Synthetic Benchmarks (continued)

TSCP

TSCP is a simple chess program, which you may read more about here. We compiled the program using our own Makefile, which you can download here. Once compiled, we ran the "bench" command inside the program. Using the -m64 flags provided no change in performance.

TSCP 1.8.1

As you can see, there appears to be no advantage with HyperThreading for this application. This also appears to be the largest lead that the Intel processor takes over the AMD during the duration of our analysis.
Update:We have retested this part of the benchmark with the -O2 flag in the correct place for both machines. The score has changed to reflect this. br>

ubench

Finally, we have ubench, which stands as the definitive Unix synthetic benchmark. Feel free to learn more about the program here. We compiled the program using ./configure and make with no optimizations. The benchmark was run on a loop ten times to assure that we were getting a true average.

Ubench 0.32 - CPU

Ubench 0.32 - MEM

Ubench 0.32 - AVG

Here, we see HyperThreading working against the Xeon processor in a distinct fashion. According to the Ubench website, both of these machines with single processors outperform dual Xeon 2.4GHz machines, even though they are only running on one processor. The program runs several math-intensive floating point and integer operations over the course of three minutes.

Synthetic Benchmarks Encryption
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  • JGunther - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    What the hell is the matter with you guys? I mean, I'm all for a good CPU wars, but comparing a desktop CPU to a server CPU? I mean, we're talking a $350 CPU vs. an $850 CPU. How, by any stretch of the imagination, is this a good comparison??

    Oh. my. god. Anandtech... I'm starting to wonder about this site. First you guys blast RAID 0 on the desktop (which Tweakers.Net just stated was COMPLETELY misleading in their own, more extensive battery of tests) and now this?

    Man... this isn't even a question of AMD vs. Intel. The only people who would think that this is a decent comparison have to be Intel fanboys or something.

    How did this get to print?
  • Viditor - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    Soultrap - "The reason the benchmarks come out faster on the Intel part is because of it's higher clock."

    This is what I thought at first too...
    The problem is that the benches being reproduced around the web for the A64 don't match up to Kris's...
  • menads - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    #101 The mistakes in the results has nothing to do with the Intel clockspeed - it is the reviewer lack of knowledge how to use gcc (and its flags) and to understand what the benchmarks measure. And finally the poor judgement of selecting a badly positioned desktop CPU (even 754 pin 3400+ makes much more sense than the 3500+ used in the review let alone Opteron 150) versus the top end server CPU.
  • manno - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    "This is a sad day for all of us. Anandtech has now lost all credibility as an independent review site. First THG, now Anandtech, WTF is going on in the world? :("

    Get a life.
  • Soultrap - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    The reason the benchmarks come out faster on the Intel part is because of it's higher clock. If you do the math you will see that the scores are proportional to the clock frequency on the benchmarks that the Intel part stomped the AMD part. This does not make the Intel part better then the AMD part! But, it does make it (much) faster a doing very simple tasks. The more complex the task is the more important all of the other features of the chip become. The "other" features is where the AMD chip realy shines, not in core frequency. (shorter pipeline, better instruction management, better memory access, ...)
    In any benchmark that truely uses the processor as a computer and not as simple calculator, like just about any of the gaming benchmarks out there you will find that in even comparisons (apples to apples) the Intel will be falling behind. When 64bit is mature you will realy see the weakness of Intel's 64 bit clunker.

    By the way, just how much did you get paid by Intel to do this cornhole of a reveiw?

    Never mind, I am sure they promised that you would disappear if you told on them.

    Just kidding!

    But really "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth then lies." - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietshe

    And I beleive that when it comes to AMD vs Intel there are alot of convictions in the IT world.
  • bhtooefr - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    #48, you're not going to see Doom 3 benchies because Doom 3 doesn't run on Linux, and even if it did, it'd be a regular x86 app, not x86-64/EM64T.
  • chaosengine - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    Yeah its really sorry to see this. I joined anandtech right now to post this damn message!!!

    So what next will we have? Since when sane people have started comparing Server chips against Desktop Chips???

    I thought anandtech was much less biased than others but sadly not the case.
  • dougSF30 - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    Problems with primegen benchmark:

    http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?me...

    "
    What Anand's "primegen" was actually measuring:

    *locking* and *unlocking* of the thread-safe version of putchar() was the bottleneck.

    switching to unlocked putchar made the benchmark run twice as fast.

    commenting out the putchar stuff entirely resulted in another factor of 2 faster.

    So:

    50% of time involves locking.
    25% of time involved input/output
    25% of time was actually doing arithmetic, calculating primes.


    Gosh, I wonder if The Prescott New Instructions MONITOR and MWAIT have anything to do with the selection of this benchmark, and the performance of Nocona?

    http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=115093892
    "
  • snorre - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    This is a sad day for all of us. Anandtech has now lost all credibility as an independent review site. First THG, now Anandtech, WTF is going on in the world? :(
  • DrMrLordX - Monday, August 9, 2004 - link

    In response to #93,

    I don't see 3500+ vs Opteron 150 being minor. It means the reviewer actually believes AMD's stupid PR scheme. Their PR scheme has always been wrong, and will likely always be wrong. The 3500+ is a glaring example of how screwed-up their PR scheme can get. Aside from dual-channel memory support, the 3500+ for socket 939 is the same cpu as the 3200+ Newcastle for socket 754. Previous Anandtech articles have highlighted this fact. Not only does KK's choice of cpus potray AMD as being in a position of weakness(somehow implying that AMD has nothing better to offer than the 3500+, that it's only purpose in the market is that its cheaper than Intel "just like always", etc), but it casts Intel in an unfavorable light by giving it a truly unworthy opponent. The 3500+ is a lousy processor for the price. The 3400+, which is clocked 200 mhz higher than the 3500+, is a superior CPU AND costs less. Dual-channel memory just doesn't do enough to justify any of the PR ratings AMD uses on its Socket 939 cpus.

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