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doom2day

Cpu Debate

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------------------------------------
Somehow this thread evolved from
having other people evaluate my
computer to a debate on modern
cpu's.
------------------------------------
Compaq Presario 17" flat screen monitor
Intel Celeron D Processor 330 2.66 GHz
760 MB DDR SDRAM
Built-in (DVD+RW/CD-RW)
80 GB hard drive
9-in-1 memory card reader
Integrated 10/100Base-T networking interface
Integrated Intel Extreme Graphics with up to 64 MB shared video memory
High speed V.92 56K flex modem
Presario USB powered analog speakers

Available Slots: 2 PCI
Available External Ports: 5 USB 2.0; one serial; one parallel;
Available Bays: one 5.25"

Yeah... Any suggestions for new computers(Within the price-range of a teenager preparing to go to college)?

-2nd edit
On a second thought... It would make an excellent file server... and I could just copy everything on it's hard drive onto a new computer if it did have vista by chance....

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Better than mine.

Ok, mine's five years old.

doom2day said:

Yeah... Any suggestions for new computers(Within the price-range of a teenager preparing to go to college)?

It all really depends on what you're looking for. You want to max out performance for gaming, or are you looking for multimedia add-ons to enhance your daily routine? And are you happy with a desktop? Laptops tend to be far more practical for college kids.

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Well it BARELY runs doom3... I dare not hope too much on getting newer games to work....
Supposedly there is 2 512MB ram sticks in there but... yeah..

What should I do first???? Should I get a new computer? A new video card? or shell out about 200 to upgrade to 2gb ram?
What's wrong with carrying around a computer, monitor, and power supply with me? It would probably be lighter than my backpack...

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What the heck is wrong with that one for college? External hard drive maybe? Or as mentioned above, a laptop to interface with that one would be an interesting thought.

Edit:

we posted at about the same time. I thought the issue was college. the bottle neck for doom3 is most likely your video card. Have you looked at all the tweaks to make doom 3 run better?

Mr Practical says: a laptop is a good choice for college.

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I still have a year and a half if that really matters. I just don't feel satisfied with it anymore and I don't know what to get next. Should I bother upgrading it or just buy something new? Laptop or desktop? How much memory to settle for? What should I settle for in terms of a CPU? What about a video card? Which company should I buy from? Or should I try to make my own? Should I even tolerate Vista? So many questions and so little time... I just want something better than this and this computer doesn't really seem to meet any standards for today's games.

And I need some help answering these questions, I am thinking that someone out there could help
The c&c3 demo says either i need directx 9 (I checked dxdiag and i have 9.0c) or a new video card

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NO agp slots, but how to tell if there is a pcie slot? are they the same as normal pci?
Which would be better?
Cpu:intel celeron 2.66gh
RAM:2gb capacity

or

CPU:AMD athlon XP 2400
ram: 1gb capacity
AGP Slot!!!!


which one would be better?

Is this worth 3000?(laptop)

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7400 (2.16GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows Vistaâ„¢ Home Premium
17 inch UltraSharpâ„¢ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLifeâ„¢
2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHZ, 2 DIMM
80GB 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
512MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7950 GTX
Integrated Audio

That would be a summer spent working 8 hours a day 7 days a week... (or 720 man hours at 8$ an hour wage with 25% taxes)
If all of my edits counted as posts, then I would be far past the member stage....

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doom2day said:

NO agp slots, but how to tell if there is a pcie slot? are they the same as normal pci?
Which would be better?
Cpu:intel celeron 2.66gh
RAM:2gb capacity

or

CPU:AMD athlon XP 2400
ram: 1gb capacity
AGP Slot!!!!


An Athlon chip beats a Celeron any day. A Celeron isn't really a processor anyways, they just took a Pentium 2/3/4 and removed everything they could and still have it work. Also, usually any computer that comes with a Celeron contains Intel's crap package of stuff, most notably their sad excuse for graphics cards. It will not contain a PC-E slot, and PCI-E is the new replacement for AGP because it is faster and allows more data to be sent.

In short:
Celeron = Poor castrated processor that never had a chance.
Athlon = Much better chip at usually a cheaper price than a real Intel processor.

Get the Athlon XP. :)

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Sorry, an Athlon XP 2400+ is not likely to beat a Celeron D at 2.66 GHz. The Celeron D is dual-core. Additionally, the "+" rating of the Athlon XP series is supposed to correspond with the GHz rating of Netburst-based Intel processors, the Pentium 4, Pentium D, and later Celerons and Celeron D. As you can see, 2400 is less than 2660.

As for PCI Express, here is an image; the longest two slots are PCI Express 16X slots, the slot on the bottom is a regular PCI slot.

That is a decent laptop, but after a summer of working, there will be something new and better out for the same price.

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[rips off cover]
[looks at computer in disbelief]
[walks off while swearing madly but silently]

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any decent agp cards out there that would actually run games like doom 3 well and actually RUN c&c 3? Demo did not work on this computer....

Heh, I checked dxdiag, only said intel celeron 2.66 ghz, looked at system properties, nothing new, tried to take off the heat sink on cpu, no luck, looked at intel inside celeron D sticker, laughs

I may have no choice but to use the athlon computer. This integrated graphics is NOT going to work


BTW on a unrelated topic, my shareware version of winace 's 30 day trial has been expired for 733 days : )
that pcie picture reminds me of a ram slot.... a coincidence?

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Mindless Rambler said:

An Athlon chip beats a Celeron any day. A Celeron isn't really a processor anyways, they just took a Pentium 2/3/4 and removed everything they could and still have it work. Also, usually any computer that comes with a Celeron contains Intel's crap package of stuff, most notably their sad excuse for graphics cards. It will not contain a PC-E slot, and PCI-E is the new replacement for AGP because it is faster and allows more data to be sent.

In short:
Celeron = Poor castrated processor that never had a chance.
Athlon = Much better chip at usually a cheaper price than a real Intel processor.

Get the Athlon XP. :)

yeah it is crap, integrated EVERYTHING (except network card (thank the electronics god)) and not even a AGP card.

MORAL OF MY DAY (that was supposed to be spent doing homework....)
If you care about gaming....DONT BUY IT AT WALMART, AND OR IF IT IS A COMPAQ PRESARIO.

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The celeron has a small, poor performing on die cache. A slower clocked athlon could outperform it easily. The celeron can be decent but you need to upgrade to a PCI video card and to at least a gig of RAM. So you can go for a $400.00 USD upgrade, or for around $800., you can get dual core Pentium or Athon64 X2. I would go for a new pc, with a discreet video card and 2 gigs ram. Integrated video cards are junk.

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If one were to swap two hard drives between computers that are somewhat similar, what kinds of issues would appear? (Now that I am likely to swap computers now and I need the larger hard drive
)
Winace has the support for multi volume archives but transferring 50 gb through floppy disks is like a vacation in hell.
What is this, my 12'th edit so far today? hah.
Thanks for the help so far. You are great.

Is this a good choice?


PNY Verto GeForce 7600 GS 512MB DDR2 AGP Graphics Card


Product Details

Warranty Terms - Parts 3 years (1 year standard warranty, plus additional 2 years after completion of registration form)

Warranty Terms - Labor 3 years (1 year standard warranty, plus additional 2 years after completion of registration form)

Type of Video Card Graphics

Video Memory 512MB DDR2

Interface Slot Type AGP

Type of Processor NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS

Number of Processors Dual RAMDAC (2 at 400MHz each)

Clock Speed of Video Memory (RAMDAC) 540MHz

Maximum 2D Resolution (at 32-bit color) 2560 x 1600

Maximum 3D Resolution (at 32-bit color) 2560 x 1600

Megapixels/Megatexels 4.8 billion

Number of Polygons per Second 500 million

Supports MPEG-1, 2 Yes

DVD Decoding Yes

TV-Out Yes

Stereo Sound No

Tuning Capabilities No

S-Video Output Yes

Video Format HDTV

Software Included Driver CD

System Requirements Intel® Pentium® III, AMD Duron™ or Athlon™ processor or higher; Windows 2000 or XP; 256MB RAM; 50MB hard drive space; CD or DVD-ROM drive

Additional System Requirements 300W power supply or higher; AGP 2.0 compliant motherboard; VGA or DVI-I compatible monitor

--How would I make sure that AGP slot is 2.0 compatable?
This would make up for a slightly lesser amount of normal RAM and a possibly weaker CPU, right? (it is the athlon computer not the celeron)

What does the video format mean?
How would I get a new power supply?

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I found a new Power supply.
Now a new question
are there ever interoperability issues with power supplies?

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In the circumstance it can be helped and you care about future upgrading, abandon the AGP slots and go with something with a PCI-e slot.

The 7600 GS is a good video card, but getting the card with a PCI-e x16 slot would be better, if only for the reason of said future upgrading.

You should look for something with:

AMD Athlon X2 processor (preferable based on personal experience, not benchmarks) or Intel Core Duo.

Expandability in terms of RAM (up to 4GB, which is standard these days). To start with, attempt to go with at least a Gig.

400+ watt PSU. 500+ watt PSU preferable.

MoBo that supports SLi (two PCI-e x16 slots) and applicable processor socket. SLi is by no means required, it is simply a recommendation. If you do go with a SLi configuration, pay attention to your PSU as well. You'll need more wattage (plan on looking at 500, 600 or even 700W PSU's).

eVGA's 7600 GT's are great (about $100 USD on newegg.com). I wouldn't bother spending too terribly much on a 7 series nVidia video card because of the lack of DirectX 10 support.

You can play Doom 3, Quake 4, Battlefield 2142, F.E.A.R., et cetera, well with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800, 1GB RAM and 7600 GT. Cost wise, this isn't too bad either. You're looking at about $400/$500 USD.

My personal recommendation is to avoid Windows Vista, AMD FX-series processors (quad-core) and too much RAM (more than 4GB) at the moment.

I suppose it really depends on your budget. You can get some good deals through Dell or HP right now, but they'll limit you in the future in terms of upgrading for gaming. If you express your budget it would make recommendations much easier.

EDIT: PSU's are pretty good all-around. Attempt to exceed yourself in overall wattage (if a video card recommends 350W, try to go with 400W) though.

Budget plus expandability! Just keep that mind. Going with top-notch components is a waste of money most of the time. There is a lot of hardware components out there that are barely supported and over-priced for the performance gains that you're really getting. I always think of PC shopping in terms of a bell-curve. Going with cheap stuff is nice on the wallet but is typically hell later when upgrading. Going with expensive stuff is hard on the wallet and typically unsupported/hardly supported. You need to find a good balance inbetween.

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I was examining the motherboard to the computer which I am using right now (The celeron D without AGP or PCIE), and I was looking at the 3 PCI slots, they were labeled, PCI 3, PCI 2, and I couldn't find PCI 1, but instead I found AGP1 and 3 holes and a long space.....I am upset, confounded, irritated, and still didn't find PCI1... Perhaps I need a new motherboard too, maybe that will give this thing a pcie slot and a cpu (p4 :)?)

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Bloodshedder said:

Sorry, an Athlon XP 2400+ is not likely to beat a Celeron D at 2.66 GHz. The Celeron D is dual-core. Additionally, the "+" rating of the Athlon XP series is supposed to correspond with the GHz rating of Netburst-based Intel processors, the Pentium 4, Pentium D, and later Celerons and Celeron D. As you can see, 2400 is less than 2660.

You sir, have no idea what you are talking about if you think a Celeron can beat an Athlon. Clock speed is only a vague indication of a processor's ability anyhow.

Ex1: Pentium 3 @ 600Mhz > Celeron @ 600Mhz
Ex2: Turion64 @ 1.8Ghz > Core2Duo @ 1.8Ghz
Ex3: Pentium 4 @ 1.8Ghz > Sempron @ 1.8Ghz

Also...

Wikipedia said:

It should be noted that the "D" suffix actually stands for nothing.


doom2day said:

I was examining the motherboard to the computer which I am using right now (The celeron D without AGP or PCIE), and I was looking at the 3 PCI slots, they were labeled, PCI 3, PCI 2, and I couldn't find PCI 1, but instead I found AGP1 and 3 holes and a long space.....I am upset, confounded, irritated, and still didn't find PCI1... Perhaps I need a new motherboard too, maybe that will give this thing a pcie slot and a cpu (p4 :)?)

Your AGP slot counts as PCI 1.

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Mindless Rambler said:

You sir, have no idea what you are talking about if you think a Celeron can beat an Athlon. Clock speed is only a vague indication of a processor's ability anyhow.

I appreciate you telling me something I already knew, but I was under the (mistaken) impression that the Celeron D was actually dual core. I hope you'll excuse me for falling prey to this misleading naming by Intel.

Comparing the Athlon XP 2400+ and a Pentium 4 at 2.66GHz (SiSoft Sandra doesn't have a Celeron D in their results) shows a fairly even match in synthetic benchmarks. Looking here you can peruse various benchmarks showing the Celeron D at 2.8 GHz (closest comparable) and Pentium 4 at 2.66 GHz (Northwood core, again, the closest comparable), and of course the Athlon XP 2400+.

And if you go here you can pit the XP against the Celeron at 2.6 GHz (closest match in clock speed to the Celeron D in question but uses the older Northwood core instead of Prescott), or the Celeron D at 2.8 GHz (which uses the Prescott core, most likely making it a closer match to the expected performance of the Celeron D 2.66 GHz).

You need to take architectures into account with your examples.

Ex1: Pentium 3 @ 600Mhz > Celeron @ 600Mhz
Yes. Both were on either the Katmai or Coppermine architecture.

Ex2: Turion64 @ 1.8Ghz > Core2Duo @ 1.8Ghz
No. The Core 2 Duo outclasses anything by AMD at the same clock speed.

Ex3: Pentium 4 @ 1.8Ghz > Sempron @ 1.8Ghz
Which Sempron, the Socket A (Thorougbred B I believe)-based one, or the Socket 754 (Newcastle?)-based one? The first is based on the K7 architecture, the second on the K8. But both are likely to beat a Netburst processor at the same clock speed, the K8-based one more so.

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Personally, it looks like someone forgot to weld on an AGP slot on the motherboard... It is (almost) exactly like this one http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&docname=c00100539
except it is a version 4.1 (It holds up to 2GB ram and it has an empty spot with 3 holes and an AGP 1 label instead of an AGP slot...)Any way to put one back? likely not but... there is the chance that all that I would have to do is just pop one in. Nevertheless on a different point,how much does an 80 gb hard drive cost these days?

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Ex1: Pentium 3 @ 600Mhz > Celeron @ 600Mhz
Yes. Both were on either the Katmai or Coppermine architecture.

Yes; P3 is Katmai and Celeron was Coppermine.

Ex2: Turion64 @ 1.8Ghz > Core2Duo @ 1.8Ghz
No. The Core 2 Duo outclasses anything by AMD at the same clock speed.

Then why can my mom's generic-use Turion64 laptop run circles around my friend's media/gaming-use Core2Duo laptop (keep in mind I have tweaked my friend's to reduce memory usage)?

Ex3: Pentium 4 @ 1.8Ghz > Sempron @ 1.8Ghz
Which Sempron, the Socket A (Thorougbred B I believe)-based one, or the Socket 754 (Newcastle?)-based one? The first is based on the K7 architecture, the second on the K8. But both are likely to beat a Netburst processor at the same clock speed, the K8-based one more so.

754 Sempron, and no, the Pentium 4 at the same speed can easily beat it. Our comparison method? Doom 3:
Both have a 128mb ati card and 512mb of memory, but the P4 runs at 20 fps max and the Sempron at 10fps max (though my friend said he managed to get 15fps if he stared at a wall and didn't do anything)

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Yes; P3 is Katmai and Celeron was Coppermine.
Not exactly correct. In Slot 1 form, the Pentium 3 used the Katmai core. In Socket 370 form, it was the Coppermine core. In Slot 1 form, the Celeron used the Mendocino core, which was based on the Pentium II. In Socket 370 form, it also used the Coppermine core. There was also the Tualatin-based Pentium 3, and the Celeron to go along with that, both of which were Socket 370.

Then why can my mom's generic-use Turion64 laptop run circles around my friend's media/gaming-use Core2Duo laptop (keep in mind I have tweaked my friend's to reduce memory usage)?

I can't say at all exactly without specifics. But I can say that comparing two different systems from two different manufacturers using completely different components is not an apples-to-apples comparison. How much RAM do the machines have, and what type/speed? What hard drives do they use? What video architecture? etc. What type of application(s) are you measuring? You can't compare the merits of two processors alone without a level playing field in supporting components, and one or two benchmarks alone do not tell the whole story.

754 Sempron, and no, the Pentium 4 at the same speed can easily beat it. Our comparison method? Doom 3:
Both have a 128mb ati card and 512mb of memory, but the P4 runs at 20 fps max and the Sempron at 10fps max (though my friend said he managed to get 15fps if he stared at a wall and didn't do anything)

Memory might have been the defining factor of a video card's performance 8 years ago or so, but today it only one of many different factors. Just like CPUs, you have to look at the core processor of the video card - is it an R300? (Radeon 9700, released in August of '02.) Or maybe it's an R400 series-based card? (Radeon X800 GTO, a generation ahead, released three years later.) There would be a significant performance delta between these two cards, even though they both have the same amount of memory.

The veritable alphabet soup of ATI's cards doesn't help here. GT, GTO, XL, Pro, XT, etc. suffixes all confuse the hell out of matters. Each one may have a different core clock speed, memory speed, memory bus width, number of pixel shader units, vertex shader units, etc. all of which serve to impact their performance and thus muddy the waters.

You're also relying on a single benchmark that is video card-limited to compare two different processors - not an optimal situation. Try using a more CPU-bound benchmark, like MP3 encoding, video encoding, or 3D rendering (not games, I'm talking actual rendering).

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Not exactly correct. In Slot 1 form, the Pentium 3 used the Katmai core. In Socket 370 form, it was the Coppermine core. In Slot 1 form, the Celeron used the Mendocino core, which was based on the Pentium II. In Socket 370 form, it also used the Coppermine core. There was also the Tualatin-based Pentium 3, and the Celeron to go along with that, both of which were Socket 370.

Yes exactly correct; my Pentium 3 is a slot 1 Katmai and my Celeron is a socket 370 Coppermine. You must not have understood these were my own processors I was comparing.

I can't say at all exactly without specifics... ...Try using a more CPU-bound benchmark, like MP3 encoding, video encoding, or 3D rendering (not games, I'm talking actual rendering).

I'll just run Super Pi on both systems to get more definitive results.

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Hmm.... I will rename this thread sometime after 4:00 PM March 7 Eastern Time. Just a notice.

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