Intel Penryn Performance Preview: The Fastest gets Faster
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 18, 2007 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Test
First off we'll start with the results we ran ourselves under Intel's supervision. Intel set up three identical systems, one based on a Core 2 Extreme X6800 (dual core, 2.93GHz/1066MHz FSB), one based on a Wolfdale processor (Penryn, dual core, 3.20GHz/1066MHz FSB) and one based on Yorkfield (Penryn, quad core, 3.33GHz/1333MHz FSB).
The modified BadAxe 2 board; can you spot the mod?
Can't find it? It's under that blue heatsink
The processors were plugged into a modified Intel BadAxe2 motherboard, with the modification being necessary to support Penryn. Each system had 2GB of DDR2-800 memory and a GeForce 8800 GTX. All of our tests were run under Windows XP.
Wolfdale - 2 cores
Yorkfield - 4 cores
The Cinebench 9.5 test is the same one we run in our normal CPU reviews, with the dual core Penryn (Wolfdale) scoring about 20% faster than the dual core Conroe. Keep in mind that the Wolfdale core is running at a 9.2% higher clock speed, but even if Cinebench scaled perfectly with clock speed there's still at least a 10% increase in performance due to the micro-architectural improvements found in Penryn.
Next up was Intel's Half Life 2 Lost Coast benchmark which was run with the following settings:
| Setting | |
| Model Detail | High |
| Texture Detail | High |
| Shader Detail | High |
| Water Detail | Reflect World |
| Shadow Detail | High |
| Texture Filtering | Trilinear |
| HDR | Full |
Half Life 2 performance at a very CPU bound 1024 x 768 has Wolfdale just under 19% faster than Conroe. Once again, clock speed does play a part here but we'd expect at least a 10% increase in performance just due to the advancements in Penryn.
At 1600 x 1200 the performance difference shrinks to 10.6%, still quite respectable:
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Roy2001 - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
Well, Barcelona vs. Penryn/Conroe is not like Athlon 64 vs. Pentium 4. AMD just need RAW speed with Barcelona. Otherwise they are rather in danger position than we expected. AMD does not have the man power and money to develop mArchitecture every 2 years. Intel's strategy is much like nVidia's now, one generation new structure and one generation die shrink.GlassHouse69 - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
2 months ago, amd released information that the new technology will speed things up vs raw clock speed....raw clock speed is winning.... amd might be toast :(
sux i hate intel
KhoiFather - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
Man, I just hope I can afford one of these bad boys when it comes out to the public. Its just amazing I tell ya and Intel just keeps rolling out their new CPUs. I'm guessing I'm going to need to upgrade my Gigabyte DS3 to another mobo to support the new Yorkfield CPU eh?qquizz - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
These won't even be availabe til sometime in 2008, at least that is my understanding. So you got plenty of time to save up your money and by then I will talk you into buying AMD anyway In conclusion, I agree with the title of your post ;)KCjoker - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
That's what I'd like to know, which current IF ANY mobo's will work with these new CPU's.Webgod - Saturday, April 21, 2007 - link
bump.If the Wolfdale is just a faster 45nm C2D, will the currently shipping Bad Axe 2's work with it with perhaps a new BIOS?? I mean Intel has a history of requiring all new gear. The Bad Axe 1 had to be tweaked to work with the Conroe C2D. Surely even if they're discontinuing the Bad Axe 2 (eventually sure) they could see that passing on the compatibility would get them off the shelves. And, it would be good PR for a change as far as compatibility goes, historically.