Intel Dual Core Performance Preview Part II: A Deeper Look
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 6, 2005 12:23 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Gaming Multitasking Scenario 1: Heavy Downloading
In the first article, we ran under the assumption that gamers wanted to have as little running in the background while playing a game. While that ended up being true for a lot of folks, we also received quite a bit of feedback asking for some pretty intense multitasking tests while gaming. The requests were far more intense than even the most strenuous setup that we came up with, but because of the demand for such benchmarks, we spent some time putting a few together. Note that this is by no means supposed to be an exhaustive comparison of all gaming scenarios. We are working on creating more and we apologize if your desired scenario didn't make it into this review, but keep sending in suggestions on how you play and we'll do our best to model some benchmarks after how you use your computer.
The first test basically performs all of the tasks from our first Multitasking Scenario, with the exception of DVD Shrink. We have Firefox loaded, but with all 12 tabs from the third test, iTunes is running and playing a playlist, and Newsleecher is downloading headers. We kept Newsleecher in this test simply because it's the best way for us to be able to have a fairly CPU/disk intensive downloading task running in the background while still maintaining some semblance of repeatability. So, replace Newsleecher with BitTorrent or any other resource-consuming downloading that you may be doing and you're good to go.
Of course, Norton AntiVirus 2004 and Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta were also running in the background.
First, we ran our Doom 3 benchmark:
The tables have now been turned. While the Athlon 64 held a 30% lead with no multitasking, it's now outpaced by both Intel processors, with the Pentium D holding a 25% performance advantage.
It's no surprise that having two cores yield less of a performance impact to having more applications run in the background.
Doom 3 was actually quite playable on both machines; although, loading the game and the levels took a lot longer on the A64, and there's a lot of stuttering during the actual game.
The Pentium 4 platform was quite a bit better, but there is a definite reduction in performance. Obviously, the Pentium D did the best out of the group, but you still notice the performance drop.
Next, we ran the Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory benchmark:
Once again, the Pentium D is ahead of the Athlon 64, but the improvement in minimum frame rates is particularly impressive. The Pentium D offers twice the minimum frame rate of the Athlon 64 in this scenario.
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mlittl3 - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Hey Anand,A really cool multitasking scenario for gaming would be running a game with something like Skype in the background. Everyone saying that a respectable gamer (whatever that means) would not run multi applications in the background is not thinking about VoIP.
I am in Louisiana and I like to game with my friend in Georgia. We talk to each other using Skype will playing Halo on the same server. I know the overhead necessary for VoIP must slow things down some.
Won't dual core help in this case?
Aikouka - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
I know I personally have a lot of things open when gaming, especially if I'm playing World of Warcraft. I'll typically alt-tab out of the game to check IRC or Firefox (with a bunch of tabs open) to look something up or if I'm bored, just browse the net a little bit.The only problem I ever have with slowdowns is if the game is highly CPU-bound and uses up 100% of my CPU, which WoW does almost all the time.
Rand - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
#10- I'm inclined to agree, but people did request it so presumably some people ar interested in doing so for whatever reason."I don´t close AVG and MS Antispyware and MSN and outlook and IExplorer everytime i open warcraft or half life 2, so...WHO MADE ME BELIEVE AMD WAS FASTER?"
Merely running applications in the background isn't going to do much to benefit DualCore/SMP unless those applications are actually utilizing the processor. Odds are MSN/Outlook/Spyware/Anti-virus probably aren't doing a thing but sitting idle when your gaming.
marcusgarcia - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
#10: There surely is.I play warcraft III online, which is a RTS game.
Being so, not all actions are dependant on my reflex (in fact i can many times minimize the game for around 20 seconds which is the time my char takes to walk to a certain place on a given map).
That being said, i am ALWAYS with a few instances of internet explorer open, MSN open, outlook express open and of course AVG and MS Anti spyware loaded on memory with real time protection.
Add the fact that sometimes i am viewing and being viewed on MSN webcam.
I'm sure MANY more people do that.
Remember not all players are FPS gamers...in fact, FPS is far behind MMORPG in sales, which doesn't require near as much attention and reflex.
marcusgarcia - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
OK.Something is very wrong here.
I mean, WHY DIDN'T ALL SITES DO THESE TESTS WHEN HT WAS LAUNCHED?
It clearly shows here what is MUCH better when it comes under regular usage.
A Pentium 4 3.0 ghz is beating AMD's trash on 3500+....i mean, WTF?
Almost noone (does anyone at all?) goes closing all applications before gaming or doing any other activity and HT is clearly giving AMD a serious beating on the multi-tasking scenario (read: EVERYONE's usage).
I don´t close AVG and MS Antispyware and MSN and outlook and IExplorer everytime i open warcraft or half life 2, so...WHO MADE ME BELIEVE AMD WAS FASTER?
I mean...dude...are we talking about servers here to compare single threaded performance?
Are we still on Windows 3.11?
By the way, how in the hell aren't they including Half Life's 2 performance?
Surely the physics engine plays quite a bit on processing and even more surely it is done on separate threads, which would show the dual core being strong even on a single application, let alone on a multi-tasking one.
I'm quite repented for having an Athlon 64 3000+ as my CPU right now when the Pentium 4 3.0 HT would be clearly outspacing the Athlon in every respect as long as i was multi-tasking/opening/closing/minimizing things (e.g.: ALWAYS).
Damn at all these sites.
boban10 - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
i think that this real-world multitasking testing done by Anandtech is 1000 times better than one syntetic benchmark, that is most time optimized for one or another cpu....someone agree ?
ronaldo
mbhame - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
I'm sorry but I find the premise of Page 11 borderline absurd. I *cannot* fathom there's a respectable amount of gamers that actually do that on a regular basis.Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
WooDaddyMulti-core multitasking is already quite difficult, you have no idea how frustrating last weekend was. The issue is that I can sit with you on a computer and show you all the areas that dual core will improve performance, but quantifying it so I can stick a bunch of bars in a graph is far more difficult. AMD and Intel are actively working with BAPCo on SYSMark 2006 that should be much more multi-core friendly, but until then we're left with a lot of hard work. We're trying to write our own benchmarks as well, it's just that they take quite a bit of time to put together.
Take care,
Anand
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Thanks for pointing out the graph error, the labels just got messed up it looks like; should be fixed now.Remember AMD is talking about a 2H 2005 launch for dual core Athlon 64 on the desktop, don't expect to see reviews of desktop parts anytime soon.
As far as the encoding comment goes, it's tough for me to actually elaborate without stepping into areas I can't get into just yet. Let's just say that the dual core Athlon 64 running at 2.2GHz won't be compared to a dual core Pentium D running at 2.8GHz.
Take care,
Anand
WooDaddy - Wednesday, April 6, 2005 - link
Ok Anand, either you're slick or you're slipping. History shows you're slick..You said a dual-core A64 won't help in encoding apps. I know you're not one to say stuff just because you THINK it's true, but because you KNOW so. I'm not at T0M H4rdware..
So.. Since you're alluding to it, WHEN'S THE DUAL CORE A64 TEST COMING OUT!?!?! *pant**pant*
Seriously though, I see that this multicore, multi-tasking benchmarking is going to get quite difficult. How do you know just how fast it really is considering all the combinations of different apps you will have running in the background? It Madonion or those other benchmarking guys going to be coming out with a synthetic benchmarking tool to gauge the max performance of these new multi-core processors?