any computer tecks out there

[BlueAbyss]

This isn't going to make any difference whatsoever but since I like to put my $.02 in...

I have a Dell Inspiron 1521 laptop with 1.5GB RAM and 100 GB HD, dual core 1.8GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor, and integrated ATI graphics. The graphics subsystem is currently set to use around 250MB of my system memory for graphics.

IME, WoW plays very nicely, graphics are smooth and pretty (though I have them turned down somewhat for when things get 'flashy' on the screen... I hate lag ), but I had to tweak the ATI settings to get everything to look good and work smoothly. The changes I made improved performance in all graphics intensive programs, so this helps, though I still can't play Medal of Honor 4 with any sense of decency.

I use this as my regular computer, and would actually be playing WoW right now if I could find a game card... But the fact is I paid $600 for my laptop, and it's awesome for what I paid. The only upgrade I've made is an extra 512MB of RAM, when I switched out the 512 for a 1GB chip.

I would have bought a desktop BUT I hate having wires hanging everywhere. So I'm saving up for an iMac

[wolf_bluejay]

Originally Posted by midgetwaiter

Do you really think a quad core is worth the extra bucks for gaming? Most of the benchmarks I've seen give an edge to CPUs with bigger cache than number of cores as current games don't multi-thread well. I bet you'd get better results on a dual core with 6mb cache and using the money you save to get SLI video cards or at least a better single card.

Given that cluster you manage you probably have a much better understanding of threads than I do so I'm curious if you agree or not.

Sorry to hijack the tread a bit. But the dual/quad question is always fun. Once upon a time the single cores were MUCH higher clock rate than the dual. Not so much anymore. Yes, games don't multi-thread that well yet, but most are getting better (most GPU's are 64/128 core). Anyways, usually it depends on the CPU. Intel's quads go through a single FSB and memory controller. Where on a server board with 16 memory slots and 2 AMD quad core. Each core is connected to 2 memory slots and interleaved. So, even though the DDR is 667, you are using all 16 in parrallel. SO the memory bandwidth is MUCH higher, and you need a NUMA aware OS to really get the best performance. With most games, the L1 cache size doens't matter that much anymore as they just are not big anough to hold anythign but tight looped code for the number of CPU's.


Of couse multi core is always better when you are running a massivly parrallel program spread across a cluster (interconnects are the slow part not the CPU's) so 100 quad cores is a lot faster than 400 singles (less interconnects and less switch hops)

I am also working to bring online another 4000 or so CPU's in the next few weeks. that should be enough for now.