Dual Core Linux Performance: Two Penguins are Better than One
by Kristopher Kubicki on July 1, 2005 5:55 AM EST- Posted in
- Linux
The Hardware
We attempted to purchase and scavenge hardware that fits about the same price bracket. We could have easily thrown in an Athlon 64 X2 4800+ or an FX processor but we opted to pick out slightly more practical hardware instead.
Test Configurations |
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Processor: |
Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Manchester |
Intel Pentium D 840 |
RAM: |
2 x 512MB OCZ PC3200 EL Dual Channel DIMMs 2-2-2-10 |
2 x 512MB Crucial DDR-II 533 Dual Channel DIMMs 3-2-2-12 |
Motherboard: |
Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra SLI |
Intel D955XBKLK |
Memory Timings: |
Default |
|
Operating Systems: |
SUSE 9.3 Professional x86_64 |
|
Kernel: |
Linux 2.6.11-21.7 |
|
Video Cards: |
Gigabyte 6800GT GV-N68T256D |
|
Hard Drives: |
Seagate 160GB Barracuda SATA |
|
Compiler: |
GCC 3.3.4 |
You may notice a few things off the bat; first of all, we are not using any of the Pentium 4 5xx processors. This is because we anticipated only doing our benchmarks on a 64-bit OS. The processors we selected today all run in the $250 to $600 range. These processors are a bit on the high end, but the various speed bumps between the chips should demonstrate the scalability of the processor in our benchmarks.
We are running the relatively new SUSE 9.3 Professional for this analysis. All programs were compiled via the GCC 3.3.4 compiler unless they were preinstalled on the operating system. All multitasking benchmarks are launched from shell scripts unless stated otherwise.
We owe a special "thank you" to Monarch Computer for rushing us the Intel motherboard used in this review!
69 Comments
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ProviaFan - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
On the OS and Kernel rows in the table on the Hardware page, the contents are reversed... :)blackbrrd - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
I tried putting together a Pentium D820 and an Amd 64 x2 4200+ in a norwegian webshop (cpu+motherboard+1gb ram) and they came out about equally pricedQuestar - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
Wouldn't the buffer underruns on the DVD burning tests be caused by disk contention and not CPU load?The DvD - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
Interesting review. Nice work, Kristopher.btw, shouldn't there be a j=3 graph for the 4200+ in the compiling multitasting benchmark?
Frallan - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
Interesting... AMD does not show Intel the door in this one. However it would be very interesting to se total costs of system and the 4400+ as well.Gratz Intel!
Viditor - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
I must say that this review very much surprises me! The Pentium D looks much stronger than it has in any of the other reviews...congrats to Intel on this one.Tiamat - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
The "siamese" penguin image gave me a nice laughViditor - Friday, July 1, 2005 - link
I will NOT say first post!One question so far...were the default memory settings on the AMD setup 1T or 2T?
shane3in1 - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
I was wondering the same thing.