Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part I: First Encounter
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 4, 2005 2:44 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. The results were very interesting:
The most surprising is how poorly AMD did in this test. We actually had to exclude them from the graph as it distorted the bar lengths too much. AMD weighed in at over 27 minutes; from actually using the system, it looks like Flash takes a much bigger performance toll on AMD platforms than it does on Intel. The end result is that the scheduler devoted very little time to the Outlook process, resulting in the import taking an extremely long time.
Ignoring the AMD outlier, dual core offered serious performance improvements over single core within the Intel realm alone. The 840 completed the PST import in around 70% of the time of the 3.73EE. Again, the gap would grow if more tasks were running, or if we were actually interacting with Firefox instead of just sitting there and reading one page (we confirmed this by actually doing it, but it is a little too difficult to do in a repeatable fashion for testing purposes).
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Pandaren - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
Drat. Double Post. Where's the gaming benchmarks? And are those multitasking scenarios realistic? I don't think I would ever do all that at once.Pandaren - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
sideshow23bob - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Additionally, what about throwing in Nero,DC++, azureus, bitcomet, and/or Power DVD. Just progs. that alot of typical college-aged users use(i can verify at least). Great article. Loved the multitasking analysis especially.sideshow23bob - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
ravedave - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Anand, what about DVDDecrypt and DVDShrink at the same time (as in decrypting one movie, shrinking another)? Dual core could really make ripping faster if you could do both of those at once...ViRGE - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
#44, SETI is a really good idea, not just because of heat but because it'll push the memory/FSB at the same time. If Intel's chips are getting choked, SETI should scream pretty loudly by tanking in performance.nigham - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Thanks, this was a real nice review and its got me all excited. One thing I'd really like to know, though, how does Linux handle dual-core? Does it show the same kind of multi-tasking performance boost that we see on Windows XP? I mostly use Linux for my work and I do a ton of multitasking. Windows I use only for gaming, which as you point out are mostly single threaded applications.gregwjones - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Dual-core benchmarks I'd like to see:Two instances of Seti@Home, BOINC version, run on a Pentium D 3.2GHz( dual-core, but no HT )
compared to Pentium 4 3.2GHz single core with HT.
Then run four instances of SETI@Home on the Pentium EE ( dual-core with HT ).
This should generate a lot of heat and put everything at max load.
I have a Pentium 4 Northwood with HT enabled and run two instances of BOINC Seti@Home while using the system to do everyday tasks.Like web browsing, DVD Decrypt, DVD Shrink. Everything is very responsive because BOINC runs at a very low priority.
dragonballgtz - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Great article! It's a good thing you did not do a review like all of the other sites. With just some benchmarks and a few games.As always I can't wait to read more reviews form you Anand. :thumbsup;
shabby - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
The multi-tasking numbers are definetly intresting, but any sane person will wait and see what amd has up its sleeve.