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
Final Words
The point of this article was to present you with the choice that you'll be making, should you decide to upgrade to a new system in the coming months; the choice between very fast single task performance (and to some extent, light multitasking performance) or more responsive, heavy multitasking performance. No one is really exempt from this decision and you'll have to come to the decision based on your own needs.
We've shown the Athlon 64 to have extremely solid single threaded performance. With the exception of our encoding tests, the Athlon 64 really can't be beat when it comes to running a single application.
The tables are turned as soon as multitasking is introduced, where you can't beat the fact that the Pentium D is able to fulfill the needs of more applications running in the background.
So, the question quickly becomes, how heavy of a multitasker are you? If you're primarily a gamer and you find your gaming performance gets bogged down at all by the tasks you're running in the background, then dual core will most likely outweigh the benefits of a strong single core CPU. If not, then your answer is clear: go for the faster single core.
For encoding performance, you still can't beat the Pentium D. Even a dual core Athlon 64 isn't going to help enough in that area.
To characterize all other non-gaming, non-encoding performance is extremely difficult. For the most part, if you're doing a lot of things at the same time or if you have a lot of applications eating up CPU time - you're better off with the Pentium D. If you are a much cleaner operator and don't have all that much going on, then a single core CPU will still be your best bet; and what better single core to have than the Athlon 64.
The surprise here is the impact of NCQ on multitasking performance. The difference in two of our tests was not only measurable, but also quite noticeable in real world usage. Given that NCQ is quickly becoming a "free" feature of new hard drives, it's a feature that we'd strongly recommend to have in your next system. It doesn't improve performance across the board, but it doesn't hurt things and when it does work, it works extremely well.
With all this excitement, we still have to keep ourselves grounded in the thought that dual core isn't here yet; it's still as much as two months away. For AMD, as we've known all along, the wait is going to be a bit longer on the desktop. The workstation and server markets will be serviced by AMD first, and we will have a look at workstation/server dual core performance as soon as AMD launches those parts. It's looking like, at least on the desktop, if you want dual core at a reasonable price point, your only option will be Intel. But the prospect of more affordable dual core chips out of AMD in 2006 is quite exciting as well.
A dual core Athlon 64 solves a lot of our dilemmas simply because you get stronger single threaded performance than the Pentium D (in everything but encoding) while also getting the multitasking benefits of dual core.
For Intel, the Pentium D is a saving grace - it's the first time that we've been interested in any processor based on the Prescott core. It's also perfect timing; if it weren't for the Pentium D, we'd have no interest in the Intel 945 and 955 chipsets, and definitely not in NVIDIA's new nForce4 SLI Intel Edition product. With that said, it should be pretty clear what our next article in this series will be...
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stephenbrooks - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
#55 yes, that would be my best bet on what Anand was implying. AMD's 90nm process is impressive on power efficiency.bdchambers79 - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Hmm... if permormance isn't the only metric for dual-core AMD, then perhaps power also plays a role? What if they could craft a 2.2gHz monster that had the same power draw as a 2.0gHz a64? Such a beast, besides being a processing power-house, would show extreme overclock potential.cHodAXUK - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
'The move down to 90nm really cut down AMD’s power consumption a lot, to the point where the 90nm Athlon 64 3500+ actually consumes less power under full load than the Pentium 4 630 at idle.'ROFL, I expect the old Prescott space heater gags to start again after this review :)
Crassus - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Hey Anand,on page 13 top diagramm it says "Thanks to DVD Shrink behaving and running with a low priority, our gameplay was largely unaffected on the Athlon 64. The performance dropped less than 3% in Doom 3. ..." yet the graph shows the A64 at the bottom far behind the Pentiums. Is the graph messed up or the comment?
Great article though and thatnk you for listening to your readers.
Thanks also for the NCQ-page. I still wonder if you want to pick up where you left off some months ago and look into RAID in more detail, possible measuring the impact of NCQ on the benefits of SMT or vice versa and CPU-load issues with simple RAID5 setups on dual-core?
Cheers, Crassus
Lonyo - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
#50 and JeffLet's just say that the dual core Athlon 64 running at 2.2GHz won't be compared to a dual core Pentium D running at 2.8GHz.
AMD's dual core will be quite impressive, even more so than Intel's. Don't look at performance as the only vector to measure though...
....PRICE.
I think you were spot on. 2.2GHz DC Athlon is almost certain NOT to compare to PD2.8GHz.
The article is comparing 3 systems with the same price processor.
The comments from Anand suggest that the 2.2GHz AMD DC will blow the 2.8GHz PD away, but at a higher price.
The 1.8GHz AMD DC is more likely to be comparable (and possible faster, if the 2.2GHz Athlon really is amazing). But who knows?
coldpower27 - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Tomshardware was able to overclock the Pentium EE 3.2GHZ Dual Core to 3.8GHZ, and 4GHZ on some exotic form of cooling.coldpower27 - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Rumors indicate AMD's aiming for a launch at 1.8GHZ - 2.2GHZ frequencies for the Athlon 64 Dual Cores, I would guess, that most likely that these Dual Cores are based on the San Diego cores, as they each have access to 1MB of cache with a die surface area slightly larger then Clawhammer.Another guess would be they would use the 2.2GHZ Dual Cores as their FX flagship and have the 1.8GHZ/2.0GHZ variants as their mainstream line.
However with AMD saying 2H 2005 for their Dual Cores, we won't have to wait too long then for Intel's new version of Dual Core in 1H 2006 on the 65nm process.
Maybe the 2.2GHZ Athlon 64 Dual Core is much more expensive then the 2.8GHZ Pentium D? Or it competes with Intel's Pentium D 3.2GHZ.
defter - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Great review! It is refreshing to see different kinds of benchmarks.The problem with dual core Athlon64 is that it won't be launched until 2006 according to the AMD's roadmap: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInforma... (dual core Athlon64 FX will be launched in H2 2005, but no regular dual core Athlon64 is scheduled for 2005)
And in 2006, Intel will have 65nm dual core chips available...
PrinceXizor - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
For those saying that Intel will have ANOTHER dual core system out because of the delay by AMD...remember...this was a technology PREVIEW. There is no released hardware yet.Its going to be interesting to see what the benefits of AMD's built from the ground up to be multi-core approach vs. Intel's patch job (I still have utmost respect for Intel, they created one fine "patch job" under a severe time constraint, sometimes it does pay to be a behemoth ;)) will be.
P-X
NetMavrik - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Don't take this post the wrong way, I am not knocking Intel's HyperThreading, but I think most people have actually forgotten what it is. It is not a feature of the Pentium 4, but a bandaid approach to keep their now 31 stage pipeline busy doing something. The reason that a 3.8GHz P4 doesn't run circles around a 2.6GHz A64 is that horribly designed 31 stage pipeline. AMD can't implement some form of HyperThreading because it doesn't have a bunch of processor stages sitting around doing nothing like a P4 does without HyperThreading.