i just ordered a quad core...

[Wedge]

If I can remember correctly my PC history has been something like: 486??, Pentium 200 with MMX Technology, Celeron 333?, Pentium 3 500, upgraded in the future to a Pentium 3 800, then switched to Athlon Thunderbird, possibly then to a Athlon Palomino, then to a Athlon thoroughbred and finally settling at this Athlon Barton core. Though I don't know for sure if I had that many Athlon chips. I know one of them fried because of a faulty heatsink clip. At which point I moved to the heatsinks that screwed to the motherboard for a long time until finally switching back to a heatsink with a better quality clip.

If I can recall the history of graphics correctly it has been something like: onboard with 486 no idea what kind of video,onbord with pentium 200? not sure who made it, onboard with celeron? ATI maybe?, onboard with pentium 3 500 nVidia TNT, after pentium 3 800 was installed I think I switched to a geforce 2 gts?, then with the AMD Athlon thunderbird I ran a geforce 3 ti500, then with the Athlon thoroughbred possibly had the GF3 still, with the Athlon Barton I ran a geforce 4 ti4400, took a long break and then switched to a geforce 7800gs.

I only upgraded at the end of the list because one of my motherboards lost some capacitors and the same thing happened to the geforce 4 ti4400. No idea why. Some of the list may be incorrect, along with the model numbers or names of the hardware.

I would like to use a Phenom quad core although I don't see me needing a quad core. Intel has made some new dual core CPUs that might appeal to me better. I have no preference, I just buy the one that best fits my usage requirements. I don't want to see AMD vanish though, it seems the Phenom processors are good but not as good as Intel's already mature dual/quad processors. Yes I also know the quad from Intel in not really a quad. But I'm no engineer so I don't know what that means exactly and so it does not matter to me.

Let's hope AMD can get the Phenom up to speed so we don't lose them as a business. They are in debt quite big aren't they? If we lost AMD, Intel could slow down the processor developement and raise the prices, and who wants that?

[Vanessa07]

The Q6600 is less expensive than best Xtreme core duo, around 600$. No need to see test, you can have 3 quad per Xtreme duo

[Stur]

I'm going to buy a new one soon, and I aim the Q6600 too. It's a bit old, but I think it's the best about price/performance.

I hope I'll be more productive when I'll have this beast lol I've many started projects, but I only produces two pictures since I'm here

[dougal2]

nothing wrong with getting an older chip - it's still outperforming most other chips on the market.
I think I would have been a little disappointed if I'd chosen the (cheaper) newer, unproven Phenom.

Apparently they overclock like crazy too, I'm going to have to do some serious benchmarking

My parcel tracking says it should have been delivered today... I really can't wait to get home from work !!!

[dougal2]

WOO! machine did indeed turn up today.
Got XP32 and Vista64 on it already.

Did a quick speed test with 1.0.4 diffuse_transmitter_test test scene:

~ 210,000 samples per second.

I'm just going to have a look for a solution to why 0.9t4.5 64bit doesn't run then I'll post figures for that when I can get it running.

edit: 64bit version doesn't seem to be any faster.
I'd be interested you see other people's speed for this test scene, and what machine you ran it on.

[Wedge]

200k samples per second......where is the drool emote

[Big Fan]

come on over clock it it'll run 250k fairly easily

[Anthony]

Huh?
We might be getting a new computer soon so when is a better time to upgrade and what are all the good parts? I'm kind aout of the loop....

[dougal2]

ok, I gotta ask....

what tools are best for monitoring and stability checking overclocks with intel chipsets?

My last couple of computers had nVidia chipsets, so nTune did most of the work for me

Now it seems that I'll have to test by hand. What is recommended to do this?

(Actually setting the clock is no problem, I've got full access in the BIOS).

[Zom-B]

Huh?
We might be getting a new computer soon so when is a better time to upgrade and what are all the good parts? I'm kind aout of the loop....

For Upgrading Feb seems to be a good month... During the CES AMD just released a new Pricing list for their CPU's, so Intel maybe react by droping some prices too... someday...
Also in February ATI & Nvidia will bring up some new GPU's...

[dougal2]

The BIOS actually has a "Simple Overclock" setting. it goes +5%, +10%, +15%, +20%.

Tried 10% first and it worked OK.
Went straight to 20% and got a fail-to-reset

At +15% I'm getting ~230,000 samples per second with:

[dougal2]

haha, I got a BSoD right after posting that.. USB bus wasn't happy at that speed.

I'm going back to stock settings for the time being

[Big Fan]

well maybe you should look around the net at the settings other people have used cos it should run 20% ok

actually I am just envious of your quad as it is...
you know at Blenders Peach project they posted a benchmark test for renders and they have a 8 processor pc there that runs..wait for it.. 30x faster than my faithful ol' pc
...maybe at the end of the year if I save my pennies

[psor]

@dougal2

I recommend to use the manual overclocking mode, so you'll have more
control about what you're doing. And yes you should take a look around
the net for examples or wait for people to post there settings here. ;o))

Good luck!



take care
psor

[dougal2]

This quad is 8x faster than the 3ghz P4 my dad has... I'm not sure why but that's what indigo says!

I've had this machine a little over 24hrs and I'm still totally amazed by it.
I played the Crysis demo at about 30fps - at 1024x768 with all settings on VERY HIGH.

Some older games I have run 1280x1024 with all details on MAX.

Never seen anything like it