Legit Reviews

Ok, please let me know your verdict.......

Ever since I have gotten the computer in my sig, (intel pentium dual core @ 2.66ghz) I noticed that benchmarks/games shot through the roof as far as FPS go.

However, unlike my old computer (AMD 939 3800x2 @ 2.0 ghz) my intel system seems a lot slower on desktop applications. (playing music/editing pictures/general everyday uses) Heck, even the computers at work with AMD 4200x2 seem more responsive.

It seems like my intel system has a slight "hiccup" when starting programs, clicking start menu, everything on the desktop. (Note that this is a fresh install of windows with all the latest drivers, etc.) Which I'm not the only one who noticed this, somone from another forum I frequent agreed that it seems like the pentium dual core series needs a kick in the nuts, so to speak, to get moving.

So, I was wondering, does an integrated memory controller (hence AMD) make that much of a difference in response time? Or am I just plain crazy?

I am seriously considering getting a nice 780g chipset with a 6000x2(3.1 ghz brisbane) or phenom 8450.....

no, something like that is going to be harddrive. try defragging

Even if I was using the same harddrive on both systems? Hard drive is regularly defragged about once a week though.

I never experienced this. Wierd.

Grab HDTune and run it and show us your graphs with the latency on it.

Dan

It could very well be your CPU.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/24688 ... ntel-e2140

Someone mentions that the E2140 is better if you know how to overclock. But the bottom line is your last processor is better.

Hot Hardware got it to 2.9, but other than that, they mentioned something I think is important:

http://hothardware.com/Articles/Intel_P ... Processor/

The “Conroe” processor is still very efficient per clock, and if your application is not cache heavy, performance will be close on a clock for clock basis to a similarly clocked Core 2 Duo.

And as for the hard drive, it's recommended to write 0's to the hard drive 1 to 3 times before installing Windows: Just incase you didn't know.

You recommend doing a low level format 3x before installing Windows? Why in gods name would you go through all of that!?

Not so much my recommendation since I got the theory from researching docs and looking up what other people had to say about it on other tech forums, but formatting 3x will clear the hard drive with good measure. Other types of formatting follow a similar path as they do certain writing patterns multiple times, so you could say doing 3x0's is like doing a level above low level format... sort of speak. Kind of like erasing a faded spot where a pencil mark was before to get the page fully white.

DMB2000uk wrote:Grab HDTune and run it and show us your graphs with the latency on it.

Dan

Sorry about the delay, wasn't around a computer on the weekend. My latency is 15 ms.

Are there lots of high values (yellow dots) on the graph? They should look something like this.

Te average of 15ms isn't anything too high, and if the main results turn out to be alright then something else looks to be the problem (though it could just be as others have pointed out already).
Dan

DMB2000uk wrote:Are there lots of high values (yellow dots) on the graph? They should look something like this.

Te average of 15ms isn't anything too high, and if the main results turn out to be alright then something else looks to be the problem (though it could just be as others have pointed out already).
Dan

Looks exactly like that. I seriously don't think its the harddrive. Although I will give the multiple formats a try when I have to reinstall windows.

Next thing I'm going to do is disable speedstep, if that doesn't work....... well, I'll live with it then and just accept it.

If you're going to format and you have plenty of time, you might want to try formatting using the Gutmann method... And then every other time you format the hard drive use the 3-pass 0's.

That is just excessive wear on your harddrive, the only time the gutman method is even close to necessary is if you are about to sell a computer that had sensitive info on it. Heck when I reformat I just use gparted and delete the partitions, or, if I'm feeling particularly antsy, I'll use a DBAN quick format which writes all 0's one time. There is really no need for more than that.

Alathald wrote:That is just excessive wear on your harddrive, the only time the gutman method is even close to necessary is if you are about to sell a computer that had sensitive info on it. Heck when I reformat I just use gparted and delete the partitions, or, if I'm feeling particularly antsy, I'll use a DBAN quick format which writes all 0's one time. There is really no need for more than that.

+1

You're not going to gain one ounce of performance by low level formatting the hard drive (which is what writing all zero's does).

The more I think about it, I'm willing to bet that it is intel speedstep. Takes that extra couple miliseconds to kick back up to full speed.

Alathald wrote:That is just excessive wear on your harddrive, the only time the gutman method is even close to necessary is if you are about to sell a computer that had sensitive info on it.

That and for nasty viruses. It wouldn't hurt to do it one time. I mean you wouldn't sell a warn out hard drive because you Gutmann the thing, would ya?

Alathald wrote:Heck when I reformat I just use gparted and delete the partitions, or, if I'm feeling particularly antsy, I'll use a DBAN quick format which writes all 0's one time. There is really no need for more than that.

3-pass won't really harm anything either. There's even an option for it on KillDisk.

Skippman wrote:You're not going to gain one ounce of performance by low level formatting the hard drive (which is what writing all zero's does)

Yeah, but I never said or implied that it would. And if you wanna prove me wrong, you can't. Your and/or Alathald's way and even my way are really just opinions and you'll see that if you do the research. Even the Gutmann method is questioned, not to mention even in the KillDisk manual.

But anyway, hope you got it down, JOE!