Anyone who found this talk of CPU weaknesses might find this at least very vaguely interesting.

I just swapped-out the Athlon 64 x 2 5600 (which was running at about 3GHz) for my old Phenom 9550 (an *old* Phenom) running at 2.2GHz.

According to what we've learned about the Athlon 64 taking two clocks to do one SSE3 instruction in an earlier post, I would expect the AstroPulse WUs the 9550 completes to be somewhat faster.

This might be interesting for two reasons:

1) Anyone running an old Athlon 64 x 2 might want to consider eBaying (or your favorite way of acquiring old stuff cheap) an old, cheap, Phenom if the increase in production (RAC) justifies it to you.

2) If your motherboard is compatible (AM2+) with the Phenom x 4 CPU, you'll be getting another two cores (100% increase) for the difference between 89w and 95w of power consumption, and that by itself might be enough to justify $100 on the Phenom. <if you're sensitive to the cost of running it, the best you can do may be the 95w version 9850 @ 2.5GHz / the 2.6GHz version being a 125w piece>

ALSO - and here's the bonus for me: I want to see how the old Phenom compares to the new FX-8120 that's faster, but shares the FPU *AND* is a 125w CPU.

The Phenom IIs (1090T / 1100T) will whip the FX-8120, we already know. But I wonder if the old Phenom will outpace the FX-8120 despite the 8MB of L2 and 8MB of L3 cache and the memory controller on the FX CPU.

...and not to run this post into the ground, but I "feel" like the 8120 is much faster on Windows 7 if I'm on the internet, also playing an MP3, and simultaneously crunching, opening and closing applications, unzipping files, etc. I don't seem to be able to make it "feel" slow or over-burdened.

(hey, I have to look for a bright-side to owning this 8120)

LOL...anybody still OCing them ol' Sempron toasters??

---

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

LOL...anybody still OCing them ol' Sempron toasters??

Honestly, I think it's interesting what computers people are running. I've noticed a fair number of Athlon 64 processors processing SETI work.

Mostly I was thinking of those who treat this like an obsessive hobby instead of like a compulsion. Someone might be willing to spend $100 to double their RAC who is not willing (or can't) spend $500 on a video card.

You can look at my eclectic collection of stuff and tell that there are "spare parts" at work in my stable. I'm having fun putting "junk" to work (as long as it isn't so junky as to make it wasteful to use).

I'm creating "spare clock cycles" by using spare equipment. Old stuff is cheap.

It's not nice to laugh at people who might be overclocking a Pentium Pro and have a RAC of 71 from the vantage of a 300,000+ RAC.

You might hurt someone's feelings.

Not mine.

If I wanted to spend the money to purchase and run 9 GTX 590s, I would.

LOL...anybody still OCing them ol' Sempron toasters??

Honestly, I think it's interesting what computers people are running. I've noticed a fair number of Athlon 64 processors processing SETI work.

Mostly I was thinking of those who treat this like an obsessive hobby instead of like a compulsion. Someone might be willing to spend $100 to double their RAC who is not willing (or can't) spend $500 on a video card.

You can look at my eclectic collection of stuff and tell that there are "spare parts" at work in my stable. I'm having fun putting "junk" to work (as long as it isn't so junky as to make it wasteful to use).

I'm creating "spare clock cycles" by using spare equipment. Old stuff is cheap.

It's not nice to laugh at people who might be overclocking a Pentium Pro and have a RAC of 71 from the vantage of a 300,000+ RAC.

You might hurt someone's feelings.

Not mine.

If I wanted to spend the money to purchase and run 9 GTX 590s, I would.

TB....no diss intended, to you or anybody else that is running legacy equipment.

Uhh...mine is not exactly up to current standards either.
If not for the generosity of certain other Seti members, I should be quite in the dog house.

I was simply joking about the ol' Sempron processors. Toasters, they gained the moniker, because they ran so f'n hot if you even attempted to run them OCd.
The spiked the rise in aftermarket CPU cooling solutions at the time, because the stock thingys would burn up the CPU socket on the mobo.
The CPUs, on the other hand, would never die.
I am sure I still have some in the archives.

---

"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

LOL...anybody still OCing them ol' Sempron toasters??

Honestly, I think it's interesting what computers people are running. I've noticed a fair number of Athlon 64 processors processing SETI work.

Mostly I was thinking of those who treat this like an obsessive hobby instead of like a compulsion. Someone might be willing to spend $100 to double their RAC who is not willing (or can't) spend $500 on a video card.

You can look at my eclectic collection of stuff and tell that there are "spare parts" at work in my stable. I'm having fun putting "junk" to work (as long as it isn't so junky as to make it wasteful to use).

I'm creating "spare clock cycles" by using spare equipment. Old stuff is cheap.

It's not nice to laugh at people who might be overclocking a Pentium Pro and have a RAC of 71 from the vantage of a 300,000+ RAC.

You might hurt someone's feelings.

Not mine.

If I wanted to spend the money to purchase and run 9 GTX 590s, I would.

TB....no diss intended, to you or anybody else that is running legacy equipment.

Uhh...mine is not exactly up to current standards either.
If not for the generosity of certain other Seti members, I should be quite in the dog house.

I was simply joking about the ol' Sempron processors. Toasters, they gained the moniker, because they ran so f'n hot if you even attempted to run them OCd.
The spiked the rise in aftermarket CPU cooling solutions at the time, because the stock thingys would burn up the CPU socket on the mobo.
The CPUs, on the other hand, would never die.
I am sure I still have some in the archives.

Hey, if it weren't for those GTX 295s you have so many of...

Man, where did you get all of those and WHY do they still blow the socks off of much, much, much newer stuff? Those cards are amazing.

I'm sticking together this old 9550 (currently with a GTX 560, but eventually with a multi-display GT 520 I have) and I hope to give it to a school for running multiple projectors. In the meantime, it's kind-of fun to fool with. The fans are red and blue like the school colors!

There was another CPU that used to like to burn wasn't there, way before a Sempron? Maybe a PII or Pentium Pro? I used to overclock the snot out of some K-6 AMDs to good effect, but there was another chip around that time that if you did an overclock you melted the motherboard.

I still pine for my old 6x86-120 Cyrix Win3.1 rig. That thing was *lightning* running DOS/Win 3.1 & OS/2. (you turned down the multiplier and raised the FSB to like 3 x 40MHz...it flew) I think I might have-had a whole megabyte of RAM on the video card, a Diamond Viper if I remember correctly. I had a Gravis Ultrasound soundcard in it (sweet sounding) and with my Gravis joystick I could waste days playing the original version of DOOM on my...oh crap, it's gone... the memory of that monitor's brand is gone... it was a $750 (when $750 was $750) 19" CRT with an ultra-fine dot pitch. All the rage in its day. Doggone this getting old stuff... not an NEC or Samsung... super-flat CRT... I can't remember. Wait, I've got it! It was an early top-of-the-line MAG Innovision before MAG=cheap. Whatever it was, it was "highly touted" and was awesome.

Wow. That was 20 years ago, Mark.

Can you imagine how incredibly slow it would be crunching SETI?

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."
----Grouch Marx

Have you tried r557 on your FX ?

I´m doing APs in ~41K seconds on my 8150 but mine is OC.
The FX needs much more clock speed than the Phenom did.

My old 1090T @ 3.6 GHZ did an AP in 57K
My FX 8150 @4.3 GHZ ~ 41K

On MB its ~ 1K faster.

---

With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

The difference with r557 is not that great:

APv6 on my Phenom 940 @ 3.2Ghz ~41k

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=969963807

APv6 on my 8150 @ 4,5 Ghz ~39k

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/workunit.php?wuid=954214625

The Phenom is running Linux, while the 8150 is on Windows 7.

Right now the Phenom only shows 1 AP task, but it has run several, and the trend is the same as I show here, about 2k seconds slower pr. WU.

But then again, it only runs 4 at a time, the 8150 does 8 at a time, and a little faster at each.

---

2K are 2K

Multiplied with 8 cores not to shabby IMHO.

---

With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Yes but not 16k difference (pr. core) :)

I dont think the FX is doing that bad either.

---

Anyone of ou tried the Linux APv6 SSE2 version instead of SSE3 on their AMDs ?

My PhII 910e running stock 2.6Ghz is finishing wus with low blanking just above 42k example

---

_\|/_
U r s

No I havent.

I had enough problems getting my current optimized clients running on Linux, so I have just been happy with it.

Placements of the different files, making apps executionable, learning about different user classes (and what they can do), was more than enough to challenge my abilities.

But if there is potentially 5-10% more speed to gain, I would probably try it again.

Should be easier the second time :)

---

Remember, I'm running a "special" non-AVX version of AP6 on my 8120.

I'm finally getting enough numbers for them to "trend." I don't really see a trend, yet. Here are some numbers, just for fun:

FX-8120
54300
54498
53225
49719
54856
57699
57330
63535

1100T
39408
49756
51057
51332
46749
51239
50596
50425
49660
57505
40061

1090T
60101
60570
60501
63088
56637
57512
52472
54324
58055

Why dont you use r555 or r557?
Its faster on your FX.

---

With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Why dont you use r555 or r557?
Its faster on your FX.

he is running non-AVX 548 on special request.

---

I'm not the Pope. I don't speak Ex Cathedra!

This is just musings, nothing substantive or earth-shattering.

Two WUs does not make a representative sample, but look at this:

Phenom 9550

12.31% blanked - 41,715
3.08% blanked - 71,099

That's a really old, and much maligned, processor running at 2.2GHz with slower RAM.

Compare that to the numbers (a few messages above) of the FX-8120 running at 3.1GHz, or the 1100T at 3.3GHz, and the 1090T at 3.2GHz; all with faster RAM.

I know "small" differences over time will lead to large differences in total output, but I think I'm feeling that there should have been a large difference in processor "power" between the Phenom 9550 and Phenom II 1100T beyond what you would expect from increasing RAM speed and processor clocks.

I think we're all a little disappointed with the first showings of "bulldozer" in absolute numbers; but I find it hard to complain too much at its price-point. It'll multi-task the heck out of the things I do.

I guess I'm saying that if this old vs new comparison proves stable over time, I can't help but be disappointed in the relatively minor progress AMD has made compared to Intel.

That doesn't mean I hate AMD (obviously). I find that HDD speed, multitasking capability, and CUDA have more relevance to me than FPU speed when I'm using my computers to do something other than crunch numbers for SETI.

The FX-8120 "feels" much, much faster (user-experience) than the 9550, particularly if I'm surfing, listening to a wav file, opening and closing applications and punching numbers into a spreadsheet.

As has already been said, it appears that AMD is being left in the number-crunching dustbin of history. My next build may have to be something like an i5 just to see if it "feels" faster, but I'm not likely to graduate to a $500 i7 processor from a $170 AMD FX processor just to crunch for SETI "to increase my output" which is more easily influenced by a faster, or additional, GPU.

FX 8120@ 3.9ghz 18multi 215fsb
Win7
Ram 2012 CL10
Stock heatsink
Running the AVX app


0-blanking 23484.35/sec 30singPulse 30repPulse
0-blanking 32856.06 3singPulse 1repPulse
2.39-blanking 30769.56/sec 1singPulse 2repPulse
5.18-blanking 31396.66/sec 1singPulse 4repPulse
8.11-blanking 32858.51/sec 3singPulse 0repPulse

I had a couple more before these that were under 5% blanking and the run times were around 31.5k/sec.This seems like a big difference compared to others in the thread with higher clocked cpus.I haven't run any AP work units though while the cpu is fully loaded,only manage to get a couple a a time.

I have 2 crunching atm @3.77ghz that look like they might be 40k+/sec so will wait and see what the blanking is on them.

It's going to be hard running this cpu OC'd with the temps getting hotter outside.With an ambient temp of 29c the cpu hit 78c @3.77ghz.

FX 8120@ 3.9ghz 18multi 215fsb
Win7
Ram 2012 CL10
Stock heatsink
Running the AVX app


0-blanking 23484.35/sec 30singPulse 30repPulse
0-blanking 32856.06 3singPulse 1repPulse
2.39-blanking 30769.56/sec 1singPulse 2repPulse
5.18-blanking 31396.66/sec 1singPulse 4repPulse
8.11-blanking 32858.51/sec 3singPulse 0repPulse

I had a couple more before these that were under 5% blanking and the run times were around 31.5k/sec.This seems like a big difference compared to others in the thread with higher clocked cpus.I haven't run any AP work units though while the cpu is fully loaded,only manage to get a couple a a time.

I have 2 crunching atm @3.77ghz that look like they might be 40k+/sec so will wait and see what the blanking is on them.

It's going to be hard running this cpu OC'd with the temps getting hotter outside.With an ambient temp of 29c the cpu hit 78c @3.77ghz.

I appreciate your adding to the numbers, especially an overclock so I can see if it's worth doing to mine; although I usually prefer reliability/stability over speed. I've got one of the Corsair H60s (with two 120mm fans turning pretty slowly) on mine. I don't know if that's better or worse than air cooling, but it's quieter than a 90mm fan blowing like crazy.

You keep reporting and so will I and we'll see how much better the AVX is than the non-AVX. It would be really easy to make a comparison if you down-clocked to stock speeds for a while. Either that or I've got to overclock mine which then blows LadyL's numbers, so I don't want to do it if I don't have-to.

I myself looked at the Bulldozer series when I was shopping for a replacement for the Phenom 2 965 Black.

I decided on the Phenom 2 1100T for a couple of reasons. Like any new release of a processor they always tend to be not pushed very hard at the launch.
Benchmarks for the Bulldozers where good on the high end market FX 8150 but not as fast as I expected.

The Hyperthreading route to me is a gimic. In some cases Hyperthreading has its advantages but for sheer raw power its dedicated cores for me.

The change of ram from DDR 2 1066 to a DDR3 based mobo would place cost there as well.

So I looked at just popping in a Phenom 2 1100T on my Asus M4N72-E or replacing mobo ram and processor.


The 1100T @ 4.00 is pretty much as fast if not a bit faster than the Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU X 980 @ 3.33GHz but 150 Canadian dollars not 500 Canadian for the 980
The difference being i7 has the APU and 6 HT cores giving 12 threads



Bottom line is I will wait until the Bulldozers are more improved and a bit cheaper to buy.


For Astropulse GPU is the way to go.
My 1100T will take 10 hours to do one while my 460 gtx will crank it out in two hours doing two at at time.

That's really the bottom line

hyperthreading? Ummm this isn't intel its AMD the 8 cores are 8 cores. the big difference is the shared FPU. THis really doesn't slow the CPU down at all.

---

In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

My mistake

I thought they used Hyperthreading


Sorry about that