Core Duo Reaches the Desktop

rtt writes "AMD has long reigned the desktop CPU market due to Intel's offerings struggling to keep up in terms of performance and power consumption. Yonah is the predecessor to the Core architecture and is predominantly a mobile chip, and is used at the heart of Intel's Viiv technology. Bit-tech has an article about Yonah beating the top of the range desktop AMD chip, the FX60, clock for clock. From the article" 'When Yonah is running at the same clock speed as AMD's Athlon 64 FX-60, we found that it beat it into a corner in just about every situation.'"

Comments

Re:It's a play on words.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats the thing, the FX60 is AMD's highest FX chip, and it starts at $990 on pricewatch and over $1000 on froogle. Pricewatch isnt listing core duos yet, but froogle has this model (duo T2600) startng at $640.

If you dont need the 64 bit stuff, this looks like a pretty good deal.

Match on Desktop perhaps but not as a workstation

[HighOrbit]

From TFA:

Core Duo solves a lot of the short comings, but there is one major feature omission from Yonah's architecture: it doesn't support Intel's EM64T 64-bit extensions

and later:
The lack of 64-bit extensions may be a worry for some, as will the poor FPU performance - the latter showed up in our MP3 encoding test.

So if you are doing anything with a 64-bit, high memory, or FPU requirement, AMD still wins.

Why did they overclock the Core Duo?

[WhiteWolf666]

I don't understand the articles' conclusions.

Athlon X2 4800+ stock > Core Duo at stock clocks, in 32-bit mode.
Athlon X2 4800+ stock Core Duo at stock, in 32-bit mode.
Athlon FX-60 stock http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1 845&page=2 , it is possible to run the Athlon X2 4800+ at 3.14 ghz , which is a 30% overclock, albeit with a very serious cooling solution. I'm wagering that at that speed it would flatten the overclock Core Duo, especially if you permit 64-bit optimizations, which DO noticeably increase speed on several programs in Linux. Please don't whine about not having a 64-bit OS; those of us in the Linux world can choose 64-bit or 32-bit at will.

Now, I'll admit that the Intel's Performance per Watt is significantly better. But it ain't faster.

Re:Lies! Lies and slander!

[pimpimpim]

I was hoping that your link would lead to some statement of AMD on this comparison on the slashdot venders site, but there doesn't seem to be one. Or at least, none that I can find. Can you give the exact link, I would be happy to read an other side of the story. Or where you just trying to make some vague statement on how AMD supports slashdot and we should be pro-AMD even when they are not in front of intel concerning CPU power.

In any case, I don't know how much this new intel is better or not, but I wouldn't mind that much. When any of those two manufacturers make a chip that's "better" than the other's, well, then let the other manufacturer improve their product! All good for us in the end, it's at least a good thing to know that AMD can't just stop developing now, because they have intel's breath in their neck. That means more fancy stuff to be expected, yay!

Personally I'll just buy the one with the best performance/price and performance/power-usage ratio.

Sham

[Short Circuit]

You know, I like the Core Duo, and would love to have one in a laptop or on a desktop. (If Debian isn't ready for x86-64, then x86-64 isn't ready for me.)

Probably the most impressive thing is that the T2600 out-guns Intel's flagship Pentium Extreme Edition 965 processor, even with the massive clock speed deficit. After effortlessly overclocking our Core Duo to 2.6GHz, it beats AMD's flagship Athlon 64 FX-60 into a pulp.

As others have pointed out, the Core Duo only beat out the Athlon64 FX-60 when overclocked. If the chip, when overclocked, was safe for production environments, then the chip would have shipped at a higher default clock speed.

The whole tone of the article is wrong...it seems more interested in Intel than in technology. Notice that the "most impressive thing" is that the Core Duo chip does better than a high-end Intel chip. The only negative thing they mention in the article is a reminder that AMD's AM2 architecture is supposed to come out next week.

They're misrepresenting the product. I have to wonder if they were paid for this review.

PRICE:PERFORMANCE, THE RATIO & YOU

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

It's how I have obtained everything I have on a meager income. (1> meager 100000)
For instance when I bought my car, I spent about 10 hours researching. I saved over $4000 off of sticker, and 70000 miles later I am still a happy camper! that was between 12-18% off the price. My time was worth $400 /hr. 5x what I bill my clients, and 17x what I make hourly.

How to buy anything.
1. Set a realistic budget for the item you wish to purchase & save money for it
2. Do research on the best Price:Performance
        a. Look up your options, consider items that are similar, look at diferent brands.
        b. Compare reviews
        c. Don't spend so much time researching that your savings is no longer worth it. (don't spend tons of time looking how to save 10 cents on dryer sheets!)

3. Look for a reputable vendor for said product.
4. Make purchase, and enjoy without feeling guilty about what you spent!

Thats why I purchased an AMD x2 4400
and an nvida geforce 7900 gt. Great games performance / Excellent multitasking

Smokin like the tires on my car!

Re:every situation?

[flobberchops]

Since most MP3's are downloaded, this is not an issue :) AMD lost the consumer (ie., non geek brand fanbois) market to Intel. I always used AMD now after my AMD laptop is a hairdryer , opening a browser turns the AMD fan on non stop. They are a joke in the power consumption efficiency market. Merom beats AMD into a pulp. Im going Core 2 Duo on my laptops in the near future, not AMD.

Because they could do so easily.

[Andy Dodd]

"it is possible to run the Athlon X2 4800+ at 3.14 ghz , which is a 30% overclock, albeit with a very serious cooling solution."

Note the "very serious cooling solution". In the case of the OCed Core Duo, they used the stock cooler and it didn't even get hot when clocked WAY beyond the speed they tested it at. If you read the article they were able to run it as high as 3.1 GHz or so and the stock heatsink was still cold to the touch at that speed.

I've been a big AMD fan for a long time, but now that I own a Core Duo laptop (Intel has managed to maintain superiority in the mobile market) I am definately considering going to Conroe for my next desktop upgrade depending on price and what AMD comes out with. I already have an X2 3800+ based file server, and in terms of raw CPU, the Core Duo beats it. I'll admit that other than transcoding of video I can't do many comparisons between the two machines though.

That would've been a good comparison to make - Core Duo T2500 (approx $350-360) vs. Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Approx $300). Like the FX-60 vs. OCed Core Duo, they run at the same clock speed. Note that the Core Duo has a TDP of 31W and the X2 3800+ has a TDP of 89W. Price/performance is close if not equal in my experience, and performance per watt of the Core Duo is WAY ahead.

One key here - Intel has a roadmap that includes a clear performance boost beyond that of the Core Duo within months, while AMD only has incremental upgrades (Socket AM2) planned. I've also seen references to a new A64 core with an extra FPU, but nothing about availability of that.

Just because AMD has been the king of the desktop for a while doesn't mean you should count Intel out now that they've finally ditched the Netburst architecture.

Re:That would be the Conroe

[reldruH]

A couple of weeks ago Intel announced they were moving up their launch dates. Here's the quote from the article: "Three new chips, one for each of the Core market segments, will be part of the rollout: Woodcrest for servers in June, Conroe for desktops in July, and Merom for notebooks in August." Hopefully by November prices will have already started dropping.

skewed benchmark

[SolusSD]

Wasn't it Intel that "taught" us that performance per clock cycle isn't important? This entire benchmark is a a little skewed since most people will not be running the core duo *overclocked*. So in reality, the Athlon FX-60 is still king of this benchmark. Don't get me wrong, I believe the core duo is a wonderful processor and I'll be sure to have it in my next notebook.

here you go...

[YesIAmAScript]

http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2750&p=1

This review is weeks old.

Core Duo beats Opteron 175 clock-for-clock in nearly every test (including all that measure primarily CPU performance and bandwidth). Yes, the Core Duo was massively overclocked, it wins clock-for-clock, but if you want the highest performance right now with no overclocking, it's still AMD. But you'll pay a big power/heat price for it.