Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part I: First Encounter
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 4, 2005 2:44 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Business Application Performance
Business Winstone 2004
Business Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:- Microsoft Access 2002
- Microsoft Excel 2002
- Microsoft FrontPage 2002
- Microsoft Outlook 2002
- Microsoft PowerPoint 2002
- Microsoft Project 2002
- Microsoft Word 2002
- Norton AntiVirus Professional Edition 2003
- WinZip 8.1
There's no surprise here - your best business application performance is going to come from a very fast single core CPU.
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."
The Office Productivity SYSMark 2004 suite shows some benefit to dual core, given that there is quite a bit of multitasking involved in the test suite. Despite the multitasking, the Pentium Extreme Edition running at 3.2GHz isn't able to trounce its single core 3.73GHz relative.
Business Winstone 2004 includes a multitasking test as a part of its suite, which does the following:
"This test uses the same applications as the Business Winstone test, but runs some of them in the background. The test has three segments: in the first, files copy in the background while the script runs Microsoft Outlook and Internet Explorer in the foreground. The script waits for both foreground and background tasks to complete before starting the second segment. In that segment, Excel and Word operations run in the foreground while WinZip archives in the background. The script waits for both foreground and background tasks to complete before starting the third segment. In that segment, Norton AntiVirus runs a virus check in the background while Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Access, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPage, and WinZip operations run in the foreground."
The performance of the dual core Extreme Edition comes within 5% of the 3.73GHz EE, despite the fact that the single core chip has a 16% clock speed advantage, but it is still slower overall.
The second test finally shows something positive for the dual core chip, with a negligable 2% performance lead. This is the perfect example of how multi-core can be a substitute for clock speed when it comes to performance. Note that despite the Pentium Extreme Edition being faster than the 3.73EE, the single core Athlon 64 FX-55 is faster than both.
The third and final test also shows a slight performance advantage for the dual core Extreme Edition, even over the Athlon 64 FX-55.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
141 Comments
View All Comments
haveblue128 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Only downside but I think a majorleague heat solution should make everything sweethaveblue128 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Oh Please give us a break. If you want to be a purist, go live in the woods without clothes. I say that multitasking makes my day a breeze.Whats your dilemma??
haveblue128 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link
Wow-I just purchased a new sys with an Intel Dual CPU setup. As a multitasking monster on my machine, I was always having crashes in the past.I think that is gone with George Bush in 2008. THe good news is the dual core pair is already hear and ready to run. Give them a try-no downside, albeit a good bit of heat. That is something I will need to work on, but....
peufeu - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link
I forgot to mention... gentoo linux ;)peufeu - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link
Dual CPUs to compensate for the inept MS Windows.Interesting.
I'm torturing a webserver I just wrote, on my laptop. It's in Python. Right now it's serving about 2000 requests per second with 1000 concurrent connections.
I don't even notice it's running. The CPU gauge is at 100%, so what ? Nothing special. As reactive as usual. It doesn't swap. The harddisk even put itself in standby....
Go, bill, go !
shady28 - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link
Making special tests just for these processors seems a bit contrived to me. In particular, comparing dual core processors to a Pentium 4 with HT disabled, in a multithreading/multitasking benchmark, is just plane lame.
I would have been a lot more interested in seeing how dual core compares in multitasking vs dual opterons or dual Xeons. Right now it looks like dual core is slower at doing one task at a time, suprisingly not that much faster at doing two tasks at a time than HT Pentium 4s. The only exceptions were the off the wall tests done at the end.
Since these new 'benchmarks' are made to simulate 'real life use', does that mean that all Anand's previous reviews were bogus?
JimGunn - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
I think I will want one of these for my next video editing & encoding workstation. Will come in handy for HDV post I am sure!BoBOh - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
Where are the code compile tests. We're not all gamers, some are software developers! :)BoB
warath - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link
I can't wait to see 64-bit dual cores! :)WoodenPupa - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link
Well, I'm not a tech whiz like everyone else here, but here's my 2 centavos...I can attest to the fact that every machine I ever buy, I bring it to its knees. I usually wait several generations before I upgrade in order to get a more profound effect. Yet that strategy doesn't seem to matter because no matter how fast my computer is, I find that my NORMAL computing habits end up crushing the CPU and everything else.
I use Cool Edit Pro and some other audio programs, and I am also a chess player, and like to anyalyze games in the background with Fritz or Chessbase, both of which allow for gigantic hash tables. So as a typical case I like to do wave transforms and chess analysis as background items while I compose e-mails or use Word for more serious writing. Naturally I like to listen to music at the same time, but usually I have to give that up. Needless to say, all of this stuff cripples my computer---I'm due for an upgrade, I know---my box is a 2.53 GHz P4, 1 GB of Rambus 800 (no groaning, please), a GF4 ti 4600, 120 GB HD, I'm not even sure what the cache on that is, I don't think it's 8 or 5 MB---feels more like 2.
I usually end up quitting the Chess program or the Mp3 player---once in a while I can do all of this stuff concurrently if the wave transforms on cool edit aren't too complex, and I minimize the hash tables on the chess program.
Ideally I want everything to be instantaneous, but...:) Anyway, from what it sounds like, I need a dual or even quad processor setup. Because even with all the above mentioned programs running, I can think of more I would like to add. I'm a monster multitasker and really like to kick a computer right in the face, to show it who's boss. I'm tired of winning, though---I'd love it if one day the computer just scoffed at everything I threw at it. Sadly, I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime.
Should I upgrade to a dual core, or should I save and get a true multi-CPU Mobo like a quad Xeon??