Dual-core desktop CPU bout: AMD vs. Intel part4

6: Video encoding

Results with night vision may vary.

With products such as Microsoft's Windows Media Center operating system and the video-capable iTunes 7, a computer's ability to encode video will only become more important. That said, we suggest you pay extra attention to these video-encoding scores if you're building a PC with any intent to integrate it into your home entertainment scheme.



Intel made its most competitive showing on our video-encoding test. AMD still wins the round, but the difference is not as pronounced as it is on other tests. The Athlon 64 X2 4800+ takes its familiar perch atop the performance chart, and both it and the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ stand out from the pack in a noticeable way. The processors in the middle of the performance scale, however, are so close that they're statistically tied, with less than 4 seconds and 2 percentage points between the Pentium D 840 and the Athlon 64 X2 4200+. Perhaps we should no longer be surprised that AMD's midrange chips compete well with Intel's higher-end CPUs, but that AMD's dual-core CPUs have maintained such a consistent streak of high performance should impress even the most adamant of Intel apologists.

Winner: AMD

7: Price vs. performance

Which CPU has the most juice per dollar?

Our price-vs.-performance chart shows just how much performance you're getting per dollar spent. We based our price figures on the suggested prices from each company, but that strategy has a caveat: For AMD, the X2-series chips have per-individual-unit pricing, which you can read for yourself here. Intel, on the other hand, provides only a suggested equivalent price of a chip as if it was purchased in a 1,000-unit lot. And of course both of those listings are estimates of what you'll really find in the market, so while we used the vendor-provided figures for the sake of consistency,we suggest you shop around.
Given the provided prices then, it's plain that Intel can afford to put its 80 percent market share to good advantage, at least with the low-end chips that most people are likely to purchase. At a suggested price of $241, the Pentium D 820 chip is the least expensive of the bunch. But while lower is generally better on such a scale, keep in mind the balance between the two ratings. The best bang for the buck in our minds is the $507 AMD Athlon 64 XS 4400+, which beat the $530 Intel Pentium D 840 on five of our six tests. And on the high end, the $803 AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ is the decisive winner, easily taking out the $999 Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840 (which, incidentally, we couldn't find for less than $1,029).

Winner: AMD




SOURCE: http://reviews.cnet.com

Dual-core desktop CPU bout: AMD vs. Intel part3

4: Photo editing

Depending on your level on interest in the hobby, photo editing might mean anything from a simple edge crop of a shot from your daughter's wedding to running a wedding photo business of your own. Our Photoshop test represents a task common to many photographers: converting large-size images to Web-appropriate file sizes.




The results of this round mirror those of the first round with our SysMark application test. AMD has a clear advantage with the higher-end chip, and the results get closer as you move down into the mainstream and lower-end chips. AMD's top three X2 chips finished at the top, but Intel and AMD exchanged even blows when we looked at the Pentium D 840, 830, and 820 chips matched up against the Athlon X2 4200+ and 3800+ chips. The round still goes to AMD for the showing by its top three X2 chips, but at least Intel was competitive in this round--unlike the last two.
Winner: AMD

5: MP3 encoding

Now root kit free.

If there's one modern multimedia task that affects the broadest swath of people, it might be MP3 encoding. Even though loading music into iTunes from a CD isn't exactly demanding, it's a common enough task that is easy to relate to the test results. iTunes also has the distinction of being a multithreaded application, which means that it's programmed to take advantage of multiple processor threads, making it ideal for dual-core CPU testing.



The results from this round are second only to the 3D gaming results in terms of AMD dominance. The only AMD processor that's slower than an Intel CPU is the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, but even that CPU manages to outpace Intel's lower-end dual-core chips, the Pentium D 830 and the Pentium D 820, in ripping an album to MP3 in iTunes, by 9 and 14 seconds, respectively. If you think that's bad for Intel, the difference between the Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and the Pentium Extreme Edition 840 is even worse, to the tune of a 23-second difference, or a whopping 20 percent.

How much more of a beating can Intel take? Will the referee need to step in and stop the fight?

Winner: AMD
SOURCE: http://reviews.cnet.com

Dual-core desktop CPU bout: AMD vs. Intel part2

2: Gaming

He who frags fastest, frags best.

3D gaming opens up a can of worms for performance testing because it's so commonly associated with 3D graphics cards. The processor does affect 3D performance, however. In order to test our CPUs' 3D capability, we created a so-called CPU-limited Half-Life 2 benchmark, which turns off all of the advanced graphics features, as to minimize the calls to the onboard graphics chip. This lets the CPU do most of the 3D heavy lifting.
Intel should be embarrassed with its showing in round 2. At every turn, AMD beat it to the punch. Even the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, the lowest end of AMD's dual-core CPUs, is better suited to 3D gaming than Intel's highest-end Extreme Edition 840 CPU, which lost by a full 10 percent.


That said, we should point out that games aren't really designed to take advantage of CPUs with multiple processing threads yet. We expect to see multithreaded games that will take advantage of dual-core CPUs sometime next year, at which point the 3D gaming results will need revisiting (there will likely be new chips available by then, as well). But for now, if you are a gamer in need of a dual-core rig, the only choice you need to make is deciding which Athlon X2 chip to pick up.

Winner: AMD

3: Multitasking

Our SysMark test gauges a processor's ability to work with a series of applications, but it doesn't really give us an idea of how well a CPU handles two intensive tasks simultaneously. That's where our multitasking test comes in. If you've ever run a virus scan on your PC (and we hope you have), you've likely experienced the swimming-in-molasses effect this process has on overall performance. But if you believe the marketing hype, dual-core CPUs are supposed to make virus scanning faster while letting you perform other tasks at the same time without delay.




To test dual-core CPUs then, we employ McAfee's VirusScan to inspect 40GB worth of files, while simultaneously encoding an 85MB video file using a program called Dr. Divx. We then time how long it takes each chip to complete both tasks. The results of our tests skewed heavily in AMD's favor (sensing a pattern yet?).

he best Intel could place on this test was fourth, with its $999 Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840 chip coming within 4 seconds of the $507 Athlon 64 X2 4400+. It's also interesting to note that all three of Intel's Pentium D chips finished last on this test. As we saw in the last round with the gaming test, AMD overachieves to the point where even its budget Athlon 64 X2 3800+ chip outpaces Intel's second-fastest Pentium D 840. If you are like most computer users, you have more than one window running more of the time. And if you are like most computer users reading this story, you will draw the same conclusion as we have: AMD's Athlon X2 processors are the clear choice for superior multitasking performance.

Winner: AMD
SOURCE: http://reviews.cnet.com

Dual-core desktop CPU bout: AMD vs. Intel part1

You may recall a few months back when AMD took out full-page newspaper ads to challenge Intel to a dual-core server duel. Intel declined to take up AMD on its offer, but the challenge got us thinking: what would the results of a dual-core desktop CPU fight look like? Many people equate Windows PCs with Intel Pentium processors (and soon will likely be doing the same with Macs), but we've seen dual-core CPU AMD systems power ahead of dual-core Intel-based PCs on more than one occasion.

To answer the question once and for all, we circled up a bunch of cars in an abandoned parking garage and set ourselves to a no-holds-barred dual-core desktop CPU fistfight. AMD submitted its five dual-core CPUs, and Intel matched with its lineup of four. We built two test beds as nearly identical as we could for the two platforms and ran each chip through a battery of tests. We then ran those results through our price-vs.-performance calculator to find out not only which is the best overall dual-core CPU in terms of raw performance but also which one offers the most bang for your buck. Skip ahead to the official ruling if you want, but the match itself is interesting.

1.Day-to-day computing

Which chip delivers for the average Joe/Jane?

While dual-core CPUs are primarily meant for heavy multitasking and running multimedia applications, it's not like you're suddenly going to stop using Microsoft Word or other common applications when you sit down in front of a dual-core PC. Our first test, BAPCo's SysMark 2004 benchmark, gauges how well each chip handles the day-to-day rigors of standard office-productivity apps in addition to creating content for the Internet.

The test results are broken down into three scores: office productivity, Internet content creation, and overall. We primarily look to the overall score to determine our rating when we use SysMark for desktop testing, but the individual scores are particularly important if you're interested in buying a dual-core CPU for a specific task.
The results are clear: AMD lands a quick combination and takes the first round by placing two of its X2 processors at the top of the charts. Not only is its top-of-the-line Athlon 64 X2 4800+ faster than Intel's flagship Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840 chip, but the Athlon 64 X2 4600+ also outpaces Intel's best. That result doesn't speak well of Intel's chip that costs $350 more than the X2 4600+.

The results scale similarly in AMD's favor as you move down each company's lineup. The X2 4400+ edges out its direct competitor, the Pentium D 840, for example. And at the low end, the X2 3800+ dispatches the Pentium D 820. For day-to-day computing performance, AMD's Athlon 64 X2 chips are the collective winner.

Winner: AMD

Amd VS Intel

AMD, long the oppressed rebel force in the chip industry, managed to launch an attack on the Intel Death Star with the introduction of its 64-bit Opteron processors in 2003.Opteron ran 64-bit applications and legacy 32-bit applications without the drag on performance noted in Intel's Itanium processors. AMD upped the ante further in 2005 with the introduction of its first dual-core Opteron processors that doubled the performance of single-core Opterons.

The first chink in Intel's armor appeared in the second quarter of that year when, as Mercury Research reported, Intel's market share slipped to 82.5 %, from 82.8 % in the year ago quarter, while AMD's inched up to 15.7 % from 15.6 %.

AMD further provoked Intel by running a newspaper ad challenging Intel to a processor duel, using the image of an AMD chip in a boxing ring.

AMD's share rose to 25.3 % in the fourth quarter of 2006, while Intel's fell to 74.4 %. Intel, while perhaps surprised, didn't take long to retaliate. Intel (2006 revenue, $35 billion) financed a price war with AMD ($5.6 billion) that pushed AMD into a pool of red ink, losing $2.1 billion over the last four quarters.

On the eve of the Barcelona launch, Bruce Shaw, AMD's director of server and workstation product marketing, said AMD may be battle-weary but is still in the fight: “If you look at the market as a whole it’s hard not to wax poetic about [how] we’ve brought competition to the market just by being here."

AMD Challenges Intel To A Dual-Core Duel

Live Shoot-Out to Focus on Server Workloads and Energy Consumption

SUNNYVALE, CA -- August 23, 2005 --In the spirit of fair and open competition, AMD (NYSE:AMD) today issued a challenge to Intel to conduct a head-to-head competition of dual-core x86 server processors. AMD’s proposed dual-core duel in 2005 would be a live, public performance evaluation between server platforms based on the highest-performing Dual-Core AMD Opteron™ 800 Series or 200 Series processors and the corresponding Intel x86 server processors that are commercially available in volume.

The challenge, issued today in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, San Jose Mercury News and The San Francisco Chronicle, features the world’s first x86 dual-core server microprocessor, the Dual-Core AMD Opteron processor, in a boxing ring waiting for the Intel challenger. AMD has challenged Intel to settle the question once and for all—whose x86-based dual-core architecture best meets server customer’s needs.

“Since we launched Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors in April 2005, we’ve won every major industry-standard benchmark for x86 servers. AMD64 dual-core technology provides industry-leading performance, is easy to upgrade and is energy efficient,” said Marty Seyer, corporate vice president and general manager, Microprocessor Solutions Sector, AMD. “We are giving our competitor a fair and open opportunity to challenge our clear market leadership in a public setting. A head-to-head match using industry-standard benchmarks will arm customers with the information necessary to determine which company can best meet their computing needs. The gauntlet has been thrown down, it is time to cut through the hype, and demonstrate who the industry’s leader in x86 dual-core processing is today.”

Should Intel accept AMD’s challenge, the duel would take place at a public venue to be announced in the coming weeks, with testing conducted by a neutral, third-party testing lab. Testing would be done using industry-standard server benchmarks most relevant to customers today such as SPECjbb^® and SPECweb^® Measurement on energy consumption would also be conducted.

For more information on AMD’s challenge to Intel, please visit www.amd.com/duel. Stay tuned to this web site over the coming months for additional details on the duel, including an online petition to be launched in early September.

About the AMD Opteron™ Processor
More than 75 of the top 100 of the Forbes Global 2000 companies or their affiliates, representing the world’s most competitive industries, now use AMD Opteron™ processor-based systems to run applications at new levels of performance. The AMD Opteron processor, based on AMD64 technology with Direct Connect Architecture, made history as the industry’s first x86 multi-core processor for servers and workstations that is both 32- and 64-bit capable. Dual-Core AMD Opteron processors can deliver higher performance within the same power envelope as single-core processors because they were designed from the ground up for multi-core computing. With a broad portfolio of dual-core and single-core solutions and a robust 64-bit ecosystem, AMD and its customers are leading the way to the next evolution of enterprise computing.

About AMD
AMD (NYSE:AMD) designs and produces innovative microprocessors, Flash memory devices and low-power processor solutions for the computer, communications and consumer electronics industries. AMD is dedicated to delivering standards-based, customer-focused solutions for technology users, ranging from enterprises and governments to individual consumers. For more information visit www.amd.com.

AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, AMD Athlon, AMD Opteron, and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.