Intel's Core 2 Extreme & Core 2 Duo: The Empire Strikes Back
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 14, 2006 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Test
We've already covered the architecture behind Intel's Core 2 processors extensively in the past, leaving the only unanswered questions centered around final performance. Today we're here to answer these questions, and we'll focus exclusively on performance. If you want to read more about Intel's Core architecture, please look back at the following articles:
Because AMD is killing off its 1MB L2 Athlon 64 X2 parts, we've only included 512KB X2s in this review. The Athlon 64 FX-62 features a 1MB L2 per core and is obviously still included.
| CPU: | AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (2.8GHz/1MBx2) AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.6GHz/512KBx2) AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4GHz/512KBx2) AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (2.2GHz/512KBx2) AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.0GHz/512KBx2) Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 965 (3.73GHz/2MBx2) Intel Pentium D 960 (3.6GHz/2MBx2) Intel Pentium D 950 (3.4GHz/2MBx2) Intel Pentium D 940 (3.2GHz/2MBx2) Intel Pentium D 930 (3.0GHz/2MBx2) Intel Pentium D 920 (2.8GHz/2MBx2) Intel Pentium D 820 (2.8GHz/1MBx2) Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz/4MB) Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 (2.66GHz/4MB) Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40GHz/4MB) Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86GHz/2MB) |
| Motherboard: | MSI K9A Platinum (Socket AM2) Intel D975XBX (LGA-775) |
| Chipset: | ATI RD580 Intel 975X |
| Chipset Drivers: | Catalyst 6.6 (ATI) Intel 7.2.2.1007 (Intel) |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.9 300GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Card: | 2 x ATI Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 6.6 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1280 x 1024 - 32-bit @ 60Hz (1600 x 1200 for games) |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
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defter - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Xbitlabs has a great E6300 review:http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2...">http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2...
Overclocking was limited by a motherboard, but they still managed to achieve 2.94GHz with 420MHz FSB, not bad from a <$200 chip. E6300@2.94GHz was way faster than Athlon64X2@3GHz.
Frackal - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
4ghz Conroe, holy shiatAndrewChang - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Loved the title, and loved the article. Can't wait till the Return of the Jedi...JackPack - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Jedi is considered to be weakest film of the three....formulav8 - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Yeah, but the Emperor WAS overthrown. :)Anyways, good job on the review. Intel is definitely trying to almost GIVE those PD cpu's away it seems. $93? Not that I don't blame them. They would almost HAVE to give them away to get rid of them.
Jason
haugland - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Page 18:According to the prices on page 2, the price for the 2.4GHz E6600 is $316, while the 2.13Ghz E6400 costs $224.
mobutu - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
I quote:"The 2.4GHz E6600, which outperformed the FX-62 in most benchmarks at stock speed costs $223, and overclocked to 4Ghz with excellent air cooling"
It costs $316 according to Intel charts. Please fix it.
10x
JarredWalton - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Fixed (also for post below).mi1stormilst - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
I was like skimming throught the article and thinking to myself wow. Then I went back and looked at the benchmarks and realized that until I see benchmarks with a wider range of video card and cpus I will reserve my excitement. At the moment my $120.00 used 3200 venice running at 2600MHZ with an X1800XL gives me some very good performance.JarredWalton - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
I http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=279...">looked at performance with several CPUs using a 7600 GT (slower than X1800XL, but not by a huge amount). Basically, on lower end GPUs you will be GPU limited and just about any fast CPU. Maybe not always with NetBurst, but K8 and Core2 will be more than sufficient for all but multi-GPU setups (until next gen GPUs arrive).