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 2: File Compression
For our next test, we simulated what would happen if we performed two disk intensive tasks at the same time: zipping a file while importing a 260MB PST file into Outlook 2003.
We ran the same Firefox and iTunes tasks from the last test again, and then did the following:
1) Open Outlook.
2) Start importing 260MB PST.
3) Start WinRAR.
4) Archive 130MB test file.
WinRAR remained the application in focus during this test.
Here, we looked at two metrics: how long it took WinRAR to compress our test file, and how many emails were imported into Outlook during the time WinRAR was archiving. Let's have a look at the results:
Here, we see that all of the CPUs performed relatively similar to one another, but now let's talk about how many emails were imported. The non-HT Pentium 4 imported around 500 emails, while the HT P4 EE imported around 1700 emails by the time WinRAR was done. Neither of those are even close to the performance of the dual core chips, which each imported over 3000 emails in the same 40 seconds. The single core Athlon 64 FX-55 also only imported around 400 emails.
Our second test shows us that the performance of a dual core solution comes in all shapes and sizes. In this case, our foreground task took the same amount of time in almost all cases, but what was done in the background varied significantly.
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Da DvD - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Many of you are making a huge mistake. You are proposing insane multitasking tests to 'bring these processors to their knees'. This is wrong! Since when do we adjust the review to the product?This is similar to only running benchmarks whose working sets fit completely into the 2mb cache of a new cpu. In other words, when you review a product like this, do NOT suddenly change all your variables, keep them as you always had them. Later on, you can adjust variables (tests), and draw your conclusions accordingly.
Also, I hope people understand that when Anand would have run these test on a dual Xeon 3.2 system, the results would have been virtually the same. You ALREADY KNOW dual cpu systems can be twice as fast as single cpu systems in certain tests, and show no improvement at all in others.
I really appreciate the article in general, but it would have been SO much better when the PICTURE would have been complete. For this, a dual Opteron system and a dual Xeon system should have been included, AND the tests should have a reflected typical user workloads. If for some reason all cpu's would have been dualcore already, -I- still wouldn't be importing PST files while running my games. Again, when reviewing something, it's wrong to adapt the workload to the product. This is why some people now question your integrety, Anand, because quickly reading through the article DOES give the impression Dual-Core is THE thing, while there's so much it is not!
And yes, i do realize you don't have dual Opteron/Xeon rigs at hand, but still, you choose to present this incomplete picture. It was a choice, but not necessarily the correct one ;-)
Regards,
DvD
Zebo - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Anand for game marks I like to see a dvdshrink deep analysis/encode, with grabit downloading 8 threads with plenty more cued, some seti at home, then run farcry and report FPS.:DThat will bring these single procesors to thier knees obviously but I want to see if DC is really worth it since that's the type of choices I'm forced to choose between.
tjahns - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
As I am not a regular reader nor familiar with the benchmarks used in this article, I am rather disappointed that the scales on the graphs in this article do not indicate what is being measured nor whether "higher is better" or "lower is better".Calin - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
What would be better in games (I think), especially in first person shooter games, would be to compare the lowest frames per second, and not the highest or the averaged frame rate. And I think this would represent an tremendous advantage for multiprocessors/multicoreCalin - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
"Nice article, as always. I wonder how memory bandwidth increases/decreases will effect the performance of the already bandwidth hungry intel processors."The Intel processors are no longer bandwidth hungry, as the move to the 1066FSB showed. However, throw a second processor into the mix, and things might change
Calin - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
The Register has a small review on it, and compare it against a dual Xeon righttp://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/05/review_int...
Icehawk - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Great article - loved the multitasking benchmarks.Here's what I have running all the time:
WinAmp 5
Outlook 2003
Firefox 1.02
ICQQ2003Pro
Norton A/V2005
drivers for audio & video :)
How is my performance affected by multiple Word, Excel, Pshop CS windows? Can I game with them open or do I still need to shut everything down like on my current system? Could I encode a DVD and play a game? Play a DVD off one drive and encode off another?
As mentioned some of what I want to know is can I do things that currently require me to really run two boxes? I recently moved Azareus (torrent client) and all of my DVD encoding & burning to a second rig.
Macro2 - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
No games tested at all? Since when does this happen? Intel doesn't want dual core to look bad so Anandtech doesn't bench ANY games at all.Come on guys, judging by the article below on the Inquirer I'm not the only one who is suspicious.
http://theinquirer.net/?article=22332
Same ole' same ole'
snorre - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Why did you exclude dual CPU (Opteron/Xeon) systems from your comparisons?I recommend that you guys at Anandtech read this:
http://theinquirer.net/?article=22332
Well said! ;-)
Bathrone - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
What about the new extreme edition and I think WinXP only supports a maximum of two cpus? Im not keen to goto 2003 Server. What are Microsoft going to do - patch XP to support 4 cpus?