PC Spec Question

[notroubleclubber]

Am i right in thinking that my AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+ processor at 2.1GHZ is actually 4.2Ghz as it is dual core?

If not and it is still 2.1Ghz does that mean that my P4 2.8Ghz PC is actually a better pc to use?

Im trying to work out what is best to use in my mame cabinet and desktop.
My mame cabinet is currently running the Pentium 4 2.8Ghz PC with 2GB ram and onboard grafix and Win XP 32Bit
My desktop is currently running the Athlon 64 x2 4200+ processor with 4GB ram and Saphire 2600HD Pro ATI 512mb Grafix Card in the PCie socket.

If i keep the P4 as my mame pc will i get any performance boost if i put the grafix card from my desktop pc into my mame pc? I dont play High Spec PC games but play things like hamsterball, nulldc, psxe and obviously mame which its not doing a too bad a job at runnking at the mo with not much slow down. I dont tend to play the CHD games but would i be able to with the grafix card as its not really being used in my desktop as the desktop is used mainly for downloading,emailing and internet NOT gaming. I also use the desktop as a media server for my ps3.

[HaRuMaN]

Am i right in thinking that my AMD Athlon 64 x2 4200+ processor at 2.1GHZ is actually 4.2Ghz as it is dual core?

No.

[bkenobi]

If not and it is still 2.1Ghz does that mean that my P4 2.8Ghz PC is actually a better pc to use?

Not necessarily.  It's not all about clock speed.

[notroubleclubber]

Can you please xplain why?

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Different processors do work differently. Newer chips will be faster at most tasks that older chips at the same clock speed.

Other things that come into play with that comparison is that your X2 is a dual core chip, which MAME can leverage with multi-threading, allowing it to more work per clock. Another advantage is that you have the option to run a 64bit operating system. 64bit versions of MAME show speed advantages versus 32bit in most (all?) cases.

[ragnar]

"Newer chips will be faster at most tasks that older chips at the same clock speed."

I want to expand.  This is because of improved archiectures.  For example, newer memory will run faster and have more efficient conenctions with the rest of the system.

I terms of overall performance, processors are just one piece of the puzzle.  I receomend heading over to a place like anandtech if you want to learn in detail about these matters.

[bpark42]

A complete answer could fill a textbook or two, but in short it really depends on a couple key things.

First, a given processor may be spec'd to run at a certain clock speed, but that by itself doesn't tell you a heck of a lot.  One processor may be a great deal more efficient in terms of its architecture, meaning it can do more useful work in each cycle.  Generally it's not even that clear-cut.  One architecture may favor certain types of applications over other.  So for two different processors both running at the same clock speed, one may be faster for games while the other is faster for surfing the internet (or whatever.)

As far as the single core vs. multi-core the clock speed vs. architecture discussion still applies, but it is complicated by having multiple effective cpu's running at the same clock speed (usually).  Theoretically, you could nearly double the performance of certain apps, but only when
1.) Your app or game of choice has some data/processing tasks that can be processed in a parallel fashion.
2.) The software and operating system are intelligent about feeding the "work" to the different cores.
3.) (more stuff you probably don't care about...)

Right now I don't think mame really does much to take advantage of multi-core processors, so I doubt switching to a relatively old dual core like that Athlon 4200+ would do much for you.  I suppose if you switched to a 64 bit OS and a 64-bit version of MAME that might make enough of a difference to be worthwhile.

As for moving the graphics card over I doubt that would do much either.  It wouldn't hurt, and I suppose if the current integrated graphics chipset is garbage it could help some, but I don't think mame really stresses the gpu in any meaningful way.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

As I understand it, it's less about mame stressing the GPU, but about most some on-board graphics having poor implementations of Direct3D or DirectDraw, the two methods by which Mame can draw the screen in windows. The performance difference between a GeForce 1 and a GeForce 9 will be essentially nil in mame, because the only 'gpu' feature that it will be using is the hardware bilinear filtering under D3D.

I have a board with onboard Via Chrome9. It's abhorrent. Actually causes almost a 15% speed penalty versus using a non-onboard graphics card.

[flashiv]

I've just started using psxe, but from what I understand and have seen, a more powerful graphics card should help there.

[lilshawn]

generally, the more you can offload from the processor the better. you don't really want to be sucking up processing power and memory just for video. that's probably a 10-20% hit right there.

[flashiv]

Very true lilshawn, lots of people don't know that on-board video does take away from your memory.

[smalltownguy]

Lilshawn's comment only applies if the video is using shared video RAM. Most systems with on-board video don't. At least not in my field experience. For example, at my workplace, we have approx 100 workstations, ranging from an Intel Celeron 1.1 setup to a Core2 quad 2.8 that I just built last May. All have on-board video except 1 workstation utilizing  a dual monitor setup - that system has a separate PCIe graphics card.

Out of the rest of the population, I have only inventoried 2 systems that are using shared video RAM - both are AMD rigs.

MAME won't benefit much with a multi-core processor unless it's a recent version, and even then you won't see much improvement. I'm perfectly happy with my P4 3.2 HT setup. No, I cannot run Blitz, but neither can the guy with the latest and greatest Octo-core madness either. MAME's development has not really moved much into the multi-threaded realm yet.

[bkenobi]

Lilshawn's comment only applies if the video is using shared video RAM. Most systems with on-board video don't. At least not in my field experience.

You have some unique experience then.  Since the inception of onboard video (essentially), the video RAM is segmented off of the system RAM through a BIOS setting.  I have an OLD system (P3 or P4 I think) that has 256MB or system memory.  I can select up to 128MB of video memory in BIOS.  That would be HORRIBLE, but possible.  Anyway, unless onboard video has changed architecture in the last 2-3 years, memory is still shared.

[flashiv]

Lilshawn's comment only applies if the video is using shared video RAM. Most systems with on-board video don't. At least not in my field experience.

You have some unique experience then.  Since the inception of onboard video (essentially), the video RAM is segmented off of the system RAM through a BIOS setting.  I have an OLD system (P3 or P4 I think) that has 256MB or system memory.  I can select up to 128MB of video memory in BIOS.  That would be HORRIBLE, but possible.  Anyway, unless onboard video has changed architecture in the last 2-3 years, memory is still shared.

I have to say that my experiences match bkenobi's also.  We have 70 machines and all have shared video RAM.

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

Even more ironically, the two systems I can think of that I've used with onboard video that DIDN'T share ram (ie, they had their own onboard dedicated ram) were AMD systems.