AMD's dual core Opteron & Athlon 64 X2 - Server/Desktop Performance Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Jason Clark & Ross Whitehead on April 21, 2005 9:25 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Multitasking Content Creation
MCC Winstone 2004
Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:All chips were tested with Lightwave set to spawn 4 threads.
- Adobe® Photoshop® 7.0.1
- Adobe® Premiere® 6.50
- Macromedia® Director MX 9.0
- Macromedia® Dreamweaver MX 6.1
- Microsoft® Windows MediaTM Encoder 9 Version 9.00.00.2980
- NewTek's LightWave® 3D 7.5b
- SteinbergTM WaveLabTM 4.0f
Here, we have another situation where the Athlon 64 X2 takes the lead. Note that this isn't the fastest Athlon 64 X2, but one of the more "affordable" CPUs, and cheaper than the FX-55, we might add.
ICC SYSMark 2004
The first category that we will deal with is 3D Content Creation. The tests that make up this benchmark are described below:"The user renders a 3D model to a bitmap using 3ds max 5.1, while preparing web pages in Dreamweaver MX. Then the user renders a 3D animation in a vector graphics format."
Immediately, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ has become the most competitive AMD CPU that we have ever seen when it comes to SYSMark scores. We were curious as to why AMD said that SYSMark 2004 was the best contained benchmark that showcased dual core performance today; now we understand.
Next, we have 2D Content Creation performance:
"The user uses Premiere 6.5 to create a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into Photoshop 7.01, modifies it and saves the results. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using After Effects 5.5."
The Internet Content Creation suite is rounded up with a Web Publishing performance test:
"The user extracts content from an archive using WinZip 8.1. Meanwhile, he uses Flash MX to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed using Windows Media Encoder 9 series in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches in Dreamweaver MX and the system is scanned by VirusScan 7.0."
In all of the Internet Content Creation tests, the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ yielded the highest performance results that we've ever seen from any CPU, AMD or Intel.
Mozilla + Media Encoder
Obviously, the dual core Athlon 64 X2 will do very well if there's any sort of multitasking involved:
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Zebo - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
It's all good Jep. I was mainly hoping you'd link me to a real live X2 over at xtreme which is why I persisted;)Minotar - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
All I can say is WOW!!! AMD keeps kicking more and more ass!!!!!!Jep4444 - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
why would i make this up? im just saying what i was told, for all i know that person made it upPS if anyone tries to comment and i dont respond within the next 3 days, its cause i wont be on, not cause im backing out of what i said
Zebo - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
Frankey Jep I'm not buying it. It would cost AMD signifigantly more to make these dual 1MB L2 cores different at the core level. 8XX, 2XX, 1XX, and X2 are identical except for tracing in the pakageing and pins to make them function differently. Check out Tomshardware's recent CPU article about AMD manufacturing and you'll see what I'm talking.Jep4444 - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
im not trying to start a rumour, im very much pro AMD(and if you knew me, i generally dislike attention)all im saying is dont decided it'll be so fast until we see the real thing
Son of a N00b - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
#107......rumor.....looking for attentin....engineering sample...of course rushed....BIOS........shhhh jep...........period:-P
Filibuster - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
If you've actually read through this entire thing, congratulations!Jep4444 - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
#98 what i heard is from word of mouth, not from the site itselfwhile it is true they don't OC very well, apparently the Athlon X2 was rushed and so its functionality wasn't as good as the Opteron 875
from what i hear they don't multi-task nearly aswell as the Opteron does but single threaded performance should still be up to par
the Athlon 64 has had changes made to the ALU amongst other places which would differentiate it from the Opteron aswell
keep in mind i have no actual proof of this and i would love to be wrong but the guys at XS generally know what they're talking about
UzairH - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
AT should run the doom 3 tests again, this time not using the timedemo but actual gameplay run-throughs. If Doom3 uses a seperate thread for physics then dual-core should definitely benefit.fitten - Friday, April 22, 2005 - link
#102 ++