Intel Dual Core: Multi-Tasking Benchmarking

The benchmarks

Test #1

Our first test was by far the most requested benchmark to be requested by our readers. One unlucky reader talked about being in a CAL match for CS and having his virus scanner start to run mid-game and kill his gaming performance leading to his teams defeat all thanks to the virus scan. For this test we ran a full scan of Norton and then ran Doom 3 at the same time.

Results: The Intel 640 took a 24% hit in performance when run with the virus scanner enabled, which is a significant difference in performance. The Intel 840 with Hyper Threading enabled came in only 4% slower, and that isn’t a significant performance difference. Dual core easily proves to be the victor here.

Test #2

The second benchmark simply adds listening to MP3’s to the mix. Not everyone wants to listen to the audio in their video games, so they add their own music during the gaming experience. We keep Norton 2004 running, make our own unique play list, and then get the action going with Doom 3.

Results: Interesting results here because the Intel 640 actually improved a bit by adding a third application. The dual core processors with and without Hyper Threading still prove to be the winner though.

Test #3

The third benchmark used was proposed from a reader who like to watch movies on a second monitor at the same he played games. For this we ran the movie Training Day on Power DVD 6 and again scanned with Norton and benchmarked Doom 3.

Results: Here we see the single core processor taking the biggest hit in performance yet at 30%. The game play was slow at points as a result of all the applications being run on the Intel 640. The dual core Intel 840 processor took nearly a 10% performance hit in this testing environment.