Stress Test MK II

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I think the point of this test is to provide CPU with max load and put other components on stress too TO (and this is the important bit)see how stable are the platforms and get a glimpse at the current stability issues with these systems. AND NOT to see who performs better, conventional tests do it a lot better. IMO. Can i be agreed?
 
Intel's TDP are typical values. AMD's are MAXIMUM (to the point where software available to us can't even max it out). Running a few extra threads should put Intel over the 130W mark (4 threads should, actually).

Maxtor disgraces the six letters that make Matrox.
 
Did they say anything about those white boxes ?

<A HREF="http://koti.welho.com/pnystro2/somepics/untitled2.bmp" target="_new">These white boxes</A> (it's a BMP, i want to punish my ISP).

Maybe they are sensoring Intels error messages ?
It did give lots of errors previously, but AMD didn't have any.

Im getting quite paranoid..
 
I think originally, imo, the point was to see which would do more work with a heavy multiprocessing environment.

Instead we're finding it's more of a stress test (which is pretty close to the same thing; since many people use benchmarking programs to stress test), which through human err, and faulty equipment (and possibly software...no comment)has ruined this bench for the most part, thus far.

As to conventional tests...i don't think these are terribly bad choices in maxing out the cpus. I've already mentioned other ways to test these cpus, so i won't expand on this.

F@H:
AMD: [64 3000+][2500+][2000+ down][1.3x2][366]
Intel: [X 3.0x3][P4 3.0x2][P4 2.4x5 down][P4 1.4]

"...and i'm not gay" RX8 -Greatest Quote of ALL Time
 
Well, the way i set it up on mine, was f@h uses cpu0, f@h1 uses cpu1, f@h2 uses cpu2.

But when i go back and look over the cpu stats, there isn't an instance where two cpu's are at 100% and the other two at 50%. On occasion there are greater workloads on two or three of the cpus, but it overall it seems to spread the load pretty well. But honestly, i don't know how it really works. I was under the impression that f@h was not multithreaded, so i don't understand why we aren't sitting at 100% 100% 100% and 3% or something. =/

additionally:
you'll notice that each process won't use more then 25% of the total processing power for a total of not more then 75%...which says? It won't use more then 100% of 1 cpu per program?? but it looks spread out on...oh well. I'll let someone else do the thinking here...i'm tired.

F@H:
AMD: [64 3000+][2500+][2000+ down][1.3x2][366]
Intel: [X 3.0x3][P4 3.0x2][P4 2.4x5 down][P4 1.4]

"...and i'm not gay" RX8 -Greatest Quote of ALL Time
 
Regarding cosmic radiation: If its so rare as you say it is of statistically no effect on the test 😀 and of no influence on my pc compaired to other known factors (heat, powerloss, and whatever). Again a solar flare might happen but I havent checked the space weather and what would you be able to do anyway?
 
You know the regular...Encase everything electronical in lead... =D

F@H:
AMD: [64 3000+][2500+][2000+ down][1.3x2][366]
Intel: [X 3.0x3][P4 3.0x2][P4 2.4x5 down][P4 1.4]

"...and i'm not gay" RX8 -Greatest Quote of ALL Time
 
>If its so rare as you say it is of statistically no effect on
> the test

Its not *that* rare at all, depending how the chips and memory modules are designed, and where you live (altitude is a big factor) its just not frequent enough to assume both systems would be equally influenced by it. What do you do when one system reboots once, and other doesnt ? Assume this is inherent instability and blame the chip? Exclude the possibility of a high energy particle induced bitflip ?

>compaired to other known factors (heat, powerloss, and
>whatever).

No, not whatever. What other "known" factors causes a system to crash or reboot you think ? Heat ? Only if its excessive. powerloss, well doh. If you meant stability of the powersupply, well, measure it! What else ? CPU's just don't tend to produce errors for no reason. I would assume, once you've excluded power and heat, the #1 reason to be software related, #2 (at a distance), might well be these radiation induced SEE's, especially if you are not using ECC (Ram modules are pretty big, and therefore, as well as for other technical reasons, very prone to these sorts of errors)

>Again a solar flare might happen but I havent checked the
>space weather and what would you be able to do anyway?

Harden them. I used to work for a company that produces CMOS image sensors, and for space application, obviously they had to be radiation hardened. Did you read the article I linked to ? Its a good read. Here is a quote:
commercial designs are also more frequently encountering SEEs but that designers are commonly missing or misidentifying them as other failures. <b>"It could be happening on everyone's PC, but instead everyone curses Microsoft," </b>says Dodd. "Software bugs probably cause a lot of those blue-screen problems, but you can trace some of them back to radiation effects

Sun Microsystems encountered a public-relations nightmare when SEEs came to light, causing Sun server workstations to require occasional resets, which led to an embarrassing 1000-unit recall (Reference 2). But Sun is not alone, and the problem endures. Cisco Systems also encountered SEE failures with its 12000 series router line cards, reporting failures of memory and ASICs and subsequent debugging attempts for soft errors in that router, which sells for approximately $200,000.


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 
Really, if you care about divx encoding speed as much as the other tasks, all you need to do is change the piority so they are equal; I really don't see windows being at fault here, nor the X2. If I was simultanously gaming, running a gameserver and ahm.. well doing something else cpu intensive apart from encoding a DivX *cough*, I'd be *glad* my low priority DivX job wasnt stealing so many cpu cycles from my game or game server.

This is not about encoding speed, it is about how often the cpu process that apps.

The divx encoding task might be 10 times less used, but if it is encoded 10 times faster, than the Intel(I know it is not, this is only an example with easy to calculate number.. So I wont answer to anybody telling me that I'm wrong on that.. I already know it!!), the the result will be the same.


So the encoding speed is not even a variable in that stress test.

<font color=red>Sig space for rent. make your offer.</font color=red>
 
Like I said the tests he picked haapened to favour the P4 as did the number of tests. If he had picked them differantly, it could have swung the other way. Considering how much things were stacked up against the X2, it did remarkably good and NEVER FAILED A SINGLE TIME. I would not be supprised if THG could find a single board in their lab for that X2 that would give them as much trouble as all the other ones did for the P-EE. I don't care what PS, memory, motherboard, or likely even heatsink... they likely would not have had anywhere near those problems. Seeing as this is a stress test and the P-EE system failed misserably I see the test was completed. The fact that it might not have been a weak CPU, but more of a platform issue caused by the CPU makes little differance. The whole benchmark part was a waste other than to load the system down. I wish THG had not cleared all the Weekly OverView data and had kept it doing the whole time.

I also saw an 850w power supply that struggled under half that load or less. That is why I will not touch anything but Antec TP (or TP2 now).

I also think they should keep testing boards and such this way to see if this is a widespread problem. It might be that Intel did not give strong enough guildlines for board specs to handle the P-EE 840 under full load. We might see many new revisions get rushed out. You might also see VERY few P-EE ever see the light of day until late 3Q this year do to this problem.
 
AMD stats are frozen, it looks like network for AMD is down so stats wont update.

Intel stats are updating but it hasn't had network for ages..

WTF is that ?

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by HansGruber on 06/10/05 00:06 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
@ P4 -> Sorry didn't have the time to read the link. I do know that cosmic radiation can have influence on electrical systems. And that steps should taken to ensure that critical systems are protected against any error introducing radiation.

But I'll still say that it way out of scope for this test to calculate for this kind of an occurrance. Firstly because the systems are intended for workstations and / or homeuser. Therefore they should be conducted in an environment that is similar to a homeusers / officespace. Where you would have a hard time to shield against radiation. And I'll still say that the chance of an error due to cosmic radiation is equal for both machines.

On a side note: I remember reading that some particles can actually pass through the earth like it was paper (afaik know particles from supernovae and quasars.) so lead won't allways work :).

And the mood of a computer use (or the earths population) directly affects computers and could make them more errorprone. (apparently you should not only talk nice to your plants but also your computer :S)

I also disagree on eg: using ECC memory. Because again a homeuser wouldn't use this.

Last disagreement: Heat and power issues isn't as simple as you mention them. IMO you have to look at eg: the cooler design itself, where does it send its heated air?What other components are heated? If you previously had a 100 watt cpu what does a 130 watt cpu do to your case airflow and temps?

The same goes with power issues: I wanna know exactly where the problem is: Before the psu? in the psu? on the motherboard and in that case where on the motherboard?

On another sidenote: I'd like alot more diagnostic information on these issues being available from mostly motherboard manufacturers. Ideally i'd want an independent measurement system on the mobo that would function even though eg: the northbridge suffered a malfunction (or bios chip or cpu).

I do think that we can agree upon that this "test" can't be used as a stresstest or a performance test (for alot of various reasons, to few test subjects and so on).

What it can do is show us potential problems with either platform that a buyer should be aware of when buying either processor, eg:

When buying an intel a buyer should ensure proper cooling (as one should allways do) but also do their own tests so that theyll be sure that throttling doesnt happen under intensive usage.

PS: CMOS image censors? Man ever since being a kid i've wanted a decent telescope but even more a REAL "space cam" 😉 And i've actually found a gf that I can talk into having either a window above the bed or diodes mimicking the nightsky lol...

PPS: I am not an educated techie so you have to talk very slowly to me. LoL. I'm starting a computer education in august (I hope). My experience so far is as follows (born 1981):

Amstrad
486 -> With dos / windows 3.14
k6-2 -> with dos / win 95 - win 98 - win 98 SE - redhat 5 something
p3 -> With win 98 se - windows 2k (service packs added / integrated).
xp 2000+ -> with windows 2k - windows xp home / pro - windows server 2003 - redhat 6.??
xp 2500+ -> windows 2k - windows xp pro - windows server 2003.

And all the associated OS / other software / hardware errors (seen alot lol)...
 
Soz for double post but didn't want to mess the other one up.

@ Wusy, the farcry fps number is up again on the amd I just updated the charts and saw it on 14 which I thought
was weird because I havent seen it below 36 afaik.

Anyone noticed that the amd machine just had 4 dips on the graphs of temperatures and cpu usage. Also it's temps have risen a bit to now 55 instead of 52-53? concurrent with a slowdown of its fan.

PS: Now that theyve fixed the cooling on the intel I'd like when they end the test to do a few runs on the other motherboards they used in the beginning... Just to see if it was the cpu there or there really was a need for bios updates / mobo revising???

Just to follow up on any loose ends there...

PPS: Cant type fast enough or I sleep to much to be able to follow the rest of you in this thread... Lol


<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by NT78stonewobble on 06/10/05 02:05 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
There has been error messages in both system for 12 hours at least.
AMD:s stats are NOT UPDATING, hasn't updated for many many hours.

Is that OK ?
 
>But I'll still say that it way out of scope for this test to
>calculate for this kind of an occurrance.

I agree, and that is exactly my main point..:<b> testing stability of cpu's is way out of the scope of what an ethousiast site like THG can do</b>. you can't turn this into an intel versus AMD match as long as you do not control what is most likely 99% of the variables that might lead to instability (ram, radiation, software,..) What could be within their scope, is testing thermal solutions in a torture test, and maybe how motherboards and power supplies handle this over a lengthened period of time, but not stability of cpu's.

>Where you would have a hard time to shield against
>radiation.

You miss understood that. Hardening is something you do while designing the cpu (ram,..). its not shielding the system with lead, because like you said, that doesn't even work for a lot of particles (not that hardening is 100% safe, but you can gain several, if not hunderds orders of magnitude of resistance against radiation. Still its not without reason the Shuttle has 5 independant computers that "vote" for every decission).

Now all this said, in fact I would be interested if someone took this issue seriously. IT should be too hard to put 2 systems in a radiation chambers and bombard them with particles and see how they cope. By dramatically increasing the odds of getting particle induces errors that might tell you if one system or the other is more likely to suffer from malfunctioning, but that would pretty much only be usefull for highend servers I guess, or maybe for laptops for the folks that travel a lot by airplane. At 10Km the odds increase dramatically. I might even arrange such a testing environment for gamma rays, though I'm not certain its big enough to house a laptop.

>And I'll still say that the chance of an error due to cosmic
> radiation is equal for both machines.

Yes, chances would be equal, but the effect you are measuring is entirely random, unless there would be a very significant difference in radiation resistance, but as mentioned, that is way out of their scope.

>I also disagree on eg: using ECC memory. Because again a
>homeuser wouldn't use this.

It depends what you are trying to achieve with your test. If the aim is: how stable is a todays computer over (say) a few months of running; fine. But if you're turning this into AMD chip versus intel chip, you should exclude any issues that are not related to this, which definately includes factors that are WAY bigger than CPU "stability", like RAM glitches.

>Last disagreement: Heat and power issues isn't as simple as
>you mention them.

I never meant to say it was simple to measure line quality or power delivery to the MB and cpu. Indeed, properly doing so requires some high end equipment, not just rely on what the BIOS tells you. But if you don't do that, again you are not testing how stable those <i>cpu's</i> are.

>PS: CMOS image censors? Man ever since being a kid i've
>wanted a decent telescope but even more a REAL "space cam"
>😉

CMOS generally sucks for those apps I'm afraid. Leakage is a big problem, for those apps CCD is still superior (though CMOS is catching up). That company makes a lot of sensors for satellites and space flight, but not the ones that make the images like in Hubble :)

>486 -> With dos / windows 3.14

Window 3.14 ? I think not 😛

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 
I'm sure when I first looked at the graphs about half an hour ago the Intel machine had converted more CDs, but FarCry has needed a restart on the AMD machine and now it has done several more CDs than the Intel machine. Didn't take it long!

Don't know about any of the other tests.

---
<font color=green>AMD</font color=green> Athlon64, Abit AV8.
<font color=blue>Intel</font color=blue> Dual PIII, Asus P2B-DS.
<font color=blue>VIA</font color=blue> Epia M9000.
<font color=red>I</font color=red><font color=green>B</font color=green><font color=blue>M</font color=blue> Thinkpad 570E.
 
>but FarCry has needed a restart on the AMD machine

Seems their script craps out after exactly 1.000 runs.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =
 
Seems their script craps out after exactly 1.000 runs
I would bet they are using a 3 digit counter.
BTW, the 4th update is up at the german site.
I am really choked. They clame the Intel setup is averaging 31.56 FPS in fartcry, while the Amd rig is averaging 35.4. I suppose it is possible that in between refreshes, the Intel's framerate goes way up, while the Amd's goes way down, but it is damned unlikely. What I have seen is that the Intel system is consistantly between 22 and 27 frames, while the Amd setup is @ 35 or 36 fps.
I guess if it is your test, you get to make up whatever lies you want.
 
The benchmark just isn't exactly fair. Farcry is as much GPU limited as it is CPU limited, yet it runs at higher priority (cause its in focus), which means both systems spend most of their available cpu cycles on a bench they can not improve much. Of course that benefits the P4 which has more virtual cores available for the other apps, so if you count total throughput, the P4 seems to be doing better than it is. If you add up the different benchmarks throughput, you should attribute a higher weight to the Farcry result, as it is bigger part of the overall workload than the 3 other apps.. ESPECIALLY than the DivX test which should get a lower weighing, since both cpu's will spend a lot less time overall on this low priority thread. Its an ingeniously cooked up benchmark.. I wonder if intel told them what to do.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =