| Dual Core on a Budget |
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Best times are bolded.
Photoshop
CS 2 - I measured the time it takes to apply a 100% Radial
Blur at best quality to a 1.29mb image. Adobe's built-in timer was
used. (lower is better) |
| AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.5ghz |  |
33.3s |
| Intel Pentium D 805 @ 3.9 ghz | |
38.4s |
| AMD X2 3800+ (stock) | |
41.1s |
| Intel Pentium D 805 (stock) | |
55.1s |
| Intel Xeon 2.66 @ 3.1ghz | |
38.3s |
The X2 has a fairly nice lead on the competition.
Cinebench
2003 - I measure the time it takes to run the multiple (blue)
and single (grey) CPU image rendering test (lower is better) |
| AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.5ghz |  |
39.9s / 75s |
| Intel Pentium D 805 @ 3.9 ghz | |
41.1s / 76.5s |
| AMD X2 3800+ (stock) | |
49.7s / 93.2s |
| Intel Pentium D 805 (stock) | |
60s / 111.9s |
| Intel Xeon 2.66 @ 3.1ghz | |
39.6s / 84.4s |
Cinebench 2003 is one of the rare programs that supports 4 threads! The Xeon with Hyper Threading takes advantage of this as you can see it inch away for the lead.
DVD
Shrink - I measured the time it takes to compress LOTR:
The Two Towers DVD (lower is better) |
| AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.5ghz | |
9:19 |
| Intel Pentium D 805 @ 3.9 ghz | |
7:42 |
| AMD X2 3800+ (stock) | |
10:55 |
| Intel Pentium D 805 (stock) | |
11:02 |
| Intel Xeon 2.66 @ 3.1ghz | |
9:14 |
Here is where the Pentium D 805 shows it's pure horsepower.
Mpeg
to DivX - I measured the time it takes to convert a 1.53gb
Mpeg file to a 356mb DivX file using ImToo Mpeg Encoder (lower is
better) |
| AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.5ghz | |
17:24 |
| Intel Pentium D 805 @ 3.9 ghz | |
18:16 |
| AMD X2 3800+ (stock) | |
22:21 |
| Intel Pentium D 805 (stock) | |
26:12 |
| Intel Xeon 2.66 @ 3.1ghz | |
23:15 |
The overclocked X2 coasts to victory.
Wav
to MP3 - I measured the time it takes to convert a 312mb
wav file to mp3 using Blaze Media Pro (lower is better) |
| AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.5ghz | |
2:03 |
| Intel Pentium D 805 @ 3.9 ghz | |
2:15 |
| AMD X2 3800+ (stock) | |
2:35 |
| Intel Pentium D 805 (stock) | |
3:21 |
| Intel Xeon 2.66 @ 3.1ghz | |
2:36 |
Once again, the efficiency of the overclocked X2 wins the battle.
PC Mark 05 - only
relevant tests are recorded |
Intel Pentium D 805 (stock) |
AMD X2 3800+ (stock) |
Intel Pentium D 805 @ 3.9 ghz |
AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.5ghz |
Intel Xeon 2.66 @ 3.1ghz |
| Web Page Rendering | 2.15 |
2.35 |
3.12 |
2.96 |
2.6 |
| Audio Compression | 1538.8 |
1925.76 |
2222.2 |
2464.62 |
2146.07 |
| Video Encoding | 245 |
285 |
366.38 |
366.41 |
291.85 |
| Text Edit | 105 |
116.58 |
154.26 |
144.13 |
89.96 |
| Image Decompression | 21.28 |
22.82 |
31.34 |
28.34 |
20.79 |
| File Compression | 5.28 |
6.08 |
7.35 |
7.25 |
6.59 |
| File Encryption | 24.95 |
17.28 |
43.4 |
22.38 |
23.84 |
| Memory Latency | 7.76 |
10.2 |
9.14 |
11.22 |
7.93 |
PC Mark 05 provides interesting results. In synthetics, the overclocked Pentium D 805 clearly has the advantage over the overclocked X2. Unfortunately, this doesn't translate into the real wold and it makes synthetic benchmarking pointless.
Results
Despite a 1.4ghz deficit, the overclocked X2 3800 wins 5 out of 6 real world tests against the overclocked Pentium D 805. It's only defeat, although by a large margin, was in DVD Shrink. The overclocked 805 didn't go down without a fight. The following charts show the percentage difference of the overclocked 805 against the other processors.
Percentage
Difference - Real world testing |
Pentium D 805 @ 3.9 ghz v.s. |
AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.5ghz |
AMD X2 3800+ (stock) |
Pentium D 805 (stock) |
Xeon 2.66 @ 3.1ghz |
| Photoshop CS2 | -13.28% |
+6.56% |
+30.3% |
-0.26% |
| Cinebench 2003 (multiple) | -2.9% |
+17.3% |
+31.5% |
-3.64% |
| Cinebench 2003 (single) | -1.96% |
+17.91% |
+31.63% |
+9.36% |
| DVD Shrink | +17.35% |
+29.46% |
+30.21% |
+16.6% |
| Mpeg To DivX | -4.74% |
+18.2% |
+30.27% |
+21.4% |
| Wav to MP3 | -8.88% |
+12.9% |
+32.83% |
+13.46% |
| Average | -2.4% |
+17.05% |
+31.12% |
+9.48% |
Percentage
Difference - Synthetic testing PC Mark 05 |
Pentium D 805 @ 3.9 ghz v.s. |
AMD X2 3800+ @ 2.5ghz |
AMD X2 3800+ (stock) |
Pentium D 805 (stock) |
Xeon 2.66 @ 3.1ghz |
| Web Page Rendering | +5.12 |
+24.67 |
+31.08 |
+16.66 |
| Audio Compression | -9.83 |
+13.33 |
+30.75 |
+3.42 |
| Video Encoding | -0.008 |
+22.21 |
+33.12 |
+20.34 |
| Text Edit | +6.56 |
+24.42 |
+31.93 |
+41.68 |
| Image Decompression | +9.57 |
+27.18 |
+32.09 |
+33.66 |
| File Compression | +1.36 |
+17.27 |
+28.16 |
+10.34 |
| File Encryption | +48.43 |
+60.18 |
+42.51 |
+45.06 |
| Memory Latency | -18.53 |
-10.39 |
+15.09 |
+13.23 |
| Average | +5.33% |
+22.37% |
+30.59% |
+23.04% |
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