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LOSTCIRCUITS	SHORTCUTS: Dual Core vs HyperThreading Tech Specs Test Setup Memory Performance WorldBench5 3dsmax CineBench 2003 3D Gaming Power/Temperature Coefficient Power Hogs 3D Rendering Power DOOM3 3DMark2001SE 3DMark'05 Final Thoughts Give Us Some Feedback on this Review
AMD Athlon64 X2 "Toledo" Dual Core on Single Die
(Review by MS May 9, 2005)

Final Thoughts

The Athlon64 X2 fell into our hands only 3 days before the embargo lifted and we tried our best to cover as many as posssible aspects of it. One thing that is clearly missing from this article is the multitasking aspect but no worries, we will get to that in due time. Aside from the actual benchmark results, we tried to focus on the power consumption of the dual core design since it appears somewhat obvious that there is no simple general fomula that would allow more than a rough estimate of the power drawn in any given application. Cases in point are the very different results in e.g. SiSoft Sandra's Burn-In Test on the one hand and a single instance of Prime95 on the other hand where single core processsors show exactly the opposite trend as dual cores. Likewise, we can look at single threaded 3D rendering applications and conclude that the overall power is below that of the Clawhammer when all that is needed is multithreading to let the power consumption skyrocket. Needless to say that the same goes for the performance, nothing comes from nothing.

The Athlon 64 X2-4800+ is a very smooth operator. There seems to be ample reserves for about everything conceivable that a normal or advanced or even a computer power user would encounter in daily tasks. There are certain limitations as well, gaming applications will not experience a 100 % acceleration, at least not the current generation of game. Likewise, there are enough programs out there that will not see any improvement over a comparable single core CPU, any standalone application that is run as a single application will behave about the same as with the Venice or Diego core. But that is not what it is all about.

SMP processing, even SMP on a chip is something that is going to change a lot of things. Whoever is involved in 3D rendering, even in single threaded applications will appreciate that the rendering process can be started and run in the background while at the same time, the computer does not come to a complete standstill or crawl where even my own limited typing speed exceeds the processing capabilities of the system. In addition, we are looking at ever more complex operating systems. The rule of thumb used to be: Whatever Andy giveth, Bill taketh away! Now we need to include Fred and Dirk and Hector and see how quickly Microsoft can act to make any single core architecture obsolete.

In conclusion, the Athlon64 X2 is another intriguing proof of the engineering prowess of the AMD team that opens new horizons in more than one aspect. We are currently following up with the P4 Extreme Edition Dual Core 840 for a duel of the duals but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, so stay tuned.

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