Slashdot Mirror
Core Duo - Intel's Best CPU?
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.'"
I have to say the Intel Dual Core Processor is quite impressive. It's fast enough to run just about anything I throw at it, and still keep chugging, but I believe that the article negects the fact that the dual core processor runs extremely hot vs other Intel processor. My old Sony VAIO never got as hot as my MacBook Pro does, and it is something that should be considered.
This signature was left intentionally blank.
I would argue that the 8080 was. If you normalize for date/speed that is...
The new core microarchitecture, if you read the Ars Technica article in the previousl
More reviews here and here.
I thought this was commonly known or assumed. Is this news to many people?
I thought that the only reason the P4 had not been totally abandoned already was that it takes time to switch directions in such a massive company. (and with so many partners that design around your product)
...actually show ANYTHING really well, then it's the absolute neglibility of recent synthetic benchmarks. Looking at the numbers SiSoft Sandra spills out, the clocked-to-the-brim Netburst-cores should take the performance-crown with ease in FPU and ALU-applications alike. In reality though, said CPUs hardly matter at all when it's about uncompromising peak-performance. I fail to understand why benchmark-suites this far away from reality still matter in reviews like this.
Sad, in an awkward way.
:%s/Open Source/Free Software/g
YTARY!
The reason for going to 64-bits is to increase the amount of physical address space, not for speed. The majority of applications, especially integer, do not benefit from bigger registers and wider ALUs.
"But Yonah also supports the group of 13 new instructions known as SSE3, handles some SSE2 instructing like Shuffle and Unpack up to 30% faster, and is capable of using its instruction-grouping abilities (known as micro-ops fusion) on some SSE instructions, improving overall throughput."
SSE3 has some very nice hardware thread synchronization instructions. These are important (and AMD has them now). As for the instruction grouping, that sounds rather suspiciously like the double dispatch operations that were added to Opteron:
"Appendix C of Opteron's Optimization Guide specifies to which class each and every instruction belongs. Most 128 bit SSE and SSE2 instructions are implemented as double dispatch instructions. Only those that can not be split into two independent 64 bit operations are handled as Vector Path (Micro Code) instructions. Those SSE2 instructions that operate on only one half of a 128 bit register are implemented as a single (Direct Path) instruction."
Assuming AMD can tune Turion64s to be more power friendly, they'll be able to best Intel's fancy new Core Duo. If they can't, then Intel may be the best game in town for the first time in a decade (assuming they price competitively).
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
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.
At the time it was introduced, there was no other microprocessor that came close to matching it.
It was indisputably not only the best microprocessor Intel had produced to date, but the best microprocessor on the market.
Simply no contest. No argument. It superlative in every way, the fastest, the cheapest, the lowest in power consumption, the most advanced in architecture, the widest path. It was king of the hill, the top of the tree, the Cadillac of microprocessors, the ne plus ultra, it bestrode the world of microprocessors like a colossus.
The world will never again see the day when one manufacturer so dominated the microprocessor market that a single product had a 100.0% market share.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Our QA department is testing my universal application right now (AppKit based). They've recorded a 20 to 30 percent increase in performance of a 1GB MacBook Pro over a 3GB 2Ghz Dual G5 doing a particular operation (mostly mathematics based done in cross-platform C++). It's single threaded, I might add, since OpenMP isn't here yet. The *ONLY* difference in the XCode settings between the two architectures that I made was to enable SSE3 for the Intel build. I can't believe that it's that alone, of course, and suspect it's just better code gen for the Intel architecture coming out of GCC.
Actually, x86-64 does have some speed benefits over standard ia32 for smaller programs and data sets in that it doubles the number of exposed registers. Most other archs were not register starved on the 32 bit version, so going 64 bit generally slowed the system down a bit because the pointer size doubled, taking more memory bandwidth to store pointers.
The Core Duo cannot do the same things the Athlon 64 X2 can. Largely because (gasp) it cannot run 64bit code.
What the hell is the point of this comparison?
You're correct, of course. However, many of us don't need to run 64-bit code. You can completely ignore this, because any 32-bit CPU doesn't fit your needs, but please try to understand that other people need different things.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I drive an 18 wheeler, and I can't imagine why anyone would want a passenger car. You can't haul near the same amount of goods!
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.
The parent is the worst comment I have ever seen. Maybe my morning coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
/.
"It might perform well now, but how long will it last under a load? Will something happen over time that they do not forsee?"
Of AMD Competition? Of continuous 100% CPU utilization? Of OEM bumblings putting on an improperly rated Heatsink fan? If there is any faith in Moore's law, then we will all come to the simple conclusion that this chip is not going to be the best forever. However, is it the best right now? Yes.
Performance per watt, per cycle, overall execution speed have proven this chip is the best x86-derieved architectures. This is a great accomplishment for Intel who's been on the ropes for quite some time.
Now, to say, "Well, they may randomly explode because Intel pushed the envelope too far, I'm going to sit on my hands for another 6 months and wait out the war," is just caution to a fault. Yes, things will happen that people don't forsee. Will it explode? Will it have catastrophic microcode failures which cause hardware damage? Maybe. But then again, you'd just be sitting on your hands waiting for the off chance that you are right.
p.s.
Long time reader, first time poster. Congratulations your post dragged me kicking and screaming into
Hate to say this, but there are not that many uses for 64 bit processors yet. Manufacturers do not provide 64-bit drivers for their products. The drivers that exist are buggy. To the average Joe, 64-bit is useless. He doesn't need the extra horsepower for his Internet browser or word processor. Well, unless Vista comes out.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
It sure the hell is. I have a 2.0x2 G5 desktop machine and one of the new 1.66 GHz Core Duo Mac Minis. Running Handbrake, the mini is easily twice as fast.
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).
The "more registers" with x86-64 has been massively overhyped. There's very little real world benefit.
For example: AMD's claims about UT2004 being 20% faster in 64-bit mode turned out to be bogus (more like 2%).
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.