Performance

General Performance

To estimate the general CPU performance we used a popular PCMark Vantage benchmark that emulates multi-threaded workload typical for home desktop systems.

First of all we have to say that the junior quad-core processors cannot outperform the fastest dual-core CPU in most tests. In fact, the only two patterns where you can benefit from having more cores are Memories and TV and Movies emulating work with digital media content and videos in particular. It is absolutely natural, because we all know that video codecs have one of the best multi-core optimizations of all contemporary applications.

Despite smaller L2 cache and low clock frequency, the new Core 2 Quad Q8200 processor shows pretty good results. Due to new 45nm dies with a number of microarchitectural optimizations, in some benchmarks it turns out even faster than Core 2 Quad Q6600 that has higher clock frequency and larger L2 cache but uses old 65nm core.

Higher-end processors, Core 2 Quad Q9300 and Q9400, run faster leaving behind their low-cost counterparts. However, the maximum advantage is only 8%, which is not high enough to justify the price of Q9300 and Q9400 CPUs.

However, the AMD processor looks very good in PCMark Vantage tests. Its performance is comparable with that of the junior Core 2 Quad, although it costs a little less.