Previewing the Performance of the Intel Conroe 114
pirate rtt writes "bit-tech has spent some time with an Intel Conroe system and has published a preview of its performance as compared to the current Intel flagship chip - the Presler 965. From the article: 'Core 2 Duo is clearly a very capable processor. We found that it was faster than the current 965 processor in most situations on the desktop, and far more proficient at gaming - an area where Intel has traditionally been weak. The added memory bandwidth that will come from having faster RAM enabled on the Core 2 Extreme chips will be an extra bonus for those looking to Conroe as a gaming platform.'"
Wait for v2 (Score:5, Funny)
Version 1 of anything always sucks. I'm waiting for the Core 2 Duo II v2 Second Edition.
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:2)
This is what I found by using Google:
http://www.geek.com/images/geeknews/2006Jan/core_d uo_errata__2006_01_21__full.gif [geek.com]
By the second one listed it says 'Could be exploited by a virus'. Interesting! I haven't yet heard of a virus which exploits a bug in the processor to infect systems. Some of the are marked 'Potentially Catastropihc'. I wonder what the list would look like if you made it for other processors. Most of the errors look like they will never happen in pra
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:2)
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:2)
every chip has bugs (Score:2)
They get fixed in microcode, or they're published in the errata of the chip so OS developers can work around them. Bugs that end up visible to userspace are very rare indeed.
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's a link listing some of the errata known for Athlon processors (counting up to at least 154):
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/whit
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense. For compilers do not work around bugs in general purpose chips. If a chip bug can't be worked around by microcode or bios settings, or (in rare circumstances) the operating system, the chip will be binned. Compatibility is king in the general purpose CPU market. Nobody can sell a CPU that crashes on some programs that used to run perfectly well.
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:2)
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:3)
* Funny story. The Asus P4P-800 motherboards for Pentium 4 would not boot Windows XP SP2 because the upgrade from SP1 did not load the processor's corrective microcode before firing up the OS. The BIOS had to be updated before SP2 would boot, otherwise it would hang on a DLL.
Re:Wait for v2 (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Conroe vs. FX-62 (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, the FX-62 does lose... badly in several cases..
Re:Conroe vs. FX-62 (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Some of those benchmarks, like Pifast, likely fit inside the Core 2 Duo's massive L2 cache. Intel uses all that expensive cache to compensate for their lack of on-board memory controllers and HyperTransport.
3) Curious how they chose much lower latency memory for the Intel machine than the AMD. I'm not sure that the higher bandwidth of the AMD PC's memory overcomes its higher latency.
4) Why use 1024x768 res for the FarCry benchmark and 1600x1200 with AA and AF cranked up for theother two games? Games are GPU-limited at hires, so if you wanted to spike the results where AMD is superior...
5) Despite all of that, the AMD FX62 still won the Cryptography benchmark.
6) Why are nearly all of these reviews showing up on websites outside of America? Could it be that Intel wants to keep these reviews out of reach of AMD's American lawyers?
It sure looks like Intel's playing dirty (again). Wake me up when we get reviews done outside of Intel-controlled environments.
Re:Conroe vs. FX-62 (Score:4, Insightful)
For which benchmarks do you claim they used special Intel compilers? The only reference in the article is that they used an "Intel HT compiler" for their "HEXUS.in-house MP3 Encoding Benchmark".
Noone's interested in Pifast scores. Conroe beating the FX-62 by almost 60% in Far Cry is much more impressing. And using a 65nm process Intel can sell Conroes with 4MB cache for very competitive prices. If you believe the leaked documents on the web a Conroe E6600 will sell for a little over $300 (in quantities of thousand) and should be on a performance level of the best AMD CPU.
Even if there was a 5% difference, it wouldn't change the big picture.
That's an interesting question indeed. But all other Conroe previews suggest that its gaming performance will be stellar.
The average user doesn't use his CPU for cryptography very much.
Maybe because Intel makes most of its revenue outside the US?
July 23rd is rumored to be the launch date. Until then I'd definitely wait before buying a new CPU. Even if you want to buy an AMD processor, they're will be huge price drops.
Re:Conroe vs. FX-62 (Score:2)
Which is the precise objective of this Intel FUD campaign. They know their current chips are crap, so if they can use these highly controlled "benchmarks" to get people to wait it'll hurt AMD.
Even if Intel does launch the chips on July 23rd, will it be a real launch or a paper launch? How fast will they ramp production of the new chi
Re:Conroe vs. FX-62 (Score:1)
I'm not a fanboi, I buy what I think is best. That's why I have four Athlon64 machines (one is an X2) and three Athlon XP machines. I'm waiting to see reviews of Core 2, but if they turn out as good as, or better than, the previews, my next machine may very well be a Core 2. I don't care what the brand name is on the chip as long as it's the best for the money when I bu
Re:Conroe vs. FX-62 (Score:1, Funny)
wtf!
beige??
i don't HAVE a case you queer asshole! how hardcore is that!! when i want silence i stick screwdrivers in fans' blades. you wouldn't dream of leaving the case unscrewed let alone do that to your "precious non-beige hardware"! because most probably think that your machine needs tender loving care
talk again when you become a man and restart your ups's fan by kicking it.
our boxes are beige because we WANT them beige. we want NOTHING to distract from the machine. and the more "
Re:Conroe vs. FX-62 (Score:2)
I'm not sure I see the problem. A few years ago Intel apparently decided that maximizing headline clock speed was their priority. Oh yeah, baby. I've got a netburst for you.
IBM in mainframe mode has their own pipeline, and it primarily involves ratios of kilograms of solid steel packaging to perfor
Re:Conroe vs. FX-62 (Score:1)
http://tomshardware.thgweb.de/2006/06/04/intel-co
A better competition (Score:2, Insightful)
This is great news (Score:2)
Bruce
Re:This is great news (Score:1)
I'll probably go with Core 2 Duo on the nForce 570-based platforms.
This will be my first Intel based system since the Pentium III/440BX chipset.
Sporadic
Re:This is great news (Score:2)
Are These Reviews Significant? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are reviews like this of any real significance?
Re:Are These Reviews Significant? (Score:1)
Re:Are These Reviews Significant? (Score:2)
I don't think so... the machines were still actually running the tests. Also, from TFA, only some of the tests were unfamiliar. It specifically says that there were some standard ones there.
Common and familiar accor
Re:Are These Reviews Significant? (Score:2)
Re:Are These Reviews Significant? (Score:1)
And what makes this review different? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And what makes this review different? (Score:2)
Skepticism is a healthy thing. The early indications are of a fast chip, but don't make any purchasing decisions unless you see reviews of a shipping product.
Re:And what makes this review different? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And what makes this review different? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:And what makes this review different? (Score:2)
Re:And what makes this review different? (Score:1)
These statements may indeed be true (I really have no idea, so I'll assume they are), but the FX-62 is tried and true, and well known to perform very well in most real-world arenas, whereas the Conroe chips are new and not well tested yet. So the Intel fanboys at least need to wait
FX-62 is tried and true? (Score:2)
Guess how those who benchmarked the FX-62s got them? They got them as favors from AMD. And they were given them on the condition they not benchmark them against Conroe! So why do you trust them and not the Conroe reviewers?
Anyway, the people on xtremesystems.org have Conroes already, and on their systems, not under the eye of Intel. They seem to like it.
This just seems like more smokescreen from the AMD fanboys. Why do people
Re:FX-62 is tried and true? (Score:1)
Sorry but (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sorry but (Score:1)
Gentlemen -- place your bets! (Score:2)
I'm guessing 23 pages.
Re:Sorry but (Score:3)
2nd Paragraph Says It All... (Score:2)
So take these results with an even smaller grain of salt. Goddamn benchmarks.
How do they compare with P4 (Score:2)
As you know Intel basically dropped the P4 architecture (netburst) in favor continuing the hardware line of Pentium III -> Pentium M (Core 1 was a mod of Pentium M, Core 2 is a more serious change adding back 64-bit, but still a development of the same architecture).
Re:How do they compare with P4 (Score:2)
Hmm... (Score:2)
Only half the issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Only half the issue (Score:2)
Multithreading issues? (Score:3, Interesting)
However, we have some worries about its multi-tasking performance, which doesn't appear to be quite as good as the chip that Conroe will be replacing later this year.
We found that it was faster than the current flagship Pentium Extreme Edition 965 processor in nearly every single-threaded scenario, but there were times where Conroe fell behind in multi-tasking scenarios.
That seems pretty bad if we're trying to move to a more multi-threaded and multi-tasking computer system (yes, I know the difference between the two).
Re:Multithreading issues? (Score:1)
On the other end of the spectrum it may just be that the operating system that was used to
Re:Multithreading issues? (Score:2)
Re:Multithreading issues? (Score:1)
I noticed three differences in the hardware and software configuration of the demo. The hard drives were different, there was a slightly different version of the ATI Catalyst driver on the systems, and there was a different motherboard.
Even though the the size of the hard drives was only off by 50GB, that can throw any disk based benchmarks out the window. A rough way of estimating the the maxi
gaming (Score:5, Insightful)
So, this isn't so much as Intel stealing the crown as re-claiming the thrown.
<shrugs>No big deal .. I just get tired of the Intel bashing crowd. "OMG INTEL IS TEH DEVIL, AMD IS OUR SAVIOR!!"
Re:gaming (Score:1)
It isn't a question of time scope, per se, but the very meaning of the word, because it means "from the hand," to be passed on and not merely a historical fact.
You "get" tradition and you, in turn, "give" tradition, but it doesn't "just happen." The proper word would have been "historically,"
KFG
Re:gaming (Score:1)
Re:gaming (Score:2)
While this is more-or-less true if you are comparing clock-for-clock (and it wasn't for the early P2s, since they ran on a 66MHz external bus, while the K6-2 ran on a 100MHz one - mine was stable up to about 110MHz - and the memory performance gave it an edge), it is not true if you are comparing performance per dollar. AMD CPUs were significantly cheaper than Intel in those days, and m
Re:gaming (Score:2)
Then again, I've seen people write about "long term" where it refers to the current fiscal year. The first Athlon came in 1999, so that qualifies by far with me. The first real own AMD chip not cloned from Intel was the K5 in 1995, which means they've producing superior gaming chips longer than inferior chips. I call that a tradition. And I'll still wait until we g
About Time (Score:2)
The Core 2 Duo chips are all x86-64 (or ia32e as Intel calls it). I can't believe that it has taken them so long to do this for (what will be) their main consumer line.
One of the things I did't like about the MacBook Pro (and that helped me decide to stick with my 1.67 GHz PB G4) was the Core Duo. I know was much faster than what I had, but I don't want to buy a new
Re:About Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About Time (Score:4, Interesting)
Remember, it is not uncommon to use more address space than you have physical memory. This is why we have swap.
Re:About Time (Score:2)
Why does anyone need more than 640 KB of memory? Why is there a world
Re:About Time (Score:4, Informative)
You get twice as many general registers in AMD64 mode, providing a nice performance boost independent of how much memory you have. Java, cryptography, and codecs react particularly well to AMD64 environments.
2GB RAM is already pretty standard for power users. Throw in virtual memory and, voila, you're at the 4GB barrier. Being able to run the same 64-bit binaries on your notebook as on your quad processor, 8 core 64GB RAM server is kinda nice too.
Re:About Time (Score:3, Insightful)
With that said, since the original poster was contemplating replacing a 1.67Ghz G4 (a fairly recent model) with a brand new MacBook Pro, it seems he doesn't have a problem with shelling out for a new la
Re:About Time (Score:2)
Is it really necessary? (Score:1)
Unless of course, you're one of "those" types of gamers, needing to buy the latest, greatest and most expensive tech possible in order to run your games as well as someone else who spent $1000 on their system.
Re:Is it really necessary? (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:Is it really necessary? (Score:2)
Look at it this way: if you can get better performances for the same price, why wouldn't you buy a Core 2?
This is the reason why A64s are popular in the first place: they offered as good or better performances as P4's at equal or lower prices, and you couldn't cook eggs on them.
If intel manages to reverse the balance with Core 2, more power to them, it means that AMD'll have to do some more work on their procs and start working on the K9.
Re:Is it really necessary? (Score:2)
And what a dog will that turn out to be...
Re:Is it really necessary? (Score:1)
Re:AMD is in big trouble (Score:2, Interesting)
Technical Prowess of Reviewer? (Score:3, Insightful)
During several of the tests, the author of the article ran single threaded and multithreaded tests. In some of these tests, the performance of both the Conroe and Pressler chips decreased. The author incorrectly states that the multitasking performance of the Conroe chip is lower than the Pressler chips. He is incorrect becuase his own graphs reference multi-threaded performance. These are two entirely different things. While the multi-threaded perfomance of Conroe is slower in some cases, the single threaded performance was faster in most cases. These tasks obviously are not tasks well suited for parallel processing, and as such should be coded to run as a single thread to keep performace high.
While the rest of the benchmark seems solid, his analyis should be brought into question as he doesn't seem to have a solid grasp on his technology vocabulary. That or his editors don't know what they are reading either. If that is the case their reviews should not be showcased.
Re:Technical Prowess of Reviewer? (Score:2)
Re:Technical Prowess of Reviewer? (Score:3, Informative)
On another note, it is up to the developer of the optimize his/her program for the best performance. Individual tasks inside a program can be made to r
Re: (Score:2)
No, You do not understand Hyperthreading at all. (Score:2)
* DEEP pipeline
* relatively small (12K words) trace cache
* tiny 16KB L1 data cache
* huge main memory latency (compared to on-die memory controllers)
By running two threads in parallel, if one thread encounters a cache miss or a branch mispredict, the execution units are not left entirely empty while waiting for a pipeline flush or context switch. Instead, the parallel thread takes over and makes good use of the core.
Y
"Traditionally been weak" ? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sure there's more than enough people here who remember how intel poorly comparbadly the K6 ran Doom, for example.
Not to mention the atrocious record of motherboard chipsets for >K6 AMD processors that, alone, contributed more to slowing their uptake by the market than any other factor (it astounds me that VIA has managed to stay in business).
Re:"Traditionally been weak" ? (Score:2)
Ugh. Must use preview. That should say:
I'm sure there's more than enough people here who remember how comparably poorly the K6 ran Doom, for example.
Re:"Traditionally been weak" ? (Score:2)
The Conroe myth gets busted a little bit every day (Score:4, Interesting)
I think that's a very funny quote. This is exactly what I was expecting all along. The reason most people have been running Super-PI and other toy benchmarks is because they are single-threaded, and that is the one area where Conroe really shines.
If the Conroe can't beat the Pentium Extreme Edition 965 how is it going "own" or "destroy" an Athlon 64 FX-64? The Conroe myth gets busted a little bit every day.
Re:The Conroe myth gets busted a little bit every (Score:1)
The inference being that the new top Intel chip will totally kick the Pentium EE's butt. Or, if you like, that this chip offers the same or better performance than the Pentium EE at what will probably be something like $200-$300 less.
Of course, that's all specu
Re:The Conroe myth gets busted a little bit every (Score:2)
640 x 480 (Score:1)
There are many sites that do good benchmarking, and I wish other sites would follow the lead of anandtech and tom's hardware. Rather then a bunch of numbers for unrealistic senarios, put together tests that cover all the bases. Where is video encoding benchmarks, where is compiling benchmarks? Where are REAL benchmarks for senarios we all use. Showing us how