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
Final Words
While we're still comparing to Socket-939 and only using RD480, it does seem very unlikely that AMD would be able to make up this much of a deficit with Socket-AM2 and RD580. With Conroe's performance advantage averaging over 20% it looks like Intel's confidence has been well placed.
Also keep in mind that we are over six months away from the actual launch of Conroe, performance can go up from where it is today. We also only looked at the 2.66GHz part, the Extreme Edition version of Conroe will most likely be clocked around 3.0GHz which will extend the performance advantage even further.
AMD still does have some time to surprise us with AM2, but from what we've seen today, they are going to have to do a lot of work to close this gap. We saw performance today in the two areas that we were most concerned about with Conroe: gaming and media encoding, and in both Intel greatly exceeded our expectations. Also remember that Conroe should be lower power than the AMD offering we compared it to, although we weren't able to measure power consumption at the wall in our brief time with the systems.
Going into IDF we expected to see a good showing from Conroe, but leaving IDF, well, now we just can't wait to have it.
More from the show as we get it...
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mircea - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I think that Intel did this to bite on AMD's recen jump in desktop retail sales. With soo much press from now until release putting Intels' new CPU above AMD it will mkae it a hard decision for some. Plus I don't think AMD would be soo much out of the know if Intell would just show this a week before release. I bet AMD and Intell know the ballpark figures of the competitions release in the upcoming 6-8 months. Of course AMD couldnot have known this a year ago when Intell gave up on Netburst even more when I'm sure Intell was already working on this when or just after AMD released the 64. But then jut like upgrading, trying to beat the competition on each generation would mean huge refresh cycles, and never released chips. Intell proved it can't keep up the pace for each generation. Amd cought up this one, and in doing so let Intell "breathing room" to work on the next one since it was useless to compete in teh current one.JackPack - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
It's far, far too late for an AMD response this year. After a redesign and tapeout, it'll take a year before production silicon is ready. Even respins alone take 3-4 months and masks cost millions of dollars.Quad-core Clovertown/Kentsfield should have taped out already if they're intending for for a Q4'06-Q1'07 release.
No, any serious design work going on now at Intel or AMD is for 2nd gen-quad core.
Samus - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
that is very impressive. intel might have convinced me to built an intel-processor system, my first in years.Powermoloch - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
seriously, it's amazing to see intel's new chip can do alot more for less ghz. Dayum :O !!!fsardis - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
i suppose the comparison isnt fair for another reason. the chipsets are not the same. if for example they tested both cpus on the same chipset such as nf4 i am sure it would further close the gap.coldpower27 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Why do this Intel's own chipsets tend to be the most stable and great performing for their processors?Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
By what, 1%? 3%? 5%?You're not getting 40% from a chipset.
munky - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
First, I'd like to see Intel with a 40% lead in some official benches. The performance lead Intel is trying to show off seems too good to be true.Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
We will all have that chance in a few months.But, as many people have pointed out, why would Intel try to pull a fast one? It's not like they wouldn't get found out.
UNCjigga - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Besides Intel's 975x at launch, what other chipsets can we expect to see? Any ATI RD6xx or Nforce 5xx ready at launch? Anything from SiS or VIA?