The latest version of PCMark puts a heavy emphasis on multithreading and multitasking. For full details, check out the Whitepaper.

The system test suite is a collection of tests that are run to generate an overall PCMark score. Three of the test scenarios are run multithreaded - two of those include two simultaneous tests and one is with four tests running simultaneously. The remaining eight tests are run single threaded. The System Test consists of the following tests:

• HDD - XP startup
• Physics and 3D
• 2D - Transparent windows
• 3D - Pixel Shader
• Web page rendering
• File Decryption
• 2D - Graphics memory - 64 lines
• HDD - General usage
• Multithreaded test 1: Video encoding & Audio Compression
        This test runs the Video encoding and Audio Compression tests at the same time multithreaded.
• Multithreaded test 2: Text Edit & Image Decompression
        This test runs the Text Edit and Image decompression tests at the same time multithreaded.
• Multithreaded test 3: File Encryption & HDD - Virus scan & Memory - Latency 16MB & File compression

In the first test that uses real-word processing, the Core 2 Duos are ahead by a somewhat significant margin. Now is the time to remind you that the E6400 and X2 4600+ are priced approximately the same.

The CPU test suite is a collection of tests that are run to isolate the performance of the CPU. The CPU Test Suite also includes multithreading: two of the test scenarios are run multithreaded; the other including two simultaneous tests and the other running four tests simultaneously. The remaining six tests are run single threaded. The tests in the CPU suite include:

• File compression
• File decompression
• File Encryption
• File Decryption
• Image decompression
• Audio encoding
• Multithreaded test 1: File compression & File Encryption
        This test runs the File Compression and File Encrypting tests at the same time multithreaded.
• Multithreaded test 2: File decompression & File decryption & Audio decompression & Image decompression
        This test runs the File compression, File decryption, Audio decoding and Image decoding tests at the same time multithreaded.

With such a heavy emphasis on multithreading and multitasking performance, we will get our first glimpse how each processor's architecture handles such tasks.

This time the margin is slightly smaller between the two bottom processors.

We've been using CineBench for quite some time now, as a representation of how a system will perform in 3D rendering. Using Maxon's popular Cinema4D engine, CineBench should do quite a good job of showing real world performance, while giving results that are easy to compare. Maxon has just released CineBench 9.5, which includes 32- and 64-bit Windows binaries, as well as a universal binary that will run in both Windows and MacOS X for direct comparison. We're using the Windows 32 bit version here:

The strong floating-point performance of the Athlon64 is probably what's allowing it to keep up with the Core 2 Duo here. So far this review isn't looking like the slaughterfest I was expecting. That is, if you are mainly rendering 3D scenarios. Let's see what happens when we throw some tests that are more relevant to what you most likely do: video and audio encoding, etc.

Next Page: (Video Encoding)

Page 1: Introduction Page 2: Pricing; Heat Output Page 3: Test Config; SiSoft Sandra Page 4: PCMark 05; CineBench 9.5 Page 5: Video Encoding Page 6: Audio Encoding Page 7: Gaming Page 8: SYSMark 2004 SE Page 9: Conclusion