REPOST: Compare Dual P3-866 or single P4 2.4

[Mike O.]

I posted this last Friday, but have seen no comments.. This is Usenet, everyone has an opinion!

Maybe I should have titled it something like "Compare Dual Sheep to Single Ram"....

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Here's the situation:

I have a be7 based system with a P4-2.4b, 533fSB, 512M of PC3200DDR. I'm overclocking to 2.52Ghz, with the RAM running at 186Mhz.

I use the system for some photo editing (as a hobby, not professional), some games, general stuff (office, internet, etc.). This is running XP Pro

I have an offer for a free VP6 motherboard with dual, matched P3-866's & 768 of SDRAM. I'm going to accecpt the offer (I'm not stupid!), but I was wondering which system would be higher performing. One system will be going to my son, but I'm not sure which one.

My feeling is that they would be pretty close, with the BE7 being somewhat higher; the faster CPU/FSB speed on the BE7 would offset the advantages of the dual CPU. Also, the BE7 has 6 USB2 ports vs the 4 USB1.1 on the VP6. I also realize the VP6 has a RAID controller, but that's not a big deal for me.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Mike O.

 

[Jerry Polyak]

Rams have handles on their head to hold on to.

Mike O. wrote:

I posted this last Friday, but have seen no comments.. This is Usenet, everyone has an opinion!

Maybe I should have titled it something like "Compare Dual Sheep to Single Ram"....

--------------------------------------------------------------

Here's the situation:

I have a be7 based system with a P4-2.4b, 533fSB, 512M of PC3200DDR. I'm overclocking to 2.52Ghz, with the RAM running at 186Mhz. ...

 

[0_Qed]

Jerry Polyak wrote:

Rams have handles on their head to hold on to.

Gotta 'ask' ...
what do Ewes have to hold on to ... ???

I was always taught to stick the rear legs in my rubber boots.

Qed.

PS- You're really preverted ... rams.
. Shame on you.
. <VBFG>

 

[Colon Terminus]

For the few programs that can take advantage of the dual procs, they'll be pretty close in performance. In all other situations, the P4 will win hands down.

That's based strictly on time from job start to job finish. There's a lot more to it than that.

I have a VP6 with dual 1000s OCd to 1100, 1GB RAM and a 160GB RAID 0. I also have a BE7 RAID with a 3.06 P4 also with 1 GB RAM and a 240GB RAID 0. The P4 has Hyperthreading disabled in BIOS, 'cause it's running Win2K as is the VP6.

When doing an Mpeg encode on a 5-7 GB input file with software thats multiprocessor aware, the systems finish in almost a dead heat. There's not more'n a cuppla minutes difference in time from job start to job finish. And we're talking about several hours to do the encode.

In almost every respect though, the P4 just stomps the shit outta the P3 dualie. Its WAY faster in games and EVERY "single task" oriented environment.

Now comes the strange part. My favorite computer and the one I use in almost all my daily work, is the P3 dualie. A dual processor machine is S M O O T H. It NEVER misses a beat. There's NEVER a wait for anything. I keep several large programs open all day, Corel Draw, Corel PhotoPaint, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, Microsoft Word, Visual Basic and a professional Bitmap Masking program. Switching between them is effortless, fast, never a pause, never a hiccup. If one task goes haywire and starts hogging 100% of its processor, no problem ... I've got another entire processor that'll respond to Task Manager and let me kill the runaway process. Silky S M O O T H, efficient, fast and effective.

The P4 doesn't have the same FEEL. Its fast, but klunky when heavily loaded. Not so, the dualie.

"Mike O." wrote:

I posted this last Friday, but have seen no comments.. This is Usenet, everyone has an opinion!

Maybe I should have titled it something like "Compare Dual Sheep to Single Ram"....

--------------------------------------------------------------

Here's the situation:

I have a be7 based system with a P4-2.4b, 533fSB, 512M of PC3200DDR. I'm overclocking to 2.52Ghz, with the RAM running at 186Mhz. ... that's not a big deal for me.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Mike O.

 

[Jerry Polyak]

Nothing, hence the velcro gloves....

0_Qed wrote:

Gotta 'ask' ...
what do Ewes have to hold on to ... ???

I was always taught to stick the rear legs in my rubber boots.

Qed.

PS- You're really preverted ... rams.
. Shame on you.
. <VBFG>

 

[Mike O.]

Thanks for the input, sounds about like I figured.

There wasn't any doubt I was going to accept the offer, but the question was whether I would us it as "my" machine and pass the BE7 to my son, or just set up the VP6 for him. Either way, it gets him up from a BE6/Celeron 500, so he'll be happy... The main issue I had was that I've pretty much got the the BE7 system set up the way I like it, stable config, all my programs installed, etc. Unless I was going to see a big improvement, I really didn't want to go through all the installation & config stuff. Also, I'm using the extra USB ports the BE7 has, and will probably start using the USB2.0 features soon.

Now if only someone would give me a free dual P4 motherboard....

Thanks again.

PS, It's amazing all the other responses I got as soon as I put the word "sheep" in the title...

Mike O.

"Colon Terminus" wrote:

For the few programs that can take advantage of the dual procs, they'll be pretty close in performance. In all other situations, the P4 will win hands down.

That's based strictly on time from job start to job finish. There's a lot more to it than that.

I have a VP6 with dual 1000s OCd to 1100, 1GB RAM and a 160GB RAID 0. I also have a BE7 RAID with a 3.06 P4 also with 1 GB RAM and a 240GB RAID 0. The P4 has Hyperthreading disabled in BIOS, 'cause it's running Win2K as is the VP6.

...

 

[Jens C. Hansen [Odense]]

Mike O. wrote:

Now if only someone would give me a free dual P4 motherboard....

P4 doesn't run in dual configurations.
For that you need P4 Xeons, which are Socket 603 or 604. In 6-10 years, _maybe_ you can find a dual P4 Xeon mobo for free..

 

[Homie]

Hello,
When you are ready to put the VP6 to work, you may want to consider the service that I offer (considering the price you paid, it would be a good investment). The board will be more stable and run cooler. I change all caps rated 1000uf and above (plus several others on VP6's), change some component values, clean & test the board with matched CPU's , the price includes return shipping and a one year warranty. $55.00