Previewing the Performance of the Intel Conroe

pirate rtt writes "bit-tech has spent some time with an Intel Conroe system and has published a preview of its performance as compared to the current Intel flagship chip - the Presler 965. From the article: 'Core 2 Duo is clearly a very capable processor. We found that it was faster than the current 965 processor in most situations on the desktop, and far more proficient at gaming - an area where Intel has traditionally been weak. The added memory bandwidth that will come from having faster RAM enabled on the Core 2 Extreme chips will be an extra bonus for those looking to Conroe as a gaming platform.'"

Comments

Wait for v2

[MarkByers]

Core 2 Duo is clearly a very capable processor

Version 1 of anything always sucks. I'm waiting for the Core 2 Duo II v2 Second Edition.

Re:Wait for v2

[Crussy]

This has been brought up many times. Every chip has a sheet of bugs and the core duo is no exception. Though if you had actually read the sheet you'd notice that almost all of the bugs were found during intel testing and most involved extremely rare scenarios. The amount of bugs reported show only that intel is conducting serious testing. As for not fixing the bugs, do you think AMD is fixing all of the bugs its processors have? http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white _papers_and_tech_docs/25759.pdf There are a number of bugs still in amd processors and even a few are not planned to be fixed. However this is really negligible concern to anyone.

Are These Reviews Significant?

[buckhead_buddy]

The article reads:

The Core 2 Duo benchmarks we ran were not completed in our own labs and we have used some unfamiliar tests in order to establish how well the new Core architecture performs. This was because we were not allowed to tweak the system or install our own benchmarks - the machine was built and configured by Intel engineers.

So if Intel provided hardware, chips, and tests themselves, isn't this more of a write-it-yourself press release from Intel than a real independent review? If they provided "some unfamiliar tests" then that would seem to indicate Intel doesn't know what common and familiar tests should be run, or (more cynically) that they didn't want potentially bad or uncontrolled results polluting their positive reviews.

Are reviews like this of any real significance?

And what makes this review different?

[LIGC]

There have been Conroe previews several sites, all of them using intel preconfigured boxes. The only way to make sure of Conroe's performance is to benchmark it once its bought. I'm sorry if I'm a bit of a sceptic, but I don't trust these boxes made by Intel to market Conroe.

Sorry but

[opusman]

I'm waiting for the 400 page Tom's Hardware review!

Re:About Time

[ruiner13]

Why does a laptop need 64-bits? Are you addressing more than 4GB memory? I haven't seen a laptop yet that can support more physical memory than 32-bit chips can address, nor can I see someone doing heavily scientific work on a laptop as they tend to have slower, smaller hard drives. Extended memory and scientific precision are the only valid reasons I can think of needing 64-bit architecture, neither of which apply directly to laptops.