"In some games you can't even run dual monitor with regular windows applications without it being buggy"
what about running virtual pc on one core and having each operating system only see 1 monitor or something (I don't know what would have to be done to make it work).
"Running two games on different monitors is more a test of graphics power"
That's fine as long as it's possible.
"And whats wrong with ALT+Tab if your other game is stagnant?"
I don't like ALT+Tab because it pauses most games.
"Running different OSs on one chip is going to be reserved for VT (Vanderpool) and Pacifica virtualisation technologies"
But only on the single-core P4. It's the sole reason Intel isn't getting my upgrade dollars this year. I'm really excited about Xen, so I don't want to toss that away.
I'm hoping the A64 x2 won't have the same problem.
In some games you can't even run dual monitor with regular windows applications without it being buggy (crashing to desktop, having windows cursor icons on your crosshair!). Running two games on different monitors is more a test of graphics power. I can't even get the two games, starting up showing on different monitors, although to be honest i've never tried to :P. And whats wrong with ALT+Tab if your other game is stagnant?
Running different OSs on one chip is going to be reserved for VT (Vanderpool) and Pacifica virtualisation technologies. I think VT is supposed to be out this year.
Anand, I would really like to see what can be accomplished with a dual core. (eg. maybe leaving the virus scanner on will not affect gaming performance anymore).
Is it possible now to play a game while running Winamp, virus scanner, adware blocker, and a bit torrent client all at the same time and not have the performance of the game affected? (I usually use winamp to listen to internet radio). Currently, I am forced to close all of these apps when going into a game.
I'm curious about dual monitor setups... Is it possible to have two instances of a game (eg C&C Generals or other games that don't require your attention at all times) running at the same time (one on each monitor)? That would be a real challenge and also really fun (it's like controlling two armies). I know that this is extreme but dual core is supposed to revutionalize the way we do things.
I am also curious if it is possible to have one computer act as two desktops. I will be upgrading my system and my fiance's system soon. So is it possible to have two operating systems running at the same time with two monitors, keyboards, and mice on one dual core?
Ok, moving on to server related things... My server is starting to show it's age and the workload is also slowly increasing. The server is running Apache webserver, Apache Tomcat (Servlets), PostgreSQL (mySQL benchmarks would also suffice because I know that it's more popular), winamp broadcast, and a bit torrent client for distributing my content more efficiently. So I would like to see what is better at handling a similar load (AMD's or Intel's offering).
If you don't have any time to test Tomcat then I would appreciate it if you could throw in any sort of Java benchmarks.
Basically, the more processing power I have then the more tasks I throw at it. So for the server benchmarks, I would be really interested to see 2 socket benchmarks (4 cores).
I know that I am asking for a lot so any answers would be greatly appreciated.
p.s. "Dual core preview part II" was really well written. I was really impressed.
I will really like to see how much performance one will gain (or lose) going to 64 bit, could you do that, please? And it is particularly exciting to see AMD with Dual Core.
Can you have a dual socket single core running at the same clock speed (for comparison)?
Also, can you run as many tests as possible on Windows x64 Server / x64 XP from now on? It has been released to manufacturing, so there is a final verion available.
Could we PLEASE (pretty please...!) see comparisons to Nocoma in 64bit using 4+ GBs of Ram??? I'm especially interested in the I/O response...
Fingers crossed...many thnks!
This poor guy was asking this big question a long time ago: "athlon 64: why is it's poor multitasking ignored/downplayed?" and as far as I followed the story he didn't get an answer. Maybe you could finally give him one, by trying his simple multitasking scenarios?
hi. i wannt to see many, i say many video encoding bench (virtual dub with divx, tmpgenc, real media producer) for opterons...that would be very nice...and it will be great if u just have 1 opteron cpu vs dual-core opteron cpu vs 2x dual core opteron setup...so people can see what diference will be, from going from 1 cpu to 2 and to 4 cpu..
thanks...
I was way down at post number 52 to your blog entry titled ‘thoughts’ last week. With all of the comments to the effect of ‘I don’t encode videos while I game’ and ‘everything I have running whilst gaming is idle’ I decided to see how much of an impact leaving my normal programs open had on gaming. I had ~20% performance drop with programs such as iTunes, IE, Firefox and MS Word running. I’m not sure how to explain the results but I would be interested to see how leaving a few similar programs open when I game effects performance on dual core as opposed to on a single core.
Well, overclocking info would be nice... I'm quite aware that it's (a) probably just an engineering sample and (b) overclocking varies from chip to chip anyways, but some general idea of how much headroom it has would be nice. If no other reason than to see how much the heat/power picks up at higher speeds... according to an article I saw somewhere a Venice core A64 when overclocked from 2 to 2.8GHz at stock voltage ~doubled its heat output. Which isn't very nice.
Hi Anand,
This is an off-topic question, but oh well. How come you are the one handling many of the reviews these days? I remember couple months ago, Kris K., Derek W., Wesley F., and Evan L. were regular contributors to the articles here. What's going on? Did you just fired a few people? ;)
Hey anand, is there any chance you could rework the XML feed for your blog? Right now you're changing the tags into html entities (like < for <) so readers like bloglines will show < BR > instead of rendering a line break.
Anand, might I suggest you try to incorporate VMWare or VirtualPC in future performance tests? My own personal experience has been that P4s w/ HT perform FAR better than the AthlonXP in virtual environments. I'm not sure how one would devise a benchmark for those (maybe file copying or even your standard application suite running on the virtual machine), but I think it would make a very nice test to show what dual core can do.
Even though the DC Pentium D and the DC Opteron are not in the same target market, we'll very much appreciate desktop multitasking benchmarks, so that we can compare architectures until DC A64s come out.
My only request on the dual-core Opteron front is to take some time to try to treat it as much like a desktop processor as you can(i.e. run some desktop benchmarks on top of the workstation stuff). All the articles don't indicate that there will be anything special about the server version chip compared to the desktop version(other than the socket/MP difference of course), so run some of your normal benchmarks on a 1P setup comparing dual-core performance to single-core performance. It won't perfectly translate to desktop performance, but I don't see why it wouldn't give a reasonable indication of what kind of performance boost desktop users will see in the future.
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31 Comments
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Dan - Friday, April 15, 2005 - link
Funq, thanks for the reply.
"In some games you can't even run dual monitor with regular windows applications without it being buggy"
what about running virtual pc on one core and having each operating system only see 1 monitor or something (I don't know what would have to be done to make it work).
"Running two games on different monitors is more a test of graphics power"
That's fine as long as it's possible.
"And whats wrong with ALT+Tab if your other game is stagnant?"
I don't like ALT+Tab because it pauses most games.
"Running different OSs on one chip is going to be reserved for VT (Vanderpool) and Pacifica virtualisation technologies"
What about virtual pc? Is it any good?
Thanks
DMZ - Thursday, April 14, 2005 - link
"I think VT is supposed to be out this year."But only on the single-core P4. It's the sole reason Intel isn't getting my upgrade dollars this year. I'm really excited about Xen, so I don't want to toss that away.
I'm hoping the A64 x2 won't have the same problem.
-DMZ
Fung - Thursday, April 14, 2005 - link
Dan-----
Just a number of points.
In some games you can't even run dual monitor with regular windows applications without it being buggy (crashing to desktop, having windows cursor icons on your crosshair!). Running two games on different monitors is more a test of graphics power. I can't even get the two games, starting up showing on different monitors, although to be honest i've never tried to :P. And whats wrong with ALT+Tab if your other game is stagnant?
Running different OSs on one chip is going to be reserved for VT (Vanderpool) and Pacifica virtualisation technologies. I think VT is supposed to be out this year.
a - Thursday, April 14, 2005 - link
asdfa - Thursday, April 14, 2005 - link
asdfDan - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
Anand, I would really like to see what can be accomplished with a dual core. (eg. maybe leaving the virus scanner on will not affect gaming performance anymore).
Is it possible now to play a game while running Winamp, virus scanner, adware blocker, and a bit torrent client all at the same time and not have the performance of the game affected? (I usually use winamp to listen to internet radio). Currently, I am forced to close all of these apps when going into a game.
I'm curious about dual monitor setups... Is it possible to have two instances of a game (eg C&C Generals or other games that don't require your attention at all times) running at the same time (one on each monitor)? That would be a real challenge and also really fun (it's like controlling two armies). I know that this is extreme but dual core is supposed to revutionalize the way we do things.
I am also curious if it is possible to have one computer act as two desktops. I will be upgrading my system and my fiance's system soon. So is it possible to have two operating systems running at the same time with two monitors, keyboards, and mice on one dual core?
Ok, moving on to server related things... My server is starting to show it's age and the workload is also slowly increasing. The server is running Apache webserver, Apache Tomcat (Servlets), PostgreSQL (mySQL benchmarks would also suffice because I know that it's more popular), winamp broadcast, and a bit torrent client for distributing my content more efficiently. So I would like to see what is better at handling a similar load (AMD's or Intel's offering).
If you don't have any time to test Tomcat then I would appreciate it if you could throw in any sort of Java benchmarks.
Basically, the more processing power I have then the more tasks I throw at it. So for the server benchmarks, I would be really interested to see 2 socket benchmarks (4 cores).
I know that I am asking for a lot so any answers would be greatly appreciated.
p.s. "Dual core preview part II" was really well written. I was really impressed.
Heron Kusanagi - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
I will really like to see how much performance one will gain (or lose) going to 64 bit, could you do that, please? And it is particularly exciting to see AMD with Dual Core.ChineseDemocracyGNR - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
Hi Anand,I believe Wesley is working on a review of AMD PCI-E motherboards? Do you have any idea when we might see it?
Thanks :D
Joe - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
Can you have a dual socket single core running at the same clock speed (for comparison)?Also, can you run as many tests as possible on Windows x64 Server / x64 XP from now on? It has been released to manufacturing, so there is a final verion available.
Viditor - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Oh yeah...it's not as important, but would it be possible to measure power usage as well?Cheers
Viditor - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Could we PLEASE (pretty please...!) see comparisons to Nocoma in 64bit using 4+ GBs of Ram??? I'm especially interested in the I/O response...Fingers crossed...many thnks!
AtaStrumf - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Anand could you please have a look at this thread:http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid...
This poor guy was asking this big question a long time ago: "athlon 64: why is it's poor multitasking ignored/downplayed?" and as far as I followed the story he didn't get an answer. Maybe you could finally give him one, by trying his simple multitasking scenarios?
boban10 - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
hi. i wannt to see many, i say many video encoding bench (virtual dub with divx, tmpgenc, real media producer) for opterons...that would be very nice...and it will be great if u just have 1 opteron cpu vs dual-core opteron cpu vs 2x dual core opteron setup...so people can see what diference will be, from going from 1 cpu to 2 and to 4 cpu..thanks...
flenser - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
How about a review of Apple's new "tiger" OS on a mac mini?Andrew Guyton - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
When you get any solid dates on any BIG NDAs (like R520, etc), please hint at them in here. I'm really, really looking forward to that.smn198 - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Hi AnandI was way down at post number 52 to your blog entry titled ‘thoughts’ last week. With all of the comments to the effect of ‘I don’t encode videos while I game’ and ‘everything I have running whilst gaming is idle’ I decided to see how much of an impact leaving my normal programs open had on gaming. I had ~20% performance drop with programs such as iTunes, IE, Firefox and MS Word running. I’m not sure how to explain the results but I would be interested to see how leaving a few similar programs open when I game effects performance on dual core as opposed to on a single core.
Thanks!
marky7474 - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Weepee! An ATI Theater 550 review!!!! :)Illissius - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Well, overclocking info would be nice... I'm quite aware that it's (a) probably just an engineering sample and (b) overclocking varies from chip to chip anyways, but some general idea of how much headroom it has would be nice. If no other reason than to see how much the heat/power picks up at higher speeds... according to an article I saw somewhere a Venice core A64 when overclocked from 2 to 2.8GHz at stock voltage ~doubled its heat output. Which isn't very nice.Davediego - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
could you compare the dual core systems from amd and intel not only to each other, but also to comparative dual processor systems?Doug - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
Hi Anand,This is an off-topic question, but oh well. How come you are the one handling many of the reviews these days? I remember couple months ago, Kris K., Derek W., Wesley F., and Evan L. were regular contributors to the articles here. What's going on? Did you just fired a few people? ;)
Rura - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
Hey anand, is there any chance you could rework the XML feed for your blog? Right now you're changing the tags into html entities (like < for <) so readers like bloglines will show < BR > instead of rendering a line break.RyanVM - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
Anand, might I suggest you try to incorporate VMWare or VirtualPC in future performance tests? My own personal experience has been that P4s w/ HT perform FAR better than the AthlonXP in virtual environments. I'm not sure how one would devise a benchmark for those (maybe file copying or even your standard application suite running on the virtual machine), but I think it would make a very nice test to show what dual core can do.Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
ViRGE:)
maharajah - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
Even though the DC Pentium D and the DC Opteron are not in the same target market, we'll very much appreciate desktop multitasking benchmarks, so that we can compare architectures until DC A64s come out.ViRGE - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
My only request on the dual-core Opteron front is to take some time to try to treat it as much like a desktop processor as you can(i.e. run some desktop benchmarks on top of the workstation stuff). All the articles don't indicate that there will be anything special about the server version chip compared to the desktop version(other than the socket/MP difference of course), so run some of your normal benchmarks on a 1P setup comparing dual-core performance to single-core performance. It won't perfectly translate to desktop performance, but I don't see why it wouldn't give a reasonable indication of what kind of performance boost desktop users will see in the future.robg1701 - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
Friday = 15th.15th = San Diego ship date.
hmmm ?
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
The sites I've linked would not appear to agree with your estimate #2 :)Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
Hmm, I've made things clearer in the post.Take care,
Anand
Doug - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
#2: Obviously. Duh!Anonymous - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
NDA expires for dual core opteron processor this coming Friday?Marlin - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
AMD's dual-core OpteronDroolllllll ;)