I agree that AMD solution is better for high-end processing. But what percentage of customers need that extra few % of performance that a true QC would derive vs 2xDC? What percentage of customers need the extra % of performance of Core2 2xDC vs Core2 Quad?
This is definately a marketing move, this will sure help regain market share. But it's also a technical move, due to the fact if I bought a Xeon5100 server, When this system starts to bog down, I can go from 4 cores to 8 cores relatively painlessly.
This is also only a stop gap solution, as Intel is coming out with a true QC later in '07. They are already working on a replacement technology for the current FSB, like AMD's approach - CSI (I believed it was named)
Intel is working on multiple fronts simultaneously - 2xDC; QC; multiple FSBs on server mobos; 45n; Geneseo, CSI, etc...
Although I'm a self-pronounced Intel fan boy, I can clearly see the technical superiority of AMD's approach. Intel also is following AMD's lead, as well as the other way around.
I guess it all depends on what real-world applications your talking about. If you're referring to Word/Excel/Web/etc then an AMD QC won't be much quicker than a AMD DC as well.
If your real-world apps refer to multi-threaded activity then:
Acorrding DailyTech's benchmarks - comparing to a similarly clocked Core2Duo to Kentsfield (2+2), it's about 90% faster in 3D Studio Max 8, Cinebench 9.5 and TMPG Encoder; about 70% faster in Windows Media encoding.
According to HardwareSecret compared it to a Core2Extreme (10% faster clock speed) it's 80% faster in POV-Ray, 50% faster in Sony Vegas 7.0a.
XBitLabs compared it to a Core2Extreme (10% faster clock speed) and it's 54% faster in the 3D Mark 06 CPU tests.
AnandTech estimated it was 51.4% faster than a similarly clocked Core2Duo in Divx 6.2.5 with XMPEG. The article concluded thusly:
"With only a 266MHz difference in clock speed, the new Core 2 Extreme QX6700 isn't too hard of a choice to make. When Intel introduces a lower cost 2.40GHz Core 2 Quad version, things may get a little more complicated, but at the very high end we would rather have four slightly slower cores than two slightly faster cores. We expect that there will be some improvements in multitasking performance, especially if you have a decently fast I/O setup, and don't forget the performance boost you'll get in well threaded applications"
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I agree that AMD solution is better for high-end processing. But what percentage of customers need that extra few % of performance that a true QC would derive vs 2xDC? What percentage of customers need the extra % of performance of Core2 2xDC vs Core2 Quad?
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This is definately a marketing move, this will sure help regain market share. But it's also a technical move, due to the fact if I bought a Xeon5100 server, When this system starts to bog down, I can go from 4 cores to 8 cores relatively painlessly.
This is also only a stop gap solution, as Intel is coming out with a true QC later in '07. They are already working on a replacement technology for the current FSB, like AMD's approach - CSI (I believed it was named)
Intel is working on multiple fronts simultaneously - 2xDC; QC; multiple FSBs on server mobos; 45n; Geneseo, CSI, etc
Although I'm a self-pronounced Intel fan boy, I can clearly see the technical superiority of AMD's approach. Intel also is following AMD's lead, as well as the other way around.
I guess it all depends on what real-world applications your talking about. If you're referring to Word/Excel/Web/etc then an AMD QC won't be much quicker than a AMD DC as well. If your real-world apps refer to multi-threaded activity then: Acorrding DailyTech's benchmarks - comparing to a similarly clocked Core2Duo to Kentsfield (2+2), it's about 90% faster in 3D Studio Max 8, Cinebench 9.5 and TMPG Encoder; about 70% faster in Windows Media encoding. According to HardwareSecret compared it to a Core2Extreme (10% faster clock speed) it's 80% faster in POV-Ray, 50% faster in Sony Vegas 7.0a. XBitLabs compared it to a Core2Extreme (10% faster clock speed) and it's 54% faster in the 3D Mark 06 CPU tests. AnandTech estimated it was 51.4% faster than a similarly clocked Core2Duo in Divx 6.2.5 with XMPEG. The article concluded thusly: "With only a 266MHz difference in clock speed, the new Core 2 Extreme QX6700 isn't too hard of a choice to make. When Intel introduces a lower cost 2.40GHz Core 2 Quad version, things may get a little more complicated, but at the very high end we would rather have four slightly slower cores than two slightly faster cores. We expect that there will be some improvements in multitasking performance, especially if you have a decently fast I/O setup, and don't forget the performance boost you'll get in well threaded applications"