that
can be factored and multithreaded, there can be a substantial advantage
to having as many processors as you can get.

There's also the matter that if your data sets are so large or your cache
so small that you have to hit main memory all the time, you're going to be
slowed down by how fast you can push data through. If you're data-starved
at 850 MHz, then it won't do you any good to push the clock speed higher
than that, will it? You must know that, all else being equal, performance
just doesn't scale linearly with clock speed.

And all performance arguments aside, if everyone that uses multiprocessor
machines say they're smoother and more responsive in user interface
issues, why would you think it isn't so?


Are you starting to get the picture yet. Why are there all these
claims
about dual CPU systems and nothing to confirm them with. The fact is
their
slow and not worth the money spent for the desktop regardless of what is
said about them.

The picture I see is that dual processor machines bug you for some reason,
but you know little about them and have no references of your own to
support your claims, so you're trying to assume an air of faux scholarship
by demanding references from everyone else and hoping they don't notice
you're making **** up.

I can't help thinking your knowledge of multiprocessing comes from
Quake frame rates, and that you're missing the subtle point that it
depends on what you're trying to do.

All that and still nothing to back it up.

The problem with Photoshop is the software, though its smp capable you will
never see a big improvement in processing. Dual machines have no advantage
to a single machine that has an equal amount of processing power and with up
to 20 percent of overhead will show a definite disadvantage.

Lane

Lane Lewis wrote:

Sorry, but they made the assertion its their job to back it up.

*You* have also made assertions. It is your job to back up *those*
assertions. For example, in Message ID
(the first one to which
I replied) you made the assertion:

At best you might see a 10 percent improvement

If you're going to be critical of people for not backing up their
assertions *you* *must* do likewise. Cite sources, post benchmark
figures. Otherwise you're just trolling.

"Steve Wolfe" wrote in message
news:1065901899.584648@cache1...

The computers I own are none of your business.

Back up your statements or retract them its that simple. If you can't
back
up what you say then don't say it to begin with or at least have the
honesty
to say its your opinion.

Please follow your own advice, and tell me how many dual-CPU desktops
you
use.

None, right?

steve

[qt]
I have a dual Pentium 133 that is still *very* useable as a desktop, be
it under Linux or NT. A Pentium 233 would not be as usable.
[end]

Do you really believe this nonsense.

Lane