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Core Duo - Intel's Best CPU?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shadow-knows dept.

Bender writes "How good is Intel's Core Duo mobile processor? Good enough that Apple chose to put it in the iMac, and good enough that Intel chose to base its next generation microprocessor architecture on it. But is it already Intel's best CPU? The Tech Report has managed to snag a micro-ATX motherboard for this processor and compared the Core Duo directly to a range of mobile and desktop CPUs from AMD and Intel, including the Athlon 64 X2 and the Pentium Extreme Edition. The results are surprising. Not only is the Core Duo's performance per watt better than the rest, but they conclude that its 'outright performance is easily superior to Intel's supposed flagship desktop processor, the Pentium Extreme Edition 965.'"

4 of 305 comments (clear)

  1. CoreDuo != Core Microarchitecture by BobPaul · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's not obvious from the article, but you can find it elsewhere on the internet (such as Intel's comment that the Core microarchitecture will provide 20% boost over CoreDuo). It is hinted at in the article with the following quote (emphasis mine).
    If you've been hanging around here for a while, you may have heard us referring to Core Duo by its code name, Yonah, long before Intel decided to give it a somewhat confusing official name. ... In the case of the Core Duo, those CPU cores are massaged and tweaked versions of the Pentium M processor, familiar as part of Intel's Centrino mobile platform.

    The new core microarchitecture, if you read the Ars Technica article in the previousl /. posting linked, was designed from the ground up and is similar to PentiumM in many respects, but is much more different than the CoreSolo and CoreDuo are.
  2. Maybe per watt performance is the best but... by danpsmith · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Looks like AMD still has them beat. From my take on this, on pure performance, the 3800+ X2 is going toe-to-toe and the 4800+ X2 is beating it every single time. So again, not that impressive. Now the per watt performance is important in some applications, so I can see why it would be a better, say, mobile platform than the AMD chips. But let's not pretend that Intel is winning the benchmarks with this quite yet.

    --
    Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
  3. Practical experiance by weiserfireman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Just this week, I received a brand new HP nx9420 laptop with a 1.83Ghz Duo processor. I use this laptop for 3D Solid CAD/CAM applications. For my application, it is definately faster. The CAM rendering is faster, the part rotation is smoother. Overall very efficient. I have done some stress testing by doing some long database queries at the same time I am rendering a part. My old computers would have joked. There is a noticable hit on rendering performance, but it is still able to complete both tasks in a reasonable manner. We have the same CAD/CAM software on a 1.6Ghz PentiumM Laptop and two 2.8GHz Pentium-4 desktop machines. All the machines have 1024MB of RAM, and the two Desktops have 256MB video cards. I have not noticed that heat issues that other folks have mentioned, but I don't hold it in my lap either. So far I am very impressed.

  4. Keep in mind that by sgent · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Intel's lead is mostly a manufactoring one -- 65nm process. AMD still uses 90nm. Not to discount Intel's advantage, but AMD doesn't need a new core design to continue their dominance -- merely a new manufactoring facility (which is hard, but not as hard as the design).