AMD Athlon X2 4400+/4600+/4800+
Energy Efficient: Performance Analysis

Energy Efficient processors from AMD (they consume 65 Watt maximum, while regular Athlon 64 X2 processors consume 89 Watt) appeared rather long ago, but... we were too busy to review them. :) Today we present an article about three EE processors: 4400+, 4600+, and 4800+. Besides, two of them are manufactured by the 65-nm process technology (4400+/4800+). Theoretically, it should have a positive effect on their power consumption. Our inquisitive readers will finally learn about performance of the new 4400+ model (modern Athlon 64 X2 with this model number differs in technical characteristics from the old modification).

There is a little intrigue in this review: the 65-nm Athlon 64 X2 processors come with L2 cache with worse latencies. Besides, processors with non-integer multipliers (the new 4400+ - 11.5, the new 4800+ - 12.5) do not work with memory at full frequency owing to architectural limitations of the built-in memory controller. So, the real frequency of DDR2-800 memory with the 4400+ is just 767 MHz, with the 4800+ - 714. Thus, there are a number of preconditions for lower performance of the new modifications.

Representatives of the other platform were chosen in a traditional way: the total average score of one of them must be lower than the worst result of our processors under review, and the average score of the second must be higher than the biggest score of our processors under review. Thus, you can see how these AMD processors fare - their performance is in between the competing processors we have chosen.

Hardware and Software

Testbed configurations

Processor	Pentium E2160	Core 2 Duo E6420	Athlon 64 X2 4400+	Athlon 64 X2 4400+ EE	Athlon 64 X2 4600+ EE	Athlon 64 X2 4800+ EE	Athlon 64 X2 5000+
Process Technology, nm	65	65	90	65	90	65	90
Core Clock, GHz	1.8	2.13	2.2	2.3	2.4	2.5	2.6
# of cores	2	2	2	2	2	2	2
L2 Cache*, KB	1024	4096	2x1024	2x512	2x512	2x512	2x512
FSB clock**, MHz	800 (QP)	1066 (QP)	2x800 (DDR2)	2x800 (DDR2)	2x800 (DDR2)	2x800 (DDR2)	2x800 (DDR2)
Multiplier	9	8	11	11.5	12	12.5	13
Socket	LGA775	LGA775	AM2	AM2	AM2	AM2	AM2
Heat dissipation***, W	65	65	89	65	65	65	89
AMD64/EM64T	+	+	+	+	+	+	+
VT	-	+	+	+	+	+	+

* - "2 x ..." means per core
** - for AMD processors this is memory controller bus clock rate
*** - measured differently for Intel and AMD processors; impossible to compare directly.

Software

1. Windows XP Professional x64 edition SP1
2. 3ds max 9 x64 edition
3. Maya 8.5 x64 edition
4. Lightwave 3D 9 x64 edition
5. MATLAB R2006a (7.2.0.32) x64 edition
6. Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire 2.0
7. SolidWorks 2005
8. Photoshop CS2 (9.0)
9. Visual Studio 2005 Professional
10. Apache HTTP Server 2.2.4
11. CPU RightMark 2005 Lite (1.3) x64 edition
12. WinRAR 3.62
13. 7-Zip 4.42 x64 edition
14. FineReader 8.0 Professional
15. LAME 3.97
16. Monkey Audio 4.01
17. OGG Encoder 2.83
18. Windows Media Encoder 9 x64 edition
19. Canopus ProCoder 2.01.30
20. DivX 6.4
21. Windows Media Video VCM 9
22. x264 v.604
23. XviD 1.1.2
24. F.E.A.R. 1.08
25. Half-Life 2 1.0
26. Quake 4 1.3
27. Call of Duty 2 1.2
28. Serious Sam 2 2.07
29. Supreme Commander 1.0.3220

Testing

Essential foreword to charts

Our test method has two peculiarities of data representation: (1) all data types are reduced to one - integer relative score (performance of a given processor relative to that of Intel Core 2 Duo E4300, given its performance is 100 points), and (2) detailed results are published in this Microsoft Excel table, while the article contains only summary charts by benchmark classes. We will nevertheless focus your attention on detailed results, when needed.

3D Modeling and Rendering

The first results are shocking: the new 4400+ is outperformed by the old, the latter is even faster than the new 4800+! Only the old 90-nm 4600+ EE is doing fine: quite a decent result that goes well with the results demonstrated by the 5000+. But it's based on the old core with a faster L2 cache. It also has an integer multiplier, so its memory operates at standard 800 MHz.

CAD/CAE

This situation is better, but it's still far from being ideal: the 4800+ EE is not outperformed by the old 4400+ anymore, but it's still slower than the 4600+ EE. The new 4400+ is again outperformed by the old modification.

Digital Photo Processing

Judging by the results, a core clock rate is more important for Photoshop than memory frequency and cache size: the new 4400+ finally manages to outscore the old modification at least by one point. The 4800+ also manages to catch up with the 4600+.

Compile

This situation is as bad as on the first diagram. There are many reasons for that, they all play against the 65-nm core: the compiler is sensitive to cache size, and to its speed, and to memory bandwidth.

Web server

It's another test critical to memory bandwidth and cache size, so the results are predictable. I don't want to generalize, but two identical columns with 92 points suggest sad ideas about "model number inflation": the old 4400 processors perform on a par with the new 4800...