Multitasking Scenario 2: File Compression

This is also a very valid test on Linux, although most Linux users will use BZip2 or GZip, but BZip2 is more CPU intensive. Since BZip2 and GZip are both integrated into a typical SUSE desktop, it makes sense for us to just run it from the cmdline, shell script or via right click (we ran from a shell script).

  1. Open FireFox 1.0.4 and load all 5 web pages
  2. Open XMMS and start playing a Nine Inch Nails CD ripped to Ogg
  3. Open Thunderbird
  4. Import 260MB mailbox
  5. bzip2 -c a 130MB single text file and time the compression

Unfortunately we could not quite replicate this benchmark in the same manner Anand did during his previous analyses because we were not able to time the number of emails imported per second with reliable accuracy (which is why we do not have the second metric on this test). There may be vast differences between the number of emails imported per second between these processors. We will tone down the significance of this benchmark in our conclusion.

Multitasking Scenario 1: DVD Transcoding Multitasking Scenario 3: Web Browsing
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  • ProviaFan - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link

    On the OS and Kernel rows in the table on the Hardware page, the contents are reversed... :)
  • blackbrrd - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link

    I tried putting together a Pentium D820 and an Amd 64 x2 4200+ in a norwegian webshop (cpu+motherboard+1gb ram) and they came out about equally priced
  • Questar - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link

    Wouldn't the buffer underruns on the DVD burning tests be caused by disk contention and not CPU load?
  • The DvD - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link

    Interesting review. Nice work, Kristopher.

    btw, shouldn't there be a j=3 graph for the 4200+ in the compiling multitasting benchmark?
  • Frallan - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link

    Interesting... AMD does not show Intel the door in this one. However it would be very interesting to se total costs of system and the 4400+ as well.

    Gratz Intel!
  • Viditor - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link

    I must say that this review very much surprises me! The Pentium D looks much stronger than it has in any of the other reviews...congrats to Intel on this one.
  • Tiamat - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link

    The "siamese" penguin image gave me a nice laugh
  • Viditor - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link

    I will NOT say first post!

    One question so far...were the default memory settings on the AMD setup 1T or 2T?
  • shane3in1 - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link

    I was wondering the same thing.

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