To upgrade or not to upgrade, that is the question

[PCfreak15]

I have an 845PE board running a P4 2.4(B)GHz. I do a large amount of multi-tasking, average gaming, and video editing with 640x480 WMV7/8/9 source clips. I've noticed my good old 2.4 doesnt seem to be as peppy as my new P4 3.06GHz HT laptop. Both WinXP Home installs are about 2-3 months old so its the hardware not a bogged down OS. I don't intend on building a new PC for a minimum of a year so does anyone think it makes sense to buy a P4 3.06GHz HT desktop chip to replace my 2.4? I can get the 3.06GHz HT off ebay for under 200 bucks.

Ya don't say? Is that so?

 

[Kanavit]

Hyperthreading will immensely help you in multi-threading applications. If your i845 mobo supports HT that would be great. On an HT enabled processor, You can play your favorite game and video encode simultaneously without a great performance hit like using a processor without HT enabled. HT allows two threads to be dispatched at the same time, making things run more effeciently.

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(2x512mb) 1GB DDR333 Dual Channel
INTEL Pentium 4 2.8B
ATI RADEON 9800 PRO
Asus P4P800 Bios 1016
38,476 Aquamarks

 

[endyen]

It seems like a wack of change, for not much change. My NF7-S board and xp-m 2500+ cost that much. At 2.4 gigs, it lays a beating on systems on your board.

 

[pauldh]

You know I love those mobile Xp's as much as anyone. But it won't lay a beating over a 3.06 HT doing the tasks he wants to do. The 3.06 would be clearly better for that. Still the price value of the XP mobiles and NF2, paired with the OC fun, is so sweet.


ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt

 

[P4Man]

>But it won't lay a beating over a 3.06 HT doing the tasks
>he wants to do. The 3.06 would be clearly better for that

Don't be too sure. It depends what you do. P4's have this reputaton being unbeatable videoencoders, but reality is much more subtle. DivX codec seems very well optimized/suited for netburst, but frankly, can anyone give me a good reason to use DivX over Xvid ? If you're using Xvid (like I do), a Barton 2500+ blows away a 3.2 GHz P4C. Don't believe me ? Look here:
<A HREF="http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/intelamdcpuroundupvideo/" target="_new">http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/intelamdcpuroundupvideo/</A>
Heck, even a 2200+ is faster than a 3.2C, imagine what a 2.4 GHz barton would do.

To the original poster: this link may help make up your mind, especially if the tools, codecs you use are in there.

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by P4Man on 04/01/04 10:45 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[pauldh]

">so, the french page has a reference to a japanese page,
>which is dated on April 1st. Interesting, a timezone warped
>April 1st joke?"

Was that responding to another topic? Darko's topic? Clipboard got ya?

ABIT IS7, P4 2.6C, 512MB Corsair TwinX PC3200LL, Radeon 9800 Pro, Santa Cruz, TruePower 430watt<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Pauldh on 04/01/04 10:37 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[P4Man]

Euh.. yes.. tabbed browsing rocks
sorry bout the mix up.

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

 

[PCfreak15]

I dont want to spend the money on a Socket A mobo. Im keeping my Socket 478. The encoding work I do is mainly with MPEG-1/2, and WMV7/8/9. I dont work with DivX or Xvid very often. I do a lot of multi-tasking which I know is much better on HT from personal expierience. Just trying to decide if upgrading is worth roughly 190 bucks now, or if it would be better to hold out until late 2005, early 2006 with my P4 2.4B.

Note: My mobo and BIOS support HT.

Ya don't say? Is that so?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by PCfreak15 on 04/01/04 03:59 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[P4Man]

AFAIK, videoencoding doesnt gain much if anything with HT, so you'd be looking at best at a linear increase with clockspeed, so 25% faster encoding. Wether or not that is worth $190 can only be decided by you.

As for the multitasking.. I have no problems running an encoding job on the background on a barton, so without HT. IF I must, I just reduce the thread priority, and I don't even notice its running at all, so I'm not sure you'd notice a great speedup with a HT enabled cpu. The encoding might be measureably faster while running a game though, so if that matters to you, open your wallet. If you don't care, spend it on something else

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

 

[pat]

Try to find the spec of your motherboard. It should tell you the faster cpu that can be supportted.

Check too, if the memory installed is really the fastest your board support.



-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[endyen]

Afraid not Paul. His board has a 133 fsb. At 2.4 gigs an xp would be 3500+ The xp3200+ is more than equal to the 3.06 P4b. It's not even close.