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Intel's Penryn Benchmarked

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the slightly-faster-than-my-286 dept.

Steve Kerrison writes "Intel's keen to show off its up-coming 45nm Penryn Core 2 CPU. HEXUS had some hands on time with the new processor to get an idea of how well it will perform once its released: 'Intel's new 45nm Penryn core adds more than just a clock and FSB hike, so much so that even a dual-core Penryn is able to beat out a quad-core QX6800 under certain circumstances.'"

28 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. I really wanted to read that.... by Churla · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But the combination of trying to find how to easily get to the real article while also fighting "Intellitext" ads proved too much for me. I am a weak weak man.

    --
    I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
    1. Re:I really wanted to read that.... by Tom+Womack · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Firefox NoScript is the answer to all this kind of stupidity; I think it's worth using Firefox for NoScript alone.

      Also, remind your hosts file that intellitxt.com is a synonym for 127.0.0.1

      Yes, this is depriving hexus of advertising revenue. If they want advertising revenue, they should produce adverts which do not deeply infuriate their readers. Intelligently-targetted intellitxt might be actually usable, but to have every occurence of 'computer' hyperlinked to Dell's store is of no use to anybody.

    2. Re:I really wanted to read that.... by TheThiefMaster · · Score: 4, Informative

      Or just use the AdBlock Plus extension, which blocks all the advert scripts without disabling any of the other scripts on the site.

      It also has the advantage of blocking gif image ads on other sites that NoScript misses.

    3. Re:I really wanted to read that.... by GIL_Dude · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Exactly. I didn't see any ads there at all and none of these text bombs people wrote about.

  2. Quick summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If your app benefits from SSE4 optimizations, the gains compared to the current Core 2 can be giganormous (DivX encoder: +85% at equal clock). Otherwise, expect a per clock advantage of about 10%.

    1. Re:Quick summary by Trelane · · Score: 2, Insightful

      expect a per clock advantage of about 10%.
      If my calculation takes 9 days instead of 10, I'd call that a win.

      The other question is power consumption.

      --

      --
      Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
  3. Always Suspicious of These by segedunum · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I wonder what under certain circumstances, means because I couldn't gather it from the article. Also, they simply looked at some systems pre-configured by Intel. Not great.

    1. Re:Always Suspicious of These by Ngarrang · · Score: 3, Insightful

      As with all computing benchmarks, YMMV.

      There are applications where CPU speed is a marginal component of the speed. Some apps require large memory to run correctly, or fast disk access, or fast graphics access.

      Will this new processor benefit the tasks that 95% of do each day like e-mail, web browsing, word processor and slashdot posting? More speed will certainly allow me to open more windows at once, along with a increase in RAM. The performance should be a boon for gamer and science communities, though. Optimized your app for this processor and watch the simulation fly! Is there anything in most OSes that could benefit from these advanced optimizations?

      I wish we could faster advances in the performance of memory and drive access to match all of this CPU wizardry. With the growing presence of solid-state disk drives, I wonder if we will see a new SATA/SAS version that can support the rates a RAM drive is truly capable of.

      --
      Bearded Dragon
    2. Re:Always Suspicious of These by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's bullshit, the core2 is a different design, not just larger cache when compared to the core. First, the core is a pentium M, which iirc has 2 pipes for ALU, one of which does load/store as well. The core2 has 3 pipes for ALU and dedicated pipes for load/store.

      The core2 is faster because fundamentally the IPC of the core is a lot higher on average. The larger cache does help but the benefits decay exponentially. So from the 1MB and 2MB parts to the 4MB part the benefits are not as high as you'd think.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  4. which brings up a point... by plasmacutter · · Score: 3, Interesting

    arent most app developers still working their way into SSE3? (for instance, mplayer only mentions sse2 in configuration and initialization, and from what i remember even macos intel doesnt fully utilize sse3)

    what's the point of even trying for SSE3 or even SSE4 when theyll just plunk down SSE5 within the next 6 months..

    --
    VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
    1. Re:which brings up a point... by Kjella · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Simple:
      Sale in generation n: Xn%

      Market share of instruction set introduced in last generation: X1%
      Market share of instruction set introduced two generations ago: X1%+X2%
      Market share of instruction set introduced three generations ago: X1%+X2%+X3%

      Sure you can go for SSE3 today... or wait for SSE5 which will come in 6 months + several years to get actual market share.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    2. Re:which brings up a point... by TheSunborn · · Score: 2, Informative

      And you would ofcause first need to add auto SSE4 support to your compiler.

  5. Is this a laptop chip by bcmm · · Score: 3, Interesting

    According to Wikipedia, Penryn is intended as a laptop processor.

    Does it seem odd to anyone else for Intel to launch a new instruction set on a laptop CPU? Are portables that dominant these days?

    --
    # cat /dev/mem | strings | grep -i llama
    Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
    1. Re:Is this a laptop chip by 644bd346996 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, laptops are dominant, or more precisely, power efficiency now matters. That's why Intel threw away the NetBurst/P4 architecture and developed Core from the Pentium M architecture. Laptops are more profitable, and people are starting to care about noise and power consumption in desktops and HTPCs as well.

      This seems to be a new pattern for Intel. The Core processors were all mobile oriented, and the Core 2 introduced desktop processors, too. The mobile processors are now being treated as the flagship products. And for good reason, too. Intel seems to be the best when it comes to laptop chips.

    2. Re:Is this a laptop chip by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Does it seem odd to anyone else for Intel to launch a new instruction set on a laptop CPU? Are portables that dominant these days?

      Over the desktop? Not really, given how much the market has increased in recent years. The price of a laptop is not far over the prices of a comparable PC, hard disk space and GPU power is enough that most people don't have to compromise.

      There's a few reason to have desktops:
      1. Large monitors
      2. Large diskspace
      3. Better graphics cards
      4. You want to tinker with it, upgrade etc.

      But if you're not really falling into either of these four, there's not really much of a reason to go with a desktop, unless you know it'll be fixed in one location 90% of the time. Many people don't have a dedicated "computer area", they sit down at a suitable desk, use it then afterwards pack it away. Many people want to take it places, school, work, friends, cabin, road trips, whatever. Most people want that over the three 5 1/4" bays (DVD-burner and ???), four 3 1/2" bays (2-500GB disk + ???), 7 PCIe expansion slots (GFX card + ???) and all the other empty space they get in a desktop.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    3. Re:Is this a laptop chip by Dwindlehop · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wikipedia is wrong.

      Disclaimer: I am an employee of Intel, but I do not speak for Intel. This post reflects my opinions and not those of Intel Corporation.

      --
      Jonathan Pearce jonathan@pearce.name
      3EAAFB2A http://www.jonathan.pearce.name/
  6. Poor AMD by xBOISEx · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I feel bad for AMD, it seems like they're really taking a thrashing this round. This surge in processor technology is just the kind of thing I like to see though. Now to actually harness all that power...

    1. Re:Poor AMD by RockoTDF · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In a few years when everyone starts hitting the RAM ceiling for 32 bit CPUs, 64 bit will have to take off. Right now AMD has the lead on consumer priced 64 bit processors, as well as the patent on the x86_64 architecture which they have licensed to Intel. It is entirely possible that with the next mass jump (like to Pentiums 12 years ago) that a completely new architecture altogether will take over, although people love their legacy apps so much that x86_64 still has a good shot at it. But as we have seen with Apple and the PPC to Intel switch, Rosetta demonstrates that we have the technology to create good utilities to seamlessly run code for different architectures. We can't just add cores to x86_32 forever, we will need the RAM. Also, power consumption will come to bite us since (in theory) a 32 bit CPU is not as efficient as a 64 bit CPU, assuming the program code is truly optimized in 64 bit.

      --
      There is more to science than physics!

      www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
    2. Re:Poor AMD by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There aren't a lot of applications which can truly take advantage of 64-bit integer registers. In fact, bignum math is about the only that really comes to mind.

      What does matter is the address space. It isn't even the memory [as in physical memory], but virtual address space. As more and more mapped memory is used by applications like databases, it is nice to be able to just logically access it via a mmap.

      For example, you can mmap a 10GB file to memory, then poke at it like you would a C array, even though you may only have 512MB in the system. That's something you just can't do in a 32-bit process even if you had the memory.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    3. Re:Poor AMD by tomstdenis · · Score: 2, Informative

      Um, ia32 could never address more than 4GB per process (and often it was 2GB). Even though with PAE you could put segments anywhere in a 36-bit address space. Most modern C compilers have no idea about "far pointers" [think back to the 16-bit days] so you're still stuck to at most 32-bits of address.

      As for pointers being twice the size, yeah that's a pain. You can code around that if you know you'll be indexing something smaller than 4GB in size (hint: x86_64 can still efficiently use 32-bit registers). But if you're poking around a 10GB mmap object you just need 64-bit pointers so there is no getting around that anyways.

      Since x86_64 can run 32-bit apps in long mode, you can just re-compile your app for 32-bit mode if it's absolutely not going to take advantage of the memory space or register size.

      Tom

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
  7. doesn't matter... by plasmacutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They finally applied some common sense, and are actually pursuing their performance per watt optimization path.

    by engineering their chips for portables first, this means they can integrate the same chips into desktops and have the same kind of power conservation from desktop units.

    additionally, by investing their r&d straight into laptop chips they dont end up having to spend extra later to re-engineer the chip for portables.

    IMHO this is the first smart move from a lumbering corporate giant i've seen since toyota shipped compacts to the us in the mid 70's.

    --
    VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
  8. that's not all folks.. by GonzoTech · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Penryn core is just the first. Wait for the Teller core to come out. It's slight of hand techniques tricks you into thinking it has actually out performed other chips.

    --
    "Snatching defeat from the mouth of victory on a daily basis."
  9. a review you can actually read by Tom+Womack · · Score: 3, Interesting

    www.anandtech.com has a presumably very similar review (since these are lists of benchmarks which the journalists observed being run by Intel on Intel-provided systems), and enough bandwidth that you can actually get through to it.

    It's a little annoying that these chips require different voltage regulators from the ones on current motherboards, since the chipsets are the same and changing the motherboard adds £80, some hours of fuss and an inordinate number of screws to what should be a trivial CPU upgrade, whilst bare motherboards, and even motherboard+CPU pairs, don't seem to sell well on ebay.

  10. The real question... by Piedramente · · Score: 2, Funny

    The real question is... Will it blend?

  11. Great! However... by Bullfish · · Score: 2, Insightful

    All we need now is software that will take advantage of all these cores.

  12. Re: by u0berdev · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's faster, yes. But I can't wait to see how much less power it uses. The main benefit I see from Intel moving to 45-nm should be getting speeds => Core2 but using less power. As everyone continues on the path to 'greener' tech, this will be one of the biggest selling factors for the Penryn family.

    And let's not forget that when this comes out in '08, the Core2's will get even cheaper! Heck I'm still excited about the next price drop for the Core2's this 22nd (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdo c.aspx?i=2963&p=2).

  13. Kinda Pointless by walmartshopper67 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, I RTFA, and it was pointless. FTFA: "and we're absolutely adamant that the benchmarks were chosen to show the two Penryn-based CPUs off in the best possible light." -and- "Further, it's not an apple-to-apple comparison as both 45nm processors were clocked in at 3.33GHz and the QX6800 at 2.93GHz. Our requests for clock and FSB parity were politely ignored. " ...I appreciate the disclosure that it was in fact ruled by Intel and your requests were ignored, but with that, why did you do it then? If the whole thing is skewed by the manufacturer, you've just become part of their advertising campaign. Intel set it up, they weren't gonna set themselves up to fail. Besides, isn't benchmarking supposed to at least resemble a scientific-like process? If you were going to benchmark you're own machines for whatever reason, would you set it up like this?

  14. Multi-page version? Anyone? by The+Real+Nem · · Score: 2, Funny

    Where's the multi-page version you insensitive clod?

    I Kept searching for a multi-page option but I couldn't find one. After years of being conditioned to read articles over 12 pages or so, this layout just freaks me out. I couldn't find the combobox that let me jump to the conclusion. The page seemed way too long and daunting for me to process. And I kept expecting next links that never came!

    Take me back to the good old days where you could read a 12 page article and actually feel like you accomplished something.