Best 64-bit Performance: Intel of AMD?

by Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 09/22/2005 | 11:24 PM ]

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.<%BANNER[article_nw]%>

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.