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
Gaming Multitasking Scenario 2: DVD Shrink
For our next test, we wanted to do something a little less strenuous, so we only ran one background task: DVD Shrink. We left DVD Shrink at its default low priority and went ahead with our benchmarks:
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.
What's very interesting, however, is that the Pentium 4 630 takes a huge performance hit with DVD Shrink running in the background. Despite being set to a low priority, since Hyper Threading allows both the DVD Shrink thread and Doom 3 thread to execute concurrently, they both contend for the same microprocessor execution resources. This happens to be one case where Hyper Threading is actually very bad for performance, as the OS has no idea that its scheduling is actually hurting the CPU's performance severely.
The performance gap between the Pentium D and the Athlon 64 actually closes quite a bit under Splinter Cell. The minimum frame rates are now identical, although the maximum frame rates are clearly higher on the AMD system.
Once again, HT has a negative impact in this case on the Pentium 4 630.
Just for kicks, we decided to turn off DVD Shrink's low priority setting to see what impact that would have on performance. The low priority mode of DVD Shrink basically makes it transparent to gaming. Unchecking this option definitely changes things, it wouldn't even start on the Athlon 64 system.
It eventually ran on the Pentium D system after waiting several minutes for it to start, and even then, performance wasn't acceptable. It just goes to show you that dual core isn't Superman; it does have its limits.
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GregL - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
P.S. I love your site... been reading it for years now.GregL - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Anand,Thanks for the explanation and the quick reply.
Have an excellent day,
Greg
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
GregLLast time I checked (which admittedly was a while ago), SMP support was broken in the later builds of Q3A. I can't remember if it was Quake 3 or the combination of Q3 and ATI/NV drivers, but the performance stopped improving.
Take care,
Anand
GregL - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
I know Quake3 is dated but how about a quick benchmark with the new dual core CPU. Quake 3 is supposed to support dual core.seta r_smp "1"
Thanks,
Greg
Goi - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
I didn't know 50 cent was an avid reader of ATTuborg - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
It`s nice to finaly see some competition from Intel.They slapped together theyr old stuff in a new package. But we all know that a new package isen`t going to change anything(Like wrapping s*** in gold paper).
Be happy as longe as it last, and have your 15min of fame.
Remember they rushed out the dual core, and they did it for you IndelJugen!.
Viditor - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Thanks for the article Anand...none of us take Charlie seriously anyway..."AMD's dual core will be quite impressive, even more so than Intel's"
I am hearing the same. There is some serious research work being done in the TV and Film industry right now with the dualcore Opterons, and it is MOST impressive! Still under NDA (as are we all), I can only say that the results so far have been much better than expected!
Son of a N00b - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Thank You Anand for the great article, especially the info on the NCQ. Great writing, and overall a very good read.btw, I understand how fusterated you must feel making these benchmarks, not having things work, trying to remember all the things you want/have to do next, ect......Keep it up Anand, that is why you are the best!...try to get some sleep though m8 :-P
I would probably say that the 2.2 ghz from AMD it would not be compared to the dualCPU in this article because if the 2.2 is going to probably be the FX line, then it would be compared with the top of the line of Intel's...remember this was an article about "value" dual cores (oxymoron ;-))...so due to price and probably performace it would not be paired with the Pentium D at 2.8...sort of like AMD's naming scheme, an AMD 2800 at 1.8 ghz matches up with a 2.8 ghz Intel...so I would assume that AMD's biggest baddest dualy will blow Intel out of the water...and not because i am an incessant AMD fanboy because i am an avid gamer, but becuase of AMD's past performace, and AMD architechure is designed for dual core. We shall see, wh shall see...
*STATEMENT: The author of this post is not hereby responsible for any grammatical errors, typing, or syntax, of any kind.* lol
Googer - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
In adition to my #57 post,In the future I cannot Imagine the power requrements of CPU's they may end up needing their own 500watt dedicated supply and a second one for HDD's, GPU's, Fans, motherboards, and accessories.
Googer - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
The only thing more ineffieciant than a 250watt fully loaded Prescott is the old eniac, It was said that when it was turned on the Whole City of Philadelphia would go in to a brown out. I am afraid that modern processors are taking steps back instead of forward.