The 2025 Operating System Thread

[lti]

I see that multi-quote doesn't work anymore.

Most likely the low clock rate (and no turboboost) of the i3-2330M is slowing things down, my i3-4160 isn't too bad IMHO just because of its base clockspeed - it beats my Q9550. I'd still be surprised it's slower than perhaps my AthlonXP2200+ -- my AthlonXP is routinely beaten by my Pentium-M 1.6 and all my Core2 machines, so I'd say something is wrong...

It's much faster in Linux (but still not as fast as the synthetic benchmarks like Passmark say it should be), but I never tried compiling anything from Linux. I can only guess that the Windows drivers were totally broken in ways that made it look like the CPU was stuck at its minimum clock speed of 800MHz, but it was definitely running at the full 2.2GHz (with the associated heat, fan noise, and the bizarre throttling behavior - it suddenly drops to 800MHz for a second before going back to 2.2GHz, and for some reason, the i3 throttles at 85°C while the higher-end 2nd-gen parts throttle at 100°C). I did notice that having hardware video decoding (H.264 only, so I would need to install h264ify for YouTube) enabled or disabled made no difference to CPU usage, but I could see a difference in GPU usage. Even with hardware decoding, it still couldn't handle resolutions that Linux can do with software decoding (even AV1).

Even desktops with 2nd-gen CPUs seemed to perform poorly back then. Even in web browsing, an i7-2600 felt less responsive than a C2D T7500. It seems like a lot of people are still using them without any problems (even modern gaming), so I don't know what I did wrong. I do know that Matlab can have huge performance variations depending on CPU architecture (completely different from the benchmarks you usually see online), but that's an outlier (just one that I use a lot).

Yup, that sounds about right.
My 2.8 GHz P4 HT seems to load YT pages about 1.5-2x faster than the Atom. I can also watch in 360p without stutter... or 480p on websites with the video embedded and no other heavy scripts to nibble on CPU cycles. The Atom, I can't even get it to show 360p video without stutter. Even 240p tend to be choppy. LOL!
Then again, I feel the sad part about this is how bloated websites have become these days.

My parents were trying to run a 2.53GHz non-HT P4 back in 2018, and it couldn't even handle YouTube in 144p. HT (or maybe differences between Northwood and Prescott) must make a huge difference, or you're running something other than standard Firefox (latest release, not ESR). I tried to get rid of lots of background scripts with a custom hosts file, but I eventually convinced them to get something better (except they bought a "new" Dell with a 7th-gen CPU, so I'm going to trade them my i5-8500 in October - at least Dell circles the problem, just like Ford).

Strangely, my Athlon XP running Tiny Core could handle YouTube in 144p with some codecs, but not others. I think I was even using xvesa because it was running old S3 graphics.

[eccerr0r]

I'll definitely say my i7-2700 is faster than my C2Q by a long shot, not even close. My i7-930 however was not that much faster though not including HT benefit.

[momaka]

hmm... currently only have a 900MHz Athlon (100MHz FSB) on an abit board with ... bad caps ... on it. I have a Barton (166MHz FSB) underclocked on another 462 board (133MHz FSB) that has a bad onboard GPU or NB. Sigh.

Really dont get why some people want these machines anymore, but hey if they want it and willing to pay for it...

Because these systems were some of the last to officially support Windows 98 / Win9x, and without being too problematic with it either. Sure there are newer boards that can be made to work with Win98 too... but SATA and PCI-E don't always play nice once you have those.

And if you wonder why anyone would want to have a Win9x rig... well, that one's a more complicated answer. But a big part of it is certainly for nostalgia reasons. A lot of us that are now in our late 40's, 30's, and even 20's, probably grew up with these systems. So for some, it's just trying to re-live your childhood.

Not only that, but modern gaming (and OS-es too for that matter) with their constant updating and everything becoming (or attempting to) software-as-a-service rather than a standalone product is pissing off even some of the younger generations. Old games and OS's don't have that bullshit built-in - you just install something and you don't have to worry that it can be taken away at any moment when the software developer decides to shut down the supporting servers. Moreover, a lot of modern games are simply fancy visuals / high-end graphics, but very few of them offer anything more than the old games from back in the day. And it's continuing in that direction too for whatever reason. People care more about ray-tracing, 4k/8k up-scaling, DLSS, framegen, and etc. than they do about what the game may offer in terms of gameplay. So it's become like many other products in life now - fancy-looking on the outside, but with really shit internals and functionality.

Thus, old systems are becoming more valuable simply because they were from simpler times in computing history when the above wasn't as prevalent. So if you have any stuff that needs recapping, do that and then sell them. If you're not in a hurry to sell them, set the prices in your listings a little on the higher end and just wait. If everything is tested and demonstrated to work, it will sell. I did the reverse (i.e. set prices much lower than other listings and/or start with a $0.99 bid and let Ebayers determine the final price) when I was trying to clear some stuff for my move. Managed to make a decent chunk with a few vintage items and sold everything very very quickly too. In fact, I sold one old mechanical KB for $75 just 20 minutes after I put the listing up!
... anyways, then use the money to buy a more modern system. 2nd through 4th gen i-series OEM systems are at the bottom end of their price right now (at least the non-top CPU models), pretty much a smudge above scrap. OEM Core 2 -based systems would be even cheaper and/or possibly free giveaways locally. And even 6th and 7th gen Intel i-series CPUs should be getting cheaper soon, once MS drops support for Win10 and of people are forced off of their 6th/7th gen Intel or non -Ryzen systems.

I see that multi-quote doesn't work anymore.

Yup.
Talk about software regression, it's not just MS as we can see.
Multi-quoting (or lack thereof) is one of the main reasons I stopped posting on BCN as frequently (aside from personal matters too in the last 2 years.) It's just a pain in the ass to multi-quote, now that you can't open replies in a new tab like I could before.
My work-around is to open the same page in multiple tabs - as many as I would need to quote posts - and then type a reply in each. Finally, copy-pasta between all of these to make one final reply. If anyone knows an easier way, please share how.
I feel like this website's functionality after the update is akin to going from Lego Technic to Lego Duplo.

My parents were trying to run a 2.53GHz non-HT P4 back in 2018, and it couldn't even handle YouTube in 144p. HT (or maybe differences between Northwood and Prescott) must make a huge difference, or you're running something other than standard Firefox (latest release, not ESR).

Northwood has slightly shorter architecture and is therefore more efficient for older games. But when it comes to video encoding/decoding, Prescott (especially with HT) get considerably faster than Northwood. The extra L2 cache also helps it quite a bit too, along with higher RAM speeds. I tried OC-ing a 2.4 GHz Celeron Northwood to 3.x GHz, and it was still miserably slow.

Strangely, my Athlon XP running Tiny Core could handle YouTube in 144p with some codecs, but not others. I think I was even using xvesa because it was running old S3 graphics.

LOL.
I gave up on AthlonXP for online stuff a long time ago. It has a nice and efficient short architecture, much like that of the P3 and completely the opposite to that of the P4. But it's just soo outdated for online stuff, especially online video. On the other hand, Athlon 64 X2 are still holding up quite well. Can do 720p (30 FPS only) on my 6000+ downclocked (in order to under-volt it) to 4800+/5200+ speeds (2.4 Ghz). And the YT pages don't load too slow either. Certainly usable.

I'll definitely say my i7-2700 is faster than my C2Q by a long shot, not even close. My i7-930 however was not that much faster though not including HT benefit.

For sure.
2nd gen i7 is still a decent CPU.
1st gen i7 is... akin to a C2Q Extreme editions - just higher clock speed and with HT.
My Westmere Xeons (two E5649) feel the same way too. Due to their lower clocks (2.5 GHz nom., 2.66 turbo), they are actually slower than a C2D E8400 in single core performance. But since modern browsers can now make use of multiple cores, the make up for it with that. Still, I can feel their age at times. Somewhat modern games (GTA 5, for example), don't run all too well on it. The CPU cores get nowhere near 100% use (in fact, most core are idling), yet I am 100% CPU bound simply by the core's architecture / features, and latency from the memory controller.

[eccerr0r]

The i7-930 was not much of a performer, about the same as a C2Q, but my Westmere X5670 is notably faster than the i7-930 (Bloomfield). The X5670 seems to catch up with my i7-2700 though unsure if the chipset made a difference (it was not running triple channel however, both were running dual channel).

I was using a single thread gcc benchmark because I run gcc so much (penguin flock)... for a particular benchmark my i7-2700 took 133 seconds to finish, the X5670 took 132s. The i7-930 it replaced took 165s and my Core2 Quad Q9550 took 168s.

The laggards are my A6-3420M at 292s, my P4-650 clocking it in at 378s, and my poor Atom C2550 came in last place at 419 seconds. The venerable "first ever quad core" Core2 Quad Q6600 I have took 237 seconds.