X-bit labs

Intel V8 Eight-Core Platform Preview (page 8)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 05/18/2007 | 06:57 PM ]

Synthetic Benchmarks: PCMark05 and 3DMark06

Formally, PCMark05 can create only four computational threads. Nevertheless, Intel V8 system works faster than the system with only one same processor. This can be explained by the fact that the intellectual task manager of Vista OS tries to distribute the threads first of all between the two physically different processors, which in the end allows more efficient use of system’s L2 caches shared between the core pairs. However, it doesn’t allow Intel V8 platform to outperform a “regular” system with only one quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6800 desktop processor. It could be cause by not as efficient memory subsystem of the system on i5000X chipset built with FB DDR2. Actually, the above mentioned results of the memory subsystem tests also prove this supposition.

However, 3DMark06 benchmark let Intel V8 climb all the way to the top of the pedestal, which is especially evident if we look at the results of the CPU test. Nothing surprising, as this test is very well optimized for multi-threaded environments and we have already seen it many times in our previous test sessions.