Tom's review of the new Pentium Dual Core CPU's...

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TailsNZ
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Tom's review of the new Pentium Dual Core CPU's...

Post by TailsNZ » Wed Apr 06, 2005 1:39 am

http://www20.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050405/index.html

Toms Hardware had a review of the first Pentium Dual Core CPU's today, starting at $240 (nice!). They are slower than single core for games (because the games aren't programmed to use dual core yet), but with things like video / audio rendering... and 3D... in Lightwave & 3D Max, the 3.2ghz Pentium D took 2/3rd the time to a render a scene than a Pentium 3.8ghz did. By over clocking the dual core, they got it to half the time. Very nice indeed.

I'm looking forward to adding one of those to the new computer, but cooling that's somewhat 'quiet' will be an interesting challenge. I wish the review focused a bit on how hot they ran. 4ghz was (of course) unstable without liquid cooling.

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Ehhmm...

Post by mattek » Wed Apr 06, 2005 2:48 am

.. I'm personally not so convinced that dual core is such a good investment. Maybe next year there will be enough games and app to make it worth the extra dough.

From The Inq:
"Companies developing software will implement multi-core aware applications, but these products are probably 12-18 months away, and unless they are ground up multi-core there will be some benefits through improved compiling. The question is: Why is Intel introducing the dual core into the market at the desktop level where it provides the least benefit?"
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22365

If your planning on running a server, go dual, otherwise you are better off waiting six months or so. Prices will go down.

I don't really get it... why are the hardware sites so uncritical? I mean come on, these processors are infact slower than the ones that are already on the market, the dual core technology is not going to be useful unless you have a wide set of apps that take advantage of the technology. Those apps will not be out sometime soon.

Intel have suffered from their Prescott line of chips since they consume way too much power and run really hot. Now Intel is trying, through marketing, to get back in the game and retake their cutting edge. Marketing seems to get you pretty far in this buisness since their dualcore solution is one where they simply slapped to cores ontop of eachother. If you thought Prescott was hot.. this one will be scorching.
AMDs 64bit line of processor was built ground up with multicore in mind. When I end up getting dualcore I'd chose AMD. (Note when, because I'm all for it, dual core is sexy as hell, but right now it doesn't make sense.)

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Post by tay » Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:46 am

Hardware sites are lazy and content is dependent upon site hits. This is why everyone needs to be first and puts out shit reviews with Sandra/3dmark05 etc and nothing else. [H]ardOCP has a truly embarassing review up for the 840, while anandtech has a surprisingly good one.

WRT dual core, I think its a fantastic chip. If I am doing multiple things at once (bittorrent + mp3 + game) I would no longer have to kill bittorrent. Forget all the video encoding stuff and dual proc apps that are in the pipe. In real use these chips promise to be a dream today (spyware scanning, audio processing etc while working), and will only get better especially for those of us that move our old chips into "home servers". And you can fold 2x with them for team 31574. Thats gotta be worth something in itself.

Now if we could only drop power usage by around 50watts they would rule. SPCR gonna review one soon? :shock:

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A must read

Post by mattek » Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:57 am

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22332

It's a fairly long rant. But there some interesting points made. Makes you think differently about hardware sites.

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Post by tay » Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:03 am

Nice link mattek. It makes you wonder why the first sites to get the chips were legitreview, trustedreview, and hexus.net and may explain the ridiculous "review" at [H]. They didnt send the chips to places like techreport, xbit, etc. to my knowledge.

The guy at inq makes not so veiled references to anandtech as well not running game benches. Thanks again.

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Post by Qwertyiopisme » Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:29 am

This brings up the question of which hardwre review sites are any good? The only one I know about that sucks is tomshardwareguide, which i loath and detest with all that I can hate, but other than that I don't really know whats good and whats bad...

Come to think of it SPCR will no doubt be an even larger target than it is now when quiet computing gets more popular. I would really like it if MikeC and EdNG would post things like "<company x> has given us this sample for review, along with a check of <x> dollars, and becuase of that we will be sure to give it a gruelling test".

*really hopes that if SPCR gets new reviewers that they will not be easily bought*

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Post by Green Shoes » Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:57 am

Interesting link...you always hear people say stuff like that on forums but it's a little different coming from that source. I recognized the reviews he was talking about and noticed even AT was listed. Who can you trust nowadays? (Present company excepted, of course :wink: )

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Dell

Post by frankgehry » Wed Apr 06, 2005 7:17 am

Dell already has a model based on dual core. - FG

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Post by sthayashi » Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:10 am

The inquirer is crazy. I have friends that work in the computer industry, and I've been told that the Inquirer has been known to come out with information faster than the company can tell its employees.

BTW, is this AnandTech's response to that article?

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Post by Green Shoes » Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:28 am

yeah, I saw that earlier today. Perhaps dual-cores are a step in the right direction immediately for large business clients buying hundreds of PCs at a time. If we're going to multi-task anywhere it's going to be at the office. But it seems like most online hardware sites focus on the gamer/enthusiast, who sees dual-core (currently) as a drop in frame rates and says "screw it." I know there are a lot of IT guys reading Anand and here and other websites, but unfortunately they aren't the ones who make the decisions of if/when to buy new computers.

*looks under the desk at the 1.6 GHz Pentium supplied by a major record label* :roll:

Anyway, that's why it all seems a little strange to me. Intel must know that the current market for these things reads Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, etc....but I'm certainly open to correction by those more knowledgable.

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Post by Talz » Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:43 am

Personally I'm looking forward to dual core, ncq etc going mainstream. It's not unusual for me to have something in the background when gaming, and if I can have tasks set to low priority running without bogging down the system like they do now it'd be great.

Anandtech's comparisons with minimum frame rates really demonstrate the difference it can and will make even without optimized apps. That's really one of the things I like about my P4, it takes a very noticable hit when things are going on besides the main app but not so bad as my P-M and Athlon systems due to the hyperthreading. Still I'm much more interested in A64 and P-M dual core chips because of Intel's current struggles with power/heat.

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Post by Tibors » Wed Apr 06, 2005 9:46 am

The guy at the inquirer might have overreacted a bit about the Anandtech review. But part of his complaint about some sites is true. Remember that PSU roundup from trustedreviews that got linked here a while back. They were given access to the test lab of a PSU manufacturer/distributor for that round up and guess who won?

Obviously the guy at the inquirer doesn't fold. Otherwise he would have been a lot more enthousiast about dual core procs.

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Re: A must read

Post by MikeC » Wed Apr 06, 2005 1:40 pm

It's a good rant. Made me want to rant a bit, too:
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?p=170979

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Post by dano » Wed Apr 06, 2005 5:47 pm

I think the critism of dual core is largely a moot point. While it is true (according to the toms and AT reviews) that these are only as fast as their counterpart(GHz wise) running games, running multiple programs they are faster, and specific programs. More and more programs are going to start coming out, and in one or two years as Inq said, more programs will be out that support this. How many people upgrade their cpu after one year? I'm personally still running a 1.4 celly....

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Post by hvengel » Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:43 pm

I thought that the review was a little short on information about the amd dual/quad core technology and how that compared to what intel is about to offer.

I find it interesting that Intel is going dual core with desktop processors first and amd is aiming at the server/workstation market with thier initial offerings.

The other thing that suprised me is that you have to buy a new motherboard to go dual core with intel. AMD is telling everyone that existing 939 and 940 motherboards should be able to run dual core with a BIOS upgrade. This means that a dual core upgrade for existing P4 users will be more expensive than for existing athlon64 users.

One other thing to consider is that those who have tested SMP systems have concluded that dual/quad Opteron systems scale better than do Intel system. That is adding additional processors give more of a performance gain. So I would expect that dual core amd64s will show better performance gains than dual core P4s conpared to same clock speed single core CPUs.

It is also clear that Intel has reached the limit for clock speeds with the P4 but amd still has significant clock speed head room with the amd64 processor family. By the time dual core 939 processors are shipping later this year we may be seeing 3+ GHz amd64 processors.

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Post by Chris Ochre » Thu Apr 07, 2005 3:57 am

I'm very interested in DC CPUs, as I'm a musician using Cubase SX3, a multi-threaded and 64bit-ready music app. Dual cores would provide for a much more stable realtime audio processing engine.

But if all you do with your PC is surf and game then yes, there's less to be excited about.

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Post by sthayashi » Thu Apr 07, 2005 5:23 am

Personally, my take on the situation is that they're boldy going where SMP has been for years.

Of course, SMP has gotten expensive these last several years, so it is a move in the right direction.

/Remembers a time when you could use Normal processors in Multi-processing configurations.

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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Thu Apr 07, 2005 7:50 pm

Chris Ochre wrote:I'm very interested in DC CPUs, as I'm a musician using Cubase SX3, a multi-threaded and 64bit-ready music app. Dual cores would provide for a much more stable realtime audio processing engine.

But if all you do with your PC is surf and game then yes, there's less to be excited about.
if you are in the music industry, I think you would just get dual g5 setup and call it a day.


---------
Just the same, for many years, and through many tests, the presence of 2 processors has done relatively squat besides generate the need for 0 feature motherboards and 2.5x the price for a system. Dual core is just for people who render stuff, use photoshop, and all that. Yeah. I do a lot of that. All the time.

I am not sure as to why this forum is even talking about dual cores. We know two heaters next to one another dissipates heat slower than 2 heaters apart, and we know that 1 heater on 25% more load generates less heat that 2 heaters in the first place. Why would anyone on here want dual core for a spcr system?
I personally am not looking forward to this day of dual core. It's a non-invention, its gluing two things together, not creating a new chip.

I would have liked to see maybe a dual centrino setup if it went to a cheap pricetag with a versatile chipset and socket, yeah, thats not happening. Having LESS of a slow down in foreground tasks on acount of background processes taking up resources wont stop those background processes from taking up foreground resources. dual core is not dual pc's. Anyone worth anything in a gaming environment would turn off all things that will reduce framerates, so I really cant see how this new system will be of value in general... ???

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Post by Talz » Thu Apr 07, 2005 10:52 pm

~El~Jefe~ wrote:I would have liked to see maybe a dual centrino setup if it went to a cheap pricetag with a versatile chipset and socket, yeah, thats not happening. Having LESS of a slow down in foreground tasks on acount of background processes taking up resources wont stop those background processes from taking up foreground resources. dual core is not dual pc's. Anyone worth anything in a gaming environment would turn off all things that will reduce framerates, so I really cant see how this new system will be of value in general... ???
True but the increasing system speeds combined with multi-core cpu's going mainstream are eventually going to minimize the need/usefulness of making sure all the background processes that can be shut down are etc. And as software is optimized to take advantage of the newer cpu's it will give a nice boost. Sure it will take time, but I think it will be worthwhile.

For instance talking about games, even a game running at say 100 FPS can have short drops to 25 FPS when something bogs the cpu. This can be something in the program or another program running in the background. Just imagine a dual core system running at 80 FPS that drops to lows of 50 FPS. Which would you rather play on? Combine this with faster HDD's using NCQ and it simply won't be such a big deal if you're playing a game, encoding a DVD or whatever and your scheduled anti-virus check starts up.

Now the numbers are not real but that is the general concept behind the idea, and it's going to take a couple years to go mainstream so yeah for the typical user I don't see a reason to rush into dual core. This is especially true of gamers and similiar users that optimize their systems and are quite happy to avoid multi-tasking. But it's going to be a good move for PC's, especially with the technical issues involved in maintaining the current level of clock speed increases and even more especially once the software is really written to take advantage of the multi-cores.

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Post by Chris Ochre » Fri Apr 08, 2005 7:38 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:
Chris Ochre wrote:I'm very interested in DC CPUs, as I'm a musician using Cubase SX3, a multi-threaded and 64bit-ready music app. Dual cores would provide for a much more stable realtime audio processing engine.

But if all you do with your PC is surf and game then yes, there's less to be excited about.
if you are in the music industry, I think you would just get dual g5 setup and call it a day.
nah, a lot of my software is PC-only. Plus I've more or less bought myself into the platform for good with amount I've spent on software, which suits me fine. Dual cores would be the icing on the cake though, and I can't wait until the end of the year for more dual core choices. Nowadays there are as many professional PC musicians as Mac, with many more PC amateurs like me.

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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Fri Apr 08, 2005 1:35 pm

Chris Ochre wrote:
~El~Jefe~ wrote:
Chris Ochre wrote:I'm very interested in DC CPUs, as I'm a musician using Cubase SX3, a multi-threaded and 64bit-ready music app. Dual cores would provide for a much more stable realtime audio processing engine.

But if all you do with your PC is surf and game then yes, there's less to be excited about.
if you are in the music industry, I think you would just get dual g5 setup and call it a day.
nah, a lot of my software is PC-only. Plus I've more or less bought myself into the platform for good with amount I've spent on software, which suits me fine. Dual cores would be the icing on the cake though, and I can't wait until the end of the year for more dual core choices. Nowadays there are as many professional PC musicians as Mac, with many more PC amateurs like me.
ah yes, i too have bought software. However, I can use either disk for mac or pc. Odd right? I have to choose one or the other soon before i invest money that has to go one way or the other. (the 2x disk packages arent the exact same programs, they just have similar functions, so on Mac i would have to relearn them)

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Post by kingsize » Sat Apr 09, 2005 7:49 am

Personally I like games and video editing - no middle ground here, but if it came to an affordable choice I would go for dual core - nothing worse than sitting around waiting for encoding. Can take 40 minutes+ for a fully edited 700MB SVCD at the moment...

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Re: Ehhmm...

Post by Beyonder » Sun Apr 10, 2005 11:38 am

The question is: Why is Intel introducing the dual core into the market at the desktop level where it provides the least benefit?
This is sort of a redundant question, given that Intel has a history of letting their marketing trump their engineering.

Although, admittedly, a dual core CPU is *much* more useful in a server environment.

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