The Test

CPU: Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz/4MB)
Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.66GHz/4MBx2)
AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 (3.0GHz)
Motherboard: eVGA nForce 680i SLI
ASUS L1N64-SLI WS
Chipset: NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI
NVIDIA nForce 680a SLI
Chipset Drivers: NVIDIA 9.35
Hard Disk: Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA
Memory: Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2/512MB x 4)
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
Video Drivers: NVIDIA ForceWare 97.01
Desktop Resolution: 1600 x 1200
OS: Windows XP Professional SP2
The Processors How does a 3GHz Athlon 64 X2 Perform?
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  • Nighteye2 - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link

    I'm interested in that as well. NUMA will be an important part of 4x4 performance - so why isn't NUMA used in the benchmark, or at least mentioned. NUMA is the advantage of having 2 sockets - having NUMA disabled in this benchmark by using an OS that does not support it unfairly cripples the 4x4 performance.
  • Viditor - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link

    quote:

    NUMA will be an important part of 4x4 performance - so why isn't NUMA used in the benchmark, or at least mentioned

    Agreed...I think that one of the reasons that AMD delayed release of this so long is that they wanted to show it on Vista instead of WinXP. It seems to me that there would be a substantial difference between the 2...
  • Viditor - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link

    As a follow up on just how important NUMA is for 4x4, check out http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pag...">this review which actually compares the 2...
    There is a DRASTIC difference between performance on XP and Vista!
  • Accord99 - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link

    Most of the difference is running in 64-bit mode. The extra bandwidth didn't help the FX-74 in the megatasking bench. They didn't do any game benchmarks but based on past reviews of NUMA, the FX-74 will probably keep on losing to the FX-62 in games.
  • Viditor - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Most of the difference is running in 64-bit mode

    I'm not sure I agree...there's a 22.5% increase in performance there, and I haven't seen anything like that on the 64 bit version of 3DS Max before...
    Not to mention that Vista isn't known as a real speed demon (quite the opposite) for these apps...
    What the 64bit version does is allow for larger scene use and stability, not so much faster rendering.
  • photoguy99 - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link

    quote:

    I'm not sure I agree...there's a 22.5% increase in performance there, and I haven't seen anything like that on the 64 bit version of 3DS Max before...


    Sorry totally wrong -

    64-bit can make a big difference in performance depending on the app. Remember you can process 64 bits of data in a typical instruction instead of 32, so theoretically twice as much pixel data at a time for rendering.

    Some apps may not show the full benefit it depends on how they are coded and compiled, but it's definitely a real potential for speedup.

    Bottom line is 64-bit could easily account for a bigger performance increase than NUMA.
  • Kiijibari - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link

    quote:

    64-bit can make a big difference in performance depending on the app. Remember you can process 64 bits of data in a typical instruction instead of 32, so theoretically twice as much pixel data at a time for rendering.


    quote:

    I'm not sure I agree...there's a 22.5% increase in performance there, and I haven't seen anything like that on the 64 bit version of 3DS Max before...


    You see that he refers already to 3DS MAX .. I have not investigated this, but if he refers to it, then I trust him on that one ...

    Futhermore I miss synthetical Sandra Mem bandwidth benches .. these should easily show what is going on there ...

    Anyways a 4x4 review without mentioning the XP - NUMA problem is just not worth reading it ... Sorry Anand ...

    cheers

    Kiijibari
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link

    The performance deficit seen when running latency sensitive single and dual threaded applications exists even in a NUMA-aware OS (I've confirmed this under Vista). I'm still running tests under Vista but as far as I see, running in a NUMA-aware OS doesn't seem to change the performance picture at all.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Kiijibari - Saturday, December 2, 2006 - link

    Hi Anand,

    first of all, thanks for your reply.

    Then, if there is really no performance difference, then I would double check the BIOS, if you have really disabled node interleave.

    Furthermore there seems to be a BIOS bug, with the SRAT ACPI tables, which are necessary for NUMA. It would be nice, if you can dig up some more information about that topic.

    Clearly, that would be not your fault, but AMD's.

    cheers

    Kiijibari
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Saturday, December 2, 2006 - link

    From what I can tell the Node Interleave option in the BIOS is doing something. Disabling it (enabling NUMA) results in lower latencies than leaving it enabled, but still not as slow as running with a single socket.

    CPU-Z offers the following latencies for the three configurations:

    2S, NUMA On: 168 cycles
    2S, NUMA Off: 205 cycles
    1S: 131 cycles

    From my discussions with AMD last week, this behavior is expected. I will do some more digging to see if there's anything else I'm missing though.

    Take care,
    Anand

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