Overall System Performance using SYSMark 2004

Office Productivity SYSMark 2004

SYSMark's Office Productivity suite consists of three tests, the first of which is the Communication test. The Communication test consists of the following:
"The user receives an email in Outlook 2002 that contains a collection of documents in a zip file. The user reviews his email and updates his calendar while VirusScan 7.0 scans the system. The corporate web site is viewed in Internet Explorer 6.0. Finally, Internet Explorer is used to look at samples of the web pages and documents created during the scenario."
The next test is Document Creation performance:
"The user edits the document using Word 2002. He transcribes an audio file into a document using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 6. Once the document has all the necessary pieces in place, the user changes it into a portable format for easy and secure distribution using Acrobat 5.0.5. The user creates a marketing presentation in PowerPoint 2002 and adds elements to a slide show template."
The final test in our Office Productivity suite is Data Analysis, which BAPCo describes as:
"The user opens a database using Access 2002 and runs some queries. A collection of documents are archived using WinZip 8.1. The queries' results are imported into a spreadsheet using Excel 2002 and are used to generate graphical charts."

Overall Office Productivity SYSMark 2004

The overall Office Productivity SYSMark 2004 suite shows something pretty important (and obvious) here. Despite the higher latency cache, the Core Duo is able to deliver performance that is greater than the Pentium M once you toss in some multithreaded applications. 

Compared to the Athlon 64 X2, the Core Duo T2500 manages to slightly outperform the X2 3800+, but moving to a larger cache helps the X2 narrow that already small gap.  Even though the Core Duo has a one-point lead, given the percentage, we'd call this one a tie. 

The breakdown of the Office Productivity SYSMark 2004 score is listed below, higher numbers mean better performance:

OP SYSMark 2004 Score Breakdown AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+  AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+  AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.0GHz/1MB  Intel Core Duo T2500  Intel Pentium M 760
Communication 148 144 146 146 140
Document Creation 219 204 211 215 203
Data Analysis 145 136 138 138 117


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."
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."

Overall Internet Content Creation SYSMark 2004

The Core Duo's performance in the Internet Content Creation SYSMark 2004 suite is very similar to what we saw in the Office Productivity tests.  As you can guess, this suite ends up being much more dual-core friendly, which is why we see such a huge performance advantage over the Pentium M 760.  But compared to the Athlon 64 X2, we once again see that performance is basically identical, even with identical L2 cache sizes. 

The breakdown of the ICC SYSMark 2004 score is listed below, higher numbers mean better performance:

ICC SYSMark 2004 Score Breakdown AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+  AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+  AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.0GHz/1MB  Intel Core Duo T2500  Intel Pentium M 760
3D Content Creation 271 248 251 264 181
2D Content Creation 340 312 314 323 238
Web Publication 274 254 257 236 162

SYSMark 2004 Overall

The overall SYSMark 2004 scores pretty much echo what we've been saying thus far. Performance is noticeably better than the Pentium M, but virtually indistinguishable from the Athlon 64 X2. 

Overall System Performance with Winstone 2004 Overall System Performance using WorldBench 5
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  • ncage - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link

    I swear this is the best first post ive ever seen. Good Post Alex. Ya competition is very good for the market. I think intel is starting to get back on track where they need to be. It all comes down to clock speed and cost at launch. What improvements will we see with the launch of amd's next chip other than ddr2 which right now i don't really care about and possibly more cores (at least for the opteron). I am not dogging amd because for about 3-4 years ive only used AMD chips but i think amd has to raise the bar even more.
  • Calin - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link

    DDR2 for AMD would be great at least for a few things:
    moving to single channel DDR2 memory would decrease costs (in mainboards and a bit in processors)
    moving integrated graphics to single or dual channel DDR2 would increase graphic performance and overall system performance in relation to single or dual channel DDR
    As for the high end, I really don't think an increase in memory bandwidth will help - not even for dual core processors. Maybe for a quad core, but quad cores are certainly for servers, and I don't know about registered DDR2 memory to be used in them.

    Hmmm, you could try an Opteron Dual Core with single channel DDR memory, to see how much performance would be lost by going quad core, dual DDR.
  • mlittl3 - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link

    I agree with both Alex and ncage. I really disliked Intel all through out the Pentium4/Net-burst days. They were just releasing marchitecture with no improvements whatsoever. I loved AMD for their innovation and performance/watt.

    Now both companies are equal but I don't think we will see the huge fall AMD suffered from when Intel released the Pentium 4 to compete with the Athlon/K7 architecture. The beauty of competition is showing its bright colors right now. If we only had Intel, we would have a very hot/power consuming inefficient Pentium 4 based on net-burst to play Quake 4 at 5fps right now.

    Its time for the fanboys to turnover a new leaf. Go Intel and AMD!!! We love both you guys.

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