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    core i7 turbo mode

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by cyberanto, Nov 22, 2009.

  1. cyberanto

    cyberanto Notebook Guru

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    I have two laptpos, one with a quad Q9550 and a new one with an i7Q720. In theory, when the i7Q720 is in turbo mode (2.8GH), its performance should be almost equal to the Q9550.

    Starting a j2ee server (jboss5.1.0.GA) clean default installation results:

    i7Q720 Q9550
    33.6sec 22.9sec

    Obviously I expected a much better result from the i7! I checked bios - turbo mode is enabled, I do not run any other significant process other than the usual OS stuff which takes up insignificant cpu time. I do not believe I am disk i/o limited, (the i7 runs the server off a fast SSD)

    My energy settings are all high ...

    I have not yet had time to run other benchmarks to investigate further, just got the i7 yesterday.

    Can anybody shed light on this?
     
    cyberanto, Nov 22, 2009
    #1
  2. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    The Q9550 is a desktop CPU. The i7 will never touch it since it's not at 2.8GHz but at 1.6GHz (Turbo Mode would be 1.73GHz). Only when it shuts down the other cores will it go to 2.8GHz.
     
    sgogeta4, Nov 22, 2009
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  3. BrandonSi

    BrandonSi Notebook Savant

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    Yes, it's not a fair comparison. I'm surprised you expected the low-end mobile i7 to compete with a mid to high-end quad desktop CPU. If you compared apples to apples, with the Q9550 against the i7 920/950, you'd see the i7 blow away the Q9550.
     
    BrandonSi, Nov 22, 2009
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  4. narsnail

    narsnail Notebook Prophet

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    Clock speed doesnt compare apples to apples with these two generations, I would say your mobile version is fairly close to the Q9550 to be honest, and the desktop versions would simply blow away the Q9550.

    How many cores does this server clean default thing use? Is it single, dual, quad?
     
    narsnail, Nov 22, 2009
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  5. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    While you can't compare the clock speed directly, typically, an i7 quad at the same clock speed as a C2Q, would perform better (but definitely under +100% better). The massive increase in the desktop C2Q's clock speed more than makes up for the older architecture in pretty much any application.
     
    sgogeta4, Nov 22, 2009
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  6. cyberanto

    cyberanto Notebook Guru

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    This question hits the nail on the head :) - I had assumed that the server would be single threaded during most of the startup, but simply using task manager confirmed that up to 6 real/virtual cpus got involved.

    This explains why the performance "in Q9550 cycles" is about 1.9 GHz for my server startup on the core i7 Q720, as opposed to 2.83 GHz for the Q9550.

    For my line of work I should gain a lot by upgrading my core i7 mobile. Still phantastic machine overall - I get much more mobility with this box.
     
    cyberanto, Nov 22, 2009
    #6