AMD 64 X2 4200 dual core seems slow

I have run Norton's Passmark Performance Test 5 from Systemworks 2005
and have some strange results after upgrading my Athlon Venice to a
dual core with 2GB DDR 400 RAM: This is CPU Benchmark

Athlon 3000 (2GHz) Venice: 373.9
Athlon 4200 (2.2Ghz) Dual Core 423.9
Lenovo T60 2400 Dual Core 816.3

Why of why does my ThinkPad with just 512MB RAM appear to be twice as
fast on the overall CPU test?

I'd appreciate comments
--
John Perry

http://www.redoak.co.uk
http://www.eze-buy.co.uk

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 10:35:38 +0100, John Perry wrote:

I have run Norton's Passmark Performance Test 5 from Systemworks 2005
and have some strange results after upgrading my Athlon Venice to a
dual core with 2GB DDR 400 RAM: This is CPU Benchmark

Athlon 3000 (2GHz) Venice: 373.9
Athlon 4200 (2.2Ghz) Dual Core 423.9
Lenovo T60 2400 Dual Core 816.3

Why of why does my ThinkPad with just 512MB RAM appear to be twice as
fast on the overall CPU test?

I'd appreciate comments

The A64 has Cool & Quiet which drops the clock speed when the processor is
running a light load. It sounds like your system isn't raising the clock
to full speed when it's running that benchmark. In Windows there is a
power management control panel, you should check to see if its set to some
low power mode (I'm a Linux user so I can't tell you what the proper
choice is in Windows but it should be obvious). It's also possible that
you are missing the drivers that control Coll & Quiet or that your BIOS
needs an update.

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 07:32:24 -0400, General Schvantzkoph
wrote:

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 10:35:38 +0100, John Perry wrote:

I have run Norton's Passmark Performance Test 5 from Systemworks 2005
and have some strange results after upgrading my Athlon Venice to a
dual core with 2GB DDR 400 RAM: This is CPU Benchmark

Athlon 3000 (2GHz) Venice: 373.9
Athlon 4200 (2.2Ghz) Dual Core 423.9
Lenovo T60 2400 Dual Core 816.3

Why of why does my ThinkPad with just 512MB RAM appear to be twice as
fast on the overall CPU test?

I'd appreciate comments

The A64 has Cool & Quiet which drops the clock speed when the processor is
running a light load. It sounds like your system isn't raising the clock
to full speed when it's running that benchmark. In Windows there is a
power management control panel, you should check to see if its set to some
low power mode (I'm a Linux user so I can't tell you what the proper
choice is in Windows but it should be obvious). It's also possible that
you are missing the drivers that control Coll & Quiet or that your BIOS
needs an update.

Thanks for that. I downloaded the latest drivers for the CPU, and
then the processor ran really hot and I had a blue screen.

Next I installed the AMD power monitor, and set the processor into
laptop mode, and now it runs cool at 33C not 45C! And then I ran
performance test again and the result was 410.

Now, what is interesting is that performance test only used I core and
the frequency went up from 1000 to 2200 and the voltage from 1.1 to
1.35V on that core, but the other core had nothing to do.

Conclusion is that I have the 10% improvement going from 2GHz to
2.2GHz, but I still have a spare core that is not being used, so the
performance is really around 800.

Now, how the Lenovo reports 816, is beyond me.

Thanks again for the tips!

--
John Perry

http://www.redoak.co.uk
http://www.eze-buy.co.uk

John Perry wrote:

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 07:32:24 -0400, General Schvantzkoph
wrote:

On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 10:35:38 +0100, John Perry wrote:

I have run Norton's Passmark Performance Test 5 from Systemworks 2005
and have some strange results after upgrading my Athlon Venice to a
dual core with 2GB DDR 400 RAM: This is CPU Benchmark

Athlon 3000 (2GHz) Venice: 373.9
Athlon 4200 (2.2Ghz) Dual Core 423.9
Lenovo T60 2400 Dual Core 816.3

Why of why does my ThinkPad with just 512MB RAM appear to be twice as
fast on the overall CPU test?

I'd appreciate comments

The A64 has Cool & Quiet which drops the clock speed when the processor is
running a light load. It sounds like your system isn't raising the clock
to full speed when it's running that benchmark. In Windows there is a
power management control panel, you should check to see if its set to some
low power mode (I'm a Linux user so I can't tell you what the proper
choice is in Windows but it should be obvious). It's also possible that
you are missing the drivers that control Coll & Quiet or that your BIOS
needs an update.

Thanks for that. I downloaded the latest drivers for the CPU, and
then the processor ran really hot and I had a blue screen.

Next I installed the AMD power monitor, and set the processor into
laptop mode, and now it runs cool at 33C not 45C! And then I ran
performance test again and the result was 410.

Now, what is interesting is that performance test only used I core and
the frequency went up from 1000 to 2200 and the voltage from 1.1 to
1.35V on that core, but the other core had nothing to do.

Conclusion is that I have the 10% improvement going from 2GHz to
2.2GHz, but I still have a spare core that is not being used, so the
performance is really around 800.

Now, how the Lenovo reports 816, is beyond me.

Thanks again for the tips!

--
John Perry

Note, the test program may be single threaded. The OS will then dump
the various sundry windows processes onto the other core as
it likes but likely those processes still won't work that one
out much compared to the load prog. which is made by design to use lots of
cpu. Try running two instantiations of the test program at the same time.
Mark

Look at the true speed of both desktop CPUs, 4200 only runs 10% faster.
The new 4200 uses added features for better performance (like 3DNOW
professional?)
But that does not mean that test programs will take full advantage of newer
instructions.
Your older 3000 comes with 1024K level two cache, the 4200 only has 512K per
core.
What CPU is in the ThinkPad?
Is it an AMD dual core running at 2.4GHz?

"John Perry" wrote in message
news
I have run Norton's Passmark Performance Test 5 from Systemworks 2005
and have some strange results after upgrading my Athlon Venice to a
dual core with 2GB DDR 400 RAM: This is CPU Benchmark

Athlon 3000 (2GHz) Venice: 373.9
Athlon 4200 (2.2Ghz) Dual Core 423.9
Lenovo T60 2400 Dual Core 816.3

Why of why does my ThinkPad with just 512MB RAM appear to be twice as
fast on the overall CPU test?

I'd appreciate comments
--
John Perry

http://www.redoak.co.uk
http://www.eze-buy.co.uk

Thanks for comments:

On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 21:12:02 GMT, "Frodo"
wrote:

Look at the true speed of both desktop CPUs, 4200 only runs 10% faster.
The new 4200 uses added features for better performance (like 3DNOW
professional?)
But that does not mean that test programs will take full advantage of newer
instructions.
Your older 3000 comes with 1024K level two cache, the 4200 only has 512K per
core.
What CPU is in the ThinkPad?

Intel T2400 Core Duo 1.83GHz

Is it an AMD dual core running at 2.4GHz?

1.35GHz in each core

Also the test only used one core in the AMD - I do not know if the
Intel processor was clever enough to use both.


"John Perry" wrote in message
news
I have run Norton's Passmark Performance Test 5 from Systemworks 2005
and have some strange results after upgrading my Athlon Venice to a
dual core with 2GB DDR 400 RAM: This is CPU Benchmark

Athlon 3000 (2GHz) Venice: 373.9
Athlon 4200 (2.2Ghz) Dual Core 423.9
Lenovo T60 2400 Dual Core 816.3

Why of why does my ThinkPad with just 512MB RAM appear to be twice as
fast on the overall CPU test?

I'd appreciate comments
--
John Perry

http://www.redoak.co.uk
http://www.eze-buy.co.uk



--
John Perry

http://www.redoak.co.uk
http://www.eze-buy.co.uk