Time to shine - let's load up them cores
| WAV encoding of 701MB file | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core i7 965 EE | Intel Core i7 920 | AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE | Intel C2E QX6800 | Intel C2E QX9770 | Intel C2Q Q9450 | Intel Core i7 940 |
| 88.78 | 104.82 | 142.2 | 104.6 | 87.77 | 105.38 | 96.6 |
Intel Core i7 965 EE
Intel Core i7 920
AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE
Intel C2E QX6800
Intel C2E QX9770
Intel C2Q Q9450
Intel Core i7 940
0
25
50
75
100
125
150
There's nothing to be gained with respect to dual-threaded WAV encoding when it's run as a single-instance test. Here, Core i7's improvements don't really matter one bit, and that will be a common theme if your application-set tends to be run in isolation and unable to take advantage of the architecture's benefits.
| DivX 6.8.3 + LAME encoding, enhanced multithreading on | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core i7 965 EE | Intel Core i7 920 | AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE | Intel C2E QX6800 | Intel C2E QX9770 | Intel C2Q Q9450 | Intel Core i7 940 |
| 179.55 | 214.1 | 333 | 253.86 | 220.89 | 263.62 | 196.1 |
Intel Core i7 965 EE
Intel Core i7 920
AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE
Intel C2E QX6800
Intel C2E QX9770
Intel C2Q Q9450
Intel Core i7 940
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
But even the slowest and cheapest Core i7 is faster than the £850 QX9770 in our multi-core-threaded DivX test. It shows just how much extra performance is available if the workload is just right.
AMD's Phenom X4 9950 BE is considerably slower, of course, but it costs only £120.
| Pov-ray 3.7.0 beta 25a - 64-bit | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core i7 965 EE | Intel Core i7 920 | AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE | Intel C2E QX6800 | Intel C2E QX9770 | Intel C2Q Q9450 | Intel Core i7 940 |
| 3951.9 | 3311.15 | 1727.11 | 2354.88 | 2625.32 | 2186.66 | 3631.18 |
Intel Core i7 965 EE
Intel Core i7 920
AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE
Intel C2E QX6800
Intel C2E QX9770
Intel C2Q Q9450
Intel Core i7 940
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
| CINEBENCH R10 64-bit - multi-CPU render | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core i7 965 EE | Intel Core i7 920 | AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE | Intel C2E QX6800 | Intel C2E QX9770 | Intel C2Q Q9450 | Intel Core i7 940 |
| 18334 | 15448 | 9872 | 11706 | 14059 | 11709 | 16677 |
Intel Core i7 965 EE
Intel Core i7 920
AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE
Intel C2E QX6800
Intel C2E QX9770
Intel C2Q Q9450
Intel Core i7 940
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
Professional software tends to be multi-threaded and optimised for multi-core processors. As such, the gains in our POV-ray and CINEBENCH tests are nothing short of excellent - the Core i7 920 making the previous champion, Core 2 QX9770, look decidedly slow.
| WinRAR 3.80 compression of 1.2GB file | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Core i7 965 EE | Intel Core i7 920 | AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE | Intel C2E QX6800 | Intel C2E QX9770 | Intel C2Q Q9450 | Intel Core i7 940 |
| 272 | 301 | 514 | 538 | 422 | 447 | 287 |
Intel Core i7 965 EE
Intel Core i7 920
AMD Phenom X4 9950 BE
Intel C2E QX6800
Intel C2E QX9770
Intel C2Q Q9450
Intel Core i7 940
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
And that's brought to bear when using multi-threaded WinRar to wrap up a 1.2GB file.
