Intel Core Duo (Yonah) Performance Preview - Part II
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 19, 2005 12:55 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Test
| CPU: | AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz/512KBx2) AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0GHz/512KBx2) AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.0GHz/1MBx2 Intel Pentium M 760 (2.0GHz/2MB) Intel Core Duo T2500 (2.0GHz/2MB) |
| Motherboard: | ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe AOpen i915Ga-HFS Unnamed 945G Yonah Motherboard |
| Motherboard BIOS: | ASUS: Version 1013 Dated 08/10/2005 AOpen: Version 1.11 Dated 11/15/2005 |
| Chipset: | NVIDIA nForce4 SLI Intel 915 Express Intel 945G |
| Chipset Drivers: | nForce4 6.66 Intel 7.0.0.25 |
| Memory: | OCZ PC3500 DDR 2-2-2-7 DDR2-533 4-4-4-12 |
| Video Card: | ATI Radeon X850 XT NVIDIA GeForce 7800GTX |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 8.173.1.2 NVIDIA ForceWare 81.85 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1280 x 1024 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
While we used an NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX for almost all of our tests, there was one exception, thanks to a NVIDIA driver bug. With dual core processors, NVIDIA's 81.95 drivers will cause the system to maintain 100% CPU utilization when running 3dsmax 7, even when the system is actually not doing anything at all. We didn't discover this bug until we had already run the majority of our tests using the 7800 GTX. So, for the 3dsmax 7 tests, we switched to an ATI Radeon X850 XT. The GPU doesn't impact CPU rendering performance at all, so it doesn't change the performance characteristics of the platform. We just wanted to point out the bug, in case any of you were wondering why your dual core platforms were behaving strangely in certain applications. NVIDIA is aware of the problem and is working on a publicly available fix.
For this comparison, we've kept the number of CPUs to a minimum, focusing on the Pentium M, Core Duo and Athlon 64 X2. The exclusion of the Pentium D was on purpose; we've already compared the Core Duo to the Pentium D in our last article and to put it bluntly, the Pentium D won't really be competition for any of Intel's new architectures. By this time next year, NetBurst will have already been forgotten and the real comparison that matters is how Core Duo stacks up to the Athlon 64 X2, whose architecture is not going the way of the dodo.
As we mentioned earlier in this article, in addition to the X2 3800+ and 4200+, we have included benchmarks of an Athlon 64 X2 running at 2.0GHz, but with a 1MB L2 cache per core (2MB total on die). The point of including this simulated "Athlon 64 X2 4000+" is to answer complaints that the Core Duo has a larger L2 cache than the X2 3800+ and thus isn't a true apples-to-apples comparison. So we've now leveled the playing field even more, and actually given AMD more of an advantage - the 2.0GHz/1MB L2 Athlon 64 X2 has a larger L1 cache (128KB per core vs. 64KB per core), and of course, the X2 still has its own on die memory controller.
With that said, let's see how things stack up now...
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Spoonbender - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
Am I the only one recalling the old Athlon days?AMD smashes ahead with a great CPU, until around what, 2600+ or so, where they run out of steam, letting Intel overtake them.
Looks like the same might happen again...
Not sure if it's just AMD screwing up, or if it's really a question of resources.
For AMD, Athlon 64 was really a last-ditch gamble. They had to do something big, or they wouldn't exist 5 years from now.
Well, they did, and enjoyed a lot of success, but they might just not have the resources to follow up on it. Instead, their only option might be to milk the A64 for all it's worth, and then take a beating for a year or two, until they're ready with a next-gen architecture
LuxFestinus - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
A question of availability needs to be raised. Are these new duo Intel processors available now? Can anyone say paper launch. How long has the dual Athlon64 been out? I thought so.Griswold - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
I dont see where you're coming from. The A64 is a K7 on steroids. The P-M is a P3 on steroids and Conroe will also just be a P-M on steroids. Both companies didnt come up with flashy, brandnew architectures over the last few years, they only added flashy things to existing designs. Here and now, it's still Intel playing the catchup game until we see Conroe in stores. And then you always have to keep in mind that AMD is yet to move to 65nm. It will certainly give them some more clockspeed headroom.I agree with the conclusion of the article, we'll see a neck to neck race in a year from now where the better price will make the difference. AMD really doesnt have to flex its muscles now, they can milk the crowd with a superior product - and people will pay whatever to get it, or so it seems.
Calin - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
Several of the flashy brand new architectures of the last few years had any kind of success. Itanium/EPIC, Transmeta, Netburst... As long as Transmeta was supported by a company with very little financial power (so their loss was somewhat expected), Itanium is crawling ahead on life support, and Netburst (while being king of the hill for a good time) will be discontinued.Griswold - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
The point is: Netburst is certainly a design that could be considered newer or more radical compared to the P3->P-M->Yonah/Conroe/Merom route. In the end netburst was still a technical failure, but certainly not a financial mistake.Well and Epic, thats much older than you think. But yes, it never ended up where Intel wanted it to be: on the desktop.
allies - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
It seems like with Intel's new chips, we're going to be back to a point where neither company has a true lead on the other. AMD is in great position at the moment, but they need to get their Turion X2 out to combat Intel's Centrino Duo. Otherwise, they'll find themselves losing laptop sales, an area which they've come a ways in.Right now, although clockspeed isn't increasing as fast as it once was, is a very exciting time for computer technologies. Parallelism, die shrinking, heat reduction, among other strides are paving the way to the future.
ncage - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
Are you sure the improvements in games are due to the different Memory Controller technoliges? Are you sure its not the FPU?tfranzese - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
I was thinking the same, considering his thoughts are pure speculation on his part. So, until Anand can provide data to back that up, he should stick to commending AMD's architecture rather than trying to credit all their success to the on-die memory controller (which surely helps, but it's only one part in the formula).I would doubt AMD is sitting idle though, and as they work on their next architecture will keep their lips sealed in order to maintain an element of surprise. Surprise like when they added SSE support to the Palomino and SSE3 support to Venice - both unexpected additions.
Furen - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
The K8s execution core is pretty much the same as the K7s. If you compare performance (in games) between the two you'll notice that the K8 performs much better. This is due to the fact that it removes the FSB bottleneck (by integrating the memory controller), increases the width of the L2 cache (and the size) and dramatically drops the memory access latency. Sure there are other minor differences but they're mostly minor improvements, like better branch prediction, etc.tfranzese - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
I don't see where the two of you are going with this and only serve my point that pinning the successes of the architecture on the memory controller is only speculation.