PhenomII X4 955 vs Intel cor2 duo E6700

[Atom]

I just built a computer using the AMD cpu. It consists of:
Phenom X4 955/3.2 Ghz
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO mobo
8Gb OCZ3G1333LV8GK R ram
Win7(64)

I built it to replace a 3+ year old machine consisting of:
Intel E6700 Core 2 duo/2.66 Ghz
Asus P5QL-VM DO mobo
4Gb PC5300 DDR2-667 ram
WinXP(32)

The passmark ratings on these chips are 3934(AMD) and 1649(E6700).

Both of these systems are using onboard video.

When I run the freeware benchmark program called CPU Free Benchmark 2.2 I get these results:
AMD 41.74 seconds
Intel 25.63 seconds

Furthermore, when I run an application specific benchmark for the app which I the primary reason I have either of these machines, they both get the same score (TradeStation).

I consulted another forum where I got a lot of feedback and ran some additional benchmark tests(PCMark Vantage and SiSandra). This was somewhat inconclusive although some of these tests indicated performance that was within reasons for the AMD. Didn't run these same tests on E6700 as I was comparing with other posted results.

Given the Passmark ratings, I thought I would post the question here to see if anyone has an idea about how to get more out of the AMD (without overclocking).

Thanks.

tom

[wonderwrench]

I just built a computer using the AMD cpu. It consists of:
Phenom X4 955/3.2 Ghz
Asus M4A785TD-V EVO mobo
8Gb OCZ3G1333LV8GK R ram
Win7(64)

I built it to replace a 3+ year old machine consisting of:
Intel E6700 Core 2 duo/2.66 Ghz
Asus P5QL-VM DO mobo
4Gb PC5300 DDR2-667 ram
WinXP(32)

The passmark ratings on these chips are 3934(AMD) and 1649(E6700).

Both of these systems are using onboard video.

When I run the freeware benchmark program called CPU Free Benchmark 2.2 I get these results:
AMD 41.74 seconds
Intel 25.63 seconds

Furthermore, when I run an application specific benchmark for the app which I the primary reason I have either of these machines, they both get the same score (TradeStation).

I consulted another forum where I got a lot of feedback and ran some additional benchmark tests(PCMark Vantage and SiSandra). This was somewhat inconclusive although some of these tests indicated performance that was within reasons for the AMD. Didn't run these same tests on E6700 as I was comparing with other posted results.

Given the Passmark ratings, I thought I would post the question here to see if anyone has an idea about how to get more out of the AMD (without overclocking).

Thanks.

tom

Is it possible that CPU Free and TradeStation do not support multi core CPU's? Or only 2 cores. When you run these programs how many cores show activity in task manager/performance tab? If only one or two cores are being loaded it would explain what you are seeing. Clock for clock and core for core both CPU's will perform close to the same. Any program that can use 4 cores fully will run much faster on the 955 than on the E6700. If not you will see little or no difference between the two systems.

You could compare the two systems using Everest. Its not a fee program but is fully functional in demo mode.

Bill

[Atom]

I think you have hit on the real problem. I know for a fact that TradeStation only uses a single core and is a 32 bit app so that really explains the equivalent performance. Doesn't really matter that they don't match up on CPU Free. What I have seen is that people running overclocked i7's can run the TradeStation benchmark twice as fast as my machines. Since they are running about 4 GHz to do this I thought I might see more improvement going from 2.7 to 3.2 GHz, but I didn't see any. I guess I'll just have to wait until the software I run catches up to current cpu capability.

Thanks,
tom

[David (PassMark)]

Yes if TradeStation is 32bit it can't use all that extra RAM you have on the 64bit system. It also won't get any speed benefit from the 64bit CPU instructions (which can happen if a lot of 64bit data is being used).

And if it is a single threaded program it won't use the extra 2 cores you have.

So it wasn't the best thought out upgrade if the only reason for the upgrade is to run this TradeStation application.

The i7s are faster CPUs than the Phenomx4. Even when only a single core is used.