Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part I: First Encounter
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 4, 2005 2:44 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
semi-Final Words
The verdict on dual core is far from in, but what we've presented here is a start. We have more coverage coming, including power consumption, overclocking potential and a look at the more economical dual core price points from Intel. We're also hard at work on creating new multitasking benchmarks with the hopes of eventually reaching the holy grail of being able to measure and quantify system response time accurately. To that effect, if you all have any suggestions for usage models that you'd like to see tested or any benchmarking suggestions in general, please let us know.
We're far from being able to make any conclusions about dual core or Intel's Pentium D/Extreme Edition, but there are some things that we can say at this point:
- In general use of the system, the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 felt just as fast as the 3.73GHz Pentium 4 Extreme Edition. In multitasking, there was no substitute for the dual core Pentium Extreme Edition.
- Hyper Threading made a decent impact on our usage, even on the dual core platform. However, the benchmarks show that Hyper Threading on dual core doesn't always result in a performance boost. That being said, we'd still opt for Hyper Threading as it just seems to make things smoother than without on the dual core chip. Although Intel has a desire to separate their Extreme Edition and Pentium D lines, we think that Hyper Threading is the wrong feature to use as a differentiator - all users could benefit from its presence on their dual core platforms.
- Intel's pricing strategy for dual core makes a lot of sense to force market adoption. In the near future, we will be looking at Intel's cheapest dual core offering to see how well it stacks up to AMD's similarly priced single core chips. The only way to make sure that developers crank out multithreaded desktop software is to ensure a large installed user base, and Intel appears to be committed to doing that.
- AMD should get an even larger boost from the move to dual core than Intel has, simply because AMD doesn't presently have the ability to execute more than one thread at a time. Intel's Hyper Threading on their single core chips does improve response time greatly as well as improves multitasking performance. For AMD, the move to dual core will give their users the benefits in response time that their Intel counterparts have enjoyed with Hyper Threading as well as the extra advantage offered by having two identical cores on a chip.
- When it comes to dual core vs. single core with Hyper Threading, there's a huge difference. While both improve system response time, dual core improves it more while also guaranteeing better overall system performance. Hyper Threading lets you multitask, dual core lets you actually get work done while multitasking.
That's all for now - we'll have much more dual core coverage later on this week and the next.
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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.