Product Listing

AMD Turion 64 X2 Performance Preview

By Vijay Anand - 17 May 2006

Benchmarks & Closing Comments

Benchmark Results

Results – Futuremark PCMark04

Since we have a ready pool of results from the slightly older PCMark04 test suite, we begin our comparison with CPU performance based on this benchmark. Looking at the scores in the graph below, the Turion 64 X2 processor has a near 50% performance jump from its single-core sibling. Given that that the once single 1MB L2 cache of the old Turion 64 processor is now halved to 512KB L2 cache per core on the Turion 64 X2, we believe that if each core had double the cache, the Turion 64 X2 would have garnered a much higher score against its older single-core sibling.

Results – Futuremark PCMark05

The performance standings don't really vary all too much on the 2005 version of the same benchmark but note that the performance berth between the Turion 64 X2 and the rest of the processors have increased somewhat from PCMark04. One of the more obvious reasons that explain this disparity is that PCMark05 tests are larger and benefit from the larger cache of the comparison processors more than in PCMark04.

Results – Futuremark 3DMark05

Games that are multi-threaded definitely strongly favor the Turion 64 X2 processor and its older single-core variant isn't all that shabby itself. The X2 version gives 10% more performance crunching power and as you can see from the results, this test isn't too cache sensitive. The processor's performance here is as good as any regular desktop dual-core system, which is very commendable.

Closing Comments

From the rather small pool of results gathered, the AMD Turion 64 X2 processor seems to garner very positive results. When you take into consideration that what we had time to hands-on was a mere TL-52 processor model and not the top of the line version, I'm sure you can take a guess of what the top performing model has in store and we are very eager to find that out when the possibility arises.

As long as the Turion 64 X2 lives up to it TDP spec and manages power even better than its predecessor, we are pretty sure that the processor combined with the forthcoming mobile platform update from NVIDIA and ATI can really propel AMD's Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology into strong consumer favor. Hopefully, the Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology would be a bigger sleeper hit than the first generation Turion 64. If it does, AMD has created yet another winner, but a new first for the mobile segment. While Intel's Core 2 Duo processors are slated to be out in the third quarter of this year, AMD's next revision of mobile processor would be out to play catch then and probably give Intel a good run-in because AMD's next revision of the Turion 64 X2 would be based on the 65nm silicon process technology. Rumored to have a similar TDP as the current processors, you can probably imagine that it's going to be a lot smaller and faster even when nothing else is propped up. While this is up for argument couple of months away, stay tuned for the near timeline when we assess a full retail Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology notebook for the complete lowdown.

Join HWZ's Telegram channel here and catch all the latest tech news!
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.