If you wanna test the CPU in games, why don't you use also Grand Prix 4 and Everquest 2: those two games have a 3D engines that use a lot more the CPU than the video card.
I will not be surprised if conroe ends up costing twice as much in the retail channel as what is being stated at the current time. It might take a while for the prices to stabilize and then fall back down towards the prices that are being quoted at the present time...
OH MYGOD I am so tired of these Conroe vs. FX , Intel vs. AMD benches -
You find them everywhere in every incarnation on every website in every printed medium..
and i am tired of this Intel-AMD fanboy crap...
Anand had a chance of testing the first mainstream motherboard for Conroe that will be sold in 100 k quantities in the next months. This would have opened a ideal chance of testing the Intel claims of the new 965 chips much better performance.
and why so silent about the used motherboard ....
gone.... anand took the "SUN " way
sorry for my..english it is not my native language
do think on single application the conroe extreme is somewhat better than fx62 but remember Anand's comparsion was with ghz of 2.93 for conroe and 2.8 for athalon fx....
Also his benchmark of fx62 must be on poorly optimized system. Here's the proof:
sysmark 2004 overall office
anand core extreme--- 266
anand fx62---210
pc stats fx62--- 261
anand core extreme--- 280
anand athlon fx62--- 185
pc stat fx62--- 214
business winstone 2004
anand core extreme--- 32.8
anand athlon fx62--- 27.9
pc stat fx62--- 36.4
Check out the Sysmark2004 overall and Business winstone 2004!!!
What the heck happened to Anand's FX system?
Where the heck is the multi-application tests?
Why couldn't Anand run the full gamut of tests if he had these systems in his hotel room? He said he had to hurry up before people figured out that he had a Coroe chip in his room.... SAD SAD SAD.....
Definitely, Anand's FX system was crippled by poor memory... This is very very sad statement on Anand's objectivity....
Athlon FX going to 65nm soon with gigzhertz up to 3.2 to 3.4, will be the performance leader in 4q-2006. Intel will have no answer. INTC is now saying "competitive processors" not "AMD beating processor"
quote: Definitely, Anand's FX system was crippled by poor memory... This is very very sad statement on Anand's objectivity....
Both systems were setup identically to ensure an unbiased test platform with both boards being configured at default settings, the way a system will be delivered to the customer. I can ensure you that lower latency settings also improve Conroe's performance.
quote: Athlon FX going to 65nm soon with gigzhertz up to 3.2 to 3.4, will be the performance leader in 4q-2006. Intel will have no answer.
We have already know that Intel has production ready Conroes at much higher stock speeds than what will be released in July. However the transition to 65nm allows AMD to do signficantly more changes than just clock speeds, like improving the memory controller which is where they will realize significant improvements beyond the current DDR2 memory setups. Of course, we will be talking about DDR3 and 45nm production for Intel next year so just be happy the CPU landscape is competitive again. I must have missed the Conroe scores in your PCstats article. ;->
do think on single application the conroe extreme is somewhat better than fx62 but remember Anand's comparsion was with ghz of 2.93 for conroe and 2.8 for athalon fx....
Your opinion which is not widely shared. CPU speeds were noted and commented on. Everyone who read the article was fully aware.
Also his benchmark of fx62 must be on poorly optimized system. Here's the proof:
Check out the Sysmark2004 overall and Business winstone 2004!!!
This only proves PCstats used a different configuration. Previewing their article I could not delineate if they were testing at 2.8 or 3.08, the 2 speeds for the FX-62 they listed in their system configuration. (I could have missed it, I quickly previewed it.) They also used a different system configuration then what Anand had at his disposal.
What the heck happened to Anand's FX system?
It appears nothing. These tests echo results that have been known for sometime.
Where the heck is the multi-application tests?
Why couldn't Anand run the full gamut of tests if he had these systems in his hotel room? He said he had to hurry up before people figured out that he had a Coroe chip in his room.... SAD SAD SAD.....
I do believe Anand answered your question on the very first page and has been referenced numerous time on this very page.
"Keep in mind that we had a very limited amount of time with the hardware as to not alert anyone that it was missing and being used for things it shouldn't be (not yet at least), so we weren't able to run our full suite of tests. We apologize in advance and promise we'll have more when Conroe launches, but for now enjoy."
Completely up front as Anand usually is.
Definitely, Anand's FX system was crippled by poor memory... This is very very sad statement on Anand's objectivity....
In Anand's comparison, identical memory was used in like systems. PCstats comparison cannot make the same statement. PCstats numbers are hardly comparable and certainly not grounds for accusations.
Athlon FX going to 65nm soon with gigzhertz up to 3.2 to 3.4, will be the performance leader in 4q-2006. Intel will have no answer. INTC is now saying "competitive processors" not "AMD beating processor"
As I have no idea where you came up with these statements, I see no need to comment on what appear to be your beliefs. Beliefs require blind faith, something I have none of.
If you just have to believe Anand has been corrupted, stay away from the other sites that are and will be reporting like comparisons with similar data and conclusions.
Anand's comparison was a great early indicator and has for the most part confirmed what has been reported on various sites for the last few months.
I was very impressed with the Conroe numbers. I have an Uncle who works for Intel and I really liked his demeanor about the chip. He commented they have a great chip in line for consumers, but he didn't seem over the top. He knew AMD would respond and it sounded like Intel's attitude has changed for the better. Instead of flaunting gigahertz numbers they are getting down to business. The Conroe intro a few months back was controlled by Intel probably to generate discussions like these and increase market awareness. Now that we know they were legit, it has cemented more purchasers in the future. I suspect there will be a lot of AMD users on the forums asking which intel chipset to get to match the Core 2.
The difference seems to be the HD PC Stats is using a Raport, Anand a Hitachi) instead of the memory (alltough it will have some impact, maybe even the SLi setup will have some impact).
If you look at the communication test (which, according to Anand, is very I/O bound) you'll see:
Anand:
FX-62: 178
Core 2: 184
PC Stats:
FX-62: 263
D940 - 189
That is a huge difference. That will sureley translate into the overall scores, and it will influence some of the other scores.
The tests they have shown definetly have value to them. They are the tests that could be done in the time provided to show some nice direct comparisons between the very near future "top end" CPUs.
To all those complainging about 1024x768:
Once they have the CPUs back in the labs I'm sure they will give us some highend video benchmarks as well. While the CPU doesn't have the largest impact at extreme resolutions I'm sure everyone can agree that it does have an impact, expecially with software driver overhead. However we should be more concerned with testing the CPUs on SLI/CrossFire. Other benchmarks have shown that the CPU can be a real limiting factor in high res SLI tests due to the large overhead from the SLI/CrossFire drivers. These CPUs are in the price bracket of those looking at SLI and even QUAD SLI systems (I can hardly begin to imagine the CPU overhead from QUAD SLI).
Personally I don't mind the 1024x768 ... then again that's probably because I run a large 27" 1280x720 pannel for gaming.
I was shocked to see the chip being used was 2.93Ghz. I was expecting it to be the 2.67Ghz chip Intel showed off.
However this doesnt take away from the chip itself, it is still a very fast chip and I see an E6600 in my future.
However if you get time I am curious what kind of performance differences the AMD platform see's between this new Nvidia chipset and the chipset used by Intel. To me it appears to be at least a single speed grade if not more. The %'s appear on the surface to be the same as Intels demo but the difference is you are stuck using a higher speed grade to get this performance difference.
Nice grab AT editors! I knew someone would find a way to get out hard info before the NDA, glad it was AT.
With this knoledge I'm budgeting the E6600s (2.40GHz/4M) for my next SFF build. And I'm content waiting just a little longer.
Only thing that will disapoint me with the new build will be the lack of any true DX10 video options. However, thanks to what you've shown us, it looks like the first gen DX10 will be too power hungry for a SFF machine. Looks like I'll have to manage with a single 7900GTX or 7950GX2.
Why didn't you take 4-4-4-12 memory which should give AMD much more speed thanks to smaller latency?
This benchmarks only proves that IDF preview when 2.8 Athlon vs. 2.66 Conroe was benchmarked was setup by Intel - most of the benchmarks show 20% difference, not 30-40%.
Conroe is 4.5% faster clock-for-clock than AMD.
Taking an AVERAGE not RARE AND LOW DDR2 memory from the market and lowering clock to 2.8 should prove that Conroe is maybe faster clock-for-clock. And I belive that author knows that, but no conclusion about that.
Who am I? Just a computer user who understands all the fuss Intel is spreading from last 3 months. It is all about "controlled benchmarks" who proves nothing except a wish to beat competitition. If you look around to see other benchmarks you can see that Athlon performance is slight different.
Look here http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1...">http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1... and you will see that Athlon was able to get 261 instead of 210 in Anand test.
Conroe gets 266. So this is 266 (2.93GHz vs 261 2.8GHz? You see the difference?
You can't really compare our test results to those found on other sites simply because I'm not sure what testing methodology was employed, as well as due to stated differences in hardware (e.g. HDD differences can impact Office Productivity tests considerably). You'll notice that our numbers are in line with what we've published previously for SYSMark 2004.
The one thing I can guarantee is that the AMD and Intel systems we tested were as close to the same spec as possible so the numbers are directly comparable to one another, which is what matters the most.
I understand 3% difference, but not 20% because of WD Raptor and SLI configuration. RAM is the answer so I wait for benchmark with CL4 and CL3.
It is also important to see 64-bit performance for both competitors.
quote: RAM is the answer so I wait for benchmark with CL4 and CL3.
It is also the answer for Intel to some degree. I think you will understand this once the NVIDIA 590 Intel memory benchmarks are available along with production level 965/975 boards capable of running the Core 2 Duo at 3-2-2-8 at 800MHz, something AMD is not capable of yet. ;-) Our initial memory tests were set to each board's default settings, the way a typical system will delivered to the customer, this ensured there were not any "unbiased" tweaks used for either system.
Why do you expect it to be more, not when CAS4 vs CAS5 has barely shown more than a few percent benefit. Here a couple of reviews using CAS4 DDR2-800. The FX-62 scores 220 and 219 respectively:
Just read Toms Hardware review and from that comparison to this in FEAR min FPS it looks like the 2.66 vs the FX-62 is only a small difference of around 5fps with conroe wining. Based on that and Anands article I think its clear to say that a 2.93 conroe only going around 270mhz more over its 2.66 offers more performance in terms of clock cycle performance then what the FX-62 clock for clock can do. If you see the results you can see that the 2.66 conroe is 58fps on min FEAR bench and Fx-62 is 53, and they also have the FX-62 there OC to 3.00 GHz and its result was 55fps, notice the OC FX-62 gains only 2 FPS in min fps FEAR bench and the Conroe 2.93 vs the Fx-62 gains 27 fps in the min fps FEAR bench.
That tells me that the increase in clock for clock performance on conroe scales much higher in performance then AMD FX-62. The FX-62 on Toms was running at 200 MHz more and only 70 MHz difference in the 2.66-2.93 conroe. Also keep in mind Toms review uses a RX1900 and Anand uses a 7900GTX, some performance difference there on those 2 video cards as well, also note Toms uses a 1280x1024 resolution using high settings.
It seems impressive that although each benchmark isn't identical that the conroe can increase in performance in a single benchmark just by going to the 2.93 from 2.66, very impressed how well it scales in comparison to FX-62.
So a 2.66 core 2 duo going to 2.93 core 2 duo extreme offers this much gain vs almost same clock increase on Fx-62 OC to 3.00 GHz is great, assuming im clear on the 2.66-2.93 is only a increase in clock and nothing else? Can you let me know if its just an increase in clock from 2.66 to 2.93 or is it clock and cache or something else in there? Im just trying to make sense of the fact that briefly comparing TOMS results to yours im seeing a better increase in performance when clock is increased on conroe over FX-62, thanks. If this is the case I can't wait for conroe 2.93 core2duo extreme so I can get my OC on this bad boy.
Which leads me to this. You guys at Anand had a chance to test this OC'ing the FX-62 by any and comparing? It would be great if you can elaborate on the difference in OC performance on each.
cant wait till somebody gets their hand on a 65nm Athlon and benchmarks it..... should see how Intel's oh so wornderful processor fares then! AMD was able to extract good performance jumps when moving from 130nm to 90nm, if they r able to do the same when moving to 65nm, they have Intel in a spot again!
quote: should see how Intel's oh so wornderful processor fares then! AMD was able to extract good performance jumps when moving from 130nm to 90nm, if they r able to do the same when moving to 65nm, they have Intel in a spot again!
Apparently you don't realize that the speeds of Core 2 Duo at launch are not the only speeds that will be available as time progresses. Intel isn't just going to leave Core 2 Duo at the speeds available at launch.
So far, AMD only got an extra 400MHz/15% out of the transition out to 90nm. Conroe is expected out in late July, AMD's 65nm parts may be at the end of the year, and at lower clock speeds than the fastest 90nmp parts.
impressive not really, just shows all the benchmarks we were seeing before were close to reality. minus the 40% faster when it closer to 20% faster on avg.
Does this matter to me no. Will I still be buying a dual core opteron to put in my 939 board yes. I'll check back again in 18-24 months what is on the market then, until then just videocard upgrades for me. All u fanboys can fight over who has the better processor and larger e-penis till the next century. Does intel or AMD care probably not, why cause they make there money from the system builders.
Boys and there toys, you would think things would change as some of u guys get older. nope just like grade school.
Kudos to intel for finally making something people want to buy again.
Kudos to AMD for waking the sleeping giant.
This is good for us all, can u say cheaper cpu's.
Now i'm going to bed, Gnite all and may u all wake up 2morrow and see there are more important things in life!
quote: impressive not really, just shows all the benchmarks we were seeing before were close to reality. minus the 40% faster when it closer to 20% faster on avg.
Does this matter to me no. Will I still be buying a dual core opteron to put in my 939 board yes. I'll check back again in 18-24 months what is on the market then, until then just videocard upgrades for me. All u fanboys can fight over who has the better processor and larger e-penis till the next century. Does intel or AMD care probably not, why cause they make there money from the system builders.
Boys and there toys, you would think things would change as some of u guys get older. nope just like grade school.
If that was the case then you wouldn't be posting on a enthusiast website meant to show performance and benchmarks of new technology, surely you took the time to get registered to post.
If you hadn't been so interested in this community then why make a posts. I see nobody else bashing enthusiasts on these forums, lol its out of context someone coming here saying we are like grade schoolers because we are interested in technology.
Take a clue, technology runs this world and the people in it, also it is mainly a big market where 100's of thousands of people work in this type industry. Perhaps if you don't like the people who post here who are so eager for the next best thing then don't come reading the stuff lol. PEACE!
first of all I love technology And I think both companies are great. my complaint is u lil kids and your fighting over pointless shit all the time. its never ending. I actually like coming to the forums to read stuff that is intelligent and that I can learn from. All the fanboyism shit gets old quick. The point of my post is Who give a flying fuck which cpu is faster. as long as it fits in your budget and meets your needs. That is one of the reason's I hardly go to tom's Hardware anymore they use to be now the forum is over run with lil kids and my intel this my AMD this. None of these companies Care what u think they just want your money. yet u guys fight like your in a war for there loyalty. I just wish some of u would grow the fuck up.
quote: We have all seen the top AMD vs the top Intel cpu, but for those of us who don't own 5 Ferraris and a Maybach, when can we expect realistic reviews.
I would like to see the lower 3 Conroes (2.4ghz in particular as it has the bigger cache) vs normal AMD cpus in the same price bracket.
As for my fandom since I have to explain it or else face certain flaming, I own 3 Intels and 3 AMD cpus. That will be all.
Not really worth it as the $530 chip is gonna beat the FX anyway. At same price point it won't be even worth comparing.
And congrats to AT(especially Anand) for making an early and non-biased review.
quote: Not really worth it as the $530 chip is gonna beat the FX anyway. At same price point it won't be even worth comparing
I don't think that's what he meant. I think he wants to see some more realisticly priced Conroe's and X2's. Of course, if you actually read what he said, you would know that.
quote: I don't think that's what he meant. I think he wants to see some more realisticly priced Conroe's and X2's. Of course, if you actually read what he said, you would know that.
Doesn't matter, because at this rate, it won't be worth considering at the same price point, so why look. He can see, but its like those people who wants to see CPU performances at 2048x1536 4xAA/8xAF when there will be no difference between top of the line and Celeron D. It's already know, do you just have to see it??
Well I would still be interested in a full review, of all the speeds of Conroe with a few X2's thrown in the mix as comparison points. Which I'm sure is what AT's final review will be like.
Presumably AMD is also going to do some significant price cutting until K8L is released in order to stay competitive. Anyone know this for sure?
Toms Hardware has the slower 2.66 conroe up against the Fx-62. Im sure AMD is lowering prices, already seen significant drops in AMD CPU's in past week.
To rephrase what I said for the ignorant masses, I want to see the lower clocked Conroes compared to X2s of the same price (300~) and hopefully we will have that when it is released.
quote: We have all seen the top AMD vs the top Intel cpu, but for those of us who don't own 5 Ferraris and a Maybach, when can we expect realistic reviews.
I would like to see the lower 3 Conroes (2.4ghz in particular as it has the bigger cache) vs normal AMD cpus in the same price bracket.
As for my fandom since I have to explain it or else face certain flaming, I own 3 Intels and 3 AMD cpus. That will be all.
Not really worth it as the $530 chip is gonna beat the FX anyway. At same price point it won't be even worth comparing.
And congrats to AT(especially Anand) for making an early and non-biased review.
so from a gamers perspective, and im guessing gamers are the only ones that care for the bleeding edge, does this cpu do anything for performance in games @ 1280x1024+ resolutions?
quote: so from a gamers perspective, and im guessing gamers are the only ones that care for the bleeding edge, does this cpu do anything for performance in games @ 1280x1024+ resolutions?
Yes, our tests were run at a lower resolution to keep the GPU from being a "bottleneck" to a certain degree. The performance differences in a couple games at 1600x1200 were slightly better for Conroe than at the 1024x768 setting. We did not have enough time with the 965 board to complete our test suite, but that will be coming in the near future. :-)
Any rumors of when Apple's Conroe based Intel Mac will be released?
That is: the full-fledged, 64 bit, desktop Mac (replacement for the dual-CPU G5 machine).
Though "full-fledged, 64 bit" will have to wait a little while until Apple launches a new MacOS version that has 64 bit support. Not that it really matters right now anyway, since 4GB is still enough for most users, and they should be ready in time for these people.
Probably about the same time as Conroe launches. Apple is unlikely to sit around while Dell tempts their customers with fast, lower power CPUs. I imagine Apple will probably treat CPUs like they do GPUs. That is, when something substantially better comes out, they'll time it to launch a new tower/laptop/whatever so they don't get caught selling older hardware.
Server lost my last post! Hope it doesn't come up twice! Reiterating what I previously wrote. I'm currently in Taipei and have had the chance to test both the X6800 and the FX-62. Neither "feel" faster than either in normal use, but both "feel" significantly faster than the Pentium DEE. Using low resolution gaming, Conroe runs about 20% faster than the AMD, give or take a few percent. The chap at Intel also said that the Intel chip is not faster in every game or app. There a few apps that AMD can take over Intel. What needs to be done is testing using multithreaded apps run in a multiapp environment. In any case, Intel has a winner here.
Quake 4 has SMP support, and it was enabled. SysMark2004 also does some multitasking. Getting a proper multitasking test configured and run takes quite a bit more time, unfortunately, so when given the choice of testing 6-8 applications vs. one multitasking setup, we have to currently settle for the former. In a few more months, we'll of course do our best to provide comprehensive testing. "One night in Bangkok..." er... Taiwan is not the best for getting every ounce of information we would like. :)
LOL.. Just want to see more test.. Anand and the gang.. I wish I was there!! Please no offense on my posts.. just trying to stir the humor pot a little..
But.. is there some real world application that would put Conroe's FSB memory limit to the test and where AM2 would then perform better, because if not.. it is going to be a cold, dark summer and fall for AMD.
quote: But.. is there some real world application that would put Conroe's FSB memory limit to the test and where AM2 would then perform better, because if not.. it is going to be a cold, dark summer and fall for AMD.
AM2 was NEVER meant to be a performance boost so to expect anything more is idiotic! Of course, Conroe would outperform AM2 as it is a new design with new improvements. AM2 is just DDR2 on the present tech. Considering that Conroe is all new tech, I expected even GREATER performance from the new platform. Either way, we now have a fair amount of choices when it comes to CPU's. I can now recommend Intel processors to my cusatomers (well I can recommend them next year when prices go down and there are more mid and low end Conroe's available).
quote: AM2 is just DDR2 on the present tech. Considering that Conroe is all new tech, I expected even GREATER performance from the new platform. Either way, we now have a fair amount of choices when it comes to CPU's. I can now recommend Intel processors to my cusatomers (well I can recommend them next year when prices go down and there are more mid and low end Conroe's available).
So... when Pentium 4 came out with Willamette core, it was better since it was new right?? I am sure before Conroe benchmarks, people would have thought 20% performance gain by CPU alone was crazy, like the person claiming that would be from another planet.
quote: So... when Pentium 4 came out with Willamette core, it was better since it was new right?
Where did I say better?
quote: AM2 was NEVER meant to be a performance boost so to expect anything more is idiotic! Of course, Conroe would outperform AM2 as it is a new design with new improvements. AM2 is just DDR2 on the present tech. Considering that Conroe is all new tech, I expected even GREATER performance from the new platform. Either way, we now have a fair amount of choices when it comes to CPU's. I can now recommend Intel processors to my customers (well I can recommend them next year when prices go down and there are more mid and low end Conroe's available).
Hmmm...no mention of better here. Maybe a wormhole sucked that word right off of my page transported it to the year STFU.
quote: I am sure before Conroe benchmarks, people would have thought 20% performance gain by CPU alone was crazy, like the person claiming that would be from another planet.
Maybe 10 years ago but nowadays, everything but Celerons are fast.
20% gain from the CPU is nothing. You get that every couple months, usually.
Anyway, you're missing the point. AM2 was not meant to improve performance, it was meant to cut costs. DDR1 has passed the inflection point relative to DDR2, and AMD needs to get off of it before it sinks. AM2 allows this to happen. Essentially, it maintains the status quo.
It'll be the K8L that saves AMD (well, assuming it ever comes out).
quote: 20% gain from the CPU is nothing. You get that every couple months, usually.
You must be definitely not understanding me.
20% before=architecture+clock speed
Core's 20-30% is architecture alone, clock speed will add on top of that. And that's over the FASTEST CPU out there now. Core is 50-70% faster than higher clocked Pentium D. Nothing had that much of an improvement.
Realistically, no... FSB performance has some impact overall, but generally not more than 5-10%, especially once you get past a certain point. FSB-533 to FSB-800 showed reasonable increases in quite a few applications. 800 to 1066 didn't help all that much, and I would wager 1333 is not truly necessary. Of course, Intel needs the higher FSB speeds due to the CPU-to-NB-to-RAM pathway, whereas AMD connects to the RAM directly and has a separate connection to the NB.
The only real question now is: when will K8L arrive, and how much will it help? I can't answer the latter, but the former looks to be late 2006/early 2007 AFAIK.
The scores are somewhat not telling the whole story. I bet with AA/AF the FX62 bandwidth starts to flex its muscle some. The FX is clocked a little slower as well not mention this is the very best from Intel. While I'll be buying a cheaper one :), truth is Core 2 is damn nice but far from distancing itself from AMD. It looks like with 65mm alone AMD may be able to challenge for the crown. Something many thought earlier wouldn't be possible.
AA and AF are entirely and completely video card dependent. As you increase graphic quality, the processor will wait more and more for the video card. Benchmarking how fast a processor waits isn't so interesting.
also, the FX62 is the very best from AMD, and even with 65nm AMD would need to increase the clock speed by 25% to equal the top Conroe
quote: The scores are somewhat not telling the whole story. I bet with AA/AF the FX62 bandwidth starts to flex its muscle some. The FX is clocked a little slower as well not mention this is the very best from Intel. While I'll be buying a cheaper one :), truth is Core 2 is damn nice but far from distancing itself from AMD. It looks like with 65mm alone AMD may be able to challenge for the crown. Something many thought earlier wouldn't be possible.
Same BS over and over and over and over again for the doubters/skeptics. You guys will never learn.
This is a CPU test.If you want to see graphics benchmarks, don't get the highest end CPU, get the Semprons and the Celeron D's with X1900XT Crossfire.
Games are lower resolutions are put exactly to show the CPU performance is CONSISTENT over variety of applications.
Plus, the people who really care about gaming and play competitively(even somewhat) will see that CPU matters a lot for performance since they play at 1024x768 so they don't notice lag spikes. I have seen competitive gamers wonder why they have lag spikes and they are pissed off about it when they are getting 80+ fps in benchmarks.
Hahahaha I won't get into what my online name was when I was gaming, been in slight retirement. Lets just say I was one of the best damn railers on the net and it is clear you have no f'in clue what your talking about. Just so you know most configs limit fps and most main stream cpus can easily supply plenty of power, so your babble about cpus is a joke. Lag is almost always related to ram or the video card except at the highest resolutions. The point is that more than likely in real world use you probably won't see a difference at all. And if you find a gamer today more concerned about the cpu than his graphics, it is clear he should step away from the keyboard and mouse.
quote: Hahahaha I won't get into what my online name was when I was gaming, been in slight retirement. Lets just say I was one of the best damn railers on the net and it is clear you have no f'in clue what your talking about. Just so you know most configs limit fps and most main stream cpus can easily supply plenty of power, so your babble about cpus is a joke. Lag is almost always related to ram or the video card except at the highest resolutions. The point is that more than likely in real world use you probably won't see a difference at all. And if you find a gamer today more concerned about the cpu than his graphics, it is clear he should step away from the keyboard and mouse.
Yes I do know what I am talking about. It's you who doesn't. None of the real world people I have seen use low latency memory. They all use generic samsung memory. There is a pattern I noticed. The one who knows about hardware aren't really good gamers, and the one who's hardcore gamer that plays good enough to win prizes don't know so much about hardware, I guess they don't have time for both.
CPU will matter for a competitive gamer simply because they will run at low resolutions(I am comparatively speaking here not low by 640x480) to avoid lag. Lag in competition=bad, so they do anything to avoid it. As I said, my friend has Dell M170 laptop, that's with Pentium M 2.0GHz/533Mhz FSB/2MB L2, 1GB DDR2, 5400RPM drive and Geforce 7800GTX Go 256MB. He runs at resolutions where some newer games don't look better than older games because he runs it at so low. He doesn't put graphics effects like Bloom since it inteferes with his play. And he does play GOOD, in everything first person shooter.
They think its the graphics card that matters, but if they notice lag on a laptop that good, it won't get much better getting X1900 or whatever top end now as those top end GPUs aren't faster at 1024x768 by much anyway, it becomes a CPU bottleneck.
What you want is a gpu benchmark. What's the big deal? This is an article about cpus. If you want a gpu benchmark, go to another article because this one isn't for you.
It's no different than if I were to come in and start complaining about how this article didn't test the performance of external usb hard drives. Sure, this article doesn't have anything to do with that, but I actually have a usb hdd and I don't have a Conroe, so it would be useful to me. Who cares about these stupid cpu tests, I want my usb hdd test!!!
quote: It looks like with 65mm alone AMD may be able to challenge for the crown
If the clock speeds of Core 2 Duo at launch are all there is to ever be, maybe.. but that's probably about as likely as the US government paying off its debts and balancing the budget.
I can't believe that most loggers here just does not understand the concept of isolation in tests. We are testing CPU speed here and as much as possible, we want to keep the GPU from affecting the results. Sure the difference would be smaller once we apply AA/AF but thats not because the X2 starts running faster but because the GPU is beginning to limit the fps. 20% is a huge difference for CPUs in the same price range... AMD may have FX64 by the time core2 is released but its not going to chop down that 20% performance lead down to 15% even. I'm an AMD fan but I got to hand the crown to intel for Core2. I'm particularly looking at the $183 core2.... should be faster than the X2 3800+ and cooler too
I don't think you understand. Years ago the cpu was the most important part of the system. That is far from the truth today. Truth is people play games with AA/AF and people do things at higher resolutions. That is just a fact of life. If you want to run pure cpu tests then run things at 640x480 then. That will show some facts, but escape the truth. Truth is the cpu is limited by the rest of the system components and who in the hell would pay $1000 for a cpu and put it in a system with to play games with no aa/af or run the desktop at 640x480. I think you fit in with that group of loggers you mentioned.
Then let's GPU limit the FX 62 and Pentium EE 965 and bench them together and show there is no difference between them at high resolutions like 1920x1200. :D
This argument works in Intel's favour as well you know.
quote: I don't think you understand. Years ago the cpu was the most important part of the system. That is far from the truth today. Truth is people play games with AA/AF and people do things at higher resolutions. That is just a fact of life. If you want to run pure cpu tests then run things at 640x480 then. That will show some facts, but escape the truth. Truth is the cpu is limited by the rest of the system components and who in the hell would pay $1000 for a cpu and put it in a system with to play games with no aa/af or run the desktop at 640x480. I think you fit in with that group of loggers you mentioned.
Except the gamers like my friend where he plays somewhat competitively and complains that he gets lag spikes playing DoD: Source with Pentium M 2.0GHz laptop(a Dell XPS M170) with Geforce 7800GTX Go, at 1024x768 resolution. He also runs at 1024x768 for BF2 because of the same reason, and he still notices lag.
There's another guy which notices lag with A64 3000+ Radeon 9800 running Counter-Strike based on the FIRST HL engine.
The ones who play competitively wouldn't notice. But the "normal" people will also notice no difference running the same system with Sempron or Celeron D.
quote: The ones who play competitively wouldn't notice. But the "normal" people will also notice no difference running the same system with Sempron or Celeron D.
The ones who doesn't play competitively wouldn't notice.
To be honest, I thought it would be a bit more than shown here but it's still pretty good. If I was an OCer I'd jump on this. Since I'm not, I won't be buying one for myself. My wife will get one since I'm sure some of my customers will be interested in this platform and I want to be familiar with it.
You need higher resolutions and everything turned on to highest imnage quality settings to test this and.. the fsb limit will be more than likely exposed by this sort of test. Test it! Yes, Battlefield 2, etc.. could bring the system to a crawl, so.. ?? does this mean it is not important?
I have a Dell 2405.. set to 1920X1200... I don't change this for games.. and most still play... some crawl.. a little, but.. I am a prospective buyer for the top cpus from Intel and AMD.. and.. while Conroe looks awfully impressive, it worries me that real world enthusiast class gaming test are not being done.
No excuses.. they need to be done!!
Try 1920X1200 resolution.. if you need to put the cards in SLI on both boards.. and this is important.. since Intel chipsets limit SLI.. but it still needs to be tested.
Turn on everything to the highest setting.. everything.. and lets see how Intel's cpu handles this kind of stress on system memory.
and.. if Anandtech and Intel are afraid to do this.. it is very telling indeed.
First, limited testing time and hardware limits what benches can be run. Second, SLI doesn't work on anything but NVIDIA chipsets, which don't exist for Core 2 Duo yet, so single GPU results are the only option for apples-to-apples. (CrossFire should work on 975X Core 2 Duo, but wasn't available at the time.) Third, I have a 2405FPW as well, and I can run everything from 2.0 GHz X2 3800+ to 2.6 GHz FX-60 with a single 7900 GTX GPU and get essentially the same performance at 1920x1200.
If you're only going to play games at WUXGA, massively upgrading processor performance won't help. End of story - at least until GPUs that are twice as fast become available. This is not an excuse; it is reality. Benchmarking CPUs under GPU-constrained situations doesn't make sense. You can see the results of CPU scaling with a single 7800 GTX in http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">this X2 overclocking article; 7900 GTX would scale better, but eventually you still run into GPU limitations.
None of the above changes the fact that Core 2 Extreme is substantially faster than FX-62 in current applications. SLI/CF support in the future should actually benefit more, as there's CPU overhead associated with such configurations. Video encoding will also benefit greatly from Conroe's improved architecture.
In regards to your above comment about 2004 benchmarks, 2005/2006 versions of SysMark and Winstones do not exist, which is why we continue to use older versions. We would love to run PCMark06 and a bunch of other benchmarks (we had some of them available), but time constraints did not allow for comprehensive testing. Rest assured that we have seen nothing from Conroe that indicates serious problems in any applications; at worst it is slightly outpacing FX-62 performance, and at best it can be 50% faster. In general, a 20-25% performance advantage over FX-62 is common.
No offense Mike but did you say enthusiast? DELL is no where part of that word. LOL DELL, just the sound of them makes me gasp. In all good fun and humor, no offense. =)
In the table of processors, 805 and 820 are shown as "2Mx2". This is incorrect.
Both of these processors only have "1Mx2". Please amend.
Also weren't there some other new low end procs like 925 on the Intel roadmap, due to launch around the same time as Conroe? These may be more attractive than 805 or 820, neither of which can do virtualisation.
Poeple who pay the top price to buy these cpus will not be playing games or running applications at 1024 x768,
At least test these two systems at 1600X1200 or higher.
Do you have any multi-threaded test? Something newer?
Anantech is testing the Core 2 Duo at where it will perform best and this is somewhat suspicious. Does anyone who spends the kind of money people will dish out for the x6800 really use an old, rusty monitor with 1024 X768 resolution?
Conroe might kick butt, but at least give a platform where it goes beyond being tested for single core performance at high resolution, ok??
Some of us would like to see how it can perform when breaking a sweat in a multi-tasking environment..
and.. those early memory bandwidth results.. sure are not consistent with the rest of the results are they, any ideas as to why?
By testing at low resolutions they are trying to reduce the impact the video card has on the benchmarks. If you make the video card the bottleneck by upping the resolution, then you aren't really benchmarking the CPUs. The whole point of the article is to benchmark the CPUs.
It's because at lower resolutions, the PC is almost entirely CPU limited, not GPU limited, so it is actually easier to see how well these processors perform at lower resolutions.
well when can we see some realistic benchmarks then? the people buying the AMD FX and Intel EE cpus with a decent video card are going to play at higher resolutions and use some aa/af. i would like to see what difference that would make. yes i know that what make more load on the gpu but it is more realistic for gamers.
quote: well when can we see some realistic benchmarks then? the people buying the AMD FX and Intel EE cpus with a decent video card are going to play at higher resolutions and use some aa/af. i would like to see what difference that would make. yes i know that what make more load on the gpu but it is more realistic for gamers.
That's absolute BS. Then you can get a Sempron or Celeron D and a very good video card. But we are looking how the CPU performs over VARIOUS benchmarks aren't we??
Hahaha! I guess I was wrong about the naysayers on my previous review. Did you read the article and see that they were only using a single 7900GTX for each system? F.E.A.R. would bring even these systems to a crawl at 1600 x 1200. Even so, there would be no reason to believe that the FX62 would magically cover that much ground by upping the resolution and effects.
By the way, there is an error in your F.E.A.R. maximum frame rate graph. Those numbers can't be right: 370 vs. 324? At those frame rates who cares which system you buy :)
LOL - good question. No real conspiracy, though: blue is the default color, so generally we just mark the "new" items in a different color (which defaults to green). Just think of blue as "currently reviewed" and green (or other colors) as new information. :)
Quite impressive, indeed. Maybe now more of the naysayers will start seeing the forest for the trees. My only problem is resisting jumping the gun once Core 2 Duo is available and wait for a little maturity for the motherboard bios'.
Almost makes you want to grab one of the cheapest Dell systems just to get the CPU, then sell off the rest. Almost. I would guess Core 2 Duo will be available in the retail market, but just with prices 20-50% higher than what we're currently listing. Over time, the prices will drop to more reasonable levels. Probably post-Christmas is when widespread availability at normal prices will occur.
If the CPUs will be in short supply you can bet Dell will price these quite high. Dell will still have crappy Celerons and Pentium Ds to throw into cheat systems.
quote: We're still wary of crowning Intel the new gaming performance champion, especially without having run other very important titles such as Oblivion and Half Life 2: Episode 1, but until we can things are definitely looking extremely promising for the Core architecture.
In regards to that what would you think could give AMD any performance lead? If im right by all the benchmarks. Intel is the crown here, how can AMD catch what steam has been converted into pure power for Intel here? I don't see anyway AMD can be crowned anything in performance, or are you refering to some benchmarking that really doesn't effect gamers and high end performance junkies?
I am a bit concerned for AMD here as intel is actually pulling so hard ahead of AMD in performance on its new cores that im afraid poor old AMD can't catch up. If you look at what Intel is providing now vs AM2 its clear that every new release of new tech from intel is far advanced and performing well ahead in the benchmarks.
This is actually good. The CPU desk top market has been so stagnant lately. I'm tired of the same old 5% performance boost upgrades. Of course, when you over clock an architecture -- scalability isn't in your vocabulary. Who here upgrades a 2.0GHz A64 to a 2.4GHz A64? Doesn't happen often.
AMD's future is looking brighter than ever today actually then when it was holding the huge performance crown (presently still does). In a business sense a fast performing car can only get you so far when there is a blind man behind the wheel.
Do not doubt AMDs performance envelope has ended. They have plenty of room to improve and show how far they can take their intuitive designs.
It's not that dire. Remember when the Athlon 64 was released, and AMD had a 20% advantage in Half Life 2 performance over similarly priced Intel CPUs? Intel still came back. AMD is a big company, and it's not like one processor that finally beats AMD (an Intel first in ~4 years) will put AMD in serious trouble.
Intel had the advantage over AMD in laptop performance/watts (and marketing oomph with Centrino). Now, Intel will have the advantage in desktop and laptop performance. As long as AMD keeps their advantage in the servers arena (where real money are), AMD is not in trouble.
When the Conroe will transition to servers, people will think: "Better performance and lower thermal? At lower price? From Intel? Where do I sign?". That will be trouble for AMD
If you wanna test the CPU in games, why don't you use Grand Prix 4 and Everquest 2: those two games 3D engines use a lot more the CPU than the video card.
quote: In the original benchmark, if you still remember, the 20% performance advantage was achieved by E6700 (2.67) over 2.8 AMD.
Now the new 20% advantage was achieved by X6800 (2.93) over 2.8 AMD.
Not quite the same 20%.
If anything, the tightening of memory latency (5-5-5-12 in this test) can only benefit AMD a bit more.
Original benchmark: Using Crossfire X1900XTX to alleviate bottlenecks
Now: Single Geforce 7900GTX
If you see FEAR benchmarks you'll see it'll be better in real world gaming as there is bigger advantage in minimum frame rates. At IDF system there is bigger difference in max frame rates.
a 4x4 board with TWO FX62 will vastly outperform a lonely Intel Conroe.
And for heavy I/O ie beating network and disk to death, Intel has not been shown to have the performance headroom. AMD I/O will scale nicely.
When Intel counter with quadcore, they will find their FSB even more limiting, at which point the wisdom of the Hypertransport approach will be evident.
Depends how quickly 4x4 comes to market (but said to be 2H2006)
Be nice to see the benchmarks with the settings at default, 2X and 4X default to see if the settings requiring more work from cpu and greater memory use will change the results any.
a 4x4 board with TWO FX62 will vastly outperform a lonely Intel Conroe.
And for heavy I/O ie beating network and disk to death, Intel has not been shown to have the performance headroom. AMD I/O will scale nicely.
When Intel counter with quadcore, they will find their FSB even more limiting, at which point the wisdom of the Hypertransport approach will be evident.
Depends how quickly 4x4 comes to market (but said to be 2H2006)
Err, I DO hope for AMD a 2x core part would beat Intel's platform which would cost 1/4 of the cost wouldn't you??
And then only in multi-threading. If you want to argue about MT, then Pentium D 805 is the absolute leader over AMD's here.
quote: And for heavy I/O ie beating network and disk to death, Intel has not been shown to have the performance headroom. AMD I/O will scale nicely.
The two are comparable at limiting the max available I/O's on each cpu, thus both would be almost identical in comparison and AMD still would not have any lead in this area since both are similar here. Take a look at the communication bench to see for yourself on that.
Just curious, where did you see Intel not having any performance headroom and where is it show AMD I/O scaling better? I guess your an AMD fan? At a glance one observation I took in was how AMD and the rest say how AM2 has a faster resolution to their current AM2 fastest lineup, saying how AM2 has a faster cpu in the works and it will eventually outperform conroe.
Based on that argument I seen on many sites, it is my opinion that no multi billion dollar industry has a 1-man marketing team that would put together a product not worthy of such big changes knowing the community of people they are selling to are educated more on researching and buying the best performance bang for their buck. Knowing this they surely wouldn't have released AM2 currently as is if they had already a faster version capable of competing with its rival Intels top performing release.
If AMD is struggling this bad on a new core blah blah blah, then wouldn't you think in terms of processor technology and advancement that they couldn't possibly turn out 5+ years of research in a single year to outperform conroe. I know conroe is been in the works for a really long time now and all im saying is if AM2 was so bad and only gave a 2-4% increase in performance over its 939 top counterpart then why release at all? Just hold off and wait till you have something that can actually perform closer to its rival Intel. Yeah I know its been a war back and forth for years but in the past till now you can assume how bad AMD must be with Intels conroe on top with so much headroom.
quote: I know conroe is been in the works for a really long time now and all im saying is if AM2 was so bad and only gave a 2-4% increase in performance over its 939 top counterpart then why release at all?
Because you and I, the enthusiast, don't make AMD nor Intel any money. It's the J6P's that buy all of this stuff and keep those guys in business. AMD needed to transition to DDR2 and they did it now vs later. Why didn't Intel wait till Conroe to transition to DDR2 and 65nm when they knew they had a winner?
quote: Because you and I, the enthusiast, don't make AMD nor Intel any money. It's the J6P's that buy all of this stuff and keep those guys in business. AMD needed to transition to DDR2 and they did it now vs later. Why didn't Intel wait till Conroe to transition to DDR2 and 65nm when they knew they had a winner?
I understand that. Mainly Intel can take advantage of DDR2 on its core design early on and stretch new technology while keeping a clear indication on their doorstep that they had conroe to push them ahead and keep sales and the people happy.
AMD didn't have anything more advanced then its FX60 939 to shove in the mainstream with AM2 only being what 2-4% faster, in this sense its only fair to question my original thought, would AMD be better to not launch AM2 for the sake of keeping face with the people and having it look like they need to get something that can beat this new conroe; furthermore, then releasing a small gain that appears to be a flop and having people say no to future AMD.
For this purpose I think it would of been wise decision by AMD to let this conroe come out and have a winning solution launched to beat it or compete with it when the time was right, rather then launching a marketing flop and causing people like us to lean towards the opposition and loss of trust towards AMD. =)
quote: For this purpose I think it would of been wise decision by AMD to let this conroe come out and have a winning solution launched to beat it or compete with it when the time was right, rather then launching a marketing flop and causing people like us to lean towards the opposition and loss of trust towards AMD. =)
I think AMD performed as they should've by getting off the DDR bus and letting DDR2 fully take the market. K8L won't be here till next year and I'm sure the memory manufacturers would like to phase out DDR. Especially since we ALL knew AM2 wasn't going to be any more of a performer than 939.
quote: I think AMD performed as they should've by getting off the DDR bus and letting DDR2 fully take the market. K8L won't be here till next year and I'm sure the memory manufacturers would like to phase out DDR. Especially since we ALL knew AM2 wasn't going to be any more of a performer than 939.
I agree in some ways. I never said that it was a something bad in context here but that AMD should of waited till they had something to show for.
And DDR2 is not fully taken the market yet, not for a long time by any standards. DDR still remains top sales and DDR2 isn't going to really start seeing numbers matching DDR sales for another 1-2 years because all the major sales are exclusively business, schools, and computers bought on a basis by people to do small tasks where many P4's and regular AMD based machines are still the biggest sales for DDR, and DDR2 being more expensive to build with while keeping the cost down, granted sales are on a decline since the induction of AM2.
From my other statement it reflects that no matter what AMD has done, rather waiting or releasing AM2 like they did, it does not open DDR2 sales that much yet. If you think about it DDR2 sales are still in my estimate a 80% or more Intel sale, because AM2 is proven to be something that enthusiast would rather not go to till it matures more. And then all the major retailers will not promote AM2 so hard to sell just because of the baring they have seen, its not yet cost effective for them. So by this it would make no difference on DDR2 making it more mainstream.
The move to DDR2 is still very slow and will be so for a time. Trust me on that.
quote: ust curious, where did you see Intel not having any performance headroom and where is it show AMD I/O scaling better?
He's probably using Opteron vs Zeon benchmarks where the Zeon is held back by its FSB when scaling to more CPU's. I don't see why the same wouldn't apply to Conroe vs FX62's.
Yes that's what I'm talking about. For every opteron you add you get more HT channels which can each connect one (or more using tunnel passthrough) I/O chips.
Whilst not in the opteron league, if 4x4 connects the processors by hypertransport as well as the chipset, it is reasonable to assume it works on either two HT links per socket, or splitting the HT between two peers.
Therefore the second AM2 socket can have it's "empty" HT connection talking to a SECOND I/O chipset. For that reason it has POTENTIALLY say double the I/O performance of a single Intel FSB.
Another point about this comparison generally is that these conroe benchmarks are of the EXTREME edition. That is unusual in the property that it has especially extra fast FSB compared to mainstream conroe. Therefore in benchmark comparisons of the non-extreme conroes, the fsb would be slower and may form a constraint which would alter (probably reduce) the relative performance difference between AMD and Intel seen here. The benchmarks will reveal.
quote: a 4x4 board with TWO FX62 will vastly outperform a lonely Intel Conroe
Apples and Oranges... It will also cost vastly more than a Conroe-based system. Even if the performance of an AMD 4x4 platform is significantly higher, Intel would still have a significant edge in a performance/dollar analysis.
4x4 is currently vaporware and it's at least a quarter behind Intel's comparable quad-core processor roadmap. Conroe, on the other hand, is launching next month and will be available for a year before a 4x4 platform even sees the light of day.
Real hardware will always beat an marketing engineer's 'idea' no matter how good that idea looks on paper.
Why do you have to buy the processor yourself to know how it performs? Real hardware was used in these benchmarks. AMD's 4x4 does not have any real hardware available yet, so it is vaporware as of now.
However 4x4 is NOT a year away it will be here in 2006 from at least three motherboard vendors.
As for pricing criticisms, the AMD processor prices will be lowered WHEN conroe actually ships ;-)
I'm just pointing out that with Intel conroe, you have nowhere to go to scale up without switching to Xeon platforms and they're not particularly cheap.
What a 4x4 AM2 system will let you do is obtain a reasonably fast system initially using ONE fx2, and LATER spend a bit more and you have a MONSTER.
This phased upgrade may suit people who get paid monthly and want to upgrade gradually. AMD 4x4 will provide that upgrade path.
You do realize that you could have been doing this for ages... just buy any of the dual socket S940 motherboards, put one dual core Opteron in it today, then add another at some later time? This 4x4 flailing is just marketing. The only real gain is that it doesn't require registered/ecc memory.
The FX line is still going to be expensive AND it's not like there's a ton of software (especially games) that use dual cores... much less quad cores (although this may change with time... but by that time, there'll be even better CPUs out, probably even *real* quad core chips).
Even being an AMD supporter, the 4x4 is not much more than a panic reaction by AMD in response to Core (and its variants). I, for one, will NOT be throwing money into a 4x4 system. At best, it seems like a one-off and a dead-end path before it is even released.
You are right except 2 points:
- Motherboards for 2 CPUs are expensive, 4x4 should cost no more than standard motherboard
- 4x4 is aimed also for X2, so two X2 3800+ means cheap monster!
From AMD side I don't see any panic, they are executing their plan and nothing more.
quote: What a 4x4 AM2 system will let you do is obtain a reasonably fast system initially using ONE fx2, and LATER spend a bit more and you have a MONSTER.
Are you serious? I can't see AMD pricing FX62 much under $800 it would screw up the rest of their pricing scheme too much, spending $1600 on CPUs to best a $500 CPU is insane. If you need to wait month to month for free cash flow to build a computer, you really don't have enough wealth to afford $1600-$2000 on cpu alone.
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134 Comments
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PCSJEFF - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
If you wanna test the CPU in games, why don't you use also Grand Prix 4 and Everquest 2: those two games have a 3D engines that use a lot more the CPU than the video card.drewintheav - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
I will not be surprised if conroe ends up costing twice as much in the retail channel as what is being stated at the current time. It might take a while for the prices to stabilize and then fall back down towards the prices that are being quoted at the present time...mine - Friday, June 9, 2006 - link
OH MYGOD I am so tired of these Conroe vs. FX , Intel vs. AMD benches -You find them everywhere in every incarnation on every website in every printed medium..
and i am tired of this Intel-AMD fanboy crap...
Anand had a chance of testing the first mainstream motherboard for Conroe that will be sold in 100 k quantities in the next months. This would have opened a ideal chance of testing the Intel claims of the new 965 chips much better performance.
and why so silent about the used motherboard ....
gone.... anand took the "SUN " way
sorry for my..english it is not my native language
macugenwatcher - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
do think on single application the conroe extreme is somewhat better than fx62 but remember Anand's comparsion was with ghz of 2.93 for conroe and 2.8 for athalon fx....Also his benchmark of fx62 must be on poorly optimized system. Here's the proof:
sysmark 2004 overall office
anand core extreme--- 266
anand fx62---210
pc stats fx62--- 261
sysmar 2004 document creation
anand core extreme--- 366
anand athlon fx62--- 280
pc stats fx62--- 297
sysmark 2004 data analysis
anand core extreme--- 280
anand athlon fx62--- 185
pc stat fx62--- 214
business winstone 2004
anand core extreme--- 32.8
anand athlon fx62--- 27.9
pc stat fx62--- 36.4
Check out the Sysmark2004 overall and Business winstone 2004!!!
What the heck happened to Anand's FX system?
Where the heck is the multi-application tests?
Why couldn't Anand run the full gamut of tests if he had these systems in his hotel room? He said he had to hurry up before people figured out that he had a Coroe chip in his room.... SAD SAD SAD.....
Definitely, Anand's FX system was crippled by poor memory... This is very very sad statement on Anand's objectivity....
Athlon FX going to 65nm soon with gigzhertz up to 3.2 to 3.4, will be the performance leader in 4q-2006. Intel will have no answer. INTC is now saying "competitive processors" not "AMD beating processor"
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1...">http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1...
Gary Key - Thursday, June 8, 2006 - link
Both systems were setup identically to ensure an unbiased test platform with both boards being configured at default settings, the way a system will be delivered to the customer. I can ensure you that lower latency settings also improve Conroe's performance.
We have already know that Intel has production ready Conroes at much higher stock speeds than what will be released in July. However the transition to 65nm allows AMD to do signficantly more changes than just clock speeds, like improving the memory controller which is where they will realize significant improvements beyond the current DDR2 memory setups. Of course, we will be talking about DDR3 and 45nm production for Intel next year so just be happy the CPU landscape is competitive again. I must have missed the Conroe scores in your PCstats article. ;->
Gary Key - Thursday, June 8, 2006 - link
Where's the edit button? "We already know...."CobraT1 - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
do think on single application the conroe extreme is somewhat better than fx62 but remember Anand's comparsion was with ghz of 2.93 for conroe and 2.8 for athalon fx....Your opinion which is not widely shared. CPU speeds were noted and commented on. Everyone who read the article was fully aware.
Also his benchmark of fx62 must be on poorly optimized system. Here's the proof:
Check out the Sysmark2004 overall and Business winstone 2004!!!
This only proves PCstats used a different configuration. Previewing their article I could not delineate if they were testing at 2.8 or 3.08, the 2 speeds for the FX-62 they listed in their system configuration. (I could have missed it, I quickly previewed it.) They also used a different system configuration then what Anand had at his disposal.
What the heck happened to Anand's FX system?
It appears nothing. These tests echo results that have been known for sometime.
Where the heck is the multi-application tests?
Why couldn't Anand run the full gamut of tests if he had these systems in his hotel room? He said he had to hurry up before people figured out that he had a Coroe chip in his room.... SAD SAD SAD.....
I do believe Anand answered your question on the very first page and has been referenced numerous time on this very page.
"Keep in mind that we had a very limited amount of time with the hardware as to not alert anyone that it was missing and being used for things it shouldn't be (not yet at least), so we weren't able to run our full suite of tests. We apologize in advance and promise we'll have more when Conroe launches, but for now enjoy."
Completely up front as Anand usually is.
Definitely, Anand's FX system was crippled by poor memory... This is very very sad statement on Anand's objectivity....
In Anand's comparison, identical memory was used in like systems. PCstats comparison cannot make the same statement. PCstats numbers are hardly comparable and certainly not grounds for accusations.
Athlon FX going to 65nm soon with gigzhertz up to 3.2 to 3.4, will be the performance leader in 4q-2006. Intel will have no answer. INTC is now saying "competitive processors" not "AMD beating processor"
As I have no idea where you came up with these statements, I see no need to comment on what appear to be your beliefs. Beliefs require blind faith, something I have none of.
If you just have to believe Anand has been corrupted, stay away from the other sites that are and will be reporting like comparisons with similar data and conclusions.
Anand's comparison was a great early indicator and has for the most part confirmed what has been reported on various sites for the last few months.
Bottom line, nothing shocking has been revealed.
cscpianoman - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
I was very impressed with the Conroe numbers. I have an Uncle who works for Intel and I really liked his demeanor about the chip. He commented they have a great chip in line for consumers, but he didn't seem over the top. He knew AMD would respond and it sounded like Intel's attitude has changed for the better. Instead of flaunting gigahertz numbers they are getting down to business. The Conroe intro a few months back was controlled by Intel probably to generate discussions like these and increase market awareness. Now that we know they were legit, it has cemented more purchasers in the future. I suspect there will be a lot of AMD users on the forums asking which intel chipset to get to match the Core 2.zsdersw - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
You think clock speeds for Conroe won't change by the end of 2006? What are you smoking?macugenwatcher - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Sure it can increase. But what I am upset about is these SEMI-OBJECTIVE tests on a pre-production Conroe model versus production AMD chips....Why are there such discrepancy in sysmark and winstone for the AMD chip?
If Anand professes to be a true journalist/researcher/benchmarker, he should be more objective in his testing.
I am sure Conroe will be very good. But in different applications, especially in multi-application setting, AMD chip could be better.
Boushh - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
The difference seems to be the HD PC Stats is using a Raport, Anand a Hitachi) instead of the memory (alltough it will have some impact, maybe even the SLi setup will have some impact).If you look at the communication test (which, according to Anand, is very I/O bound) you'll see:
Anand:
FX-62: 178
Core 2: 184
PC Stats:
FX-62: 263
D940 - 189
That is a huge difference. That will sureley translate into the overall scores, and it will influence some of the other scores.
So what was your point again ?
zsdersw - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
More tests will be coming out.. don't get your undies in a bunch.JumpingJack - Thursday, December 8, 2016 - link
what an idiot.VooDooAddict - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
The tests they have shown definetly have value to them. They are the tests that could be done in the time provided to show some nice direct comparisons between the very near future "top end" CPUs.To all those complainging about 1024x768:
Once they have the CPUs back in the labs I'm sure they will give us some highend video benchmarks as well. While the CPU doesn't have the largest impact at extreme resolutions I'm sure everyone can agree that it does have an impact, expecially with software driver overhead. However we should be more concerned with testing the CPUs on SLI/CrossFire. Other benchmarks have shown that the CPU can be a real limiting factor in high res SLI tests due to the large overhead from the SLI/CrossFire drivers. These CPUs are in the price bracket of those looking at SLI and even QUAD SLI systems (I can hardly begin to imagine the CPU overhead from QUAD SLI).
Personally I don't mind the 1024x768 ... then again that's probably because I run a large 27" 1280x720 pannel for gaming.
Genx87 - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
I was shocked to see the chip being used was 2.93Ghz. I was expecting it to be the 2.67Ghz chip Intel showed off.However this doesnt take away from the chip itself, it is still a very fast chip and I see an E6600 in my future.
However if you get time I am curious what kind of performance differences the AMD platform see's between this new Nvidia chipset and the chipset used by Intel. To me it appears to be at least a single speed grade if not more. The %'s appear on the surface to be the same as Intels demo but the difference is you are stuck using a higher speed grade to get this performance difference.
VooDooAddict - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Nice grab AT editors! I knew someone would find a way to get out hard info before the NDA, glad it was AT.With this knoledge I'm budgeting the E6600s (2.40GHz/4M) for my next SFF build. And I'm content waiting just a little longer.
Only thing that will disapoint me with the new build will be the lack of any true DX10 video options. However, thanks to what you've shown us, it looks like the first gen DX10 will be too power hungry for a SFF machine. Looks like I'll have to manage with a single 7900GTX or 7950GX2.
drewintheav - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
What will the real retail prices for conroe be? I would not be surprised if the initial retail prices are double what is being quoted everywhere!fikimiki - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Why didn't you take 4-4-4-12 memory which should give AMD much more speed thanks to smaller latency?This benchmarks only proves that IDF preview when 2.8 Athlon vs. 2.66 Conroe was benchmarked was setup by Intel - most of the benchmarks show 20% difference, not 30-40%.
Conroe is 4.5% faster clock-for-clock than AMD.
Taking an AVERAGE not RARE AND LOW DDR2 memory from the market and lowering clock to 2.8 should prove that Conroe is maybe faster clock-for-clock. And I belive that author knows that, but no conclusion about that.
DigitalFreak - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Oh, my, god! Did you not read the article? That's the memory they had available.Anand has been doing this for a VERY long time, and has proven time and time again that he is unbiased.
On the other hand, WHO are you?
fikimiki - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Who am I? Just a computer user who understands all the fuss Intel is spreading from last 3 months. It is all about "controlled benchmarks" who proves nothing except a wish to beat competitition. If you look around to see other benchmarks you can see that Athlon performance is slight different.Look here http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1...">http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1... and you will see that Athlon was able to get 261 instead of 210 in Anand test.
Conroe gets 266. So this is 266 (2.93GHz vs 261 2.8GHz? You see the difference?
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
You can't really compare our test results to those found on other sites simply because I'm not sure what testing methodology was employed, as well as due to stated differences in hardware (e.g. HDD differences can impact Office Productivity tests considerably). You'll notice that our numbers are in line with what we've published previously for SYSMark 2004.The one thing I can guarantee is that the AMD and Intel systems we tested were as close to the same spec as possible so the numbers are directly comparable to one another, which is what matters the most.
Take care,
Anand
fikimiki - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
I understand 3% difference, but not 20% because of WD Raptor and SLI configuration. RAM is the answer so I wait for benchmark with CL4 and CL3.It is also important to see 64-bit performance for both competitors.
Gary Key - Thursday, June 8, 2006 - link
It is also the answer for Intel to some degree. I think you will understand this once the NVIDIA 590 Intel memory benchmarks are available along with production level 965/975 boards capable of running the Core 2 Duo at 3-2-2-8 at 800MHz, something AMD is not capable of yet. ;-) Our initial memory tests were set to each board's default settings, the way a typical system will delivered to the customer, this ensured there were not any "unbiased" tweaks used for either system.
Accord99 - Thursday, June 8, 2006 - link
Why do you expect it to be more, not when CAS4 vs CAS5 has barely shown more than a few percent benefit. Here a couple of reviews using CAS4 DDR2-800. The FX-62 scores 220 and 219 respectively:http://www.hwupgrade.it/articoli/cpu/1494/socket-a...">http://www.hwupgrade.it/articoli/cpu/14...2-le-nuo... (with 36GB Raptor)
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/print.php?cid...">http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/print.php?cid... (with Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB)
neweggster - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Just read Toms Hardware review and from that comparison to this in FEAR min FPS it looks like the 2.66 vs the FX-62 is only a small difference of around 5fps with conroe wining. Based on that and Anands article I think its clear to say that a 2.93 conroe only going around 270mhz more over its 2.66 offers more performance in terms of clock cycle performance then what the FX-62 clock for clock can do. If you see the results you can see that the 2.66 conroe is 58fps on min FEAR bench and Fx-62 is 53, and they also have the FX-62 there OC to 3.00 GHz and its result was 55fps, notice the OC FX-62 gains only 2 FPS in min fps FEAR bench and the Conroe 2.93 vs the Fx-62 gains 27 fps in the min fps FEAR bench.That tells me that the increase in clock for clock performance on conroe scales much higher in performance then AMD FX-62. The FX-62 on Toms was running at 200 MHz more and only 70 MHz difference in the 2.66-2.93 conroe. Also keep in mind Toms review uses a RX1900 and Anand uses a 7900GTX, some performance difference there on those 2 video cards as well, also note Toms uses a 1280x1024 resolution using high settings.
It seems impressive that although each benchmark isn't identical that the conroe can increase in performance in a single benchmark just by going to the 2.93 from 2.66, very impressed how well it scales in comparison to FX-62.
So a 2.66 core 2 duo going to 2.93 core 2 duo extreme offers this much gain vs almost same clock increase on Fx-62 OC to 3.00 GHz is great, assuming im clear on the 2.66-2.93 is only a increase in clock and nothing else? Can you let me know if its just an increase in clock from 2.66 to 2.93 or is it clock and cache or something else in there? Im just trying to make sense of the fact that briefly comparing TOMS results to yours im seeing a better increase in performance when clock is increased on conroe over FX-62, thanks. If this is the case I can't wait for conroe 2.93 core2duo extreme so I can get my OC on this bad boy.
Which leads me to this. You guys at Anand had a chance to test this OC'ing the FX-62 by any and comparing? It would be great if you can elaborate on the difference in OC performance on each.
ashyanbhog - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
according to Anandtech, the conroe is expected in Q306, how many more days before AMD 65nm parts start rolling out? hmm not muchhttp://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
cant wait till somebody gets their hand on a 65nm Athlon and benchmarks it..... should see how Intel's oh so wornderful processor fares then! AMD was able to extract good performance jumps when moving from 130nm to 90nm, if they r able to do the same when moving to 65nm, they have Intel in a spot again!
130nm to 90nm gains
http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/7417">http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/7417
zsdersw - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Apparently you don't realize that the speeds of Core 2 Duo at launch are not the only speeds that will be available as time progresses. Intel isn't just going to leave Core 2 Duo at the speeds available at launch.
Accord99 - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
So far, AMD only got an extra 400MHz/15% out of the transition out to 90nm. Conroe is expected out in late July, AMD's 65nm parts may be at the end of the year, and at lower clock speeds than the fastest 90nmp parts.termix - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
400MHz for SC, there are gona be 3GHz Opterons. But count DC chips too. Its 2 times bigger , so 2.6GHz vs 2x2.8GHz for avaible parts...Makaveli - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
impressive not really, just shows all the benchmarks we were seeing before were close to reality. minus the 40% faster when it closer to 20% faster on avg.Does this matter to me no. Will I still be buying a dual core opteron to put in my 939 board yes. I'll check back again in 18-24 months what is on the market then, until then just videocard upgrades for me. All u fanboys can fight over who has the better processor and larger e-penis till the next century. Does intel or AMD care probably not, why cause they make there money from the system builders.
Boys and there toys, you would think things would change as some of u guys get older. nope just like grade school.
Kudos to intel for finally making something people want to buy again.
Kudos to AMD for waking the sleeping giant.
This is good for us all, can u say cheaper cpu's.
Now i'm going to bed, Gnite all and may u all wake up 2morrow and see there are more important things in life!
neweggster - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
If that was the case then you wouldn't be posting on a enthusiast website meant to show performance and benchmarks of new technology, surely you took the time to get registered to post.
If you hadn't been so interested in this community then why make a posts. I see nobody else bashing enthusiasts on these forums, lol its out of context someone coming here saying we are like grade schoolers because we are interested in technology.
Take a clue, technology runs this world and the people in it, also it is mainly a big market where 100's of thousands of people work in this type industry. Perhaps if you don't like the people who post here who are so eager for the next best thing then don't come reading the stuff lol. PEACE!
Makaveli - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
first of all I love technology And I think both companies are great. my complaint is u lil kids and your fighting over pointless shit all the time. its never ending. I actually like coming to the forums to read stuff that is intelligent and that I can learn from. All the fanboyism shit gets old quick. The point of my post is Who give a flying fuck which cpu is faster. as long as it fits in your budget and meets your needs. That is one of the reason's I hardly go to tom's Hardware anymore they use to be now the forum is over run with lil kids and my intel this my AMD this. None of these companies Care what u think they just want your money. yet u guys fight like your in a war for there loyalty. I just wish some of u would grow the fuck up.end of my rant.
Xenoid - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
We have all seen the top AMD vs the top Intel cpu, but for those of us who don't own 5 Ferraris and a Maybach, when can we expect realistic reviews.I would like to see the lower 3 Conroes (2.4ghz in particular as it has the bigger cache) vs normal AMD cpus in the same price bracket.
As for my fandom since I have to explain it or else face certain flaming, I own 3 Intels and 3 AMD cpus. That will be all.
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Not really worth it as the $530 chip is gonna beat the FX anyway. At same price point it won't be even worth comparing.
And congrats to AT(especially Anand) for making an early and non-biased review.
bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
I don't think that's what he meant. I think he wants to see some more realisticly priced Conroe's and X2's. Of course, if you actually read what he said, you would know that.IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Doesn't matter, because at this rate, it won't be worth considering at the same price point, so why look. He can see, but its like those people who wants to see CPU performances at 2048x1536 4xAA/8xAF when there will be no difference between top of the line and Celeron D. It's already know, do you just have to see it??
smitty3268 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Well I would still be interested in a full review, of all the speeds of Conroe with a few X2's thrown in the mix as comparison points. Which I'm sure is what AT's final review will be like.Presumably AMD is also going to do some significant price cutting until K8L is released in order to stay competitive. Anyone know this for sure?
neweggster - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Toms Hardware has the slower 2.66 conroe up against the Fx-62. Im sure AMD is lowering prices, already seen significant drops in AMD CPU's in past week.Xenoid - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
I don't read Toms.To rephrase what I said for the ignorant masses, I want to see the lower clocked Conroes compared to X2s of the same price (300~) and hopefully we will have that when it is released.
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Not really worth it as the $530 chip is gonna beat the FX anyway. At same price point it won't be even worth comparing.
And congrats to AT(especially Anand) for making an early and non-biased review.
poohbear - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
so from a gamers perspective, and im guessing gamers are the only ones that care for the bleeding edge, does this cpu do anything for performance in games @ 1280x1024+ resolutions?Gary Key - Thursday, June 8, 2006 - link
Yes, our tests were run at a lower resolution to keep the GPU from being a "bottleneck" to a certain degree. The performance differences in a couple games at 1600x1200 were slightly better for Conroe than at the 1024x768 setting. We did not have enough time with the 965 board to complete our test suite, but that will be coming in the near future. :-)
vailr - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Any rumors of when Apple's Conroe based Intel Mac will be released?That is: the full-fledged, 64 bit, desktop Mac (replacement for the dual-CPU G5 machine).
saratoga - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Though "full-fledged, 64 bit" will have to wait a little while until Apple launches a new MacOS version that has 64 bit support. Not that it really matters right now anyway, since 4GB is still enough for most users, and they should be ready in time for these people.saratoga - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Probably about the same time as Conroe launches. Apple is unlikely to sit around while Dell tempts their customers with fast, lower power CPUs. I imagine Apple will probably treat CPUs like they do GPUs. That is, when something substantially better comes out, they'll time it to launch a new tower/laptop/whatever so they don't get caught selling older hardware.flurazepam - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Server lost my last post! Hope it doesn't come up twice! Reiterating what I previously wrote. I'm currently in Taipei and have had the chance to test both the X6800 and the FX-62. Neither "feel" faster than either in normal use, but both "feel" significantly faster than the Pentium DEE. Using low resolution gaming, Conroe runs about 20% faster than the AMD, give or take a few percent. The chap at Intel also said that the Intel chip is not faster in every game or app. There a few apps that AMD can take over Intel. What needs to be done is testing using multithreaded apps run in a multiapp environment. In any case, Intel has a winner here.JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Quake 4 has SMP support, and it was enabled. SysMark2004 also does some multitasking. Getting a proper multitasking test configured and run takes quite a bit more time, unfortunately, so when given the choice of testing 6-8 applications vs. one multitasking setup, we have to currently settle for the former. In a few more months, we'll of course do our best to provide comprehensive testing. "One night in Bangkok..." er... Taiwan is not the best for getting every ounce of information we would like. :)flurazepam - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Apologies if this post comes up twicethestain - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
LOL.. Just want to see more test.. Anand and the gang.. I wish I was there!! Please no offense on my posts.. just trying to stir the humor pot a little..But.. is there some real world application that would put Conroe's FSB memory limit to the test and where AM2 would then perform better, because if not.. it is going to be a cold, dark summer and fall for AMD.
bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
AM2 was NEVER meant to be a performance boost so to expect anything more is idiotic! Of course, Conroe would outperform AM2 as it is a new design with new improvements. AM2 is just DDR2 on the present tech. Considering that Conroe is all new tech, I expected even GREATER performance from the new platform. Either way, we now have a fair amount of choices when it comes to CPU's. I can now recommend Intel processors to my cusatomers (well I can recommend them next year when prices go down and there are more mid and low end Conroe's available).IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
So... when Pentium 4 came out with Willamette core, it was better since it was new right?? I am sure before Conroe benchmarks, people would have thought 20% performance gain by CPU alone was crazy, like the person claiming that would be from another planet.
bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Hmmm...no mention of better here. Maybe a wormhole sucked that word right off of my page transported it to the year STFU.
Maybe 10 years ago but nowadays, everything but Celerons are fast. Where did I say better?
saratoga - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
20% gain from the CPU is nothing. You get that every couple months, usually.Anyway, you're missing the point. AM2 was not meant to improve performance, it was meant to cut costs. DDR1 has passed the inflection point relative to DDR2, and AMD needs to get off of it before it sinks. AM2 allows this to happen. Essentially, it maintains the status quo.
It'll be the K8L that saves AMD (well, assuming it ever comes out).
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
You must be definitely not understanding me.
20% before=architecture+clock speed
Core's 20-30% is architecture alone, clock speed will add on top of that. And that's over the FASTEST CPU out there now. Core is 50-70% faster than higher clocked Pentium D. Nothing had that much of an improvement.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Realistically, no... FSB performance has some impact overall, but generally not more than 5-10%, especially once you get past a certain point. FSB-533 to FSB-800 showed reasonable increases in quite a few applications. 800 to 1066 didn't help all that much, and I would wager 1333 is not truly necessary. Of course, Intel needs the higher FSB speeds due to the CPU-to-NB-to-RAM pathway, whereas AMD connects to the RAM directly and has a separate connection to the NB.The only real question now is: when will K8L arrive, and how much will it help? I can't answer the latter, but the former looks to be late 2006/early 2007 AFAIK.
classy - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
The scores are somewhat not telling the whole story. I bet with AA/AF the FX62 bandwidth starts to flex its muscle some. The FX is clocked a little slower as well not mention this is the very best from Intel. While I'll be buying a cheaper one :), truth is Core 2 is damn nice but far from distancing itself from AMD. It looks like with 65mm alone AMD may be able to challenge for the crown. Something many thought earlier wouldn't be possible.Calin - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
AA and AF are entirely and completely video card dependent. As you increase graphic quality, the processor will wait more and more for the video card. Benchmarking how fast a processor waits isn't so interesting.also, the FX62 is the very best from AMD, and even with 65nm AMD would need to increase the clock speed by 25% to equal the top Conroe
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Same BS over and over and over and over again for the doubters/skeptics. You guys will never learn.
This is a CPU test. If you want to see graphics benchmarks, don't get the highest end CPU, get the Semprons and the Celeron D's with X1900XT Crossfire.
Games are lower resolutions are put exactly to show the CPU performance is CONSISTENT over variety of applications.
Plus, the people who really care about gaming and play competitively(even somewhat) will see that CPU matters a lot for performance since they play at 1024x768 so they don't notice lag spikes. I have seen competitive gamers wonder why they have lag spikes and they are pissed off about it when they are getting 80+ fps in benchmarks.
classy - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Hahahaha I won't get into what my online name was when I was gaming, been in slight retirement. Lets just say I was one of the best damn railers on the net and it is clear you have no f'in clue what your talking about. Just so you know most configs limit fps and most main stream cpus can easily supply plenty of power, so your babble about cpus is a joke. Lag is almost always related to ram or the video card except at the highest resolutions. The point is that more than likely in real world use you probably won't see a difference at all. And if you find a gamer today more concerned about the cpu than his graphics, it is clear he should step away from the keyboard and mouse.IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Yes I do know what I am talking about. It's you who doesn't. None of the real world people I have seen use low latency memory. They all use generic samsung memory. There is a pattern I noticed. The one who knows about hardware aren't really good gamers, and the one who's hardcore gamer that plays good enough to win prizes don't know so much about hardware, I guess they don't have time for both.
CPU will matter for a competitive gamer simply because they will run at low resolutions(I am comparatively speaking here not low by 640x480) to avoid lag. Lag in competition=bad, so they do anything to avoid it. As I said, my friend has Dell M170 laptop, that's with Pentium M 2.0GHz/533Mhz FSB/2MB L2, 1GB DDR2, 5400RPM drive and Geforce 7800GTX Go 256MB. He runs at resolutions where some newer games don't look better than older games because he runs it at so low. He doesn't put graphics effects like Bloom since it inteferes with his play. And he does play GOOD, in everything first person shooter.
They think its the graphics card that matters, but if they notice lag on a laptop that good, it won't get much better getting X1900 or whatever top end now as those top end GPUs aren't faster at 1024x768 by much anyway, it becomes a CPU bottleneck.
saratoga - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Seriously. Whats with all the noobs in here who can't read a benchmark?toyota - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
whats the big deal? we just want to see what some realistic benchmarks look like in addition to the cpu specific ones.smitty3268 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
What you want is a gpu benchmark. What's the big deal? This is an article about cpus. If you want a gpu benchmark, go to another article because this one isn't for you.It's no different than if I were to come in and start complaining about how this article didn't test the performance of external usb hard drives. Sure, this article doesn't have anything to do with that, but I actually have a usb hdd and I don't have a Conroe, so it would be useful to me. Who cares about these stupid cpu tests, I want my usb hdd test!!!
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
But the result will be as expected, there will be no difference thanks for CPU limitations are high resolutions.
zsdersw - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
If the clock speeds of Core 2 Duo at launch are all there is to ever be, maybe.. but that's probably about as likely as the US government paying off its debts and balancing the budget.
Miggle - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
I can't believe that most loggers here just does not understand the concept of isolation in tests. We are testing CPU speed here and as much as possible, we want to keep the GPU from affecting the results. Sure the difference would be smaller once we apply AA/AF but thats not because the X2 starts running faster but because the GPU is beginning to limit the fps. 20% is a huge difference for CPUs in the same price range... AMD may have FX64 by the time core2 is released but its not going to chop down that 20% performance lead down to 15% even. I'm an AMD fan but I got to hand the crown to intel for Core2. I'm particularly looking at the $183 core2.... should be faster than the X2 3800+ and cooler tooclassy - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
I don't think you understand. Years ago the cpu was the most important part of the system. That is far from the truth today. Truth is people play games with AA/AF and people do things at higher resolutions. That is just a fact of life. If you want to run pure cpu tests then run things at 640x480 then. That will show some facts, but escape the truth. Truth is the cpu is limited by the rest of the system components and who in the hell would pay $1000 for a cpu and put it in a system with to play games with no aa/af or run the desktop at 640x480. I think you fit in with that group of loggers you mentioned.coldpower27 - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Then let's GPU limit the FX 62 and Pentium EE 965 and bench them together and show there is no difference between them at high resolutions like 1920x1200. :D
This argument works in Intel's favour as well you know.
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Except the gamers like my friend where he plays somewhat competitively and complains that he gets lag spikes playing DoD: Source with Pentium M 2.0GHz laptop(a Dell XPS M170) with Geforce 7800GTX Go, at 1024x768 resolution. He also runs at 1024x768 for BF2 because of the same reason, and he still notices lag.
There's another guy which notices lag with A64 3000+ Radeon 9800 running Counter-Strike based on the FIRST HL engine.
The ones who play competitively wouldn't notice. But the "normal" people will also notice no difference running the same system with Sempron or Celeron D.
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
The ones who doesn't play competitively wouldn't notice.
bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
To be honest, I thought it would be a bit more than shown here but it's still pretty good. If I was an OCer I'd jump on this. Since I'm not, I won't be buying one for myself. My wife will get one since I'm sure some of my customers will be interested in this platform and I want to be familiar with it.thestain - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
You need higher resolutions and everything turned on to highest imnage quality settings to test this and.. the fsb limit will be more than likely exposed by this sort of test. Test it! Yes, Battlefield 2, etc.. could bring the system to a crawl, so.. ?? does this mean it is not important?I have a Dell 2405.. set to 1920X1200... I don't change this for games.. and most still play... some crawl.. a little, but.. I am a prospective buyer for the top cpus from Intel and AMD.. and.. while Conroe looks awfully impressive, it worries me that real world enthusiast class gaming test are not being done.
No excuses.. they need to be done!!
Try 1920X1200 resolution.. if you need to put the cards in SLI on both boards.. and this is important.. since Intel chipsets limit SLI.. but it still needs to be tested.
Turn on everything to the highest setting.. everything.. and lets see how Intel's cpu handles this kind of stress on system memory.
and.. if Anandtech and Intel are afraid to do this.. it is very telling indeed.
Mike
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
First, limited testing time and hardware limits what benches can be run. Second, SLI doesn't work on anything but NVIDIA chipsets, which don't exist for Core 2 Duo yet, so single GPU results are the only option for apples-to-apples. (CrossFire should work on 975X Core 2 Duo, but wasn't available at the time.) Third, I have a 2405FPW as well, and I can run everything from 2.0 GHz X2 3800+ to 2.6 GHz FX-60 with a single 7900 GTX GPU and get essentially the same performance at 1920x1200.If you're only going to play games at WUXGA, massively upgrading processor performance won't help. End of story - at least until GPUs that are twice as fast become available. This is not an excuse; it is reality. Benchmarking CPUs under GPU-constrained situations doesn't make sense. You can see the results of CPU scaling with a single 7800 GTX in http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">this X2 overclocking article; 7900 GTX would scale better, but eventually you still run into GPU limitations.
None of the above changes the fact that Core 2 Extreme is substantially faster than FX-62 in current applications. SLI/CF support in the future should actually benefit more, as there's CPU overhead associated with such configurations. Video encoding will also benefit greatly from Conroe's improved architecture.
In regards to your above comment about 2004 benchmarks, 2005/2006 versions of SysMark and Winstones do not exist, which is why we continue to use older versions. We would love to run PCMark06 and a bunch of other benchmarks (we had some of them available), but time constraints did not allow for comprehensive testing. Rest assured that we have seen nothing from Conroe that indicates serious problems in any applications; at worst it is slightly outpacing FX-62 performance, and at best it can be 50% faster. In general, a 20-25% performance advantage over FX-62 is common.
DigitalFreak - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Yeah, what he said. :-)neweggster - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
No offense Mike but did you say enthusiast? DELL is no where part of that word. LOL DELL, just the sound of them makes me gasp. In all good fun and humor, no offense. =)Calin - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
That Dell is the monitor. I think even real enthusiasts have nothing against Dell monitorspeternelson - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
In the table of processors, 805 and 820 are shown as "2Mx2". This is incorrect.
Both of these processors only have "1Mx2". Please amend.
Also weren't there some other new low end procs like 925 on the Intel roadmap, due to launch around the same time as Conroe? These may be more attractive than 805 or 820, neither of which can do virtualisation.
eRacer - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
The Pentium D 945 (3.4GHz, 2x2MB, no VT) should be on that list as well. It is on the July 23rd price list for only $163.http://www.hkepc.com/bbs/attachments_dir/ext_jpg/p...">Intel price list
thestain - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
2004 benchmarks.. Don't you have 2006"Poeple who pay the top price to buy these cpus will not be playing games or running applications at 1024 x768,
At least test these two systems at 1600X1200 or higher.
Do you have any multi-threaded test? Something newer?
Anantech is testing the Core 2 Duo at where it will perform best and this is somewhat suspicious. Does anyone who spends the kind of money people will dish out for the x6800 really use an old, rusty monitor with 1024 X768 resolution?
Conroe might kick butt, but at least give a platform where it goes beyond being tested for single core performance at high resolution, ok??
Some of us would like to see how it can perform when breaking a sweat in a multi-tasking environment..
and.. those early memory bandwidth results.. sure are not consistent with the rest of the results are they, any ideas as to why?
rqle - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
i can benchmark a 1ghz cpu with SLI/Crossfire at 2500x2500 and compare it to an AMD64/conroe and claim the AMD64/Conroe is only 3FPS faster OMG WTH.isolating variable, isnt that what you learn in 4th grade science project.
jkostans - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
By testing at low resolutions they are trying to reduce the impact the video card has on the benchmarks. If you make the video card the bottleneck by upping the resolution, then you aren't really benchmarking the CPUs. The whole point of the article is to benchmark the CPUs.Josh7289 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
It's because at lower resolutions, the PC is almost entirely CPU limited, not GPU limited, so it is actually easier to see how well these processors perform at lower resolutions.toyota - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
well when can we see some realistic benchmarks then? the people buying the AMD FX and Intel EE cpus with a decent video card are going to play at higher resolutions and use some aa/af. i would like to see what difference that would make. yes i know that what make more load on the gpu but it is more realistic for gamers.IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
That's absolute BS. Then you can get a Sempron or Celeron D and a very good video card. But we are looking how the CPU performs over VARIOUS benchmarks aren't we??
redbone75 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Hahaha! I guess I was wrong about the naysayers on my previous review. Did you read the article and see that they were only using a single 7900GTX for each system? F.E.A.R. would bring even these systems to a crawl at 1600 x 1200. Even so, there would be no reason to believe that the FX62 would magically cover that much ground by upping the resolution and effects.By the way, there is an error in your F.E.A.R. maximum frame rate graph. Those numbers can't be right: 370 vs. 324? At those frame rates who cares which system you buy :)
AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
High max frame rates doesn't mean it was an error. Frames can spike to be super high for a split second.peternelson - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Just a quick question.....WHY do your reviews persist in using blue bars for AMD, and green bars for Intel?
Surely it would make more sense to reverse these so they reflect the chosen corporate colours of green for AMD and blue for Intel.
If there is some perverse reason why you do the opposite, please explain!
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
LOL - good question. No real conspiracy, though: blue is the default color, so generally we just mark the "new" items in a different color (which defaults to green). Just think of blue as "currently reviewed" and green (or other colors) as new information. :)peternelson - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Thanks for the explanation. Maybe you can try it by changing the default colours depending on what you are reviewing?As things are we're forced to actually READ the legend text and fight our brain against the psychological cues given by colours. LOL.
redbone75 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Quite impressive, indeed. Maybe now more of the naysayers will start seeing the forest for the trees. My only problem is resisting jumping the gun once Core 2 Duo is available and wait for a little maturity for the motherboard bios'.peternelson - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
"once Core 2 Duo is available"who said it was going to be AVAILABLE ? ROFL
Maybe for Christmas? After Dell and Alienware get their orders to the front of the queue.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Almost makes you want to grab one of the cheapest Dell systems just to get the CPU, then sell off the rest. Almost. I would guess Core 2 Duo will be available in the retail market, but just with prices 20-50% higher than what we're currently listing. Over time, the prices will drop to more reasonable levels. Probably post-Christmas is when widespread availability at normal prices will occur.bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
That sucks for the early adopters. I guess my wife will get an upgrade next summer.peternelson - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Yeah buying a Dell is desperate but could work.But then how do you know they took proper anti static precautions building it ?
Furen - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
If the CPUs will be in short supply you can bet Dell will price these quite high. Dell will still have crappy Celerons and Pentium Ds to throw into cheat systems.NeonAura - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Guess that's the nail in the coffin for AMD's current revision. Intel looks to have the top.neweggster - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
In regards to that what would you think could give AMD any performance lead? If im right by all the benchmarks. Intel is the crown here, how can AMD catch what steam has been converted into pure power for Intel here? I don't see anyway AMD can be crowned anything in performance, or are you refering to some benchmarking that really doesn't effect gamers and high end performance junkies?
I am a bit concerned for AMD here as intel is actually pulling so hard ahead of AMD in performance on its new cores that im afraid poor old AMD can't catch up. If you look at what Intel is providing now vs AM2 its clear that every new release of new tech from intel is far advanced and performing well ahead in the benchmarks.
Regs - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
This is actually good. The CPU desk top market has been so stagnant lately. I'm tired of the same old 5% performance boost upgrades. Of course, when you over clock an architecture -- scalability isn't in your vocabulary. Who here upgrades a 2.0GHz A64 to a 2.4GHz A64? Doesn't happen often.AMD's future is looking brighter than ever today actually then when it was holding the huge performance crown (presently still does). In a business sense a fast performing car can only get you so far when there is a blind man behind the wheel.
Do not doubt AMDs performance envelope has ended. They have plenty of room to improve and show how far they can take their intuitive designs.
AnnonymousCoward - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
It's not that dire. Remember when the Athlon 64 was released, and AMD had a 20% advantage in Half Life 2 performance over similarly priced Intel CPUs? Intel still came back. AMD is a big company, and it's not like one processor that finally beats AMD (an Intel first in ~4 years) will put AMD in serious trouble.Calin - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Intel had the advantage over AMD in laptop performance/watts (and marketing oomph with Centrino). Now, Intel will have the advantage in desktop and laptop performance. As long as AMD keeps their advantage in the servers arena (where real money are), AMD is not in trouble.When the Conroe will transition to servers, people will think: "Better performance and lower thermal? At lower price? From Intel? Where do I sign?". That will be trouble for AMD
munky - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Good work on running some benches on a system not built by Intel. Conroe puts out impressive numbers, it may just live up to the hype when launched.xFlankerx - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Perfectly in line with older performance figures. Conroe's looking like a surefire winner.PCSJEFF - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
If you wanna test the CPU in games, why don't you use Grand Prix 4 and Everquest 2: those two games 3D engines use a lot more the CPU than the video card.Supa - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
In the original benchmark, if you still remember, the 20% performance advantage was achieved by E6700 (2.67) over 2.8 AMD.Now the new 20% advantage was achieved by X6800 (2.93) over 2.8 AMD.
Not quite the same 20%.
If anything, the tightening of memory latency (5-5-5-12 in this test) can only benefit AMD a bit more.
---
Gary Key - Thursday, June 8, 2006 - link
It benefits the Intel based system just as much. ;-)
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Original benchmark: Using Crossfire X1900XTX to alleviate bottlenecks
Now: Single Geforce 7900GTX
If you see FEAR benchmarks you'll see it'll be better in real world gaming as there is bigger advantage in minimum frame rates. At IDF system there is bigger difference in max frame rates.
Carfax - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Wow, the Core 2 is obviously bottlenecked by the single 7900 GTX O_O!!!Who'd have thought this would happen a few months ago?
peternelson - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Good point, when hardware permits, redo the test with TWO gpus in there and see if the same lead is evident.
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
The tightening of memory will benefit Core too.peternelson - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
And based on these performance figures,
a 4x4 board with TWO FX62 will vastly outperform a lonely Intel Conroe.
And for heavy I/O ie beating network and disk to death, Intel has not been shown to have the performance headroom. AMD I/O will scale nicely.
When Intel counter with quadcore, they will find their FSB even more limiting, at which point the wisdom of the Hypertransport approach will be evident.
Depends how quickly 4x4 comes to market (but said to be 2H2006)
thestain - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Be nice to see the benchmarks with the settings at default, 2X and 4X default to see if the settings requiring more work from cpu and greater memory use will change the results any.Thoughts?
IntelUser2000 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Err, I DO hope for AMD a 2x core part would beat Intel's platform which would cost 1/4 of the cost wouldn't you??
And then only in multi-threading. If you want to argue about MT, then Pentium D 805 is the absolute leader over AMD's here.
peternelson - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Only if price is a major consideration.In a highend system you will be paying say $795 for a myrinet lan card, lots for an areca 1260 8 port sata, more for your TWO high end video cards.
The processor(s) then become a smaller proportion of the total system cost, so the price differential between 805 and FX62 becomes less important.
Plus the 805 doesn't support hardware virtualisation so is not a good choice.
mpeavid - Thursday, June 8, 2006 - link
Uhm - cost is a cost.If one product cost significantly more, it is duely noted.
Cost is still the PRIME factor in any enterprise endeavor. Business to make money.
neweggster - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
The two are comparable at limiting the max available I/O's on each cpu, thus both would be almost identical in comparison and AMD still would not have any lead in this area since both are similar here. Take a look at the communication bench to see for yourself on that.
Just curious, where did you see Intel not having any performance headroom and where is it show AMD I/O scaling better? I guess your an AMD fan? At a glance one observation I took in was how AMD and the rest say how AM2 has a faster resolution to their current AM2 fastest lineup, saying how AM2 has a faster cpu in the works and it will eventually outperform conroe.
Based on that argument I seen on many sites, it is my opinion that no multi billion dollar industry has a 1-man marketing team that would put together a product not worthy of such big changes knowing the community of people they are selling to are educated more on researching and buying the best performance bang for their buck. Knowing this they surely wouldn't have released AM2 currently as is if they had already a faster version capable of competing with its rival Intels top performing release.
If AMD is struggling this bad on a new core blah blah blah, then wouldn't you think in terms of processor technology and advancement that they couldn't possibly turn out 5+ years of research in a single year to outperform conroe. I know conroe is been in the works for a really long time now and all im saying is if AM2 was so bad and only gave a 2-4% increase in performance over its 939 top counterpart then why release at all? Just hold off and wait till you have something that can actually perform closer to its rival Intel. Yeah I know its been a war back and forth for years but in the past till now you can assume how bad AMD must be with Intels conroe on top with so much headroom.
bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Because you and I, the enthusiast, don't make AMD nor Intel any money. It's the J6P's that buy all of this stuff and keep those guys in business. AMD needed to transition to DDR2 and they did it now vs later. Why didn't Intel wait till Conroe to transition to DDR2 and 65nm when they knew they had a winner?neweggster - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
I understand that. Mainly Intel can take advantage of DDR2 on its core design early on and stretch new technology while keeping a clear indication on their doorstep that they had conroe to push them ahead and keep sales and the people happy.
AMD didn't have anything more advanced then its FX60 939 to shove in the mainstream with AM2 only being what 2-4% faster, in this sense its only fair to question my original thought, would AMD be better to not launch AM2 for the sake of keeping face with the people and having it look like they need to get something that can beat this new conroe; furthermore, then releasing a small gain that appears to be a flop and having people say no to future AMD.
For this purpose I think it would of been wise decision by AMD to let this conroe come out and have a winning solution launched to beat it or compete with it when the time was right, rather then launching a marketing flop and causing people like us to lean towards the opposition and loss of trust towards AMD. =)
bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
I think AMD performed as they should've by getting off the DDR bus and letting DDR2 fully take the market. K8L won't be here till next year and I'm sure the memory manufacturers would like to phase out DDR. Especially since we ALL knew AM2 wasn't going to be any more of a performer than 939.Gary Key - Thursday, June 8, 2006 - link
The last volume orders for DDR have been sent to the FABs already, DDR production at the FAB side will be less than 10% by the end of Q3.neweggster - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
I agree in some ways. I never said that it was a something bad in context here but that AMD should of waited till they had something to show for.
And DDR2 is not fully taken the market yet, not for a long time by any standards. DDR still remains top sales and DDR2 isn't going to really start seeing numbers matching DDR sales for another 1-2 years because all the major sales are exclusively business, schools, and computers bought on a basis by people to do small tasks where many P4's and regular AMD based machines are still the biggest sales for DDR, and DDR2 being more expensive to build with while keeping the cost down, granted sales are on a decline since the induction of AM2.
From my other statement it reflects that no matter what AMD has done, rather waiting or releasing AM2 like they did, it does not open DDR2 sales that much yet. If you think about it DDR2 sales are still in my estimate a 80% or more Intel sale, because AM2 is proven to be something that enthusiast would rather not go to till it matures more. And then all the major retailers will not promote AM2 so hard to sell just because of the baring they have seen, its not yet cost effective for them. So by this it would make no difference on DDR2 making it more mainstream.
The move to DDR2 is still very slow and will be so for a time. Trust me on that.
bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
He's probably using Opteron vs Zeon benchmarks where the Zeon is held back by its FSB when scaling to more CPU's. I don't see why the same wouldn't apply to Conroe vs FX62's.peternelson - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Yes that's what I'm talking about. For every opteron you add you get more HT channels which can each connect one (or more using tunnel passthrough) I/O chips.
Whilst not in the opteron league, if 4x4 connects the processors by hypertransport as well as the chipset, it is reasonable to assume it works on either two HT links per socket, or splitting the HT between two peers.
Therefore the second AM2 socket can have it's "empty" HT connection talking to a SECOND I/O chipset. For that reason it has POTENTIALLY say double the I/O performance of a single Intel FSB.
Another point about this comparison generally is that these conroe benchmarks are of the EXTREME edition. That is unusual in the property that it has especially extra fast FSB compared to mainstream conroe. Therefore in benchmark comparisons of the non-extreme conroes, the fsb would be slower and may form a constraint which would alter (probably reduce) the relative performance difference between AMD and Intel seen here. The benchmarks will reveal.
zsdersw - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
The EE used was on a 1066 fsb.. same as mainstream Conroe.goz314 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Apples and Oranges... It will also cost vastly more than a Conroe-based system. Even if the performance of an AMD 4x4 platform is significantly higher, Intel would still have a significant edge in a performance/dollar analysis.
4x4 is currently vaporware and it's at least a quarter behind Intel's comparable quad-core processor roadmap. Conroe, on the other hand, is launching next month and will be available for a year before a 4x4 platform even sees the light of day.
Real hardware will always beat an marketing engineer's 'idea' no matter how good that idea looks on paper.
bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Can I quote you on this and use it against the hypocrites? BTW, you got a link on where I can buy a Conroe?Josh7289 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Why do you have to buy the processor yourself to know how it performs? Real hardware was used in these benchmarks. AMD's 4x4 does not have any real hardware available yet, so it is vaporware as of now.bob661 - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
Conroe isn't available either. So the vaporware argument could be used here as well. I don't have to buy it but it does need to be available for purchase.
zsdersw - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
AMD's 4x4 is much more vaporware at this point than Conroe.peternelson - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
However 4x4 is NOT a year away it will be here in 2006 from at least three motherboard vendors.
As for pricing criticisms, the AMD processor prices will be lowered WHEN conroe actually ships ;-)
I'm just pointing out that with Intel conroe, you have nowhere to go to scale up without switching to Xeon platforms and they're not particularly cheap.
What a 4x4 AM2 system will let you do is obtain a reasonably fast system initially using ONE fx2, and LATER spend a bit more and you have a MONSTER.
This phased upgrade may suit people who get paid monthly and want to upgrade gradually. AMD 4x4 will provide that upgrade path.
fitten - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
You do realize that you could have been doing this for ages... just buy any of the dual socket S940 motherboards, put one dual core Opteron in it today, then add another at some later time? This 4x4 flailing is just marketing. The only real gain is that it doesn't require registered/ecc memory.The FX line is still going to be expensive AND it's not like there's a ton of software (especially games) that use dual cores... much less quad cores (although this may change with time... but by that time, there'll be even better CPUs out, probably even *real* quad core chips).
Even being an AMD supporter, the 4x4 is not much more than a panic reaction by AMD in response to Core (and its variants). I, for one, will NOT be throwing money into a 4x4 system. At best, it seems like a one-off and a dead-end path before it is even released.
fikimiki - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
You are right except 2 points:- Motherboards for 2 CPUs are expensive, 4x4 should cost no more than standard motherboard
- 4x4 is aimed also for X2, so two X2 3800+ means cheap monster!
From AMD side I don't see any panic, they are executing their plan and nothing more.
gramboh - Wednesday, June 7, 2006 - link
Are you serious? I can't see AMD pricing FX62 much under $800 it would screw up the rest of their pricing scheme too much, spending $1600 on CPUs to best a $500 CPU is insane. If you need to wait month to month for free cash flow to build a computer, you really don't have enough wealth to afford $1600-$2000 on cpu alone.
rqle - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
if 2.6ghz beat out FX62, then a 2.4ghz conroe should equal the same, i rather take a $300 2.4ghz then a $1000 FX2.ShapeGSX - Tuesday, June 6, 2006 - link
So you are willing to buy $2000 worth of processors to beat an Intel processor?