I am looking for the absolute best performance for the price range I am in. I let the salesman talk me out of dual 2.4G Xeons because the xeons are running almost half the front side bus speed (533 instead of 800).
good choice. go with the 800mhz fsb and hyperthreading. PS recognizes and takes advantage of it.
What kind of price range are you in?
Perhaps you are an Intel man, but I kow that you can get a better performing system with AMD and save some money on the CPU at the same time.
Check out this page:
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http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30 _118_3734_3750,00.html>
It shows a better performance with the Hyperthreading turned off.
I hope you are getting a custom built system and not some off the assebly line jobby.
What DrJ said.
Hyperthreading still works on the very same, very busy, buss… if an application is I/O bound anyway, trying to reuse idle parts of the CPU for another thread will likely not accomplish much… except make the CPU very warm.
Current model AMD processors have shorter pipelines and better throughput for I/O intensive tasks, especially those CPUs with "64" in their names. And they haven’t been known to burst into flame for the last several years.
With the recent Athlon XP3000-based, low-end Compaq system I bought and then upgraded with additional parts, I’ve got a configuration (Athlon XP3000, 1GB PC2700 DDRAM, 160GB ATA100 drive, 160GB SATA drive, 256MB nVidia GeForce 5700 video, Audigy 2 LS sound) similar to what DrJ has, and I’ve been quite pleased with the performance, but I’m also rather anxious to build a higher-end system using a hyperthreaded Pentium 4. I may ultimately change my mind and stick with AMD, but I doubt it, unless perhaps I go with the Athlon 64. That’s not to say the Athlons are bad at all, but where I’ve been running a dual 550MHz P3 system and enjoy the freedom it gave me, with good performance in one busy process while another is active, I’m hopeful that a single, hyperthreaded CPU will at least offer some measure of that. I don’t expect full dual-CPU performance, but seeing how this Athlon XP3000 still bogs down somewhat in running other apps while burning a DVD, I’m just inclined to believe hyperthreading might give an edge there. I could be wrong of course. I didn’t buy the system for Photoshop use, but it performs admirably there and just further teases me to build a higher-end system to replace my old tank. In the long run, I don’t think one can go wrong with either platform, Intel or AMD, but each will have certain advantages over the other.
Regards,
Daryl
Hyperthreading isn’t the same thing as dual core. Hyperthreading uses a single core, and shares resources between two threads. Wait, and Intel will be releasing real dual core CPUs.
Thanks. So now there are 2 diverging opinions. One from an Adobe employee that says turn hyperthreading on, two others that think along the lines I was thinking re: memory I/O bandwidth being maxxed – no matter how many "cpu"s are running. I guess I shouldn’t be suprised.
As far as Intel vs. AMD: I have always liked Intel hardware and the motherboards that go along with it. I have just had better luck. I also told the salesman that I do not want "bleeding edge" hardware. I want proven stability (that means no "64" in the name) – It does me no good to have a machine that goes a "million miles/hour" and then crashes every hour. That’s why the system is not the latest/greatest. (No pci-express for me yet – either)
64 bit has a long way to go for the WinXX, IMO. It’s not just the OS, but there will probably never be 64 bit drivers for old/existing hardware. What possible incentives to manufacturers have to rewrite drivers for existing hardware to support 64 bit? I won’t be making a move to 64 bit for several years.
The 2 biggest impediments to performance IMO are (in order): CPU<->Memory Bandwidth, Disk I/O, Video<->Memory Bandwidth. Disk I/O justs kills everything. Whether it’s due to system swapping or PS swapping, it’s still swapping.
Even with 64-bit OS, the bits still get written out to the disk 8bits at a time or in the case of S-ATA, 1 bit at a time – albeit at 1.5 GHZ. Give me fast Disk I/O anytime.
My price range is/was (USD)$1500 for the system.
I didn’t see an Adobe employee in this thread. Did I miss somethin’?
Maybe I am mistaken, I thought Dave Milbut is/was, but perhaps not.. Sorry.
No, Dave doesn’t work for Adobe. He’s just in New Jersey. It’s easy to see why you made that mistake.
Dave doesn’t work for Adobe. He’s just in New Jersey. It’s easy to see why you made that mistake.
LMAO!
Dave just thinks he works for Adobe.
I’m no expert, but from what I can see I would avoid the hyperthreading. Of course you can always disable it at a later time can’t you?
Dave just thinks he works for Adobe.
???
I’m no expert, but from what I can see I would avoid the hyperthreading.
um, nope.
Of course you can always disable it at a later time can’t you?
there’s no reason to cripple a great processor.
Dude, I had no idea that hyperthreading would not be as fast! WOW. I mean I thought it would make a system rock but not acording to that page DrJohnD linked.
I hve hyper threading on my laptop and it crashes every time i use PS CS i have a HP 7140 but HP and adobe are supposed to be looking into the problem with the 7000 series computers hell i’m going and buy amd 64 it worked way better than this crap its only 2 months old
I mean I thought it would make a system rock but not acording to that page DrJohnD linked.
you mean the one sponsored by AMD?
hint: it’s always the political season in the microprocessor wars.
I’m telling you that judging by the one under my desk, hyperthreading DOES INDEED rock.
here’s the other side of the coin:
You mean the one sponsored by Intel?
hint: it’s always the political season in the microprocessor wars.
Yup.
…hyperthreading DOES INDEED rock.
Of course, at mongo-gigahertz, just about everything does.
Of course, at mongo-gigahertz, just about everything does.
finally… TROOF!
Dave,
That Intel page you linked to did not show any comparison to other chips on the market. I wonder why that is? 😉
cuz they’re the best. there IS no other comparison… 🙂
"I’m no expert, but from what I can see I would avoid the hyperthreading. Of course you can always disable it at a later time can’t you? "
Well, actually when installing the OS, if you are going to use hyperthreading, MS recommends to have it enabled before starting the installation, that way XP can detect and install all of the necessary things. Possibly after installing it, one might be able to disable, I just don’t know.
When someone says "Hyperthreading Rocks", can you be more specific, any benchmarks with/without? – and, what the actual test was. I am not interested in CPU wars, just want to know if the net-net is faster or not on Intel P4.
The machine is here and I am ready to start installing XP and all of the other apps…..just need to decide.
When someone says "Hyperthreading Rocks",
A colloquialism for "It’s paid for, and I’m happy with it."
If you already have a Hyperthreading CPU, it often gives 3% to 20% better performance, and only it rarely causes any slow-down. Enable it if you have it, and see if everything is fine–it probably will be.
The only downside I can see is that it does cause the CPU to run hot–but it was designed for that.
When someone says "Hyperthreading Rocks", can you be more specific, any benchmarks with/without? – and, what the actual test was. I am not interested in CPU wars, just want to know if the net-net is faster or not on Intel P4.
faster than what? you’ve already got the machine. is it faster with hyperthreading on than off? yes!!! Is it faster than the same speed chip without hyperthreading? yes!!!
The machine is here and I am ready to start installing XP and all of the other apps…..just need to decide.
if you’ve already got a machine with hyperthreading leave it on.
A colloquialism for "It’s paid for, and I’m happy with it."
that’s a funny (and by that i mean unfunny) way to put it.
