| Page (2) of 2 - 09/06/06 |
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Keeping in mind that it's a single-processor against two processors with this HP machine, the performance of the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor was remarkable, as borne out in our benchmarks. The single processor soundly beats the two dual-core Opterons in tests one through six of our After Effects suite of benchmarks, encompassing bitmap rendering, Adobe Illustrator graphics rendering, video composite and animation projects, as well as a virtual set. If you're doing a lot of these kinds of tasks in After Effects, the Intel Core 2 Extreme chip will be a faster performer for you.
However, this HP workstation, with its quick NVIDIA nForce PCI Express Pro chipset and two dual-core Opterons, whips the Intel Core 2 Extreme in key benchmarks. For example, it scores a whopping 1554 on the CineBench rendering benchmark, beating the paltry 903 score turned in by the Core 2 Extreme machine (keep in mind, though, it has a 3.04x multiprocessor speedup, compared to the Core 2 Duo's 1.86x multiprocessor speedup ? there's two less cores). It finishes the TotalBenchmark Comp 2, a comprehensive set of Adobe After Effects tasks, at a quicker 630 seconds compared to the 781 seconds of the Core 2 Duo.
The Opteron wins the CPU section of the 3DMark 2006 test, too, at 3697 to the Core 2 Extreme's 2551, and the other two sections of the tests are a virtual dead heat. And finally, the Opteron 2220 SE takes the crown in the newest benchmark we've begun to use, the PCMark, at 8144 compared to the 7247 of the Core 2 Extreme.
| Results in minutes: seconds Boldface indicates winner. | Apple Mac G5, Dual 2.7GHz, 4GB DDR 400 SD RAM ($4598) | HP xw9300 Workstation, two dual-core Opteron 280 processors running at 2.4 GHz, 4GB DDR400 RAM ($5499)
| Dell Precision Workstation 380, single Intel Dual Core Pentium EE 3.2GHz processor, 2GB DDR2 RAM ($3496) | Dell Precision Workstation 390, Single Intel Core 2 Extreme 2.93GHz, 2GB DDR2 533MHz NECC RAM | HP xw9400Workstation, two dual-core Opteron 2220SE processors at 2.8GHz, 4GB DDR2-667 ECC RAM (PRICE) running Windows XP x64 |
| 1. After Effects: Animation | :05 | :02 | :03 | :02 | :05 |
| 2. After Effects: Video Composite | :40 | :40 | :38 | :20 | :39 |
| 3. After Effects: Data Project | 1:15 | :50 | 1:12 | :40 | :54 |
| 4. After Effects: Gambler | :17 | :17 | :19 | :10 | :23 |
| 5. After Effects: Source Shapes | 2:15 | 1:46 | 2:29 | 1:21 | 1:40 |
| 6. After Effects: Virtual Set | 2:36 | 1:24 | 1:53 | 1:13 | 1:20 |
| Maxon CineBench Rendering (CB-CPU score -- higher is better) | 658 | 1335 (3.05x multiprocessor speedup) | 715 (2.06 multiprocessor speedup) | 903 (1.86x multiprocessor speedup) | 1554 (3.04x multiprocessor speedup) |
| TotalBenchmark comp 1 | 78 sec. | 79 sec. | 87 sec. | 50 sec. | :52 sec. |
| TotalBenchmark comp 2 | 1202 sec. | 881 sec. | 992 sec. | 781 sec. | 637 sec. |
| Night Flight | 44:24 (2664 sec.) | 35:01 (2101 sec. | 35:01 (2101 seconds) | 50:04 (3604 sec.) | 30:07 (1807 sec.) |
| Hard Disk Speed | Read 52MB/sec. Write 66MB/sec. | Read 56MB/sec. Write 62MB/sec. | Read 121MB/sec. Write 97MB/sec. | Read 178MB/sec. Write 160MB/sec. | Read 159MB/.sec. Write 163MB/sec |
| 3DMark 2006 | SM: 1672 HDR: 1653 CPU: 2551 | SM: 1655 HDR: 1635 CPU: 3697 | |||
| PCMark | 7247 | 8144 |
Of course, testing these dual Opteron machines against a single-processor Intel Core 2 Extreme workstation is a classic apples-to-oranges comparison. But what we learned in this test is that the fastest Opteron processors are nowhere near as quick as Intel's latest Core 2 technology. Heck, just one of the dual-core Core 2 Extreme chips can beat two of the dual-core Opterons in many tests. Keeping that in mind, we'll next bring one of the newest dual Intel Xeon (Woodcrest) workstations into our Midwest Test Facility labs, where their dual/dual-core Core 2 technology has the potential to show these Opterons who's boss. Until then, HP xw9400 Workstation is our new King of the Hill, and even though it doesn't give you nearly the bang for the buck as the Intel-packing Dell Precision 390 Workstation, it's still recommended. 8.9 out of 10 stars.
Spec List: HP xw9400 Workstation ($5999)
Microsoft Windows XP Pro X64
AMD Opteron 2220SE, 2.8GHz, 1MB L2 cache per core
NVIDIA Quadro FX3500 256MB PCIe graphics
4GB HP DDR2-667 ECC (4x 1GB)
(2) 73GB SAS 3Gb/s 15K HDD, RAID 0 array
48x DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive
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