Athlon 64 X2: New Memory Dividers and Multitasking Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 12, 2005 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Multitasking with File Compression
Compressing and decompressing files is something we all do, and watching H.264 encoded movies is the latest and greatest way to stress your system. So, what about doing both at the same time?For this test, we played the Batman Begins H.264 trailer and ran the built-in WinRAR benchmark. We measured the average compression rate in MB/s:
| WinRAR Compression Rate in MB/s (Higher is Better) | DDR400 | DDR480 | % Improvement |
| WinRAR + H.264 Decode | 24.5MB/s | 25.7MB/s | 4.6% |
These two tasks combined yielded a 4.6% increase in performance for DDR480 over DDR400.
Video Encoding + Decoding
Who says that video must be encoded and decoded separately? For this next test, we played the Batman Begins H.264 trailer while performing our standard DivX 6 encode test in the background.All results were measured in average DivX 6 frames encoded per second:
| DivX Encode Rate in Frames per Second (Higher is Better) | DDR400 | DDR480 | % Improvement |
| DivX Encode + H.264 Decode | 35.7 fps | 38.4 fps | 7.6% |
Combining two very memory bandwidth intensive tasks nets a 7.6% increase in performance; once again, not bad at all.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
DDR480 is the fastest speed you can run on the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ on the DFI board using the new dividers. DDR500 is possible on the Athlon 64 X2 3800+.Take care,
Anand
Diasper - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
Also, a further point might be to examine how running 4 x 512MB sticks at 2T might affect things - I guess we can say the bandiwidth loss of running it at 2T will affect performance significantly so compared to someone running DDR500 @1T with decent timings.Diasper - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
Moreover, I guess AMD's move to DDR2 does begin to make sense as when both cores are fully taxed that bandwidth will be needed.DDR2 is set to get cheaper while timings are also tightening
eg Corsair's new 512MB sticks that are rated at 3-2-2 675mhz stuff and have been o/c to around 709mhz or their 1GB sticks which are doing 3-3-3 at DDR533 (http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?page=4&...">http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?page=4&...
In short it seems that DDR2 is getting much closer performancewise to DDR but offers guaranteed bandwidth which X2 can clearly benefit from. 1GB modules that do DDR500 are few and expensive whereas while that's still true of DDR2 now, DDR2 is still being developed where we will see future refinements providing lower latencies/higher speeds at an increasingly affordable price point - DDR is no longer being developed while it is feasible that DDR and especially premium sticks might get more expensive as the market slowly shrinks.
In all, AMD have probably picked a rather opportune time to migrate to DDR2.