[S-99]

i've been running amd 64 athlons back in the day. yes they were better than the p4's. mainly it was northwood on up that was great. i still find the p4 to be a great processor. the p4 didn't become good until it's northwood incarnation though.

[Bob-san]

i've been running amd 64 athlons back in the day. yes they were better than the p4's. mainly it was northwood on up that was great. i still find the p4 to be a great processor. the p4 didn't become good until it's northwood incarnation though.

Northwood was good and then Presler was OK. Conroe was great and then Yorkfield is pretty good too. Intel has curbed adoption though since they priced the C2Q's pretty high.

Just go with at least a quad-core. Anything less is, to me, a waste.

[Nuke]

considering how many processes a clean instal of windows 7 likes to run concurrently, id think getting anything less than a quad would rape your performance pretty bad.

[S-99]

I am not speaking out of the fact that  i'm a linux user (many of you will have not read this sentence....dumb people). I just find this quad core for desktop computer thing to be stupid.

Needing a quad core just for background programs?
I'd really think about needing a quad core let alone windows 7 then.

I mean think about it. "hi sir, you need a quad core becuase windows 7 does too much background stuff" That just makes me think what a piece of crap windows 7 must be and how lazy microsoft is to not cut down memory usage. Microsoft's vista campaign was successful enough back in the day for having vista ready computers...especially in the area of system memory since vista was also a memory hog. Windows 7 is just vista rerelease, so they have basically the same memory consumption and other same ****. More system memory point in a nutshell; why make your product better when you can have everyone compensate to make your **** run (thank you microsoft for upping pc hardware requirements to run bloat).


Main point...
Microsoft is bloating **** up with laze so you need tons of ram and a quad core for the background task that controls the computer clock. Yes, what a great reason to buy a quad core! And, for all things considered, the main purpose of a windows 7 computer will be to surf the net at home or work (totally need four times the  processing power to render that gif, whooo nelly, that was intense on my hardware, what a rush!).

Get a quad core if you actually need the extra processing power please.

[Nuke]

considering the cost of a quad core processor is less than the cost of windows 7 itself, i dont see that being likely. especially when youre a gamer and want a powerful cpu that costs way more than your os. sure windows is a bloat whore. when i buy an operating system i dont necessarily need a paint program and i dont need a video editing program and i dont need a media player. windows on the other hand is hardly just an operating system any more, its a software suite. all operating systems do this, including linux. its a trend id like to see die. then you got all those background services that do who knows what. if you watch the cores they are hardly ever used, so i guess they dont do much. on any multitasking os (thats what, all of them), more cores means dedicated processing power to simultaneously running applications, too bad the os only gives the cpu power to the application that has focus. still i wish it didnt take 4 seconds to open a submenu after hitting start.

memory usage by the os, while higher than id like is still only a fraction of the memory in the system. and while most people these days can afford to run specs that would have been a server 5 years ago, its because those systems are affordable. i wouldnt doubt a conspiracy between microsoft and amd or intel, bloating the os to make people buy better cpus. but if you consider how cheap quad cores are now such a conspiracy seems to have backfired. i do run windows 7 on the single core amd computer i built in 2004 and it runs ok. this is probably a side effect of the netbook craze, where ms really had to trim the bloat in 7 to get it to run on netbooks after failing so hard with vista. linux users seem to get by on lesser hardware, but its no reason to not get a quad core. im sure linux can make use of them as well as or better than windows does. or perhaps you are happy with dual core or less.

[Davros]

Needing a quad core just for background programs?
I'd really think about needing a quad core let alone windows 7 then.

I mean think about it. "hi sir, you need a quad core becuase windows 7 does too much background stuff" That just makes me think what a piece of crap windows 7 must be

No you dont....

[Flipside]

As I understand it, Windows 7 doesn't run more processes, it just spreads them out over several small ones instead of a few big ones, which is a big advantage in Multi-Core systems.

To be honest, Windows 7 is probably the best version of Windows I've ever owned, seems very stable, allowed me to change Motherboard and Processor and started off on reboot as though nothing had happened, requiring only a re-registration to continue working as normal with all installed programs and drivers dealing with the change without user intervention. All in all, I've been very satisfied with it.

[Nuke]

Needing a quad core just for background programs?
I'd really think about needing a quad core let alone windows 7 then.

I mean think about it. "hi sir, you need a quad core becuase windows 7 does too much background stuff" That just makes me think what a piece of crap windows 7 must be

No you dont....

awesome trim job, did you do that manually or did you use some kinda 3rd party software. i have about 3x that much stuff and i probibly dont use any of it. of course maybe youre just running basic (i run ultimate cause i wanted terminal services).

[pecenipicek]

if he turned on the "show processes from all users", i'd be more inclined to believe him.

[The E]

This is more realistic:

[Kolgena]

Needing a quad core just for background programs?
I'd really think about needing a quad core let alone windows 7 then.

I mean think about it. "hi sir, you need a quad core becuase windows 7 does too much background stuff" That just makes me think what a piece of crap windows 7 must be

No you dont....

awesome trim job, did you do that manually or did you use some kinda 3rd party software. i have about 3x that much stuff and i probibly dont use any of it. of course maybe youre just running basic (i run ultimate cause i wanted terminal services).

Yeah, he should have checked that box, but you can still see that he's running 58 processes. That's about right; my setup uses 63 as I'm typing this.

[Nuke]

didnt see that, i never uncheck mine.

i dont ever remember seeing a checkbox.
and how do i get that verbose view that the e posted?

[pecenipicek]

didnt see that, i never uncheck mine.

i dont ever remember seeing a checkbox.
and how do i get that verbose view that the e posted?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653

[Nuke]

cool beans

[rev_posix]

Working on the 'how many background processes' idea, this is from one of my machines.  It's a dedicated proxy machine, bare minimal Debian install to start with the following extra packages:

• gpm
• ntpd
• sshd
• mysql-proxy
• nullmailer
• dhcrelay
• monit
• snmpd
• vmtools

Install size is 1.5 gig per df -h.

Code: [Select]

# ps ax
  PID TTY      STAT   TIME COMMAND
    1 ?        Ss     0:14 init [2] 
    2 ?        S      0:00 [kthreadd]
    3 ?        S      0:00 [migration/0]
    4 ?        S      0:00 [ksoftirqd/0]
    5 ?        S      0:00 [watchdog/0]
    6 ?        S      0:09 [events/0]
    7 ?        S      0:00 [cpuset]
    8 ?        S      0:00 [khelper]
    9 ?        S      0:00 [netns]
   10 ?        S      0:00 [async/mgr]
   11 ?        S      0:00 [pm]
   12 ?        S      0:01 [sync_supers]
   13 ?        S      0:01 [bdi-default]
   14 ?        S      0:00 [kintegrityd/0]
   15 ?        S      0:02 [kblockd/0]
   16 ?        S      0:00 [kacpid]
   17 ?        S      0:00 [kacpi_notify]
   18 ?        S      0:00 [kacpi_hotplug]
   19 ?        S      0:00 [kseriod]
   21 ?        S      0:00 [kondemand/0]
   23 ?        S      0:00 [khungtaskd]
   24 ?        S      0:00 [kswapd0]
   25 ?        SN     0:00 [ksmd]
   26 ?        S      0:00 [aio/0]
   27 ?        S      0:00 [crypto/0]
  210 ?        S      0:00 [ata/0]
  216 ?        S      0:00 [ata_aux]
  264 ?        S      0:00 [scsi_eh_0]
  278 ?        S      0:00 [scsi_eh_1]
  315 ?        S      0:52 [kjournald]
  447 ?        S<s    0:00 udevd --daemon
  614 ?        S      0:00 [kpsmoused]
  693 ?        S      0:10 [flush-8:0]
  869 ?        S<     0:00 udevd --daemon
  870 ?        S<     0:00 udevd --daemon
 1125 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/sbin/dhcrelay -q 209.251.178.99 209.251.178.100
 1135 ?        Sl     4:50 /usr/sbin/monit -c /etc/monit/monitrc -s /var/lib/monit/monit.state
 1142 ?        Sl     0:02 /usr/sbin/rsyslogd -c4
 1162 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/sbin/acpid
 1174 ?        Ss     1:06 /usr/sbin/ntpd -p /var/run/ntpd.pid -g -u 101:104
 1194 ?        Ss     0:01 /usr/sbin/cron
 1204 ?        Ss     0:44 /usr/sbin/gpm -m /dev/input/mice -t exps2
 1216 ?        S      1:32 /usr/bin/mysql-proxy --proxy-backend-addresses=209.251.178.99:3306 --proxy-address=:3306
 1243 ?        S      0:00 /usr/sbin/nullmailer-send -d
 1259 ?        S      2:49 /usr/sbin/snmpd -Lsd -Lf /dev/null -u snmp -g snmp -I -smux -p /var/run/snmpd.pid
 1433 ?        S      0:21 [vmmemctl]
 1582 ?        Sl    19:43 /usr/sbin/vmtoolsd
 1604 tty1     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty1
 1605 tty2     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty2
 1606 tty3     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty3
 1607 tty4     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty4
 1608 tty5     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty5
 1609 tty6     Ss+    0:00 /sbin/getty 38400 tty6
 7762 ?        Ss     0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd
10037 ?        Ss     0:00 sshd: root@pts/0
10039 pts/0    Ss     0:00 -bash
10061 pts/0    R+     0:00 ps ax
Pipe that into wc -l and get 59.  Win 7 is going to have more due to it having to deal with a GUI, printing subsystem, and such.

So I don't think it's a fair to use the number of processes (processi?  ) as a reason to get a dual (or higher) core/CPU machine, it all depends on what the expected workload is going to be.

I also believe that Linux is much more efficient than MS Windows (remember, when Vista/7 came out, the recommended machine was considered a mid-range gaming machine), and that most people would rarely need more than a single core machine, or perhaps a dual core Celeron (or equivalent), regardless of the environment used.

<OT>
But the market droids have all but convinced the general public that they need 'da GeeBees', regardless if they actually do or not, so the demand is there and it makes financial sense for the CPU manufacturers to produce what is being asked for, regardless if it's actually needed or not.
</OT>

Now, if you are building a dedicated gaming box (or plan on doing the virtual machine bit), then a multi-core CPU makes sense.  Not many games make use of the abilities yet, but that's changing as time goes on, and getting one can be viewed as a form of future proofing a system.

IMO, YMMV, IANAL:  Why do you see so many people driving SUV's on this side of the pond, when the vehicle rarely sees gravel, much less mud?  For the most part, they have been convinced that this is what they want/need by marketing, so they get one.  The demand is high/bad enough that Porsche and Mercedes both make SUV models.

[The E]

Now, if you are building a dedicated gaming box (or plan on doing the virtual machine bit), then a multi-core CPU makes sense.  Not many games make use of the abilities yet, but that's changing as time goes on, and getting one can be viewed as a form of future proofing a system.

I would assume that all games coming out of the major studios will have some form of multicore support, if they don't outright demand one to begin with.

Even so, given the fact that aside from a few low-end Atoms you won't be able to get a single-core machine, going multicore certainly has no real drawbacks.
That being said, there is no need for the average user to invest in anything above a dual or quad core, given that the added performance of hexa- or octo-core processors will definitely be wasted in non-high-performance scenarios.

[pecenipicek]

My AMD 7750 X2 still has to find something it really struggles with running.


(rendering not included)

[Davros]

if he turned on the "show processes from all users", i'd be more inclined to believe him.

The cpu usage would be identical

Actually its less (probably because in my first screenshot I must have pressed the printscreen key as my performance monitoring sidebar gadget was polling the cpu)

[pecenipicek]

if he turned on the "show processes from all users", i'd be more inclined to believe him.

The cpu usage would be identical

nobody mentioned cpu usage. it was more the processes online anyhow

[Davros]

nobody mentioned cpu usage.

S-99 did he said "windows 7 needs a quadcore just to run background tasks it must really be programmed badly"