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 3: Web Browsing
For our final benchmark, we decided to switch things up a bit and keep Firefox as our foreground application while background tasks ran. To make things even more stressful, we had no less than 12 tabs open in Firefox, with our main tab being IGN's PSP website - which happens to be very Flash heavy.
The iTunes and Newsleecher tasks from the first test scenario were also present in this one, plus we did the following:
Open Outlook, immediately import 130MB PST file and immediately switch app focus to Firefox.
We then recorded the total time required to import the new PST while Firefox was our foreground application. The results were very interesting:
The most surprising is how poorly AMD did in this test. We actually had to exclude them from the graph as it distorted the bar lengths too much. AMD weighed in at over 27 minutes; from actually using the system, it looks like Flash takes a much bigger performance toll on AMD platforms than it does on Intel. The end result is that the scheduler devoted very little time to the Outlook process, resulting in the import taking an extremely long time.
Ignoring the AMD outlier, dual core offered serious performance improvements over single core within the Intel realm alone. The 840 completed the PST import in around 70% of the time of the 3.73EE. Again, the gap would grow if more tasks were running, or if we were actually interacting with Firefox instead of just sitting there and reading one page (we confirmed this by actually doing it, but it is a little too difficult to do in a repeatable fashion for testing purposes).
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kjohnson - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
I now put the Inquirer on the same level as CNN. Fox News is a better comparison.slatr - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
Sorry.. how about a lightwave scene rendering at the same time as running a filter on a large image in photoshop.slatr - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
slatr - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
Can we see Lightwave benchmarks again please?Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
As always, I appreciate the comments and support, but let's not let this get too off topic. Keep the requests for tests and new scenarios coming, I can't promise I'll get all of them included but I'll do my best to incorporate as many ideas as possible.Take care,
Anand
Son of a N00b - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
ANAND!! lol...shoot to bad you already finished part to, but for all those whiners, who want games, i have to say this...The only gaming benchmark that would make sence is running a game while having a firewall and antivirus running....most TRUE(not you wannabe's who run firefox in the background to induce lag in fps) gamers(including me) turn off their firewalls and antivirus to get the very best possible performace, because it matters...no one multitasks with games...
Now when you all flame about how you multitask with games, and "speak for yourself shit" let me just say, are you really going to shrink a DVD while playing Counter Strike??? YOU'D GET OWNED....
I do not see any point in benchmarking games as thesse people mentioned...they failed to read your explanation of not including games and rush to critizise....utilize the time you have on the system running more important tests....
/my 2 cents :-))
and again great job with the article and the site, and I am very impressed with how you handle the BS'ers who talk ablut your integrity...i have and probably never will question this sites validability...dont come here if you just want to complain about it....
retrospooty - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
#92, that is a huge understatement. I have been coming here for 7 years, AT has been my start page for the last 6 years... This is 100% due to the totally unbiased and thorough reviews posted here. To compare to some trashy RAG website like the inquirer is totally inacurate. Thats like comparing CNN news to the Inquirer (magazine) LOLpaulsiu - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
Great article. You were one of the first to review, too.I am looking forward to see AMD's take on dual core. Whether hyperthreading make sense now that you have two real processors.
In the real world, I am looking for dual core to be use in a home server at a price that will hopefully be cheaper than a dual cpu machine.
Even if dual core won't make our single threaded application run faster, it may make your machine more responsive. How much crap is running in the background these days: virus checker, spyware blocker, personal firewall, drive indexer and checker. Pretty soon, we'll all need Dual Core just to keep our machine responsive.
Detrius - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
An excellent application for testing would be VMware Workstation. For me, this is by far the most demanding application that I use on a regular basis. For those of you who do not have experience with this software and have a need to stage multicomputer systems but are (like me) hardware limited this is the bomb application. Plus, it makes an great multitasking load.kjohnson - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
I stand corrected Anand. My research indicates your reputation far exceeds that of the Inquirer.