Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part I: First Encounter
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 4, 2005 2:44 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Platform: Intel 955X
AMD's dual core Athlon 64 processors will work in all current Socket-939 motherboards with merely a BIOS update. The same level of compatibility obviously isn't true for Intel's dual core solutions. You'll need a new motherboard to support the Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition chips, and thus, Intel shipped us a board based on their soon-to-be released 955X platform.
The platform boasts a dual channel DDR2-667 memory controller, but given that the chips still only support an 800MHz FSB, the added bandwidth of DDR2-667 is useless. Even for bragging rights, running at DDR2-667 doesn't make sense, as the memory that Intel shipped with the system is rated at 5-5-5-15 timings at 667MHz. Wasted bandwidth and higher latency memory is nothing to get excited about in our book. We're not entirely sure what Intel is up to, but they had better plan on increasing the FSB of their chips really soon if they want DDR2-667 (or even 533) to gain any sort of acceptance.
Other than support for dual core, faster DDR2, RAID 5 and 8GB of ECC memory, the 955X doesn't have any features to boast over the current platforms. It does look like Intel may be planning SLI support for the 955X however:
The 955X board that we received had two physical x16 PCIe connectors, but only one of them was electrically a x16 slot.
Despite Intel's warnings not to make any judgments about final performance or stability, both the 955X and the Pentium Extreme Edition were as rock solid during our testing as any product that we've encountered. This was quite possibly the most stable encounter with a pre-release CPU, chipset and drivers that we've ever had. That being said, we really didn't expect Intel to break tradition with a platform of which they weren't 100% sure.
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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.