[mythtv-users] SMP Performance

Brian Wood beww at beww.org
Sun Dec 10 18:21:15 UTC 2006


On Dec 10, 2006, at 11:12 AM, devsk wrote:

> I think i have to disagree with John's evaluation. No single  
> operation uses both cores but two different operations happening at  
> the same time very well can. It boils down to prices on these things.
>
> AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 San Diego 2.6GHz
> AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Windsor 2.0GHz
>
> I think these are good comparison points because they are the same  
> price on newegg. Now the question is whether to go for 30% more raw  
> speed or to go for the slower dual core? Last year when I bought my  
> X2, this was between a 2.4 single and 2.0 X2 and I went for X2, and  
> I am happy I did that. For a mythtv system, I would still go for X2  
> because 30% clock gain is not really 30% performance gain, and with  
> mythtv you are not really looking for performance gain as much as  
> for multiple tasks happening at the same, a situation where dual  
> core just rules ["theoretically" dual core/cpu is a 100% clock gain  
> if the instruction pipeline is saturated and other conditions (like  
> scheduler, cache conflicts) are perfect, but conditions are never  
> perfect to achieve that in practice].
>
> my 2 cents.
>

I tend to agree - buying a single core CPU these days is questionable.

As long as you're talking about socket 939 chips have a look at the  
Opteron 165 for about $150. Somebody mentioned it here the other day.  
I bought one and it overclocks beautifully - with no increase in  
voltage or special cooling it is hitting speeds close to my FX60.  
This assumes of course that your mobo can do that. With an nVidia  
5200 it does HD playback quite well without XvMC.

Thanks again to whoever brought it up - it's a really great deal.
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