Arch Linux

hcjl

Member

From: berlin

Registered: 2007-06-29

Posts: 330

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550@2.83GHz slower than Core 2 Duo E4600@2.40GHz

Hi all,

I have got 2 Intel Core 2 systems with the following components:

System 1:
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9550 @ 2.83GHz
GPU: nVidia Corporation GeForce 9800 GT (rev a2)
RAM: 4 GB
Disk: ATA Hitachi HDP72505
Mainboard: ASUS P5QL-EM

System 2:
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E4600 @ 2.40GHz
GPU: nVidia Corporation GeForce 8400 GS (rev a1)
RAM: 4 GB
Disk: ATA Samsung HD252HJ
Mainboard: Intel So. 775

On both Arch64 is running with almost the same software installed. Installation and Configuration of both were without any problems.

The problem is that System 1 with the Quad CPU obviously is slower than System 2 with the Duo CPU. For instance converting a video from H.264 to XVID4 with Avidemux takes about 70 minutes on System 1 while it takes about 50 minutes on System 2.

CPU load on System 2 is much higher than on System 1. Load during conversion on System 2 is at approx. 75% and on System 1 at approx. 50%.

So it seems like System 1 is somehow throttled.

I did some benchmarking with the benchmarking suite of linuxuser.de with both systems and hardware seems to be fine on both. I.e. all components of System 1 are more powerfull than System 2, if I do not misinterpret the logs.

Here are the logs (on archlinux.de):
System 1 / Quad CPU > http://forum.archlinux.de/?page=GetAttachment;file=1183
System 2 / Duo CPU > http://forum.archlinux.de/?page=GetAttachment;file=1184

I would appreciate any ideas of getting a grip on the problem.

Thanks & Regards
hcjl

gun26

Member

Registered: 2007-07-05

Posts: 55

Re: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550@2.83GHz slower than Core 2 Duo E4600@2.40GHz

Here's a discussion about multithreading on avidemux's site http://avidemux.org/admWiki/index.php?t … ithreading

Note what they said about multithreading performance varying with different codecs. Maybe the ones you're using are wasting the resources of the quad core in attempting to run four threads. You might experiment with conversions that make use of different codecs to see if the same CPU load underuse happens with the quad core.

hcjl

Member

From: berlin

Registered: 2007-06-29

Posts: 330

Re: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550@2.83GHz slower than Core 2 Duo E4600@2.40GHz

Thanks for the advice. I will try to figure that out.
Rgds
hcjl