Sluggish AMD dual core CPU?s

So I was at best buy the other day finishing off my Christmas shopping and I noticed all the notebooks with AMD CPU’s running any form of windows vista were slow and sluggish, they all had problems running vista 3d flip no matter the clock speed. From my experience a Pentium dual core that was on sale for $599 outperformed a $1099 amd dual core machine at 2GHz. Is it me, or are these CPU’s just not at the same level as the Intel CPU’s.

 

they aren't

 

This is a good post, might get exciting. I am guessing 3D flip might involve at least at some level GPU so would not rule that out. Now you say Pentium DC (budget) works fine and AMD even Turion is slow? Makes no sense unless one of two things are going on or both. Which by the way I want to say Intel and Microsoft would never be involved in. Vista is coded to maximize Intel architecture, Best buy is running software in the background on the AMD's. From a computer science perspective I can not see your observation having a foundation.

 

Ugh, the factor here isn't the processor at all. Flip 3D is hardware accelerated, so the issue lies with the GPU. And it isn't indicative of the GMA 950 being better than whatever was in use on the AMD machines either. Here's my guess as to what you were seeing.

1) The Intel machines were running GMA X3100s or GMA 950s, which have no issues with the Aero interface but are absolutely crap for gaming or any kind.
2) The AMD machines in question, most likely HPs, were running on the GeForce 6150/7150M, which are nVidia integrated cards. nVidia's drivers have issues with Aero - even my NVS 140M (with 2GHz Core 2 Duo) can't run it smoothly - but their cards are infinitely better for gaming.

Try something actually processor intensive, a Turion x2 will beat the pants off of a Pentium Dual-Core any day. The Core 2's are better, yes - about 15% clock-per-clock - but any dual-core processor is fine for general Windows usage these days. And the nVidia integrated graphics are better than the Intel ones when it comes to games - but for whatever reason the nVidia drivers have issues with playing well with Vista's Aero interface.

In the long run, the processor doesn't really matter unless you're doing processor-intensive tasks. Get whatever has the best blend of other components, build quality, and features for the money. 64-bit dual-core is 64-bit dual-core; even the 1.6GHz X2 or 1.5GHz Core 2 is sufficient for most people. Just try to avoid the Celeron, Sempron, and Pentium Dual-Core lines - they're outdated and/or crippled hardware, and my present a bottleneck.

 

If running vista and using 3D flip as your basis to compare notebooks to other notebooks, you are sorely wrong. Benchmarks indicate that AMD processors are indeed slower by a fractional percentage(up to 15% slower) clock for clock. But to say that they are so different like "not the same level" is just biased right out the front gates.

Using 3D Flip was wrong on the first place, as that is more graphics intensive more than anything, all the sub 1200 machines at any big box retailer will probably be no better than integrated graphics (some better some worst), but you won't be getting any good dedicated graphics that would be able to run smooth DX10 (which 3D flip uses) applications.
Besides, 3D flip is such as useless Application( Alt-Tab and Task Manager as much faster and superior options) is by no means a big concern to most users. You're also failing to even compare the memory as well, this will also hamper Vista if your only running 1GB of RAM.

Ontop of that, most machines in big box retailers are going to be slow. Full of useless bloatware(with Norton running), Sidebar and a ton of other useless apps, it's not a surprise that running 3D Flip on a budget notebook would be slow. Besides, Vista is a slow and sluggish operating system.

I don't see how that is a good post. As you mentioned, his observations have no foundation.

 

I can't do sarcasm in text, oh well. But I also meant it might stir interest and generate posts and on a good forum that is a good thing I think? Also I think we should be very careful as to being critical of OP for his observations as I think he posted what he saw and determining why he saw it is more interesting and useful than doubting he saw what he saw which I believe. Just general thoughts on what might become the most interesting thread of the night/morning whether people agree or disagree.

 

thats just a misconception and you want to bash AMD? all what you saw are graphics intensive. ive got an amd with a low end ati 1270. it can kick a dual core with gma950.

 

Another AMD vs Intel.... ah Jeez.


As for AMDs beating the pants off Pentium Dual Core, well that's just not true. I'm no fangirl, I have an AMD desktop... but the PDC and X2s are pretty well matched. In another therad we found that the T2310 actually beats a TK-53 in most respects.

I think it really depends on which PDC/Core chip and which Athlon/Turion it is.

 

I love how you guys are debating AMD v. Intel and completely ignoring the test machines:

BestBuy Display Models!

You know the 5 year old kid who used the machine before you? Yeah, he just downloaded uber-penguin toolbar. That lady? She randomly hit a bunch of keys and opened 26 background apps. And oh, me? I have to, must, am forced to by management, install BestBuy proprietary software on our display models which is worse than Norton, McAfee, and Santa Clause Screensaver all together. BTW, I also forgot about the bloatware.

Go argue your AMD v. Intel elsewhere.

 

The graphics card, not the CPU, is what will determine the performance of the Aero interface (including 3d flip). What you likely have is an issue of a nVidia GeForce 6150 or 7150 in the AMD laptop, versus a GMA 950 or GMA X3100 in the Intel laptop. The nVidia integrated cards have the lowest performance with the Aero interface, so that laptop will perform worse even with a better processor.

Retail notebooks with AMD CPU's generally have low-end integrated graphics cards that will struggle with Aero. With a quality dedicated card - even a good integrated card, these notebooks would have no problem with Aero.

 

With Aero yes but anihilate Intel's integrated solutions for everything else.

 

If youre looking for a fast notebook, the processor is really not the most crucial element. Mainly any dual core laptop processor will give you a high powered machine. For vista laptops 2gb of memory is recommended. Since any operating system is generally saved to the harddrive, the harddrive generally governs how fast the system performs. I have 2 of the fastest notebook drives in Raid 0, and they cannot keep up with my Opteron processor. Literally the processor makes much less of a difference in speed of the system as a harddrive does. The harddrives have been and probably will always be the slowest component of wither desktops or laptops, so going for the fastest harddrive will make the laptop seem much faster, even though it may have a 1GHz slower processor. Basically a good 5400rpm or 7200rpm drive will make more of a difference in system speed than the processor will.

K-TRON

 

While I agree with the general content of what you say as a practical matter. I must point out it is a little over generalized as different tasks stress different components. Many tasks I do every day use little HDD so in those instances your theory falls flat. As part of the design/engineering of software/hardware the inherent bottleneck of the DD is considered and efforts are made to overcome. For example more RAM in newer computers, HDD's say 60MB/s RAM 4000MB/s. Oh and while the OS is "saved" on the HDD many parts are loaded into RAM making the HDD a non issue in certain situations.

 

Although i agree with your comment, you make it seem like the Intel Machines were clean and crisp as opposed to abused AMD machines. Just for the record, their all abused machines, nonetheless all the AMD machines were slow, sluggish; to correctly coin the phrase.

Ooo yeah, the AMD machines were very warm as well compared to Intel machines, i don't know why, doesn't seem like their doing much work?

 

I think his theory is 100% true regardless of user habits because the time spent waiting for the CPU to complete a task is thousands of times less than the time spent waiting for the HDD. A faster hard drive could mean waiting 20 seconds less for Windows to boot; but how many hours of computer use would it take to tally up 20 seconds of waiting for the CPU? After all, the CPU does idle more than 90% of the time.

As for your last sentence, the RAM has to wait for the HDD to give it the data via a bus in the first place. It is a fact that in order for the computer to start up, all components must wait for the HDD.

 

Regardless of user habbits? That is too over the top. If all you do is transfer large files you are 100% correct, if you encode MP3's you lose your argument.

 

But in order to start up your laptop, you need to wait for the HDD to load critical OS files; what I'm saying is, how much encoding would it take to have to wait longer for the CPU than the HDD? On average far more users wait longer for the HDD.

 

This review compares a pair of Intel and AMD CPUs and includes the results of various tests.

John

 

Thank you John. Gets us back on topic. I was thinking of looking at that and linking. It supports my position that HDD is very important but not everything, CPU's do matter and some tasks are not HDD intensive. No single component is anymore important than any other, an unbalanced system is a bad system. It is a slow day so thought I would add to what I have already belabored.