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  • haveblue128 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link

    Only downside but I think a majorleague heat solution should make everything sweet
  • haveblue128 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link

    Oh Please give us a break. If you want to be a purist, go live in the woods without clothes. I say that multitasking makes my day a breeze.
    Whats your dilemma??
  • haveblue128 - Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - link

    Wow-I just purchased a new sys with an Intel Dual CPU setup. As a multitasking monster on my machine, I was always having crashes in the past.
    I think that is gone with George Bush in 2008. THe good news is the dual core pair is already hear and ready to run. Give them a try-no downside, albeit a good bit of heat. That is something I will need to work on, but....
  • peufeu - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    I forgot to mention... gentoo linux ;)
  • peufeu - Monday, May 9, 2005 - link

    Dual CPUs to compensate for the inept MS Windows.
    Interesting.

    I'm torturing a webserver I just wrote, on my laptop. It's in Python. Right now it's serving about 2000 requests per second with 1000 concurrent connections.

    I don't even notice it's running. The CPU gauge is at 100%, so what ? Nothing special. As reactive as usual. It doesn't swap. The harddisk even put itself in standby....

    Go, bill, go !


  • shady28 - Sunday, April 17, 2005 - link


    Making special tests just for these processors seems a bit contrived to me. In particular, comparing dual core processors to a Pentium 4 with HT disabled, in a multithreading/multitasking benchmark, is just plane lame.

    I would have been a lot more interested in seeing how dual core compares in multitasking vs dual opterons or dual Xeons. Right now it looks like dual core is slower at doing one task at a time, suprisingly not that much faster at doing two tasks at a time than HT Pentium 4s. The only exceptions were the off the wall tests done at the end.

    Since these new 'benchmarks' are made to simulate 'real life use', does that mean that all Anand's previous reviews were bogus?

  • JimGunn - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link

    I think I will want one of these for my next video editing & encoding workstation. Will come in handy for HDV post I am sure!
  • BoBOh - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link

    Where are the code compile tests. We're not all gamers, some are software developers! :)

    BoB
  • warath - Friday, April 8, 2005 - link

    I can't wait to see 64-bit dual cores! :)
  • WoodenPupa - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link

    Well, I'm not a tech whiz like everyone else here, but here's my 2 centavos...

    I can attest to the fact that every machine I ever buy, I bring it to its knees. I usually wait several generations before I upgrade in order to get a more profound effect. Yet that strategy doesn't seem to matter because no matter how fast my computer is, I find that my NORMAL computing habits end up crushing the CPU and everything else.

    I use Cool Edit Pro and some other audio programs, and I am also a chess player, and like to anyalyze games in the background with Fritz or Chessbase, both of which allow for gigantic hash tables. So as a typical case I like to do wave transforms and chess analysis as background items while I compose e-mails or use Word for more serious writing. Naturally I like to listen to music at the same time, but usually I have to give that up. Needless to say, all of this stuff cripples my computer---I'm due for an upgrade, I know---my box is a 2.53 GHz P4, 1 GB of Rambus 800 (no groaning, please), a GF4 ti 4600, 120 GB HD, I'm not even sure what the cache on that is, I don't think it's 8 or 5 MB---feels more like 2.

    I usually end up quitting the Chess program or the Mp3 player---once in a while I can do all of this stuff concurrently if the wave transforms on cool edit aren't too complex, and I minimize the hash tables on the chess program.

    Ideally I want everything to be instantaneous, but...:) Anyway, from what it sounds like, I need a dual or even quad processor setup. Because even with all the above mentioned programs running, I can think of more I would like to add. I'm a monster multitasker and really like to kick a computer right in the face, to show it who's boss. I'm tired of winning, though---I'd love it if one day the computer just scoffed at everything I threw at it. Sadly, I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime.

    Should I upgrade to a dual core, or should I save and get a true multi-CPU Mobo like a quad Xeon??
  • Icehawk - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link

    The idea is - there are things I'd like to do but currently can't - can these new processors allow it?

    Ie, Doom3, Azareus, and DVDShrink at once. YES, that IS a realistic test because it is something I'd like to do. Instead I have a second PC eating up electricity to handle downloading & encoding tasks.

    Ok, I gotta go read Pt 2!
  • michael2k - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link

    Did you even read the rest of my post, DaDVD?

    I quote myself, just in case you didn't see it the first time:
    Here's a reason why importing a PST file while opening Photoshop is a valid benchmark:

    If you're using, say, Premiere to create a movie, and you want to create a mask, you have Premiere in the background rendering the previews, transitions, and SFX (CPU+HD load) while you open Photoshop, import a frame from the movie, and create your mask.

    You then go back to Premiere, apply your mask, and continue editing.

    That is also why the DVDShrink test is so important: It's doing a background video encode while the foreground is doing other stuff, which nicely simulates a video workstation load.

    Not everyone is a gamer, and not everyone is a casual user. There are some people who make movies, compile code, develop software, and write games, and some of us do read AnandTech.

    I'm not ripping hundreds of DVDs, but I have been known to make make about four DVDs a year, and out of those 4 DVDs, I will 'mass produce' each one about 10 times; some of them only get a handful of copies, like 3 or 4, while others get massive numbers of copies, like 20 or 30.

    The process of making a DVD is about five hours to get the movie ready and two hours to get the DVD ready, and half an hour per burn.

    This is on a 933MHz machine. With a dual, according to the data provided by DVD shrink and importing PST files, that time might go down to two hours to get the movie ready (essentially realtime) and half and hour to get the DVD ready (again realtime), and with the new 8x burners, 10 minutes per DVD.

    So if I make 50 DVDs a year, instead of spending 78 hours on it, I can more likely spend 18 hours on it. This on top of the OTHER things I do, like coding and compiling (both of which used to take three hours compiling Mozilla and Firefox on a 400MHz machine, and one hour on a 933MHz machine), or Photoshop, or making photomosaics (a 8000 picture photomosaic takes about 15 hours). Your complaint is like saying, "Reviewing DooM3 at 2048x1600 on the newest NVIDIA card is ludicrous because no one does that!"
  • phantom505 - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link

    I didn't read every single post here, but the ones I did make me wonder are the ones that are moaning about who beats who to the market.

    The problem I see is that Intel has no more room to move up in clock speed. AMD does. That means AMD will not be forced into making larger dies as fast as Intel *must*. (where's that 4 GHz chip at?) How the heck is that not a serious advantage?

    I'm sure AMD will have to get better multi-tasking going, but compared to what CPU's I still work with are so crude (P3's, older P4's, K7's) I don't see that as being absolutely critical to general system use.

    Bottom line is always price, and if Intel has twice the core size, take a guess what the price will be vs AMD's single core.
  • xsilver - Thursday, April 7, 2005 - link

    #111 I find that running multiple ANY programs on an amd64 will screw up the workload; eg browsing and watching dvd; or ripping one disc while watching another; I wouldnt mind if it was something that took 100% cpu cycles so that leaves none for other tasks but browsing and watching dvd at the same time? WTF?

    #da dvd
    I think you are mistaken with the benchmarking that has taken place previously not with what anand is doing now -- benchmarks at many places are done with fresh installs, no sound, tweaked settings, nothing running in background. What anand is doing right now may be a bit extreme; eg. running more things than usual but I don't suppose you do a fresh format everytime you run doom3 either eh? get my point?
  • PrinceGaz - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    #104 is right. It's not dual-core CPUs or HT that make multi-tasking so much more efficient, it's the efficiency of the Windows Scheduler, or lack of. Personally if I set off stuff I want to run in the background for any length of time, I use Task Manager to reduce its priority to Below Normal so it doesn't slow down anything else I'm working on. I shouldn't have to do that, but there's a difference between foreground application priority, and automatic long-term background low-priority (which Windows does not have). I don't care if it takes five minutes or five hours to finish encoding a movie as it's a background task and I'm in no hurry for the results.

    Manually lowering the priority of intensive tasks makes a world of difference to responsiveness of seemingly hung apps, such as opening DScaler (a TV deinterlacer/viewer) when some other application is using 100% CPU. I'm surprised Anand didn't just try using Task Manager to lower the priority of whatever was thrashing the CPU so that Outlook could startup quickly.

    The advantages of a dual-core processor are very real, every bit as good as dual-core workstations that according to AT no-one has needed until today. I've long been a proponent of dual CPU machines; the mobos don't cost that much more than single CPU versions (though overclocking is rarely, if ever an option on them). The benefits for many people far outweigh the disadvantages of slightly higher cost and slightly lower individual CPU speed. Of course the reduced speed is something you also get with dual-core processors.

    It's good to know that all of a sudden to coincide with dual-core CPUs, everyone has just switched from runing single applications in isolation, to running multiple heavy-duty apps at once. It's rather fortunate people weren't multi-tasking like this in the past (ahem) otherwise the lack of dual processor desktop recommendations would have been a major oversight.
  • Son of a N00b - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    He did not incluse Xeons or Opertunes for obvious reasons...one, this is a DESKTOP cpu not a workstation one, and this article is comparing desktop cpu's, because no dual core workstation cpu's are out...

    2 because you can simply look at an old review, why make more work?
  • Da DvD - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    I wanted to add something, how many DVDs to people posess, that ripping them is seen as a common task? Despite my nickname, I only own a few DVDs and sometimes hire one. Do I rip these? No, someone else already did and shared it via P2P. Which means i'll be downloading them, not ripping them.

    People are talking about price/performance but they forget that they only perform the tasks where DC is twice as fast a few times per month. So the overall performance increase is what, 5%?

    So at the moment, unless you're in the bussiness of constantly ripping DVDs while being addicted to games, what use is Dual-Core for the average user?
  • Da DvD - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    "He wasn't adapting the workload to the product, he was adapting the workload to our requests."

    Exactly. Doesn't this imply this review will only be helpfull for the few people who made those requests? I won't be ripping DVD's while playing a game. For as simple a reason as that my game disc is in the drive. I won't find myself in the situation where i'm packing files with winRAR while playing a game. Simply because it only takes a few minutes anyway. (Who the hell packs his whole harddrive?) And how often do you import Outlook databases while playing a game? When do you import those things anyway? After reinstalling windows? I certainly dont play games at that stage. So perhaps this allows me to run intensive download programs while gaming? Yes, it does. But my current pc runs Azureus and eMule along with Doom3 just fine, thank you very much.
  • nweaver - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    You could try using Radview Webload to automate web page surfing for benchmarks. It has page load timers and several other cool features. We use it in house for web site load testing.
  • michael2k - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    #121: If you read Anand's blog, a bunch of us ASKED him to test this way. These tests DO reflect our 'typical' user workloads. He wasn't adapting the workload to the product, he was adapting the workload to our requests.

    Here's a reason why importing a PST file while opening Photoshop is a valid benchmark:

    If you're using, say, Premiere to create a movie, and you want to create a mask, you have Premiere in the background rendering the previews, transitions, and SFX (CPU+HD load) while you open Photoshop, import a frame from the movie, and create your mask.

    You then go back to Premiere, apply your mask, and continue editing.

    That is also why the DVDShrink test is so important: It's doing a background video encode while the foreground is doing other stuff, which nicely simulates a video workstation load.

    Not everyone is a gamer, and not everyone is a casual user. There are some people who make movies, compile code, develop software, and write games, and some of us do read AnandTech.
  • Da DvD - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    Many of you are making a huge mistake. You are proposing insane multitasking tests to 'bring these processors to their knees'. This is wrong! Since when do we adjust the review to the product?
    This is similar to only running benchmarks whose working sets fit completely into the 2mb cache of a new cpu. In other words, when you review a product like this, do NOT suddenly change all your variables, keep them as you always had them. Later on, you can adjust variables (tests), and draw your conclusions accordingly.

    Also, I hope people understand that when Anand would have run these test on a dual Xeon 3.2 system, the results would have been virtually the same. You ALREADY KNOW dual cpu systems can be twice as fast as single cpu systems in certain tests, and show no improvement at all in others.

    I really appreciate the article in general, but it would have been SO much better when the PICTURE would have been complete. For this, a dual Opteron system and a dual Xeon system should have been included, AND the tests should have a reflected typical user workloads. If for some reason all cpu's would have been dualcore already, -I- still wouldn't be importing PST files while running my games. Again, when reviewing something, it's wrong to adapt the workload to the product. This is why some people now question your integrety, Anand, because quickly reading through the article DOES give the impression Dual-Core is THE thing, while there's so much it is not!

    And yes, i do realize you don't have dual Opteron/Xeon rigs at hand, but still, you choose to present this incomplete picture. It was a choice, but not necessarily the correct one ;-)

    Regards,

    DvD
  • Zebo - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    Anand for game marks I like to see a dvdshrink deep analysis/encode, with grabit downloading 8 threads with plenty more cued, some seti at home, then run farcry and report FPS.:D

    That will bring these single procesors to thier knees obviously but I want to see if DC is really worth it since that's the type of choices I'm forced to choose between.
  • tjahns - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    As I am not a regular reader nor familiar with the benchmarks used in this article, I am rather disappointed that the scales on the graphs in this article do not indicate what is being measured nor whether "higher is better" or "lower is better".
  • Calin - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    What would be better in games (I think), especially in first person shooter games, would be to compare the lowest frames per second, and not the highest or the averaged frame rate. And I think this would represent an tremendous advantage for multiprocessors/multicore
  • Calin - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    "Nice article, as always. I wonder how memory bandwidth increases/decreases will effect the performance of the already bandwidth hungry intel processors."
    The Intel processors are no longer bandwidth hungry, as the move to the 1066FSB showed. However, throw a second processor into the mix, and things might change
  • Calin - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    The Register has a small review on it, and compare it against a dual Xeon rig
    http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/05/review_int...
  • Icehawk - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    Great article - loved the multitasking benchmarks.

    Here's what I have running all the time:

    WinAmp 5
    Outlook 2003
    Firefox 1.02
    ICQQ2003Pro
    Norton A/V2005
    drivers for audio & video :)

    How is my performance affected by multiple Word, Excel, Pshop CS windows? Can I game with them open or do I still need to shut everything down like on my current system? Could I encode a DVD and play a game? Play a DVD off one drive and encode off another?

    As mentioned some of what I want to know is can I do things that currently require me to really run two boxes? I recently moved Azareus (torrent client) and all of my DVD encoding & burning to a second rig.
  • Macro2 - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    No games tested at all? Since when does this happen? Intel doesn't want dual core to look bad so Anandtech doesn't bench ANY games at all.

    Come on guys, judging by the article below on the Inquirer I'm not the only one who is suspicious.

    http://theinquirer.net/?article=22332

    Same ole' same ole'
  • snorre - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link

    Why did you exclude dual CPU (Opteron/Xeon) systems from your comparisons?

    I recommend that you guys at Anandtech read this:
    http://theinquirer.net/?article=22332

    Well said! ;-)
  • Bathrone - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    What about the new extreme edition and I think WinXP only supports a maximum of two cpus? Im not keen to goto 2003 Server. What are Microsoft going to do - patch XP to support 4 cpus?
  • hosto - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #110 - did you notice better performance on the p4 that you used to have? because on single instance of firefox, the amd chips blow the p4's away....yet, when i have multiple panes open with my a64 it chugs quite nastily if there is flash content. Is there some way that macromedia have optimised the flash player for the P4 for firefox? i wonder if the same slowdowns would be noticeable with internet explorer, or if it is specific to the player in firefox/mozilla?
  • xsilver - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #106
    I hope you mean in multithreaded apps, as has been said many times before... single threaded apps run the SAME, therefore no benchies were included

    #108
    So true --- its the only reason why I wish I still had my p4HT over the amd64
  • xsilver - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    ANAND ... for your gaming benchmarks I recommend a scattering of commonly used programs

    1) the lot of antivirus, trillian, firefox, spyware running in background
    2) gaming related stuff like teamspeak or an audio cd playing in the background (to drown out the crappy game music :)
    any other gaming related stuff would be good too....

    if dual core proves itself, there should be no performance drop, whereas the single core will drop somewhat
  • hosto - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    thats funny the comment about the flash going slowly in firefox on the AMD processors in the benchmark..ive noticed the same on my athlon64 3200+ that i cannot have too many flash sites opening without it chugging.
  • sprockkets - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    this would be funny, but if simply having another core helps out with responsiveness and nothing else, I'm getting the dual VIA C3 mini-itx board hahahahaha!

    OK, not dual core, but hell, it's still small enough and they take only 7w each.
  • ksteele - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    I would like to see some "apple to apple" benchmarks by removing the clock speed disparities.

    Pentium D 820 2.8Ghz versus Pentium 4 520 2.8Ghz
    Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz versus Pentium 4 530 3.0Ghx
    Pentium D 840 3.2Ghz versus Pentium 4 540 3.2Ghz

    This will allow us to see the true benefit of dual cores without the speed differences.
  • mino - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    sorry for some typpo's
  • mino - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #101 and some others
    You'are mistaken, Inquirer is NOT to be compared to AT. Is is solely news/romours/opinions site and THAT IS THEY ARE BEST AT ! The practical(not theoretical as at CNN...)non-existence of censorship makes them what they are.
    One thing for sure: they make biased and wrong stance against AT on this, but this is what they do almost all the time.

    The beauty of The Inquirer's approach to journalism is that it let's the reader choose which report is to be taken seriously. They even state it in articles regularly.

    I just hate those juornalists that usurp the right for correct judgement just for themselves.

    Just to make clear: I'm in no relation to The Inq. except readeship.

    To Anand:
    This is one of the best articles(at all) a have read so far. And it looks like it's going to be even better when it's completed. Keep up the good work.

    To topic: One thing should be noted. That is that the VERY poor performance at the singlecore(AMD & intel HT off) scenarios is NOT to be atributed to their inferiority but mostly to the incredibly crappy windows scheduler. Availability of multiple CPU's to it just partly hides its inefficiencies. Let's face it. HT is mainly a Windows baby. No way Intel would make the trouble developing it *NIX system were the main ones.
  • ksteele - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    I noticed the dual core's have 1MB L2 cache. Does this mean they are 5xx based? Do they support Intel EM64T, XD Bit and Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology?
  • Gatak - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #83 So you do not think that a game can utilize two CPUs? Run physics and I/O on one Core and render 3D and textures on the other.

    Also, Even though a game is single threaded, you still have the OS in the background, you have the video and audio card drivers running in separate threads. harddisk I/O and interrupt handling is also spread out on multiple cores.
  • kjohnson - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    I now put the Inquirer on the same level as CNN. Fox News is a better comparison.
  • slatr - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Sorry.. how about a lightwave scene rendering at the same time as running a filter on a large image in photoshop.
  • slatr - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

  • slatr - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Can we see Lightwave benchmarks again please?




  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    As always, I appreciate the comments and support, but let's not let this get too off topic. Keep the requests for tests and new scenarios coming, I can't promise I'll get all of them included but I'll do my best to incorporate as many ideas as possible.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Son of a N00b - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    ANAND!! lol...shoot to bad you already finished part to, but for all those whiners, who want games, i have to say this...

    The only gaming benchmark that would make sence is running a game while having a firewall and antivirus running....most TRUE(not you wannabe's who run firefox in the background to induce lag in fps) gamers(including me) turn off their firewalls and antivirus to get the very best possible performace, because it matters...no one multitasks with games...

    Now when you all flame about how you multitask with games, and "speak for yourself shit" let me just say, are you really going to shrink a DVD while playing Counter Strike??? YOU'D GET OWNED....

    I do not see any point in benchmarking games as thesse people mentioned...they failed to read your explanation of not including games and rush to critizise....utilize the time you have on the system running more important tests....

    /my 2 cents :-))

    and again great job with the article and the site, and I am very impressed with how you handle the BS'ers who talk ablut your integrity...i have and probably never will question this sites validability...dont come here if you just want to complain about it....
  • retrospooty - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #92, that is a huge understatement. I have been coming here for 7 years, AT has been my start page for the last 6 years... This is 100% due to the totally unbiased and thorough reviews posted here. To compare to some trashy RAG website like the inquirer is totally inacurate. Thats like comparing CNN news to the Inquirer (magazine) LOL
  • paulsiu - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Great article. You were one of the first to review, too.

    I am looking forward to see AMD's take on dual core. Whether hyperthreading make sense now that you have two real processors.

    In the real world, I am looking for dual core to be use in a home server at a price that will hopefully be cheaper than a dual cpu machine.

    Even if dual core won't make our single threaded application run faster, it may make your machine more responsive. How much crap is running in the background these days: virus checker, spyware blocker, personal firewall, drive indexer and checker. Pretty soon, we'll all need Dual Core just to keep our machine responsive.
  • Detrius - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    An excellent application for testing would be VMware Workstation. For me, this is by far the most demanding application that I use on a regular basis. For those of you who do not have experience with this software and have a need to stage multicomputer systems but are (like me) hardware limited this is the bomb application. Plus, it makes an great multitasking load.
  • kjohnson - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    I stand corrected Anand. My research indicates your reputation far exceeds that of the Inquirer.
  • mlittl3 - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #90,

    Please, oh, please read Anand's blog from now on. He did just as you are suggesting a couple of days ago before the article was posted/written. He asked the readership for multitasking scenarios and he but those in the article.

    Read his blogs. They are awesome.

    Keep up the good work, Anand and Anandtech staff, and even though you don't have to give into the naysayers about lack of gaming benchmarks, thanks for being understanding and giving the readers what they want.

    That is the sign of true journalistic integrity. :)
  • suryad - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    As always great work Anand, and for all the users griping about the multitasking testing setup, well maybe Anand would be open to a set of multitasking suggestions his readers most regularly do. Maybe we can all offer suggestions and they will be tested for the second look probably sometime in the future on dual cores and hopefully AMD will have their bad boys out off the cage by then.

    Also benches on Linux would be great...64 bit and 32 bit.

    Surya
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    kjohnson

    I'll let my actions speak for themselves, I've got gaming in Part II and surprisingly enough, it's no different than what I said in Part I - gaming performance of the dual core Pentium D is identical to a single core Pentium 4 of the same clock speed.

    The multitasking tests in Part I were largely determined by responses to a "how do you multitask" question I posted in my blog on Friday. Out of the 65 responses, hardly any mentioned gaming as a multitasking scenario, so given my limited time with the system I decided to focus on what the readers asked for. That's also why I split the article into multiple parts, I knew that more performance testing would be desired but a desire for information would also be there on day one.

    Insinuating that Intel somehow strong armed me into excluding certain benchmarks is just ignorant of how things work, at least at AnandTech. It's a great way to get attention but it's way off base. Intel told me when the system was shipping and when the NDA lifted, no more, no less. I spent all weekend putting together benchmarks that I thought the readership would like to see, not simply re-run benchmarks that we already had results of.

    I've been doing this for 8 years, and the one thing I've always known is that it doesn't matter who is first to publish an article, but it is the article that does the best job and is the most thorough that matters. Trading integrity for exclusivity never makes sense, thinking it does requires a very short term memory and no sense of how things pan out in the long run. Being that in 3 weeks AnandTech will celebrate its 8th year anniversary, I don't think you can argue that type of thinking is characteristic of myself or anyone at this site.

    But I'm not here to try and correct anyone's misconceptions of myself or this site, I'm here to deliver what the readers want and what will help you all make the best, most accurate purchasing decisions. In doing so I've taken every last comment to heart, as I always do, and I'm doing my best to incorporate your requests into Part II...just as I did in Part I.

    As I mentioned in my blog, I'm an open book with nothing to hide, if there are questions of integrity or ethics fire away and I'll be more than happy to answer them.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • Amagus - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Wow that Inquirer article basically insinuates that Anand (it's obvious who he's referring to) was bought out because part I of a preview (!!) didn't contain any gaming benchmarks. I wouldn't stand for that.
  • blwest - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Nice article, as always. I wonder how memory bandwidth increases/decreases will effect the performance of the already bandwidth hungry intel processors.
  • michael2k - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #83, #85

    Gaming wasn't addressed because gaming, by itself, won't see huge improvements with dual core*

    If you run IRC, AIM, FireFox, and BitTorrent while you game, then yes, you will see a performance increase, but not over a single core CPU running only the game by itself. A fast single core CPU will be much, much, better for a game. Or if you run WoW and EQ on two monitors, you will see a benefit.

    *Drastic rewrites of OpenGL and DirectX will see benefits with dual core. For example, if front and back buffers were handled by different CPUs, or if you can split the screen into to sections and have one half processed by one CPU and the other half by another. Another performance technique might be to let one CPU deal with vertex culling, occlusion, and decomposition, while the other CPU deals with shadow calculations, or something suitably complex. But that requires the game to be written for dual core, and won't appear on games already on the market.
  • kjohnson - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Here's why this article does not mention any gaming benchmarks:http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22332.
  • bdchambers79 - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    I just thought I'd say, I often run the Persistance of Vision Raytracer (www.povray.org) in the background on my computer for several hours (or days... hehe) at a time. While it's running, I am able to do little more than edit text. However, I also like to code and play games.

    So, what I would like to see would be POV-Ray running in the background, with MS Dev Studio or GCC running multiple times in the foreground; or, POV-Ray in the background with a game (NOT necessarily Doom3, guys, though it would be a good benchmark) in the foreground (perhaps in a window, so you can see POV's results). Or, for those truly masochistic souls, POV, DevStudio and Doom3 all running at the same time (though that's less likely to occur in RL) :)
  • BLHealthy4life - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    I didn't read every single post here, but i do hope that it's ben mentioned that there were wasn't one single game run on this system. Surely this will be done in part two??

  • fitten - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #80, that kind of change won't happen withough redigning the memory interface (of either) which would mean that current motherboards wouldn't be able to use the parts (which at least AMD is claiming will be possible).
  • fitten - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #66: What he said about SMT (which HT is a brand name of) is kind of off. Of *course* having two cores is better than a single one acting like one. Heck, having 8 cores is better than a single core acting like 8. However, Intel's HT added about 5% to the total realestate of the chip to get arguable benefit. Adding another core adds around 100% more realestate.

    As far as as having a waste or resources, which is more wasteful: adding 5% logic or having execution units sitting around idle (and unused)? (Remember that just about any execution unit (especially an OOOE one) is going to be larger than 5% of the logic of a core.)
  • defter - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    "Dont forget that socket 939 is dual channel it could be possible to give one memory channel for one processor and the other channel for the other"

    Actually you are propably right, memory controller can be build in a way that it can make two independent memory requests simultaneously. BUT the P4 chipset can be built in the same way, thus P4 chipset may also have the ability to allocate one memory channel for each core.
  • Illissius - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    I second the request for Linux benchmarks. Primarily because it's what I use :), but also because I've heard rumors that Windows's task scheduler sucks at multithreading, and it'd be nice to see if they have any grounds in reality (my suspicion is it's just a relic from the win9x era, but you never know)...
    re: repeatable multitasking benchmarks. couldn't you use the task scheduler / at / cron for that? or are those not fine-grained enough?
    Also, benching game + other intensive task isn't as dumb as it sounds -- especially as the game would be the one that has the focus, so dual cores might actually make that a viable scenario (remember that whole 'enables you to do entirely new things' part?).
  • defter - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #71
    "I am not really sure about that, amd always said the processor was being done dualcore since day one that must mean something."

    Yes and Intel always said that P4 makes internet faster that must mean something :)

    "Dont forget that socket 939 is dual channel it could be possible to give one memory channel for one processor and the other channel for the other"

    Actually it isn't possible: K8 based CPU has a CPU core and an integrated northbridge that has a memory controller and a HT link. K8 based dual core CPU has two CPU cores and one northbridge. So in dual core K8 CPU both cores are using the same memory controller.
  • Crassus - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Great preview Anand! I enjoyed especially the the multitasking tests and they confirmed essentially what's been known in the community since the days of the MP Celerons and Athlons. I liked also the fact that the tests were run with a whole lot of background tasks running, since that is the reality of present-day computer usage by the vast majority of users (who in most cases don't have the slightest idea of threads and schedules and happily install everything that can create a pop-up to ask ;c)

    My suggestions for future testing: Although you correctly mentioned the performance of games won't change due to being single-threaded in nature, it would have been interesting to see the impact of a number of general-purpose background tasks (Antivirus, Antispam, ICQ etc.) both on single- and dualcore chips. Enthusiasts know which threads to kill before gaming, but does the enthusiast's 'The Sims' playing family?

    More about the general move to parallel processing of data: Didn't you promise a series of RAID-related articles back in last year? What became of them, considering that the demand for a fast supply of data now essentially doubled? Maybe it would also be feasable to look into RAMDISK solutions again?

    And one point of criticism at the end:
    You did mention that games recieve no benefit from the move to dualcore, but to weight the picture the reader gets from the review, a representive number of pictures does wonders, even if they proove nothing really new. After all, one picture says more that thousand words - and a couple of benchmark diagrams a lot more than a sentence at the bottom of one page!

    Keep up the good work! Take care - Crassus.
  • stevty2889 - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Also what about running 2 games at the same time? I play MMORPG's and at times with my dual monitor setup, I'll have one game running on one screen and another running on the other..it's a bit sluggish, but do-able with hyperthreading, but I would think a dual core would allow this to run more smoothtly.
  • L3p3rM355i4h - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    lol. 50 cent as a l337 computer h4xx0rz.

    Impressive, but how can the TDP be only 130 watts? Unless Intel has some kind of magic, a prescott at the same voltage wouldn't be able to run a mere 65 watts. NFW.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    nserra

    I was skeptical that gamers would have things like this running in the background while they played, but given that a handful have requested the tests be created and run I have no problem doing just that. I'm working on Part II right now and I hope to finish it late this afternoon.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • michael2k - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #72

    You want to use Doom3 as a benchmark while DVDShrink runs in the background?

    I suppose that's a benchmark, but I doubt it's a valid one... but if Anand has time to try it, I suppose what you'll see is that the performance of Doom3 will be LESS than the performance on a similarly clocked P4 running Doom3 WITHOUT DVDShrink.

    I suppose you want to know what the performance penalty is, though :)
  • nserra - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #70 Yes you are right and wrong. So i can listen MP3, zip files, record an dvd and do word processing. But i cant play a game while the PC is doing other things?
  • nserra - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Amd dualcore platform is right here today, the processor is not. And i dont see that a bad thing, upgradable as always been a good thing.

    #65 "Yes, same will also apply to the AMD's solution. Both CPU cores in dual core Opteron will share same bus and memory controller."

    I am not really sure about that, amd always said the processor was being done dualcore since day one that must mean something. Dont forget that socket 939 is dual channel it could be possible to give one memory channel for one processor and the other channel for the other.
  • matthewfoley - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    You people screaming for the gaming benchmarks, RTFA. Gaming or any other single threaded application will have identical results to a similarly clocked single core proc.
  • ceefka - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #62 I read the article and think it's a rant, just a rant, no facts, just implications. I can sympathise with the feeling that Intel is let off the hook, for now.

    I do hope that games will be a substantial part of the benchies once the traditional AMD vs Intel dual core tournament takes place. Remember the pre-release benchies of the Opteron (that Italian thing)?

    I also think that shrinking DVD's while typing in MS Word and listening to mp3 is about the maximum of things to do simultaneously. I have to get my head around it as well, you know ;-). It does however open a way to have someting like a home server or HTPC for everything but the most extreme stuff. It could record a TV-show, while watching a DVD and the wife chatting away on another screen.

    Some say that dual core will have more benefit in servers because of the typical threaded applications. That's a good point. Can we look forward to a comparison of a 2 and 4-way dual core Opteron vs Xeon on typical server applications, workstation apps and maybe a few games just for fun.
  • smn198 - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    lol @ #11 "now Intel is going to start eating AMD's lunch"

    Do you mean eating AMD for lunch? I think I prefer it your way.
  • RLandon - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    The multitasking benchmarks clearly shows that Windows doesn't deserve to be refered to as an operating system.
  • ceefka - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    The price-difference between a dual and single core might not be too big on an Intel CPU, but you MUST get a new board. So the actual price difference when upgrading is $80 + brand new 955x motherboard. Nice one, Intel. A new board will cost you around $ 100 at least: actual difference $ 180. If AMD can stay under that difference they're at least competitive in pricing.

    Benchies are promising/impressive though. Wonder what the 64-bit benchies would be. Too bad that the introduction of dual-cores is in different segments (desktop vs server). Can't wait for some traditional Intel vs AMD benching ;)

    #2
    Read this article
    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?... page 3, last paragraph.
    AMD's Fred Weber finds Hyperthreading a "misuse of resources". AMD have always said two cores are better than a single core acting like one.
  • defter - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    "INTEL's dual core isn't really dual-core, it's just two CPUs stick together"

    dual consisting of or involving two parts or components usually in pairs; "an egg with a double yolk"; "a double (binary) star"; "double doors"; "dual controls for pilot and copilot"; "duple (or double) time consists of two (or a multiple of two) beats to a measure": http://dict.die.net/dual/

    Yes, two CPU stuck together can be called "dual core".


    "the two cpus share the same bus, without any logic in between."

    Yes, same will also apply to the AMD's solution. Both CPU cores in dual core Opteron will share same bus and memory controller.
  • IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    130W isn't actually bad. The Xeon MP Potomac had TDP of 125W and max power of 136W, saying probably due to EIST, the difference is much less now. Plus, you aren't running two cores all the time, so if you are playing games only, then you would have 65W power consumption.

    Hmm... I wonder if the reason 1066MHz is not supported by any of the dual core processors is to dedicate more bandwidth of the Dual-DDRII-667 to integrated graphics. Or maybe we would see Yonah with 1066MHz bus as desktop?
  • IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

  • falcc - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    No games tested at all? Since when does this happen? Intel doesn't want dual core to look bad so Anandtech doesn't bench ANY games at all.

    Come on guys, judging by the article below on the Inquirer I'm not the only one who is suspicious.

    http://theinquirer.net/?article=22332
  • sharikou - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    granted, this annand review was only part one, but hexus.net had done it much better in just one set of benches. From reading hexus.net's review, one can clearly see the advantages and limitations of INTEL's two-cpu-in-one-package device, basically, the intel chip are two cpus, so it can do two heavy duty things at the same time, but if you try to do 1 thing at a time, the new chip is slower, or if you do 3 things at the same time, the same slowness will occur.

    So your benchmarks are just designed to fit the new INTEL dual-CPU, doing two things, instead of one or three at the same time.

    One suggestion I have is to do some comparison with a 2P Opteron workstation, we know AMD will release dual core Opterons soon, and using a SUN or BOXX opteron workstation, you can have 4 cores, it will be interesting to see how these 4 cores will perform.

    We know INTEL won't be able to release 2P dual-chips until 2006. AMD forced INTEL to rush to dual chip.

  • Hans Maulwurf - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Well, I think I have to open my mind for dual core.

    But maybe you understand my fears about multitasking benchmarks. One could make many different benchmarks performing different on different platforms and chose one to put in his review. This looks a bit arbitrarily.

    If someone benches games, for example, everybody will be curious if there is no Q3, D3 or UT. So the reader knows if a common(realistic) scenario is choosen for benching. Thsi is almost impossible for multitasking, I think.


    I´m really interested in power consumption. Hexus writes there is only a slight increase in TDP, and no voltage drop. It will be interisting to see how this is possible as most parts of the CPU are doubled and I´ve not heard anything about different manufacturing techniques used for DC.
  • sharikou - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    This is one of the worst reviews, worse than Toms' and worse than the AnndTech Athlon64 3500 vs Xeon 3.6GHZ review.

    1) What's the hardware setup?

    2) why weren't there any game reviews if you are using $600 video cards?

    3) why isn't there any power consumption figures?

    INTEL's dual core isn't really dual-core, it's just two CPUs stick together, the two cpus share the same bus, without any logic in between. performance-wise, it should be the same as two xeon 3.2GHZ, and we know from Toms benchmark, a single Opteron 244 beats 2P xeon 3.2 in real applications.



  • lopri - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    This is an impressive piece of work. No wonder AT is #1! Refreshingly different but more real-world-like benchmark.

  • SignalPST - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Question:

    If you were to force a game to run using the second core, and only that game on the second core, and leaving the rest of the system overhead to the first core, wouldn't that provide a smoother and faster performance compared with the identical clocked single-core CPU?
  • JustAnAverageGuy - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Page 12.

    "For this test, we used DVD Shrink, one of the simplest applications available to compress and re-encode a DVD to fit on a single 4.5GB disc."

    Shouldn't that be 4.7GB?

    Distributed Computing programs would be a good idea!
  • michael2k - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    #51: Well, for people who would/SHOULD buy a dual core system, those are realistic scenarios. For those who game, or don't do those tasks, you won't see any performance benefits*

    #52: They were thinking, "The performance of the dual-core is more or less the same as the equivalent single-core CPU, so let's not be redundant and test dual-core CPUs where single-core CPUs are more cost effective**

    *Performance in games will increase when they effectively do two things at once of roughly equal importance. For example:
    ChessQuake, where one CPU deals with graphics, physics, sound, and AI, while the other CPU plays a game of chess
    DVDooM, where one CPU draws the brightest and darkest blacks anyone has ever seen, while the other CPU is encoding it to DVD for posterity

    As long as sound and light reflects geometry, you can't separate sound and rendering from interaction. Dual CPUs would be useful if you have two keyboards, two mice, and two displays for a two player game of DooM3 on a single computer.

    **See the single core equivalent reviews. AnandTech as done them.
  • kmmatney - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    misspell:

    Will Dual-Core work in Windows 2000? I don't see why not. I'd like to see a comparison between hyper-threading versus dual core in Win2K...I've heard that hyperthreading support is crippled in Win2K, but perhaps dual-core will work normally.
  • kmmatney - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Will Dual-Core work in Windows 2000? I don't see why not. I'd like to see a comparison between hyper-threading a dual core in Win2K...I've heard that hyperthreading support is crippled in Win2K, but perhaps dual-core will work normally.
  • Natronomonas - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    With two top-notch gaming CPUs (EE, FX), even if they do say the performance of the dual-core is more or less the same as the equivalent single-core CPU, it is disappointing not to see even a single gaming benchmark.
    What were they thinking??
  • Pandaren - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

    Drat. Double Post. Where's the gaming benchmarks? And are those multitasking scenarios realistic? I don't think I would ever do all that at once.
  • Pandaren - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link

  • sideshow23bob - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Additionally, what about throwing in Nero,DC++, azureus, bitcomet, and/or Power DVD. Just progs. that alot of typical college-aged users use(i can verify at least). Great article. Loved the multitasking analysis especially.
  • sideshow23bob - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

  • ravedave - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Anand, what about DVDDecrypt and DVDShrink at the same time (as in decrypting one movie, shrinking another)? Dual core could really make ripping faster if you could do both of those at once...

  • ViRGE - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    #44, SETI is a really good idea, not just because of heat but because it'll push the memory/FSB at the same time. If Intel's chips are getting choked, SETI should scream pretty loudly by tanking in performance.
  • nigham - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Thanks, this was a real nice review and its got me all excited. One thing I'd really like to know, though, how does Linux handle dual-core? Does it show the same kind of multi-tasking performance boost that we see on Windows XP? I mostly use Linux for my work and I do a ton of multitasking. Windows I use only for gaming, which as you point out are mostly single threaded applications.
  • gregwjones - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Dual-core benchmarks I'd like to see:

    Two instances of Seti@Home, BOINC version, run on a Pentium D 3.2GHz( dual-core, but no HT )
    compared to Pentium 4 3.2GHz single core with HT.

    Then run four instances of SETI@Home on the Pentium EE ( dual-core with HT ).

    This should generate a lot of heat and put everything at max load.


    I have a Pentium 4 Northwood with HT enabled and run two instances of BOINC Seti@Home while using the system to do everyday tasks.Like web browsing, DVD Decrypt, DVD Shrink. Everything is very responsive because BOINC runs at a very low priority.

  • dragonballgtz - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Great article! It's a good thing you did not do a review like all of the other sites. With just some benchmarks and a few games.

    As always I can't wait to read more reviews form you Anand. :thumbsup;
  • shabby - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    The multi-tasking numbers are definetly intresting, but any sane person will wait and see what amd has up its sleeve.
  • 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.
  • Hans Maulwurf - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    #27 thats because these benches are opted for HT and dual core. Everybody should know they are not typical for usage of a desctop PC.
    Maybe dual core will be a good thing, but to value its implementation you have to compare it to, for example, a dual Xeon.

    If I would take this review seriously we all should have buyed dual CPU systems some time ago. But some time ago nobody could show dual CPU desctop systems are useful.

    Why did this change so radicially? Is it really the way we use our computers or is it just the way you benchmark when allowed to be one of only very few Intel-previewers?
  • Son of a N00b - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    #11, next time label you post with *Caution Fanboy Post* so I do not waste my time reading your comments that are biased and misinformed...

    w0w! great preview, I cannot wait until six months from now you doing a head to head match up with SLI, dual core cpu rigs from both AMD and Intel....it should be very interesting indeed....Cannot wait to see what AMD's performancee is...it could go either way....

    Anyway great article, keep up the great work that keeps us all coming back, it must be hell to come up with new benchmarks for these systems.

    w00t go anandtech and dualies!
  • MaxisOne - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Hey Not even 1 Game Benchmark ? and wheres the temps ??
  • MaxisOne - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

  • cbuchach - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    I think these are the first benchmarks I have seen where Hyperthreading was shown to make a significant performance difference outside of video encoding tasks or a few other specialized apps.

    Overall I think Hyperthreading amongst the enthusiast community has never held much worth mostly because it has little impact on gaming performance. But these benchmarks clearly show in my eyes that whether it be the single-core/hyperthreading or dual core chips, Intel is the way to go. I of course am not a big gamer but nonetheless most computer users, especially power users at least do some moderate multitasking. Having two virtual or real cores really does improve the computing experience up unitl this point, in mostly immeasurable ways.
  • redpriest_ - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    When can I buy one? =P

    These previews will probably be followed up by shipping versions 6 months from now.
  • AtaStrumf - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    WAU this was a shocker! Sure didn't expect dual cores so soon.

    Great preview Anand! It covered all of the areas I was interested in and it basicly confirmed all my expectations.

    It seems that one thing that can still bring dual cores to a grind is the I/O bottleneck. With everything going dual lately and with RAID controllers being as common as USB ports and HDDs being pretty cheap, I think it's time you retested how much of an impact RAID can have on desktop performance. If I remember correctly it was you who said that RAID made no sense on desktop, which essentially killed my burning desire to get one. What about now? If we're going dual we might as well go all out.
  • tynopik - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    try running stuff with software raid5 eating up cpu cycles
  • Beenthere - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Hyperthreading does NOT significantly improve system performance unless the software is written for hyperthreading and there is damned little of that currently available. Dual core when execurted properly offers a considerable performance advantage. Intel's cobbled mess is sure to be a nightmare and when all the facts are known it will be impossible to conclude otherwise despite the cheerleading of the media.
  • sri2000 - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    #14 - As you say the enterprise market is where multi-processor rigs live (whether dual-cpu or dual-core), it's also where dual-core makes it's best financial case.

    ie. when Microsoft came out to say that their software license pricing will treat a dual-core cpu as a single processor (as opposed to pricing it as a dual-proc), that really gives businesses (especially small ones with tight budgets) a great incentive for getting dual-core servers (not to mention for those who're using Linux).

    And since AMP will get dual-core Opterons out ahead of dual-core Xeons, it's an opportunity to get some nice growth in their small business server market share.
  • Questar - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Is Xvid a relevent test? It's not multithreaded
  • boban10 - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    hi. thanks to responding.
    i have some sugestion for you work.
    can you test this:
    http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threa...

    easy real media producer, you get it here:
    http://redcheek.net/erm/ermp_full.zip

    its free..
    can you try to encoding some things, i wannt to see how much diference it it on one and two cpu, and would be nice if you can test with athlon xp too, because i wannt to see how much gain i get with dual-core cpu...

    then some more programs that suport dual-cpu:
    TMPGEnc , Photoshop. Premiere pro ...

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

    Thanks so much for the comments, keep em coming in. This is just the first part, there's more coming. I've got another NDA tomorrow morning but then after that it's more dual core. Let me know what you want to see, I've already got quite a bit planned :)

    And yes that die shot is correct, it is simply rotated 90 degrees clockwise to fit on the page better.

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

    Are you 100% sure that die picture is right? Again a great review from Anandtech!
  • DAPUNISHER - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    I must have missed it somehow; what storage setup did you use? Thanks and great article kid :-)
  • boban10 - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Anandtech, i wannt to thank you, because this is a great preview....

    ronaldo
  • Avalon - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Impressive results. Sometimes I come across a scenario where I'm doing two things at once fighting for 100% CPU time on my A64 Sempron rig, so it would be quite nice to have a dual core chip to handle that for me. I personally can't wait to see a more full review, and hopefully one of AMD's dual core setup as well.
  • karlreading - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    #11
    Very good points, but i think the thing to remeber about intel is this:
    Yes, they are beating AMD to the desktop. And yes, that will be good beacuse it will encourage the user base to adopt dual core, and thus programers to multi thread more. Bineg a enthusiast site, obviously dektop dual is the scene we care about and sticks in our minds.

    BUT:

    AMD will beat out Intel to dual core in the enterprise segment. THE area where the real money is. THE area where dual core can stretch its multithreaded wings. THE area where it has a product thats already causing waves ( opteron may not have the penertration of xeon, but it's given AMD a seriouse status in the enterprise sector and it is a respected architecture ), and, THE area it can really try and hurt intel, and its partners. DELL wont have a dual core capable box yet, HP can have one very soon. More to the point, if ur a IT head and u spent on Opteron server, Youll be a very happy one. Beacuse that 8 Way opteron box you got can suddenly become a 16- way box.

    Its strikes of AMD's stratagey with x86-64. No, it wasent as powerful as itanium, it wasent new, fresh, and funky. It certainly wasent the first 64 bit cpu for enterprise wither, not by a long shot. But by giving comapnys, and people what they want, a easy, painless upgrade path, it suceeded in destroying intels dream of killing of x86. Intel was still denying yamhill when it was already in there cpus, lying dormant for the day intel would swallow its pride and follow AMD down the x86-64 route.

    Intel will beat AMD to dual core on the desktop, but they will make waves and in roads in the enterprise sector, and, let's face it, its just better that way.
    Karlos
  • Googer - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    "I tried to take a screenshot of what was going on, but print screen wouldn't work. I could launch Paint, but I couldn't paste anything into it"

    If paint does not work you can always use wordpad and paste any images to it that are cahced to the clipboard.
  • karlreading - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Personally, im very excited about dual core. It appears to me that everyone seems to be forgeting the main thing.
    Its not necesseraly about doing one thing faster, its about doing MORE things faster.
    the multi-tasking scenarios ANAND has given us is where the real excitment and benefit come in. Now, as a AMD FANboi, all i say is this: Bring on TOLEDO :)
    Karlos
  • johnsonx - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    It looks like AMD better get busy. AMD woke up Intel from it's complacent slumber, and now Intel is going to start eating AMD's lunch. AMD has completely lost the 64-bit advantage, and will now lose whatever dual-core advantage it had by designing Hammer to be dual-core from the start. Prescott may or may not have been designed for dual-core, but it sure seems to work just fine, doesn't it?

    AMD's problem is that it talks about what it's going to do for too long before actually doing it, as if there isn't anything Intel can do about it. Intel surely can do something about it, and definitely has. This may be an obvious consequence of being a much smaller company: AMD doesn't have the resources to get things done as quickly as Intel can (when Intel is sufficiently motivated), but that just means AMD needs to keep their mouths shut for longer. AMD has been relegated to 'me-too' status for technologies they themselves were first with...

    Object lesson for AMD: Intel can beat you to any launch date you set for any technology or feature you think you've got an exclusive on. Intel can then crush you with volume and market presence. It ain't fair... welcome to life.

    AMD's best bet: whatever you set your launch dates to, surprise launch everything 6 months ahead of schedule. That'll only work a couple of times, but it's better than nothing.
  • Klober - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Two separate points here:

    First, I suppose dual-core may not improve single threaded application performance much over a single-core CPU with HT, but shouldn't it increase performance over a single-core CPU w/o HT? I would think it would allow the OS to run on one core while the application runs on the other core, which in theory should increase performance some. Just a thought, as I'm no expert on scheduling and the resources the OS actively requires.

    Second point, a small simple application that may be useful in benchmarking, particularly in multitasking benchmarks, might be Macro Scheduler by MJT Net. It takes very little in the way of resources, and is very easy to program for starting applications, switching between them, taking screenshots, clicking on options and even typing whatever you'd like wherever you'd like. I think it could be a great base for switching between applications and starting processes inside those applications, all in a very repeatable manner. Timing can be down to the 1/10,000th of a second if need be, and using a scheduler with minimal resource impact would take the human element out of the benchmarking. Maybe you've already looked into this, or something similar, but it's just a thought that may make certain benchmarking situations easier for all of you that bring us these great (p)reviews.
  • Googer - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    In Soviet Russia you post all you bad jokes Here:
    http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...
  • knitecrow - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    yo dog, where the temperature at?





    but seriously, in addition to the usual suspects, I think anandtech should have compared pentium D to xenon 3.2ghz just to see the performance difference.

  • johnsonx - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    ok, sorry... I posted my comment before reading the encoding benchmarks, where I see you did exactly what I suggested. My bad.
  • vaystrem - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    "2) Open iTunes and start playing the latest album of avid AnandTech reader 50 Cent on repeat all."

    ? Really?
  • johnsonx - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    I know it's nearly double the number of benchmarks to run, but it would have been instructive to see both Pentium processors benchmarked without HT as well. Testing the dual-core pentium EE without HT would of course mimic a 3.2Ghz Pentium D, and testing the single core P4 without HT would give us a baseline single-core, single execution thread reference.

    Finally, it might also be instructive to benchmark current P4 at 3.2Ghz, again both with and without HT.

    Easy for me to say, I know, since I'm not the one who has to do all the benches....
  • LeadFrog - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    I like the theory of if it can't get any faster lets just combine a few.

    SLI, RAID, and Dual Core CPU's.
  • segagenesis - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    One site mentioned 125W power consumption. Ow.

    Well, its a start... but I want to see AMDs offering first.
  • msva124 - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    This looks promising, I wonder if AMD might eventually cave and implement hyper-threading in their processors, in addition to dual core. Or is that not part of the cross licensing agreeement?
  • aurellie1 - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link

    Nice performance!
    Not a single word in the review about temperatures though...

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