Why Athlon XP benchmarks much more slowly?

[PageFault]

Just look at task damager ... 100 % cpu regardless of hardware ...

You don't need confidence, just worktodo ... I need confidence as I'm going to do a 79M LL test on mine ... can't be done with SSE2 machine ...

Originally posted by carltao
thanks for the detailed explanation,
But I am still confused at whether Prime95 takes full power of Athlon XP's...

[SalemTheCat100]

Originally posted by carltao

iSSE2 so magic? I have heard that P4 without optimization is far slower than XP, and comparable with XP with optimization. I still think there should be more done on XP optimization for the program. Thanks.
This benchmark makes me feel reluctant to run prime95 anymore on my XP machine, because its low efficiency.

Prime95 is having a love affair with intel.

I too fully believe that the Athlon XP has been ignored. It appears that there have been no specific optimization improvements for the Athlon. If any improvement came it was because the P4 or P3 optimization also improved the Athlon.

It was mentioned in another thread that a 10% improvement for the Athlon XP was possible but nothing has ever come of it.

Also, note the complete lack of any specificate AMD64 optimizations. The Opteron has been out since April and the Athlon64 since September.

And PLEASE don't mention that they are unavailable. I have upgraded to a DUAL Opteron 240 system for only $600.

I had to buy four P4 at intels extortion prices just to keep pace in the "Top Producers Report".

Well, NO MORE

I have turned off eight of my Athlon XP machines and four of the P4's in protest.

Until I see some respect, and that means some new Athlon Xp/Athlon64/Opteron optimizations, my Prime95 clients will remain offline.

If more of the other 18000 Athlon Prime95 clients complain/protest then maybe we too could see some specific optimizations.


SALEM

[carltao]

I support you!

Originally posted by SalemTheCat100
Prime95 is having a love affair with intel.

I too fully believe that the Athlon XP has been ignored. It appears that there have been no specific optimization improvements for the Athlon. If any improvement came it was because the P4 or P3 optimization also improved the Athlon.

It was mentioned in another thread that a 10% improvement for the Athlon XP was possible but nothing has ever come of it.

Also, note the complete lack of any specificate AMD64 optimizations. The Opteron has been out since April and the Athlon64 since September.

And PLEASE don't mention that they are unavailable. I have upgraded to a DUAL Opteron 240 system for only $600.

I had to buy four P4 at intels extortion prices just to keep pace in the "Top Producers Report".

Well, NO MORE

I have turned off eight of my Athlon XP machines and four of the P4's in protest.

Until I see some respect, and that means some new Athlon Xp/Athlon64/Opteron optimizations, my Prime95 clients will remain offline.

If more of the other 18000 Athlon Prime95 clients complain/protest then maybe we too could see some specific optimizations.


SALEM

[pakaran]

Originally posted by SalemTheCat100
Prime95 is having a love affair with intel.

I too fully believe that the Athlon XP has been ignored. It appears that there have been no specific optimization improvements for the Athlon. If any improvement came it was because the P4 or P3 optimization also improved the Athlon.

It was mentioned in another thread that a 10% improvement for the Athlon XP was possible but nothing has ever come of it.

Also, note the complete lack of any specificate AMD64 optimizations. The Opteron has been out since April and the Athlon64 since September.

And PLEASE don't mention that they are unavailable. I have upgraded to a DUAL Opteron 240 system for only $600.

I had to buy four P4 at intels extortion prices just to keep pace in the "Top Producers Report".

Well, NO MORE

I have turned off eight of my Athlon XP machines and four of the P4's in protest.

Until I see some respect, and that means some new Athlon Xp/Athlon64/Opteron optimizations, my Prime95 clients will remain offline.

If more of the other 18000 Athlon Prime95 clients complain/protest then maybe we too could see some specific optimizations.


SALEM

If you don't like what P95 (the project or the user) has done, work on other projects, that's your right.

Personally I run my 2000+ on Prime95, and I'm quite happy. That said, I would like to see the FMUL following FMUL edge taken advantage of - which would require code specific to the various Athlon CPUs.

[carltao]

At least I am not happy with the benchmark results shown at the GIMP website.
I think maybe p95 can take more from Athlon by fully using their FPUs.

Originally posted by pakaran
If you don't like what P95 (the project or the user) has done, work on other projects, that's your right.

Personally I run my 2000+ on Prime95, and I'm quite happy. That said, I would like to see the FMUL following FMUL edge taken advantage of - which would require code specific to the various Athlon CPUs.

[apocalypse]

There are two basic issues here[list=1][*] CPU architecture
The P4/Opteron/Athlon64 processors support the iSSE2 instruction set, but Athlons and Athlon XPs do not. This difference has no measurable effect on word processors, games, web browsers, or 99% of anything run on one of these computers. The Athlon XP competes very well with the P4 on this sort of software.
GIMPS, on the other hand, runs much faster on computers which support iSSE2. This is why GIMPS runs faster on a P4 than on an equivalent Athlon XP.
[*] Volunteer software development
The Prime95 and mprime GIMPS clients have been written and maintained by George Woltman as his time permits. He has done a great job optimizing the code on every platform from at least the original Pentiums through the P4 and AthlonXP processors. He chooses improvements to make the greatest benefit to GIMPS with a very limited resource (his time). I am very grateful for what George has done with this project, and he has done it far better than I could myself.[/list=1]
You are free to run GIMPS or not, and you are free to suggest or to contribute code improvements. But before anyone goes making demands, try to remember that we are all volunteers here.

[pakaran]

Originally posted by apocalypse

You are free to run GIMPS or not, and you are free to suggest or to contribute code improvements. But before anyone goes making demands, try to remember that we are all volunteers here.

Agreed. I know this is something George has done for fun, during his retirement, so that we can also have fun. I am overjoyed that he has done so.

My suggestion of adding adjacent FMUL support was just that - a suggestion. The only ASM I know is MIPS, not x86, or I would work on these improvements myself. In the meantime, I am only making suggestions.

And I don't know as I like the tone some of the people here are using.

George, if people are taking 8 machines, or 12 machines, off the project because of the choices you've made, don't feel pressured. That many machines will sign up in 1-2 hours. In the meantime, the rest of us are having fun looking for primes - and that's what counts, NOT 10% differences in performance on particular CPUs. If you want 10% better performance, buy another box

[carltao]

I only did some 8086 assembly work years ago,
hope someday I can do some work for Athlon optimiztions.

[mephisto]

carltao: you know that GIMPS has bought an Opteron for AMD 64-bit optimizations? If you want to learn AMD 64-bit assembler, here's the chance :)

Check this thread:
http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthr...=&threadid=964

[carltao]

Originally posted by mephisto
carltao: you know that GIMPS has bought an Opteron for AMD 64-bit optimizations? If you want to learn AMD 64-bit assembler, here's the chance :)

Check this thread:
http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthr...=&threadid=964

Thanks!