Athlon 64 X2: New Memory Dividers and Multitasking Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 12, 2005 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Multitasking Office Performance
Our first test is actually the scripted Multitasking Winstone 2004 test. We’ve used this test in the past, and it serves as an excellent example of relatively light general use multitasking performance. The test consists of three parts, all of which are described below:"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."We’ve been playing around with multitasking performance tests for several months now, and have found that even scripted tests like the Multitasking Winstone test require a lot of work to get to produce repeatable results. The problem mostly boils down to making sure that all of the tasks executing simultaneously do so in the exact same manner, every single time, across all platforms, CPUs and other configuration changes. Honestly, doing so is very difficult and it often requires far more benchmarking runs than we are used to performing for most of our other tests. But at the end of the day, it is possible to get results that do make some sort of sense, and spending a great deal of time with Multitasking Winstone and our own home-brew tests, we have done just that.
| Multitasking Winstone | DDR400 | DDR480 | % Improvement |
| Test 1 | 2.21 | 2.37 | 7.2% |
| Test 2 | 2.94 | 3.05 | 3.7% |
| Test 3 | 4.82 | 4.88 | 1.2% |
The first test proved to be the most impressive out of the bunch, showing a 7.2% increase in performance over stock DDR400. Note that a 7.2% performance advantage is greater than what we’d see when going from an Athlon 64 X2 4400+ to a 4800+.
The second test still produced reasonably good results, showing a 3.7% increase in performance. The third and final test shows that not all situations will yield a tangible performance increase.
Although it is a canned benchmark, Multitasking Winstone 2004 gives us a very good idea of what is to come. But in order to truly find out if higher bandwidth memory is worth it for Athlon 64 X2 owners, we turned to some of our own home-brew multitasking benchmarks.
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Some Body - Friday, August 26, 2005 - link
Can anyone explain why we have such a dramatic difference seen in this older article: http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=222...">Rewriting the rulesAtaStrumf - Sunday, August 14, 2005 - link
I guess Dual core on S939 is the same as single core on S754, so gains/losses should be somewhat similar.MemberSince97 - Sunday, August 14, 2005 - link
Obviously samsung is going to drr2 because why ? My guess people want bigger dimms and current ddr 1x1024 dimms are not LL lol ,I am using crucial value 1gb dimms which are binned ballistics, and they work great. The thing is is they cant go any faster on currenttech.
huges84 - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
What software did you use for H.264 playback and encoding?What programs (on Windows) support H.264?
BTW, Batman Begins was the best movie I have seen in a long time!
Creepy - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
I want to know if similarly clocked processors with less cache would get more of a benefit from the greater bandwidth under the same conditions.smn198 - Monday, August 15, 2005 - link
Me too.bupkus - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
I couldn't help but chuckle when reading about different plausable multi-tasking scenarios invented to test dual core memory bandwidth. It made me think of Steve Martin's role where he must pass a Viennese sobriety test in "Man With Two Brains," which required him to do a somersault, walk on one hand, then juggle and tap dance while singing "Catalona Magdelena Lupensteina Veleneina."I think since I have several older computers sitting around un/under used that I should put my KVM to use and multi-task the old school way. A little less pressure on the land-fill as well.
PrinceGaz - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
I'm inclined to agree that a lot of the multitasking scenarios were quite contrived. I mean "Watching movies while you work" isn't a very practical proposition, not if you want to get any work done anyway :pAenslead - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
So... no upgrade from skt754 until M2 and DDR2, then.Great to see these things happen.
ElJefe - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
er well m2 ok, you can wait for that i guess. it will be a while before m2 comes out though. if you wait youll have to throw out your ram and gfx card, something to look forward to!