19 replies to this topic

[gxjenkin]

I’ve got a question about CPU’s. My system which is an eMachine model: T5082 running Vista Home Basic. I got the system 2nd hand, and Vista was on it.

I don’t have any complaints about this system, but I’m confused about the CPU and how many cores it has.

Below is a screenshot from my Device Manager:



The screenshot above shows my CPU and the Documentation says it has 1 Core and 2:

Processor Number 631
# of Cores 1
# of Threads 2

Yesterday I was looking for another system because my girlfriend wants to upgrade her system. The boxes I looked at (or most of them) were dual core machines, but in Device Manager it showed the same thing as mine.

So, my questions are is one better than the other, and why.

[the_reaper]

Duel cores are much better (get actual parallel processing).
Hyper threading is basically where the processor performs two different types of operations in parallel (usually add/subtract operations on one 'thread', and load/store on the other).
Dual cores, on the other hand, are two physical processors doing two completely different jobs in parallel. So you could have (at any one time) Firefox processing being done by core 0, and an AV program processing in core 1.

[gxjenkin]

Thanks reaper, I think this is the best explanation I've seen.
http://www.makeuseof...logy-explained/

It looks like any one of the Dual Core systems I looked at will suit her fine, and one day maybe I'll upgrade as well. So far the only advantage for me will be the added RAM since my current system is maxed out with 2 GB, and the Dual Core systems almost all I looked at had 4 or more.

[roderick young]

The older processors' hyperthreading was of minimal to no advantage. I keep it off on the P4 we have in our bedroom. As you pointed out, having lots of memory will help more than having a powerful processor, unless she's going to be doing gaming or video encoding or something like that.

On the newer processors in the larger servers my company sells, hyperthreading actually does seem to help a lot, and we enable it by default.

[the_reaper]

@gxjenkin - No problem.
I think the i3 and i5 ranges from Intel are all dual core with Hyper Threading (with i7s being quads + HT). So either way, you're going to get Hyper Threading.

With your RAM, may want to make sure you can have (and use) more than 4GB (if you're planning on going over)...just make sure you have a 64 bit processor

@roderick - I noticed that with a family friend's old Pentium 4 system...it usually seemed fairly slow when we were fixing things for them.

[gxjenkin]

roderick young, on 26 January 2012 - 03:33 AM, said:

The older processors' hyperthreading was of minimal to no advantage. I keep it off on the P4 we have in our bedroom. As you pointed out, having lots of memory will help more than having a powerful processor, unless she's going to be doing gaming or video encoding or something like that.

On the newer processors in the larger servers my company sells, hyperthreading actually does seem to help a lot, and we enable it by default.

She like Facebook games, and she has a bunch of games on CD's. The local games are not a problem but the Facebook games give her fits and when it does I just let her use my system. I think we'll go with the Dual Core 2.7 GH w/ 4 GB RAM. She should be o.k. with that box.

[gxjenkin]

the_reaper, on 26 January 2012 - 03:37 AM, said:

@gxjenkin - No problem.
I think the i3 and i5 ranges from Intel are all dual core with Hyper Threading (with i7s being quads + HT). So either way, you're going to get Hyper Threading.

With your RAM, may want to make sure you can have (and use) more than 4GB (if you're planning on going over)...just make sure you have a 64 bit processor

@roderick - I noticed that with a family friend's old Pentium 4 system...it usually seemed fairly slow when we were fixing things for them.

Just to update what has happened. I ended up getting an Acer Aspire with an Intel i3 3.1 GH processor. It came with Windows 7, and already I miss Vista. Maybe that's because I'm just not use to W7 yet, but I'll see.

[HCN-Northern]

if your wondering what you PC has then there is loads of software out there that 'US' overclockers use and they tell you what you have in you machine

you could always get CPUz from http://www.cpuid.com...ares/cpu-z.html using this i would find out what cpu i have then look up the details of the cpu and see if it does have hyper threading etc or the details that you want to know about.

or if you want to pay *cough* to see MORE info where it tells you all what your cpu can do (hyper threading etc) and many more things then you can get AIDA64 Extreme Edition from http://www.aida64.com/downloads


BUT at the end of the day if your just getting a computer for faceache, word and office type stuff then you DONT need more than a duel core with at least 8GB (i say 8 then it gives space to run more apps etc)

also, if she is having problems with FF or IE etc then you need to clean up the system.

clean the regfiles
clean the junk files etc
check for malware every 1-2 weeks
check for viruses every month (unless something is up with your system)

just plain keep it clean as best you can and it should run smooth

[the_reaper]

gxjenkin, on 09 February 2012 - 04:19 PM, said:

Just to update what has happened. I ended up getting an Acer Aspire with an Intel i3 3.1 GH processor. It came with Windows 7, and already I miss Vista. Maybe that's because I'm just not use to W7 yet, but I'll see.

You'll get used to Win7. It's not too much different from Vista...major difference is the stability
Can you keep us (or just me) updated on how the Aspire goes? My dad's looking for a new laptop (not that he's going to get one too soon), so it'd be good to know what that one's like.

[gxjenkin]

the_reaper, on 10 February 2012 - 12:37 AM, said:

You'll get used to Win7. It's not too much different from Vista...major difference is the stability Can you keep us (or just me) updated on how the Aspire goes? My dad's looking for a new laptop (not that he's going to get one too soon), so it'd be good to know what that one's like.

I'll let you know what happening with this system, but this isn't a Laptop. There is a line of Aspire Laptops but I was looking for a replacement for my desktop. Here is a review its not for havey gamers, or someone using AutoCAD, but sofar it works for me.

aspire M3970 Review:
http://reviews.cnet....7-34686780.html

http://shop.retrevo....35/t/1-2/?rt=sp

[the_reaper]

Ahh, fair enough. Still be nice to know how it goes

I'll check out those reviews.

[gxjenkin]

After one full day working with this pc I realize now that going from a 32 bit os to a 64 bit os not everything will move over without some adjustments. The biggest surprise was 7zip I ran the installer and it completed but the program was nowhere to be found. Then I remembered 64 bits and downloaded the correct version and its o.k. now.

It took more than a full day to copy 200 GB of data from the old system. It did it in the background while I kept working and the system never broke a sweat.

[the_reaper]

gxjenkin, on 10 February 2012 - 07:44 PM, said:

After one full day working with this pc I realize now that going from a 32 bit os to a 64 bit os not everything will move over without some adjustments. The biggest surprise was 7zip I ran the installer and it completed but the program was nowhere to be found. Then I remembered 64 bits and downloaded the correct version and its o.k. now.

It completed, but wasn't actually installed? Weird...never had that happen to me.

gxjenkin, on 10 February 2012 - 07:44 PM, said:

It took more than a full day to copy 200 GB of data from the old system. It did it in the background while I kept working and the system never broke a sweat.

Ahh, the fun of copying to a brand new PC...loving that speed boost already?

[gxjenkin]

So far the system is running very well. I had to un-install a bunch of stuff that came with it, like a bunch of trial stuff.
There is still a bunch of stuff running in task manager I don't reconize, but it looks like its running processes to support both 32 and 64 bit applications.
Firefox has gone mad! Its memory usage has gone sky high as much as 1 GB, and thats not counting the plugin containers. Even with that much memory being used just by one app there still isn't any slow down.
I tried to stress the system by openning a bunch of applications waiting for a slow down and after openning Photoshop 7, FF, IE, Chrome, ebay turbo lister (thats a hog), Open Office and a few others I was surprised the system hadn't slowed. I was more surprised to see in task manager I was using more than 4 of the loaded 6 GB's of memory.
I think the OS is the clear winner here. Managing all the app's without a hiccup.

Just for kick's I'm going to try the same test with one of the core's turned off. From what I've read depending of the app's you're running it can really speed up Windows 7.

[the_reaper]

I knew you'd love Win7 once you'd gotten to push it a bit

I'd never heard that before. I'd love to know the results.

[gxjenkin]

Yes, the OS is operating great. And, I've never been a fan of Windows. I've used every Windows version there has been (I'm pretty sure)and until now I would have sworn Vista was the best Microsoft has produced.

But, I still don't like ALL the changes made in windows 7. For instance in earlier versions you could change the look and feel of the folders and Start Menu back to Classic View, and I haven't found a way to do that in W7. There are other changes and it all comes down to learning a new way of doing things. I don't like it, but I'll get over it.

There was an update (10.0.2) to FF tonight and since then FF memory usage has dropped allot.

I used these instructions to turn off one of the Core's :
http://en.kioskea.ne...-disable-a-core

And, this one for doing the same but per app:
http://wiki.onmac.ne...plication_basis

I don't see any difference, but I'm not running an old game, or old application that doesn't like being split up on two core's.

I've got some old games around here somewhere that maybe old enough for me to try.
Will let you know how it turns out.

BTW, I've been able to break every version of windows I've run, including Vista. So, we'll see.

[HCN-Northern]

you could run Prime95 and do a total stress test.... used for overclocking to stress test the cpu and usually run for 12hrs or more to get best results

32bit version http://files.extreme.../file.php?f=103
64bit version http://files.extreme.../file.php?f=205

[gxjenkin]

HCN-Northern, on 17 February 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

you could run Prime95 and do a total stress test.... used for overclocking to stress test the cpu and usually run for 12hrs or more to get best results

32bit version http://files.extreme.../file.php?f=103
64bit version http://files.extreme.../file.php?f=205

Thanks, I'll try that because nothing I'm doing is making a dent.

[gxjenkin]

gxjenkin, on 18 February 2012 - 08:05 PM, said:

Thanks, I'll try that because nothing I'm doing is making a dent.

I tried Prime95 on my old system, and new system. I couldn't let it run until it completed because it wanted to run for 24 hrs and that was too long. I'll go thru the settings again to see if I can shorten that.
It did run for about 8 hours on both systems. While running on my old system it was not very usable. It took minutes between each mouse click for the system to react. But, on the new system I was able to keep working with only a small delay between clicking the mouse and the system reacting.
There was a Flash update, and I installed ebay's turbo lister. One or the other broke McAfee and I had to do a system restore.
Slowly I'm disabling stuff that came pre-loaded and my Task Manager is starting to look better. I'm trying to be careful with what I disable and only disable stuff like Hotkey utility, Adobe pre-loader.
Next I'm going to trying out Clear.fi which is Acer's sharing program. It allows my computer to share files like pictures, video's with other devices on my Network, and I think the Internet. I have it turned off now, but I'm going to try and set it to share with a WII.

[gxjenkin]

Its been awhile since I updated this topic, so this is what I've found so far.
I never did run the stress test because I couldn't figure out how to limit it to only run for say, 8 hours. It really wouldn't matter because I could still use the system while its running. The system would be a bit jerky while the test is running but you can still use the system.

This system comes with Acer's own brand of multimedia sharing software called "clear.fi" and I haven't set it up yet. This box also has a Wireless NIC (that is disabled now). I intend to set it up to connect to my WII to share movies from places like Hulu. What I don't like about Clear.fi is that it grabs ALL media assuming you want to share, and right now I'm not.

Once all the "updating" features are turned off the system runs like a charm. I'm running video converting software to change video formats for a new website I building and the conversion is Super Fast! Its much faster than my old single Core system.

I paid 400 for the whole system. CPU, 22 inch Monitor, keyboard and mouse, but you should be able to find this system for less. Especially if you don't need the Monitor, Keyboard, or Mouse.