Dual Core Intel Platform Shootout - NVIDIA nForce4 vs. Intel 955X
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 14, 2005 1:01 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
NVIDIA is normally the strongest performer in Business Winstone, but here, the nForce4 takes a close backseat to Intel's 955X. The two basically perform the same.
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."
NVIDIA is actually slightly stronger than Intel in the Office Productivity suite of SYSMark 2004. In the communication tests, we see that NVIDIA actually holds a 13% performance advantage. Given that the communication suite is particularly disk intensive, we will look at SATA controller performance later on in this article to see if NVIDIA possibly has a stronger SATA controller.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
96 Comments
View All Comments
stevty2889 - Saturday, April 16, 2005 - link
PeteRoy - Saturday, April 16, 2005 - link
Stevty, if you really work for Intel you would know that Intel has a specification for what case to use with 3ghz/90nm processors.Here's a link:
http://support.intel.com/support/processors/pentiu...
stevty2889 - Saturday, April 16, 2005 - link
I think Questar is cramitpals nemisis..Quester I work for Intel, even Intel knows that the prescott has heat issues, and that for most applications right now, AMD is winning in price/performance...having to use water cooling to get a chip to run at stock speed without throttling is a pretty major heat issue if you ask me..even a thermalright XP-120 couldn't keep my 3.4 prescott from throttling at stock speeds, my 3.2 ES, and 2.8 didn't have as much of an issue, but some of the prescotts are running WAY too hot..
stephenbrooks - Friday, April 15, 2005 - link
^^ I was just searching all the previous 81 comments for the word "Soviet" in disbelief. Guess we've spoiled it now though.Houdani - Friday, April 15, 2005 - link
Anyone else miss the days of only bickering about:"The message is clear..."
"First!"
"In Soviet Russia..."
Ah, memories. Feels like only yesterday.
fitten - Friday, April 15, 2005 - link
Well... it would be pretty stupid of a company to not roll with the punches. I'd rather see them shape their direction as they have that be rigid (which means they wouldn't compete anymore).The reason no one jumped at 64bits in x86 land is because the volume of 64bit processors out there wasn't worth the effort. So... 100,000 64bit systems are out there... compare that with over 1000X that number of 32bit only systems. Which would you target if you were developing software? Now that 64bit will be mainstream, the market will move that way.
In addition, mom/pop won't see any real benefit from 64bit. There will be marginal speed benefits to having more general purpose registers, but that would have been the case in 32bit land. I doubt they are doing things that require more than 4G of memory, either. The only other real speed benefits are when you are manipulating 64bit integers and there just aren't that many apps that mom/pop use that need that kind of range.
I like AMD as well (all 5 of my personal desktops have them) but I'm not a blind follower. It's nice to be excited about technology but don't let it become a religion. If Intel released a better processor than AMD, I wouldn't hesitate to buy those instead.
Questar - Friday, April 15, 2005 - link
Jeez, how many times do I have to repeat myself?We don't qualify processors, we qualify systems!
Let me provide you with some links:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF02d/1245...
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/category....
http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/C...
Do you see any AMD based business computer lines from these vendors?
I'll stop you from having to post a link to Gateway, or somebody even smaller. They don't provide the services we contract for when we buy systems. Again, it's about the entire system, and everything that is wrapped around it.
mlittl3 - Friday, April 15, 2005 - link
#78,And I assume that means that in your companies infinite wisdom that AMD processors could never be qualified in such a way and even though AMD has tried to convince your company otherwise, you don't think it is the right time to stop kissing Intel's ass.
You don't by any chance work for a little company called Dell do you?
Questar - Friday, April 15, 2005 - link
Funny, I never said anything about Intel or AMD product roadmaps.I said vendor product roadmaps.
For example, I know exactly when my current desktop system is going end of life, and I know what product will replace it. We will have POC units in our labs for our desktop engineering people to work with about 90 days before GA. They will buld the OS image for the systems, do extensive application testing, standardize the bios version and config (our PC vendor ships our systems preconfigured to our specifications). Everything that's different about the system from a technician standpoint will be documented. (Such as if you replace a system board, this is how to program the bios with the systems' asset tag). Our management systems will be updated with any changes that are needed to support the new systems.
In the interim, I'll stock up with about a thousand units of the old system to bridge over the transition (four week supply). This is SOP for any large corporation. Every Fortune 500 that has centralized IT functions do it this way.
This allows me to plan the resources that are needed to transition to the new system.
smn198 - Friday, April 15, 2005 - link
Questar is a troll. See http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=mozclient&...Tries to stir up trouble all the time. Best to just ignore such people.