Windows XP 64-Bit Preview: First Look at Athlon 64 Performance
by Wesley Fink on February 7, 2004 12:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Final Words
It is really exciting to finally be able to run
benchmarks on an Athlon 64 on a 64-bit XP Operating System, even if Windows XP 64-bit is just a Customer Preview right now. When Anand attempted
to run 64-bit benchmarks during the Athlon 64 launch about 4 months ago, only
one of our 32-bit benchmarks would even run under XP64. Things have progressed quite a bit since
then. We now have a 64-bit version of
Sandra 2004, and all of our standard game benchmarks ran on XP64 except
Aquamark 3. While Winstone 2004 benches
would not install, we expect that will be fixed in the near future.
The actual performance under Windows XP 64-bit
Preview showed great promise, but it is still something of a mixed bag. We were impressed that the CPU, Floating
Point, and memory ALL showed performance improvement in XP64 compared to
regular XP. This promises that we will
eventually see the performance improvements in applications that is potentially
there in the move to 64-bit extensions.
We were also impressed with the 15%+ improvement in Media Encoding when
running the same 32-bit encoding program under XP and XP64. Performance of current 32-bit games under
SP64, however, was below expectations.
Anand's 64-bit
testing with Linux at launch showed we could expect a 10% to 20% increase
in performance with a 64-bit OS for the Athlon 64. Certainly we don't see anything in these
early tests that would change that expectation when running 64-bit programs
under Windows XP 64-bit. However, there
are still unanswered concerns about how current 32-bit software, in particular
games, will run on the release version of Windows XP 64-bit. Drivers and further optimizations will
certainly improve and possibly remove this 20% performance penalty in gaming. This is, after all, a preview version with
immature drivers and almost no graphics support. We have no doubt after this preview that
64-bit applications will run faster, but we really don't yet have an answer to
the question of how existing 32-bit games will run. We should have a better answer to this in the
next few months.
Microsoft's last major preview release was Windows
XP. One of the things that public
preview accomplished was to push manufacturers to quickly update their drivers
for the new Operating System. You will
be frustrated searching for drivers to get the best performance from XP64
Preview, but the release of the free Preview version will speed up that process considerably. Nothing seems to get action from
manufacturers faster than consumers screaming for driver updates. Perhaps that was Microsoft's plan, a very
clever one, to push manufacturers into completing work on 64-bit drivers for
the new Operating System.
If you enjoy the bleeding edge, then by all means
give the public preview of Windows XP 64-bit a whirl. We do suggest you use the caution of setting
it up on a separate drive or installing your current OS as a multi-boot with
XP64 preview. In general we are
impressed with the demonstrated potential of XP64, and we are anxious to see
how far drivers and updates will take performance of current 32-bit games.
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42 Comments
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gmenfan - Sunday, May 16, 2004 - link
I would like to see performance benchmarks with Windows XP 64-bit on a socket 754 platform. I am curious to see if the dual memory controller makes a difference in a 64-bit environment.DallasTexas - Friday, February 13, 2004 - link
I sure see lots of apologies here for the initial crappy gaming performance shown. But anyway, I'd like to add to the chorus anywahy "yippeee, 64 bits is here ".TrogdorJW - Thursday, February 12, 2004 - link
What really makes me laugh at this whole situation is the fact that people have been saying Windows XP-64 was ready to be released months ago and that MS was just delaying it so Intel could create their own 64-bit chip. Where are all those stupid comments now, people? As I said on numerous occasions, gettings drivers and the critical OS paths ported from x86 assembly to AMD64 assembly is a difficult task at best. However, it's a task that must be done for the OS to reach its potential.WOW-64 would most likely not account for the 20% performance decrease in games that are witnessed here. It is a type of emulation (actually, just an extra layer that system calls have to go through), so it would definitely be slower than running the same application without that layer. However, if the 64-bit drivers and everything else are tuned properly, the extra work done in WOW could be negated by the potential performance boost that 64-bit drivers and such would experience.
I would be curious to know what version of Nvidia's drivers were being used in testing. They said they used a version number that was "close" to the XP-64 driver version on the XP system, but that doesn't tell us a whole lot. If the 64-bit Nvidia driver is three months old or more, it might be back in the 45.23 driver era, which might explain the performance difference better.
Still, the thing that is illustrated best by this article is that XP-64 is *not* ready for prime time right now. Fool around with it if you want to, but until all of the drivers are fully ported to AMD64, you're better off running XP or a 64-bit version of Linux. Even once all the drivers are available, I wouldn't be surprised to see companies like ATI and Nvidia releasing new versions that contain better 64-bit optimizations for the next year or two at least.
DallasTexas - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link
"...Performance of current 32-bit games under SP64, however, was below expectations..."BELOW EXPECTATIONS ? WOW, the understatement of the year and it's only february.
CrossfireAction - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
20% Performance loss in games shood realy be a driver problem as you can check out here:http://www.easy-mod.de/emcontent/content.php?id=17...
These guys testet the new Beta XP 64 with an ATI Radeon 9700 non Pro with Microsoft 64 bit drivers based on OEM Catalyst 3.6 from August 2003
As you can see the gameing performance is increasing about 4,8% to 8% !!!
ZapZilla - Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - link
Even if the gaming performance of 32bit games stays poor, 1 year from now, when faster CPUs/GPUs are out and the 64 bit OS is mature, it won't matter, because:1) new games will be 64 bit or DX9++ and require new hardware anyway to get best performance or
2) 32 bit games (then called 32 bit legacy games) will benefit from faster CPUs/GPUs and get higher FPS to make up for it.
How many FPS does Quake n get on a modern system these days compared to when the game was released?
So why all the fuss? Its all good.
sipc660 - Monday, February 9, 2004 - link
some say its emulated others say its notsome say its emulated others say its not
i agree with no.33
just shut up everyone and wait till the guys from anandtech bring us the revised performance with some decent drivers and real 64-bit benchmarks
hail anandtech
go amd
FalcomPSX - Monday, February 9, 2004 - link
I plan on doing some benchmarks using sandra soon, using the 32-bit sandra and 64-bit as this should show a good raw increase in performance, albeit an early example. But this is the best way to guage performance based on what we have now. 32-32, 64-32 and 64-64. Once this is done, we will have a early estimate in the gain 64-bit provides and the hit( eumlating 32 bit in the 64bit os provides.Phiro - Monday, February 9, 2004 - link
This article was _not_ a waste of time and I applaude Anandtech for spending the hours neccessary to put it together for us.The lack of intelligence and sheer stupidity (and trolling) in the comments for this article on the otherhand is overwhelming.
Comments like "this just makes Prescott look better and better", "This is an AMD only version of Windoze what will Intel do haw haw haw", "a 15% increase in number crunching but a big hit on game playing - I don't think consumers will swallow that" and the hair splitting going on between the definition of "subsystem" and the definition of "emulation" make me want to put a gun in my mouth and just pull the trigger.
Holy gosh people, please give me intelligent comments to read while I eat my lunch, the drivel coming out of most of you is enough to spontaneously create another CRAMITPAL.
araczynski - Monday, February 9, 2004 - link
this is akin to putting in a new engine into a car and taking it out on the track before you put on its tires. the results are obvious and the whole excercise is a waste of time. you might as well start benchmarks on prescott's successor and discuss the results with a straight face.