Intel's Pentium 4 670: Just Another Speed Bump
by Derek Wilson on May 26, 2005 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Introduction
Today, Intel is launching a couple new processors. Anand has already taken an in-depth look at the Pentium D 820, so we won't be going into detail on that piece of hardware in this article.The newest and fastest of the single core parts from Intel is their Pentium 4 670, which runs at 3.8GHz. As this is just a bump in speed from the already available 6xx line of processors, there really isn't anything new to cover architecturally.
Understandably, we aren't incredibly excited about the launch of a simple 5.6% higher clocked chip that will carry a nice price premium without offering many tangible benefits. But don't worry - we will still put the 670 through its paces in our lab. Even if the part is unreasonably priced and not compellingly advanced in its performance characteristics, we will always be interested in understanding and illuminating the hardware landscape.
As this highly clocked part comes to market, we can start to see even more clearly the advantages that dual and multi core will bring. Where a 200MHz clock speed increase used to be huge back in the day of the 1 and 2 GHz processor (a 20% and 10% improvement, respectively), at 4GHz it is not only harder to squeeze the extra speed out of a part, but the return on investment is extremely limited. In order to continue getting the same performance boost from part to part, we would need to see processors launching in 400MHz increments or more to really be worth it.
Dual core has already shown us that it has the ability to deliver performance gains at lower clock speeds that sometimes exceed what we can get from much higher clocked single core parts. We can't ever see a linear increase in performance per core added to a system, but the potential is much higher than a small clock speed increase. That is, until we start adding fewer cores on single silicon than we could MHz. At that point, to see performance gains, technology will need to open another option to us.
The Pentium 4 670 is almost a legacy part at its introduction. It's too expensive, doesn't offer a major performance improvement over other processors, and is single core. So the question we will lead off with is: why should we care?
Let's take a look at the benchmarks and see if they give us a reason to care.
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Gatak - Saturday, May 28, 2005 - link
DRM!http://www.digitmag.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=49...
Seems as the new Intel CPUs and Chiptsets are DRM enabled in hardware now!
Icehawk - Saturday, May 28, 2005 - link
There were some odd results IMO, at least one test were the 660 was faster than the 670. Eh?Remember the good old days when a processor that cost more and was rated higher was just plain faster? :D
When is Anandtech going to update the version of ACDSee used? It is 2 versions old :(
The DvD - Saturday, May 28, 2005 - link
#28: Then you effectively reviewed the 945 board, and not the cpu. Because the 670 would only be 5.5% faster max. than the 660. Perhaps the graphs could be changed to say '670 (945)' for the new Intel combo.RockHydra11 - Friday, May 27, 2005 - link
C'mon Intel. Exnay on the escotpreyacoub - Friday, May 27, 2005 - link
20 - Posted on May 26, 2005 at 8:33 PM by flatblastard Reply#10 "don't forget, a 200 MHz increase with AMD cpus is like a 300+ MHz increase for intel"
#13 Also consider the fact that 200 "A64 Mhz" aren't equal to 200 "P4 MHz"
I am aware of this, and I will now make you aware of the fact that I can afford to have 10 less FPS.
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Ah, so in that case you CERTAINLY wouldn't buy this more expensive 670 chip that doesn't even always outperform slower Intel ones.
DerekWilson - Friday, May 27, 2005 - link
The 670 was the only board to use the 945 chipset and latest drivers from Intel. This could account for the odd Nero and Winzip numbers. I'm speaking more of the drivers than the hardware.Derek Wilson
mjz - Friday, May 27, 2005 - link
#20.. I don't understand, why would you want to buy a CPU that is slower than a cheaper alternative.. That being, AMD. Faster, cheaper, why not?JarredWalton - Friday, May 27, 2005 - link
23 - I'm almost positive that the 4000+ used was an older Sledgehammer core. As far as I know, no one at AnandTech has a San Diego yet.Murst - Friday, May 27, 2005 - link
I really don't understand why so many people complain/laugh at/question CPU releases. Everyone should be happy that another CPU is out on the market. The more are out there (especially of the upper end processors), the faster the price will drop.We'll have to wait and see if other sites get the same differences in the 6xx family before jumping to conclusions, but it sure does seem very strange....
Zebo - Friday, May 27, 2005 - link
No X2 in there?Well I guess Intel has to win a couple benchmarks..and technically the X2 processor is'nt really "out" yet.:D
But niether is 670...