Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part II: A Deeper Look
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 6, 2005 12:23 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Multitasking Performance
As we discovered in the first article, multitasking performance requires a slightly different approach to benchmarking methodology. While for single application performance in which we test with a system that's in a very clean state with nothing but the benchmark and drivers loaded, for our multitasking tests, we have the system configured as what a real system would be. That means tons of programs and lot's of tasks running in the background. If you missed Part I, here's a quick recap of what our system configuration is like for our multitasking tests; the following applications were installed:
Daemon Tools
Norton AntiVirus 2004 (with latest updates)
Firefox 1.02
DVD Shrink 3.2
Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta 1.0
Newsleecher 2.0
Visual Studio .NET 2003
Macromedia Flash Player 7
Adobe Photoshop CS
Microsoft Office 2003
3ds max 7
iTunes 4.7.1
Trillian 3.1
DivX 5.2.1
AutoGK 1.60
Norton Ghost 2003
Adobe Reader 7
What's important about that list is that a handful of those programs were running in the background at all times, primarily Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta and Norton AntiVirus 2004. Both the AntiSpyware Beta and NAV 2004 were running with their real-time protection modes enabled, to make things even more real world.
Multitasking Scenario 1: DVD Shrink
For this test, we used DVD Shrink, one of the simplest applications available to compress and re-encode a DVD to fit on a single 4.5GB disc. We ran DVD Decrypt on the Star Wars Episode VI DVD so that we had a local copy of the DVD on our test bed hard drive (in a future version of the test, we may try to include DVD Decrypt performance in our benchmark as well). All of the DVD Shrink settings were left at default, including telling the program to assume a low priority, a setting that many users check in order to be able to do other things while DVD Shrink is working.
Next, we did the following:
1) Open Firefox and load the following web pages in tabs (we used local copies of all of the web pages):
We kept the browser on the AT front page.
2) Open iTunes and start playing the latest album of avid AnandTech reader 50 Cent on repeat all.
3) Open Newsleecher.
4) Open DVD Shrink.
5) Login to our news server and start downloading headers for our subscribed news groups.
6) Start backup of Star Wars Episode VI - Return of the Jedi. All default settings, including low priority.
DVD Shrink was the application in focus. This matters because by default, Windows gives special scheduling priority to the application currently in the foreground (we will test what happens when it's not in the foreground later in this article). We waited until the DVD Shrink operation was complete and recorded its completion time. Below are the results:
The results here aren't too surprising. With dual core, you can get a lot more done at once, so the Pentium D 2.8 cuts the DVD Shrink encode time by about half when compared to the Athlon 64 3500+.
There is one element that caught us off guard, however. When looking at these numbers, we noticed that they were unusually high compared to the numbers from our first article. Yet, we ran and re-ran the numbers and had fairly consistent results. Even running the CPUs at the same speeds as in our first article yielded lower performance than what we saw in that piece. Comparatively, the processors all performed the same with reference to each other, but the DVD Shrink times were all noticeably higher. So, we started digging, and what we uncovered was truly interesting.
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justly - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
#84 What do you consider "very soon"?
The following was quoted from "part 1".
"Make no mistake, Intel isn't officially releasing their dual core desktop processors today; this is merely a preview. Intel's dual core line is still on track to be released sometime in the April - June timeframe."
IF it where to be released in April then there should have been more reviews (sorry, previews).
IF it comes out in May then there is no need to do a preview this early (except to gain marketing hype).
IF it comes out in June then a "preview" this early should have contained technical information about the chip with a "review" containing benchmarks at a later date closer to its release date.
jojo4u - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
Was Cool'n'Quiet enabled at the power draw test?fitten - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
#81, Intel publicly stated that implementing HT on the P4 was about a 5% increase in logic/area on the chip. While it may be "ugly" and such, 5% certainly isn't that much of area when you consider how much area other functionality takes up.#82, I haven't seen anyone announce duel core products. Dual core products, however, should be out very soon from Intel (and are [p]reviewed in the article this discussion is attached) for example). ;)
Kagjes - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
I must say i really can't relate to any of these multitasking scenorios. Well, except the teamspeak-gaming part.What would be most interesting for me is dual-core, dual monitor setup. That would ROCK, and i'm really suprised noone remembered that. For instance, playing a divx on 1 monitor while gaming on other. Or watching TV on 1 while gaming on other (i do that a lot, if the football match is boring). These tasks are pretty much repeatable and can be measured. I was thinking about getting another monitor for these kind of purposes, but i'm not sure on how would my comp react to that kind of stress.
justly - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
My personal thoughts about publishing an article on a duel core that is not yet availabile, nor will be for awhile, is that it is strictly marketing hype similar to what happened with the 1.13 GHz P3 or any other product that we the consumer have to wait for.The idea that duel core would have a benifit in multitasking or multithreaded apps could have easily been demonstrated on a multiprocessor system using Opterons or Xeons. So now we get a review full of new (wow factor) benchmarks describing the new found benifit of having two processors working together.
I have no real problem with "preview" style articles, but having a plethora of benchmaks in a "preview" is pointless unless the goal is to advertise (hype) a product. The only people I see having any use for this "perview" are the ones that desperately want proof that their manufacturer of choice (this time being Intel) is superior, or those people who are so fickle that they will support the newest thing on the block no matter if it is needed, affordable or even the best option at the time it becomes available.
Quanticles - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
Ive heard that HT is very ugly to impliment, you have to tear everything up. I'm not sure HT is very useful when you have dual core anyway.fitten - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
#47, if HT is simply a "bandaid", then why is AMD the only major CPU vendor not using it? IBM uses it heavily in their Power5, Sun is making their next CPUs (Niagra) very highly SMT (same thing as HT). Arguably, both of those architectures have much more shallow pipelines than the P4, yet see reason to provide SMT. AMD is the only holdout.dougSF30 - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
Make that 2.4GHz in Q3 (not Q4) for the DC Opti 2.4GHz.dougSF30 - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
DC A64 samples are at 2.4GHz, not 2.2GHz.DC Opteron is supposedly launching at up to 2.2GHz in a couple weeks, and will be available at 2.4GHz in Q4.
DC Opteron fits in 95W TDP, DC A64 gets a 110W TDP.
Both are apparently 2 x 1MB L2, per the Italian site that put the CeBIT-timed article about the DC A64 sample.
dparish - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
Great article. I am confused by one piece:From page 8:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 NCQ - 25.2 minutes
Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 no NCQ - 33.6 minutes
Western Digital Raptor WD740 - 30.9 minutes
I'm shocked that the WD740 is slower. Isn't this the NCQ enabled 10,000 rpm drive? I would have expected this to beat out the 7200.7 NCQ seagate. Any reason why the WD740 would be slower?
Another point / comment:
Is it possible that DVD Shrink is slower on the AMD's because it has not been compiled / optimized for the AMD? Would this be any different on the 64 bit version of XP if DVD Shrink was compiled for 64 bit? Of course this may be moot as DVD Shrink is not longer being developed by the author.
-Dave