Optimal Hardware for bare GIMPS client - Page 2

tjkwak · 2002-11-18, 19:09

I got a 2.0 celeron over the weekend for $95, they can be had
online for $90. Mine is OCed to 2.6ghz. Ran torture test
for a day at that speed. Looks good so far.

QuintLeo · 2002-11-18, 19:39

*nod* I sit corrected on the SSE 2 stuff.

The P-IV Celerons *still* suffer from that small L1 and L2 cache limit, though - *AND* the high cost of Socket-478 motherboards compared to equivilent AMD motherboards *and* the high cost of the Celeron itself compared to AMD cpus. Might be competative for LL and double-checking on the smaller (under about 20,000,000) exponents, but not competative at all if you're even *thinking* about 10 million digit exponents - and considerably *more* expensive than comparable Athlon setups.

*something* sure knocks the Celeron-1700 w/DDR performance way down, way below Athlon-XP1600+ w/*SDR* performance, on larger FFT matrix sizes on the benchmarks page.

Xyzzy · 2002-11-19, 01:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by QuintLeo

...*AND* the high cost of Socket-478 motherboards compared to equivilent AMD motherboards...

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduct.asp?description=13-135-121&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduct.asp?description=13-135-117&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduct.asp?description=13-135-120&depa=1

Note that the first one has integrated video...

Biostar also makes a pile of low cost mobos...

outlnder · 2002-11-19, 03:30

Right now, Fry's has a P4 2.4 with an ECS P4VXAD+ for $230. Don't know the FSB.

QuintLeo · 2002-11-19, 21:10

As opposed to a Biostar or ECS (I forget which) M7VKQ at under $55 *SHIPPED* from several sources on pricewatch - and "kit machines" with Athlon 1800+ or better, M7VKQ or comparable PC-Chips board, PS and case for under $130 *shipped* from several sources. I've seen Athlon 1600+ similar systems for around $95, for those lucky enough to be near a big metro area (Chicago in particular).

I'd love to see a Pentium-IV 1.8A Northwood for less than $130 shipped, or a bare-bones kit with one that's capable of 533 FSB for *close* to $200.

Be carefull when looking on pricewatch for these, a lot of venders will sell you a 533 FSB MB with a *non-Northwood* P-IV 1.8 pretty cheap - those don't overclock very well and have 256k cacne instead of 512k. *NOT* comparable to the Northwood 1.8A at all in Mersenne performance.

The lowest cost MB comparable to your link to the "with VGA/LAN' from newegg that I've found is the SAME price - shipped - give or take a dollar - and given my problem with NewEgg's "only ship FedEx no matter what" policy, I will NOT deal with them again.

I suspect the real P-IV low-cost motherboard price competition is waiting for PC-Chips to get serious about 533 FSB motherboards.

Xyzzy · 2002-11-19, 23:17

If Newegg doesn't have it, I don't need it...

I'm not up to date on cheap mobos, but I can get a P4S5A/DX *shipped* for 55 bux from several vendors... This happens to be Outlnder's favorite board! And the vendors I looked at are part of Yahoo's commerce thing so you are guaranteed not to get screwed...

I don't get too hung up about the 533MHz FSB chips... I've done extensive benchmarks and for LL testing, the FSB really doesn't make any difference... Of course, you are limited to 2.6GHz...

ebx · 2002-11-20, 20:46

It is a bit unfortuante that everything leans towards Intel at least for now. As Intel rolls out more chips, they push down the prices on the slower chips which will soon eliminate the price advantage AMD has 'enjoyed' for so long, unless AMD can keep up the pace. Even on the Comdex, AMD failed to generate with any real excitment.

Yeah right, 'performance isnt everything to customers'. Why didnt I hear that when AMD was leading the race?

To give XP a new life, AMD needs to show us new chipsets with more memory bandwidth, higher clock with bigger cache, lower power consumption, maybe a better dual chipset. Unless their .13u chip can boost clock a lot higher, it is outdated before born.

sdbardwick · 2002-11-20, 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by ebx

As Intel rolls out more chips, they push down the prices on the slower chips which will soon eliminate the price advantage AMD has 'enjoyed' for so long, unless AMD can keep up the pace.

AMD is working on keeping the price/performace ratio competitive. They just announced price cuts of approx. 45% on 2100+ and below Athlons: AMD Price List

ebx · 2002-11-20, 21:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by sdbardwick

AMD is working on keeping the price/performace ratio competitive. They just announced price cuts of approx. 45% on 2100+ and below Athlons: AMD Price List

So prices for all the TB-B CPUs are intact. 2800+ going for $397. P4 2.8 retail is within $10 of that price. Where was Jerry's promission that AMD 'prices equal performance chips at least 25% lower than Intel'? Oh well, time has changed. AMD has a new CEO now.

AMD was never able to charge those phantom prices anyway. Or their stocks would have been in the teens.

Dont get me wrong. I am a fan of AMD. The only processor I bought this year was an XP1800+. I was eyeing at a dual AMD platform, a Barton upgrade, even a Hammer box. All came out lately were delays, problems in production and fanicial disappointments. Sigh!

Still the last thing I want to see is that AMD folds and we pay arms and legs for an Intel CPU.

QuintLeo · 2002-11-20, 23:14

I'm not looking at the 533 FSB "chips".

I'm looking at 533 FSB *boards* for use in overclocking P-IV 1.8As to 2400.

I saw that ECS board you mentioned, Xyzzy - not comparable to the M7VKQ as it doesn't have onboard VGA IIRC - or else it doesn't do 533 FSB, I can't remember which.

The *big* sticking point on the AMD vs Intel debate, though, is the cost of the CPU - the Intel boards are more expensive, but 10% ballpark is not a major factor when the CPUs run 2-3 *TIMES* the cost.

Like a lot of things in this life, though, there is no "one true answer" - the XP1800+ vs. P-IV 1.8A cost-performance question is so *CLOSE* to even, minor details can easily swing it one way or the other for any perticular person. *BOTH* are good alternatives.

Now for a kicker - and I think someone (George?) should look seriously into it.

http//www.angstrom.com/products/titan64_evaluation.htm

Dual Clawhammer, dunno what the "evaluation" terms are - but I suspect Prime95 has a high enough profile that they would at least *THINK* about a free or very low-cost unit in exchange for "fastest machine" bragging rights - and would help with the porting of Prime95 (and mprime?) to Hammer....

devil

ebx · 2003-02-11, 00:37

So the horse is out.

To my disappointment, Barton does not support SSE2. Not that it is super important in real life but gimpers here love it.

It really isnt worth the upgrade for performance alone if you are running at a relatively decent chip. If building new, it would probably worth a wait for the price to settle. Even pickup a tb-b chip at lowered prices would be nice.

Now only if some one posts the gimps benchmarks for the new guy.

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2002-11-18, 19:09	#12
tjkwak Nov 2002 2₁₆ Posts	I got a 2.0 celeron over the weekend for $95, they can be had online for $90. Mine is OCed to 2.6ghz. Ran torture test for a day at that speed. Looks good so far.

2002-11-18, 19:39	#13
QuintLeo Oct 2002 Lost in the hills of Iowa 2⁶·7 Posts	nod I sit corrected on the SSE 2 stuff. The P-IV Celerons still suffer from that small L1 and L2 cache limit, though - AND the high cost of Socket-478 motherboards compared to equivilent AMD motherboards and the high cost of the Celeron itself compared to AMD cpus. Might be competative for LL and double-checking on the smaller (under about 20,000,000) exponents, but not competative at all if you're even thinking about 10 million digit exponents - and considerably more expensive than comparable Athlon setups. something sure knocks the Celeron-1700 w/DDR performance way down, way below Athlon-XP1600+ w/SDR performance, on larger FFT matrix sizes on the benchmarks page.

2002-11-19, 03:30	#15
outlnder Aug 2002 2×3×53 Posts	Right now, Fry's has a P4 2.4 with an ECS P4VXAD+ for $230. Don't know the FSB.

2002-11-19, 21:10	#16
QuintLeo Oct 2002 Lost in the hills of Iowa 2⁶·7 Posts	As opposed to a Biostar or ECS (I forget which) M7VKQ at under $55 SHIPPED from several sources on pricewatch - and "kit machines" with Athlon 1800+ or better, M7VKQ or comparable PC-Chips board, PS and case for under $130 shipped from several sources. I've seen Athlon 1600+ similar systems for around $95, for those lucky enough to be near a big metro area (Chicago in particular). I'd love to see a Pentium-IV 1.8A Northwood for less than $130 shipped, or a bare-bones kit with one that's capable of 533 FSB for close to $200. Be carefull when looking on pricewatch for these, a lot of venders will sell you a 533 FSB MB with a non-Northwood P-IV 1.8 pretty cheap - those don't overclock very well and have 256k cacne instead of 512k. NOT comparable to the Northwood 1.8A at all in Mersenne performance. The lowest cost MB comparable to your link to the "with VGA/LAN' from newegg that I've found is the SAME price - shipped - give or take a dollar - and given my problem with NewEgg's "only ship FedEx no matter what" policy, I will NOT deal with them again. I suspect the real P-IV low-cost motherboard price competition is waiting for PC-Chips to get serious about 533 FSB motherboards.

2002-11-19, 23:17	#17
Xyzzy Aug 2002 2·3²·13·37 Posts	If Newegg doesn't have it, I don't need it... I'm not up to date on cheap mobos, but I can get a P4S5A/DX shipped for 55 bux from several vendors... This happens to be Outlnder's favorite board! And the vendors I looked at are part of Yahoo's commerce thing so you are guaranteed not to get screwed... I don't get too hung up about the 533MHz FSB chips... I've done extensive benchmarks and for LL testing, the FSB really doesn't make any difference... Of course, you are limited to 2.6GHz...

2002-11-20, 20:46	#18
ebx Aug 2002 101 Posts	It is a bit unfortuante that everything leans towards Intel at least for now. As Intel rolls out more chips, they push down the prices on the slower chips which will soon eliminate the price advantage AMD has 'enjoyed' for so long, unless AMD can keep up the pace. Even on the Comdex, AMD failed to generate with any real excitment. Yeah right, 'performance isnt everything to customers'. Why didnt I hear that when AMD was leading the race? To give XP a new life, AMD needs to show us new chipsets with more memory bandwidth, higher clock with bigger cache, lower power consumption, maybe a better dual chipset. Unless their .13u chip can boost clock a lot higher, it is outdated before born.

2002-11-20, 23:14	#21
QuintLeo Oct 2002 Lost in the hills of Iowa 2⁶·7 Posts	I'm not looking at the 533 FSB "chips". I'm looking at 533 FSB boards for use in overclocking P-IV 1.8As to 2400. I saw that ECS board you mentioned, Xyzzy - not comparable to the M7VKQ as it doesn't have onboard VGA IIRC - or else it doesn't do 533 FSB, I can't remember which. The big sticking point on the AMD vs Intel debate, though, is the cost of the CPU - the Intel boards are more expensive, but 10% ballpark is not a major factor when the CPUs run 2-3 TIMES the cost. Like a lot of things in this life, though, there is no "one true answer" - the XP1800+ vs. P-IV 1.8A cost-performance question is so CLOSE to even, minor details can easily swing it one way or the other for any perticular person. BOTH are good alternatives. Now for a kicker - and I think someone (George?) should look seriously into it. http//www.angstrom.com/products/titan64_evaluation.htm Dual Clawhammer, dunno what the "evaluation" terms are - but I suspect Prime95 has a high enough profile that they would at least THINK about a free or very low-cost unit in exchange for "fastest machine" bragging rights - and would help with the porting of Prime95 (and mprime?) to Hammer.... devil

2003-02-11, 00:37	#22
ebx Aug 2002 101 Posts	So the horse is out. To my disappointment, Barton does not support SSE2. Not that it is super important in real life but gimpers here love it. It really isnt worth the upgrade for performance alone if you are running at a relatively decent chip. If building new, it would probably worth a wait for the price to settle. Even pickup a tb-b chip at lowered prices would be nice. Now only if some one posts the gimps benchmarks for the new guy.