Spring IDF 2006 Conroe Preview: Intel Regains the Performance Crown
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 7, 2006 3:58 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Intel is very excited about its new Core architecture, especially with Conroe on the desktop. It's not really news to anyone that Intel hasn't had the desktop performance crown for years now; its Pentium 4 and Pentium D processors run hotter and offer competitive or lower performance than their AMD competitors. With Conroe, Intel hopes to change all of that.
From top to bottom - Quad-core 65nm Kentsfield, dual core 65nm Conroe and 65nm Pentium D
Intel setup two identical systems: in one corner, an Athlon 64 FX-60 overclocked to 2.8GHz running on a DFI RD480 motherboard. And in the other corner, a Conroe running at 2.66GHz (1067MHz FSB) on an Intel 975X motherboard.
The AMD system used 1GB of DDR400 running at 2-2-2/1T timings, while the Intel system used 1GB of DDR2-667 running at 4-4-4. Both systems had a pair of Radeon X1900 XTs running in CrossFire and as far as we could tell, the drivers and the rest of the system setup was identical. They had a handful of benchmarks preloaded that we ran ourselves, the results of those benchmarks are on the following pages. Tomorrow we'll be able to go into great depth on the architecture of Conroe, but for now enjoy the benchmarks.
As far as we could tell, there was nothing fishy going on with the benchmarks or the install. Both systems were clean and used the latest versions of all of the drivers (the ATI graphics driver was modified to recognize the Conroe CPU but that driver was loaded on both AMD and Intel systems).
Intel told us to expect an average performance advantage of around 20% across all benchmarks, some will obviously be higher and some will be lower. Honestly it doesn't make sense for Intel to rig anything here since we'll be able to test it ourselves in a handful of months. We won't say it's impossible as anything can happen, but we couldn't find anything suspicious about the setups.
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SilverBack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
You can't necessarily judge times for encoding as the files encoded were probably different.EnergyWatcher - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
> You can't necessarily judge times for encoding as the files encoded were probably different. <Anand should have noted it if the files were different and the results, therefore, were not comparable. I didn't see anything like that in this review.
-e
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
The files were different, whenever benchmarks were identical to what we've run for our CPU reviews in the past I tried to mention as such. Otherwise you can't assume that the numbers are comparable to previous reviews using our own hardware.Take care,
Anand
SilverBack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
As far as I can tell his post above has merit.The BIOS Version 6.00 PG0 pre dates 2004....
What exactly is going on here?
Tuor - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I don't see how you could say that Intel has regained the speed crown when the product hasn't even shipped yet. Sure, you can say it is *poised* to regain the speed title, but doesn't the headline jump the gun a bit? I think so.BTW, call me a AMD fanboi if you want, but there are reasons, despite pure speed or even bang-for-the-buck, that make me not want to buy Intel's chips: I *despise* their business practices. If the were to change their ways, as OCZ appears to have done, then I will reconsider, but not until then.
overclockingoodness - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
It hasn't been proven that Intel uses strong-arm tactics by the court of law. Until I get a statement from the court convicting Intel, I won't care what AMD has to say. Intel and AMD are both in it to make money, there's no way AMD is the innocent underdog they claim themselves to be.Sunrise089 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Just because a company that is "in it to make money" does not make them unable to be declared "innocent". Instead, AMD tries to make money in order to better their shareholders, and all the while gives us wonderful parts in our PCs, helps the economy, creates jobs, and assists in international trade. It isn't either company's pursuit of capitalism and therefore profits that makes one good or evil, it's Intel's corruption of capitalism by denying fair competition that creates the problem.gimpsoft - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
are those CPUs full DRM ?Bladen - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
The K8 has the advantages of the integrated memory controller and hyper transport. are these features not more advanced than what is in Conroe?It's not like AMD are still using punchcards...
Al though this prefomance advantage is as big as I had hoped, and bigger than I expected.
EnergyWatcher - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
From the article:------
Both systems had a pair of Radeon X1900 XTs running in CrossFire and as far as we could tell, the drivers and the rest of the system setup was identical. They had a handful of benchmarks preloaded that we ran ourselves, the results of those benchmarks are on the following pages.
------
Why does the AMD system's BIOS screen say "AMD Processor Model Unknown" and "(C) 1984-2003"? And what about "AwardBIOS v6.00PG"? Are they really running the AMD system with a BIOS that's so old that it predates the entire FX-series, and (IIRC) the entire Athlon 64 (K8) series?
And why does this page documenting ***AMD K7*** motherboards list an "Abit KX7-333" (among others) using "Award BIOS v6.00PG"? http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/kt333-rou...">http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/kt333-rou...
And what does this "misconfiguration" mean for how the BIOS and OS configured the processor and system? Could that explain Intel's "superior" performance?
-e