is this normal

[l337x3r1cx]

hey... i just got my new stuff installed in my comp...and from what ive heard the AMD 64s are supposed to be quite fast... but mine isnt any faster than my old athlon xp 3200+ it takes lik a minute to start windows... anyway i can get this faster

 

[`unreal]

That would be relying on more of your hard drive access and read speeds. If you want to speed that up then you need to buy something like a Western Digital Raptor 740D - my Windows XP always starts up in under 10 seconds.

Also Athlon 64's speeds have yet to be exploited, if they still can be. I don't know why you decided to upgrade from an Athlon XP 3200 to an AMD 64, since the speed increase isn't actually that large. The faster these things get, the more bigger the speed difference must be to have a noticable difference. It would have been helpful though if you told which Athlon you now have, but I'm guessing that you should test this new found speed with something like Sandra, or benchmark a few things. Don't expect startlingly good results, just a minor increase.

 

[Pressure]

The windows loading time is mostly dependant on your Hard Drive like unreal said. If you want it to be fast I'd suggest the Western Digital Raptor also, it's blazing fast but costs a pretty penny.

 

[Warbie]

It's in games where you'll see the difference in speed. My A64 runs HL2 so much faster than my old Barton.

As for loading into windows, what everyone else has said is right - that depends more on your drive.

 

[furiousV]

there is a program out there that will defrag your boot files and move them files to a part on your hard disk that is accessed alot quicker. il see if ican find it. i actually noticed a massive improvement.
however it f**ks up when you defrag your hard disk normally

 

[MiccyNarc]

It irks me when people say that there isn't much difference in speed between the XP series and the 64 series. Anyone who has looked at a benchmark could tell you otherwise.

 

[`unreal]

I have seen benchmarks man, and I got a hardware mag (Custom PC) full of it - it has every available Intel and AMD processor available benchmarked. There is a difference between the 2500 and the FX-55 for example, but the 3200 XP and 3200 64, they are virtually identical. And thats been seen from more than one source of benchmark results I have seen.

Besides, i find that theres not much need to update the processor right now in my time, since all I need (if anything) is a game performance increase, and that's done best with a new graphics card.