P4 3.0 Ghz vs AMD 3500

Post by **Lyion** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:27 am

Ok, I have somewhat of a strange situation. I have two PCs I use:

ASUS Motherboard
AMD 3500+
2 Gigs RAM
74 Gig Raptor Drive 10k Drive
6800 GT 256MB
Sb Audigy 2

The second is:

Dimension E510
P3.0 Hyperthreading PC
2 Gigs RAM
250 Gig SATA w/ 16MB Cache
6800 GS 256 MB
Built in Soundcard

I built the AMD in 2004 to game. I got the second Intel PC pretty much free when I bought a 24" Dell Monitor a few months ago, sans the 6800 GS I got cheap from Newegg.

Both PCs play WOW fine and dandy. Both play FPS and RTS games fine. The second PC outperforms my older one on all 3DMark benchmarks.

Everquest 2 and newer FPS' are much, much slower on the new PC, compared to the old one. EQ2 just... sucks on the new one, and screams on my AMD.

So.. is there a trick or is the new PC just going to continue be asstastic with EQ2?

Post by **Tossica** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:37 am

Try turning off the hyperthreading when you play EQ2.

Post by **Lyion** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 11:07 am

Will that bork windows or anything?

Post by **Tossica** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:08 pm

No but it's kind of a PITA though. Sony doesn't support dual proc at all. I think I remember having issues with my laptop and I had to turn HT off when I wanted to play EQ2.

Post by **Lyion** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 12:16 pm

Ah, thanks for the info. I'll try that.

Harrison · Post by **Harrison** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:19 pm

Tossica wrote:Try turning off the hyperthreading when you play EQ2.

Winnar!

Post by **Gidan** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:47 pm

Intel FTL

Harrison · Post by **Harrison** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:55 pm

I want one of their new Core 2 duo's though, those things are badass.

Post by **Gidan** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 3:59 pm

We have a few Core 2 duo boxes we are testing at work, they really are not that great. I still stick with our AMD's.

Harrison · Post by **Harrison** » Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:01 pm

Really? I've seen benchmarks and reviews that claim they are nothing short of perfect.

Post by **Gidan** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:09 am

They are fast, but we are just not seeing anything special from them. For all the hype they are getting, I just donâ€™t see the performance increase as being worth the money.

We are currently looking to update some of our internal servers, in a few we are using Core 2 duo's, some are dual Xeons and some are dual Opterons. If I had to guess right now, I would say we will end up using the Xeons or Opterons. The performance to price ratio on them seems to be a bit better. I am not optimistic about them and gaming. Intel has always outperformed AMD on our servers; however the newest of the Intel line just doesn't seem to perform as expected. We honestly expected those Core 2's to blow away the Opterons and they just arenâ€™t. If they canâ€™t overwhelmingly beat AMD on servers, I'm not sure how they hope to do it on the gaming side.

I beleive they still plan to test for atleast 3 more months before making the call, who knows over time they may see them as being worth it, but at this time, they just seem to be falling short.

Post by **Lyion** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:20 am

HT off or on, the Intel box is a pig for EQ2 and is slower gaming in everything than my 2 year old AMD home built box.

Since it was essentially a free box, and I'm going to use it primarily As an HTPC pooter its not a biggie, but I'm surprised it scored higher on 3dMarks but in reality is very much slower.

I've gotten great mileage from my 04 AMD box. My next one will also be an AMD.

Post by **Gidan** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:29 am

I never really trusted my 3dMark scores. Sometimes, such as your situation, they are just meaningless.

Narrock · Post by **Narrock** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:04 am

There's a good reason why AMD is always considered "the gamers chip."

Jimmy Durante · Post by **Jimmy Durante** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:07 am

If someone were to build a completely new AMD machine right now, would there be any real advantage to using AM2?

Post by **Gidan** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:09 am

Yes, its the new standard for AMD and if you wanted to upgrade later, you will be happy you used AM2 and are not forced to replace your motherboard as well.

xKALECx · Post by **xKALECx** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:59 am

My machine is running EQ2 with all options maxed new models flawless using dual core. Also using 2 7600GT's in SLI too.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 12:28 pm

gidan wrote:Yes, its the new standard for AMD and if you wanted to upgrade later, you will be happy you used AM2 and are not forced to replace your motherboard as well.

with the way prices have dropped, I'm definately reconsidering my upgrade path

i'm still torn between buying a kickass laptop, or buying a real gaming desktop

my gaming lately has been almost non-existant, and with the new generation of consoles out, i'm not sure I care if I have a new gaming machine or not...

Post by **Lyion** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 1:27 pm

I may sell my laptop. I have 3 Ghz Dell Inspiron 5160, with a Gig of ram, a Geforce card, and 60 Gig HDD. I just don't ever use it.

Tikker · Post by **Tikker** » Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:43 pm

lyion wrote:I may sell my laptop. I have 3 Ghz Dell Inspiron 5160, with a Gig of ram, a Geforce card, and 60 Gig HDD. I just don't ever use it.

what do you want for it?

since i built my laptop, I almost never touch my desktop (and desktop is almost 2ghz faster, jeje)