Quote Originally Posted by sundancerx View Post
hmm, i dont really have extensive knowledge about cpus, so i really dont know if that would be true. if it is true then without even going through the tests, we have quantified/qualified that "smoothness" on phenoms is no longer relative/subjective but can be objectively attributed with phenoms having better memory sub system design compared to intel cpu's -except i7's i supposed.
you agree on this?
second, i assume i7's having "smoother feel" also compared to penryn's. any i7 owners can attest to this? esp those who upgrade from penryn's?
edit:btw, as i said im no expert and in no way im trying to sound one. just trying to offer my 2 cents as everytime i read someone mention smoothness, everybody freaks out. and its not just this forum, ive read it across multiple review sites. so...
My CPU history beginning from P4 and skipping everything before 2000
P4->X2->C2D/(A64 for HTPC)->C2D 45nm quad->C2D 45nm->Ci7

Ever since I switched from a P4 to a X2 there never was a feeling that is was more smoother even from dualcore C2D to quad core Ci7.

The only thing i noticed and made a habbit of mine, is that if os older then 6month it tends to get boged down by software installs and all the garbage that accumulates. So i reinstall my my os every 6-8 months (coincidently the last 2 years i buy new hardware every 6-8 months ).


Quote Originally Posted by keithlm View Post
Even better: If someone has machines with various brands of CPU they can make a type of benchmark that CAN be measured and repeated. If they ADD other benchmark(s) at the SAME TIME then they can create some interesting Xtreme conditions. They could try to find something that slows down one machine but not the other AND is repeatable.

For example: What happens on various CPU if you are running Prime95 WHILE playing a game? Does it make one system bog down and the other doesn't even notice? Does the Prime95 go slower?

If you run 4 threads of Prime95 (perhaps 8?), a game benchmark, and everything works without problems... then add something else like a virus scanner. You can keep adding different things that use up various resources one at a time until either one or both machines slow down. Then back off a bit and see if you can determine which machine had problems first. It this process is repeatable then you have found a method to determine "smoothness".

Of course if one brand works better than the other when this process is done... you can expect some people to claim: "I never run all of that stuff at the same time so it doesn't matter to me." However if this kind of thing can be measured AND proven then it is definitely something to consider.

The problem is that this type of "Xtreme" benchmark is not easy to find. In fact various people have already tried the 4xPrime95 + Game test. We didn't really see any differences between brands. So the hypothetical "slowdown" would take a lot of work to actually find and will require more work.

EDIT: BTW: I do actually expect this process to happen... but it very probable that it will be done by somebody testing between the new Intel i7 and and older Intel chip of comparable speed.
I dont see how this will prove anything, if you run max threads of prime on a quad core and then start a game every system will output less fps, it doesn't matter if its intel or amd or any other cpu.

As a matter of fact, i just benched a similar thing on my Ci7.

Running Boinc with 8 threads and benching crysis costs me ~2fps on avarage and 4fps on the min fps as compared to when i only run crysis alone.

But a note: boinc runs as low priority process so if i would run prime which has normal priority it will hurt the game even more.

By your defenition Ci7 would be smother then K10 be default, cause it can handle more threads better due to HT.

This whole "Smoother Myth" (yes i call it a myth cause i never expired it even though i had my share of expirience a lot of processors) is in my eyes more related to other things then just the cpu.

Imho the most important factor is the HDD, i have played around with some SDD and my old Notebook (Singelcore P-M 1,6GHz 1GB RAM) that had an old slow ass 4200rpm drive. Holy moly i never thought how responsive this old thing could get just by upgrading the HDD.

Another thing is RAM, you never can have enough ram, when the system starts swapping it slows down.