Linux Desktop CPU Roundup: Cutting Edge Penguin Performance
by Kristopher Kubicki on September 19, 2004 8:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Linux
Summing it all up
We were extremely pleased to see the 64-bit applications generally perform better than their 32-bit counterparts. Unfortunately, there were still several cases where 64-bit binaries performed slower; John the Ripper being one of those examples. Some software, like MEncoder 1.0pre5 proved difficult to install on SuSE 9.1 x86_64 as well. We didn't even touch on the hundreds of software ports that do not have working 64-bit binaries yet, including Wine. Sometimes the advantage of speed does not outweigh the advantage of software compatibility.Another interesting revelation in our analysis came when we swapped our DDR2 memory with DDR1. We observed instances giving either memory configuration the advantage, with no clear winner. Although we tested several benchmarks and saw several trends, DDR2 versus DDR1 on Linux from a performance standpoint looks inconclusive. Even though DDR2 continues to fall in price, the additional premium makes it difficult to justify the cost. Our DDR2 memory configuration retails for $400 while our DDR1 configuration retails for $250. With many 915P and all 925X, you are not even given the choice of which memory type to chose, so weigh your motherboard performance on the value that you put on your memory. The DFI LanParty board that we used for this analysis supports both.
A straight comparison of processor against processor is not as simple as it looks. Price invariably becomes the strongest argument in buying one CPU over another. The cheapest CPU in our shootout (the Athlon 64 3500+) costs $350 while the Pentium 4 560 - if you can find it - retails for $500. The Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition and Athlon FX-53 both retail for over $800. If you are considering a processor merely on bang for your buck, the Athlon 64 3500+ does not disappoint. The only real reason why anyone should even consider buying an Extreme Edition or FX processor would be for overclocking (if that's your thing). As we saw in most of our benchmarks, the 3800+ and the FX-53 performed very similarly, usually within 3% of each other.
Realistically, the Pentium 4 560 and the Athlon 64 3500+ are the best contenders in this match up. In six months when we run this shootout again we will likely be saying the same things about the Athlon 64 3800+. For now, however, the Athlon 64 3500+ does an excellent job of balancing price with performance. Arguably the most compelling reason to suggest the Athlon 64 over a Pentium 4 would be for the extremely favorable 64-bit content creation binaries. Wary of x86_64 "gotchas", this editor just dual boots SuSE x86 and SuSE x86_64 for the best of both worlds.
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- Saturday, October 24, 2009 - link
sell:nike shoes$32,ed hardy(items),jean$30,handbag$35,polo shirt$13,shox$34Hugh R - Thursday, September 23, 2004 - link
Thanks for this article. It has been needed for about a year. Every previous benchmark of AMD 64 seemed to be 32-bit mode which is rather missing the point.Firefox 1.0PR on LINUX did not show the 64-bit results until I went to edit:preferences:web features:enable java advanced... and turned on lots of crap (I don't know which item made the difference).
The information was fascinating but the presentation was very awkward.
When you see a surprising benchmark result, it is a good idea to analyze why you were surprised. For example, I would guess that the poor showing for 64-bit code on John the Ripper might be due to hand-coded x86 assembly code. Note: just a guess.
The fact that Wine is only 32-bit seems pretty uninteresting/unsurprising: Win32 binaries are also only 32-bit.
Few things in the LINUX world are binary-only, so almost anything for which CPU performance matters can and should be run in 64-bit mode on a 64-bit processor.
bobbozzo - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link
You should be running all the compilation test with -j2 or higher, as otherwise the CPU is waiting for the disk more often.uyu - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link
Consider re-evaluating the test with the icc compiler:http://www.intel.com/software/products/compilers/c...
I do not think it will only favor the result of intel processors..
Zebo - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link
Why separate the graphs? Afriad of people easily visualizing major A64 ownage? Gawd that's hard to compare that way... I had to get out pen and paper.Shalmanese - Tuesday, September 21, 2004 - link
"throw an alternative opterating system"I like the attempt at subliminal advertising :D.
TrogdorJW - Monday, September 20, 2004 - link
On the LAME encoding benchmark, isn't the actual value really "Play time divided by encoding time"? Or perhaps "Relative encoding rate"? Anyway, the text explains the graph better (in 1 second the 64-bit FX-53 encoded 25 seconds of audio). Otherwise, good stuff.injinj - Monday, September 20, 2004 - link
Crafty does have a bit of hand tuned asm for both x86 and x86_64. Most of the operations are done with boards packed into bit representations. For example, like this:while (moves) {
to=FirstOne(moves);
*move++=temp|(to<<6)|(PcOnSq(to)<<15);
Clear(to,moves);
}
The FirstOne() function utilizes the bitscan ops of x86 (bsr = bit scan reverse), but notice the cmpl at the top:
cmpl $1, 8(%esp)
sbbl %eax, %eax
movl 8(%esp,%eax,4), %edx
bsr %edx, %ecx
jz l4
andl $32, %eax
subl $31, %ecx
subl %ecx, %eax
ret
l4: movl $64, %eax
The cmpl splits a 64 bit word into a 32 bit hi and lo words, so crafty will naturally exploit 64 bit instructions.
This same function on x86_64 can be done much fewer instructions:
asm (
" bsrq %0, %1" "\n\t"
" jnz 1f" "\n\t"
" movq $-1, %1" "\n\t"
"1: movq $63, %0" "\n\t"
" subq %1, %0" "\n\t"
: "=r&" (dummy), "=r&" (dummy2)
: "0" ((long) (word))
: "cc");
These are critical functions in crafty and if you see benchmarks comparing 64 bit crafty to 32 bit crafty, this is primarily why 64 bits is faster.
mczak - Monday, September 20, 2004 - link
what's up with the encryption benchmarks? "OpenSSL's crypt libraries are probably heavily optimized for 32-bit operation; we see the difference in the two architectures very clearly."But the results show that 64bit mode is more than two times as fast as 32bit mode in one case (RSA), and 50% faster in the other case (AES)?
(and btw I haven't looked at johntheripper, but it might contain hand-optimized assembly for x86, but only generic c code for other architectures such as x86_64.)
PrinceGaz - Monday, September 20, 2004 - link
The mouseover images work fine for me (Firefox 0.9.3)