ABOUT BENCH FORUMS PODCAST LOGIN REGISTER
PC Components
Smartphones & tablets
Systems
ENTERPRISE & IT
GUIDES

AMD's Athlon 64 X2 4800+ & 4200+ Dual Core Performance Preview

 by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 9, 2005 12:02 AM EST
109 Comments | Add A Comment
109 Comments

Multitasking Content Creation

MCC Winstone 2004

Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:
. 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
All chips were tested with Lightwave set to spawn 4 threads.

Content Creation Application Performance

As we start looking at usage scenarios with multithreaded applications, we start to see some performance gains for dual core.

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."

SYSMark 2004

Just as we saw in our preview, AMD's dual core Athlon 64 X2 line is unbeatable under the ICC SYSmark 2004 tests.

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."

SYSMark 2004

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."

SYSMark 2004


Mozilla + Media Encoder

Multitasking: Mozilla and Windows Media Encoder

The WorldBench 5 multitasking tests agree with what we've seen elsewhere already - if you can take advantage of the two cores, performance is definitely improved over even higher clocked single core CPUs.

Business/General Use Performance Video Creation/Photo Editing
PRINT THIS ARTICLE
Comments Locked

109 Comments

View All Comments

  • Quanticles - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #63

    you going to hire anand as a consultant? lol

  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Anand...thanks muchly for the reply!
    I guess I just wanted to know if you had compared memory timings (I should have known that you had!).

    I'm just trying to get a handle on what will perform well and under what circumstances (I don't know if you noticed above, but I just had a colleague put a hold on a $90,000AUD order because of many of todays reviews...your input really DOES matter!).
    While rendering speeds are the paramount issue for me, multitasking is also important.

  • Jeff7181 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Overclock it! :D

  • Viditor - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Nat, thanks for the reply.

    "for some reason the high end P4's have *felt* like faster desktop processors to me"

    I hear what you're saying...to me, they don't seem faster but they do seem "smoother". It feels sort of like the AMD's drive in a lower gear but with higher RPMs, you may be going the same or faster speed but the ride's a lot "torquier" (is that a word?) so you both accelerate AND decelerate faster.

  • GentleStream - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    OK, I'll be patient.

  • bob661 - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #51
    Synthetic benchmarks do not generally correlate to real world applications. There's no bias, you're just a dumbass.

  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    GentleStream

    I'm still working on additional multitasking tests (including a skype/gaming test as well as the multitasking compile test) but they didn't make it into this review.

    Take care,
    Anand

  • GentleStream - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    So where is the multitasked compile test? You did the compile test in the last review for building Firefox but did not do a parallel compile i.e.
    such as make -j 4. That is the test which I was really looking for.

  • fitten - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    #46 Actually, no. I use (and write) multithreaded and multiprocess code every day for a living as well as for fun. I can't wait for the X2s to come out so I can buy one (I've been planning on it for over a year now!). I've already got everything picked out, I just need the dang things to be available!

    Btw, I'm also a gamer of sorts so I have to pay attention to both the programmer and the gamer inside me :P

  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    "but that possibility is always there."

    I've always been very clear that this is *not* how things work at AnandTech. I specifically delegated all advertising duties to a separate company to ensure that there wasn't even a chance for manufacturers to have any influence on any AnandTech editors. From a business standpoint, you can run a much more successful business if your loyalties lay with your readers and their desires rather than with manufacturers. Credibility is everything and we'd have to be pretty stupid to sacrifice that for any amount of money or manufacturer favoritism. A lot of things in life just boil down to common sense, and how we work at AnandTech is one of them.

    Take care,
    Anand
Copyright © 2024. All rights reserved.
BENCH
TOPICS
FOLLOW
ABOUT

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now