Xeon 533 FSB or P4 800 FSB ? (Corrected post)

"Manish M." wrote in message
. ..
Hi Guys,

I am planning to build a high performance workstation. So I know I want a
dual chip system with SCSI.

Form Intel's site it appears that Xeon is a better chip BUT the current
Xeon available here in Toronto is mainly 533 MHz FSB.
snip...
Manish M

This article, along with the eight MB comparison article at Tom's Hardware I
referenced before might provide some food for thought:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1403009,00.asp

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On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 01:28:39 -0800, "David Schwartz"
wrote:


"kony" wrote in message
.. .

Dual CPUs are ideal for a high-end workstation running the right apps,
but not worthwhile for any box appropriately called a "PC".

I have strong anecdotal evidence to the contrary. In a previous thread
on a similar subject, numerous people posted that they've switched to
multiprocessor PCs for normal desktop use and have no intention of ever
switching back. The difference is huge.

DS



Most often people are using an older, slower system, then they do this
upgrade... of course it's faster, a single CPU system would be too.

Your "strong anecdotal evidence" is voodoo superstition _IF_ it isn't
based on benchmarks appropriate to the use of the system. There are
benchmarks of real applications that show clearly, only a minor
performance increase (or decrease) in most uses. These are not
isolated synthetic benchamarks, but reproducible (and reproduced) many
many times. If you have benchmarks to the contrary that are confirmed
by a 3rd party then supply them, we're always hungry for more data.


Dave

"kony" wrote in message
...

I have strong anecdotal evidence to the contrary. In a previous
thread
on a similar subject, numerous people posted that they've switched to
multiprocessor PCs for normal desktop use and have no intention of ever
switching back. The difference is huge.

Most often people are using an older, slower system, then they do this
upgrade... of course it's faster, a single CPU system would be too.

Not in the cases I'm personally familiar with. In these cases, a person
inherits a server that was obsoleted and uses it a desktop machine. I have a
dual P3-1Ghz and dual P3-750 machine that I inherited in just this way.
They're more usable desktops than a single CPU P4-3Ghz.

Your "strong anecdotal evidence" is voodoo superstition _IF_ it isn't
based on benchmarks appropriate to the use of the system. There are
benchmarks of real applications that show clearly, only a minor
performance increase (or decrease) in most uses. These are not
isolated synthetic benchamarks, but reproducible (and reproduced) many
many times. If you have benchmarks to the contrary that are confirmed
by a 3rd party then supply them, we're always hungry for more data.

How do you benchmark productivity and frustration? Seriously, sit down
in front of a dual-CPU desktop and try some normal tasks. You will rapidly
by astonished by the absence of frustrating periods of non-responsiveness
that you didn't even realize were there. Kind of like how you don't notice
cars exhaust until you come back from a place that has no cars.

DS

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 14:14:31 -0800, "David Schwartz"
wrote:


"kony" wrote in message
.. .

I have strong anecdotal evidence to the contrary. In a previous
thread
on a similar subject, numerous people posted that they've switched to
multiprocessor PCs for normal desktop use and have no intention of ever
switching back. The difference is huge.

Most often people are using an older, slower system, then they do this
upgrade... of course it's faster, a single CPU system would be too.

Not in the cases I'm personally familiar with. In these cases, a person
inherits a server that was obsoleted and uses it a desktop machine. I have a
dual P3-1Ghz and dual P3-750 machine that I inherited in just this way.
They're more usable desktops than a single CPU P4-3Ghz.

You have a serious configuration problem then, a single P4 3Ghz will
run circles around a dual P3 750-1000 even when running multiple
high-CPU demand apps.

If you have applications that inproperly assign high priority that
would explain it, but the "fix" is not more CPUs, it's decent
software.



Your "strong anecdotal evidence" is voodoo superstition _IF_ it isn't
based on benchmarks appropriate to the use of the system. There are
benchmarks of real applications that show clearly, only a minor
performance increase (or decrease) in most uses. These are not
isolated synthetic benchamarks, but reproducible (and reproduced) many
many times. If you have benchmarks to the contrary that are confirmed
by a 3rd party then supply them, we're always hungry for more data.

How do you benchmark productivity and frustration? Seriously, sit down
in front of a dual-CPU desktop and try some normal tasks. You will rapidly
by astonished by the absence of frustrating periods of non-responsiveness
that you didn't even realize were there. Kind of like how you don't notice
cars exhaust until you come back from a place that has no cars.

The systems must have very significant configuration problems to see
"non-responsiveness". On a properly working single-CPU system, the
CPU can run at 100% load on a task and be immediately responsive on
another, so long as the former isn't inproperly assigned a priority
higher than it should have. This is not a performance benefit from
the 2nd CPU in normal use, it's a software problem that still isn't
fixed.

If you simply cannot do without the buggy software or would rather
throw $$$ into a dual CPU system than the time to resolve the problem,
that's your choice, if your time is THAT valuable it might even be the
right choice for that specific situation, but it is NOT a performance
benefit per se, it is a pseudo-patch for bad code.


Dave

"kony" wrote in message
...

The systems must have very significant configuration problems to see
"non-responsiveness". On a properly working single-CPU system, the
CPU can run at 100% load on a task and be immediately responsive on
another, so long as the former isn't inproperly assigned a priority
higher than it should have. This is not a performance benefit from
the 2nd CPU in normal use, it's a software problem that still isn't
fixed.

I should point that I'm specifically talking about PC hardware running
Windows operating systems.

DS

"David Schwartz" wrote
in :
No specific application support is needed for dual processors.
The OS has sufficient support to get much of the benefit of dual
processors whether or not the application was designed with dual
processors in mind.

If all you want is a faster mass storage subsystem, use RAID. From what
I've seen of the benchmarks at tomshardware.com, programs that don't use
nor cannot use dual processors don't benefit much (and, like you said,
it's probably the OS that got sped up so the apps tag along on the coat
tails of the OS speedup). Lots of money for little benefit. Remember
to not just look at the numbers but the percentage of difference in
performance versus the percentage of difference you pay.

I have heard only a single example of a program that didn't work
correctly on an SMP machine and that wasn't a game. I also know of one
driver, but an alternate driver was available. Do you have any
examples to back this up?

I'm still playing Thief Gold and Thief 2. I like stealth. In a forum
that I frequent, other users got new dual processor systems and were
forced to assign the game to just one processor to get the game to play.
Since I haven't bothered wasting lots of my money on little performance
gain (i.e., no real bang for the buck), I personally haven't bothered
with dual processor systems. I'm not running CAD, file servers, huge
databases with thousands of consecutive user connects, etc.

The other processor will not sit idle. It will do all the other
things that need to be done. The graphics driver will use it. The
disk driver will use it. The network driver will use it. In fact, you
may see a very significant benefit as the game application isn't
constantly interrupted to service peripherals.

Of the other games that I play, they don't much go back to the hard
drive. Usually you get to a spot where there is a separation in the
gameplay, like changing levels or missions and there's a big load at
that time from the hard drive. Otherwise, during gameplay, I see the
hard drive light flash very little.


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"*Vanguard*" wrote in message
news:zafAb.313885$ao4.1070369@attbi_s51...

If all you want is a faster mass storage subsystem, use RAID.

No, I want a smoother mass storage subsystem.

From what
I've seen of the benchmarks at tomshardware.com, programs that don't use
nor cannot use dual processors don't benefit much (and, like you said,
it's probably the OS that got sped up so the apps tag along on the coat
tails of the OS speedup).

Humans don't just do one thing at a time. It's called "Windows", not
"Window".

Lots of money for little benefit. Remember
to not just look at the numbers but the percentage of difference in
performance versus the percentage of difference you pay.

Try using a dual-CPU system running Windows for a day. Do ordinary
tasks. Then switch back.

DS

rec.arts.anime.misc*Vanguard* wrote:

The Pentium 4 Extreme is *NOT* Intel's next Intel Pentium 5 (dubbed
Prescott). It's a repackaged processor they already had! They wanted
to fold the Xeon family under the much better known Pentium 4 brand
name. You haven't gotten used to Microsoft's hype yet? Athlon finally
comes out with their 65-bit processor and steals the news, so Microsoft
takes an existing 64-bit processor that they've had for awhile and slaps
on a new name to give it some press to dampen Athlon's thunder. They
wanted something to announce for the Christmas crowd.

You lost me... where does Microsoft come in on this?

Your "strong anecdotal evidence" is voodoo superstition _IF_ it isn't
based on benchmarks appropriate to the use of the system. There are
benchmarks of real applications that show clearly, only a minor
performance increase (or decrease) in most uses. These are not
isolated synthetic benchamarks, but reproducible (and reproduced) many
many times. If you have benchmarks to the contrary that are confirmed
by a 3rd party then supply them, we're always hungry for more data.

Unfortunately it very hard to benchmark human factors like
responsiveness. And like quantum physics, measuring changes the results.
You can come closer to a non-impact measure with a system like Linux,
where you can put low impact data points in the kernel source, but even
there you need to get the et between events, and that has some impact
just by doing a high resolution get_date operation.

Having a few dozen people try A then B and give an opinion which is
better and "a little" or "a lot" is more reliable, but harder because
you can't run one test on one machine and then say "the number prove
it!" You don't benchmark which food tastes better, and it's equally hard
to prove "feels smoother" with a benchmark.

I was considering Xeon vs P4 for a webserver a while ago. The only
thing that really differentiates a Xeon with a P3 is the cache. I
found P3s with 512kb cache, and thought they should be sufficient for
my web and application server. Havent done any benchmarks, but going
Xeon shouldnt give you a very big difference. Remember the Xeon came
out with the P3, and was for the people who would pay a lot more for a
little more power.

As for the P4 vs P3, I really dont know. Theres the P4 Xeon, and then
theres the good but hot Athlon.

I had also been browsing some Ultra160 SCSI cards and their disks,
along with their response times, cache, throughput etc. Turns out they
equivalent to the cheaper and much larger SATA150 disks. I looked into
some 15K rpm Ultra320 disks but could never justify the cost. If you
plan to go Ultra160, might as well head for SATA and some 7200 disk
with 8mb cache and low response time.

Above 400fsb I think the bottleneck is the disk and CPU, and other PCI
cards in the system. I wouldnt recommend going all the way to 800fsb
while getting weaker CPU performance.