High-End Workstation Performance

Workstation performance, as measured by SPECviewperf, has been an area where Pentium 4 has dominated recently. The PC-DL is competitive, but certainly does not dominate Workstation performance when compared to other platforms running the same ATI Radeon 8500 video card. We suspect this is the result of the 533FSB.

If PC-DL were used as a workstation, it would likely be with a video card like the nVidia Quadro FX2000. So, we also compared the dual Xeon Intel 875 platform to our fast 2.0GHz single-CPU Opteron platform. The Dual-Xeon PC-DL is basically even with the single Opteron 2.0GHz, which was quite a surprise.

 SPECviewperf 7.0 Performance
nVidia Quadro FX2000 Workstation Video
 Benchmark  Asus PC-DL Dual Xeon 3.06  nForce3 Single Opteron 2.0
3DSMax 22.17 21.88
DRV 59.80 59.80
DX 59.83 59.87
Light 29.88 25.75
PROE 27.55 29.18
UGS 31.39 28.48

Certainly, faster Xeons and better overclocking will significantly improve the performance of the PC-DL. However, the close performance to Opteron makes us want to compare performance of dual Opteron to Dual-Xeon.

Gaming and Media Encoding Performance Content Creation and General Usage Performance
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  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    This review makes, me wonder...is it possible to use two P4 2400/800 CPU's on this board, maybe with some kind of adapter. Those P4's would likely outperform this Xeon setup and possibly also the Opteron, with a very interesting price tag, even if these adaptors would cost $50 each.

    And if anyone should see an Intel engineer, just tell him we want a 1000 MHZ FSB for those Xeons, as the i875 would surely pass all validation test at this speed, and the PC4000 memory is already available.
  • Wesley Fink - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    The 3200+ Athlon we use for testing AMD IS a Barton core. The 3.0 is the Intel CPU we have been using for benchmarking Intel.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Why not just make a dual 800FSB P4 system. With HT activated you'd get 4 virtual processors, something that XP Pro can handle.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    i see commens like like its they use thw 3.2Hz p4 but what performance they all expect? 80% from 3.0 to 3.2Ghz?>
  • Lonyo - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    "we are reviewing the PC-DL, and comparing it to the performance from the current top Pentium 4, Barton, and Opteron/Athlon64 boards that we have tested"

    Performance Test Configuration
    Processor(s): Intel Dual Xeon 3.06 (1 Mb Cache) 533FSB
    AMD Opteron Socket 940 at 2.0GHz (9x222) 444FSB
    Intel Pentium 4 at 3.0GHz (800FSB)

    No Barton in there, the top Opteron (or so I thought) was the 1.8GHz, and the top P4 is the 3.2 as far as I'm aware.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Dual Xeons is a joke. The P4 is starved for bandwidth in a SINGLE processor configuration at 533Mhz FSB. What makes anyone think TWO processors can handle being that starved? It's like eating spaghetti through a straw -- you can get a few noodles, but it's faster to go buy a fork. And, last I heard, Intel wasn't planning on bring a 800Mhz FSB to the Xeon, just a stopgap 667Mhz FSB. Almost any task can be performed better by a single P4 3.0Ghz processor then dual Xeons of any speed on any platform. Xeons make no sense as a consumer platform all. And, with Opteron here, they make no sense as a server platform, either.

    When can I see my Athlon64 vs. Pentium 4 benchies? I hardly think an overclocked Opteron counts. After all, the 2.0Ghz Athlon64 isn't going to run with dual-channel memory, anyway. Can you say Socket 754? Luckily, AMD is already moving to Socket 940/939 for future releases. Mmm. 64-bit goodness.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    I'm always dissapointed in dual cpu system reviews, as they never show how the systems multitask. I would like to see the FPS in UT3 while encoding a movie at the same time. Can you play games while burning a DVD? I would like to see the performance while performing multiple tasks at the same time.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Yea, I'll bet Intel thought they could Spin dual Xeons as a viable filler until Prescott arrives some day. Reality shows there is no way the P4 or dual-Xeons are gonna hold a candle to a single Opteron/A64 let alone a dual system. Intel is hurting as their 90 nano stuff is gonna be too little, too late, and the suckers draw a pile of current = a ton of heat. Who wants that in a system thats' too expensive and that under performs??? They should just scrap the Prescott and work on something worth releasing to the market before it's obsolete.
  • Anonymous User - Saturday, September 6, 2003 - link

    Somehow this review looks eerily familiar. Hrm, wonder why :P.

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