Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part I: First Encounter
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 4, 2005 2:44 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Encoding Performance
These new dual core CPUs are supposed to usher in a new era of media rich application usage models. They are supposed to enable us to do things that we were never able to do before. Let's find out if that's true or not...
First, we start off with iTunes to test MP3 encoding performance. We took a 12MB .wav file of our own creation and encoded it to a 192kbps MP3 file, measuring how long it took to encode the file.
Once again, we see that the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 is able to offer equal performance to the 3.73EE at 29 seconds. What's truly interesting is that the Pentium D running at 3.2GHz actually offers better performance than the Extreme Edition. We can only assume that 4 threads in iTunes begins to reduce performance, with 2 concurrent threads being the optimal point.
But once again, the performance gains aren't impressive. So far, dual core isn't looking too good.
DivX Encoding Performance
Our DivX tests from previous CPU reviews have shown a pretty sizeable improvement due to Hyper Threading, so we expected a similarly impressive gain due to dual core:
...and we were not disappointed. The Pentium Extreme Edition 840 offered more than a 20% increase in performance in our DivX encoding task when compared to the 3.73GHz single core P4 Extreme Edition.
We also see another example of four threads offering no performance improvement over being able to execute two concurrently, as the Pentium D running at 3.2GHz offers equal performance to the 840.
XviD Encoding Performance
The XviD tests show no real improvement due to dual core, but also don't seem to show much of an improvement due to Hyper Threading either. This just goes to show you that not all encoding tasks will show tremendous benefits.
Windows Media Video 9 Encoding Performance
Once again, we see extremely strong performance from the new dual core chips, offering around a 30% performance improvement at 85% of the clock speed of the current king of the hill.
So, overall encoding performance is pretty strong on the dual core chips from Intel. Let's have a look at one more multi-threaded application before we get to the more interesting tests.
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Questar - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Is Xvid a relevent test? It's not multithreadedboban10 - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
hi. thanks to responding.i have some sugestion for you work.
can you test this:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threa...
easy real media producer, you get it here:
http://redcheek.net/erm/ermp_full.zip
its free..
can you try to encoding some things, i wannt to see how much diference it it on one and two cpu, and would be nice if you can test with athlon xp too, because i wannt to see how much gain i get with dual-core cpu...
then some more programs that suport dual-cpu:
TMPGEnc , Photoshop. Premiere pro ...
thanks...
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Thanks so much for the comments, keep em coming in. This is just the first part, there's more coming. I've got another NDA tomorrow morning but then after that it's more dual core. Let me know what you want to see, I've already got quite a bit planned :)And yes that die shot is correct, it is simply rotated 90 degrees clockwise to fit on the page better.
Take care,
Anand
erikvanvelzen - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Are you 100% sure that die picture is right? Again a great review from Anandtech!DAPUNISHER - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
I must have missed it somehow; what storage setup did you use? Thanks and great article kid :-)boban10 - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Anandtech, i wannt to thank you, because this is a great preview....ronaldo
Avalon - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Impressive results. Sometimes I come across a scenario where I'm doing two things at once fighting for 100% CPU time on my A64 Sempron rig, so it would be quite nice to have a dual core chip to handle that for me. I personally can't wait to see a more full review, and hopefully one of AMD's dual core setup as well.karlreading - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
#11Very good points, but i think the thing to remeber about intel is this:
Yes, they are beating AMD to the desktop. And yes, that will be good beacuse it will encourage the user base to adopt dual core, and thus programers to multi thread more. Bineg a enthusiast site, obviously dektop dual is the scene we care about and sticks in our minds.
BUT:
AMD will beat out Intel to dual core in the enterprise segment. THE area where the real money is. THE area where dual core can stretch its multithreaded wings. THE area where it has a product thats already causing waves ( opteron may not have the penertration of xeon, but it's given AMD a seriouse status in the enterprise sector and it is a respected architecture ), and, THE area it can really try and hurt intel, and its partners. DELL wont have a dual core capable box yet, HP can have one very soon. More to the point, if ur a IT head and u spent on Opteron server, Youll be a very happy one. Beacuse that 8 Way opteron box you got can suddenly become a 16- way box.
Its strikes of AMD's stratagey with x86-64. No, it wasent as powerful as itanium, it wasent new, fresh, and funky. It certainly wasent the first 64 bit cpu for enterprise wither, not by a long shot. But by giving comapnys, and people what they want, a easy, painless upgrade path, it suceeded in destroying intels dream of killing of x86. Intel was still denying yamhill when it was already in there cpus, lying dormant for the day intel would swallow its pride and follow AMD down the x86-64 route.
Intel will beat AMD to dual core on the desktop, but they will make waves and in roads in the enterprise sector, and, let's face it, its just better that way.
Karlos
Googer - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
"I tried to take a screenshot of what was going on, but print screen wouldn't work. I could launch Paint, but I couldn't paste anything into it"If paint does not work you can always use wordpad and paste any images to it that are cahced to the clipboard.
karlreading - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Personally, im very excited about dual core. It appears to me that everyone seems to be forgeting the main thing.Its not necesseraly about doing one thing faster, its about doing MORE things faster.
the multi-tasking scenarios ANAND has given us is where the real excitment and benefit come in. Now, as a AMD FANboi, all i say is this: Bring on TOLEDO :)
Karlos