Multitasking

To test out these processors in the multitasking environment, we took set up an unlikely scenario and ran a few games. While running, get this, Prime95, mIRC, and streaming audio off of a CD, we played both Quake 4 and Counter-Strike: Source to get an idea of the performance hit we would take by having lots of stuff running in the background. The demo we used for CS:S was Gotfrag Demo #16691.






As you can see here, the performance hits in general were pretty minimal, with the only really significant drops coming in Counter-Strike: Source, probably because it is not optimized for use with dual-core processors whereas Quake 4 is. Even still, 20 FPS seems pretty low considering the circumstances we are testing are quite implausible and significantly more demanding than anything we would really do. Then again, with processors this powerful, we might have to rethink what we consider to be standard practice on a personal computer.