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Core 2-Compatible Chipsets Compared
theraindog writes "Intel's Core 2 Duo is clearly the most attractive processor on the market, but which motherboard chipset is it best paired with? The Tech Report has rounded up four of the most common Core 2-compatible chipsets on the market to find out. The chipsets' features are compared and their performance is tested in a wide range of application, peripheral, and even power consumption tests. One emerges as a lemon, two as solid options, and the other as a clear winner." From the article: "Some fanboys still stubbornly cling to their favorite underdog, but most enthusiasts have seen the light and are looking at Core 2 for their next upgrade or system build. The prospect of a Core 2 system build can seem a bit daunting for enthusiasts who have spent years focused solely on the Athlon 64. Core 2 processors need new motherboards for those switching from the Athlon 64, and that requires navigating a whole new world of core logic chipsets. Since the Core 2 processor relies on the chipset for its memory controller, one's chipset choice can also have a much more profound impact on performance. "
"Some fanboys still stubbornly cling to their favorite underdog..."
Gee, that doesn't sound like the author had an opinion up front. No sir.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
From the article:I can't understand why Nvidia would drop a unique feature like hardware TCP/IP acceleration.
Might I suggest it's because this acceleration has been found to cause serious data corruption on some NFORCE4-based AMD motherboards? I'm surprised the authors weren't aware of this problem.
Myself, I'm wary of NFORCE4 for other reasons. I've recently found that my quad-core Opteron box, built on a Tyan S2895 (K8WE) mobo with an NFORCE4 chipset, will undergo spontaneous data corruption under Linux when I transfer large (>GB) files. I'm not the only one who's had this problem; looks like there's a bug in the NFORCE4 SATA controller. Caveat Emptor.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Thanks for the 21 pages...Concusion:
Conclusions
The landscape of Core 2-compatible chipsets is an interesting one. On one hand, you have tried and true chipsets like the 975X Express and nForce4 SLI X16 appearing on boards that have been updated to support Core 2 processors. These chipsets aren't new or particularly flashy, but they're proven designs that don't sacrifice performance when compared with the latest and greatest core logic.
Of course, the Core 2 chipset market isn't all retro refits. Nvidia's nForce 570 SLI is new, at least in name. Unfortunately, the chip's features make it look more like a minor update to the aging nForce4 SLI than a legitimate member of the nForce 500 series. The discrepancies between the chipset's features and those offered by the nForce 570 SLI for AMD processors are striking, and for the life of me, I can't understand why Nvidia would drop a unique feature like hardware TCP/IP acceleration. Extra features have long been a tenet of nForce chipsets, and on that front, the 570 SLI comes up well short.
Compounding the 570 SLI's disappointing feature set is comparatively high memory latency with two-DIMM configurations. This particular problem might be a quirk of the Asus P5NSLI motherboard we used for testing, but it's a retail board with a production BIOS--a board Nvidia itself provided for review.
Intel P965 Express
September, 2006
Unlike the nForce 570 SLI, which feels like little more than an uninspired retread, Intel's P965 Express still has that new chipset smell. It also has a number of new features, including Fast Memory Access optimizations and additional south bridge Serial ATA RAID ports. The P965 also has relatively low power consumption, competitive performance, more robust Matrix RAID options, and evolving CrossFire support that should be complete by the end of the year. No wonder this chipset has proven so popular with motherboard manufacturers, who are building everything from budget $100 wonders to high-end enthusiast boards based on it.
The Intel P965 Express chipset's mix of features, performance, and power consumption make it the perfect partner for Intel's new Core 2 processor and our Editor's Choice. Really, it's an easy call to make. The P965's upcoming CrossFire support kills the one reason we might have recommended the 975X. If SLI's your bag, the nForce4 SLI X16 is a solid--albeit power-hungry--option, but the more attractive nForce 590 SLI should be just around the corner. The nForce 570 SLI, meanwhile, doesn't even measure up to its own name, let alone to the P965
I'll save you the time of scrolling thru all 21 pages by skipping right to the conclusion...
The Intel P965 Express chipset's mix of features, performance, and power consumption make it the perfect partner for Intel's new Core 2 processor and our Editor's Choice. Really, it's an easy call to make.
The core2 is fast in 32bit mode and certainly a step in the right direction for intel. Kudos to them, but fie on their 64 bit support. In deference to the Itanium, they think of it as existing to provide extended memory support, and only because AMD was flanking them. Two important factors drag down core2 64 bit performance: micro-ops fusion, which welds multiple trivial ops into a single macro op, works on 32 bit instructions only, and they support DMA on only memory addressable with a 32 bit pointer. The message from intel is clear: for 64 bit performance, buy an Itanium or an opteron.
It can rather make sense to "cling" if you've invested in MB, memory and cooler already. Certainly it depends on where on the curve you're upgrading from.
Yes, 'fanboys'
Just because I'm not rushing out to buy a Core 2 Duo system to replace or upgrade, and instead 'cling' to my AMD64 system, it doesn't make me an AMD fanboy. Core 2 Duo is looking like a fucking superb processor family, but I think I'lll get a bit more life out of my current system before diving into a complete upgrade / replacement of my current hardware thank you.
As a side note; does anyone have any info on what AMD are planning, if anything, to compete against the Core 2 Duo in the near future? I read something a while back about them switching to 65nm at a new fab, but I don't follow the processor market that closely anymore.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
In virtually all MB reviews with the same chipset, they are usually all within 5-7% of each other in the benchmarks. This usually doesn't translate into meaningful "sitting in front of the keyboard" performance differences. It's like horsepower in cars - it's hard to tell 195hp from 205hp when you're behind the wheel. (and yes, I like to compare apples to oranges...)
The Intel P965 Express chipset's mix of features, performance, and power consumption make it the perfect partner for Intel's new Core 2 processor and our Editor's Choice. Really, it's an easy call to make. The P965's upcoming CrossFire support kills the one reason we might have recommended the 975X. If SLI's your bag, the nForce4 SLI X16 is a solid--albeit power-hungry--option, but the more attractive nForce 590 SLI should be just around the corner. The nForce 570 SLI, meanwhile, doesn't even measure up to its own name, let alone to the P965.
That should round out the Conclusion.
As for the bias, AMD's got a few tricks up their sleeves in the next 7 months, so it will be interesting: consumer level dual CPUs (4X4), integrated shared L3 cache, 65nm fab, and quad core vs Intel's Kentsfield 65nm.
I'm eagerly awaiting the next price drops!
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
"Intel's Core 2 Duo is clearly the most attractive processor on the market..." That quote sums it up, Its An Intel-Fanboy article.
That said, I still lean AMD. If Intel lowers the cost on these chips and AMD stays where they are Intel will really have a lead. They certainly have a good product now. However, Once you add the and chips and boards to the basket (by new egg prices) the Intel solution is easily $100-200 more expensive when comparing equivalent power (especially budget) processors. Its not much but in the under $1000 basic box range thats significant.
However, even if AMD gets $200 more expensive per set ill stay with it for my servers. They have treated me way too well to dump over chump change. Intel will have to be better, cheaper and keep the edge for quite some time before I jump ship.
and they support DMA on only memory addressable with a 32 bit pointer.
Indeed. Hence the software bounce buffer in Linux, to make up for the lack of an IOMMU. And while I'm extremely pleased with my recently-purchased E2700 Core 2 Duo box, I wonder how well the Core architecture will fare in quad/oct-core land, with it's memory access issues. The lack of both IOMMU and (more fundamentally) a per-core or per-die memory controller seriously hampers Core's ability to scale.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
"Some fanboys still stubbornly cling to their favorite underdog, but most enthusiasts have seen the light and are looking at Core 2 for their next upgrade or system build." Nowhere does it say when that next upgrade or system build has to come, or that anyone needs to upgrade from AMD64.
As a side note; does anyone have any info on what AMD are planning, if anything, to compete against the Core 2 Duo in the near future? I read something a while back about them switching to 65nm at a new fab, but I don't follow the processor market that closely anymore.
AMD has a couple of interesting products comming out:
- First is 4x4, comming out in 4Q2006. This is essentially a dual-socket platform designed for the high-end desktop and low-end workstation/server market. This isn't a product for everyone, but it will make for a very price attractive dual-socket workstation. To start with, it will support two dual-core chips for a total of four cores. AMD has stated that later, when they release quad-core chips, 4x4 will support two of them for a total of eight cores. It's a niche market, but a neat idea.
- Second, AMD is releasing a new core in 2Q2007. This core has double the number of FP (floating point) pipelines, double the L1 cache bandwidth, larger reorder buffers, a L3 cache, and will come in dual and quad-core versions. This chip is going to be a beast, and will be supported in any current socket AM2 mother board. For more, read this: HardOCP, HardOCP. This new core is the direct answer to Core2/conroe, and I expect it to be a good one. It looks really good on paper, and after seeing AMD's delivery of K8, I expect the new core to live up to the hype.
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I have my opinions in my Y-fronts.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Just curious in how much that cost you? I haven't built a machine in almost five years now and I'm looking for an upgrade.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Consider Linux in the 0.x days, probably buggy as hell. Using Linux at that stage would have been irrational if you just chose what was best on the day. However, without those fanboys that believed in the long term dream and contributed, we'd never have got to where we are today.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Two of the chipsets tested support SLI, the nForce 570 SLI and the nForce4 SLI X16. http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2-chipset s/index.x?pg=10
Your precious P5N32-SLI SE is even tested in the article! So what was your problem again?
Ok, so some of us are "stubbornly" clinging to AMD? Intel had what, 5 years to top K8 and 5%-10% better speeds (in SOME benchmarks!) was the best they could manage? I'll stick with AMD thanks, Intel totally underachieved on Core Duo despite what most casual observers may think .....
Criteria's plural. You want criterion.
Why do the new Intel chipsets have just one P-ATA channel, if any at all? It is ridiculous. 95% of all optical drives are P-ATA, and P-ATA hard drives as of yet are just as fast, if not faster thanks to more mature drivers and technology, than their SATA counterparts. What do they expect people with 2+ perfectly fine last-generation PATA hard drives to do when upgrading to Core 2 Duo? Getting a separate PCI controller (as PCI-E x1 ones are still rare) to already expensive C2D motherboards with just 2 PCI slots, both of which a person could have a much better use for?
> Some fanboys still stubbornly cling to their favorite underdog
True. The rest of us get incredible SMP scaling up to 32 cores on one motherboard, using Opteron socket F CPUs.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Are (good) Core2 boards available for ATX or BTX?
You see, I have several nice ATX cases and like to switch hardware between them.
If I have to buy BTX, my next CPU is still still likely to be AM2, not Core2 Duo...
Intel had what, 5 years to top K8 and 5%-10% better speeds was the best they could manage?
Well, it depends. Core 2 is really good at 32-bit single threaded tasks that fit inside a 4MB cache or have sequential memory access patters. On these workloads Core 2 will wipe the floor with AMD's K8, hands down. Just look at SuperPI scores for an example.
Here's the question though: What happens with heavily threaded 64-bit tasks that use much more than 4MB of memory in a random access pattern? AMD's K8 wipes the floor with Core 2, hands down.
There is a reason most gamers/encoders buy Core 2 for their desktops and many businesses and universities buy K8 Opterons for their servers and HPC centers.
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I'm sure I read somewhere that the (now with Catalyst 6.9) Crossfire enabled P965 boards will be 1 x 16 lane enabled PCI-e 16 slot and 1 x 4 lane enabled PCI-e 16 slot (for those P965 boards with two slots) at most vs the P975x having 2 x 8 lane enabled PCI-e 16 slots: if so, how will this affect their Crossfire performance overall on the P965 boards?
"Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
Hardly, Had intel's new stuff beat AMD by a significant margin I'd be far more inclined to get some. As it stands we (my company) have been using AMD almost exclusivly (except for some ultrasparc...) for the last 2 years. We see no reason to change ships over such a small edge, considering how long it took Intel to come out with anything that was really competitive with AMD's K8 systems. Totally unimpressed by thier results. I really hope some people at Intel got fired or sent to work on Itanic III instead. Until then, I'll let the Intel "fanboys" have fun in 32bit single-threaded land while our servers chug along doing thier fancy 64bit multithreaded work that intel seems to not think actually gets done out here in the "real world" ....
Asrock the bastard son of Asus has couple interesting interim boards for core 2 duo and I ended up doing a budget upgrade with conroe865pe / e6300 combo. If you want to overclock better steer clear and save up more for a complete system overhaul but for stingy persons it will work Unfortunately there's no 'real' (16x) pci-e + agp combinations for intel procs like the nice dualsata board for s939 since the pci-e implementation on pt880 (pro/ultra) chipsets is only 4x. I opted for the 865pe one since I needed 4 dimm slots. Time to save up more for the pci-e / ddr2 jump I guess.
consumer level dual CPUs (4X4)
Wouldn't "4x4" imply four processors with four logical cores each, for a total 16-way system? Somehow I don't think that's what you meant. Or was it?
A dual-core per processor, dual-processor system would be, I would think, a 2x2, and if you had a processor with four cores, and then two of them, it would be a 2x4 or 4x2.
The only way I can think of to make a 4x4 would be with a specialized high-end mobo; I can't see anyone making a quad proc board for consumer use anytime soon. Most low-end tasks just aren't that parallelizable.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Only an individual with money to burn (and small brain) is going to upgrade from an Athlon 64 single core 3000, to an Intel Core 2 Duo.
:) ).
I'm sorry but I could envision the same idiot upgrading from his 2500mhz cpu to a 2800mhz cpu as soon as it comes out.
I upgraded from my 700mhz (overclocked from 533mhz) celeron, to an athlon xp 2500 to play Halo (I also got a decent graphics card of course). So far.. even the so called state of the art games coming out run smooth on this same machine. Half life 2 ep 1 is a good example. Yes, sometimes I have to turn graphics settings down a little.
I'll likely hold off till quad core cpu's begin to mature, the Windows Vista upgrade dust begins to settle, and games start using some DirectX 10 features (games that are actually worth playing... I don't get why Prey got such good reviews, its the same rehashed crap, yes I know its not dx10. But while I'm at it.. I do recommend Company of Heroes, sure its the same RTS rehashed crap, but I am very addicted
Perhaps by then AMD will have the new fast chip that tramples on Intel by a whopping 2% speed increase, and the intel people will be called "fanboys"... sigh reviewers can be so removed from reality sometimes.
I was dissapointed that this review didn't include any G965 reviews.
If you want the new Linux XGL/AIGLX/Compiz functionality to work out of the box with no binary drivers, a G965 board may very well be what you are looking for.
The G965 chipset includes the new GMA X3000 graphics core, which is the only DX10 feature level graphics solution with FLOSS Linux drivers: http://intellinuxgraphics.org/
The new C2 stepping is rumoured to solve many of the performance problems of the first stepping, and although probably still not suitable for FPS gaming under Linux, other less demanding games and desktop users needs could be well met.
but I'm still sticking with my Athlon 64, thanks. Besides, I can't even tell which damn Intel processors are even 64-bit capable – at least AMD makes a clear naming distinction. (I may be wrong here, of course... disclaimer, I used to be an Intel guy myself, but I've since changed.)
Creative misinterpretation is your friend.
Since the Core 2 processor relies on the chipset for its memory controller, one's chipset choice can also have a much more profound impact on performance.
Since I'm not really a fanboy and don't have time to research memory controllers, I might end up with a dog system? Screw that. I'm not going to be playing chipset roulette, especially with a company that's infamous for not cooperating with the free software community outside of slower graphics chips. Hardware zealotry is almost as expensive as software folly, but I have a feeling that the two are linked.
I run Debian and have been thinking about moving to AMD 64. Prices on the AMD 64 one systems are very cheap. Yesterday I saw a mobo + processor for less than $200 and the mobo will use my crusty old DDR memory. I doubt core duo can touch that kind of price to performance ratio. I'm not really in a hurry because the five year old computer I have is still more than adequate. The biggest performance hit was disk latency, and I fixed that with an 80MB/s scsi drive mounted as /usr. I'll move when my current system dies. At that time, I'll look around to see where the bargain is.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I keep seeing this in relation to Intel processors "They aren't really 64-bit! Their 64-bit is t3h slow!" Ok fine but let me ask you two things then:
1) What's your source? Do you have some Intel technical docs that talk about how their chips are gimped in 64-bit? Remember: A post from some guy on some web forum isn't a legit source.
2) If that's the case, why do they perform well in 64-bit mode, in relation to 32-bit mode? You take things like, say, Prime95. Install XP 32-bit and XP-64-bit on the same system and do some benchmarks. You find that Prime95 gains a little bit of speed when both it and the OS are 64-bit compared to when both are 32-bit. So how's that happen? Isn't that counter-evidence to a poor 64-bit design?
I'm not claiming to have the answer here, just saying I see this "Pentium (and now Core2) sucks at t3h 64-bit, buy AMD!" trotted around a lot, but I see very little backing for it. So please, provide some relevant docs. What I'd like to see:
1) Intel tech docs describing the limitations of 64-bit support on the Core 2.
2) Benchmarks showing a non-trivial loss of speed in 64-bit. This means you take a 32-bit OS, 32-bit app, bench it, then a 64-bit OS and 64-bit app on the same system and rebench it.
3) Benchmarks showing the Core 2 vs Athlon on a 64-bit app, 64-bit OS.
If you haven't looked at things like that, you might want to reconsider the confidence with which you state your point of view. I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying that there appears to be counter evidence so you need to get some backing to try and straighten things out.
"And while I'm extremely pleased with my recently-purchased E2700 Core 2 Duo box"
i croprocessors
_ microprocessors
Sorry to break it to you, but...
I guess Intel's fog screen is working.
There is no E2700 "Core 2 Duo". You have a Yonah, not a Conroe, the "Core Duo E2700: 2.33 GHz, FSB 667" Yonah is not the same core as the Core 2...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_m
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
I just upgraded mine from an X3400 AMD, and I'm glad I did. The new system is almost literally twice as fast in ALL areas of use, even gaming. Used my existing 2 gigs of XMS 3200, my 6800XT AGP card, and put them into an Asrock 775DUAL VSTA board, with an e6400, and a new 250 gig SATA drive, all for $400. Couldn't be happier. Was the cheapest upgrade and the most noticeable speed increase I've ever done. What used to take over 3 minutes to render in Flash now takes 1 minute and 45 seconds. AND it overclocks very nicely, easily, and runs very cool. No need for fancy heatsinks anymore. You guys will find out when you do the switch, you'll see. Note: I used AMDcpus exclusively for over 7 years running, too ! I have no brand loyalty, I suppose, but I'm not on this planet to support some conglomerate, I'm here for the best bang for the buck. ;)
This should enlighten you a bit: http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/09/10/four_cores_ on_the_rampage/
My brief summary is this: For video and 3D rendering, quad core KICKS ASS. For more routine tasks, it's performance edge isn't a big deal and probably not worth it. Keep in mind though that these tests were done on "beta" chips, other performance areas and heat dissipation might improve .
I really wish sites would do benchmarks on things like compilation times (a bunch of sites used to do this based on compiling the source for the Linux Kernel) and web serving performance, which will help to better inform developers and small businesses of what they can get out of upgrading their hardware, as these two groups probably round out the consumers of high end hardware aside from the gamers, 3D guys and video guys.
And Because I can't stand the fact that Toms Hardware has become an ad whore, I give you their summary:
Compared with the already not-too-shabby Intel Core 2 Duo/Extreme, the Core 2 Quadro can give performance a mighty tweak - but only for specific applications. In the best-case scenario, performance can even be doubled. However, this depends on the particular program. Software makers have yet to initiate the needed optimizations for multiple physical CPU units. The table below lists a hodgepodge of applications that benefit from four cores right away.
The future belongs to HD content. If we take our benchmarks into consideration you can no longer get by without a quad-core processor. Test results with the software packages Main Concept with H.264 encoding and the WMV-HD conversion make this very clear. We noticed performance jumps of up to 80% when compared to the Core 2 Duo at the same clock speed (2.66 GHz). A Core 2 Quadro at 2.66 GHz and higher is the answer for HD video (editing and rendering) at full HD resolution (1920x1080).
Ambitious video geeks will want to have four cores or even more. But that's still a way off, even as the developers of both AMD and Intel are working on it.
Gaming fans, however, can confidently stick with the Core 2 Duo/Extreme or the legendary Pentium D 805. That's due to a lack of adaptations for four CPUs - in practice, only a maximum of two processors are used in games.
Overclocking fetishists can rest assured. Our test samples ran reliably at 3.33 GHz with no voltage increase - including a sound boost in performance.
With a maximum system power draw of 260 W, the power consumption of the Core 2 Quadro system levels out in the same league as a Pentium EE 965. In idle mode, the system required 167 W - this is the same amount of power that a Core 2 Extreme demands at full load. The reason for this likely lies with incomplete implementation of Intel's SpeedStep technology at this stage. In terms of computing performance, the Core 2 Quadro is worlds apart compared to the classic Pentium 4/D processors: It performs more than twice as fast than the Pentium EE 965, but requires less power input. A Core 2 Quadro does get hotter than a Core 2 Duo/Extreme, though.
Intel intends to offer the top-of-the-line version of the Core 2 Quadro for about $1,000. The customer will bring home a quad-core 2.66 GHz processor with 8 MB of L2 cache.
Topics Programs Performance
Core 2 Quadro vs. Core 2 Duo
3D rendering 3D Studio Max 8.0 100%
video editing Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 80%
HD video encoding Main Concept H.264 70%
video encoding Windows Media Encoder 9 63%
video encoding DivX 6.2 27%
image editing Adobe Photoshop CS2 24%
file compression WinRAR 3.6 10%
Editor's Opinion
For me, working with one of the first quad core systems was amazing. No matter how many applications you run at the same time, the system reacts to user commands quickly. Some applications require half the time to finish tasks. To me, it's like being catapulted a year into the future and is unlike the past few years when computing power increased only marginally. Intel pumped out 30% more performance with Core 2 Duo and will double that again with Core 2 Quadro soon.
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Why didn't the call it the "Bad Ass" motherboard? That's the sort of hip, ironic yet edgy brand image that Intel need to take back the gaming market from AMD.
They could publish "buttmark" synthetic benchmarks too.
Got to say for once, Intel have a superior product (if they're really lucky, it might be competive with the K8L, if not they have the resources for Core3) but their marketing sucks.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Intel is likely to make some inroads in the server market except... well, except unfortunately Core Duo doesn't scale as well once you go to quad cpu setups due to the memory bottleneck. So their only real claim to fame is power use. Power is extremely important in the long term, but I don't see anyone rushing to replace all their AMD boxes with core duo just for that when they know AMD will come up with a power-competitive design in fairly short order.
The real problem Intel has is their inability to compete with Hypertransport. AMD is already pushing hard to make it a defacto standard for chip interconnect. Intel is working on their own solutions to the problem, but they are not hitting on all cylinders yet.
If anything is going to drive machine replacement in today's market, it is going to be the new ultra-fast PCI bus technologies. PCI has needed an upgrade for a long, long time. Nothing else will have much of an impact. GiGE is already faster then most hard drives so there isn't going to be much of a consumer push for 10GiGE. Cpu's are already fast enough and machines are already quiet enough. We are a far cry from the old days where every new advance doubled the performance of the previous year's boxes. In today's world magazines proclaim victory and tell people to trash their old machines for barely a 10% improvement, but unless there is a huge improvement in video technology even game players have no real reason to do so any more. The connection to the video card is the only thing left for which significant improvements can drive machine replacement.
-Matt
If so, you deny yourself the benefits available now from Intel for months, or years.
This is the mistake that Dell has made by sticking with Intel while AMD was clearly superior, and only now that Intel is ahead again after years in second place, then going to AMD. And you wonder why Dell is in so much trouble.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The performance problems of the G part of the G965 aren't going to improve, even with the C2 stepping.
I wouldn't hold your breath. It took Intel three tries to make a modern embedded chipset with "decent" low-end performance, with the GMA 900, and that wasn't even very advanced. With hardware shaders, this is an entirely new concept for Intel to tackle, so give them till next chipset to beat the performance of the GMA 950.
Of course, the Inq could be full of shit, but when it comes to Intel and graphics I'd be skeptical if OEMs DIDN'T call it crap.
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And occasionally whores for Karma.
Glad to see power consumption measured!
I hope ATI still releases an Intel RD580 chipset. They are pretty power efficient and acceptable performers. I'm just waiting for one to get used in a small form factor system.
-LM
I use Debian because it's easy and it works. Because of that AMD 64 looks like a cheap and practical platform for my next computer. I'll wait and see what things look like under core duo, but I doubt it will be a contender anytime soon for software and hardware reasons. New stuff is almost always a huge pain in the neck for me. It also costs more. Like I said, right now I can get into an AMD64 system for under $200 and reuse my existing components. Moving to core duo, right now, will cost me a whole new system. This might change as the older AMD 64 platforms sell out and become unavailable but by then the cost of AMD 64 two will have dropped and DDR2 memory is better.
I mentioned it because this test did not clearly establish any performance benefit that I might actually see. Tests performed with non free drivers don't mean anything to me.
I'm interested in AMD 64 because Debian has had a full port for a year now. When Etch goes stable, AMD 64 will be even more interesting.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Systems Involved
Dual P4 Xeon 3.4GHz (will refer to this as "P4")
Dual Core 2 Duo Xeon 5160 3.0GHz (will refer to this as "Core2")
Test suite for our software in Studio .NET 2003
P4: 12 hours
Core2: 5 hours
Compiling our software
P4: 9 hours
Core2: 3 hours
Source code check of our software (using Lint)
P4: 6 hours
Core2: 1hr 20min
I'm not an Intel fanboy but I am understandably smitten with Core 2.
"Some fanboys still stubbornly cling to their favorite underdog..." you recon? surely past experiance teaches us that conroe, like prescott before it will be king of the hill for a whole 6 months before AMD counters with a technically superior product which dominates the enthusiast market for at least 2 years while intel pretend they never meant to target enthusiasts and go back to selling whole sale to people like Dell and the like. No, as soon as AMD 4x4 comes out it'll be the best thing since sliced bread and all those people who bought conroe will feel mightly silly. I've just upgraded from my skt 939 athlon64 to a super fast AMD system with all the top components except the CPU for which I'm using the cheapest semperon I can get as a stop gap until 4x4 comes out. Trust me the wise among you will do something similar if you dont want to be stuck with a dog of an intel for the next upgrade cycle.
Here in the Netherlands, if you want to buy a processor for a DOY project, AMD is always cheaper, even if Intel says it's got AMD beaten. I can buy an X2 starting at 150,-, while the Intel already is at 220 minimum. That's 70 euro's that I'd rather spend in the bar or at a restaurant or three. Ok, it's much faster then the 3800 I got now, but I've still got a plenty fast dual core. It will probably beat any non-Intel Core 2 Duo out there. And it's a bit like David against Goliath as well. Intel isn't going away, so to have a healthy marketplace, we need AMD.
I'm waiting for AMD+ATI to kick in. What I want to see is an ATI graphics card that sits in a processor socket (dual socket AMD motherboards). Forget PCIe when your graphics device interfaces with system RAM as fast as the CPU.
My apologies, I meant E6700 and not E2700. Your second link indicates that this is indeed the 2.66GHz Conroe part.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Thanks for your advice -- but I run parallel (MPI) hydrodynamical simulations of hypersonic wind outflows from stars. This is one example of software that will always need -- and take advantage of -- more cores.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
"The current trend is to call one the all around "winner" and call everyone else a fanboy.."
- do-wronger/etc.., I blindingly root for Intel now, anyway.
As a mac head/zealot/fanatic/cultist/apologizer/jobs-can't
However, I am having a fucking nightmare trying to get any DVDs to play on it (one of the reasons I wanted it silent). The Intel P965 chipset includes ICH8, which should be brilliant but has some serious problems with drive support when compared with its older sibling the ICH7.
It doesn't have P-ATA IDE support as standard, but sort of "cobbles together" a couple of the 8 SATA ports into a PATA should you set it in the BIOS.
This allowed me to install OS etc using my PATA DVD-RW, but I couldn't play any direct DVD media from the drive no matter what app I used. Having read about the PATA issue I bit the bullet and bought a SATA DVD-RW, but this had no impact whatsoever.
Also note that overclocking on the P965 can be very unstable when you go much above stock. This is, I suspect, not so much due to the chipset itself, but due to the irritating "intelligent overclocking" features it introduces (CIA or somesuch) which always seems to get unstable at far lower speeds than when you adjust manually.
I'm hoping & praying that all the above issues will be sorted out with chipset-driver & BIOS updates, but nothing's been forthcoming since shortly after their release. Dammit.
Meta will eat itself
Just another random article in the pile tbh, most of which covered everything when the core 2 was launched and not a month later!
The only realy comparison worth waiting for is for the nVidia 590.
But until some actual mobo's start appearing then doing a proper review on that weird solution, that Dell have mashed together in their XPS, would be nice
----- I refuse to have an argument with an unarmed person