New i7 core PC tested mediocre

[m_l_lee]

Hi all, I ran PerformanceTest on my less than a week old Dell XPS Studio with i7 Core 920 processor... The result is very disappointing. Please help me to figure out what's wrong with my new PC...

First, I compare my result with another PC with similar configuration. And mine is heart-breakingly slow... here's the result:



I then recheck both system's configuration to make sure they are comparable.... this is what I find...



Both system are almost identical (except graphic card). But when I looked closer, it shows only 2 core on my i7 920 processor!

I'm not a techie. Can someone explain to me why my computer tested so poorly, and why only 2 cores shown on my system. Last but not least, what can I do to improve my PC's CPU mark?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

James

[Michael (Passmark)]

For some reason PT is only detecting 2 cores on your system. Your results are in line with having half the cores that should be present.

Can you check in windows task manager under the performance tab to see how many CPU usage history graphs are present. The should be one graph per core/cpu and then double that due to the presence of hyperthreading. So for an i7 there should be 8 graphs (4 cores * 2 hyperthreads per core). If you only see 4 then that is in line with what PT is detecting and for some reason your system isn't detecting all of your CPU's cores. If this is the case you might want to check your BIOS settings to see if there is anything in there amiss.

If you do see 8 graphs in task manager then is seems PT is detecting something wrong. Can you let us know what version you are using. Also if window is detecting all the cores correctly you should be able to go to preferences in PT and increase the number of processes to 8 and you should see your CPU score improve.

[m_l_lee]

I am running PerformanceTest 7 (64 bit) ... I have Vista 64 bit ..
Also... I see only 4 graphs on the Task Manager....

[Michael (Passmark)]

It sounds like your system really is only using 2 of the 4 cores then. This may be a BIOS option. It could also be a windows setting as mentioned here (http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1230058.html).

Msconfig -> Boot tab -> Advanced options
If "Number of processors" is checked, uncheck it and reboot. See if the problem is solved. If it is already unchecked, check it and select 8 processors and reboot.

[m_l_lee]

Michael, thanks for your reply.

I followed what was said on the forum you referred... doesn't work. It shows only 4 processors, not 8 as the other user experienced. Also, in Device Manager, I see only 4 CPU Core, not 8 that the other user sees on his system.

In the BIOS, under Multiple Core, I only given the choices of ALL, 1, 2.

What does that mean? It means something wrong with the motherboard?

[m_l_lee]

Updates:

Good new! I finally am able to get the Device Manager to show 8 Cores, and be able to get all cores running... The PT also shows 4 cores as opposed to the 2 cores showed previously. Here's my latest result:



As you can tell, even with all cores running, this system is considerably slower than the other system. Why would that be?

Also, I tried to do some intensive work on the PC (Ripping a DVD), it's pretty slow... then I checked the CPU usage, the CPU usage data maintain around 10%. Shouldn't it go higher to speed up the ripping? Is it normal?

Thanks.

[wonderwrench]

Care to tell us how you fixed the problem?

[Michael (Passmark)]

When PT is first run it detects the optimal number of proccesses for the CPU tests and sets that in the preferences. Seeing as the number of cores in your system has effectively changed you will now need to go manually change that yourself. In "edit->preferences" in PT you should now set the "number of procceses" to 8. See if that helps your score.

As for the ripping of DVDs. That is a task that requires several different computer components working together to produce a result (DVD drive, RAM, hard disk, CPU). If your CPU isn't loading itself fully then there's probably a bottleneck somewhere else. My guess would be that the rest of your system spends most of its time waiting for the DVD drive to read the data.

Also note that a lot of applications will only load a single core/thread of your CPU at most as most apps aren't designed to make use of multi-core systems. Because of this you generally won't see anywhere near doubling of performance with a doubling of cpu cores. Although there are some benefits to the fact application can effectively get their own core to work on and not have to share it with other apps.

[m_l_lee]

Care to tell us how you fixed the problem?

Thanks to the forum Michael referred me to, I first got the idea that the problem could be windows/BIOS related as opposed to hardware/motherboard.

I flash the BIOS with the newer version of BIOS, then I went into BIOS to change the "Multiple Core CPU" setting to "ALL".

When the computer restarted, I was able to see all 8 cores on the devices manager. I then went into MSCONFIG --> BOOT --> Advance options , and changed the number of processor to "8" (It was showing only 4 before I flash the BIOS)

[m_l_lee]

Hi Michael, thanks for your help. You were exactly right. I was able to change it to 8 and my new results are almost identical to the benchmarks now.. Thanks.