Intel Dual Core: Multi-Tasking Benchmarking

Benchmarks Continued

Test #4

Our next test is for all those out their working on distributed computing projects around the web. Legit Reviews has a folding team #38296 to help scientists fight cancer and Alzheimer’s through understanding protein folding. If you don’t know about F@H read the above link and see if it something you are interested in! Since many run this application 24/7, we ran one instance of folding, Norton 2004 on full scan, and also Doom 3 to get a measure of performance.

Results: Really amazing results were seen when Folding @ Home was thrown into the mix. The Intel 640 choked and a 34% performance hit, for an all time high. At the same time the Intel 840 took its biggest performance hit of the day at 24%. What was interesting though was the Intel 840 with HT disabled! It hardly took a performance hit. If you are a folder it is clear that you should disable Hyper Threading!

Test #4

Everyone downloads that massive file from the Internet and has to wait for it to download before doing anything else right? No way! We threw the virus scan, internet downloading, and Doom 3 at our test bed.

Results: As we have been seeing all review, the Intel 640 takes the biggest performance hit at 15%. The Intel 840 w/ HT comes in at 7%, which is a significant difference.

Test #6

We also got some e-mails asking us to run DVD Shrink as it takes roughly 45-60 minutes to complete, and enthusiasts tend to do other things while waiting to burn that backup disk.

Results: Just like we saw in our F@H testing the Intel 640 and Intel 840 take a large performance hit, while the Intel 840 with HT disabled takes the lead.

Enough Doom 3 testing! Time to move on to a quick timed test and then round up all of our thoughts.