Multimedia Content Creation Performance

MCC Winstone 2004

Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:

  • Adobe® Photoshop® 7.0.1
  • Adobe® Premiere® 6.50
  • Macromedia® Director MX 9.0
  • Macromedia® Dreamweaver MX 6.1
  • Microsoft® Windows MediaTM Encoder 9 Version 9.00.00.2980
  • NewTek's LightWave® 3D 7.5b
  • SteinbergTM WaveLabTM 4.0f

All chips were tested with Lightwave set to spawn 4 threads.

Content Creation Application Performance

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."

SYSMark 2004

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."

SYSMark 2004

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."

SYSMark 2004

As soon as we throw in more content creation applications, some of which are multithreaded (e.g. 3ds max, Windows Media Encoder 9), the performance advantage of dual core is established.  Here, we see that the dual core Pentium Extreme Edition running at 3.2GHz holds a 6% to 20% performance advantage over the higher clocked 3.73EE. 

The performance advantages here are nice, but not the sort of order of magnitude in improvement that we'd been hearing about...

Business Application Performance Encoding Performance
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  • michaelpatrick33 - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    AMD's dualcore will use less power and produce less heat apparently and last I checked an FX-51 (2200) out performs the Intel 3200 in a single core configuration so it will be interesting what a dualcore AMD at 2200 or 2400 will do compared to the Pentium 4 3200 dualcore. AMD is going after the busines market where the money and the desire for dual core will be greatest. Why isn't Intel going for that market? Interesting question.
  • CrazyCurl - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    good review! cant wait to see more info. I am particularly interested in heat dissapation as well and would be nice to see the new unreal engine that supports multithreading benchmarks but that would be be a ways off id assume.

    Is the 955X gonna support pressler? is that why it has 1066 fsb and ddr-667?
  • dragonflycms - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    How about a web developer test I constantly run these programs

    Dragonflycms 9.1.2
    Apache 1.3.9
    MySql 4.1
    PHP 4.0
    Photoshop 7.0
    Flash MX 2004
    Fireworks MX 2004
    Dreamweaver MX 2004
    Firefox
    Hydra IRC
    Messenger
    Yahoo Messenger

    The web server and mysql drastically effect the runing of the multimedia applications. This would be a great multitask test.

  • cHodAXUK - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    #34 You are absolutly right there Anand, to this day I have still not had a single CPU system as responsive as my old dual O/C Celeron 550 machine. I ran it along side a P3/800 for a long time and always much prefered the Celeron box for general day to day tasks, hell my AMD 3500 feels damn fast most of the time but when I try multitask a bit too much it just takes forever to even get menus to pop down. Dual core is definately the way to go for the future, when the apps/games start to catch up with the technology everyone will wonder how they ever did without a multi core/cpu system.
  • stephenbrooks - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    If it's any help to y'all asking about thermals, [H]ard|OCP says:

    "Our Intel 840 will have an operating voltage between 1.2V and 1.4V and have a Thermal Power Design of 130W"
  • knitecrow - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    thanks Anand... it is the power consumption and power dissipation profiles that I really want to see.


  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    oh and power consumption is coming... :)
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Hans Maulwurf

    These usage scenarios were described by AnandTech readers in my recent request for benchmarks, they weren't anything prescribed by any hardware manufacturers.

    Ask anyone who has used a dual processor system, things are just smoother. The reason we've never recommended dual processors systems in the past is mostly because of price. In less than 3 months you should be able to, in theory, purchase a dual core processor for as little as $240. Not since the days of the dual Celeron 300A systems has dual processing been that affordable.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Slaimus - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    The best thing about dual core is that you do not need HT aware OS's anymore. It sucks when you want to run Win2000 with HT and getting slower speeds.
  • Shlong - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Instead of trying to take screenshots, maybe you could've used one of those desktop video capture programs to try to get a better visual representation of what you were trying to explain.

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