Conroe Performance Preview Follow-Up
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 9, 2006 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
The F.E.A.R. Issue
To the readers that pointed out our F.E.A.R. results as being unusually high, we owe you a sincere apology. When we went back to test Conroe for the second time we re-ran all of our tests to make sure that no mistakes were made. We caught the Quake 4 issue where Conroe’s SMP performance was understated, and we also discovered a problem in our F.E.A.R. testing.
While our intention was to test both the AMD and Intel systems at the “Maximum” Computer settings and “High” Graphics settings, only the Conroe system was configured as such. We inadvertently left the AMD system at a higher resolution (1280 x 960) instead of the default resolution (1024 x 768) when you select the “High” Graphics defaults. The oversight was entirely our own doing as Intel was not running the benchmarks or configuring them, it simply happened while we were setting up both systems at the same time. We played with different resolution settings and while deciding that we would go with one, managed to configure the two boxes differently.
Of course this means that our initial F.E.A.R. tests were incorrect, and below we have the correct results with the settings we intended to run both systems on:
The performance advantage of Conroe makes a lot more sense now, at 20% instead of 41%. With performance in Quake 4, UT2004 and HL2 in the 20 - 30% faster range on Conroe, the F.E.A.R. results now make a lot more sense.
To those who pointed out that even the CrossFire X1900 setup would be more GPU bound at 1280 x 960, you were very correct, our original results were inaccurate. We do strive for accuracy and reliability in our results here at AnandTech, which is why we went back and retested/confirmed all of our initial findings before bringing you this update. Aside from the F.E.A.R. and Quake 4 issues that we've since corrected, we found no other performance anomalies in our initial results.
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Questar - Friday, March 10, 2006 - link
Nice to see you joining in. Great post.fikimiki - Friday, March 10, 2006 - link
I'm AMD fan, but I'm also a computer user which wants to buy something with best/price performance. That's why I have bought ATI instead of nVidia (after 10 years sticking with nV products). There is one conclusion which is based on my observations for 10 years.Intel and AMD will never give you a chip which is 30% faster than competitor or your own product. They will give you 5, 7% but not 30% (FX is overclocked remember?).
How about Conroe running 3.33 with 1333MHz bus? Does it squize X2 performance to match only one Conroe core??? Have you ever seen performance speed upgrade like this?
Maybe in historical 286/386 times...
Intel and AMD does business. There was a REASON, marketing reason for preview like this. And this behaviour is not reasonable. Showing 2.4GHz Conroe as EE Edition, comparing with FX60 and miserable 7% makes sense.
And than make 100MHz upgrade, upgrade upgrade....
This is business I observe for many years, because money is important, technology longevity also. Intel wanted to speed up P4/Netburst to 10GHz - just shrink die as long as possible, 64-bit in 2010...And this is let's say "normal" business behaviour!
So I expect Conroe XE running as Intel mantra: Leap Ahead...10% faster than FX62 or whatever AMD will give to us in July...
dysonlu - Sunday, March 12, 2006 - link
BRAVO! THUMBS UP!!!That's the most intelligent, insightful and down-to-earth comment I've read so far! 98% of the other comments I've read gave me the impression that they were written by naive fools getting caught in the hype and clever marketing -- C'mon kids, do you really expect that, when everything's said and done, you would be able to order on newegg.com an Intel CPU that costs half the price and performs 30% better than its closest AMD competitor?!
Rendition - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
1) Is Conroe a true 64-bit chip like the AMD chips are? If so, how do you think it will perform with 64-bit Vista and the new 64-bit capable games coming out next year?2) Does Intel have a tradition of having yield and volume issues when they move to a new manufacturing process like 65nm with Conroe?
3) What has been the average cycle for an AMD new core to come out (4 years)? And how long as the current AMD core been out?
4) If the AMD chips had a huge 4MB cache like Conroe, would that improve performance?
theteamaqua - Friday, March 10, 2006 - link
no cache does not influence performance as much as u think, for ex: i read benchmarks of Pentium 4 660 vs 560, the 660 has 2 MB L2 cache while 560 has 1MB L2 cache, the performance increase is roughly 3 % if u average all the benchamrk from gaming, multimedia, multi tasking ... its like HT(hyper threading), u never know the differenceIntelUser2000 - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
I can answer some of that.
1. Yes
2. I am not sure
3. Well, define new core, is K8 a new core enough or would it take a K7??
4. Umm: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2395&p...">http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2395&p...
Looks like it, however, there are some unanswered questions. Will the 4MB cache be high performing enough to have a performance advantage(ie not have high latency like Prescott)?
Doom 3=yes
UT2004=not much
WET=not much
There are rumors there will be versions with 4MB L3 cache, which is obviously an EE, but being a higher latency L3, the benefit will be less than quadrupling L2, plus these 2.667GHz Conroe's are not really competing with FX's, its the 3.33GHz 1333MHz FSB Conroe EE's that will come after Conroe.
logeater - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
I think I speak for everyone on this board when I say Anand has proved beyond reasonable doubt that Intel has regained it's rightful place at the throne. A flawless examination if I may say so myself.AMD, it's been fun, let me show you to the door...
Bakwetu - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
The malicious intent in this is naturally to make people thinking about buying a system now (the logical choice for a gamer rig would be an AMD one) to hold off until the new Intel processor come. We have seen this "delaying of opponents sucess" ever since AMD became competative when the original Athlon was released.That aside, it is great to see the development in the cpumarket.
PeteRoy - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
EAT IT AND LIKE ITMrKaz - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Should Intel compare their future processor with their current offering and not with the competion?I mean P4 sucks in performance, power, ...
Wouldnt those numbers look much better if it was some P4 vs Conroe?