Core 2 Duo - can I tell the difference

[Merrill P. L. Worthington]

Being an average computer user and not a heavy gamer (only MS Flight Sim
2004 and soon X-Plane), will I be able to notice much of a difference
between my current Athlon 64 3700 (1gb CAS2 RAM) and 3800 machines (2gb
CAS2 RAM)?

 

[philo]

Being an average computer user and not a heavy gamer (only MS Flight Sim
2004 and soon X-Plane), will I be able to notice much of a difference
between my current Athlon 64 3700 (1gb CAS2 RAM) and 3800 machines (2gb
CAS2 RAM)?

For "average" computer use you don't need a dual core CPU...

but for hi-CPU usage tasks such as PhotosohopCS2 or video editing...

the dual core CPU will make a nice improvement!

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Being an average computer user and not a heavy gamer (only MS Flight Sim
2004 and soon X-Plane), will I be able to notice much of a difference
between my current Athlon 64 3700 (1gb CAS2 RAM) and 3800 machines (2gb
CAS2 RAM)?

Your computers are too recent for you to notice any difference with what you
do. They will even be able to run Vista perfectly well once it comes out.

ss.

 

[kony]

Being an average computer user and not a heavy gamer (only MS Flight Sim
2004 and soon X-Plane), will I be able to notice much of a difference
between my current Athlon 64 3700 (1gb CAS2 RAM) and 3800 machines (2gb
CAS2 RAM)?

The idea of "average computer user" is a moving target.
*Most* average users don't even benefit from an Athlon 64 at
all, neither for the 3700-3800 level of performance or the
64 bit. So you may already be doing something a little more
demanding than the average user.

If you are, you'll have to consider that specific use and
seek benchmarks of the task on these different CPU
architectures, one cannot apply an average performance level
from either to a specific task and expect an accurate
performance projection.

In general, you would get more performance if you have two
or more simultaneous highly demanding tasks that continually
keep CPU at 100% load.

 

[Merrill P. L. Worthington]

Your computers are too recent for you to notice any difference with what you
do. They will even be able to run Vista perfectly well once it comes out.

ss.

I have the same interest in Vista as a fish does with a bicycle.

 

[Fishface]

Being an average computer user and not a heavy gamer (only MS Flight Sim
2004 and soon X-Plane), will I be able to notice much of a difference
between my current Athlon 64 3700 (1gb CAS2 RAM) and 3800 machines (2gb
CAS2 RAM)?

I was also wondering when I might see benefit from the dual core. I get
annoying
waits when I insert a CD and when I click on a floppy in Windows Explorer
(the
system tries to extract an icon from every single file). I guess it's
mostly device
drivers tying up the system for me. Hate that...

 

[kony]

I have the same interest in Vista as a fish does with a bicycle.

Yep, it'll be a shame when we get to the point where all the
OEMs only offer Vista.

 

[DRS]

[...]

Yep, it'll be a shame when we get to the point where all the
OEMs only offer Vista.

That's what happened with XP. In the beginning nobody wanted it. Now how
many Windows users would be without it?

 

[Merrill P. L. Worthington]

[...]

Yep, it'll be a shame when we get to the point where all the
OEMs only offer Vista.

That's what happened with XP. In the beginning nobody wanted it. Now how
many Windows users would be without it?

Me, if there were a decent alternative.

 

[kony]

[...]

Yep, it'll be a shame when we get to the point where all the
OEMs only offer Vista.

That's what happened with XP. In the beginning nobody wanted it. Now how
many Windows users would be without it?

I still prefer 2K, or WinXP at pre-SP2 level, gutted until
it's evermore like 2K, so,

 

[altcomphardware]

Being an average computer user and not a heavy gamer (only MS Flight Sim
2004 and soon X-Plane), will I be able to notice much of a difference
between my current Athlon 64 3700 (1gb CAS2 RAM) and 3800 machines (2gb
CAS2 RAM)?

I agree with Kony that most users don't benefit from cutting edge CPUs
these days.

I'm not trying to brag or anything, but I have access to the following
computers:
1) 200 Dual core Intel Xeon 3.6GHz
2) 180 Quad core Intel Xeons (not sure about these specs yet)
3) SGI Altix
4) Pentium 4 2.5GHz

(1) - (4) are part of my university's cluster, which will be upgraded
with 1600 new nodes soon.

5) AMD64 754-pin 3400+
6) AMD XP 2500+ (temporarily offline due to CPU malfunction)
7) Intel D 805 2x3.33GHz
8) Pentium 4 1.7GHz
9) Pentium 3 866MHz

(5) is my work PC at college and (6) - (9) are part of my home parallel
cluster.

Guess which PC I use for "average Joe" jobs? ;-)

The Pentium 3

Learn to use both Linux and Windows. I am still learning, but I can
accomplish many tasks in Linux with a single bash command that would
take me an hour of clicking with Windows.

And Fishface, turn off Autoplay completely. Google for it; don't just
turn it off in the Explorer properties tab.

Not only does Autoplay sometimes mess up your CD/DVD burning, some
protected audio CDs will crash your computer/load rootkits before you
click on a single item if you put your drives on autoplay.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I was also wondering when I might see benefit from the dual core. I get
annoying
waits when I insert a CD and when I click on a floppy in Windows Explorer
(the
system tries to extract an icon from every single file). I guess it's
mostly device
drivers tying up the system for me. Hate that...

How much RAM do you have in your system? I'm guessing not enough. Add a
gigabyte an I bet you'll see a huge improvement.

 

[John Weiss]

I was also wondering when I might see benefit from the dual core. I get

annoying waits when I insert a CD and when I click on a floppy in Windows
Explorer (the system tries to extract an icon from every single file). I
guess it's mostly device drivers tying up the system for me. Hate that...

CPU upgrades will not help in any task where a more significant bottleneck
exists. You will still have to wait for CDs, DVDs, and floppies to spin up,
and will be limited by their transfer rates. If you don't have enough RAM
(512 MB in XP if you are multitasking), you will have to wait for apps to
swap to the pagefile on the HD.

 

[Nick]

That's what happened with XP. In the beginning nobody wanted it. Now how
many Windows users would be without it?

haha, I think all the people who suffered through the dibacle known as
windows ME were PRAYING for XP to come out. The smart ones on the other hand
stuck with 98 (as I did) until windows 2000 SP2 came out, then moved to that
until XP, and can proudly say ME never touched a single computer I own.

 

[Rod Speed]

haha, I think all the people who suffered through the dibacle known as windows
ME were PRAYING for XP to come out.

'think' again, plenty had enough of a clue to be able to use ME effectively.

The smart ones on the other hand stuck with 98 (as I did) until windows 2000
SP2 came out,

Some real downsides for some use.

then moved to that until XP, and can proudly say ME never touched a single
computer I own.

So you clearly arent qualified to say anything about it.

 

[Merrill P. L. Worthington]

So you clearly arent qualified to say anything about it.

And it would seem that you're just not qualified for anything. Doesn't
your mommy monitor what you're doing on the internet?

 

[kony]

'think' again, plenty had enough of a clue to be able to use ME effectively.

Essentially the issue was whether one had better than
average ability to tweak (and restrain) Windows or not.
With WinME it could run acceptibly (in the context of Win9x
running acceptibly, not NT), but you had to make changes
which is something many are hesitant to do.

 

[kony]

I was also wondering when I might see benefit from the dual core. I get
annoying
waits when I insert a CD and when I click on a floppy in Windows Explorer
(the
system tries to extract an icon from every single file). I guess it's
mostly device
drivers tying up the system for me. Hate that...

It depends on exactly what you are doing.
If your problem is that you need to see/use these slower
drives' files "next", the Dual Core will do you no good.

On the other hand, if the problem is that WHILE these slow
files are being indexed, you have another second task that
is being effected, it may retain it's responsiveness.

The only way to directly combat the sluggishness of the CD
or other slow storage is to use faster storage. "Sometimes"
the file format can matter, some types of multimedia for
example has shell support for determining resolutions and
other parameters read from the file, in which case if you
don't need these additional details you can look into
disabling the shell support for the features you don't need,
then the files will be treated as generic files with no
special abilities, beyond those of the application used to
actually open them in the traditional manner.

 

[Rod Speed]

Essentially the issue was whether one had better than
average ability to tweak (and restrain) Windows or not.

Wrong, as always. No need to tweak it at all.

With WinME it could run acceptibly (in the context of Win9x
running acceptibly, not NT), but you had to make changes

Wrong, as always. My installations all ran better
than SE did with no tweaking what so ever.

which is something many are hesitant to do.

Not even necessary.

 

[Au]

That's what happened with XP. In the beginning nobody wanted it. Now how
many Windows users would be without it?

It's unstable, it crashes regular, it nags you to do things you told it you
didn't want - for the 50000th time when you say no. You keep on being asked
to verify the OS despite already doing so who know how many times.

XP is a pile of shit (moving completely to Linux soon).