Dual Core Linux Performance: Two Penguins are Better than One
by Kristopher Kubicki on July 1, 2005 5:55 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Multitasking Scenario 4: DVD Burning
Thanks to NeroLINUX, we can now run the first benchmark we did in reverse. We will be paying particular attention to the buffer for NeroLINUX. If the burn continually empties the buffer, then the system is playing catch-up to the burner. We will count the number of times the buffer dies and graph this separately. We used a NEC 3520A burner and a 4.5GB ISO image for the burn.
- Open FireFox 1.0.4 and load all 5 web pages.
- Open XMMS and start playing a Nine Inch Nails CD ripped to Ogg
- Open Thunderbird for news
- Login to our news server and start downloading headers for our subscribed news groups
- Begin an ISO burn with NeroLINUX and start timing
There seems to be a very linear correlation between the number of buffer dumps and the speed at which the discs burned. We really only saw the buffer even come in danger of decreasing at the beginning of the burn and when Thunderbird took a little too long to process something coming in from the news server.
Even though the processors we used in this analysis are more than capable, the additional tasks of FireFox and Thunderbird proved just a tad too much for the chips to handle at all once. This benchmark is a great illustration of where dual core (or dual socket) goes so wonderfully well on the desktop. The additional overhead to run XMMS, FireFox and the other applications is not very substantial, but when FireFox decides to chew up resources while the only CPU is managing the write buffer on a DVD burn, the results can be quite dramatic.
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xtknight - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
Why was FireFox 1.0.2 used on Win32 and 1.0.4 used on Linux? Just wondered.KristopherKubicki - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
Something is wrong with the graph on the Compilation test (the -j3 for the dual core Athlon was in the Pentium 660 slot). We only ran -j3 on the dual core chips. I redid the graph and it should be rendering correctly now.Kristopher
suryad - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
#34 great question. I was about to ask that but you beat me to it.smn198 - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
#22 Give him a break - The removal of the 2nd xbox vs ps article meant that this had to come out a day early.Kocur - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
Well, Kris, do you have any theory of why single core Athlons seem to perform better with regard to single core P4s than X4200+ with regard to dual P4s?
In my opinion there are two possibilities.
1. HT slows both 640 and 660.
2. X4200+ does not stretch its wings.
In my opinion you should have adressed this problem in the article as we have learnt to expect the opposite.
Kocur.
n yusef - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
I tink tis article is fair. The Pentium D 820 is good for the price, if you don't already have a S939 mobo and RAM. It's not as ceap as you would think, becuase if the extra ~$100 for more expensive RAM, motherboard, and aftermarket HSF, but it's still cheaper for a whole system. For someone like myself who already has a S939 mobo, and DDR1 RAM, the X2s are a better bargain. The make -j3 tag should have been on all of te CPUs (it even makes non-HT single core CPUs faster), especially the 4200+.When you get a chance, please get a 4400+, or lower your 4800+s (Anand's actually) multi to x11 so we can see how much cache affects a dual-core CPU (each core is sharing the same memory bandwidth that only one had to itself before, so even an A64 might be bandwidth limited).
TheMatt - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
One comment I always have with these tests is why do you never see pbzip2? On *any* dual, quad, etc. machine I use, I always pester the admin to install pbzip2: http://compression.ca/pbzip2/ .I was hoping I'd see it here to see if it gives the same speed-up with dual-core as it does with my SMP machine. I'd suggest to anyone here to try it out, it's a great program.
fishbits - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
"If you can't admit that the D820 is a good performer at its price, then I don't know what's going on with you, but nowhere did he slam AMD along the way."The D820 is really good for the price, especially if ram/mobo weren't issues. But saying you "pay through the nose" for the AMD chip and not the D840 at virtually the same price was pretty stunning.
"In our opinion, the Pentium D 820 is really an underdog in this roundup"
What the heck does that mean? The 820 looks like a really good multi-tasking performer for the dollar. How does that make it an "underdog?"
We've gotta give the guys a little slack on various errors, but in "Final Thoughts?" Should the concluding paragraphs where judgement and recommendations are handed out be read two or three times before releasing them? Or maybe by at least a second set of eyes?
JGunther - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
#29Gaming bechmarks are the ONLY benchmarks in this article where the Pentium D doesn't occupy the top spot. Find me another review site that shows this to be the case.
The D820 is definitely a good performer for its price, I'd never say otherwise. But there's no denying that Kris and his articles are slanted. There are no slams, but little statements like this:
"At $558 you pay through the nose for the additional performance of the Athlon 64 X2 4200+."
Attempt to portray AMD as the culprit, but the fact is, you pay through the nose for that additional performance whether you're looking at the 4200+ or the D840 (the latter of which is is actually the more expensive of the two).
Anand once said that visitors to his site, he found, were about 50/50 Intel or AMD users. Though statistically, it could go either way, there is no doubt in my mind that Kris' primary computer at home runs an Intel chip. It's written all over his articles.
Tegeril - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
I don't see his analysis showing the Pentium CPUs "on top" at all. He specifically states that the AMD offering beats the pants off of Intel as usual in gaming, that the memory costs on the Intel boards are higher, and that the D820 and D840 don't suck quite as much as people want it to. He simply says that at the price point of $252, the D820 becomes a tempting option.To sacrifice minimal overall performance and save $290 - memory costs is probably a very good suggestion and is warranted by the analysis. It's pretty impartial from here.
If you can't admit that the D820 is a good performer at its price, then I don't know what's going on with you, but nowhere did he slam AMD along the way.