Athlon 64 X2: New Memory Dividers and Multitasking Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 12, 2005 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Multitasking with Doom 3
Gaming performance also had a reasonable improvement in our first article, with DDR480 realizing a 4% increase in performance over standard DDR400. We paired the Doom 3 benchmark with a WME9 encoding task and watched the performance go up even further:| Doom 3 Performance (fps - higher is better) | DDR400 | DDR480 | % Improvement |
| Doom 3 w/ background WME9 | 85.1 | 93.3 | 9.6% |
Pairing up two memory-bandwidth intensive tasks, we see a very noticeable 9.6% increase in performance. It’s generally said that you really start to notice performance improvements of about 10%, and with this particular situation, we are right there.
Multitasking with 3dsmax
Not all multitasking scenarios proved to be so happy with the added memory bandwidth, and this next test is an example of just that.For this test, we combined a 3dsmax 6 render task with MP3 playback as well as our standard Firefox browser test (with 12 open tabs, featuring a decent amount of flash).
| 3dsmax Render Time in Seconds (lower is better) | DDR400 | DDR480 |
| 3dsmax + MP3 + Firefox | 99.828s | 98.813s |
The performance improvement that DDR480 offered was basically next to nothing, which shows that not all multitasking environments are particularly memory bandwidth intensive.
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Some Body - Friday, August 26, 2005 - link
Can anyone explain why we have such a dramatic difference seen in this older article: http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=222...">Rewriting the rulesAtaStrumf - Sunday, August 14, 2005 - link
I guess Dual core on S939 is the same as single core on S754, so gains/losses should be somewhat similar.MemberSince97 - Sunday, August 14, 2005 - link
Obviously samsung is going to drr2 because why ? My guess people want bigger dimms and current ddr 1x1024 dimms are not LL lol ,I am using crucial value 1gb dimms which are binned ballistics, and they work great. The thing is is they cant go any faster on currenttech.
huges84 - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
What software did you use for H.264 playback and encoding?What programs (on Windows) support H.264?
BTW, Batman Begins was the best movie I have seen in a long time!
Creepy - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
I want to know if similarly clocked processors with less cache would get more of a benefit from the greater bandwidth under the same conditions.smn198 - Monday, August 15, 2005 - link
Me too.bupkus - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
I couldn't help but chuckle when reading about different plausable multi-tasking scenarios invented to test dual core memory bandwidth. It made me think of Steve Martin's role where he must pass a Viennese sobriety test in "Man With Two Brains," which required him to do a somersault, walk on one hand, then juggle and tap dance while singing "Catalona Magdelena Lupensteina Veleneina."I think since I have several older computers sitting around un/under used that I should put my KVM to use and multi-task the old school way. A little less pressure on the land-fill as well.
PrinceGaz - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
I'm inclined to agree that a lot of the multitasking scenarios were quite contrived. I mean "Watching movies while you work" isn't a very practical proposition, not if you want to get any work done anyway :pAenslead - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
So... no upgrade from skt754 until M2 and DDR2, then.Great to see these things happen.
ElJefe - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
er well m2 ok, you can wait for that i guess. it will be a while before m2 comes out though. if you wait youll have to throw out your ram and gfx card, something to look forward to!