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NotElvis

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CPU performance - P4 and P4 HT vs the Intel J-series cpus
« on: June 18, 2015, 12:04:52 PM »
Ok, so I've got two old PCs lying about.  A 2.8GHz P4 and a 3.4GHz HT (550J) P4.  Power hogs, as the P4 was known to be at the time.

I've also been intrigued (though information is lacking) on the J-series Celeron and Pentium chips that have come out within the past two years - the Silvermont based processors.

My question:  how do the Silvermont Pentiums and Celerons compare, performance-wise to the old electricity-guzzling P4s.  Say, for example, light 3D gaming (yeah, I know this is oft more GPU bound than CPU)  or other CPU-intenstive tasks, that might push that archaic 3.4HT to its limit?  Assume all other hardware (GPU, memory, etc) to be equal.  Obviously, power consumption's an order of magnitude improved on the new ones (10W vs 80-120W), but can they keep up with the old ones in performance?

I did read a comment on a message board that pretty much said any cpu you buy today will outdo the P4s.

I mean, Tom's Hardware has a CPU hierarchy chart, but they don't count the ultra-budget stuff in there, and of course the P4s are ancient enough to not even be on the list.

But I'm curious as to how they compare with each other... (and where they might fall within the spectrum of the list on that CPU hierarchy chart, though I imagine pretty near the bottom, if not off the bottom) or compared to the old Dual Core or Core 2 Duo chips... but predominantly against each other (say, J2900 vs P4 3.4HT).   Anyone know or have a ballpark idea?
« Last Edit: June 18, 2015, 12:20:17 PM by NotElvis »

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Palomine

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Re: CPU performance - P4 and P4 HT vs the Intel J-series cpus
« Reply #1 on: June 18, 2015, 12:26:26 PM »
Though I can't answer your question (so please feel free to stop reading now ;)) I would like to point out the obvious fact that old CPUs (and old/free/cheap PCs they're running in) can still be very useful.

My filesharing machine runs a P4 that's older/slower than yours (with a vintage distro of Linux selected for that purpose) and honestly, it's one of the most consistently reliable machines I have. Sure, the CPU seems eclipsed in terms of grunt even by an old Core Duo laptop I also use (my only running Mac, so the Core Duo machine's even got the extra burden of OSX with its graphically-intensive GUI to contend with) but what does it matter? The P4 (an old Dell netbook) just keeps running fine: during filesharing, it's barely using 10% of the CPU cycles anyway, so a faster/more powerful chip would just be wasted.

Old chips, like old hardware in general, have almost no resale value. But if you can put them to work yourself (without incurring additional/unreasonable expense to do so of course) to get some low-demand task accomplished (filesharing, music/media server, guest-room PC for email and light web surfing, etc...) then why not make use of it, regardless of how modestly it may benchmark compared to modern CPUs, even budget ones? :)

PS: you might find this amusing: http://us.cpuwarsthegame.com/
« Last Edit: June 18, 2015, 05:54:41 PM by Palomine »

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NotElvis

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Re: CPU performance - P4 and P4 HT vs the Intel J-series cpus
« Reply #2 on: June 18, 2015, 01:05:29 PM »
To be honest, it's more curiosity than anything else - and that sort of wonder I get with the "we can do this now with so little power draw" etc.

Both those systems are still running... the 3.4 is going to get a Linux install on it.... and I have no particular plans (yet) for the 2.8 -  but it does make me wonder if this old beast was run neck and neck against one of the uber-low-power modern things, how well it would fare (or how well the low-power system would do against it).

Also, I've still got a running 1GHz Socket 370 Celeron running Windows 98 Lite - that's my MAME machine (I'm using an older DOS version so that I can get the proper sounds in Asteroids), which I plan to set up separately somewhere so I can run it on an old CRT monitor.

And, there's a Socket 7 AMD-K6-2+ (400MHz oc to 450 if I'm not mistaken, and if I recall correctly, undervolted from 2.0 to 1.8) which also hasn't been powered on in a while, also running 98 Lite, but I'm thinking of setting up as a silent-running machine.

(man, it's been years since I had serious time to tinker with this stuff...)

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TheZookie007

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Re: CPU performance - P4 and P4 HT vs the Intel J-series cpus
« Reply #3 on: June 18, 2015, 08:14:15 PM »
I read the title of this thread as "Intel J-cups" and I was thinking "Since when did Intel diversify into brassiere design?..."
ACB, BK, CT, NG, SA: FU. FUATH. 100x.

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NotElvis

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Re: CPU performance - P4 and P4 HT vs the Intel J-series cpus
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2015, 08:02:51 AM »
I read the title of this thread as "Intel J-cups" and I was thinking "Since when did Intel diversify into brassiere design?..."

ROFLMAO!!!

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BacE

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Size doesn't matter, as long as it's HUGE!!

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NotElvis

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Re: CPU performance - P4 and P4 HT vs the Intel J-series cpus
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2015, 11:48:49 AM »
While it's admittedly a single benchmark, the results it shows definitely gives a notable indication of how far we've come in processing power per unit of power consumption in the last decade.