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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AndreasM - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I agree, the EE will be at least a thousand times faster... :)
But I wouldn't be so hasty to count AMD out just yet, they'd have to be pretty dumb to not prepare for the day when Intel comes out with a better architecture. The AM2 cpus that were tested were of a very early revision, final performance will likely be much higher. Anyways, excellent news, hopefully the Athlon X2 prices will drop to more reasonable levels in the near future. :)
photoguy99 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I don't think AMD is dumb, in fact they've done an amamzing job catching a giant sleeping and capitalizing on it with great CPU designs. Also agree that AMD is obviously working like crazy to make K9 as great as possile.The problem is it's just too big of a leap to make in a race where deep pockets really do give an advantage.
Also while power effieciency has become more important to becoming a performance leader, remember Intel has actually been ahead of AMD in power efficiency since the first Pentium M - they just haven't been able to move it to the desktop until now.
Yes, it's early to speculate - but at this early date my speculation is a reversal in stock prices which I'm predicting on my blog so it's http://spaces.msn.com/techrelease/blog/cns!59F693F...">http://spaces.msn.com/techrelease/blog/cns!59F693F...down for the record.
Avalon - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
For those of you doubting the validity of the benchmarks, Anand ran the FEAR in game demo that is supplied with the game, not Intel. You know what the best part is? They benched FEAR, arguably one of the most *GPU* limited games out there, at 12x10, and gained ~30% performance gains with just a *CPU* switch. Incredible!I was going to be jumping to an X2 3800+ 35w and AM2 setup when that came out in a few months, but forget that. I am completely sold on Conroe. I haven't used an Intel since...1998...jeesh. Welcome back blue.
Sunrise089 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I don't doubt that the results are great for Intel, but people shouldn't expect these kinds of gains when gaming. Look at what Intel did - they supplied a fast processor, so no one could claim AMD wasn't able to show their best. Then they supplied a very fast GPU pair, putting the bottleneck on the CPU. They then ran it at a resolution no one in their right mind would use with this hardware. Anyone who can spent $1,000 on video cards and another $1,000 on a CPU will not use a $350 1280x1024 LCD. They will be running on a 1920x1200 Dell2405 or the like, where those X1900s won't be able to push those kind of frame-rates. In that sort of a configuration, Intel would still win, but rather than 120fps versus 180fps type of scores, it will be more like 50fps versus 55fps, unless the game is REALLY CPU limited. Not many games are at the kind of resolutions people with $4000 PCs tend to game at.Leper Messiah - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Seriously, if these benches are true, My next computer will have a conroe. It remains to be seen however...Diasper - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Obviously there's a bit of contention here because the setup was controlled by Intel BUT what is possible is to set up a similiar testbed to see if the figures are in the right approximate ballpark. Tests you could run would be both on FEAR and encoding (assuming you have the same file).I would suggest Anandtech do this just because not many people have a FX-60 or so to overclock and a X1900 Crossfire setup. Besides following up on it would be good for this website and its reputation.
StriderGT - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Excellent point, in order for one to trust intel's results they should be REPRODUCABLE at least as far as the athlon64 X2 is concerned. Anand could and SHOULD provide us with this valuable insight!Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Ummm...You realize NONE of Anand's tests have ever been reproducable?StriderGT - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I do not know whether I should bother answering to someone who posts like an intel PR representative....Do you understand why Anand reviews have detailed CONFIGURATION data before the results???
Use your brain plz
PS Before you start ranting about the impossible exact same configuration of intel's test down to the HDD bla bla read the original post about the ballpark. And remember this is a HW enthusiasts site, there are lots of people around here who know what they are talking about....
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Okay, show me one web site that has ever independently reproduced Anand's results.To the best of my knowlege, none of the files that Anand uses for benchmarking are available to the public.
There may be lots of people around here that know what they are talking about. Think, and someday you may be one of them.