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Intel Core 2 Duo Vs. AMD AM2

ThinSkin writes, "ExtremeTech has an extensive performance roundup across the entire line of Intel Core 2 Duo and AMD AM2 CPUs, from the cheap to the ultra-high end. Both companies bring five processors to the table, ranging from $152 to $1,075, with the mid-range CPUs boasting the best in price/performance. From the article: 'It's clear that Intel's Core 2 Duo lineup offers superior performance across the product line when compared with AMD's Athlon 64. In some applications, even a lower-cost Core 2 Duo can outperform some of the higher-end Athlon 64s.'" The ExtremeTech article is spread over 10 ad-laden pages. You can read it all on the printer-friendly page, but you'll miss out on the pretty graphs.

197 comments

  1. Nice, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Nice, but can it perform cunnilingus on a hardwood floor?

    1. Re:Nice, but... by Nimey · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm trying to work out where you'd stick your tongue.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
  2. A consumer win! by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ah, Competition at its finest. Although it seems right now AMD is a bit behind Intel in speed I am glad it is there. Without head to head competition with Intel and AMD Intel will probably still be pushing higher GHZ with little consideration of performance/heat and power usage. I will not be to surprised if in a year or so AMD will be faster then in a couple years Intel will be faster. As well with these to guys fighting it out the consumer wins, as the companies compete for performance and price. I would say it is best not to be in love with either Company because if this processor war is won, we the consumer will loose.

    --
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    1. Re:A consumer win! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Agreed. The same can be said for ATI vs. NVidia. Though, in that arena, with DX 10 "regulating" what features can go into the cards, MS wins.

    2. Re:A consumer win! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      we the consumer will loose.

      Loose what? The hounds?

    3. Re:A consumer win! by Khuffie · · Score: 1
      I Wanna a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro

      I second that. I've been waiting for today's keynote in the hopes of the core 2 duo update...but all we got were more iPods and Disney movies. Woo! I'm about to give up the wait if nothing changes by next week...anyone got any ideas?

    4. Re:A consumer win! by P3NIS_CLEAVER · · Score: 4, Insightful

      -10 Insightful
      Every stinking intel/amd article has this same goddam statement. Who the hell is this insigtful to?

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    5. Re:A consumer win! by Rodyland · · Score: 1

      I was personally wondering when (not if - it was bound to happen) Intel would re-take the performance lead. Looks like it's happened quite convincingly. Funny because for a while there I would have sworn that Intel had the best price/performance - they really did trade spots in the market. Still if you're like me and price to get the job done is more important than performance you'll still be buying AMD for some time yet. Although it looks like Intel has also grabbed the price/performance lead too. Watch out AMD fanbois. Although, in terms of price/performance, they are just looking at chip costs. I wonder how it looks when you add mobo and ram to the equation? In my limited recent syste-building experience these components on Intel systems tend to be a bit dearer too.

    6. Re:A consumer win! by HatchedEggs · · Score: 1

      This competition between AMD and Intel has been fantastic to watch for years. I remember back in the day when most of us thought that AMD had taken its last breath, but amazing enough they pulled it out and got back in the game. Regardless, we as consumers are definitely the winners in all of this. Now if only we could get this much talent and competition in everything else. I have to admit though, it was kind of sad to see the Crusoe chip fail as completely as it did. It would have been fun to add a third party to the competition.

      --
      Justin - Don't be afraid of my blog, it won't bite.
    7. Re:A consumer win! by cheshire_cqx · · Score: 1

      Isn't Core 2 Duo very energy efficient? I think this was the most exciting aspect of Core 2 Duo. I am so sick of noisy fans, high power usage, and big clunky cases. Give me high performance, low power, and quiet. This is the future of personal computing.

    8. Re:A consumer win! by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree. Everyone should be happy to see both pushing each other.

      Actually when you calculate performance per dollar, it is closer than most think right now. This article is comparing a $200 Intel processor to a $150 AMD processor. When you compare the $200 AMD to the $200 Intel, not only are they neck-and-neck, but in certain benchmarks, the AMD comes out on top.

      Imagine that.

      Perhaps those that read articles and think for themselves will see such things. Those that only read headlines and troll won't.

      Intel does have a very good processor line on their hands with the Core Duo 2. Even the AMD fans admit that. No one has said otherwise. It is the Intel fans who refused to acknowledge how far they were behind for 4 years. Now both are striving to be the top-dog. AMD claims they will be the best with the 4x4 line soon, and no doubt Intel will respond with a new line of their own.

      Meanwhile performance is going up considerably, and prices down at the same time. I built my AMD 3000 system two years ago, and I can't believe what you can build now for the same price.

      --
      http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
    9. Re:A consumer win! by feepness · · Score: 2, Funny

      Every stinking intel/amd article has this same goddam statement. Who the hell is this insigtful to?

      Me... I was thinking by moving to a single payer, government sponsored chip manufacturer we could eliminate wasteful overhead, advertising, executive salaries, and that irritating itch to upgrade every 6 months.

      You damn Libertarians need to realize the free market isn't for everything...

    10. Re:A consumer win! by paganizer · · Score: 1

      I purposefully know as little about Macs as possible, as I hate the user mystique thing (My last Apple product was an Apple III), but I thought they would run on Intel CPU's now? I bought a HP 8230 Centrino Core Duo t2300 laptop a couple of months ago that was rated to run Vista (Core duo, Nvidia GeForce 7400 with 256MB, 1gb ram) (not that I'll ever run Vista). The sucker will run anything, and the battery lasts about 2 hours playing oblivion at full resolution. But it seems that if Mac OS will run on Intel CPU's now, it would run on one of these.

      --
      Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
    11. Re:A consumer win! by JavaBear · · Score: 1

      Intel and AMD; The perfect example on why competition is good, and de facto monopolies aren't.

      Until AMD came up with their Athlon line Intel chips were overpriced and underperforming, and all of a sudden when competition came along, they managed to push towards he GHz barriar surprisingly fast...

    12. Re:A consumer win! by Z34107 · · Score: 3, Informative

      with DX 10 "regulating" what features can go into the cards, MS wins.

      Uh, DirectX is free. Writing DirectX problems with the free DirectX SDK is also, you guessed it, free.

      Microsoft doesn't profit directly from DirectX. Instead, by making Windows a better platform for game development they, shock, get more game developers on Windows.

      Also note that Microsoft doesn't decide what features can and can't go into a DirectX 10 card - it sets a minimum featureset for cards that want the sticker. How horrible that a card being marketed as supporting DirectX 10 has to support DirectX 10 functions. (Remember that DirectX emulates hardware functions your videocards lack, allowing games written for it to transcend specific videocards. If the videocard doesn't support any advanced texture, lighting, and whatever else features, you really have a DirectX 10 complaint CPU.)

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    13. Re:A consumer win! by one_red_eye · · Score: 1

      It's nice that there is fierce competition between chip makers. If only this worked with software makers. The only thing keeping M$ alive is the fact the computer makers like HP and Dell don't offer a real choice of operating systems. "Windows XP Home or Windows XP Pro or just go home"

    14. Re:A consumer win! by xtracto · · Score: 2, Funny

      Writing DirectX problems with the free DirectX SDK [

      That has to be the BEST description of the resulting multimedia applications developed by using Microsoft's API.

      --
      Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
    15. Re:A consumer win! by Z34107 · · Score: 1

      Typos aside, have you played a game recently?

      A real game. Like Half-Life 2. Oblivion. Fear. Practically every PC game you see on the shelf in a Gamestop / Best Buy / Walmart / Wherever is written for DirectX.

      The few exceptions are games that don't need the graphics power (rare; even PopCap games use DirectX with the "Hardware Acceleration" option) or some mostly older ones that use a version of OpenGL (another standard video cards try to support.)

      Now, unless you're saying the past 10 years of videogames are all "problems" ...

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    16. Re:A consumer win! by Paapaa · · Score: 1

      I don't agree. Just compare E6300 to Amd X2 4200+ for example. They are priced similarly but Intel leads in most benchmark - not just in this test but all the tests I have seen. In many cases E6300 even beats X2 4600+. And sometimes even 5000+. Look at this for example: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2802&p=4 (They include both stock and OC results)

    17. Re:A consumer win! by xtracto · · Score: 1

      Hey, take it easy on me pal, I was joking.

      Not only have played some really good (as in well developed) games but I have also used (programmed) on DirectX and OpenGL enough to know that DirectX is a really good achievement of Microsoft. I am completely aware, for example, that DirectX > OpenGL in that it provides a complete multimedia SDK (Solution is the buzz^Wkeyword), whereas OpenGL provides only the 3D component.

      I have worked also with the Linux equivalents, say SDL and Allegro and in my opinion no one of them is 40% as good as DirectX. Of coruse that fact is also due to the operating system support (joystic support, force feedback, unconventional input metods, media format support AND robustness).

      But the fact is that, even tough DirectX is a very nice a SDK, I can testify that starting a project with it does qualify as a great problem, of course the same can be said for the other APIs, but I would describe them as "series of small problems" that may or may not be bigger than the DirectX problem when combined.

      At least, in my experience, I find better (easier for me) to cope with the one huge beast than with the miriad of small penguins, mainly because with the beast I can go to one specific place to look for solutions, examples and help overall, whereas with OpenGL-SDL-OpenAL-Allegro-SDL_mixer-SDL_TTF-freety pe-???? STACK-OVERFLOW

      --
      Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
    18. Re:A consumer win! by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      They do run on Intel processors there migration is completed. I want it to use the Core 2 Duo processor is is currently using the Core Duo processor.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    19. Re:A consumer win! by scumbaguk · · Score: 1

      Most good software engineers like the guys at Id make theie games both opengl and directx and support the same features on both.

    20. Re:A consumer win! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is something that Linux really lacks... DirectX is more than graphics, its a fairly consistant approach to handling graphics, audio, networking, input devices, etc without the code having to deal with the hardware. if the computer hardware supports it DirectX stepsout of the way and lets it do its thing, if not it emulates the effect. This is something sorely lacking on the Linux side, theres a few packages that do a few things but no real coordination between anything so its inconsistant.

    21. Re:A consumer win! by fitten · · Score: 1

      When you compare the $200 AMD to the $200 Intel, not only are they neck-and-neck, but in certain benchmarks, the AMD comes out on top.

      Imagine that.


      Yeah, imagine marketing assigning price points to comparable products. Who woulda thought? ;)

      But yes, now is a great time for consumers of processors.

    22. Re:A consumer win! by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 1

      First off DirectX 10 is vista only.

      Second microsoft maintains a stranglehold on ATI and Nvidia by being in charge of the directX featureset.

      Third directX programmers tend to use microsoft editors.

    23. Re:A consumer win! by Babbster · · Score: 1

      Your last Apple was an Apple III? No wonder you have no interest in Apple products!

    24. Re:A consumer win! by Shadowlore · · Score: 1

      Every stinking intel/amd article has this same goddam statement. Who the hell is this insigtful to?

      A bunch of people who don't know what "Insightful" means. Slashdot needs a "I like this so I want to mod it up" option so people can leave Insightful to posts that truly demonstrate an insight. Not that it'd be used but it'd be nice in theory.

      --
      My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
    25. Re:A consumer win! by default+luser · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, AMD's pressure has pushed Intel to make a lot of changes for the better.

      AMD's 386DX 40 Mhz pushed Intel to release faster 486 chips...otherwise Intel would have ridden their overpriced 486DX 33 forever.

      AMD and Cyrix produced Pentium clones which pushed Intel and forced them to reduce prices.

      AMD's push to revive Socket 7 (Super 7) with the introduction of the 100 MHz bus and the K6-2 forced Intel to release the Mendocino Celeron. With on-die cache, it was one of the best budget gaming processors ever released. The K6-2's "3D-Now!" instruction set forced Intel to finally admit that MMX was a failure, and release an addentum in 1999 with SSE.

      AMD saved us from the hot, expensive, high-latency world that is Rambus. Without AMD pushing the industry-standard PC-133 SDRAM and later DDR SDRAM, Intel would have made Rambus the defacto desktop memory standard.

      Fast-forward to today: AMD has been at parity or better for years, and it has slowed their improvements. After the cancelation of the K9 project, AMD sat on its ass, just releasing small improvements for K8. But now, with Conroe wiping the floor, AMD has to get back in gear, and is releasing K8L next year.

      It's the way of the business. When you're on-top, you tend to stagnate.

      --

      Man is the animal that laughs.
      And occasionally whores for Karma.

    26. Re:A consumer win! by HeroreV · · Score: 1
      Practically every PC game you see on the shelf in a Gamestop / Best Buy / Walmart / Wherever is written for DirectX.
      Now, unless you're saying the past 10 years of videogames are all "problems" ...
      Several consoles use a modified version of OpenGL, so OpenGL games are more popular than DirectX games. You seem to be ignoring consoles just because you prefer PC games.
    27. Re:A consumer win! by Z34107 · · Score: 1

      The market for "several consoles" is smaller than the market for Xbox, Xbox 360, and PC games combined. Besides, console manufacturers develop APIs specific to their hardware (with the exception of Microsoft and DirectX).

      Because these APIs aren't exactly open - you have to pay thousands in licensing fees to legally develop games using them - they more closely resemble the proprietary DirectX than OpenGL anyways.

      --
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    28. Re:A consumer win! by Z34107 · · Score: 1

      First off DirectX 10 is vista only.

      DirectX 10 is Vista only because of dramatic and breaking changes to the API and the Vista kernel.

      They're (at least partially) abandoning the Component Object Model of software programming - the idea that new interfaces are placed on top of old, leaving old code undisturbed by the new interface. For example, DirectX 9 was an additional interface added to the existing DirectX 8 monster, which was grafted onto the DirectX 7 classes, and so on. Since all the old interfaces were left untouched, DirectX 7 code runs just fine with DirectX 9 installed.

      In order to make DirectX faster, they're scrapping the Component Object Model, eliminating the old DirectX 9 and previous interfaces. To avoid breaking compatibility with old games, these APIs will be emulated, but will no longer be included in DirectX. The leaner, meaner DirectX built upon the new Vista driver architecture allows revolutionary things like

      • GPU timeslicing. Think of a miniature, multi-tasking operating system for your GPU that allows multiple drawing instructions to run in "parallel." Currently, if a rendering instruction (in OpenGL or DirectX) blocks the videocard (say, the texture it needs is compressed and has to be decompressed) rendering of the frame halts until it is completed. In a timesliced GPU, the videocard can "alt+tab" to the next drawing instructions and continue rendering the frame until the texture is decompressed and the block passes.
      • Predicated rendering. This allows an "if" statement (a predicate) to precede normal rendering instructions, drawing them only if the condition is met. This means that sophisticated forms of hardware clipping are now possible - the GPU now knows to draw an enemy only if it's not concealed behind a wall, and draw the wall only if you're facing it, and the programmer doesn't have to write additional software for this behavior.

      Wikipedia has a great article on DirectX - you should read it.

      Second microsoft maintains a stranglehold on ATI and Nvidia by being in charge of the directX featureset.

      DirectX is more popular than OpenGL in part because it's updated more frequently to reflect innovations in videocard hardware, such as fully programmable shaders. When a new tech comes along, DirectX incorporates it into it's next version so developers using DirectX can take advantage of the new tech.

      Microsoft demands that a minimal set of features new in DirectX 10 be supported by videocards if those videocards want a DirectX 10 sticker on their display box. How horrible that videocards claiming to support DirectX 10 actually have to if they want the sticker.

      Third directX programmers tend to use microsoft editors.

      So? And DirectX games tend to run on Microsoft Windows.

      You can compile DirectX programs with any modern (read: after Windows 3.11) IDE.

      The fact that developers don't and use Visual Studio implies that Visual Studio is a superior product. Go download the free express edition of your favorite compiler. It's a lot nicer, IMHO, than using GCC.

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    29. Re:A consumer win! by paganizer · · Score: 1

      It was pretty sweet, actually. still working until I lost it in a move in '99.
      I have nothing against apple hardware; I just can't stand the culture, and never want anyone to be able to factually call me a "Mac user".
      Yeah, I know. wierdo. I also refuse to vote for the lesser evil in elections.

      --
      Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
  3. crypto work by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Interesting

    :-) crypto benches.

    Seems core2 is closer to Opteron but not quite there.

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    1. Re:crypto work by gumbi+west · · Score: 1

      The performance is identical to slighly Opteron with Core2 decrypting much faster for AES / MD5 / SHA2. Remind me why I care about the others?

    2. Re:crypto work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Core 2 Duo used in that comparison is the low-end E6300. I don't know much about Opterons, but I wouldn't expect 2.6GHz to represent the low-end.

    3. Re:crypto work by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      Um, Opteron is not slower at any hashes than the Core2. It's also faster at most PK work.

      That said, this is Intels ... ahem ... ****NEW**** core. Opteron is more than 3 years old.

      The results show that Intel is finally catching up in ops/cycle performance. Which is nice for a change...

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    4. Re:crypto work by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Informative

      Clock speed won't change the cycle counts. I'm not counting wall time here. So you can expect that if AES takes 247 cycles @1.83GHz then it will probably take 247 cycles @2.93GHz.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    5. Re:crypto work by Toveling · · Score: 1

      That benchmark pits a 2.6ghz Opteron vs a 1.8ghz Core 2. The Core 2 stands up very admirably, and that's the lowest of the Core 2's. I'd love to see it redone with a 2.4 or the 2.9ghz EE.

    6. Re:crypto work by qbwiz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That depends on if all the data is in cache, and if the speed of the cache increases at the same rate as the speed of the processor.

      --
      Ewige Blumenkraft.
    7. Re:crypto work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Last I checked, a E6400 2.13GHz was about as fast a 5000+ 2.4GHz...

    8. Re:crypto work by Browzer · · Score: 1

      How would it compare to Via's PadLock?

    9. Re:crypto work by Wavicle · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Seems to me you have an odd comparison. You took the lowest end Core 2 Duo with the smallest L2 cache and pitted it against a high end AMD offering. And they about tied. What does this tell us?

      The E6300 costs about $230. How much does the Opteron 885 cost?

      --
      Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
      Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
    10. Re:crypto work by renoX · · Score: 1

      Thanks for your correction, the parent was so wrong, it's not funny..

    11. Re:crypto work by this+great+guy · · Score: 1

      These benchmarks measure the number of processor cycles. Therefore the clock speed is mostly irrelevant. FYI it is rather common to count cycles when speaking about the efficiency of crypto/hashing algorithms.

    12. Re:crypto work by Wavicle · · Score: 1

      So what you have is essentially a synthetic synthetic benchmark. Does this count the number of cycles spent on the bus fetching memory? Hyper Transport usually gets a win there. What about pipeline fill time for a branch mis-prediction? Why is the chip being compared an Allendale?

      I'd be far more convinced if I saw an actual benchmark. Until we're running real code on real data and measuring the wallclock on it, we have, as I said, a synthetic synthetic benchmark. A lot of fluff. It seems kind of odd that nearly every timed benchmark shows C2D a hands-down winner, yet this says just the opposite without actually doing the timed benchmark.

      --
      Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
      Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
    13. Re:crypto work by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's an ALU benchmark nothing more. The goal is to see if the ALU has improved or not.

      The code all fits in either the L1 or L2 (the test program is less than a 1MB) so it doesn't matter that I used a low end Conroe. The 1.83Ghz conroe has the SAME CORE as the expensive 2.9GHz conroe...

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    14. Re:crypto work by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      The data/code will be in at least the L2 cache. The test program isn't that big and I'm only processing the same data over and over and over [e.g. encrypt the same small blocks].

      The results are very stable over multiple runs.

      The point of my test is to see ALU performance over anything else. And you can see from this test that the ALU performance has gone up considerably since Pentium M [and probably the first Core processor].

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    15. Re:crypto work by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      At what? That's the problem.

      These benchmarks you see on the web where they run "media creation tests" or whatever are not really indicative of the technology. At least with my test you know what MD5 or AES is. So when you see it double performance from Pentium M to Conroe you know Intel did something right for a change.

      In pure ALU performance I'd say Core 2 and the AMD K8 core are on roughly equal footing. AMD still has faster multipliers (see the ECC/RSA benchmarks) but the Conroe has a decent ALU otherwise (AES is faster for instance). In short, I'd expect a 2.13GHz Core 2 to perform much like a 2.13GHz AMD64 [though none exists...].

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    16. Re:crypto work by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      You wouldn't see different results. I'm measuring clock cycles not wall time which is why I bought the LOWEST END processor possible [I'm not made of money...]

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    17. Re:crypto work by tomstdenis · · Score: 1

      Good question. I don't have a VIA to test. Fortunately, LibTomCrypt is pluggable which means if I had one and wrote a plugin for it I could run the benchmark with it enabled... :-)

      [hint hint]

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    18. Re:crypto work by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      Well, there's cheap and then there's inexpensive.

      I tend to buy whatever speed CPU is at the knee of the price/performance curve. I usually just calculate this based on the clock speed, which isn't perfect and somewhat naive but works quickly when all the chips are based on the same core. For example:

      $0150 $75/GHz Athlon64 X2 3800+ 2.0GHz
      $0187 $85/GHz Athlon64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz
      $0240 $100/GHz Athlon64 X2 4600+ 2.4GHz

      So for the above example, the $85/GHz is probably what I would purchase. This graph used to be a lot clearer with the Opteron 2xx series where there are 5 different single-core chips. Prices went up slowly, but the upper 2 in the group were significantly more expensive then the lower 3.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    19. Re:crypto work by jonesy16 · · Score: 1

      If that were true then every graph on the article page would have a linear fit, and not a single one does. I have to agree with the comments above, while this gives an "idea" of the efficiency of a Core 2 Duo, it's not an apples to apples comparison, there's also no information given on the memory speed or other platform characteristics between the AMD and Intel setups. I'm not familiar enough with these algorithms to know how dependent they are on memory bandwidth.

    20. Re:crypto work by gumbi+west · · Score: 1

      right, but you can't decrypt a hash. The only decript on the list is AES, and core2 is faster.

  4. Clicky? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Nice, but can it perform cunnilingus on a hardwood floor?
    Do you have a clicky for that benchmark?

    Come on, this is Slashdot and it's late at night, I'm cold and lonely.
  5. No 64-bit benchmarks by David+Jao · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I'm disappointed to see that as usual the review contains no mention of 64-bit performance. Does anyone know any place that provides 64-bit benchmarks for core 2 duo?

    As much as it's done for us in the last 20 years, 32-bit x86 is not the future. Linux was AMD64-ready three years ago and Windows Vista which is just around the corner already puts more emphasis on the x86-64 platform than x86. Reviewing the 32-bit performance of core 2 duo is like reviewing Pentium processers based on 16-bit performance. Let's get some forward looking reviews instead of backward looking reviews, please!

    1. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by tomstdenis · · Score: 4, Informative

      http://libtomcrypt.com/ltc113.html

      crypto work done in 64-bit mode on the Core 2.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    2. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by David+Jao · · Score: 5, Insightful
      64bit benchmarks???!? how many 64bit applications are you running/ are there in usful production?

      everyone's got the 64bit crazy Ive had 64bit technology a long time can you say risc?

      This is clearly a troll post, since you denigrate the availability of 64-bit computing in your first paragraph and then contradict yourself by claiming you jumped on the 64-bit bandwagon before everyone else, but I'll squash your post anyway.

      Only a windows user (or possibly a Mac user) would treat 64-bit computing as useless or unavailable. Linux has been available in 64-bit versions since the days of the DEC Alpha, or since 2003 if you count only AMD64. Almost every Linux application benefits from recompiling for AMD64 as opposed to x86, because of the increased register space, and the nature of open source guarantees availablity of such versions. Compute-intensive applications such as cryptography (ssh/scp over gigabit ethernet) and media encoding (ogg, mp3, mpeg) exhibit performance gains of over 100% with 64-bit operations owing to the quadratic nature of block multiplication.

      Scientific applications such as Mathematica and Maple, which I require for my job, have been available for AMD64 almost from the beginning days of the hardware platform, and gain rather a lot from AMD64 not only in terms of CPU performance but also from the larger virtual address space.

      Even if all of these things weren't true and Linux didn't exist, the fact is that Windows Vista (vaporware jokes aside) really is coming out in five months and really does spell the end of 32-bit computing for mainstream performance applications. Windows Vista isn't some half-unfinished 64/32 bit mixture like Windows 95 was a half-unfinished 32/16 bit mixture -- Vista is 64-bit through and through.

      The fact that your elitist risc platforms had 64-bit addressing some 30 years ago is not relevant to this discussion. Like it or not, x86 has "won" the platform battles, and x86-64 (unlike Alpha, IA64, Sparc) is the first and only 64-bit computing platform that will be relevant for general purpose computing.

    3. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by mfh · · Score: 1

      Your reply to the other poster is interesting enough, however it's flawed in the sense that most computer users will not make use of the feasible 64bit performance increases with chunked data, because most computer users want to play WoW, online poker, use MSN, surf the web and write troll posts on Slashdot (not unlike this one). The point is... Techgage's benchmark of 64bit half-life 2 says it all when it says, "Surprisingly enough, I didn't see an ounce of benefit from the 64-Bit."

      --
      The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    4. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by DrDitto · · Score: 2, Informative

      Thats nice. But most users use non-scientific applications that will see very little benefit from 64-bit ops. The extra register space is really not a big deal with a superscalar out-of-order where register renaming and high L1 bandwidth keeps the instructions moving. Stack spills/fills nearly always hit in the L1 and performance nowadays is becoming dominated by cache misses. 64-bit is certainly necessary to move beyond 4GB of address space (with segment tricks), but most users will see no benefit from 64-bit ALU operations. In fact, 32-bit datapaths can be clocked faster than 64-bit datapaths.

    5. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey you might be interested by my 64-bit implementation of MD5. It seems slightly faster than yours (4.8 clocks per byte on Opteron).

    6. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by this+great+guy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This is Slashdot. The GP, I and probably a lot of other readers who are not average users care about performance in 64-bit mode. See, for example, I write 64-bit assembly code optimized for AMD processors. So far I have never had the chance to evaluate a Core 2 CPU. So, like the GP, I would like to see 64-bit benchmarks of Core 2 CPUs. Is it so hard to understand ?

    7. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wonder if there are any matlab benchmarks out for matlab running 64bit on the core duo 2.

    8. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hmm, thanks. It looks like the Core duo has a real 64-bit implementation under the hood since they're almost as fast now on most tests as the Opteron.

    9. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by Ed+Avis · · Score: 1

      Sure, average users don't care about 64-bit performance. But average users don't care about performance *at all*. If you just want to use online poker, MSN and websites, the speed of your CPU is nowadays completely irrelevant. Anything you buy will be ridiculously overspecified for those tasks.

      Gaming is about the only mainstream Joe Consumer application that cares about hardware speed, and even that is mostly dominated by the video card not the CPU.

      So if you're going to bother making benchmarks, you might as well cater to the people who care about performance, which means those doing number-crunching (who want 64 bit because it's faster) or just possibly people doing endless kernel compiles and ssh tunnelling (who will also be on 64 bit because they can).

      --
      -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
    10. Re:No 64-bit benchmarks by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 1

      Well, I'm sure that blizzard likes 64 bit computing and will take advantage of it on the server side, so the WoW junkies will make use of it indirectly. Also, it'll be necessary once games start demanding 4G of Ram.

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
  6. I guess someone needs to tell the new guy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    About the Slashdot kickback system? You don't post direct links to ad-free versions in the summary!

  7. Fucking hilarious. by Spazntwich · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Slashdot should make a habit of linking to the printer friendly version when someone submits their own site. I love it.

  8. No nforce 5 intel by Joe+The+Dragon · · Score: 1

    the review missing that there is no nforce 5 boards for intel out there.

  9. I take it back. by Spazntwich · · Score: 1

    The printer friendly link doesn't seem to be working. Meaning the people at ExtremeTech noticed Slashdot's evil attempt at denying them ad revenue and changed things around.

    Shame on them. This article is a troll.

    1. Re:I take it back. by suggsjc · · Score: 1

      I agree that having multiple pages just to increase ad impressions is a little annoying, but why do people gripe about a site trying to profit from its work/research/journalism/whatever? How else is it going to make money/pay for the bandwidth that slashdot/anyone generates? Get off your soapbox!

      --
      When I have a kid, I want to put him in one of those strollers for twins and then run around the mall looking frantic.
    2. Re:I take it back. by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      I agree that having multiple pages just to increase ad impressions is a little annoying, but why do people gripe about a site trying to profit from its work/research/journalism/whatever? How else is it going to make money/pay for the bandwidth that slashdot/anyone generates? Get off your soapbox!

      1) Some things make sense to be split to multiple pages. Such as cases where you have 10 images for each of the benchmarks that you ran and you put them on multiple pages to make life easier for dial-up users.

      2) The article content is typically split across too many pages so that the ads overwhelm the article. If the article covered 50-70% of the page, people probably wouldn't care as much, but often it seems like we're getting down into the single paragraph per page.

      3) Every time you split to a new page, the reader loses their focus. This frustrates your visitor. Especially when the page is so cluttered that you have to hunt for the next page link. Visitors are coming to your site to read the article and get information, not to be confused and bombarded by as many ads as you can throw at them.

      I'm all for attempting to make money off of ad impressions, but splitting a 25 paragraph review over 25 pages is well past ridiculous. (Most of these reviews should've been done in about 1/4 of the number of pages that they're programmed for.)

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
  10. Note to Slashdot...Nobody cares by dtjohnson · · Score: 0, Troll

    Processors have become a commodity. You buy as much processor performance as you need or can afford. The Intel and AMD processors are all great right now...well all except the old Intel P4 and Celeron stuff but that will be mostly gone in a few months anyway. Move along...there's no story here.

    1. Re:Note to Slashdot...Nobody cares by Khuffie · · Score: 1

      Erm. Maybe you don't care. But if I can buy a mid-range Core 2 Duo for $350 that gives me equivalent performance to an AMD highend processer at $700, I'm damn sure I care.

    2. Re:Note to Slashdot...Nobody cares by tempest69 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Processors have become a commodity. You buy as much processor performance as you need or can afford. The Intel and AMD processors are all great right now...well all except the old Intel P4 and Celeron stuff but that will be mostly gone in a few months anyway. Move along...there's no story here.

      ok, I'll bite....

      This is slashdot. We look at specs and drool. We crave machines with 64 gigs of ram, and a solid state hard drive in the petabyte range. If there is some way to make things blinky or shiny, someone is wondering how much longer their kids can put off braces. If someone comes out with a way to make IE 7 beta 4 load pages 3% faster, someone is going to be running tests all night long. It's news for nerds, stuff that matters. Go troll on digg or break.com and you'll have a point, but not here.

      All in all I'm glad that Intel has decided to retake the lead in the price/performance war, AMD needs a new kick in the pants.

      Storm

    3. Re:Note to Slashdot...Nobody cares by courtarro · · Score: 1

      So how are you supposed to know how much performance you're getting for X money without benchmarks like these? Don't be so arrogant.

    4. Re:Note to Slashdot...Nobody cares by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      $DIETY bless the blinky bits, there's a lot of joy to be had at watching the flickering lights of a multi-disk array that you built yourself. Watching in real-time as different disks get used to service requests can be a bit mesmerizing. (Plus it points out a possible performance issue with mdadm's RAID10 implementation when disk 0 has a higher utilization then the other disks.) Of course, I used to be entranced by the lights on the front of my 14.4Kbps modem.

      All in all I'm glad that Intel has decided to retake the lead in the price/performance war, AMD needs a new kick in the pants.

      Indeed, prices for AMD processors have been a bit stagnant for the past few years. I think the Opterons topped out at 2.6GHz, but are very expensive. If nothing else, at least the new Intel Core Duo chips forced them to finally drop prices on the X2's. Now if we can just see some price pressure on the Opteron dual-cores I'd be a very happy geek.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    5. Re:Note to Slashdot...Nobody cares by dtjohnson · · Score: 1

      If someone comes out with a way to make IE 7 beta 4 load pages 3% faster, someone is going to be running tests all night long. It's news for nerds, stuff that matters.

      I'd agree with you if this was actually new news but it's not and I don't. It was news a few months ago when Intel came out with the Conroe and enlarged the hardware performance envelope a little bit but it's not news now and so it doesn't matter. Software is waaaaay behind the silicon. It's the software news that matters right now and there's not much of it.

    6. Re:Note to Slashdot...Nobody cares by Mycroft_VIII · · Score: 1

      Not really responding to anyone in specific, but this seemed a resonable place to bring this up.

          You need a motherboard for these cpu's and really should consider the cost of that as well, much else can be retained from the system being upgraded, but not Mb's and in many cases the ram.
          Last I heard Intell wasn't shipping to meet demand on MB's such that what you save in cpu cost you loose in MB cost.
          This will probablly change for the better, but with the rate at which changes are comming down the pike it might just be best to wait a few months till things settle a bit and the various 'issues' are all discovered and the better boards and cpu's are more clearly identified.

      Mycroft

      --
      https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
    7. Re:Note to Slashdot...Nobody cares by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      don't count on too much price pressure. The memory latency benchmarks are going to hurt Intel, especially when AMD's next gen chips come out. Intel needs to fix its dependency on the FSB to really compete in the near future. There's a reason even Dell is going w/ Opteron for servers.

      Just think, AMD's still competitive performance wise (ie, not a full generation behind like P4/P-M) compared to Core 2 on 90nm with a 3 year old design. Their next gen will include some nice features, including a 4MB L3 cache that runs at full CPU clock speeds with 4 cores and 65nm. Given the current comparisons and expected performance improvements, that may very well put the top of the field out of Intel's reach with even a 45nm process.

      But we'll have to wait for benchmarks before going there. The AM2 multi-CPU system (4X4) is what I'm waiting to see, and hope that it comes with NUMA (though probably not, those motherboards are running in the $300 and up range).

      Either way, things are going to be interesting for the next 8-12 months.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    8. Re:Note to Slashdot...Nobody cares by scumbaguk · · Score: 1

      Yeah but you could also buy a $100 amd cpu and clock it to the same speed as a fx 60, not seen one that won't hit atleast 2.7ghz. So argument is kind of bunk.

      All AMD chips clock to about the same so any x2 is going to be as good as another.

  11. Isn't this a bit old? by LIGC · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Weren't there about 20 Core 2 Duo reviews/comparisons with Athlon 64 X2's on July 23 when Core 2 officially launched? We've known these results for longer than a month.

    1. Re:Isn't this a bit old? by Frogbert · · Score: 2, Funny

      Yes but for those of us with Core 2 Duo systems it just gets sweeter each and every time we read about it.

  12. I have a better processor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't care what anyone says, the Zilog Z80 kicks both their butts.

    What use is a processor if you can't program it blindfolded with a soldering iron?

  13. I have lost track by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    of which CPUs are doing what with who in which versions. I think I gave up the arms-race about a year ago. But today I looked at hardware prices and found out that my 2 year old 3.4 GHz Intel motherboard with AGP bus is hopelessly outdated, and that you can get a dual core Intel CPU cheap. I know this is how it always have been with hardware ever since my first 10MHz XT. But for once I haven't felt the need for more speed.
    I don't play that many games anymore so that might be the reason.

    1. Re:I have lost track by Propaganda13 · · Score: 1

      Not playing games is the reason. You're only using applications and most applications will be speedy with a 3.4 GHz machine. The applications that take 45 minutes+ could be speeded up, but will you notice it if you are not at the computer while it is processing?

      I'm a PC gamer in need of an upgrade. I'm seriously considering going back to consoles since online gaming with them has really taken off. In that case, I probably would not upgrade my computer anytime soon.

    2. Re:I have lost track by Technician · · Score: 1

      But today I looked at hardware prices and found out that my 2 year old 3.4 GHz Intel motherboard with AGP bus is hopelessly outdated, and that you can get a dual core Intel CPU cheap.

      I just wished I could wave the same magic over my 0.001 Gig Internet connection. A super fast system that can render full motion video is fine as long as the video isn't Buffering 02% Complete Buffering 03% complete....

      --
      The truth shall set you free!
    3. Re:I have lost track by spyrochaete · · Score: 1

      If you're a true PC gamer you'll get frustrated and bored with console games pretty quickly. The load times are intolerable, buying memory cards is insulting, running around levels looking for save points is infuriating, the textures are low res, the controls are way oversimplified, the cameras are crap, the controller is way less precise than a mouse... I could go on and on.

      Buying a PS2 was actually what clued me in that it was time to upgrade my computer. Some PS2 games are incredible and totally irreplacable (Katamari Damacy!) but all the other best-of-the-best "classics" I tried really fell flat. Kingdom Hearts is simplistic, God of War is Final Fight with a makeover, Final Fantasy is a bunch of random battles with cut scenes... I could go on...

      I recently bought an Athlon 64 AM2 with 2 gigs of RAM and a BFG 7900GT. Holy crap do I ADORE my new setup!! I'm replaying all the games I've already finished, Doom 3, Half Life 2 Episode One, Civilization 4, F.E.A.R., Tiger Woods, and I'm enjoying every one of them at 100% detail with 4xAA at a perfect frame rate. The PC experience is just so much more beautiful and immersive. I haven't touched my PS2 - even my beloved Katamari - in weeks and weeks because I love my new PC so much.

      Save your pennies and get all the PC goodies you can. Consoles simply don't offer the same degree of immersion and atmosphere that a powerful PC can. Check out a 360 version of Oblivion side-by-side with a very slightly modded PC version and you'll realize all the advantages of the PC platform that we all take for granted.

  14. 6502, biznatch! by BitwizeGHC · · Score: 3, Funny

    The CPU of the true pimp. Nothing matches the Commodizzo' Sitty-Fizzo'!

    --
    N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
  15. What are ads? by DongleFondle · · Score: 1

    "The ExtremeTech article is spread over 10 ad-laden pages. You can read it all on the printer-friendly page, but you'll miss out on the pretty graphs."

    Or you can just browse with Firefox and install the AdBlock Plus and AdBlock Filterset.G Updater extensions. Hell I don't even remember what the web was like with ads. I haven't punched a monkey in years. Well, a digital monkey anyways.

    1. Re:What are ads? by Rodyland · · Score: 2, Funny

      You must be thinking of spanking the monkey. Punching the monkey doesn't sound as fun.

  16. Re:Why even bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm looking to build a quiet box running 64 bit Linux. I haven't seen yet where Core Duo 2 beats the AMD64 Watt for Watt, dollar for dollar and dB for dB. That being said it is great to see Intel responding to competition.

  17. Hardware Virual Machine by The_Morgan · · Score: 1

    I want one of these companies to release a complete implemetation for hardware virtual machines. I want my Windows games to run full bore, right next to my linux dev environment.

    Maybe I'll just have to wait another 5 years for Xen to come of age.

    1. Re:Hardware Virual Machine by grozzie2 · · Score: 1

      if it's a hardware implementation, well, guess it's not a virtual anymore then is it .....

    2. Re:Hardware Virual Machine by owlstead · · Score: 1

      A hardware virtual machine? You mean like...two PC's?

  18. Re:Why even bother? by Lehk228 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    competing companies often take turns being the technological leader; rick romero reports at 11

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  19. Who cares about cycles? by BlueBiker · · Score: 1

    Performance/Watt or Performance/$$$ matters, what difference does it make how many cycles are required to accomplish a given task?

    1. Re:Who cares about cycles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, by knowing the cycle count you can easily calculate the other two. By easily I mean anyone with half a clue.

    2. Re:Who cares about cycles? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That half a clue includes knowing how long its going to take to get the data from cache/ram?

  20. Overclocking... by steppin_razor_LA · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The last Intel processor I bought for home use was a P2. I recently purchased a Core 2 Duo 6400 and I am *so happy* with it. As discussed at this article:

    http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=28 02

    The Core 2 Duos are tremendously and easily overclockable. I upped my performance 25% by changing the FSB from 266 to 333. While this sounds like a significant overclock, for the Core 2 Duo it is actually rather conservative. You juse switch to DDR-667 memory. I'm using the stock Intel cooler and my chips are running just fine temperature wise. People who are more ambitious are going for 400+. When you combine the inherent performance and value in the line with the ease of significant overclocking, AMD isn't even in the same ball game anymore.

    --
    Evolution: love it or leave it
    1. Re:Overclocking... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > While this sounds like a significant overclock, for the Core 2 Duo it is actually rather conservative. You juse switch to DDR-667 memory.

      So you're saying that overclocking means using higher-grade hardware that your cpu and motherboard are already speced for?

    2. Re:Overclocking... by cryptoluddite · · Score: 1

      For about the price of just your processor I got a 2.4ghz Athlon 64 processor, 800 mhz ddr2, am2 motherboard, and geforce 7600gt. This entire system draws 100-102 watts when idle including 3 hard drives (according to kill-a-watt). CPU runs at ~35C @ 1100 rpm and is silent. This isn't a top-notch system of course, but it's pretty decent.

      I'm glad I had a dual core pentium d at work (ie that I didn't pay for so didn't have to rationalize) to see that the vast majority of the time the extra core doesn't get you jack. Maybe +5% overall would be a pretty generous estimate. Sometimes I'll be doing something and it kicks in and that's cool, but it's so rare that until commodity chips are all dual core it's quite a waste unless you really need it (for example video editing... on your Macintosh). Maybe Windows really needs it, I don't know, but for linux the main benefit is that emerge world overnight, while I'm not even there, is noticeably faster.

      Also, last time I ptrace single-stepped some common programs it was something like 95% of the time was spent in the last 1000 instructions. So yeah, extra cache will help some (but maybe not so much as the benchmarks will have you believe), and speed freaks should go for core 2 duo. But AMD is still a decent choice for price/performance.

    3. Re:Overclocking... by steppin_razor_LA · · Score: 1

      It's completely true that at the "lower" end of the spectrum (i.e. pre core 2 duo), that you get better bang for your back w/ AMD. However, if you are planning on spending ~$200+ on a processor, then you clearly get more value out of the Core 2 Duo.

      As to the value of dual cores, I'm a huge fan. I assume that for most games it doesn't make much of a difference, but if you are power using your computer (i.e. doing development work or running other CPU intensive applications, its a godsend).

      Interesting enough when I play Star Wars: Empire at War, I notice that that both cores seem to be getting a fair amount of activity. I wonder if more games are starting to take advantage of...

      --
      Evolution: love it or leave it
    4. Re:Overclocking... by NeMon'ess · · Score: 1

      Core 2 Duo 6400s are now down to $229, from $340.

      Your numbers don't add up. A 2.4GHz Athlon 64 is still going for $109 and was over $200 before Intel released the 6400.

      How much did you pay for your 7600GT? The cheapest Newegg has them for is about $150. Maybe you're thinking of the 7600GS, which is $100.

      So if you found a packaged deal of chip, ram, and mobo for $200, you still have another $150 for the video card. Yes you met the $340 price point, but not $229.

      Presumably you bought a 7600GT because you're into gaming. You don't need it if you're not. So a 3800+ X2 gets you about 33% more FPS than the 3800+ you have. The benchmarks show the Core 2 Duo 6400 gets about 25-30% better fps than the 3800+ X2. So the 6400 is potentially 67% faster than your chip in games where the fps are CPU limited.

      As for heat, the 6400 has a thermal dispersion of 65W, versus 62W for the 3800+. That's basically a tie. If your CPU cooler is an aftermarket model like Zalman, instead of the stock AMD, you could use your cooler with a 6400 and have no heat problems.

      So in conclusion, you saved some money, but your performance is about 60% of the Core 2 Duo 6400.

    5. Re:Overclocking... by StikyPad · · Score: 1

      Not really.. my Asus P5W is spec'd for 1066 (although the values must be set manually for most DDR2 modules). 667 is conservative.

    6. Re:Overclocking... by cryptoluddite · · Score: 1

      A few corrections... yes it was a 7600gs. An 3800 X2 is not "33% more FPS" than the 3800 64. On the benchmarks it is -10% to 10% in performance depending on the game. It's basically 2 cpus@2.0ghz vs 1 cpu@2.4ghz. Which ends up benchmarking at basically the same speed for games, and also for anything else not actively using more than one thread at a time typically the X2 will actually be significantly slower.

      For instance, this link for reference on X2 vs 64:
      http://techreport.com/reviews/2005q3/athlon64-x2-3 800/index.x?pg=1

      In actuality this core 2 duo vs 3800 is probably at gaming somewhere between 1x-1.3x judging by the benchmarks I've seen (which didn't directly compare the two). So 2.5x more expensive for even maybe 1/3 faster at everyday things (games, web browser, etc) is a pretty hard sell. At 3.5x when I bought in it was a poor choice.

      I've used a dual-core for almost a year at work, where I do development, and most of the time anything is actually being done, one CPU is idle and the other at 100% (gnome-panel has a nice little rolling cpu chart so I see both CPUs all the time). Yeah core-duo is a good chip technology wise, but for the prices even 250 for e6400 is still just a fairly good deal... nothing to write home about. For everyday stuff, the second core is occasionally very fast, but no help at all the vast majority of the time.

  21. Hello and welcome to last month! by cdw38 · · Score: 1

    Thanks to ExtremeTech for becoming the 519th hardware website to make such a proclamation. I normally just lurk but I felt compelled to comment given the fact that something like this made the front page. Did you guys just hear about the Lebanese-Israeli ceasefire too?

    1. Re:Hello and welcome to last month! by Glasswire · · Score: 1

      This will still be necessary as long as there are AMD fanboys out there still living in denial.

  22. X2's? He said they routed X2's.. by bornbitter · · Score: 1

    In reading the review, I came to the end and the author stated that the core duo lineup routed the X2 line... But I don't remeber seeing an X2 processor... I glanced back through the linup, but didn't see an X2 listed.
        Did they just omit the X2 part of the processor line, or did I miss something, or is the author jumping to conclusions?
        Someone correct me, but if they were comparing core 2 duo processors to single core 64's it doesn't seem like a consistent benchmark.
    Did I fall asleep somewhere between the ads? Or is this a mistake?

    --
    "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to govern any other" -John Ada
  23. Where are they pricing these chips? by SeaFox · · Score: 2, Informative
    Both companies bring five processors to the table, ranging from $152 to $1,075, with the mid-range CPUs boasting the best in price/performance.

    Looks to me like AM2 starts a little lower than $152.
    1. Re:Where are they pricing these chips? by CyDharttha · · Score: 1

      I imagine they meant to say AM2 X2, which does start at ~$152

    2. Re:Where are they pricing these chips? by jared9900 · · Score: 1

      They start with the AMD 64 3800+ not 3000+.

  24. Re:X2's? He said they routed X2's.. by cdw38 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Every AM2 processor is dual-core, or "X2."

  25. What "pretty graphs" ? by slowbad · · Score: 1
    You can read it all on the printer-friendly page, but you'll miss out on the pretty graphs.

    Pretty graphs -- I don't think so.

    A fuzzy and completely unusable 21KB GIF for "Half Life 2" is the biggest graph on the last page before the conclusion.

  26. Re:X2's? He said they routed X2's.. by bornbitter · · Score: 1

    ...um... if that is the case, how do you explain these?
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Cate gory=34&N=2010340343+50001028+1051720996+130282027 6&Submit=ENE&Manufactory=1028&SubCategory=343
    You will see the listing of "single core" under each of the Athlon processors, along with the sempron,(which I know were not tested).
    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16819103631
    Here you see an athlon AM2 3800+ that is single core. ...so which ones were they using? I can accept that they were beat, I just think it was kinda muddled... did they ever say that they were using X2's? Like I said, I think I missed it.

    --
    "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to govern any other" -John Ada
  27. Re:X2's? He said they routed X2's.. by BigFootApe · · Score: 1

    No. AM2 Windsor is dual core, AM2 Orleans is single core (so is Manila, but that's Sempron, not Athlon).

  28. so what if the site is ad heavy.... by Indy1 · · Score: 1

    just use adblock with firefox. Anyone who doesnt nuke banner ads deserves what they get.

    --
    Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
    1. Re:so what if the site is ad heavy.... by MooUK · · Score: 1

      Doesn't deal with the problem of many many many short pages, though.

  29. Re:Why even bother? by JustNiz · · Score: 2, Informative

    I'm not going hunting for the links, but all power consumption comparisons I've seen show intel in the lead over AMD now in terms of power consumption vs. performance.

    I'm not sure about dollar for dollar any more, AMD stuff is going cheap now because they've lost the lead, especially if you don't mind relatively poor performance.

    dB for db? since when did processors make noise? If you're talking about their respective heat output for equivalent performance, again it seems intel are now ahead. The core 2 runs cool enough that he cpu fan can be easily replaced with a fanless (silent) alternative anyway.

  30. Re:A consumer win!-how so? We have lost choices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    And I want some *affordable* options for a POWER chip on a mobo that I can use to build a system with. One with a CELL as well, a real hybrid mobo. I am beyond annoyed with x86 amd versus intel duo duopoly nonsense for home desktops, let's see some more variety back in computers like in the olden days. Having two choices that are near identical is not all that much of a choice anymore, they are so close in price and performance and in function as to be almost indistinguishable. And now that apple went over-where's the real choice again? Yes I know you can get a very expensive workstation from IBM or some even more expensive Sun thing, I mean in the affordable range for the non business computer customer.

  31. Re:X2's? He said they routed X2's.. by Holi · · Score: 1

    Well if you compare the prices on price watch and the prices in the article you'll see that they are all x2's, or he way over paid for single cores.

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  32. Obvious by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    The floor's construction is obviously tongue in groove.

    And I'm so ashamed, I'm posting as AC. *sigh*

  33. Re:X2's? He said they routed X2's.. by Unicorn+Giggles · · Score: 1

    no, that is simply not true, you have brought shame upon your family.
    you disgust me man-ape.

  34. Screwed up comparison by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Quite a few people seem to have missed what seems to be a pretty obvious problem: the choices they've made as to what Intel processor to compare to what AMD processor just don't make sense. Look at the price table:

    Intel Frequency Price AMD Frequency Price
    E6300 1.83GHz $190 3800+ 2.0GHz $152
    E6400 2.13GHz $230 4200+ 2.2GHz $187
    E6600 2.40GHz $360 4600+ 2.4GHz $253
    E6700 2.67GHz $559 5000+ 2.6GHz $346
    X6800 2.93GHz $1,075 FX-62 2.8GHz $825
    In every case, the Intel processor more expensive than the AMD to which they compare it. The Intel E6700 is over 60% more expensive than the AMD 5000+ they consider comparable. The Intel E6300 is not only more expensive than the AMD 3800+, but also more expensive than AMD's next step up, the 4200+.

    Given their prices, the E6300 should obviously be compared to the 4200+ rather than to the 3800+. Looking at this particular pairing, rather than the nearly clean sweep for Intel, they each win some and lose some. If you simply count wins, the Intel wins more than the AMD -- but to mean much, you need to look at what they win at, not just how many different benchmarks they win. Just for example, PCMark05 goes 3:1 in favor of the E6300 -- but quite frankly, none of PCMark05 really means a thing.

    Unless money is no object to you, the two lines look pretty closely matched. In video encoding and rendering tasks, Intel wins quite easily. In the ScienceMark scores, AMD wins pretty easily. Elsewhere, a lot are really too close to call based on the data provided. There are a number of cases in which each wins by less than 2%. It's impossible to say for sure without knowing things like the standard deviations on these scores, but there's a pretty fair chance they have no statistical significance at all.
    --
    The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
    1. Re:Screwed up comparison by timeOday · · Score: 4, Informative
      Nope, just look at the 4 graphs to compare any pair of processors you like (on 3 different pages: 1 2 3)

      At the low end, the E6300 at $190 beat the $187 AMD 4200+ in all tests, and also beat the $253 4600+ in 3 out of 4 (with the 4th test extremely close).

      At the midrange, the $360 E6600 beats even the $825 FX-62 in all 4 tests. That is bad, bad, bad for AMD.

      At the high end, AMD simply has no answer to the $559 E6700 or the $1075 X6800.

      Granted, none of their graphs shows the ScienceMark. But overall the results seem pretty one-sided to me. I'm surprised AMD hasn't dropped prices more.

    2. Re:Screwed up comparison by bruno.fatia · · Score: 1
      In case you haven't noticed, they were matching clock speeds.
      E6300 with 3800+ (1.83GHz vs 2.0GHz)
      E6400 with 4200+ (2.13GHz vs 2.2GHz)
      E6600 with 4600+ (2.40GHz vs 2.4GHz)
      See?
      Also if you look at the graphs you'll see that E6600 beats FX-62 in pretty much everything and isn't nearly half FX-62's price.
    3. Re:Screwed up comparison by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 1

      Look again at the first graph on the second page you've linked.

      --
      The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
    4. Re:Screwed up comparison by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 1

      I can buy matching up clock speeds as a possibility, but even assuming it's true, why does it make sense? If I'm buying a CPU, I'm concerned with what I'm going to get for my money. Anybody who still hasn't noticed that clock speed means nearly nothing needs to find a different line of work.

      --
      The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
    5. Re:Screwed up comparison by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Comparing performance, I can only see this: (hopefully with a minimum of errors)

      - SysMark, a $230 E6400 performs nearly as a $825 FX-52.
      - PCMark05, $230 E6400 similar to $346 5000+.
      - ScienceMark, $230 E6400 similar to $187 4200+.
      - 3DS Max 7, $230 E6400 between the $346 and $825 Athlons.
      - Cinebench, $230 E6400 a little better than a $253 4600+.
      - 3DS Max 7 (rendering), $230 E6400 between $253 and $346 Athlons.
      - LightWave, no Athlons are close to touching even a $190 Core 2 Duo.
      - POVRay, $230 E6400 as $825 FX-52.
      - After Effects, $230 E6400 as $825 FX-52.
      - Video encoding, $230 E6400 almost as $825 FX-52, and E6600 being better overall.
      - 3DMark, $230 E6400 similar to $346 5000+.
      - FEAR, $230 E6400 better than $346 5000+, not far from $825 FX-52.
      - Call of Duty, all Core 2 Duo's seem better than any Athlon, at least in low res where gfx dependency is lower
      - Doom 3, $230 E6400 similar to $346 5000+.
      - HL2, $230 E6400 similar to $825 FX-52.
      - FS2004, $230 E6400 similar to $346 5000+.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    6. Re:Screwed up comparison by Macka · · Score: 1

      Unless money is no object to you
      Huh? At 2.4GHz and below, the price difference is about equivalent to a nice dinner for two with a good bottle of wine. Stay in for a night and you've saved enough to get the better option. It certainly shouldn't put anyone off.
    7. Re:Screwed up comparison by owlstead · · Score: 1

      This is slashdot, most of us would do *murder* for a nice dinner for two with a good bottle of wine, you moron.

    8. Re:Screwed up comparison by edxwelch · · Score: 1

      AMD are still selling well, despite now having the inferior processor (because of market momentum, and the tight supply of Conroes). That's why they are keeping the price relatively high.
      Maybe in the future they will be forced to drop the prices.

    9. Re:Screwed up comparison by Mycroft_VIII · · Score: 1

      Intell can afford to go lower, they have more $$ and can sustain smaller proffits or even losses for longer and the other benifits of being the larger company play in.
            Also in part because the CPU has to go into a motherboard. If the chip is $60 less but the motherboard is $120 more the amd solution is cheaper perfomance wise. Once Intell gets supply up on the motherboards this factor fades fairly quick however.

      Mycroft

      --
      https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
    10. Re:Screwed up comparison by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 1

      They will be forced to drop the prices, because Intel is ramping up Conroe production. It is only a matter of time until the supply can meet demand.
      Fortunately for AMD, they have managed to start their own 65nm manufacturing now.
      http://amd.vendors.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/ 09/12/0159259
      That should allow them to reduce their own manufacturing costs and afford the price cut.

      --
      C - the footgun of programming languages
    11. Re:Screwed up comparison by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      AMD already dropped prices on Athlon64 back in July (and that was scheduled a few months in advance, maybe as early as Feb 2006). Their next scheduled price are in October, but are only on the Sempron or Turion chip lines.

      Any price drops outside of those 2 months or on chips other then Sempron/Turion would be news.

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    12. Re:Screwed up comparison by WuphonsReach · · Score: 1

      Fortunately for AMD, they have managed to start their own 65nm manufacturing now.

      There were articles about 2 weeks ago about how they're having issues with 65nm. They can't get the voltages as low as they want, which is requiring increased power requirements. Dunno if they've got it sorted out yet.

      They do have some technical advantages over Intel once they get 65nm working (such as SS and SOI which I don't think Intel uses).

      --
      Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
    13. Re:Screwed up comparison by timeOday · · Score: 1
      I was referring to ScienceMark results not being included in the "Scaling" graphs at the bottoms of the linked pages. I like those graphs, except I wish they would use cost (in $) as the X axis instead of simply lining up pairs of processors which, as observed above, are not equal in price. But my point is, even if you shift the Intel line to the left one or usually even two notches, it still dominates the AMD line.

      The AMD chips did do well on the ScienceMark 2.0.

    14. Re:Screwed up comparison by smash · · Score: 1
      Intel can also afford to go lower at the moment (and keep their profits up) due to their increased wafer size and increased dual core yields by way of "joining" 2 dies together.

      Their manufacturing costs have been cut drastically by these two factors.

      --
      I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
    15. Re:Screwed up comparison by Magius_AR · · Score: 1
      In every case, the Intel processor more expensive than the AMD to which they compare it.

      It's also worth noting that the cost of Core 2 Duos has been dropping (as Intel ramps up production to meet demand) while the cost of the AMD chips is largerely fixed or rising.

      Other price tracking sites seem to confirm this: Intel vs AMD.

      As AMD is _already_ severely beaten in price/performnce, this does not bode well for them.

    16. Re:Screwed up comparison by coredog64 · · Score: 1

      IMO it's worse than that. Have you priced reasonable motherboards for these two CPU families
      recently?

      I was considering both an E6400 and an AM2 X2 4200+. I could get an AM2 motherboard with
      onboard DVI capable video for under $100. There is no such animal for Core 2 Duo. On top of that, I'd have to spend something like $200 for a motherboard. So between the motherboard and the vid card, the Core 2 Duo solution is $140 more expensive out of the box. That's like a free X2 3800+!

    17. Re:Screwed up comparison by Macka · · Score: 1


      Most people who visit slashdot are from the USA, the richest country in the world, with the most disposable income per head of population. And the prices discussed were in $'s which underscores my point. Who's the moron now !

  35. That's a single core chip by HBI · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Therefore an invalid comparison according to TFA which only looked at the dual core offerings.

    --
    HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
    1. Re:That's a single core chip by MojoStan · · Score: 1
      Therefore an invalid comparison according to TFA which only looked at the dual core offerings.
      Note that Slashdot's title is "Intel Core 2 Duo Vs. AMD AM2" while the title of the actual Extremetech article is "Intel Core 2 Duo Vs. AMD X2 AM2." So blame Slashdot for the innaccurate title and blame SeaFox for not seeing the obvious.
      --
      TO START
      PRESS ANY KEY

      Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...

  36. Re:X2's? He said they routed X2's.. by cdw38 · · Score: 1

    Except the frequency of the Orleans 3800+ is 2.4 Ghz, whereas the Windsor (and Manchester before it) clocks in at 2.0 Ghz (which is clearly pointed out in the article). And to the other replies I meant every AM2 tested...as in there is not a single-core AM2 4200+, 4600+, or 5000+. The only processor where you could even present an argument is for the 3800+, and the frequency clears that right up.

  37. Nice effort Intel, but AMD still takes the lead. by neophytepwner · · Score: 1

    If anyone took the care to notice AMD Opteron still beats Xeon. Dual-core Xeons will then be trumped when dual-dore opterons come out in 2007. Check the site http://multicore.amd.com/en/Products/Availability/

  38. Not denial, ignorance. by twitter · · Score: 1

    This will still be necessary as long as there are AMD fanboys out there still living in denial.

    Without 64 bit benchmarks, you can't make up your mind, unless you are some kind of Wintel fanboy who's ignored the Vista hype and does not think 64 bit will be practical for years.

    --

    Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.

  39. Socket consideration by wysiwia · · Score: 1

    As the owner of AMD socket 939 processor I'm going to skip any AM2 socket mainboard. It's time that processor manufactures realize the time to change sockets each year is over. Either they are able to foresee the socket interface for the next 5 years or they have to provide processors for any socket within that time line. The next mainboard I buy is the one which comes closed to this goal and mainboard manufactures are well advise to request this from their processor suppliers. I'll stick to this policy since any processor above a Athlon XP 3000+ is more that sufficient for any task I can envision (including gaming).

    O. Wyss

    --
    See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
    1. Re:Socket consideration by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 1

      IIRC socket AM2 is supposed to be compatible with at least the next generation of chips, currently called AM3, as well as quad-core cpus, and rumours of ddr3 memory. Maybe what you want is the thing you're not getting while you wait for what you want?

      Also can I point out that while Socket A was kept for ages, it supported various different bus speeds through it's life (eg I have a socket A board at home that only supports DDR266 ram and 100/133 bus cpus), so regardless of it being the same socket a cpu upgrade would sometimes require a motherboard upgrade anyway.

      Personally I've had a socket 939 system for a year, and I fully expect it to be supported for at least another, and it should take that long for my cpu to drop into the "underpowered" category. At least I didn't buy a socket-754 system, that would have been a real mistake. The server world has been more consistent, socket 940 has been AMD's only server socket for quite a long time, and it's only just changing.

    2. Re:Socket consideration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree with you that 939 is good enough. But AM2 may actually last quite a while. But it's not really cool until the 4x4 chipsets and the K8L version of the X2 (and X4) arrives.

      939 was made for DDR memory. And 754 was a cheap & simple version made for the OEM market. But after AMD gained so much of the market the need for a low-end solution is not really there anymore.

      --
      V.

    3. Re:Socket consideration by scharkalvin · · Score: 1

      Since AMD cpu's have the memory controller on board when a change is
      made to use new memory technology the cpu (and socket) must change.
      In the case of AM2 it appears that DDR2 and the proposed DDR3 will
      be compatible enough that these two cpu/socket designs will allow
      some backward compatibility. However you can't use DDR memory on
      AM2 cpu's, nor can socket 939 processors use DDR2.

      However ths situation is the same for other memory technologies.
      PC133 memory can't be used on a DDR motherboard, nor visa-versa
      even though both motherboards may have the same cpu on them. Either
      way you're stuck with your old memory unless you change motherboards.

      There is still some life left in DDR memory and current DDR2 dram
      isn't much faster than DDR400/DDR3200 memory (nor is it much different
      in price) to matter. Socket 939 processors and motherboards should
      still be around for a while yet (the number of 939 mb offerings is still
      at least twice that of AM2) so either choice is a good one today. AMD
      probably won't release any new 939 cpu's, but current speed ranges
      are available in both packages today.

      I own an Asus A8V-deluxe (the deluxe version is now discontinued, but
      they still sell the A8V base model). I plan to upgrade to the latest
      bios and get a dual core 939 (probably a 4200+ or a 4600+) and be happy
      for some time. (currently I have a single core 3400+ and YES that IS
      a 939 cpu. The 3400+ 939 version is really a Semptron version with
      a 1600mhz FSB. Tiger Direct special.)

    4. Re:Socket consideration by spyrochaete · · Score: 1

      939 has been out for well over a year now, and it's on the way out. The best time to buy a new socket is when it's brand spaking new because you can potentially get the most use out of your motherboard that way. Having bought an early 754 Athlon 64 I skipped out on 939 altogether and now have an AM2 setup.

      Then again, I sympathize with you - especially since socket AM2 has 939 pins!

    5. Re:Socket consideration by r00tman · · Score: 1
      It's time that processor manufactures realize the time to change sockets each year is over. Either they are able to foresee the socket interface for the next 5 years or they have to provide processors for any socket within that time line.
      Well said. I totally agree.
    6. Re:Socket consideration by NeMon'ess · · Score: 1

      Technology changes too fast to expect five years of compatible chips.

      AMD supported Socket A from 650MHz Athlons to the Athlon 3300+ That took about three or four years. Asking for five years is simply unrealistic. The AM2 socket boards will support AM3 cpus coming in 2007 and 2008. It's just that AM3 boards will support DDR3 RAM instead of the DDR2 used now. So the AM2 socket will be useful for at least three years, and probably four.

  40. Re:A consumer win!-how so? We have lost choices by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

    Well, what's stopping you from opening up shop, hiring techs and chip engineers, building your own fab, and competing with everyone?

      Oh yeah...that's right. The billions of dollars it would require. I knew there was a catch.

  41. imagine by 1+reply+beneath+your · · Score: 0

    a Beowulf cluster of these!

  42. 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo vs. 2.4 GHz Athlon A64 X2 + FAH by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo vs. 2.4 GHz Athlon A64 X2, both running FAH (Folding@home)
    The Intel counterpart does seem to be quicker than AMD one.
    http://forum.folding-community.org/viewtopic.php?p =142577#142577

  43. Re:Why even bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hello,

    I read an article that shows that the AM2 SFF EE-processor (3800+ X2) has much better efficiency/watt than core duo, but I'll let you judge yourself:
    http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-e nergy-efficient.html

    Anyway, I wouldn't be so sure about the fact that Intel has the better efficiency/watt in comparasence to amd. The above article certainly concludes the opposite if you use the X2 3800+ EE SFF. I don't remember if it says anything about the other EE SFF-processors. I have an idea about it, but I let you decide for yourself.

    Michel Brabants

    Here is the conclusion from the xbitlabs-review:

    Summing up I would like to admit that being economical is the major advantage of AMD Athlon 64 X2 Energy Efficient processors. They really consume less power and dissipate less heat than their standard counterparts. The CPUs with 65W TDP consume 25-30% less power under workload, while the CPUs with 35W TDP allow you to save about 55% of power. Of course, these features of the Energy Efficient make them ideal for small and quiet systems such as getting more and more popular home multimedia centers, entertainment centers and small form-factor PCs.

    Unfortunately, Energy Efficient cannot boast anything else besides the lowered thermal and electrical characteristics. They do not differ in architecture from the "standard" Athlon 64 and hence perform absolutely identically. As for their overclocking potential, which might be of specific interest to hardware enthusiasts, we have to upset you. Despite the expectations, Energy Efficient AMD CPUs cannot boast higher overclocking potential. They may even overclock worse than their "standard" analogues. Although their lowered power consumption allows you to raise the core voltage much higher, it doesn't help to hit the extreme clock speeds.

    Closing up our review I would like to add that from the heat dissipation and power consumption standpoints, the AMD Energy Efficient processors can easily compete with the new Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs based on Core microarchitecture, which offers extremely efficient performance-per-watt ratio. 65W Athlon 64 X2 consume less power under low workload than the Core 2 Duo units with the same performance level. As for AMD processors with 35W TDP, they turn out absolutely beyond any competition from the electrical and thermal prospective, although you should always keep in mind that at the same time they are not so fast as the competitor.

    By the way, AMD processors with 35W TDP really impressed us with their thermal mode. The screenshot below was taken during our test session. The numbers speak for themselves:

    All in all we are ready to voice our verdict: Energy Efficient AMD processors will be interesting only for those platforms where low power consumption and heat dissipation are critical. In all other cases they may not be the best choice keeping in mind their higher price.

  44. Via by linuxrocks123 · · Score: 1

    There is a third party. It's called Via. They compete mostly at the low end, and they're doing quite well in Asian markets.

    --
    vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
  45. Intel is very open source friendly too by DrunkenPenguin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Core2duo processors seem very attractive - nobody can deny that. HERE you can find Tom's Hardware benchmarks of Core2Duo against AMD processors.
     
    However, another interesting thing is that Intel is very open source friendly. Intel's new top of the line graphics adapters (found on some core2duo motherboards) have _FULLY_ open source Linux drivers! That is a _BIG_ thing! You can find more information HERE. Imagine! Now you can have fully open source OS without any binary drivers messing up your system. These on board graphics adapters are also very fast and capable, so it's a big thing to many of us.

    1. Re:Intel is very open source friendly too by obi · · Score: 1

      yeah, they're _FULLY_ open source... unless you're actually taking into account the intel_hal.so file -> not so open source. Basically it's for things like macrovision (tv-out?) etc, so some features require a binary blob still.

      See: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=115 536806403908&w=2

      That being said, this thing is completely optional. And the message hints what the Intel policy is on things Intel can't release (I got the exact same impression from intels ipw3945 wireless driver) - it's this: "we'll separate the stuff we can't release in user-mode code accessible through a simple API, so basically we made it as easy as we can for 'some other person' to reverse-engineer and reimplement that piece".

      I think that's a pretty good policy for any company entangled in open/closed source issues.

    2. Re:Intel is very open source friendly too by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I spec'ed out a system the other day for around $500, with the e6400 chip, I have a couple spare DDR2 chips and with onboard graphics it would be dirt cheap to get started with this arch..

      I am honestly impressed with Intel's come-back and FOSS friendliness.. GPL kernel components, MIT-X window components, truely a beautiful thing. Almost brings a tear to my eye..

      But talk about bang for your buck, this system I'm considering building will cost me $499 + tax/s&h + (spare case, disk, ram) today and it can easily be overclocked above 3.0 Ghz and run faster than anything AMD has to offer.. tomorrow it will probably be cheaper..

      Besides, I already got a buggy AMD AM2. Maybe Intel's offerings will be more compatible with Linux? I want to find out..

    3. Re:Intel is very open source friendly too by Shadowlore · · Score: 1

      Until AMD has fully purchased AND integrated ATi, your references to Intel's graphics division is irrelevant and disengenuous. When it comes to chips, AMD and Intel have very similar positions on open source AIUI.

      --
      My Suburban burns less gasoline than your Prius.
    4. Re:Intel is very open source friendly too by snuf23 · · Score: 1

      Except Intel's open source drivers for its video chips are available today and any speculation as to what will happen on the open source front with AMD + ATI is pure speculation?

      --
      Sometimes my arms bend back.
    5. Re:Intel is very open source friendly too by Cal+Paterson · · Score: 1

      If only they provided Free and Open Source drivers for their wireless cards. Unfortunately, OpenBSD had to do that work.

  46. AMD DROPPED THE PRICES DUMMYBOY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AMD dropped the prices when core2duo was announced dummyboy! It had to do it! Who would have been stupid enough to buy any of AMD processors had they not dropped the prices?? You??

    1. Re:AMD DROPPED THE PRICES DUMMYBOY! by Jerry+Coffin · · Score: 1
      AMD dropped the prices when core2duo was announced dummyboy!

      Of course AMD dropped their prices. In case you hadn't noticed, prices on CPUs have dropped on a regular basis ever since CPUs became commodity products. The news would have been if they were so far ahead of Intel on the price/performance curve that they didn't drop their prices.

      Who would have been stupid enough to buy any of AMD processors had they not dropped the prices?? You??

      What does the price on an AMD long before these Intel processors were available have to do with anything? Your statement is as pointless as saying the Intel 8088 was a terrible deal in 1982, because an AMD 3800+ costs half as much and runs a gazillion times as fast. Of course it does, but it just wasn't available in 1982!

      --
      The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
  47. While we're squashing people by IDontLinkMondays · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Umm... sure, I've got a minute to waste. Quit busting on other people like this now... here's why....

    1) Many of us were using the later betas of Windows 2000 64-bit for the XP platform (MSDN subscribers had access) until Compaq cancelled their agreement with MS
    2) Many of us have run Windows XP or Windows servers editions on Itanium ... and it was 64-bit
    3) Many of us have played XP 360 running a 64-bit Windows 2000 derivative for PowerPC
    4) Many of us have been in the Solaris world running 64-bit for a REALLY long time
    5) Many of us have used IRIX workstations running in 64-bit for a long time

    I will toss you a bone and let you feel a little better for getting the encryption bit correct... but wait a second... in a multitasking environment, the simple cost of task switching AMD64 is more expensive... BECAUSE of the additional registers. You may not realized, but for the most part, almost noone actually uses the standard task state change mechanism of Intel processors favoring manual backup and restore with a far jump instead since TSS related calls are painfully expensive. Now task switching has become far more expensive. Now instead of pushing and popping (not including index and pointer regs) general purpose registers requires pushing and popping 256 bytes compared to the earlier 32 bytes. Of course the faster memory performance will compensate for a bit of it, but let's face it, it still hurts a little.

    Now let's get to media encoding... ummm what the hell are you talking about?

    You seem to like talking about matrix calculations as if any CODEC actually implements the matrix operations in general purpose registers using the standard ALU.... well some do... strictly for reference implementations, but in reality there are units particularly built for this type of calculation. This is the entire purpose of SIMD, SSE, 64Now!, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4 (and altivec for example elsewhere). The fact is, why in the name of all that is good on this planet would anyone implement a matrix calculation in a execution path locked to 64-bit ALU based instructions when in reality, SSE first of all gives you a minimum of 8 packed registers executing on four 32 bit sets in parallel? As I see from your website, mathematical precision is of importance to you, but in the world of CODECs, there is limited need for anything more precise.

    Mathematica, Maple, Mathlab etc... obviously benefit from the new architecture, but come on... are you actually making use of 64-bit integer instructions? If it speeds up anything, it's the UI when running simulations. In reality you're comparing apples to oranges. And not that you've noticed apparently, Mathematica has run on 64-bit for a LONG LONG time.

    Ok... you talk about larger virtual address space... that's an excellent topic to discuss... Windows Server has supported PAE for a while, or Physical Address Extension allowing virtual memory to be addressed as 64-bit... this is in fact a documented CPU extension from Intel. Oh.. I'm sorry were you talking about PHYSICAL ADDRESS SPACE? Yes, the Xeon faced certain addressing limitations, but they were circumvented using chipset trickery that allowed PAE to be remapped to larger address spacing externally. This is how companies like Dell, IBM, etc... were able to ship Xeon systems that could address 8Gbytes or more. I don't know the full technical details, but I'd imagine that it is closely related to using fancy paging methods through a more advanced MMU.

    Windows Vista will be released in two flavors, one in 32-bit and one in 64-bit. I'm guessing from watching the transition from 16 to 32 bit computing that one thing will be clear, since Microsoft isn't releasing a dual-mode binary (Apple didn't either, their package format just pointed to two executables), that intelligent vendors will rely on either :
    a) Release an installer that will detect the architecture and install the suitable executable 32 or 64 bit
    b) Ignore 64-bit since for the most part,

    1. Re:While we're squashing people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Windows Server has supported PAE for a while, or Physical Address Extension allowing virtual memory to be addressed as 64-bit... this is in fact a documented CPU extension from Intel.

      (emphasis added)

      'nuff said.

      Oh.. I'm sorry were you talking about PHYSICAL ADDRESS SPACE?

      You're the only one talking about physical address space here.

    2. Re:While we're squashing people by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Windows itself didn't even become a relevant topic of conversation until at least Windows 3.0 which required a minimum of a 386 processor.

      Nonsense. Even Windows 3.1 would run on a 286, as long as you didn't want to use protected mode; Yes, it ran slower, but that was actually mostly due to not having a fixed swapfile.

      Windows 3.0 didn't even support the 386's protected mode.
  48. Paid by Intel by Britz · · Score: 1

    We all know that the performance crown (and certainly the performance per watt crown) went back to Intel with the Core 2 Duo. But at the medium and low price range the performance per $$ is contested. At the beginning the article says that you can't compare the product lines any more (so comparing simply by price would be best) and then make up their own comparison table where they put each AMD processor next to significantly more expensive Intel model. This BS to the highest degree.

    64bit is a completely different story, but doesn't matter all that much, because almost all apps are still tuned for 32bit and that won't change for a while. After all hardware is made for software, not the other way around.

    1. Re:Paid by Intel by NeMon'ess · · Score: 1

      The results of the benchmarks are that the $230 E6400 is better than or equal to the $346 5000+.

      The $190 E6300 is better than or equal to the $253 4600+.

      If someone isn't going to pay $190 for the E6300 they quite obviously need to buy an Athlon 64 for best performance per dollar.

  49. Re:Why even bother? by MrNemesis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Many of the reviews I've seen show that the AMD systems consume significantly less power at idle than the equivalent C2D system. Whilst the C2D is pretty much undoubtedly the faster of the two arches, I'm still pretty staggered by the energy efficiency of the AMD64. As anothe poster pointed out, AMD's cherry picked ADD chips (well, the 3800 X2 ADD anyway) consume utterly tiny amounts of power, even on an appallingly stone aged 90nm lith process ;) I can't wait for AMD's 65nm to start shipping once their process is all sorted out, since 90nm SOI has worked so well for them. That said, since the ADD series are cherry picked they're expensive and hard to come by - last I heard they were of limited availability in Germany.

    Since most computers I own spend 90% of their time idling away at 1-5% load, I'm sticking with my AMD's for the time being - I'm not a gamer (although I do alot of video endocoding and have been contemplating a C2D system for my main workstation) so balls to the wall performance is not my highest priority, and keeping the costs of running my PVR's down is quite important to me.

    As an aside, has anyone seen any benches for a Merom chip outside of a laptop? I've been thinking abut using one of these as a new Myth frontend, but the chips are like rocking-horse poo at the moment and I'm not aware of any UK stockists.

    Anyway, like I said last time - yay for competition! For the first time in years both CPU companies are releasing some pretty interesting kit. Prices for both chips are incredibly low, and given that you can grab an X2 (i.e. more than enough CPU grunt to run anything quickly, including vista, except the latest games at max settings) for less than £100 makes this a great time for customers.

    Anyway, enough rambling, time to drool over more CPU specs... :D

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  50. I need some performance/price ratios by t35t0r · · Score: 1

    I'm a cheap bastard and I need performance/price ratios. Tomshardware is too slow with its CPU charts.

  51. Re:A consumer win!-how so? We have lost choices by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

    Well, you know, IBM is still making chips, they're quite popular with the console market. I don't think there's any PC's or servers using them now that Apple has gone Intel. Although I'm sure that IBM still sells servers that use their own chips. Oh, and then there's SUN processors for servers and workstations. There's a lot more choice out there than you think. If your on the Windows platform, then you pretty much have just AMD and Intel, but if you're on another operating system link Linux/Unix, then there's a few other architectures you can choose from.

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  52. Drooling over RAM by JoeRandomHacker · · Score: 1

    You think 64GB of RAM is something to drool over? Take a look at the Broadbus B-1.
    http://www.broadbus.com/products1.asp
    We're talking over a terabyte of RAM here.

  53. Not really... by Junta · · Score: 1

    SDL wraps/can wrap audio/graphics/input, basically everything you just said. On MS platforms it frontends DirectX, so it's fairly obvious that they are aiming for a cross-platform DirectX alternative. I've programmed against it and it's pretty easy to use.

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  54. Ummm... by Junta · · Score: 1

    Xeons prior to Woodcrest did get stomped by Socket 940 Opterons, now with Intel Woodcrest dual-core vs. AMD Socket F dual cores, Intel I believe holds similar advantage that it does in the desktop line.

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  55. Help me out here by shec0002 · · Score: 1

    Shouldn't they be comparing the Core 2 with the AMD X2? I don't understand.

    1. Re:Help me out here by the_greywolf · · Score: 1

      RTFA. They're comparing the socket AM2 Athlon 64 X2 with the Core2 Duo.

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      LET FORTRAN DIE!
  56. Sample benchmarks? by porkThreeWays · · Score: 1

    I agree that 64-bit has been supported in Linux for almost as long as Linux has been portable. I also agree that 64-bit is the future. What I do question however are those numbers. I don't think the simple action of recompiling for AMD64 will get any performance gain. From what other qualified individuals have told me (nothing I write is ever so large I benchmark 32-bit vs 64-bit versions to optimize), if you just recompile with a different target, your code will almost always be equal or slower in speed. It is when you code specifically to take advantage of the 64-bit address space you see benefit. However, just recompiling in itself won't help you much if any.

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  57. Re:A consumer win!-how so? We have lost choices by saider · · Score: 1

    The reason that non-x86 workstations are expensive is because of the lack of volume. By excluding the architecture popular in business, you have essentially severed off the volume manufacturers that can lower the costs for you. You will never find a low-cost computer that uses an architecture that is not mainstream. There is no incentive for companies to invest in the engineering resources to build a few thousand computers that may or may not be sold.

    I looked into building my own computer from the chips up, and decided that it was simpler, and less expensive to just buy one.

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    Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
  58. Does 1066 MHz FSB equal 2000 MHz Hypertransport? by 3D-nut · · Score: 1

    I've been trying to learn which machine would be better suited for playing dual-stream HDTV or even higher-resolution video, for stereoscopic display. I know that front-side bus speed was a bottleneck for high-def video display once, and fear that it could be again. I am looking at playing two 1080p videos through a dual-head card. I suppose that the only way to know for sure is to try it on both an X6800 and an FX 62, but does anyone have a clear idea of what the difference should be, between the 1066 FSB and the apparently faster AMD bus? Thank you.

  59. Re:Why even bother? by dara · · Score: 1

    I agree - I'm very concerned about idling power. If the idling power can be brought low enough on an entire system, say 5 W, I could leave it on all the time and not bother with trying to get nvram wakeup schemes to work so an HTPC can start up and record a show. I'm typing this on a Windows Centrino laptop now and it annoys the hell out of me how hot the thing gets when I'm doing nothing but scrolling through a document.

    This brings up the general issue - why aren't reviewers covering all power efficiency numbers given that is what AMD and Intel are both claiming they are concerned about lately. I didn't read the entire article linked here, but I didn't see any numbers referring to "number of Joules required to transcode a file" or something. I can get lumens per watt for all types of lighting, hopefully computing devices advertising will improve in the future.

    Dara

  60. Re:A consumer win!-how so? We have lost choices by default+luser · · Score: 2, Interesting

    While it is true that you can buy any chip you can imagine in a server, the original poster gave me the impression that he/she wanted a cheap solution with a simple chip-on-a-board (ala PegasOS). Unfortunately, the money is in complete systems tied in with services, so that's the last thing you'll catch IBM selling.

    And sure, IBM's chips are popular in consoles, but that's mostly because IBM is the only major chip house that will offer to develop custom chip designs. The game console companies help fund the R&D bill and sign-on for some minimum initial shipment, and IBM makes some money. IBM takes existing core logic and pieces it together to optimize performance for consoles, and out pops a new chip design.

    But there's a good reason IBM has time for game consoles: IBM doesn't have NEARLY the sales volume of AMD, let alone Intel. AMD doesn't have time for custom chips because they have enough trouble just meeting market demand for their x86 products. They are shooting for 100 million chips next year once their new fab ramps up, and Intel is shooting for 300 million. IBM, by contrast, will sell only 3-20 million chips per-console, per-year, depending on popularity, and those sales rise and fall periodically as consoles get introuced and mature. Even with all three consoles in their pockets, don't expect IBM to sell more then 30 million per-year.

    I don't really see what the attraction is to small-market chips like CELL anyway. My prediction on the subject has already come true: way back when IBM announced the CELL, I predicted that by the time it was released, the PC market would have a similar-performance chip on-offer.

    With Intel's release of the quad-core Core2 products later this year (Clovertown), my prediction becomes reality. With 2x128-bit SIMD units per core (for a total of 8 128-bit units per chip), Clovertown is capable of the same performance levels as Cell. AMD's K8L, due out next year, is expected to boast similar performance levels.

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  61. L2 cache.. the real winner by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We all know that real winner here is the extra 2MBs of L2 cache the Intel processors have. If you compared the same Intel chip without it the AMD chip would win. Who knows maybe we'll see some 4+MB L2 caches on AMD chips here in the near future!

  62. Why no graphs on text-only? by SEMW · · Score: 1

    >You can read it all on the printer-friendly page, but you'll miss out on the pretty graphs.

    Why? Is there any legitimate reason for this? Printers have been capable of printing graphics for quite a long time -- anyone around who still has a text-only printer? Thought not. Or do they think the idea that if you prefer to read an article on paper, you must also dislike non-textual forms of conveying information?

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  63. AMD wins for VMware with 64-bit guest OSes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The intel cpu will be slow as a dog (order of magnutude slower!). AMD wins there because they do -not- require the use of hardware virtualization "features" to support 64-bit virtual machines. Both intel and amd's existing hardware virtualization support sucks rocks compared to vmwares dynamic translation.

  64. Re:Why even bother? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    anandtech's power consumption comparison:
    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx? i=2795&p=7

  65. Re:Why even bother? by dara · · Score: 1

    I wasn't browsing low enough and I missed an AC post before mine giving a good link (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd- energy-efficient.html). There was also one after my post (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx ?i=2795&p=7).

    Thanks for both of these. I've looked them over and will read them in detail later. The anandtech article covers power only on page 7 (the one linked) I think, and I was pretty disappointed to see the ratio of idle power to full power. More than 60% it seems. That doesn't bode well for my plans to have an HTPC that can stay on all the time. I'd like it to use 5% of the power when it isn't doing anything.

    The xbitlabs story is longer and I couldn't find exact numbers I was looking for during a lunch break.

    It appears labs compare processors by running a given program and comparing watts (which works for some things like decoding an HDTV stream), but I'd also like to see numbers from a given task and energy measurements (e.g. compressing a video) over the period of time needed. I'll try looking for that too.

    Dara

  66. Re:Why even bother? by StikyPad · · Score: 1

    Many of the reviews I've seen show that the AMD systems consume significantly less power at idle than the equivalent C2D system.

    Then you obviously haven't read this one.

    Summary:

    Intel's most power consuming C2D
    C2X6800 Max: 217W Min: 160W (Speedstep)

    AMD's most power consuming CPU
    FX-62 Max: 283W Min: 192W

    AMD's least power comsuming offering (with comparable performance)
    64 FX-60 Max: 255W Min: 161W (Cool'n'Quiet mode)

  67. Re:Why even bother? by StikyPad · · Score: 1

    Also forgot to mention:

    I can't wait for AMD's 65nm to start shipping once their process is all sorted out, since 90nm SOI has worked so well for them.

    They'd better hurry.. Intel is planning on moving to 45nm in mid-2007.

  68. Re:Why even bother? by MrNemesis · · Score: 1

    Completely agree, it's a much overlooked area of CPU reviews. Try finding real-world power consumption figures for the Intel E6300 - not easy. Everyone only seems to give a crap about overclocking the new XTXXLLLLGTSFX2006 these days ;)

    For a great little run down on CPU power across a wide range of chips, try this one for size: http://www.lostcircuits.com/cpu/low_e/

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  69. Dexamethasone 10 times strongr than Prednisone by ImitationEnergy · · Score: 1

    This is awesome. After taking dexamethasone for just 3-4 days, I can''t figure a way to spin this article into an opportunity to bang people in the head with my desktop fusion engine discoveries. http://www.newpath4.com/ The drug overlords couldn't stop me with Lithium dissolving my brain, overdosed for 12+ YEARS til I developed Parkinson's tremors & Alzheimer's memory blackouts by 2002, so in the guise of HELPING ME BACK TO HEALTH, they vanguish me anyway! Well, at least SlashDot History will record Riley went down fighting for ImitationEnergy. http://www.newpath4.com/imitationenergy.htm

    Hmm. I wonder what the missing newpath4 pages being held back say?

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