Suitable for Home computer?

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 22:03:54 +0200, Jure Sah
wrote:

Windows XP can only use 1.5 GHz at a time

Where are you getting this from?

A_C

spodosaurus pravi:
The setup is:
- CPU: AMD Sempron D 2600+ BOX Socket 754, 64-bit
- Motherboard: K8U, S754 - AMD Sempron, FSB1600, 3xDDR400, AGP 8x,
5xPCI-Ex1, 2x SATA, 2x IDE, SB, 10/100 LAN, ATX
- RAM: DDR 512 MB PC3200 400 MHz

Just how good is this?

'Heavy' 3D gaming doesn't really tell us much because it will either
have enough power for to play a single 3D game acceptably or it won't.

I have a ABIT Siluro FX5200 and it Will have enough power to play many
single 3D games. It is however, just about the ****tyest graphics card
on the market.

If someone in your household is going to want to play games at all, then
you'll probably want a bit higher end system.

Which means what?

Also, the socket 754 line
has been discontinued: there's no upgrade path aside from what remains
on ebay in a year or so's time.

This computer will be used for 4 years, then thrown away and replaced
with a newer one. In 4 years, the motherboard will be just as out-dated
as the CPU.

What you have there is an okay basic
desktop system using outdated hardware that the supplier probably has
excess of.

My supplier does not keep excesses. They order everything direct on demand.

Will it run office and play music? Yes, it'll be fine for
that.

Your comments are most useless. A Pentium 133 MHz will also play music
and run office. I already know that much. I am asking about suitable
performance... does that kind of computer run modern office tasks in a
timely fashion or will the final user loose his nerves on it?

It's not bad, it might even outperform the Athlon 2000+ system I'm
running to type this, but I bought this years and years ago...

I really don't care. I only want a truly convenient computer for a
reasonably low price. I don't care if it's a 486 cluster, if it
outperforms a modern system. And brand is irrelevant. I don't want to
end up paying twice as much again, just because I'm buying Intel on a
newyears eve.

and what
you have listed there is a sempron, a cut down budget CPU, which is why
I said it /might/ outperform my much older Athlon. You could help your
decision making process, and us to advise you, if you pinned down all
that you're wanting to do with this system, if this system is at the
upper limit of your budget, and for the people here in your country: how
much you're being charged for it. I'm in Australia, I don't keep track
of prices overseas, but a shell system with those specs without a
harddrive, monitor and operating system would only run about $250AUD,
and we pay a LOT more for our hardware here AND the exchange rate is
really not in our favour.

Having checked prices for Australia too, I believe your hardware is
about 20% cheaper than here even in components, due to cheaper
transport. However it seems to depend a lot on the supplier. This $250
offer was a PC including everything short of a CD drive, a casing and a
screen, all of which I already have. Brought in components.

In the alternative case, where the computers are brought whole, the
computers cost approx 20% more, built with the cheapest and most ugly,
unpractical and unreliable components.

The computer is going to be a home computer, used to pay your bills on
the Internet, enjoy your favorite MP3s, watch your DVDs, IRC, MSN and
play a random game or two, borrowed from your friends. All this over a
period of 4 years.




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Jure Sah wrote:

I don't know why everybody prefers to criticize over saying something
useful. I asked how good is a "AMD Sempron D 2600+". Now I am also
wondering how good is a "Athlon 64 3000+". What is the actual frequency
of these chips? What are their features and how are those features
utilized by software nowadays? How does their performance compare to
other, say Intel chips?



This link should give you an idea of how the two compa

http://www.c627627.com/AMD/Athlon64/

Agent_C pravi:
Windows XP can only use 1.5 GHz at a time

Where are you getting this from?

Testing. Windows XP can utilize a dualcore system, however: it uses one
core for user applications and the other core for background processes.

You can try it out. Run task manager and set it to display both cores
independently. Then run a CPU intensive application that uses all CPU
power available and you will see one core go up to 100% while the other
stays on around 3%. Then run a CPU intensive background process and you
will see the second core go to 100% and the first core stay on around 3%.

I'm pretty sure Vista does the same thing.

--
Primary function: Coprocessor
Secondary function: Cluster commander

http://www.thought-beacon.net

Pay once per lifetime webhosting:
http://farcomm-it.com/?ref=jsah

We are the paragon of humanity. You may worship us. From afar.

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01000010 01000001 01010011 01001001 01000011

Jure Sah wrote:

Agent_C pravi:

Windows XP can only use 1.5 GHz at a time


Where are you getting this from?


Testing. Windows XP can utilize a dualcore system, however: it uses one
core for user applications and the other core for background processes.

You can try it out. Run task manager and set it to display both cores
independently. Then run a CPU intensive application that uses all CPU
power available and you will see one core go up to 100% while the other
stays on around 3%. Then run a CPU intensive background process and you
will see the second core go to 100% and the first core stay on around 3%.

I'm pretty sure Vista does the same thing.


The application itself must be SMP aware otherwise it gets allocated to one
processor.

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 02:37:48 +0200, Jure Sah
wrote:

Testing. Windows XP can utilize a dualcore system, however: it uses one
core for user applications and the other core for background processes.

That's just incorrect. I can't think of any other way to say it.
Multi-threading is a far more complicated arrangement than that, using
sophisticated software algorithms.

You can try it out. Run task manager and set it to display both cores
independently.

Task Manager does that by default.

Then run a CPU intensive application that uses all CPU
power available and you will see one core go up to 100% while the other
stays on around 3%. Then run a CPU intensive background process and you
will see the second core go to 100% and the first core stay on around 3%.

The only time you might see something like that, is if the particular
software program isn't written to utilize dual processors.

Most CPU intensive applications today are. Take a look at TMPG
rendering an MPG file, on my Intel Dual Core 3.4:

http://tinyurl.com/rntfr

A_C