Athlon 64 X2: New Memory Dividers and Multitasking Performance
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 12, 2005 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Watching Movies while you Work
For our final tests, we combined a viewing of the Batman Begins H.264 trailer with the standard Business and Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 tests. The idea behind these tests was to take a look at some of the lighter multitasking loads, combining video playback with a variety of applications.| Winstone 2004 Performance (Higher is Better) | DDR400 | DDR480 | % Improvement |
| Business Winstone 2004 + H.264 Playback | 19.9 | 20.4 | 2.6% |
| Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 + H.264 Playback | 39.6 | 39.9 | ‹ 1% |
As expected, the performance boosts from lighter multitasking scenarios are next to nothing. Surprisingly enough, Business Winstone saw more of a performance boost at 2.6%, while MMCC Winstone showed us a less than 1% increase in performance.
Final Words
The outlook for using faster-than-DDR400 memory is far less bleak when you consider multitasking scenarios and the Athlon 64 X2. While not all of the scenarios that we’ve put forth showed significant performance improvements, there were more areas where we did see performance gains than not this time around.So, while our recommendation for not needing higher bandwidth DDR memory remains as is for single core Athlon 64 owners, if you happen to be a heavy multitasker, you’ll find that the Athlon 64 X2 can benefit from higher speed memory in scenarios like the ones that we’ve outlined here today.
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Some Body - Friday, August 26, 2005 - link
Can anyone explain why we have such a dramatic difference seen in this older article: http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=222...">Rewriting the rulesAtaStrumf - Sunday, August 14, 2005 - link
I guess Dual core on S939 is the same as single core on S754, so gains/losses should be somewhat similar.MemberSince97 - Sunday, August 14, 2005 - link
Obviously samsung is going to drr2 because why ? My guess people want bigger dimms and current ddr 1x1024 dimms are not LL lol ,I am using crucial value 1gb dimms which are binned ballistics, and they work great. The thing is is they cant go any faster on currenttech.
huges84 - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
What software did you use for H.264 playback and encoding?What programs (on Windows) support H.264?
BTW, Batman Begins was the best movie I have seen in a long time!
Creepy - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
I want to know if similarly clocked processors with less cache would get more of a benefit from the greater bandwidth under the same conditions.smn198 - Monday, August 15, 2005 - link
Me too.bupkus - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
I couldn't help but chuckle when reading about different plausable multi-tasking scenarios invented to test dual core memory bandwidth. It made me think of Steve Martin's role where he must pass a Viennese sobriety test in "Man With Two Brains," which required him to do a somersault, walk on one hand, then juggle and tap dance while singing "Catalona Magdelena Lupensteina Veleneina."I think since I have several older computers sitting around un/under used that I should put my KVM to use and multi-task the old school way. A little less pressure on the land-fill as well.
PrinceGaz - Saturday, August 13, 2005 - link
I'm inclined to agree that a lot of the multitasking scenarios were quite contrived. I mean "Watching movies while you work" isn't a very practical proposition, not if you want to get any work done anyway :pAenslead - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
So... no upgrade from skt754 until M2 and DDR2, then.Great to see these things happen.
ElJefe - Friday, August 12, 2005 - link
er well m2 ok, you can wait for that i guess. it will be a while before m2 comes out though. if you wait youll have to throw out your ram and gfx card, something to look forward to!