Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part I: First Encounter

Business Application Performance

Business Winstone 2004

Business Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:

• Microsoft Access 2002
• Microsoft Excel 2002
• Microsoft FrontPage 2002
• Microsoft Outlook 2002
• Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
• Microsoft Project 2002
• Microsoft Word 2002
• Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition 2003
• WinZip 8.1

There's no surprise here - your best business application performance is going to come from a very fast single core CPU. 

Office Productivity SYSMark 2004

SYSMark's Office Productivity suite consists of three tests, the first of which is the Communication test. The Communication test consists of the following:

"The user receives an email in Outlook 2002 that contains a collection of documents in a zip file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while VirusScan 7.0 scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed in Internet Explorer 6.0. Finally, Internet Explorer is used to look at samples of the web pages and documents created during the scenario."

The next test is Document Creation performance:

"The user edits the document using Word 2002. He transcribes an audio file into a document using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6. Once the document has all the necessary pieces in place, the user changes it into a portable format for easy and secure distribution using Acrobat 5.0.5. The user creates a marketing presentation in PowerPoint 2002 and adds elements to a slide show template."

The final test in our Office Productivity suite is Data Analysis, which BAPCo describes as:

"The user opens a database using Access 2002 and runs some queries. A collection of documents are archived using WinZip 8.1. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet using Excel 2002 and are used to generate graphical charts."

The Office Productivity SYSMark 2004 suite shows some benefit to dual core, given that there is quite a bit of multitasking involved in the test suite.  Despite the multitasking, the Pentium Extreme Edition running at 3.2GHz isn't able to trounce its single core 3.73GHz relative. 

Business Winstone 2004 includes a multitasking test as a part of its suite, which does the following:

"This test uses the same applications as the Business Winstone test, but runs some of them in the background. The test has three segments: in the first, files copy in the background while the script runs Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer in the foreground. The script waits for both foreground and background tasks to complete before starting the second segment. In that segment, Excel and Word operations run in the foreground while WinZip archives in the background. The script waits for both foreground and background tasks to complete before starting the third segment. In that segment, Norton AntiVirus runs a virus check in the background while Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Access, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage, and WinZip operations run in the foreground."

The performance of the dual core Extreme Edition comes within 5% of the 3.73GHz EE, despite the fact that the single core chip has a 16% clock speed advantage, but it is still slower overall.

The second test finally shows something positive for the dual core chip, with a negligable 2% performance lead.  This is the perfect example of how multi-core can be a substitute for clock speed when it comes to performance.  Note that despite the Pentium Extreme Edition being faster than the 3.73EE, the single core Athlon 64 FX-55 is faster than both.

The third and final test also shows a slight performance advantage for the dual core Extreme Edition, even over the Athlon 64 FX-55.