X-bit labs

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Best 64-bit Performance: Intel of AMD? Intel and AMD Dual-Core 64-bit Chips Compared

When Advanced Micro Devices originally introduced its AMD Athlon 64 and AMD Opteron processors with 64-bit capability, the company emphasized that the chips have some room for performance improvements in future when 64-bit software and operating system are released. Intel downplayed the importance of x86-64 back in 2003, but only today we can try to determine whose approach was better.

Now that not only the software applications, but also Intel Pentium processors with 64-bit technology are available, ExtremeTech web-site tries to determine whether 64-bit truly brings additional performance and whether AMD’ or Intel’s implementation of the x86-64 technology is more efficient. The web-site benchmarked AMD Athlon 64 4800+ and Intel Pentium 840 Extreme Edition microprocessor in a series of tests which were run under Windows XP Professional x64 operating system.

The author tries to find out whether there is any performance penalty for running 32-bit applications under Windows XP Professional x64, how significant performance improvement of 64-bit computing really is and which processor manufacturer delivers the fastest microprocessor for operating in 64-bit mode.

“While Intel’s Pentium Extreme Edition 840 acquits itself fairly well in a number of benchmarks, there are also some disturbing trends. In some tests, such as Cinebench 2003, AMD’s X2 sees greater gains in performance than the Intel CPU. In more theoretical tests, such as Passmark’s Performance Test, Intel generally holds its own-except in floating point, where it loses by a wide margin. Even in a couple of 32-bit only tests, such as the SPECapc 3ds Max benchmark and 3DMark05, the Intel processor seems to slip a little running under WOW64, even as AMD picks up some steam. Note that Intel is still ahead in 3DMark, but the trend isn’t in the positive direction. As before, standard office and productivity apps see little performance loss from running under WOW64,” claims ExtremeTech

“In the end, AMD’s implementation of x86-64 seems to be more robust than Intel’s, although the results are definitely mixed. We’ll need to revisit the issue as more real 64-bit applications become available. But for now, if you want to move to 64-bit Windows on dual-core processors, AMD may be the better overall solution,” concludes ExtremeTech. 

• ExtremeTech: AMD vs. Intel: 64-bit Windows Dual-Core Shootout.

ATI RADEON X800 GTO Performance Level Revealed. ATI’s New Performance-Mainstream VPU Packs Performance

ATI’s recently unveiled RADEON X800 GTO provides nice specifications and feature-set at an affordable price-point. Unfortunately for ATI itself, its next-generation RADEON X1600-series is knocking the door and can pose serious competition to the current offerings. This is why some graphics card makers try to enhance performance of today’s mainstream parts so to make them more attractive to customers.

ATI recommends RADEON  X800 GTO graphics processor with 12 pixel and 6 vertex pipelines to be clocked at 475MHz, while 256MB of GDDR3 memory (with 256-bit memory interface) should operate at about 1000MHz. The product is designed for PCI Express x16 bus and may be equipped with DVDI-I, D-Sub, VIVO as well as HDTV connectors.

GeCube, a well-known graphics card vendor, equipped its RADEON X800 GTO-based product with its advanced UniWise cooling system and is able to suppy a slightly overclocked version compared to the original specs. TweakTown web-site has tested the GeCube RADEON X800GTO graphics card and came to rather positive conclusions regarding the part.

“It is the perfect upgrade for people who feel that the GeForce 6600GT or Radeon X700 doesn’t offer enough performance for them but can’t stretch their budget enough to the length of the mighty Radeon X800XL. We can see that an X800XL sits around $250 to $280 US and an X800GT sits around $150 to $160US. The word on the street is that the X800GTO will sit around $210 US, which is a happy medium between the two cards and an excellent price considering the performance gains over the X800GT, which we saw here today,” states TweakTown.

“GeCube as usual have added their popular Uni Wise cooling solution that not only helps keep noise down but increase cooling efficiency in turn which offers us quite a nice little overclock and a little performance increase to go with it, around 10% which is good,” adds the author.

• TweakTown: GeCube Radeon X800GTO - Another New VPU from ATI.