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Any point in swapping out this dual core for this quad core?
#293598 - 08/10/12 02:50 AM
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My current rig has an Athlon II X2 260 running @ 3.20GHz. I have this Phenom II X4 945 Quad Core Processor - 3.00GHz, 6MB Cache sitting here that I'm thinking about dropping in. My current cpu is fast enough for everything else I do so this is purely for improving MAME performance. There are a few games I have that don't quite stay 100%:
Radiant Silvergun
Strider 2
Xevious 3D-G
Gradius 4
Will the Phenom II run these games better? It's a much better processor than whats in the rig, but as I said, the current one is fine for everything non-emulation related.
I'd also like to hear an opinion regarding any potential performance gains in BSNES as well.
Edited by vram74 (08/10/12 02:50 AM)
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| B2K24 |
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MAME @ 15 kHz Sony Trinitron CRT user
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Re: Any point in swapping out this dual core for this quad core?
[Re: DiodeDude]
#293603 - 08/10/12 03:38 AM
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The only way you will see any performance gains is if you swap that for Intel which means swapping a new board as well.
Running at 4 GHz would be a huge improvement which the choice you mention will not allow you to do that.
Any E8XX wolfdale LGA 775 to the latest i5 or i7 stuff would make a huge difference to your instructions per clock performance and you can overclock the hell out of those as well.
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Re: Any point in swapping out this dual core for this quad core?
[Re: B2K24]
#293606 - 08/10/12 03:51 AM
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My next system build will be an Intel. This rig I got now was assembled from parts I gathered over the last few months. All new stuff, but obviously not current tech. Still though, this PC is more than enough for everything else I do. Sucks emulation has to be the one thing that it's not good for.
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| DMala |
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Sleep is overrated
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Re: Any point in swapping out this dual core for this quad core?
[Re: DiodeDude]
#293623 - 08/10/12 04:37 PM
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> My current rig has an Athlon II X2 260 running @ 3.20GHz. I have this Phenom II X4
> 945 Quad Core Processor - 3.00GHz, 6MB Cache sitting here that I'm thinking about
> dropping in. My current cpu is fast enough for everything else I do so this is purely
> for improving MAME performance. There are a few games I have that don't quite stay
> 100%:
>
> Radiant Silvergun
> Strider 2
> Xevious 3D-G
> Gradius 4
>
> Will the Phenom II run these games better? It's a much better processor than whats in
> the rig, but as I said, the current one is fine for everything non-emulation related.
>
>
> I'd also like to hear an opinion regarding any potential performance gains in BSNES
> as well.
The conventional wisdom at this point is that you won't see much benefit in MAME with anything more than 2 cores. I was going to say you might get a boost from the generational jump in processors, but looking at AMD's hideously confusing product map, Athlon II and Phenom II seem to be pretty similar. My guess would be that the switch would pretty much be a wash, performance-wise, or you may take a slight hit from the Phenom's slower clock. I guess if you've got time to kill, it wouldn't hurt to experiment and see what happens, but I wouldn't expect too much.
As far as BSNES, does it do any multithreading at all? It didn't the last I knew, but it's been a while since I've paid attention.
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Re: Any point in swapping out this dual core for this quad core?
[Re: DMala]
#293626 - 08/10/12 06:09 PM
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It is slightly lower clocked, but the Phenom has 6 meg of L3 cache that the Athlon II doesn't. I thought MAME favored large CPU cache? Looking at the benchmarks over at Anandtech on paper, it looks like its a better performer, but I understand traditional benches don't always apply to emulation.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/190?vs=80
Note that the athlon II X2 used in the bench is 100Mhz faster than mine.
Edited by vram74 (08/10/12 06:16 PM)
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| R. Belmont |
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Cuckoo for IGAvania
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Re: Any point in swapping out this dual core for this quad core?
[Re: DiodeDude]
#293765 - 08/13/12 10:56 PM
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> It is slightly lower clocked, but the Phenom has 6 meg of L3 cache that the Athlon II
> doesn't. I thought MAME favored large CPU cache? Looking at the benchmarks over at
> Anandtech on paper, it looks like its a better performer, but I understand
> traditional benches don't always apply to emulation.
Overall memory bandwidth is what MAME really wants; a large cache can obviously help with that, but it's not the be-all end-all by itself. (And of course, there's not a great deal of good benchmark data in this area).
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Re: Any point in swapping out this dual core for this quad core?
[Re: R. Belmont]
#293766 - 08/13/12 11:03 PM
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I may swap it out just to see sometime this month. I will report back if there is any kind of improvement.
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Re: Any point in swapping out this dual core for this quad core?
[Re: DiodeDude]
#297488 - 10/13/12 02:35 PM
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I have an Intel i7 3770w (3.5 Ghz) running on a AsRock Fatal1ty Professional MB, with 16 gigs of memory on an older nVidia GTS 250 video card. Every game you listed a few posts ago runs 100%
Mb was $179, CPU $279 and memory was $100 (Corsair). System kicks arse!!! Amazing how quick roms and CHDs load. Almost instantly. Every game seems to load as fast as Pac-Man or Donkey Kong. LOVE IT!!
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| redk9258 |
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Regular
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Re: Any point in swapping out this dual core for this quad core?
[Re: sirscotty]
#297495 - 10/13/12 04:49 PM
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> I have an Intel i7 3770w (3.5 Ghz) running on a AsRock Fatal1ty Professional MB, with
> 16 gigs of memory ....
I'm curious. When you go to Task Manager, how much memory is in use? I have 4GB and have rarely seen more the 2GB in use even with many programs open. Right now, I have 1.57 Gb in use.
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