Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part II: A Deeper Look
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 6, 2005 12:23 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Multitasking Scenario 3: Web Browsing
For our final benchmark, we decided to switch things up a bit and keep Firefox as our foreground application while background tasks ran. To make things even more stressful, we had no less than 12 tabs open in Firefox, with our main tab being IGN's PSP website - which happens to be very Flash heavy.
The iTunes and Newsleecher tasks from the first test scenario were also present in this one, plus we did the following:
Open Outlook, immediately import 130MB PST file and immediately switch app focus to Firefox.
We then recorded the total time required to import the new PST while Firefox was our foreground application.
As we discovered in our first article, the AMD platform just can't make it under this test - the load (particularly the Flash load) makes the Athlon 64 import process take well over four times as long as the import process on either of the Intel systems.
In the Intel camp, obviously dual core wins out and by a very reasonable margin of victory. The Pentium D 2.8 takes around 19% less time to import the PST into Outlook than the higher clocked, larger cache Pentium 4 630.
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segagenesis - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
#45 - The Athlon 64 still lags behind on encoding cabability and its been shown over the past year. However some of the content tested was designed specifically for P4 optimization so its hard to get a reliable result. Who knows... until we see the new AMD64 core with SSE3 we cant really pass judgement.Quanticles - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
AMD needs to send Anandtech one of their dual-cores with a DFI nForce4 SLI board.That'd shut a lot of people up.
If AMD owns single thread, then why wouldnt they own dual core. People would be throwing money away buying intel's dual core.
Spearhawk - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
The first graph on the DVD Shrink/Game bench still seems a bit suspect. Why would the P4 outperform the PD and the A64 when under normal circumstances the A64 should be superior in singlethread and the PD in multithread?Anway, great article. I'm really looking forward to seeing what AMD has to offer since while I'd greatly like improved multitasking I'd also like a good gaming CPU.
Marlin1975 - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
What about overclocking the Dual core chip???Regs - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Ah, I mis read it. You used the Intel 955X.I have to ask then, is it because of AMD's onboard memory controller that they don't have to manufacture another motherboard for the dual core CPUs? If so, you think AMD was thinking about this scenero (dual cores) well before the first clawhammer came out?
That would sound impressive. Compared to Intel's dual press hots.
segagenesis - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
#37 - Well im hard pressed to really want one when my current setup is still sufficient. That and I have my heart set on AMD64 for gaming. Even at DVD backup I can do a movie in about an hour even with full quality under DVD Shrink. And really, I would use DVD Rebuilder which is very much single threaded and in my book Quality > Speed. Takes about 6-7 hours but better results than DVD Shrink could have wished for.Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
RegsThe nForce4 Intel Edition platform was unrelated to the Intel dual core platform, it was just something I was working on at the time.
The platform arrived DOA, I'm guessing it's an error on NV's part.
Take care,
Anand
Jeff7181 - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
"AMD's dual core will be quite impressive, even more so than Intel's. Don't look at performance as the only vector to measure though... "You like to tease us, don't you? :)
Regs - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Hey Anand, I noted that you said in Part one that the Intel Dual core was one of the most stable config's you ever had. However in part two and quote, "After recovering from Part I and realizing that my nForce4 Intel Edition platform had died, I was hard at work on Part II of the dual core story. "Was this human error or was it a manufacturing error?
michael2k - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
#26: Actually, encoding a DVD should be a multi-tasking event in of itself!Task1: DVD creation; menu's, transitions, etc
Task2: DVD encoding; background rendering of menu's and transitions
Task3: DVD encoding; background rendering of the actual menu
Task4: Burning of DVD; you should be able to start burning the DVD before the encoding in task 2 or 3 is complete, as long as the burner is properly buffered