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Core 2 Reviews All Around the Web
NerdMaster writes "NDA for Intel Core 2 CPUs was lifted on the night from yesterday to today and all major hardware reviewing websites are posting Core 2 Duo E6700 and Core 2 Xtreme X6800 reviews. Here is a collection of several reviews so you can check for yourself whether Core 2 Duo is faster or not than Athlon 64 X2. Reviews posted at Tom's Hardware Guide, AnandTech, HEXUS, Hardware Secrets, OCAU, TweakTown, HotHardware, The Tech Report, Trusted Reviews, Legion Hardware, bit-tech, ExtremeTech, Legit Reviews, Sharky Extreme, HardOCP, PC Perspective, GotFrag Hardware, Gamepyre, X-bit Labs - Part 1, tbreak, neoseeker and Byte Sector." We've already touched on this technology, but there has been (obviously) a lot of discussion about it since it was announced.
The second - Itanium - as far as I'm concerned, it's simply a step backwards. A processor these days is most of the times limited by the slow memory (it can easily take 200-300 cycles to service a request from memory, as opposed to 2-3 cycles from the L1 cache or 6-20 cycles from the L2). Out-of-order execution (Pentium Pro and after) alleviates the problem to a certain extent, by allowing other instructions that do not depend on the result of the instruction that missed to execute. So the processor can still do something while servicing the miss (quite often it executes other loads that miss, effectively increasing the memory-level parallelism of the processor). Because Itanium executes instructions in order, it simply can't do that. Furthermore the compiler can't tell which instructions are going to miss (it needs a profiler to figure frequently-missing instructions, and only then it can generate prefetches). Intel's solution - let's throw shitloads of caches on the Itanium, to reduce the occurence of the misses. Of course, that makes the chip huge, considerably more expensive, etc.
Nevertheless, Conroe seems to be an awesome chip. Time to buy some INTC shares ...
The Raven
for the techreport article:
In fact, after seeing the Core 2 in action, many folks may be wondering how AMD is going to keep up. The Athlon 64 X2 4200+ currently lists for more than the Core 2 Duo E6600, and that's just not gonna cut it. Fortunately, AMD has confirmed to us that a major price move is coming in July. We don't have the specifics just yet, but they say they intend to maintain a competitive price-performance ratio. That may mean we'll see the dramatic price cuts rumored to be coming, which would be a good start.
For its next trick, AMD needs to get its 65nm fab process going ASAP. I've heard prognostications that AMD won't be able compete against Core 2 chips with its current AMD64 microarchitecture. That may be the case, but I'm not entirely convinced. The contest we've seen in the preceding pages pitted CPUs manufactured on AMD's 90nm process against CPUs made on Intel's 65nm process. The Netburst fiasco at 90nm has made us forgetful about the benefits of process shrinks, but they can be substantial. AMD could be in a much stronger position if it gets to 65nm quickly.
Why are there so many fans of AMD? We can all see the core duo is a great chip, but AMD managed a coup, to topple the crown of the reigning champ Intel a few years ago, and that deserved much kudos. I think a lot of us were worried about Intel becoming another Microsoft, and Intel had some very dodgey practises (Rambus, Pentium divide, PIV)
Not really. AMD will have to do some very extreme price cuts to compete in performance/price. The E6300 keeps up with most AMD x2 CPUS, and I strongly doubt that they will drop the X2 4800 to the $200 range. But even if they do, the lower heat output and power consumption of the E6300 would tip the scale back in its favour.
Obviously, if they do decide to practically give their CPUs away, I'll consider what is the best option for me at the time. But right now, there doesn't appear to be any chance for AMD to compete over the next couple of months.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
My name is ArcherB and I am an AMD fanboy.
This processor, imho, is as much an AMD product as it is and Intel one. Not because AMD developed it, but because it would not exist if it were not for AMD. If AMD were to go under tomorrow, this would be the last processor we can expect to see from Intel for at least 10 years. For this reason alone, I will continue to buy AMD.
And yes, I am excited about this CPU. It is superior to any AMD CPU currently on the market. However, there was never any doubt in my mind that Intel could create this CPU since they have more research money that NASA. It just took them getting mopped for a while to motivate them. This is the CPU Intel should have released years ago. Good to see they are finally close to where they should be. However, don't expect me to congratulate Intel too much for doing what they should have been doing anyway!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I'm currently running AMD on all my machines and was looking at upgrading to a X2 CPU later this year. Core 2 Duo has completely changed that. Instead I'm looking at an Intel based system where the money I save on the CPU can be put towards a stronger video card instead.
And next year (or 2) AMD will pass Intel again and you'll have to change your mind again. Why don't you just stick with AMD since it was their competition that brought you this little gem from Intel? Without AMD, you'd still have a 3.0 Ghz P4 and youd be paying $700 for it. The power consumption and heat numbers are nice, but that really makes more difference in server rooms than desktop machines.
As for the games... who cares? Can you really see the difference between 155 fps and 187 fps? Can your monitor refresh as 200 Hz? It's just another numbers game that ALL of the manufacturers use to inspire penis envy.
"I have a rig overclocked to 4 GHz, ATI crossfire cards, and get 253 fps out of Quake 4. What do you have?"."A life."
Dear AMD fanboy,
Yes, I know that GPU is a much greater limitation than the CPU. You don't need to point this out, again.
Yes, I know that because of this, you don't need a top of the line CPU to play the latest games. You don't need to point this out, again.
I'm a working father of two who's just bought a house in need of significant renovations. I'm not a hardcore gamer, I don't overclock my machine and I don't buy a lot of games. If I'm lucky, I can get a couple hours per week in. More likely it's a couple of hours a month.
The whole point of my post was that the Conroe CPU gives me the option to buy a middle or bottom of the line CPU and still get the performance I would've gotten with a mid-or high end AMD. That translates to money left in my pocket.
For me, that matters more than brand loyalty. I have more important things to spend that money on.
And next year (or 2) AMD will pass Intel again and you'll have to change your mind again
No, because I'm not upgrading my machine next year. My current box (AMD 2500+) is 3 years old, and I suspect my next purchase will have a similar, if not longer, life span. That's why Conroe has me excited, not because it would let me play Quake 4 at 300 fps.
Get back to me in 2009 and I may indeed be praising AMD again.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
I know slashdotters pride themselves on running old machines because they don't need all that fancy stuff but windows 3.1... come on. How can you be productive when you can't load document files that people email you (provided they're running a semi-modern version of office)? With desktops so cheap these days (especially if you're willing to go with a celeron or sempron) there is no excuse for running such old hardware. I mean for real slashdot cred you should be running NetBSD; windows 3.1 just makes you sound lazy.
My name is ArcherB and I am an AMD fanboy. This processor, imho, is as much an AMD product as it is and Intel one. Not because AMD developed it, but because it would not exist if it were not for AMD. If AMD were to go under tomorrow, this would be the last processor we can expect to see from Intel for at least 10 years. For this reason alone, I will continue to buy AMD.
While I applaud you sticking to your guns, I do not understand this stance at all. "Since Linux desktop distros would have never progressed with the user-friendliness they have today without Microsoft Windows, I'll continue to use Microsoft Windows".
I personally believe that we should acknowledge Intel for making a revolutionary product, and look forward to AMD's response. Being a fanboy just means that you purposely put blinders on yourself for something as trivial as hardware... something normally reserved for politics or religion.
cd
I am an AMD fanboy, and I am happy that Intel is following the AMD way that has existed since about the 1.5GHz processors. (When AMD decided that heat may not be such a good thing.)
Lets get this straight: Low power consumption is a good thing. If Intel has gotten the point: we are happy - especially since new processor families tend to get faster than the old ones quickly.
The AMD K6-II and K6-IIIs blew chunks in comparison to the P3 processors (and weren't that good vs the P2s) Sorry, the preformance was just not there when it came to running Win2K. Everything was fine for win9x (aka dos) - but when the software bloated they could not deal all that well.
- Yes, I did run a 2K server on a K6-III maxed out on memory. You could do it, but it was not pretty - especially when you loaded the rest of Back Office.
The K7 series of processors came in and largely ate the lunch of the P3 series (because Intel could not clock them up at the time, and the P4 series. However, Intel still ate the lunch of AMD in the laptop sector - because the P3 Mobile (AKA Centrino) was a cooler, lower power processor.
About half way throught the K7 series, AMD decided videos of people cooking eggs on their chips (using a frying pan as a heat sink) was not such a good thing - and lowered the energy consumption of their chips. They also started getting business design wins. This was a "Good Thing." as they had now been competing on preformance as opposed to price for some time.
Still kicking butt in the desktop sector, and making inroads in the Server sector, AMD introuduced AM64 (or whatever it's called) which extended the x86 instruction set to include 64 bits instructions. This was compared to the Itanic chip, which was not compatible with any existing code - and expensive to boot. (Intel had decided to make a clean break with earlier chip designs.) AMD started making more inroads into the corporate sector, and server sectors as a result. They could also raise their chip prices because the AMD chips were really a better value, even at increased prices.
Intel had two responses to this: Start on a new chips & hold a fire sale. At this point, the best price/preformance chip is a PentiumD. No need for anyone to get one, unless they are playing games or doing scientific/media work, but there it is. Your P4 type dual core for $110, it just runs HOT. It's so energy intensive that AMD has not had to lower the prices on their chips. (even a dual core xeon is $200 while the cheapist AMD dual core is ~ $290 (all prices from newegg.com))
I am personally happy that there is a Core Duo for less than the price of an X2. It means that Dual core is really coming into the market. I'd be happier if it was really a desktop chip - eg. I didn't have to purchase an overpriced MB to go with it, or better yet could purchase it from a tier 1, II, III vendor. However with Core2, this will be the case shortly.
In short, Core2 is so good in terms of price/preformance - and with a X64 instruction set, that now AMD is going to be forced into a fire sale. To which I can only say - YES!!! I'm still pulling for AMD, but I pull even more for lower prices, and powerful, quiet machines.
Intel has dropped the other shoe, and is now looking like they will be on top again. AMD is still good, and will likely be a better deal as soon as they drop prices. Good for both of them. The preformance is high enough that most people won't care until Vista becomes widespread, but when this is the case I suspect that dual cores will explode in a mojor upgrade cycle. Until then, gamers have fun, scientests smile. It's still over kill for the rest of us.
$.04 - this post took more time than most.
If AMD were to go under tomorrow, this would be the last processor we can expect to see from Intel for at least 10 years. For this reason alone, I will continue to buy AMD.
If you continue buying AMD even if it has low-quality products, it will be AMD who won't research better CPUs. Only iff they start losing market share they'll improve. AMD isn't going out of bussiness, and if it went out of bussiness other company would replace it - it's easy to make money in a market owned by a single company, that's why people uses the crappy linux desktop. But keeping buying AMD, and they won't have any incentive to make better CPUs
It's best to take this with a grain of salt.
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It depends on what you are doing whether or not Intel is better than AMD [or vice versa].
Getting 300fps in a game doesn't mean the cpu will be good for software development or as a server [e.g. Tomcat + Apache +
Also if you're into SMP or just multi-processing AMD is still the way to go. The HT links are such a performance boost over a FSB scheme.
So really it depends. Hopefully we'll see AMD pulling some rabits out of their hats. In the next year or so.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
A revolutionary product? Really? Seems to me like it's just another x86 processor with a few new tricks. Certainly faster, certainly better, but revolutionary? Try evolutionary.
Peace.
I have some concerns here -
Intel got lazy because AMD wasn't a threat. Then, AMD opened up a can of whoop ass, and showed Intel how to make a chip. Even newer chips that came out still didn't hold up to AMD. But, NOW! Look at Intel go. Finally we have some interesting competition.
Ok, back to my concern. This processor is considerably better than anything else out there. Can, AMD rectify this? Will Reverse-HT be all that it's cracked up to be? 4x4? Can AMD stay alive long enough and be smart enough to keep up the competition. Or will AMD be a one hit wonder? I hope AMD will stay in there and keep Intel in check. I think Intel needs to be around to keep AMD in check.