Intel Yonah Performance Preview - Part I: The Exclusive First Look at Yonah
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 30, 2005 2:50 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Multitasking Content Creation
MCC Winstone 2004
Multimedia Content Creation Winstone 2004 tests the following applications in various usage scenarios:
. Adobe® Photoshop® 7.0.1
. Adobe® Premiere® 6.50
. Macromedia® Director MX 9.0
. Macromedia® Dreamweaver MX 6.1
. Microsoft® Windows MediaTM Encoder 9 Version 9.00.00.2980
. NewTek's LightWave® 3D 7.5b
. SteinbergTM WaveLabTM 4.0f
All chips were tested with Lightwave set to spawn 4 threads.
While the 2.0GHz Yonah processor is faster than the Pentium D, the X2 3800+ manages to hold a marginal 6% lead over Intel's newcomer. This is somewhat of a disappointment, given the enhancements Yonah has that are specifically designed to improve performance in situations like this. While Yonah is doing better than Dothan here, it's not good enough to beat AMD.
ICC SYSMark 2004
The first category that we will deal with is 3D Content Creation. The tests that make up this benchmark are described below:
"The user renders a 3D model to a bitmap using 3ds max 5.1, while preparing web pages in Dreamweaver MX. Then the user renders a 3D animation in a vector graphics format."
The situation changes dramatically when we look at SYSMark's ICC performance, here the 2.0GHz Yonah is right on the heels of AMD's Athlon 64 X2 4200+, maintaining just under a 7% lead over the identically clocked X2 3800+.
Next, we have 2D Content Creation performance:
"The user uses Premiere 6.5 to create a movie from several raw input movie cuts and sound cuts and starts exporting it. While waiting on this operation, the user imports the rendered image into Photoshop 7.01, modifies it and saves the results. Once the movie is assembled, the user edits it and creates special effects using After Effects 5.5."
Yonah continues to fall in between the X2 3800+ and the 4200+, this time being much closer to the former.
The Internet Content Creation suite is rounded up with a Web Publishing performance test:
"The user extracts content from an archive using WinZip 8.1. Meanwhile, he uses Flash MX to open the exported 3D vector graphics file. He modifies it by including other pictures and optimizes it for faster animation. The final movie with the special effects is then compressed using Windows Media Encoder 9 series in a format that can be broadcast over broadband Internet. The web site is given the final touches in Dreamweaver MX and the system is scanned by VirusScan 7.0."
Once more we see that Yonah isn't perfect, being outpaced by the X2 3800+ by around 8%. Of course power consumption matters, but we'll save that comparison for the end of this article :)
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monsoon - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
i am waiting for overclocking tests and most of all the coming release of a MAC MINI with this baby inside. I'm going to run windows on it if possible ( so does it come with VT or not ? ). Hopefully january won't be a let down from apple...tfranzese - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Are you dense?Ask yourself: What's the mini's price point? Now, what do you think this chip's price point will be?
I think you're dreaming.
Furen - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
I wouldnt quite put it like that. I think single-core Yonahs will find themselves thrown into the cheaper Mac Minis, I dunno if apple will actually make a premium version with the dual-core CPUs.forPPP - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
I don't understand all those comments that AMD is 2 year ahead because Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is on average 8% faster.Yohan is MOBILE cpu, while Athlon 64 X2 is desktop. Please compare Yohan with Turion and then complain.
Intel has lead with 65 nm technology which means AMD won't catch it up for very long in mobile market. Turion dual core at 90 nm will be far far behind Yohan.
rpsgc - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Yonah is a 65nm dual-core, Turion is a 90nm single-core....
forPPP - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
[quote]Yonah is a 65nm dual-core, Turion is a 90nm single-core....[/quote]And that's why for now there is nothing to compare. Yonah is its in own class. Even "Turion Dual Core" will be behind it, because of power consumption problem.
tfranzese - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Really? I can't pick a notebook up today that has one, so comparing a processor that's been shipping for quite some time to this one means little.
Further, no one seems to point it out, but does Yonah not have 64-bit extensions? If not, now that near every desktop CPU sold today has them it'd be a real shame if 64-bit Windows development gained momentum.
forPPP - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Great point. You are right. It's the biggest disadvantage of the Yonah.
Viditor - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
WHAT power consumption problem?
Shintai - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Maybe the power problem with adding over twice the transistors.Dothan->Yonah ~140mio to ~151mio ~8% more transistors
Turion->Turion X2 ~105mio to ~233mio(X2 current) ~121% more transistors.
And transistors = powerusage.