Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part I: First Encounter
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 4, 2005 2:44 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Characterizing Dual Core Performance
There are three areas to look at when measuring the performance of a dual core processor:
- Single-threaded application performance
- Multi-threaded Application Performance
- Multitasking Application Performance
For the first category, plain-jane single threaded application performance, the Pentium Extreme Edition or the Pentium D will simply perform identically to the equivalently clocked Pentium 5xx series CPU. The second core will go unused and the performance of the first core is nothing new. Given the short lead time on hardware for this review, we left out all of our single threaded benchmarks given that we can already tell you what performance is like under those tests - so if you're looking for performance under PC WorldBench or any of our Game tests, take a look at our older reviews and look at the performance of the Pentium 4 530 to get an idea of where these dual core CPUs will perform in single threaded apps. There are no surprises here; you could have a 128 core CPU and it would still perform the same in a single threaded application. Closer to its launch, we will have a full review including all of our single and multithreaded benchmarks so that you may have all of the information that will help determine your buying decision in one place.
The next category is pretty easy to benchmark as well. Things like 3ds max, iTunes, and Windows Media Encoder, are all examples of multi-threaded applications that are used rather frequently. We've included a few of these benchmarks as well in this article.
The final category is by far the most interesting as well as the most difficult to truly get a hold on - multitasking performance. The easiest way to measure multitasking performance is to have a number of applications loaded with one or more actively crunching away, and measure the performance of one or more of them. However, an arguably more useful way of looking at multitasking performance is to look at the response time of the system while multitasking. Unfortunately, no real benchmarks exist to measure response time of a system accurately while under a multitasking load, so we're left to do our best to try to develop those benchmarks to help answer the dual vs. single core purchasing debate. We are still working on developing those benchmarks and unfortunately, they didn't make it into this article, but we will keep cranking away and hopefully be able to debut them in one of the upcoming successors to this piece.
We did, however, string together a few benchmarks that don't explicitly measure response time, but do offer a good look at multitasking performance. Despite the fact that Intel has these types of benchmarks on their own, we went out and built benchmarks ourselves that was based on the feedback that we received from you all - the AnandTech readers.
We will describe these benchmarks later on in this piece, but first, let's take a look at two largely single threaded benchmark suites with a touch of multitasking: Winstone and SYSMark.
The Test
Our hardware configurations are similar to what we've used in previous comparisons.
AMD Athlon 64 Configuration
Socket-939 Athlon 64 CPUs
2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 EL Dual Channel DIMMs 2-2-2-10
NVIDIA nForce4 Reference Motherboard
ATI Radeon X850 XT PCI Express
Intel Pentium 4 Configuration
LGA-775 Intel Pentium 4 and Extreme Edition CPUs
2 x 512MB Crucial DDR-II 533 Dual Channel DIMMs 3-2-2-12
Intel 955X Motherboard
ATI Radeon X850 XT PCI Express
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johnsonx - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
It looks like AMD better get busy. AMD woke up Intel from it's complacent slumber, and now Intel is going to start eating AMD's lunch. AMD has completely lost the 64-bit advantage, and will now lose whatever dual-core advantage it had by designing Hammer to be dual-core from the start. Prescott may or may not have been designed for dual-core, but it sure seems to work just fine, doesn't it?AMD's problem is that it talks about what it's going to do for too long before actually doing it, as if there isn't anything Intel can do about it. Intel surely can do something about it, and definitely has. This may be an obvious consequence of being a much smaller company: AMD doesn't have the resources to get things done as quickly as Intel can (when Intel is sufficiently motivated), but that just means AMD needs to keep their mouths shut for longer. AMD has been relegated to 'me-too' status for technologies they themselves were first with...
Object lesson for AMD: Intel can beat you to any launch date you set for any technology or feature you think you've got an exclusive on. Intel can then crush you with volume and market presence. It ain't fair... welcome to life.
AMD's best bet: whatever you set your launch dates to, surprise launch everything 6 months ahead of schedule. That'll only work a couple of times, but it's better than nothing.
Klober - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Two separate points here:First, I suppose dual-core may not improve single threaded application performance much over a single-core CPU with HT, but shouldn't it increase performance over a single-core CPU w/o HT? I would think it would allow the OS to run on one core while the application runs on the other core, which in theory should increase performance some. Just a thought, as I'm no expert on scheduling and the resources the OS actively requires.
Second point, a small simple application that may be useful in benchmarking, particularly in multitasking benchmarks, might be Macro Scheduler by MJT Net. It takes very little in the way of resources, and is very easy to program for starting applications, switching between them, taking screenshots, clicking on options and even typing whatever you'd like wherever you'd like. I think it could be a great base for switching between applications and starting processes inside those applications, all in a very repeatable manner. Timing can be down to the 1/10,000th of a second if need be, and using a scheduler with minimal resource impact would take the human element out of the benchmarking. Maybe you've already looked into this, or something similar, but it's just a thought that may make certain benchmarking situations easier for all of you that bring us these great (p)reviews.
Googer - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
In Soviet Russia you post all you bad jokes Here:http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...
knitecrow - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
yo dog, where the temperature at?but seriously, in addition to the usual suspects, I think anandtech should have compared pentium D to xenon 3.2ghz just to see the performance difference.
johnsonx - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
ok, sorry... I posted my comment before reading the encoding benchmarks, where I see you did exactly what I suggested. My bad.vaystrem - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
"2) Open iTunes and start playing the latest album of avid AnandTech reader 50 Cent on repeat all."? Really?
johnsonx - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
I know it's nearly double the number of benchmarks to run, but it would have been instructive to see both Pentium processors benchmarked without HT as well. Testing the dual-core pentium EE without HT would of course mimic a 3.2Ghz Pentium D, and testing the single core P4 without HT would give us a baseline single-core, single execution thread reference.Finally, it might also be instructive to benchmark current P4 at 3.2Ghz, again both with and without HT.
Easy for me to say, I know, since I'm not the one who has to do all the benches....
LeadFrog - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
I like the theory of if it can't get any faster lets just combine a few.SLI, RAID, and Dual Core CPU's.
segagenesis - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
One site mentioned 125W power consumption. Ow.Well, its a start... but I want to see AMDs offering first.
msva124 - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
This looks promising, I wonder if AMD might eventually cave and implement hyper-threading in their processors, in addition to dual core. Or is that not part of the cross licensing agreeement?