SSE4 performance increase for wolfdales?

[winkgood]

I've been looking for info on the new instruction set and its impact on benchmarks for programs that will utilize it. I've heard that DivX 6.7 and higher will utilize it as well as TMPEG Express. Does anyone have information regarding the amount of performance increase that it offers? How well does a wolfdale do versus a conroe clocked at similar speeds in a program utilizing SSE4? Would the performance increase be significant enough that an overclocked Wolfdale (say 4.3 Ghz) could do video encoding in these apps as well as a Kentsfield Q6600 overclocked (say 3.5 Ghz)?

I'd really like to see actual benchmarks. Why is Toms so slow at getting out wolfdale benchmarks anyway? I thought for sure they would have an article out by the release of them. Hopefully it means they are working on an update of the CPU charts. Those really need to get the latest games and programs on them to be more useful.

 

[exit2dos]

Intel is claiming a 40% increase for encoding and a 20% increase for gaming with SSE4 optimizations.

ATM, I haven't seen a Wolfdale benchmark from any reputable site. However, there were ES benchmarks out a couple of months ago which showed the Wolfdale to be 5 - 11% faster - with about 20% gains in OpenGL, but I don't take ES benchmarks as gospel. Always best to wait for the benchmarks on the actual shipping steppings.

For encoding, I specualte that the Q6600 will be faster. With encoding, each frame can spawn it's own thread - so I think that the quad's ability to handle more threads will more than make up the difference in encoding speed, even at your suggested overclocks.

If encoding is a big factor for you, I think you should wait for the Yorkfields. They won't be much more than the current quads (Extreme Editions excluded), and you could then have 4 cores + SSE4. Worth wating a couple months for, especially since most software isn't going to be SSE4 optimized right away.

 

[zenmaster]

XBITLABS has a big article on the Wolfdale.

However, not much if anything is really optimized for the new SSE4 yet.
Basically, that is a future benefeit you will see.

 

[bob8701]

http://www.iax-tech.com/cpu/e8400/08.htm