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1.
First to comment booyah!
[Posted by: raijin 
| Date: 11/24/04 01:29:42 PM]
| Date: 11/24/04 01:29:42 PM]
Discussion
Discussion on Article:
Choosing the Best CPU for Half-Life 2
Started by: raijin | Date 11/24/04 01:29:42 PM
Comments: 33 | Last Comment: 08/25/06 02:01:24 PM
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[1-20 | 21-29]
2.
The true winner here is the consumer, I am quite surprised by the results of the fairly inexpensive Sempron, outdoing the 2.8 and 3ghz Intels. Well done, AMD is on there game making the best chips for gamers.
[Posted by: raijin | Date: 11/24/04 01:30:40 PM]
| Date: 11/24/04 01:30:40 PM]3.
SSE3? Bah. That won't make any difference. Using SSE1 instead of x87 will make a huge difference, but presumably it is used. The bulk of the SIMD instructions you'd want to use are pretty obvious and Intel got it right the first time with SSE1. It is only in very rare cases SSE3 provides any benefit at all.
Hyperthreading? That gives anywhere from a small hit to 30% boost, usually around 5-10%. id put support for multithreading into Quake3, but later dropped it for Doom3. Why would id remove a feature like that? Most likely because it provides no benefit...
Most applications spend a huge amount of time in the graphics driver. Why don't nvidia and ATI make their drivers multithreaded? Oxygen (3Dlabs) used to do that for dual CPU systems. I'm sure nvidia/ATI would make their drivers multithreaded if they could get even a tiny percentage more performance out of hyperthreaded systems... Hyperthreading/multithreading just doesn't seem suitable for games.
Besides, who can blame valve for not having the most up to date features? They were supposed to ship a year ago (remember the give away with old ATI cards?)! Is every developer out there supposed to rewrite their software with assembly to take advantage of SSE3 or significantly re-architect their software to be multithreaded for hyperthreading? Sounds lame, especially when it isn't needed for AMD's CPUs, Intel's own PentiumM in laptops, or for the G5 for games that are ported to Apple's computers. How about blaming Intel for having a lame CPU??
The bottom line is long pipelines suck at unpredicable branches. Games are full of these. This is why the Athlon kills the P4. Hell, even the PentiumM (which is a reworked PentiumPro/PentiumII/PentiumIII (similar to the k8 being a reworked k7)) is in many ways better than the Pentium4 at gaming:
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=dothangaming &page=1
even with crappy 333Mhz memory, a slow FSB, and an ancient chipset with only AGP4x support.
Buy a P4 if you do lots of DSP like work (i.e. encoding DiVX ;) movies), but don't buy a P4 if you're looking to play games. Games are like kyrponite to a P4.
Hyperthreading? That gives anywhere from a small hit to 30% boost, usually around 5-10%. id put support for multithreading into Quake3, but later dropped it for Doom3. Why would id remove a feature like that? Most likely because it provides no benefit...
Most applications spend a huge amount of time in the graphics driver. Why don't nvidia and ATI make their drivers multithreaded? Oxygen (3Dlabs) used to do that for dual CPU systems. I'm sure nvidia/ATI would make their drivers multithreaded if they could get even a tiny percentage more performance out of hyperthreaded systems... Hyperthreading/multithreading just doesn't seem suitable for games.
Besides, who can blame valve for not having the most up to date features? They were supposed to ship a year ago (remember the give away with old ATI cards?)! Is every developer out there supposed to rewrite their software with assembly to take advantage of SSE3 or significantly re-architect their software to be multithreaded for hyperthreading? Sounds lame, especially when it isn't needed for AMD's CPUs, Intel's own PentiumM in laptops, or for the G5 for games that are ported to Apple's computers. How about blaming Intel for having a lame CPU??
The bottom line is long pipelines suck at unpredicable branches. Games are full of these. This is why the Athlon kills the P4. Hell, even the PentiumM (which is a reworked PentiumPro/PentiumII/PentiumIII (similar to the k8 being a reworked k7)) is in many ways better than the Pentium4 at gaming:
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=dothangaming &page=1
even with crappy 333Mhz memory, a slow FSB, and an ancient chipset with only AGP4x support.
Buy a P4 if you do lots of DSP like work (i.e. encoding DiVX ;) movies), but don't buy a P4 if you're looking to play games. Games are like kyrponite to a P4.
[Posted by: ac | Date: 11/24/04 09:50:04 PM]
| Date: 11/24/04 09:50:04 PM]4.
Haven't bought HL2 yet, but I'm still curious how it performs on an old Celeron "Tualatin" 1.2Ghz (right on the min requirement line).
As for P4...Any CPU is better than the P4. P4's life is pretty much over. We're just waiting for the Death Knell to start ringing at Intel.
Why am I saying this? Intel limit themselves to 3.8Ghz, effectively stopping what P4 lives for. (Speed Scaling, the very thing it was designed for). The shrunk in die-size has caused the most problems. The heat per performance is plain inefficient. (Think of driving a car with a turbine engine in peak hour traffic...Its hot and drinks fuel by the tank load). And that's scratching the surface!
Personally, Intel should start the new year with the Pentium-M on the desktop with higher bus speeds. (200Mhz QDR = 800Mhz FSB).
Let PowerLeap/Friendtech/Upgradeware make Pentium-M to P4 mobo adapters, so everyone can dump the P4 CPU in favour for P-M while still retaining their existing mobos. (There's little difference between the P-M and P4 buses. Just a few electrical bits that need to be changed).
At least the Pentium-M can give AMD CPUs a run for their money in games.
As for P4...Any CPU is better than the P4. P4's life is pretty much over. We're just waiting for the Death Knell to start ringing at Intel.
Why am I saying this? Intel limit themselves to 3.8Ghz, effectively stopping what P4 lives for. (Speed Scaling, the very thing it was designed for). The shrunk in die-size has caused the most problems. The heat per performance is plain inefficient. (Think of driving a car with a turbine engine in peak hour traffic...Its hot and drinks fuel by the tank load). And that's scratching the surface!
Personally, Intel should start the new year with the Pentium-M on the desktop with higher bus speeds. (200Mhz QDR = 800Mhz FSB).
Let PowerLeap/Friendtech/Upgradeware make Pentium-M to P4 mobo adapters, so everyone can dump the P4 CPU in favour for P-M while still retaining their existing mobos. (There's little difference between the P-M and P4 buses. Just a few electrical bits that need to be changed).
At least the Pentium-M can give AMD CPUs a run for their money in games.
[Posted by: dgf | Date: 11/25/04 03:38:12 AM]
| Date: 11/25/04 03:38:12 AM]5.
I don't know why the author placed such emphasis on SSE3, and HT. The most SSE3 can offer is about 10%, and that is a best case scenario..
HT will offer much less, as it's really for multitasking. Even if the game were multithreaded, I doubt it would offer a big boost.
I'm sure Valve optimized the game for SSE2 though, as that has been out for ages..
An interesting question is, how much of a performance boost would going to AMD64 give HL2?
The extra registers would definitely help out alot, plus using SSE2 solely instead of the archaic x87..
HT will offer much less, as it's really for multitasking. Even if the game were multithreaded, I doubt it would offer a big boost.
I'm sure Valve optimized the game for SSE2 though, as that has been out for ages..
An interesting question is, how much of a performance boost would going to AMD64 give HL2?
The extra registers would definitely help out alot, plus using SSE2 solely instead of the archaic x87..
[Posted by: Carfax | Date: 11/25/04 06:24:25 AM]
| Date: 11/25/04 06:24:25 AM]
6.
The AMD XP is doing pretty good, i will keep it for more time then.
[Posted by: I | Date: 11/26/04 03:01:49 AM]
| Date: 11/26/04 03:01:49 AM]7.
This is the fourth review I see and the second I read about this matter (CPUs in HL2) and I also find it quite useless because it is only done with the most powerfulls VGAs.
HL2 is quite CPU dependant with new high end VGAs but not so with lower level ones. And not all people is arranged to buy these cards because of the cost or because they already did to play D3 (for example). But a lot of people can afford 100-300$ for a new CPU (that wont get outdated as fast as a GPU) and can be used for other things.
Thats what I think. I like Xbit articles and I usually read them, including this but not in depth, but if this one is made to make user have an easier decission about what CPU buy I think is not completed.
HL2 is quite CPU dependant with new high end VGAs but not so with lower level ones. And not all people is arranged to buy these cards because of the cost or because they already did to play D3 (for example). But a lot of people can afford 100-300$ for a new CPU (that wont get outdated as fast as a GPU) and can be used for other things.
Thats what I think. I like Xbit articles and I usually read them, including this but not in depth, but if this one is made to make user have an easier decission about what CPU buy I think is not completed.
[Posted by: Sergioytc | Date: 11/26/04 03:56:23 AM]
| Date: 11/26/04 03:56:23 AM]8.
Did Xbit already do a CPU scaling test with Counter-Strike Source? I have a 6800GTOC with a 2.5 Ghz Athlon XP and am thinking my Athlon XP is slowing me down on big 20+ player CSS servers.
[Posted by: Jeff7181 | Date: 11/27/04 08:30:12 PM]
| Date: 11/27/04 08:30:12 PM]9.
Hmm I'd like to see a review that encompasses more, such as cpu's down to 2000+, not to mention a separate set with a last gen gpu like the 9800pro. This of course would give people an idea of whether they need to buy new hardware or not, which would be the entire point of reading the review. All in all pretty much a waste of time to just check the fastest procs with the fastest gpu.
[Posted by: Turkey22 | Date: 11/29/04 07:06:29 AM]
| Date: 11/29/04 07:06:29 AM]10.
No min fps scores?
All this shows is every fairly modern processor out there can maintain an acceptable average fps, what would be much more telling is the min fps, can't understand why you didn't include it?
All this shows is every fairly modern processor out there can maintain an acceptable average fps, what would be much more telling is the min fps, can't understand why you didn't include it?
[Posted by: sbuckler | Date: 12/01/04 07:52:39 AM]
| Date: 12/01/04 07:52:39 AM]11.
This pic is warez: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/29cpu-hl2_3.ht ml
The AUX thingy is red even when full. Shame on you.
The AUX thingy is red even when full. Shame on you.
[Posted by: HLD | Date: 12/17/04 07:39:40 AM]
| Date: 12/17/04 07:39:40 AM]12.
Hmm.. I wonder why the Athlon64 3400+ beats the 3500+ in every test.. I would think that the 939 platform would be faster..
[Posted by: mrsmitt | Date: 12/21/04 10:30:12 AM]
| Date: 12/21/04 10:30:12 AM]13.
Jesus!!!
give-me(.)(.) AMD athlon 64 FX-55 (best processor of the world),
give-me(.)(.) AMD athlon 64 FX-55 (best processor of the world),
[Posted by: patricio_sya | Date: 01/01/05 10:22:04 AM]
| Date: 01/01/05 10:22:04 AM]16.
i have un Amd Athlon 2000+Family and a card video Gforce 4mx440agp8x,and 256RAM(ddr)!
I can play Half Life II??
I can play Half Life II??
[Posted by: djcoco | Date: 03/16/05 07:05:35 AM]
| Date: 03/16/05 07:05:35 AM]17.
Hello, I just have a couple of question to ask you. I hae a intel Celeron 2.4ghz, 80 GB hard drive and 256 mb of RAM. My AGP graphics card is a Nvidia Geforce 2 with 32 MB of VRAM. Will it run Half Life 2? If its possible for any to reply to this question give me an e-mail at gcshawn@hotmail.com
Thanks all
Thanks all
[Posted by: Shawn | Date: 07/06/05 07:28:06 AM]
| Date: 07/06/05 07:28:06 AM]18.
Do u guys like my music i meen it totaly rocks!!!!:D
I feel like i'm totaly a pop star..... wait i'm am!
I feel like i'm totaly a pop star..... wait i'm am!
[Posted by: Beyonce | Date: 09/19/05 09:15:51 AM]
| Date: 09/19/05 09:15:51 AM]19.
what would be the best CPU to buy an intel 3.0ghz 530 or an Athlon 64 3500
[Posted by: BaM | Date: 11/12/05 04:07:27 AM]
| Date: 11/12/05 04:07:27 AM]20.
Athlon64 3500+ no doubt
[Posted by: BAMS from AusFX.com | Date: 11/18/05 07:47:53 AM]
| Date: 11/18/05 07:47:53 AM][1-20 | 21-29]
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