Athlon LE-1620 vs Intel Core2 Duo ?

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Buffalo:
Is your #2 daughter complaining about the speed, or is it OK with her?

She has been having episodes of the speed dropping to where it looks
superficially like the machine is locked up.

Process Lasso(TaskMan analog that supposedly also shows processes that
TaskMan does not) does not show anything.

The Task Manager shows the "percentage of something".
Most people assume that "something" is a manifest constant.
It doesn't have to be.

*******

If you set the Power schema to "always on", then the clock
rate can be relatively constant. But that doesn't
save much power. When the computer is idle, it
might use a C state to save power, but the clock will
be running at the full rate.

If Cool N' Quiet is working, such as when "Balanced" is
used as the computer power schema, then when the desktop
is idle, the CPU drops to 800MHz. When the CPU is called
on to do a calculation, the clock can be raised to 2.4GHz.
Corrections to clock speed, might happen 30 times a second.
The controls are called FID and VID. FID is the
frequency multiplier. 200*4 = 800Mhz. 200*12 = 2.4GHz.
Where 200MHz might be the base clock on one of these
processors. VID is the voltage setting. When the
clock drops, the voltage can be dropped too. And the order
the controls are adjusted, changes depending on the direction.
With increasing clock, the voltage is turned up first.
With decreasing clock, the frequency is reduced first,
then the voltage is turned down. It might take
around 100 usec for the transition to be completed,
and the transition is slow so as to not crash it.

So that covers Cool N' Quiet, and two PStates.

In addition to the value of the clock, the processor
can effectively insert "No Operation" or NOPs into
the instruction stream. Not all of the execution pipeline
is going to be used, if no operation is called for.
So the processor saves power. You could run at 800MHz
with no NOPS (throttling), or maybe half the cycles
the CPU isn't allowed to do anything, which reduces the
effective clock rate to 400MHz. Throttling like that
is used to cool off the processor when it gets too hot.

For an Intel processor, these principles are demonstrated
in this article.

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/cpu/in...res-core2.html

Now, on Intel, there is a throttling bit that can be
monitored, to tell whether the CPU is reducing effort
because it is too hot. I don't know if AMD uses the
exact same mechanism or not. AMD can change Pstates
(go from 800MHz to 2.4GHz) on demand. But I don't
know if they have thermal throttling like Intel.

So for study tools, you have:

1) CPUZ gives instantaneous clock rate. When Desktop is idle,
you might see the CPU at 800MHz. If you're running a
benchmark, maybe you see the CPU at 2.4GHz. What you
don't see though, is the throttle bit, so you don't
know how efficiently the CPU is using the available clock.

2) RMClock gives a measure of the Throttle bit on Intel,
not sure on AMD.

3) Speedfan is a tool I use for temperature readouts.

You can get CPUZ here.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

And Speedfan for the temperature readouts is here.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan451.exe

RMClock is 7 years old and I have no idea how well
it works on a modern OS.

http://cpu.rightmark.org/download.shtml

This article attempts to discuss the subject, but
lacks an authoritative tone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_frequency_scaling

*******

There was an incident a number of years ago, called "Throttlegate".
A couple computer models were subject to excesses in the
implementation of the above features. If the computer
got warm, the effective clock rate could drop to only 100Mhz to
200MHz or so. And when the CPU cooled off, the thing
didn't recover properly either. In that case,
an idle desktop would register in Task Manager
as "100% busy", because the CPU, running at such
a low frequency, was completely to the wall just
doing OS bookkeeping tasks.

All copies of the Throttlegate PDF were removed
from the web, so I cannot share it with you.

So when you see "100%" in Task Manager, on a badly
designed computer, it could be "100% of 100MHz",
meaning your sucky CPU operation is causing the
problem, and not a "railed task". It's the fault
of the (unseen) clock value, having an impact on
how the Task Manager value registers (100%).

Paul

| Now I am thinking that, if they will spring for the extra cash, this i5
| at $300 might be more future-proof:

http://www.microcenter.com/product/4...se_Refurbished


If you have a Pro disk for Windows you might
do better to just build. That CPU, for instance,
came out almost 5 years ago. A couple of weeks
ago I got the following for $300 from TigerDirect:

AMD FX-8300 Processor - 8-core, 3.3GHz
Asus M5A78L-M motherboard (integrated audio/video)
8 GB RAM
1 TB hard disk
650w power supply
fan/CPU cooler
Samsung DVD drive
mid-tower case with fan

I then got a Samsung 260 GB 850 EVO SSD
that was on sale for something like $65.

The Intel you're looking at looks like plenty for almost
anyone, but I'd wonder about the age and wear-and-tear.
Is the 500 GB HD used? How old is the motherboard?
You may be mostly paying for Win7 Pro, in which case
you should be sure you're getting a disk with it. Pro
license allows you to install on any number of machines,
as long as it's one at a time. But that won't do you much
good if it's locked to the hardware you get.

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
You may be mostly paying for Win7 Pro, in which case
you should be sure you're getting a disk with it. Pro
license allows you to install on any number of machines,
as long as it's one at a time. But that won't do you much
good if it's locked to the hardware you get.


I thought it was whether retail or OEM, rather than home or pro, that
determined whether it's transferable - i. e. OEM home or pro is tied to
its first install (including all pre-installed, AFAIK), whereas retail
home or pro is transferable.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Thankfully, I know where the bodies are buried (the abandoned Television
Centre, in the /Blue Peter/ Garden), ... - Eddie Mair, RT 2015/4/25 to 5/1

| I thought it was whether retail or OEM, rather than home or pro, that
| determined whether it's transferable - i. e. OEM home or pro is tied to
| its first install (including all pre-installed, AFAIK), whereas retail
| home or pro is transferable.

Woops. That sounds right. I was assuming that
there's no such thing as OEM Pro. It seems like
sort of a contradiction. But maybe that is what
he's looking at.

In message , Mayayana
writes:
| I thought it was whether retail or OEM, rather than home or pro, that
| determined whether it's transferable - i. e. OEM home or pro is tied to
| its first install (including all pre-installed, AFAIK), whereas retail
| home or pro is transferable.

Woops. That sounds right. I was assuming that
there's no such thing as OEM Pro. It seems like
sort of a contradiction. But maybe that is what
he's looking at.

I think there is - at least of the preinstalled variety, not sure
whether you can (well, could) buy it separately. But I'm pretty sure you
could buy machines with Pro preinstalled, which would be OEM.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"I'm a self-made man, thereby demonstrating once again the perils of unskilled
labor..." - Harlan Ellison