AMD Athlon X2 - HP a1250n PLEASE HELP... - July 2006 - Forums

In the market for a PC in the next few months, and was leaning towards the Gateway/HP etc PCs out now with the 820 or 830 Dual Core processors ($1,000 - $1,300). I liked the fact that they were 64 bit and dual core.

BTW - I plan on using the PC mainly for photos, basic home video editing (mini dvd from a new canon elura), internet, and some light gaming at best, but still willing to spend a bit more for the 64 bit and if it is worth it dual core.

BUT THEN today I saw an add in the Best Buy circular (one that came out Sunday) that confused me. They list a HP with a AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core Processor. But here is what threw me - the Text above the computer states (and I quote) "Multiple Your multitasking juice - the AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor ACTS like 2 processors, so you can jump between multiple programs...."

QUESTION - I thought (and maybe I am wrong) is the Intel 820 and 830 pcs were TWO actual processors. And then when I saw the Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core I assumed the same. But the word "acts" in the quote is what confused me. The rest of the add the just say dual-core.

So here are my questions:
1) Does the Intel 820. 830 etc PCs actually have 2 processors (dual processors) or are my assumptions of dual core wrong from the start? Is the difference between the 800 'series' and 600 'series' that 600 series has hyper technology but 800 series is 'true' dual core?

2) Does the AMD Athlon X2 have dual processors? Or it is single one? Does maybe this equal the Intel 600 series that have the Hypertreading that (again, I THINK) is one processor that they 'split' in two to act like one (but is not true dual core?)

3) IN general, I think either will more than meet my needs, but would anyone recommend the Intel 800s over the AMD Athlon X2's (or vise versa)

4) Am I completely in left field with all of this?

Here is a link to the Best Buy PC I saw. if this is true 64 bit and Dual core, this looks like a good deal - only $979 (versus the avg $1100 - $1300 I have seen for Intel - but agin, only if these are equivilent)for this with 15 " lcd and printer, or $899 just PC.

PC:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7439505&type=product&id=1124431815424

THANKS (in advance) for your help

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hmm seems like a good deal

by nerdyboy1234 Oct 2, 2005 5:03PM PDT

except i cant confirm whether it has pci-express x16 slot for gfx card upgrade

the 800series has 2 cores and the athlon 64 x2 has 2 cores

the intel 600 series are single cores

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http://www.shopping.hp.com/shopping/pdf/eg194aa.pdf

by bigygf Oct 2, 2005 8:38PM PDT

there's a very strong possibility i might buy one of these this week. 850 after rebate for the computer only. very close to being an a1130n except that it allows more shared memory for video and you pay a premium for that new cpu. i wonder if they're using a different motherboard this time around. i figure i'm gonna give away my 2300+ and move some parts from my t6212 into this machine, like my 7800gt, my two 1gb sticks, and extra 160gb hard drive, a wireless card, my antec 400w psu, and maybe pick up a sound blaster card. it might not be that much faster than what i already use though, but i'm curious to try out dual core

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HPa1250n

by curlybilly Nov 13, 2005 5:08AM PST

For the money the HPa1250n sounds too good to be true. The only thing I don't like about it is the integrated video card. Would it be possible to upgrade this computer to a 256MB PCI Expressx16(DVI/VGA/TV-out ATI Radeon X600 SE HyperMemory?

I got a quote from Dell for a very simil;ar configuration but with the better video card. It also had the dual core processor but from Intel. It only had an 80 gig hard drive. It was almost $1200 without the monitor. The HP sounds like a much better bargain if only I am able to install the better video card.

Can somebody Help???

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Yes you can

by jgiglio Nov 14, 2005 3:49AM PST

There is a slot for a PCI-E video card. These cards are the newest version of video cards and more expensive than AGP (not supportded). You can also upgrade using regular PCI, but I would not recommend it.

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Best Buy PC I saw,,,,Well Bull feathers

by jcrobso Oct 3, 2005 2:30AM PDT

Keep in mind that this is from BB and was written by and advertising agencey!!!! Not by a computer expert!!!!
In a dual core, the processors share the workload!!!! How is determined by the applaction and the OS,,, the user has no control over how this is done.
For the amount of money you are talking about,, have you consirderd building your own PC???? John

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Just asking.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Oct 3, 2005 2:43AM PDT

Have you owned and used a DUAL CPU machine?

I had my first dual of a i200mmx then a dual Pentium Pro then I changed the Pro's to Pentium Prod Overdrives. Frankly, thost machines were dreamy compared to single CPU machines of that day.

The pundits of the day always seemed to pan the dual CPU machine with comments about "no software", control and more, but having used them I couldn't grasp why they wrote such.

Bob

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Just answering

by jcrobso Oct 11, 2005 2:54AM PDT

Yes I have a dual processor PIII 1.2 Ghz machine.
"The pundits of the day always seemed to pan the dual CPU machine with comments about "no software", control and more, but having used them I couldn't grasp why they wrote such."
I can't eather They run realy good. John

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AMD dual cores are a lot better than Intel

by duduong Oct 10, 2005 8:05AM PDT

The Intel Pentium D 820 or 830 are dual-core Pentium 4s, by which I mean a very big chip with two copies of Pentium 4 circuits. The AMD 64 X2 processors are likewise dual-core AMD 64s with two copies of AMD 64s. In both cases, they should perform similarly to corresponding dual CPU setups (i.e. two separate chips with single cores), yet with the advantage of simplified motherboard circuits, thus saving cost.

This is not to say that the Intel solution is equivalent to the AMD one. Not only is a single-core AMD 64 faster than the Pentium 4 in most applications while generating significantly less heat, the AMD processors have been designed from the very beginning for multi-core configuration. The same cannot be said for Intel. In particular, Intel processors have to share the front side bus, which seriously limits the benefit of a second (or a third and a fourth) processor. AMD uses instead Hyper Transport, which has higher bandwidth and scales with the number of processors. That is, with two processors, the total bandwidth doubles, enabling the performance to scale almost linearly with the number of cores.

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I just picked one up at Circuit City!

by beebow Oct 16, 2005 2:44PM PDT

The 1250 is bundled with a printer and 15" LCD monitor in this weeks online add for $960 after $300 in mail in rebates. I researched this system and it's supposed to be one of the fastest out right now for the money. The AMD set up is supposed to be superior to the intel dual cores. We'll see how it does!

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(NT) (NT) Great, thanks!!! I will check it out!

by Chip_Leader Oct 16, 2005 3:02PM PDT

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CircuitCity has the same ad this week.

by jgiglio Oct 17, 2005 2:03AM PDT

Both Best Buy and Circuit City are offering he same package with similar cost after rebate. Watch for the Zero Financing options. @ $1200 before rebates it equates to $100 per month. @ 18 months the price drops down to $75. My only experience with HP would lead me to buy an extended warranty on the machine. In the neighborhood of 3 - 4 years. When I bouhgt a pavillion years back it died without warning and even after extensive effort the patient could not be brought back. The machine lasted just under three years. I have had Dell and Gateways that lasted longer on the original equiptment. I looked at its previous version (a1230n) and the inside of the case is uncluuered and may be better ant preventing a heta stroke in the CPU or hard drives.

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HP a1250n

by telepatico Oct 18, 2005 2:38PM PDT

I got one last Saturday and works very well with Photoshop CS. I compared it to my pentium III 700 Mhz, 640 MB RAM and the difference is very well noted. At best Buy, there was too much offering of extras at the store by salespeople. HP customer support is great, excellent live chat support. The printer that comes with it, has a bug that keep printing aligment pages every time you turn the printer on for use, but there is a way to fix that with HP support. Screen savers are of low quality. look like too much dust on the picture when those were scanned. Windows task manager shows two charts for two processors, but it can also view both on one sscreen. The computer locks up too much, with the software it came with, so I dont know what the heck is wrong with it. the keyboard is nice, but it feels sheep. The video is nothing great or big deal, it looks the same as my 64 mb video card on the old computer. I tried tried movies on the DVD player and those looks ok for an LCD monitor. I upgraded from the 15" to the 17" for just $50.00. I was unable to paint the cd with the light scribe thing. Id did not painted anything on the DVD-RW. I was unable to burn a restoration DVD, it didnt work. There is no restoration cd, the computer needs 16 cds, or 2 dvd's or 1 double layer dvd for the restoration media. there is no cd included since there is a partition on the hard drive for with the restoration files, so in case of a virus damage, you might need to burn discs.

Well, I cant thing of anything else, but I can answer any questions youmay have if I can.

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Me Too ...

by twoHats Oct 26, 2005 5:31PM PDT

I also grabbed one of these beauties at CC. In my area CC has them for 900 - 50 rebate = 850. Best buy (right across the street - 1100.

My one beef is that i want ot dual boot linux, and the setup (OS backup on HD partition 1- rest one big partition 2) makes it pretty tough - still working out the details. I have already run a couple of (32bit) live linux CDs on it and they worked fine.

Anyone have any experience along these lines? ie Saving WinXP and still repartioning the drive?

Thanks - Tom

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Just noting...

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Oct 26, 2005 9:41PM PDT

The full retail Linux like Suse 10.0 makes partition resizing just a push the button (accept their suggestion) install. There are some that will want to do this manually and will have a lot of work and learning to do.

Cheers,

Bob

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I just got one at Fry's and loaded Linux, someday PVR

by animated Jan 6, 2006 5:16AM PST

I plan to use this for a PVR, and wanted to verify that I could recover from hardware or software catastrophes.

So far I almost have Linux installed as documented
here www.geocities.com/dcblaha.

Fo now, I just bought a cheap 17" monitor for 20$
off of Craig's list since I plan to use a PVR-350
with television out.

The advantage with the AMD is that it takes less
power, and can run cooler with less noisy fans. Great
for a PVR!

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Ubuntu Linux

by animated Jan 14, 2006 3:24AM PST

Thanks to mlomker, there is an installation guide at
<a href="http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Installation_Guide">
wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Installation_Guide</a> that shows
how to set up the new ATI drivers for Ubuntu.

It took a lot of reading to figure out that the official guide doesn't
work.

The HP-a1250n has the following
<ul>
<li>Athlon64 x2 processor</li>
<li>Motherboard: MSI MS-7184, Socket 939, Northbridge ATI RS482,
Southbridge ATI SB400, HP name: AmethystM or AmethystM-GL6E</li>
<li>250GB SATA drive</li>
<li>ATI Radeon Xpress 200 Series integrated video</li>
</ul>

I was getting the DRIScreenInit Failed and Disabling DRI messages from the
ATI card. I also got the "libGL error: drmMap of sarea failed". But the
libdri.a fix worked for this.

I am a Linux newbie, and documented the problems I had setting up the HP-a1250n here
<a href="http://www.geocities.com/dcblaha/articles/hp-a1250nLinux.htm">
www.geocities.com/dcblaha/articles/hp-a1250nLinux.htm</a>.

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a1250n $600 but freezes occasionally

by headnut Nov 20, 2005 8:46PM PST

I had been looking at this at Fry's for the past few weeks for $850 after rebate. In the MicroCenter ad they had it for $850 - $50 HP rebate - $100 MicroCenter rebate - $100 Visa rebate = $600. Too good to pass up, so I got one even though they have a 15% restocking fee policy and I don't usually buy anything at those stores. I didn't find out until reading the receipt. It sat on the rug for 2 hours until I finally decided to chance it.

It's not quite the speed demon I was expecting, but is a solid machine. However, three times now it has just frozen (even numlock doesn't toggle the light anymore).
It was in 3 different apps - Adobe Premiere, IE, Netscape 7.2. After the first time I disconnected the UPS thinking maybe it was glitching. After the third time I uninstalled the DLink pci wifi card, which was the only customization I had done to the machine. Should I either ask for a replacement or take it back and eat the restocking fee? I hate unreliable machines. This is the first one I have not built myself, but it was so much cheaper than trying to build one.

What applications will the Athlon 64 X2 show it's speed on, i.e., use both processors?

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MicroCenter Rebates

by jhurewit Nov 20, 2005 10:30PM PST

I have decided I want to buy an HP a1250n, and checked the pricing at CompUSA, CircuitCity and Best Buy this weekend. All were $899, and the HP $50 rebate. I went to the Microcenter website to check it out, and saw the HP rebate and the $100 Visa rebate. What is the other $100 Microcenter rebate you mentioned?

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local Dallas rebate

by headnut Nov 21, 2005 11:32AM PST

Sorry, wasn't thinking, the store manager said it was the 10th anniversary celebration of that particular store's opening. I remember working across the street then, before the layoffs , back when they opened. So that could be the reason for the extra $100 MicroCenter rebate, and maybe why they started at $850 before any rebates.

Still haven't figured out why it hangs. A coworker suggests it is because it has an AMD processor, and they are not 100% compatible and can lock up. I wouldn't think that's the case. Does anyone else have problems with Athlon 64 X2's locking up? Any suggestions?

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Did you update all drivers.

by damasta55r Nov 21, 2005 2:22PM PST

It could be overheating, try run with case off. Did you scan for adware,etc. Download and run memtest. Could be bad memory. Other than that, there should be no problems with the machine, if there is it won't matter what machine you use.

Roger

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updated all drives, case open, still hangs

by headnut Nov 23, 2005 10:00PM PST

I updated all the WinXP stuff, as well as the driver for the DLink wireless card. Still hangs. Am now trying a Buffalo USB wireless adapter. If it still freezes, this thing's going back. And if I have to eat the $125 restocking fee, I will NEVER set foot in MicroCenter again.

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also ran memtest 86 - no bad ram

by headnut Nov 23, 2005 10:02PM PST

Ram had no errors, although it didn't recognize the processor like it does on my Centrino-based laptops.

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Did you upgrade gfx card

by damasta55r Nov 24, 2005 3:48AM PST

If youre gaming and it crashes, i wouldn't be surprised if psu cant supply enough power.

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HP a1250n best price at Amazon.com

by jhurewit Nov 23, 2005 11:03AM PST

I discovered that Amazon.com is selling the a1250n for $899, with the HP $50 rebate and an Amazon $50 rebate bringing the price down to $799.

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answers

by neezee Nov 24, 2005 2:48AM PST

1. no the computer dosent have 2 processers or thats what i think your asking..

2. yea it is a single processer

3.AMD is a way better choice the archetecture is far superior to the Intel chips, however Intel is comming out with new dual core chips, which are suppose to be better than the AMD's (dont hold your breath)

all in all these dual core processors are just a SINGLE-PROCESSOR with 2 cores in it. and AMD is the better maker for dual-core chips rite now...

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dual core

by animated Jan 6, 2006 5:22AM PST

Dual core is much different than hyperthreading.

A dual core is mostly about packaging. It is really two processors that communicate to each other in one package, and so technically is one processor. The AMD dual core is supposed to be superior to Intel dual cores.

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x2 vs. P4 D's

by georgekn3mp Jan 7, 2006 11:44AM PST

Oh AMD X2 dual proc's have pretty much all tested faster AND cooler than the P4 D's, expecially for higher-end multimedia and some games...it's hard to compare apples to oranges but there are a lot of tech sites that compare the two as closely as two different chipsets aloow...almost universally the X2 3800 and 4200 beat even the P4 D 840 most of the time for a few hundred dollars less! Having an Hp A1250N myself, I love it (except the integrated graphics part LOL)

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I put in a PC Express video card

by deenie Jul 8, 2006 8:24PM PDT

Not being a gamer, I bought the cheapest PC Express nVidia card that had DVI output and no fan onboard (I hate fan noise). I got a good deal on Klipsch speakers (2.1) and I bought the HP 19" LCD monitor that was rated pretty good in PC World mag. The computer did crash a lot at the beginning. I just kept updating software, especially WinXP, and uninstalling the free crap that comes loaded on the HD. Now it is a really solid performer, very quiet, and super fast. It no longer crashes at all. Now I am waiting for 64 bit software, like Vista, to really give this baby something to chew on.

AMD Athlon X2 - HP a1250n PLEASE HELP...

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