Intel's Conroe Previewed and Benchmarked

DrFishstik writes "Anandtech has a few preliminary benchmarks on Intel's new Conroe architecture. From the article: 'As far as we could tell, there was nothing fishy going on with the benchmarks or the install. Both systems [AMD 2.8Ghz OC and Conroe] were clean and used the latest versions of all of the drivers.'"

Comments

Shock news.

[supersnail]

Next years Intel chip will run faster than last years AMD chip!

Re:Shock news.

[Saven Marek]

THe simple fact remains that intel needed to do these tests at all, side by side. That's an admission on their part that AMD is beating them and beating them hard. I've heard AMD has some new stuff in the pipeline that'll put conroe out of its misery once and for all.

Given Intel's release date fiasco's it'll probably come out before conroe too.

Re:The Conclusion

[mtenhagen]

Well the "new" intels are faster then the "old" amd's. This not suprising Intel has plenty of cash and had to come out with a cpu faster then amd.

The big question will be how will this compare to the next generation of AMD cpu's. And what will the price be. If amd will be faster per dollar the rise of amd will continue.

Re:AMD Processor Model Unknown

[Malenfrant]

Yes, exactly. They tested it against a chip which is not listed as being as fast, overclocked so they can pretend it is as fast. Big surprise it didn't perform as well

What about RAM?

[Anonymous Coward]

The AMD system used 1GB of DDR400 running at 2-2-2/1T timings, while the Intel system used 1GB of DDR2-667 running at 4-4-4.

and:

Intel told us to expect an average performance advantage of around 20% across all benchmarks.

Did they really expect around 20% better performance, while using 66% faster RAM? That seems at least unfair to me... Especially the encoding tests, whose results depend heavily on RAM access.

Re:Wait and see

[Bert64]

And Intel's new chips are based on the Pentium-M, which is still heavily based on the Pentium-PRO that dates from the early 90s...
Intel's attempt to produce a new architecture (netburst/p4) resulted in an underperforming overheating mess, so they're going back to one that works.

TrustedComputing Inside (TM)

[Alsee]

Code-named Conroe... blah blah blah ...feature "security" is expected to be discussed in the framework of a technology that is based on standards set by the Trusted Computing Group and carries the code-name "LaGrande."

Intel's new chips have a Trust Enforcer chip embedded inside the CPU itself. Each chip features a unique serial number, DRM enforcement, Sealed Storage to prohibit you from reading your own files on your hard drive, and Remote Attestation to act as a spy on your computer to log your hardware and what software you run and to securely transmit that spy report to other people over the internet. The chip has your computer's master key locked inside, and you are forbidden to know your master key to control your own computer. Other models of the Trust chip are boobytrapped to self destruct if you attempt to get you key out, and I'd wager these CPUs are boobytrapped to self destruct as well.

Evil as hell.

-

impressive benchmarks

[bleughbleugh]

yep, impressive, BUT, more important than benchmarks for most Bang per buck by that I mean, if the AMD processor is 50% less than the Intel one, but only 20% slower, AMD will win it for me :-)

Re:Wait and see (faked tests)

[FirstOne]

Something isn't right, from the screenshot.

..Using an award bios last copyrighted in 2003 for AMD's latest FX-60 chip (2006)..
..Notice how the AMD Processor isn't correctly id'd in the Bios post.
..Even though.. DFI has distributed a new bios version to suport FX60..

.. This thread indicates that there is some video defect in RD480 chipset..

These red flags indicate that something is very fishy and Intel's results should not be trusted... (rigged test)

Re:Wait and see (faked tests)

[FirstOne]

Corrected link to DFI bios update.. (using ATI's RD480) chipset..

Notice items.. 1, 2, and 10..