The real big question here is why Intel is showing your own benchmark...
In My opinion if conroe is a mega boost from P4 and AMD64, why intel did not gave it to anand and let anand configure it and benchmarked on your own way.
(optimized drivers for Conroe...it's just not fair comparison, next time try with AMD64 optimized drivers)
Think about...Theses numbers are just fake...if they were true imagine how many sites would been receving engeneering samples...!!!
Always remenber that Intel is a marketing Fud Master...
Bye!
Rodrigo Rios
Of course remenber that new Games even with low resolution the bottleneck is videocard and not CPU...
So do not expect 40% boost of frames only with a cpu upgrade...
let's be logical
quote: I think AMDs biggest upset to Intel was releasing the first 1ghz+ processor first.
I remember that. At that time I was on a Duron 800.
Although, AMD has had a few major upsets.
*1 st to drop 1Ghz processor
*1st to patent and drop SOI which was MASSIVLY efficient and also included a memory controller that fixed so many bottle necks.
*Got rid of FSB
*First to drop a backwards compatable 64bit processor which Intel now licences the technology from AMD.
*Opteron (nuff said)
*First do drop Dual core...
First off, with the Anantech review, you'll notice that the processor "AMD Unknown" is there. This is because of the bios revision on the motherboard doesn't even support an FX-60, never mind a simulated FX-62. Some other things were said such as how they basically had the settings to put the AMD processor 6 months behind, where the new Conroe isn't going to be available for another 6 months. This is basically comparing technologies which are a year apart.
For instance, Tomshardware ran a http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/06/27/athlon_64_f...">benchmark on the FX-57 where it was pulling 183.4 FPS in UT2k4 on an NVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT and the Anantech review the FX-60 was only pulling 160 FPS. These numbers by Tom are almost a year old. This means some serious fishy shit is going on.
Follow the links and check the trail. It's quite possible that AMD will still be coming on top marginally again with the release of the AM2 and DDR-II 800 low latency support. I wonder who will be the first to solve the PCIe bottleneck.
"For instance, Tomshardware ran a benchmark on the FX-57 where it was pulling 183.4 FPS in UT2k4 on an NVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT and the AnandTech review the FX-60 was only pulling 160 FPS. These numbers by Tom are almost a year old. This means some serious fishy shit is going on."
Different cards, different systems, different maps. Some levels in HL2 score 80-100 FPS on high-end machines, and other levels score 160+ FPS. 160 FPS on one level means nothing other than that level isn't particularly complex.
Hi guys, I just read through all the comments and I would like to make a few of my own.
1) I have no doubt Conroe will be a good processor when it eventually comes out.
2) This isn't about Anand vs Rahul, both of us will tell you that we need to see the platforms in house to give the real benchmarks. Perhaps passing the crown over to Intel is a bit premature at the moment (6 months premature), but we'll see how it plays out down the road.
3) Anand is one of the most respected journalists in our industry, and I hold him in the highest regard. Anyone suggesting that I am calling him out needs to read my blog again.
4) To the guy who is suggesting to sue Anandtech based on his writing - get a grip, please. I suspect AMD will post another mind blowing quarter, short term thinking gets you nowhere in this business.
5) Lastly, I made it clear on Dailytech as well - Voodoo sells both AMD and Intel. Around 80% of our notebooks go out with Intel processors. As far as workstations and desktops go, we'd be doing our customers a dis-service by making poor recommendations. In fact if we had to choose Intel for our desktops currently we prefer the Pentium M for over the Pentium 4.
6) I have also been accused of being biased towards Nvidia (many many times). If you've read my battles with ATi over the years you'd know that I am only telling it from the inside. When you are dealing with these companies it's completely different from what you all see on the outside.
I am biased towards great technology no doubt, that's why we were first in line to launch Crossfire on RD580 - I love it! I am also looking forward to Nvidia's upcoming launch, but that doesn't take away any positive feelings towards ATi at the moment.
Rahul, you fool. I found your blog post from Tom's Hardware's forum. You posted detailed analysis of the BIOS issue, but then Anandtech posted updated results for the new BIOS and the results didn't change much. lol.
Well, this is certainly a big can of worms that has been opened, but looking at it objectively, I would have to say that "faking" anything more than a 5-10% performance loss (on the AMD system) is going to be very difficult. While I would say there's potential for Intel to also fake a 5-10% performance boost for Conroe, that would be very unlikely at this point. If the RD480 chipset isn't the best chipset in the world, what about 975X running Conroe six months before launch.
I would say the biggest issue is with the early declaration of victory, but really we're talking about minor semantics. Intel will almost certainly regain the performance crown with Conroe; I'd be absolutely shocked if they didn't. Really, I'm a bit surprised it even took this long. Until Conroe launches, of course, they don't actually have the lead. :)
IDF is always about what Intel has planned for the future, and right now their future is looking good. What have they shown in the recent past? Super cooled CPUs running at 5 GHz that they didn't really benchmark much. For them to step out and demonstrate a Conroe 2.66 GHz chip against an *overclocked* FX-60 just OOZES confidence. Letting anyone (let alone Anand) play with the system and publish results? That's not typically what you do if you're trying to hide something. If they wanted to hide stuff, they'd be showing slides of performance numbers, and they'd have super-cooled Conroe chips running as fast as possible to come out on top. Pitting an air-cooled CPU against an FX-60 just doesn't smack of difficulties at all.
What's going to be far more difficult is selling us all on the need for quad-core processors come 2007. Dual-core? Sure, that's reasonable, since people will often do two tasks at the same time. Beyond two cores it gets difficult to see home-desktop uses for more processing power. Oh, sure, I'll be glad to see WMV9, DivX, etc. encoding speeds increase substantially, but I really don't do any of those tasks all *that* often. (And GPU acceleration can probably do it a lot faster anywat.)
Oh, one last question: six months? Where did that come from? That puts Conroe launch in September; I thought Conroe was coming in July, which would make it more like 4 months. Did Intel push Conroe back and I missed it? :(
The BIOS chip used is programmable, so 6.00PG is simply the revision of the chip being used. The question is *how* the chip was programmed, and the screen shots don't show. I'm not sure what Rahul and others are going on about, but I've got a DFI RDX200. It runs fine, even with the old BIOS. Where did he find out that "the DFI bios version 'D49C-32' they are running is from 10/11/05" - I don't see that posted anywhere, but maybe I missed it? Anyway, I'll be happy to try and run some benchmarks with the old and new DFI BIOS if I can manage to get $1000 worth of GPUs. (Damn, I knew there was some reason I couldn't generate similar results!)
There are only http://labs.anandtech.com/products.php?sfilter=400">five other CrossFire boards currently available, and arguably the DFI RDX200 is the most enthusiast friendly. http://labs.anandtech.com/products.php?sfilter=460">RD580 boards are starting to show up, but you can't reasonably blame Intel for not having an ASUS A8R32-MVP in the system, since it just showed up within the past three days.
So, the motherboard choice wasn't an intended slight. How about the BIOS version? I've got an Opteron 146 in my DFI board, overclocked to 2.8 GHz. I don't have X1900 cards to benchmark in it, but the differences between the 10/11 and 12/15 BIOS revisions was incredibly small. Hey - the CPU was at 2-2-2-5-1T timings instead of 2-2-2-8-1T, and perhaps 8 tRAS is better as well? The difference between minor memory tweaks is never more than a couple percent for the same timings.
An "unknown" CPU is also rarely a problem; all that means is the BIOS doesn't specifically know the model name. Hmmm - what's the model name for a 2.8 GHz FS dual core chip again? I don't know it either, though I suspect it will be FX-62. Cool 'n Quiet set to disabled by default? Well, unless CnQ is malfunctioning, the CPU will run at full speed in stress situations. Besides, Intel may have set it to disabled manually - after all, they almost certainly set the memory timings manually!
All told, I've seen nothing in any of the critiques that amount to a serious indictment of the results. Best case, the AMD FX-62 system might have been 5% faster with an appropriate BIOS and a few other tweaks. 5% is NOTHING! I repeat: NOTHING! Start a stopwatch and then count to 60 in your head without looking at any clocks. See if you can come within 3 seconds of the real time. In contrast, see if you can come within 15 seconds of the real time, because that's about where Conroe will be in all likelihood.
Let's also not forget that many of the AMD supporters (VoodooPC among them) have a lot to lose if Intel suddenly takes the lead again. They have to worry about sales between now and Conroe launch, they have to worry about new products, they have to start working with someone they snubbed for a couple years (Intel), etc.
Whom should I trust more: Anand that runs a website that caters to the enthusiast - a site that has been continually recommending AMD processors over Intel for the past two years! - when he says that Conroe appears poised to trounce anything AMD will have for the next nine months at least... or the word of a man that *wasn't* there to benchmark the system, sells 4 Intel desktop setups (vs. 16 AMD configurations - and 1 Intel laptop vs. 3 AMD laptops), and he stands to profit or be hurt by what enthusiast sites might say about an upcoming CPU transition?
Personally, I'll just wait and see what happens when everything finally ships. My bet is that Anand gets proven right (again), and Intel comes out on top (after their 3 year fall from grace). And if Intel manages to launch that Extreme Edition at anything near 3.0 GHz, AMD is pretty much screwed in terms of being "performance champion" until they get 65 nm chips shipping en masse. Even then, I'm not sure they can close the gap without a new architecture. After all, K8 is just K7 with 64-bits (who cares?), SSE1/2, and an integrated memory controller; great performance but it's certainly not a revolutionary design.
If Rahul Sood's http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/">http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/ is a true account of the errors in the Anandtech Conroe/AMD review then Anadtech should be prepared for a lawsuit by AMD shareholders like me who lost value as a result. It appears that Anadtech is either incompetent or malicious.
You'd have more chance sueing Intel for that. Anandtech could easily have been honestly misled, with no ill intent. Sue the one who sents the message, not the messenger.
Well this article has precipitated quite a lot of AMD vs Intel debate.
However my comment is about the MOTHERBOARDS for Conroe.
You say the test was done on "AN Intel 975X motherboard".
You might have been more specific as to the motherboard model. ie was it one of those "BAD AXE" 975X motherboards you recently reviewed (with a bios update) or some other yet to be released Intel board - (the so-called "platform refresh")?
Since Conroe exists now and specs are being talked about at IDF, can you establish PRECISELY what voltage specification it requires from the motherboard? There has been much confusion about this on the web and no definitive statement.
It seems to me the up to date VRM (module) or VRD (on mobo regulation) spec is VRD 10.1
Can you establish from Intel that a board complying with VRD 10.1 is sufficient for Conroe requirements or establish very precisely what it may need IN ADDITION to VRD10.1.
Now, having said that, you have reviewed FOUR 975X boards. Can we say if any or all of these may be legitimately described as "Conroe ready"? Maybe ask if they are designed to VRD 10.1?
Also I thought you were going to review more 975X based boards - eg what about MSI, ECS, DFI?
If purchasing an expensive motherboard I would like it to be at least a slightly medium term investment, so being able to take the next cpus is an important influencing factor. Since the 975X chipset will support conroe, it would be a shame if the motherboard didn't. Therefore please can you tell us (from Intel at IDF or the mobo makers at CEBIT) which CURRENT boards will work with Conroe?
Finally as a general point on the 975X reviews... There were repeated comments that they did not include Firewire 800 as being a big error! I disagree!
I would certainly value the second Gigabit ethernet port, but firewire B? Unnecessary. The chipsets are more expensive and look at the adoption - some macs and little else uses it. Firewire 400 is ubiquitous because of iLink DV Camcorders. But the 800 speed is now obsolete! Why? Because of SATA and ESATA. ESATA 300 blows away firewire 800 in performance. Someone who needs high disk bandwidth will use SATA/SATA2/ESATA, SCSI or SAS. USB disks suffer from excessive overhead and simplex comms, firewire suffers arbitration penalties when you go above one drive. SATA is by far the preferred technology to any serious users, and ESATA offers a way to make it external and portable. Don't criticise motherboard manufacturers for leaving out the Firewire 800. It seems they all think alike on this matter, so they must think like me.
So if I go get last years top AMD board...set it up to be slow as possible and then take an Intel processor that won't be out for 6 months and compare the two...can I get paid to post the results on here too.
I hope some sues your pants off for false statements resulting in share holder losses.
On my old AsRock AK7S41, if I drive the FSB higher than around 148, the machine boots saying it´s a XP2700 Unknown.
For the driver issue: I won´t complain if rewriting the ATI (or nVidia) drivers for stuff - I´d raise my hands and say thank´s, that´s what I paid for (performance, stability, support etc.).
I´m in no doubt confident that AMD will comming up with their stuff in due time, and keeping talking about CPUs as some kind of war going on is utterly nonsens to me. It´s not a war but progress/evolution/engineering/refinement that goes on and on and on and on...
And just like tidal waters things keep changing. But roughly 200 posts on a thing that´s not gonna be out in 6 months - I´m wasting my time here....
(AMD user since 2002)
...
First of all, though it’s claimed that you’re running an FX-60 processor on the machine, I have yet to see an established motherboard and processor with an image that says "processor unknown".
You’ll notice that the image I am referring to on Anandtech's website states that the AMD processor is “unknown” which makes me believe that the bios they are running is outdated. So, I did a bit of digging and low and behold, the DFI bios version “D49C-32” they are running is from 10/11/05. There has been 1 major revision with major fixes that include:
Set Cool 'n' Quiet Default to Disabled
- With Cool & Quiet enabled, AMD processors will throttle in order to save power and bring their thermal load down. This means the processor could be running as low as 800MHz in certain programs – no matter what the program is. In theory Cool & Quiet is supposed to throttle up to maximum in games but this is not always the case. No enthusiast PC goes out with Cool & Quiet enabled unless it’s a fanless machine or media center.
Add Support for AMD Athlon 64 FX60 CPU
- According to DFI the FX-60 will not operate correctly without this bios update. Without official support for the FX-60 CPU I’m not sure what we’re comparing against here.
- Memory latency can make a massive difference in performance. If the latency was not running at the correct latency we can see a pretty big difference in all kinds of performance. Anandtech stated “The AMD system used 1GB of DDR400 running at 2-2-2/1T timings…” Apparently this isn’t the case, but they would not be able to tell without having the platform in house.
Fix Fill 3114 SVID&SSID under Cross fire mode.
- More apparent performance issues under Crossfire mode.
Next, when you take a future Intel chipset and compare it to a chipset that no enthusiast supports (RD480) with an outdated bios it’s like taking a Ferrari and putting it on Bias-Ply tires. It’s just not a good way to show off a “new” technology.
...
So now a few numbers caught my attention based on another email I received last night.
If we go and check out the numbers on Anandtech we’ll see the Unreal Tournament 2004 benchmark showing 160fps on the unknown AMD X2 processor while the Intel Conroe at 2.66GHz came in significantly higher at 191fps.
Though this isn’t exactly conclusive, if you go back and re-read some old FX-57 reviews on Tom’s Hardware you’ll see a benchmark for the same game set at the same resolution, the FX-57 running at 2.8GHz scored 183.4fps. The funny thing is it’s using an Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT which seems to me that something is totally wrong here - perhaps it's somewhere locked in the settings, but I won't know until I sit down and compare our own benchmarks with consistant settings. Note that a single core Athlon 64 4000 achieved a better score in the benchmark run by Tom (160.5fps) than the one provided by Intel (160.4) at IDF. Here is a link to Tom’s review. http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/06/27/athlon_64_f...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/06/27/athlon_64_f... ...
I am an AMD Fanboy. This article is false and a great marketing conspiracy from Intel.
There is no conceivable way that Intel could ever be faster than AMD, ever again, period.
Also, Intel is evil and we need to make them go bankrupt so only AMD (the force of good) can reign supreme!
Did I do a good job summing up the AMD argument? ;)
Anyways, nice benchmarks but no surprise. We all expected Intel would regain the performance crown eventually, just we all expect that sometime in the future (probably 2008), AMD will probably leapfrog them again.
...that in the first page it said "Athlon 64 FX-60 overclocked to 2.8GHz running on a DFI RD480 motherboard. And in the other corner, a Conroe running at 2.66GHz (1067MHz FSB) on an Intel 975X motherboard." yet in the benchmark testing, the cpu was an Athlon 64 X-2 2.8GHZ. So which one is it? Did I miss something?
I don't think there's any difference between the FX60 and the latest X2's, is there?
They use the Toledo core, have 2x1MB L2.
So is the FX60 just a higher clocked X2?
I'm forced to take these results with a grain of salt for now. I'd rather see a completely independant review where Anandtech or another site had 100% control over the systems being tested.
That said, if the results are remotely true, Kudos to Intel on finally coming out with something that not only competes with AMD but seems to have a decent advantage. Of course, I fully expect AMD to have some sort of answer to Intel's offering at some point. I look forward to comparing Intel and AMD when they are on the market.
Honestly, the way I see it, if it weren't for AMD's innovation Intel would be still eeking out modest clock increases rather than coming out with a meaningful processor. Competition has spurred intel to design a processor that not only performs better, but runs at lower clockspeeds and uses less power than their previous chips. A 40% increase while lowering clockspeeds is terrific.
I can't wait to see this sucker come out and I can't wait to see AMD's competition.
Who knows what future Intel or AMD CPU will have DRM like support?? Also the fact that most people think DRM is Intel only makes me feel most are AMD fanboys, or at least Pro-.
Most of those games that saw tremendous differences saw little to no difference at all when running gaming benchmarks on anads. This is especially true for fear. You could put just about every type of cpu and the benchmarks will only be affected by what GPU you are running for fear. The cpu speed made hardly any difference at all. I really don't believe intel on this one. They probably did a worse case best case senario test if you ask me. Especially when you look at the huge performance gains for the games. I just don't belive the CPU would have such a drastic effect in this day and age of GPU limited games. This smacks of the Skype AMD can't possible do a 10 person conference call bullshit. When the intel cpu's are released then we can talk, or at LEAST let the reviewer set up the system.
In the anand benchmarks, FEAR goes from 46FPS on a 7800GTX 512MB to 84FPS on the same card in SLI. This points to a game that is very video card limited.
Since the intel benches were conducted with hardware rendering at 1280x1024 (not 640x480,software as you'd normally do on a CPU faceoff), You kind of have to wonder how any CPU, no matter how new or amazing would have that sort of a performance jump. I'm sure the intel system is very fast, probably even faster than the AMD system, but given the circumstances, it's a little odd.
quote: In the anand benchmarks, FEAR goes from 46FPS on a 7800GTX 512MB to 84FPS on the same card in SLI. This points to a game that is very video card limited.
WRONG. Look here: In the anand benchmarks, FEAR goes from 46FPS on a 7800GTX 512MB to 84FPS on the same card in SLI. This points to a game that is very video card limited.
Using Athlon 64 FX-57 CPU clocked same as the IDF FX-60 that is overclocked.
At 1280x1024, the resolution AT chose to test, 7800GTX 512MB only goes from 88 to 119, a gain of 33.7%, rather than the outrageous 82.6% gain, which is ONLY possible at the higher resolutions.
Even at 1600x1200, you are proven wrong. It gains from 46 to 69 a gain of 50%.
quote: WRONG. Look here: In the anand benchmarks, FEAR goes from 46FPS on a 7800GTX 512MB to 84FPS on the same card in SLI. This points to a game that is very video card limited.
Using Athlon 64 FX-57 CPU clocked same as the IDF FX-60 that is overclocked.
At 1280x1024, the resolution AT chose to test, 7800GTX 512MB only goes from 88 to 119, a gain of 33.7%, rather than the outrageous 82.6% gain, which is ONLY possible at the higher resolutions.
Even at 1600x1200, you are proven wrong. It gains from 46 to 69 a gain of 50%.
In the anand benchmarks, FEAR goes from 46FPS on a 7800GTX 512MB to 84FPS on the same card in SLI. This points to a game that is very video card limited.
Since the intel benches were conducted with hardware rendering at 1280x1024 (not 640x480,software as you'd normally do on a CPU faceoff), You kind of have to wonder how any CPU, no matter how new or amazing would have that sort of a performance jump. I'm sure the intel system is very fast, probably even faster than the AMD system, but given the circumstances, it's a little odd.
Q]
Look at the Gunmetal benchmark. Even though AthlonXP's and Pentium 4 C's perform same, Athlon64 sets itself apart.
Same with Conroe, it's gonna set itself apart. Look at how Anand mentions Conroe gets 111 fps while Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.73GHz gets 90 fps. Looking at HOW EXTREMELY insensitve to CPU it is(FX-57 gets 80.6, while PD 2.8 gets 75.6), Conroe is just that, a powerful CPU.
you will notice that AMD 2.8GHz and Conroe can achive amazing results (both):
I don't know what test Anand did during IDF but he wrote that THE SAME AS IN STANDARD HARDWARE TESTS.
Now if you look at performance achieved on nVidia 7800GTX+FX55 - you will see 74 fps.
I don't belive that demonstrated hardware can be 2,5x or faster than tested in Anand's labs.
Second, Intel didn't show any synthetic benchmarks - why?
Maybe because the results on 3dMark05 andn others show not what Intel expected when comparing one year old AMD design...
quote: If you look at IDF F.E.A.R. benchmark run by Anandtech and then look
here:
you will notice that AMD 2.8GHz and Conroe can achive amazing results (both):
I don't know what test Anand did during IDF but he wrote that THE SAME AS IN STANDARD HARDWARE TESTS.
Now if you look at performance achieved on nVidia 7800GTX+FX55 - you will see 74 fps.
I don't belive that demonstrated hardware can be 2,5x or faster than tested in Anand's labs.
Second, Intel didn't show any synthetic benchmarks - why?
Maybe because the results on 3dMark05 andn others show not what Intel expected when comparing one year old AMD design...
So you see even with Crossfire it is difficult to achieve 100fps not to mention
180 fps on Conroe. Let's wait for the real comparision on nForce, not previewed ATI chipset.
So you see even with Crossfire it is difficult to achieve 100fps not to mention
180 fps on Conroe. Let's wait for the real comparision on nForce, not previewed ATI chipset.
Tbreak X2 4800+ 2.4GHz FEAR 1280x960: 124, and UNLIKE what you claim, it gets similar 96 fps on NON-CROSSFIRE X1900XT, and 29% better on Crossfire
IDF FX60 X 2.8GHz FEAR 1280x1024: 132, hey looking at clock speed differences, and the fact that IDF has SLIGHTLY better resolution, it looks about right
Though Tbreak's doesn't mention SMP being off, it correspond's to Anand's SMP off numbers, Again, looks about right.
Anyone doubting the POST screenshots, the REAL BIOS numbers are not shown, its at the bottom, where on the IDF pic, its cutoff, and as Jarred mentions, some boards do not recognize the CPU properly. But it seems that doesn't deter anything in performance does it??
Based on this data, it does appear that memory timings, C&Q default off or not, the result posted for the FX-60 at IDF and reference FX-60 are in the ballpark and seems to lend some credence to the AT results.
The benchmarks he linked to show that an FX-55 at stock-speeds (single-core, 2.6GHz) is quite capable of running the FEAR benchmark at well over 155fps -- at 640x480 the X1800XT averaged 155fps, and a 7800GTX averaged 153fps, and they were STILL GPU LIMITED as the framerate vs resolution was only slightly beginning to taper off indicating very little CPU limitation. It looks like the FX-55 would probably be able to average as much as 180fps with a faster graphics-card. Why then on the systems that Intel set up was an FX-60 clocked at 2.8GHz (higher than the FX-55) only able to average 135fps, whereas a Conroe at 2.6GHz averaged 186fps.
Now before you complain about different graphic cards (X1800XT instead of X1900XT Crossfire) and different resolutions (640x480 instead of 1280x1024), it doesn't matter which card or resolution you use so long as the test is CPU limited. Unfortunately it is still *GPU* limited on an X1800XT or 7800GTX even at 640x480, which suggests that even a pair of X1900XT cards will definitely be GPU limited at 1280x1024 despite having much higher pixel-shader power as they are having to deal with over four times as many pixels per frame.
So the problems with the test are:
1. Why is the FX-60 @ 2.8GHz giving a much lower FEAR benchmark score than would be expected if it truly was CPU limited?
2. A pair of X1900XT cards cannot give an average framerate of over 180fps in the FEAR benchmark at 1280x1024 regardless of the CPU, in fact they would struggle to achieve over 150fps. How come a Conroe magically lets them achieve 186fps?
3. Why on earth did the graphics-card driver need to be "modified to recognize the Conroe CPU"? What does it do differently when it detects a Conroe CPU? As far as I know, all the driver needs to know are what instructions the CPU supports (eg. SSE, SSE2 etc) and that does not rely on knowing the specific CPU model, only checking the CPU capability flags.
4. following on from no.3, what effect did the modifications Intel made to the driver have when it detected a non-Intel CPU? We all know from the Skype issue how Intel are quite happy to cripple features when running on non-Intel processors, or how Intel compilers have produced code that only used SSE etc on Intel processors. That gives the comment "but that driver was loaded on both AMD and Intel systems" a whole new meaning. It's speculation on my part but I wouldn't be surprised if the modified driver checks for CPU capabilities based on CPU model rather than capability flags, and that Intel only included their own processors in the list. I hope I'm wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't.
Now ideally Anand will bring back a CD from IDF with copies of the Intel game benchmark files, and also a copy of that Intel modified ATI driver on it so that he can run more extensive tests on systems he has set up, both with and without the modified driver.
Having said that, the media-encoding benchmarks on Conroe are very impressive but again we don't know if anything funny is going on with the setup. What do Intel have to gain by cheating you may ask? How about making people decide not to buy an Athlon 64 X2 over the next six months thus damaging AMDs slim profit-margin. If Conroe really is as good as the benchmarks suggest though, then AMD have some catching up to do-- probably by releasing the K8L core earlier than intended and using it into sectors other than only the server market.
And brace yourself for a 2.93Ghz Conroe in Q4, 65W aswell. Ohh..and let me give you all the prices so we dont have to argue about that too.
The SKUs are listed as up for sale in june/july for desktop and servers.
It's nice to see Intel trying to take the lead but this proves no evidence of them being on the top.
Here are a few things I look for in a system and I'm sure others, with experience building system, will agree too.
1. Price: If it costs $2000 for an AMD system or $3000 for a similar performance Intel system then you know what I will pick. Bottom line is we don't know price till it hits the streets as availability and other factors will impact it and I never take any price points as gospel from AMD or Intel as stores (retail and online) set the standards. Paper says $300 store says $350 etc. Talk is cheap.
2. Stability: Unless a stable system exists I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. I have been burned on both ends by both AMD (most recently due to poor motherboard offerings until just recently under socket 939) and Intel (due to faulty CPUs and re-branding of CPUs under a new name with a few tweaks and sold as new, see class action lawsuits) systems. My next $2000 system is not going into new tech but established proven tech where I won't have to fight for a year and a half to get it to work right or replace half the system to make it so nor worry that I got hoodwinked by a shady company capitalizing on its own brand name.
3. Bottleneck: Anyone with some knowledge knows that CPU is not the bottleneck in high end systems and nobody in their right mind spends a couple of grand on a mid-high level system to run it at resolutions that you haven't used since the late 90s. Show me scores based on resolutions used in 20" or higher LCDs including widescreens and then I'll bite. So the jury is out for a few months until that happens.
4. Ethics: I find it very difficult to even think of buying Intel simply because of the company ethics regarding employees and general behaviour (much like any other major corporation) so I'm happy that at least I have an option.
You won't find performance on my list because its so subjective and because I think it belongs under Stability. It won't matter if you have a horse that can run laps around all others if it decides to stop to smell the roses whenever it damn feels like it.
So 3 cheers for competition but I'm biting down with a huge grain of salt and most likely won't wait a year to make sure the system is established before I upgrade as that will happen within 6 months for me. Perfect time to get a top end socket 939 system before it's phased out and instead invest the savings into the real Bottleneck found at the mid-high end where I and so many others play. Video cards...
Possible Intel fanboy: Go wash, brush your teeth, make your bed, have breakfast and go out. There's 6, SIX months ahead, you can predict none. Nice try, who's the fanboy now?
After all, performance per dollar is what everyone should be looking at.
If Conroes will be priced at around or lower than the comparable AMD processor, I might get one. But then AMD may decide to lower prices on its chips.
Hmmm.. Competition is good.
1. If you just compare UT 2004 anand benchmark test for Athlon64 3800+ X2, you will notice that on similar configuration with UT 2004 they can achieve 56 fps 1024x768.
And Intel on IDF can get 160 (1280x960) on FX machine!!!??
Do the same comparision to real Anand tests and what was tested on IDF.
If you belive Intel, you just belive that FX60 2.8GHz is 100% faster than Athlon64 X2 2GHz...
quote: 1. If you just compare UT 2004 anand benchmark test for Athlon64 3800+ X2, you will notice that on similar configuration with UT 2004 they can achieve 56 fps 1024x768.
And Intel on IDF can get 160 (1280x960) on FX machine!!!??
Do the same comparision to real Anand tests and what was tested on IDF.
If you belive Intel, you just belive that FX60 2.8GHz is 100% faster than Athlon64 X2 2GHz...
Yea yea yea, another skeptic. You might realize Crossfire X1900XT is more powerful than single X850XT PLUS the A64 3800+ may use Botmatch while IDF system may use Flyby. A big difference.
What size file was used in the iTunes test. In one test, a 304MB file tooks 32s to encode on an Athlon FX60, and here, we have 73s, so this file should be at least approximately 696MB. Is this the case. It would be nice to get an indicative figure.
I'm with all you guys saying "wow" at these results.
I can't help but wonder why Intel releases such details right now though. Sure, it's IDF and they just have to brag with their products like every other year, sure it's probably gonna convince a couple enthusiasts to wait up for the release in 6 months and not buy an AMD... but such detailed benchmark results are also like an advance warning to AMD that they need to prepare an "Emergency Edition" chip or some other innovation now for Q3. It might have been a better strategy to just attack out of the sun come August (or try move it even earlier, if they do indeed have it working).
Also, is it just me or does anyone else find it surprising that they're actually comparing their stuff against an AMD? Up to now, they never even mentioned AMD (nor did AMD mention "Intel", using the more general "the competition" instead). This is the first time I see Intel acknowledging any competition at all.
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.
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.
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.
I stopped reading when I saw that the FX-60 rig couldn't even detect the FX-60. Like what a previous poster brought up something is definitely fishy. FEAR at that resolution is GPU limited so I can't understand how the cpu ALONE could make such a huge difference. This simply doesn't make sense. Obviously Anand doesn't know a CPU from a stick in the mud. I wouldn't even have published this nonsense after seeing that.
all the screenshot says is 'model unknown'...
i'm pretty sure that's what my athlon xp says with a small overclock,
since it's not running at an official model clock anymore, it doesn't know what to report.
I've had 2 s939 boards, a K8N NEO2 Platinum and a DFI UT Lanparty SLI-DR. Both ran my FX-55 which is overclocked to 2.8ghz and both recognize what CPU class it is regardless if it runs at stock or overclocked. I'm not buying that excuse and neither is anyone else.
I've got several boards (including the DFI Lanparty RDX200) that report "AMD Athlon Model Unknown" on any overclocked CPU. I mean, go ahead with the conspiracies if you really want to, but what point would it really serve to blatantly lie (either by us, Intel, both, etc.)? If we do it, we lose credibility. If Intel does it, we'll have the truth before launch anyway.
Occam's Razor: Intel is damn happy with their performance, and they want to brag about it. I would if I were in their position. We're 4-6 months from launch, so there's not a whole lot AMD or anyone can do to immediately counter.
As I said earlier, who seriously thinks that Intel set out to match or come close to Athlon 64/X2 performance when they started architecting Core? [Intel: "You know, AMD is currently faster than us. Let's throw a lot of money at the problem and see if we can close the gap a bit...."]
You don't need to buy any excude. You disqaulified yourself from having any meaningful input when you said FEAR is GPU limited at 12x10 on a x1900 crossfire setup.
These results (if validated) are simply amazing on so many levels - forget the fact that this processor is not released for months - It will take AMD *years* to catch up.
- The sheer amount of percentage increase has rarely been this large over the previous records with the introduction of any CPU (new architecture or not). In fact how many times has there been a jump this large in the last 10 years?
- They did it at a lower clock speed. Devastating because AMD just doesn't have the headroom to out scale them on frequency.
- They did it at lower power consumption. Again, very difficult to counter.
- AM2 will probably not even provide a 10% boost. The tabloids are reporting initial samples were actually *slower* than socket 939.
- Even if AMD has a new architecture out in 6 months to a year, it will be hard gain back that much performance per clock.
- This spanking only required a 2.66Mhz CPU! And my god the Conroe EE will run at 3Ghz? Good luck competing with that.
- Price to manufacture has always been in Intel's favor because they are ahead on the process curve. So not only will they lead in performance, they can cut the profit legs totally out from under AMD because Conroe is cheap to manufacture on 65nm, and it will only get worse with 45nm.
Not only am I not an Intel fan boi, I'm writing this on an FX-60 clocked at 3Ghz which I paid a lot of money for thinking it would be one of the fastest systems around for a year. Looks like I won't even be close.
quote: - This spanking only required a 2.66Mhz CPU! And my god the Conroe EE will run at 3Ghz? Good luck competing with that.
I agree, the EE will be at least a thousand times faster... :)
But I wouldn't be so hasty to count AMD out just yet, they'd have to be pretty dumb to not prepare for the day when Intel comes out with a better architecture. The AM2 cpus that were tested were of a very early revision, final performance will likely be much higher. Anyways, excellent news, hopefully the Athlon X2 prices will drop to more reasonable levels in the near future. :)
I don't think AMD is dumb, in fact they've done an amamzing job catching a giant sleeping and capitalizing on it with great CPU designs. Also agree that AMD is obviously working like crazy to make K9 as great as possile.
The problem is it's just too big of a leap to make in a race where deep pockets really do give an advantage.
Also while power effieciency has become more important to becoming a performance leader, remember Intel has actually been ahead of AMD in power efficiency since the first Pentium M - they just haven't been able to move it to the desktop until now.
For those of you doubting the validity of the benchmarks, Anand ran the FEAR in game demo that is supplied with the game, not Intel. You know what the best part is? They benched FEAR, arguably one of the most *GPU* limited games out there, at 12x10, and gained ~30% performance gains with just a *CPU* switch. Incredible!
I was going to be jumping to an X2 3800+ 35w and AM2 setup when that came out in a few months, but forget that. I am completely sold on Conroe. I haven't used an Intel since...1998...jeesh. Welcome back blue.
I don't doubt that the results are great for Intel, but people shouldn't expect these kinds of gains when gaming. Look at what Intel did - they supplied a fast processor, so no one could claim AMD wasn't able to show their best. Then they supplied a very fast GPU pair, putting the bottleneck on the CPU. They then ran it at a resolution no one in their right mind would use with this hardware. Anyone who can spent $1,000 on video cards and another $1,000 on a CPU will not use a $350 1280x1024 LCD. They will be running on a 1920x1200 Dell2405 or the like, where those X1900s won't be able to push those kind of frame-rates. In that sort of a configuration, Intel would still win, but rather than 120fps versus 180fps type of scores, it will be more like 50fps versus 55fps, unless the game is REALLY CPU limited. Not many games are at the kind of resolutions people with $4000 PCs tend to game at.
Obviously there's a bit of contention here because the setup was controlled by Intel BUT what is possible is to set up a similiar testbed to see if the figures are in the right approximate ballpark. Tests you could run would be both on FEAR and encoding (assuming you have the same file).
I would suggest Anandtech do this just because not many people have a FX-60 or so to overclock and a X1900 Crossfire setup. Besides following up on it would be good for this website and its reputation.
Excellent point, in order for one to trust intel's results they should be REPRODUCABLE at least as far as the athlon64 X2 is concerned. Anand could and SHOULD provide us with this valuable insight!
I do not know whether I should bother answering to someone who posts like an intel PR representative....
Do you understand why Anand reviews have detailed CONFIGURATION data before the results???
Use your brain plz
PS Before you start ranting about the impossible exact same configuration of intel's test down to the HDD bla bla read the original post about the ballpark. And remember this is a HW enthusiasts site, there are lots of people around here who know what they are talking about....
Doom 3 test uses standard file (Demo1)
Far Cry uses standard maps
Battlefield 2 tests have been linked a few times (I created them; ask for a link if you can't be bothered to dig it up)
HL2 maps have been made available before; I don't know that anyone else has our current maps, though.
FEAR uses the built-in benchmark
DivX/Xvid encoding (Sum of All Fears Ch.9) can readily be found if you want
Winstones is used elsewhere and *could* be downloaded/puchased (it's no longer officially supported)
Sysmark is used elsewhere and can be downloaded/puchased
Worldbench is used elsewhere and can be downloaded/puchased
SpecViewPerf is publicly available
PCMark, 3DMark are publicly available
There are plenty of tests that can be corroborated. Do some of our tests use internal files? Sure - every site does that. Generally speaking, though, when configured with identical hardware our results are consistent with what's reported elsewhere. Let's not forget that most other results are just as proprietary as any of our results; that's the real problem.
Will you get into the trouble of producing numbers for the A64 X2 2.8 that would resemble intels's benchmark? At leats where this is possible. I think it would create lots of cretive buzz...
Maybe someone else at AnandTech can help out. If I can get my hands on an FX-60 and appropriate other hardware, I could give it a shot. The only test we can directly verify is FEAR, of course - the others used Intel demos, so we'd only be able to show scores for our demos on other games.
quote: Let's not forget that most other results are just as proprietary as any of our results; that's the real problem.
Thanks Jarred, I guess I could have explained myself better.
That's basically my point. Nobody's tests have been independently verified. If someone is going to throw out the testing that Anand did at IDF, then pretty much ALL testing Anand has ever done needs to be thrown out also.
I'm attempting to tell people that you can't pick and choose for arguments, there's too many smart people here to fall for that. Either Anand's testing is valid (I think it is), or it's not. Someone can't say that one day it's valid and anothr it's not just because it doesn't show the results they want it to.
No, this is wrong. What Jarred posted means that if you or I set up a rig with the same hardware as AT uses, normally an FX-57 and 2x512meg of DDR-400 2-2-2-? for game benchmarks we could get the EXACT SAME RESULTS AS THEM, within a reasonable margin of error, so long as you use the same testing files they did, which according to Jarred are freely available. Just because most other sites have slightly different test rigs by no means suggests AT's tests are not independently verifiable. To state otherwise calls into question AT's integrity as an information source.
I didn't see anything about fp specs. I don't care about games. My main processor hungry apps use a lot of floating point. I'm sure the new design will help, the question is how much. If it's 10% vs 40% for fp, it's not much use to me, except may be in the overclocking potential.
Seconding the poster above about some FPU informations.
And there i speak for myself : it's really about the FPU. Some commercial audio plugins (VST) may be SSE optimized, but one shouldn't take that for a given. So it's really the FPU that matters when looking for a audio synthesis oriented system, and near futur doesn't seem quite brillant for FPU heavy users :-(
If more articles come out of IDF, there might be a problem with AMD fanboys. The hospitals might be too busy to handle such many heart attacks. Come on, fanboys. It is just a chip. No matter what chip you use, thank you for continue upgrading your system. It helps to drive the US economy. I hope every body will upgrade to Conroe this year and then upgrade again next year when K8.5 or K9 comes out.
The difference between a slow P4 and a FX57 is less than the supposed difference between the 2.66ghz Conroe and the 2.8ghz A64. Until I see some official benches from reputable sites, I'm gonna be skeptical about Intel's new "benches"
IF the AMD system used such an old BIOS, then is it possible that the BIOS would not have enabled processor specific enhancements since it was written - SSE2 for example?
How do the benchmarks shown compare with other reviews online currently? Sure, they aren't directly comparable, and I would hope that Intel wouldn't cripple the competitor's board intentionally when their processor is so far ahead it wouldn't change the result in all likelyhood, but it would be an interesting comparison.
> You can't necessarily judge times for encoding as the files encoded were probably different. <
Anand should have noted it if the files were different and the results, therefore, were not comparable. I didn't see anything like that in this review.
The files were different, whenever benchmarks were identical to what we've run for our CPU reviews in the past I tried to mention as such. Otherwise you can't assume that the numbers are comparable to previous reviews using our own hardware.
I don't see how you could say that Intel has regained the speed crown when the product hasn't even shipped yet. Sure, you can say it is *poised* to regain the speed title, but doesn't the headline jump the gun a bit? I think so.
BTW, call me a AMD fanboi if you want, but there are reasons, despite pure speed or even bang-for-the-buck, that make me not want to buy Intel's chips: I *despise* their business practices. If the were to change their ways, as OCZ appears to have done, then I will reconsider, but not until then.
It hasn't been proven that Intel uses strong-arm tactics by the court of law. Until I get a statement from the court convicting Intel, I won't care what AMD has to say. Intel and AMD are both in it to make money, there's no way AMD is the innocent underdog they claim themselves to be.
Just because a company that is "in it to make money" does not make them unable to be declared "innocent". Instead, AMD tries to make money in order to better their shareholders, and all the while gives us wonderful parts in our PCs, helps the economy, creates jobs, and assists in international trade. It isn't either company's pursuit of capitalism and therefore profits that makes one good or evil, it's Intel's corruption of capitalism by denying fair competition that creates the problem.
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Both systems had a pair of Radeon X1900 XTs running in CrossFire and as far as we could tell, the drivers and the rest of the system setup was identical. They had a handful of benchmarks preloaded that we ran ourselves, the results of those benchmarks are on the following pages.
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Why does the AMD system's BIOS screen say "AMD Processor Model Unknown" and "(C) 1984-2003"? And what about "AwardBIOS v6.00PG"? Are they really running the AMD system with a BIOS that's so old that it predates the entire FX-series, and (IIRC) the entire Athlon 64 (K8) series?
And what does this "misconfiguration" mean for how the BIOS and OS configured the processor and system? Could that explain Intel's "superior" performance?
You have no idea what your talking about. I have just checked two Nforce 4 Athlon 64 systems, and guess what, they all have "AwardBIOS v6.00PG" The BIOS version is at the bottom of the POST page, not at the top - its not in that screenshot. So you dont know what bios version it was running.
I won't support their chips because they use strong arm tactics to keep out the competition and secondly because their R&D facility is in Israel and I refuse to support anything that comes out of that place.
And I agree with the agree'ers :) .... this was not only inappropriate, but majorly inaccurate. Intel has R&D in several locations, the design originated in Israel, but the chips on display were developed/manufactured and produced at Intel's largest (main) R&D site in Oregon.
I agree with dali71, and it's wonderful to see 5150Joker someone using such neutral and kind language as "that place". Of course I'm sure each and every Intel employee in Israel is personally responsible for all of the region's problems, and are not simply men and women trying to do the best they can earning a living in a dangerous situation, right 5150Joker?
Drivel? It's interesting information. It might turn out not to be accurate, but they're reporting what they do know for now.
That said, when I first heard about the archictectural changes for Conroe, I already knew that it would at the very least be as fast as K8. It'll be interesting for sure when actual products come out.
...I can't help but think apples are not being compared to apples. I don't suspect the benchmarks but rather the generational gaps in the processor architectures. I mean AMD has had the K8 out for many years and has continually tweaked and updated it, always keeping a general performance lead over the P4 netburst, especially in dual-core and especially since Intel took the netburst and made the pipeline longer. Netburst v K8 fair match I would say - architectures of the same period in time.
So AMD have showed innovation. And now, so have Intel, as they should - considering the resources and the time it took to get to Conroe! AMD might have AM2 K8's lined up, and its clear that they probably won't compare with Conroe - but AMD have been supplying samples of the AM2 chips for months now, so in comparison with Intels "Conroe - in sixth months" its still an old K8 architecture.
Congratulations Intel for finally achieving what I think they should of along time ago. Time will tell what further innovation AMD will counter with.
I am an AMD fan. Only my 1st PC (1997) was a pentium II and ever since all my systems were AMD, as well as 99% of the systems I build for my friends. I'm upgrading my system right now from 3200+ to an X2 4400+.
Stil I can be glad for this news. If AMD can counter this by AM2 then it's all OK. If not, then they will have to work harder on K9/K10 and when that comes out we will have even better chips. But if AMD will have nothing for a while I can still be happy cuz my next upgrade will be much cheaper. That's all AMD will be able to do. Reduce some more.
So let's see:
1. Intel has a GREAT CPU - hip hip hip hurah???!!!
2. Maybe AMD has something as great in AM2 - hip Hurah!!!!
3. Maybe AMD has nothing in AM2 so has to lower prices on curent chips to compete. I can get a better chip (then what I have) for less - hip hip Hurah!!!!
3. AMD has to work to get something better out to compete in the future so we will have even better chips than this great Conroe sometime in the future - HIP HIP HURAH!!!!!!!!
Do you upgrade because there's something faster out there, or because you need something faster? Let's see:
Short term:
See even if Intel might be better, when I upgrade my AMD system I will still get more performance than what I had. It's the same performance I would have got even if the new Intel was crap. But I might get it cheaper since AMD might lower prices to compete.
Long term:
AMD has to make an even better CPU to stay in the market - I will have a great time using that performance.
Intel keeps the performance crown over the next years - I will be able to jump platform once upgrading is necesary but stiking to AMD gives me nothing more, and have a great time using that performance.
In the end I will be much better because of Intells and AMD's fight to a better CPU.
I knew there was gonna be a change in performance leader when Conroe came out.
However, i honestly didn't expect it to quite this big.
Very impressive i must say.
I will reserve final judgement for when both AM2 & Conroe are actually out, but it appears i might just be jumping on the Conroe bandwagon later this year!
Clovertown and Woodcrest use the same socket type (i.e. socket J) and they are pin compatible. As long as a given board's VRM is designed to support both processors and a suitable BIOS is available, then I don't see why it can't be done.
Just wondering if Apple has any sort of presence at IDF?
I know they are waiting for something better than the P4 from intel before they migrate the Power Mac line over from PPC, Conroes seems like it will fit the bill nicely.
Also, will conroe have 64-bit addressing? I didn't see anything stated on the slides you put up.
The real question is can Conroe be put in multiple socket configurations? Thats what matters for the Power Mac/Mac Pro (whatever its called). Apple has their "Quad" configuration, and unless they plan on decreasing the amount of power available on the high end, they might need to dip in the Woodcrest pool in order to provide the same amount of threads and horsepower that is currently available. I'd even venture to say that its not out of the picture for Apple to use quad core chips come this December in a 2S configuration for eight cores in a high end power mac.
Apple will most likely use Conroe in the Power Mac replacement this fall. Conroe, Merom and Woodcrest are all 64-bit processors. I'll be able to talk more about the architecture tomorrow.
that is just about all amd will be able to ship in september when conroe comes out, as thats basically the top speed their architecture is doing maybe 3.0 ghz next year.
amd's roadmaps dont show a 65nm transition until 2007 anyway.
face it the conroe is agood chip. everyone knew it would be. it uses a lot of good tech, micro-ops fusion, share l2 caches, etc.
not to mention this isnt even the best one as the 2.93 ghz /1333 bus EE one with 4mb instead of 2mb cache would be likely even faster. also
to the ones who said it'll be gpu limited, by the time these cards are out, another generation of gpus will probably be ready anyway since the 7900gt/gtx is just a shrink and 1900xt is also not a major change from 1800xt. we could see a chip based on the xbox360gpu and a futher evolution of the nvidia architecture by then.
Even cutting the performance advantage in half would still be a tremendous improvement.
What makes me wonder is why is Intel still 6 months away from production? If I were them, I'd get them out in July or August, instead of September or October.
They may, remember Yonah shipped six months early.
Intel also likes to have lots of product in the pipeline when something is launched. All the board people and system makers have to be ready. That's why you can buy a Dell ot HP system on the day Intel launches a chip.
I'll bet you that right now Conroe in being manufactuered on production lines.
Well thats what I'm thinking - I kinda expect Merom and Conroe in time for WWDC in early August (pushed back from its usual July timeframe). The fact that it was pushed back a month makes me a little suspicious on that Apple is waiting for Intel to annouce and ship the parts.
At the resolution and settings level they tested most games (ex., FEAR), the game is GPU-limited, not CPU-limited. In other words, if the graphics card, chipset and driver really were matched, the game would perform at exactly the same speed, and the difference would be in the CPU load (a faster CPU would show a lower load, because it would spend more time waiting for the GPU to finish rendering each frame). I have a feeling the drivers had some strategic "tweaks"...
Also, bear in mind that a 20% performance increase is to be _expected_ from a product to be released four months from now (in other words, it's simply following Moore's law).
But anyway, if you trust benchmark results coming from Intel (or AMD), you might as well believe Apple's marketing. I'll wait for the real product, and independent testing, thank you very much. I still remember Intel's claims about the original Pentium 4 (3 times faster than the Pentium III, they said) and Prescott (a.k.a. Pres-hot!), not to mention the Itanium, the Paxville Xeons, etc., etc., etc....
Your inability to grasp what being GPU limited means or when it occurs astounds me. an example of GPU limited would be you're running FEAR at 1600x1200 on an ati 9600. In this example, any cpu (that doesn't suck horribly) would give roughly equally bad scores.
If the CPU is changed and the score changes, that itself shows that a task is not GPU limited.
We were limited to 1280 x 1024 because of the LCDs we were testing on, but a dual X1900 XT setup isn't going to be GPU limited at 1280 x 1024.
As I posted above:
"As far as I could tell, there was nothing fishy going on with the benchmarks or the install. Both systems were clean and used the latest versions of all of the drivers (the ATI graphics driver was modified to recognize the Conroe CPU but that driver was loaded on both AMD and Intel systems).
Intel told us to expect an average performance advantage of around 20% across all benchmarks, some will obviously be higher and some will be lower. Honestly it doesn't make sense for Intel to rig anything here since we'll be able to test it ourselves in a handful of months. I won't say it's impossible as anything can happen, but I couldn't find anything suspicious about the setups. "
Use your head, if it was GPU limited, there would not be a performance increase between the systems with a different cpu. The vid card would cap the frame rates.
BTW, do you really think a x1900 crossfire system is GPU limited at 1280x1024?
You should read his post more carefully. What he is saying is, that because F.E.A.R. is GPU-limited these results cannot be correct, because there should be no performance increase. I do however agree that it probably isn't GPU-limited at that resolution.
Unless your monitor happens to support a refresh rate of 532 Hz, it would be kind of useless. Not to mention that your eyes can't really tell the difference for anything above 120 fps or so (that's one of the reasons why no monitor bothers with refresh rates higher than that).
Please cut the 'our eyes can't see more than <insert pointless number here>' bs. You have no concrete fact to prove it. Let me give you some: some games play smooth at 30fps but as they drop below 25, gameplay gets hindered.
And please provide a link to the Hz:FPS ratio/link.
Having 500fps in a game with a processor and 300 with another clearly shows there is more room ahead for the 500fps processor even if you can't enjoy all of them.
See wht happens when Intel actually has to produce a good CPU?
I'm no Intel fanboy, I go for what fits my budget. Of course, I can afford neither an A64 or a Conroe, but hopefully this will drive other CPU prices down on both sides.
looking @ those benchmarks i would have to say i'm pretty amazed by it. AMd might get 10% closer with AM2.... but i think they'll have a problem with there K8 like it is now. Well i think we are back in the days of northwood(800) vs XP. maybe a bit worse for amd, but we have to wait for 6 months to say that.
WOW, Awesome performance. Can't wait to see the real reviews against the then current competition.
PS: Please fix the average framerate graph for FEAR, last I checked average framerate was not usually 3x the maximum (or reverse the titles of the graphs or something).
I'm sure the AMD cult and Intel naysayers will try to find something wrong with this initial impression of Conroe's performance, but for the time being it's nice to see the 800 pound gorilla "wake up" again.
I'm an Intel fan and I see stuff wrong with these benchmarks. Its just a litle bit of a stretch to see that much improvement on benchmarks set up by Intel and not suspect something fishy is going on.
Here's the part you're not getting - this is an entirely new generation of CPU. Think of when AMD when from K7 to K8 - they had significant performace increases. If AMD could do it, I would expect that with the resources Intel has available, they could do it also.
Actually, the first K8s were slower than the high-end K7s. Just at the first P4s were slower than the top PIIIs, and so on. Every new generation is introduced at a speed slightly below the previous one. I suspect independent benchmarks of real, shipping CPUs will show a similar story. This is marketing, people, what did you expect Intel to show? Benchmarks where they lose?
quote: Please detail for us how a shipping CPU could be around half the speed of the one Anand just tested himself.
They weren't running Anand's benchmarks!!!!!! Like the other poster said, why in the hell would Intel show themselves in an unfavorable light? And where are the other benchmarks?
As Anand said himself (you did read the article, right?) there's only so much that could be done. You're not going to get 40, 50 percent improvemnts tweaking a game.
I'm loving watching the AMD fanboys blowing an artery!
What is it with you? You call everyone else a fanboy when YOU are the absolute worst of them all. Get a life and actually add some good to the community for once. No wonder almost ALL of your replys are -1's. Because you add NOTHING for the better. Its always a stupid fanboy reply. I can't understand you fanboys in the least. You are one of the many fanboys that should be banned from posting. Please add something good for once.
Okay, here's something good; I do sincerely hope you will take the advice.
You are the one that should look into getting a life if some anonymous person on the internet has this kind of an effect on you. If anything I write causes you any emotional response other than the occasional smile, then I really think you should go out with your friends and get some stress relief in the real world.
I was honestly hoping you would see that you Should try alittle harder to resist fanboyism. I see my attempt was futile. You well know I was right in what I said in my earlier post. But you are right, I should have just let you be. I will just leave it at that. Alot of these post reap of nothing but desperate fanboyism on both sides anyways. Off to the forums I go.
I am not an AMD or Intel fanboy. I am simply a fan of competition. Competition is good for everyone. It lowers prices , and forces the competition to create better products. AMD fanboy's should all be rejoicing, even if they hate Intel. This is good for the consumer.
As far as I could tell, there was nothing fishy going on with the benchmarks or the install. Both systems were clean and used the latest versions of all of the drivers (the ATI graphics driver was modified to recognize the Conroe CPU but that driver was loaded on both AMD and Intel systems).
Intel told us to expect an average performance advantage of around 20% across all benchmarks, some will obviously be higher and some will be lower. Honestly it doesn't make sense for Intel to rig anything here since we'll be able to test it ourselves in a handful of months. I won't say it's impossible as anything can happen, but I couldn't find anything suspicious about the setups.
Actually it would make a lot of sense for them to rig a demo and get a credible site like yours to report it when you consider the recent market share figures. They can make up any claim they want later on to explain lower performance than what you saw today(bad yields resulting in a disabled part of the core or lower clock speeds). All will be forgotten in six months anyways except for the hardcore fanboys, and they have thier minds made up regardless of this article.
If this gets a few people to say "Wait until the new Intel chips arrive" it was well worth the potential backlash. I am NOT saying Intel cheated here, but I find the gains demonstrated to be very questionable. I'd be curious about if the games you benched are actually CPU bound in the first place, the gains seem too great to be simply CPU. Those tweaked graphics drivers could just as easily disable a couple pipelines when put on an AMD system. Why do they need to be tweaked to 'recognize' Conroe in the first place?
Just some thoughts. I'm not making any accusations, I'm just bringing up a few questions that hit me...
If done properly, 33% wider execution plus a better tuned core/architecture can easily account for the gains. There's no reason to really expect that these results are rigged. I mean, does anyone here honestly think that Intel made a goal of matching AMD's performance? Of course they're going to try and surpass them by a decent margin, and given enough engineers (Intel has that), time (Intel had that), money (yup).... This is pretty much what I expected to happen, give or take 5%.
As someone else pointed out, Dothan and Yonah scores very well clock-for-clock against K8, and this is a better tuned, more powerful architecture. (Bleh... "Core"... NetBurst was better IMO as a name.) Yonah plus better SSE plus higher clockspeeds plus wider execution = Conroe. What did you think would happen?
This is not to say AMD can't close the gap, and who knows whether or not there are special Core optimizations in any of the applications. That said, Intel has always been way ahead in terms of getting out better compilers and optimizations.
Was there no way to make the Media Player 9 encode more apples to apples with previous reviews? It was interesting to note that the previous review (FX60) had the WM9 in FPS, not encode time. Makes it tough to even compar vs a prior review.
Wow, this is simply amazing. I honestly was not expecting such performance. Granted, we have to wait until we see a full suite of benchmarks (not done by Intel) before we come to conclusions, but this is amazing. I sure hope AMD has something up their sleeves for AM2, or we may be left waiting for something better (K9).
Period my ass. You have the nerve to talk about AMD fanboi's? None of us really knows what AMD is up to nor do we have unbiased benchmarks from a reliable source to really make good judgements from. I say wait until Conroe AND socket AM2 appears in our hands before we decide who is the new king.
I'd say the evidence is enough to support 'Wait For Release and Reviews' rather than 'Bah, sod Intel' which has been the path for upgrading the past couple of years because Intel's been lost in the wilderness. However right now Conroe looks like a beast!
AMD might gain at high clock speeds with DDR2-800, for applications where memory bandwidth is beneficial, especially if multithreaded.
When Anandtech reviews dual-core, it'd be interesting if they did scaling tests to see if DDR2 helps the X2 at high speeds compared with DDR1.
You sure sound like you get a free conroe soon. Doesnt take idiots like you to convince me that Intel could very well be the better choice very soon. It's previews like this that does the trick not your fanboi comments that we had to read even before anyone had any clues as to what Intel may come up with.
K8L could ship this year. It wouldnt surprise me to see AMD push the K8L out to all segments intead of just the server segment if they are in fact that far behind Intel's Conroe on the desktop.
looks like intel put a bit more into conroe than just making a faster Pentuim M, hopefully AMD has something up there sleeves to combat this. Had a feeling intel wouldn't sit back another generation. but one thing to keep in mind is the 2.8ghz part was only running with ddr400 I'm woundering what the performance picture would look like with that A64 running the ram at ddr600 type speeds.
Oh yes I do, I'll still give you a warm fuck you, because you're a fanboy and meanwhile I have no problem to admit that I will buy an intel based machine when my next upgrade is due in 2007 - if AMD doesnt have anything better.
Any news about the price of this thing? If it is priced properly, I mean, if it is not 40% more money for 20% more performance, then I'd say WOW. If it is about the same prices we have today, then it'd be some massive kick on AMD a**...
4 speed grades will be offered at launch so I'm sure there will be something that is priced low enough for most of us. I wonder how much of a performance hit the 2MB L2 parts will have, though, since I was those will be the more affordable ones.
I don't know why anyone is finding this surprising. Haven't you all seen OCed Pentium M benchmarks? In many tasks a Pentium M is 10-20% faster than a comparably clocked A64. So now that we basicly have an optimized, die shunk Pentium M on the desktop that runs at comparable clock speeds to an A64, why is anyone surprised that performance is ~20% better on average?
Yes, the performance is impressive. Yes, its disappointing in some ways to see Intel on top given all the success of the underdog AMD lately. But no, I am not surprised in anyway by these results. Perhaps there are inequalities in the benchmarks, perhaps not, but anyone who didn't see this coming wasn't being realistic.
Actually, it is not at all surprising given the fact that Socket AM2 is merely a socket change for the moment. Other than DDR2 support, virtualization, and some other things that I don't know about, AMD officially announced that there will not be much initial performance gains. Hence the fact that with the exception of the Athlon 64 5000+, all releases of the AM2 CPU will match the speeds of the S939 Athlons.
There probably will not be any increases in speeds until AMD switches over to the 65nm process. While it is disappointing that AMD is not releasing a next generation CPU to compete with Intel this year, this is a transistional year for AMD. While it is possible to release a 65nm next generation CPU in a new socket, it is also prone to become a potential bust if the process does not go smoothly. Using the 65nm process and Socket AM2 on a current product is a smart move because it is already a stable product so less can go wrong.
A company can't always be on top of their game. It's always a leap frog race where the competition is always trying to get ahead of the other. Look at what's going on between ATI and nVidia, granted GPUs do have shorter product cycles than CPUs. Anyone, who expects AMD to remain on top of Intel and release new products at the same time does not truly understand the concept of competition in conjunction with research and developement.
We are still comparing Intels NEW core to AMDs old core. Its like ATI pitting their 1900XT against the 7800s. A new card against a card thats been out for awhile (in the computer world and the way new tech comes out, its been awhile). I could care less who wins as more competition is always better for US, the consumers. I just want to see a new core against a new core. We can only hope AMD designs a new core so we can all have this awesome new tech from Intel/AMD at even cheaper prices. If AMD doesnt catch up to conroe then you will see me setting up an Intel rig! Long live competition!
Pentium Pro/II/III were known as 686's, hence there use of the codenamed "P6" bus.
The AMD Athlon/XP were known as 786's, hence there use of the codename "K7".
Intel Pentium IV/D were known as 786's, as they came after the P6 processors effectively making them 786 generation.
The AMD Athlon64 is known as the K8..that's right 886.
So Conroe and the K8 are both 8th generation designs. What does this mean?
Means it's comparing two chips from the same generation ;) When you do that, you will notice that Intel is always ahead of AMD... and always has been. Unlike the 6month cycle we see in Graphics cards.. CPU's are milked much longer.
At last, someone who hase good overwiev and good memory. I absolutely agree with you man. No more gap or excuses, that AMD doesn't have a new CPU on a market. It is not truth. AMD had jumped over Intel's generation CPUs, when they released K7 (Athlon) CPU. But These Athlons were competeing with an "old" generation of P III until P 4 had finally arrived. And for that period of time the generation race was equal, bud AMD needed a new generation to overrun Intel's solution (as always). And K8 was born. But in our midst, it is nothing more than Athlon XP with on-die memory controler and slightly improved integer operations plus 64bit execution capability in the main. After this K8 line there were again not equal condition. And no one was complaining at all. And now when Intel is about to releas its 8. generation of CPUs to really show us, how 8. generation has to look like, there are many people complaining, that it is not equal. Craps!! It is equal 8. gen from Intel versus 8. gen from AMD. And we will see who is better in designing CPUs. I believe Intel is. They have always been. Will really AMD need an 9. generation to compete with Intels 8. gen???? (as always)
At last, someone who hase good overwiev and good memory. I absolutely agree with you man. No more gap or excuses, that AMD doesn't have a new CPU on a market. It is not truth. AMD had jumped over Intel's generation CPUs, when they released K7 (Athlon) CPU. But These Athlons were competeing with an "old" generation of P III until P 4 had finally arrived. And for that period of time the generation race was equal, bud AMD needed a new generation to overrun Intel's solution (as always). And K8 was born. But in our midst, it is nothing more than Athlon XP with on-die memory controler and slightly improved integer operations plus 64bit execution capability in the main. After this K8 line there were again not equal condition. And no one was complaining at all. And now when Intel is about to releas its 8. generation of CPUs to really show us, how 8. generation has to look like, there are many people complaining, that it is not equal. Craps!! It is equal 8. gen from Intel versus 8. gen from AMD. And we will see who is better in designing CPUs. I believe Intel is. They have always been. Will really AMD need an 9. generation to compete with Intels 8. gen???? (as always)
You compare what's currently out to what currently out, it doesn't matter that much what generation it's from, they will be competitors for the meantime.
Conroe is likely engaging Socket AM2 DDR2 Athlon 64x2's at up to 2.8GHZ initially, so that's what AMD is gonna battle with for the time being at Conroe introduction.
In any case, no matter how you look at it, AM2 by itself isn't going to help AMD that much. We all know that the K8 isn't bandwidth starved. AM2 gives us DDR2 and... more bandwidth.
yeah I know they dont have a new core out. I said if Intel is still king when its time to upgrade you will see me building an Intel rig. Im just saying it would be nice to compare both companies new cores *if* AMD had a new one. Thats when you will really see who is better at designing and building, thats all! It would be nice if Intel can make Conroe even faster by the time it launches!
Here we are 9 years later in 2015. Intel took the performance crown and kept it. Today, we're not sure if AMD will be around in the form we know in 1 to 2 years.
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220 Comments
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MrKaz - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Why Ati drivers where modified to recognize the Conroe processor?What was the problem if the processor didn’t get recognized?
I mean if the FX60 could say Unknown Processor and have no problems, (my mobile 2600+ says the same and runs OK).
What problem would have come from the drivers by not recognizing the processor?
Some drivers optimizations there? Like NVIDIA/ATI?
rodrigorras - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
The real big question here is why Intel is showing your own benchmark...In My opinion if conroe is a mega boost from P4 and AMD64, why intel did not gave it to anand and let anand configure it and benchmarked on your own way.
(optimized drivers for Conroe...it's just not fair comparison, next time try with AMD64 optimized drivers)
Think about...Theses numbers are just fake...if they were true imagine how many sites would been receving engeneering samples...!!!
Always remenber that Intel is a marketing Fud Master...
Bye!
Rodrigo Rios
rodrigorras - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Of course remenber that new Games even with low resolution the bottleneck is videocard and not CPU...So do not expect 40% boost of frames only with a cpu upgrade...
let's be logical
ProperMethodz - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
http://www.7hmgaming.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37...">http://www.7hmgaming.com/forum/showthread.php?t=37...JarredWalton - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
"For instance, Tomshardware ran a benchmark on the FX-57 where it was pulling 183.4 FPS in UT2k4 on an NVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT and the AnandTech review the FX-60 was only pulling 160 FPS. These numbers by Tom are almost a year old. This means some serious fishy shit is going on."Different cards, different systems, different maps. Some levels in HL2 score 80-100 FPS on high-end machines, and other levels score 160+ FPS. 160 FPS on one level means nothing other than that level isn't particularly complex.
vdhd - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Hi guys, I just read through all the comments and I would like to make a few of my own.1) I have no doubt Conroe will be a good processor when it eventually comes out.
2) This isn't about Anand vs Rahul, both of us will tell you that we need to see the platforms in house to give the real benchmarks. Perhaps passing the crown over to Intel is a bit premature at the moment (6 months premature), but we'll see how it plays out down the road.
3) Anand is one of the most respected journalists in our industry, and I hold him in the highest regard. Anyone suggesting that I am calling him out needs to read my blog again.
4) To the guy who is suggesting to sue Anandtech based on his writing - get a grip, please. I suspect AMD will post another mind blowing quarter, short term thinking gets you nowhere in this business.
5) Lastly, I made it clear on Dailytech as well - Voodoo sells both AMD and Intel. Around 80% of our notebooks go out with Intel processors. As far as workstations and desktops go, we'd be doing our customers a dis-service by making poor recommendations. In fact if we had to choose Intel for our desktops currently we prefer the Pentium M for over the Pentium 4.
6) I have also been accused of being biased towards Nvidia (many many times). If you've read my battles with ATi over the years you'd know that I am only telling it from the inside. When you are dealing with these companies it's completely different from what you all see on the outside.
I am biased towards great technology no doubt, that's why we were first in line to launch Crossfire on RD580 - I love it! I am also looking forward to Nvidia's upcoming launch, but that doesn't take away any positive feelings towards ATi at the moment.
Thanks, I hope that clears some things up.
Rahul Sood
http://www.rahulsood.com">www.rahulsood.comwww.rahulsood.com
MiLLeRBoY - Friday, March 10, 2006 - link
Rahul, you fool. I found your blog post from Tom's Hardware's forum. You posted detailed analysis of the BIOS issue, but then Anandtech posted updated results for the new BIOS and the results didn't change much. lol.I found your blog from here: http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/funeral-AM...">http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware...MDftopic...
Here is a direct link to your post: http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03/if-only-they-...">http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03/if-only-they-...
Delete that blog post, lol. It makes you look ridiculous.
JarredWalton - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
Welcome, Rahul!Well, this is certainly a big can of worms that has been opened, but looking at it objectively, I would have to say that "faking" anything more than a 5-10% performance loss (on the AMD system) is going to be very difficult. While I would say there's potential for Intel to also fake a 5-10% performance boost for Conroe, that would be very unlikely at this point. If the RD480 chipset isn't the best chipset in the world, what about 975X running Conroe six months before launch.
I would say the biggest issue is with the early declaration of victory, but really we're talking about minor semantics. Intel will almost certainly regain the performance crown with Conroe; I'd be absolutely shocked if they didn't. Really, I'm a bit surprised it even took this long. Until Conroe launches, of course, they don't actually have the lead. :)
IDF is always about what Intel has planned for the future, and right now their future is looking good. What have they shown in the recent past? Super cooled CPUs running at 5 GHz that they didn't really benchmark much. For them to step out and demonstrate a Conroe 2.66 GHz chip against an *overclocked* FX-60 just OOZES confidence. Letting anyone (let alone Anand) play with the system and publish results? That's not typically what you do if you're trying to hide something. If they wanted to hide stuff, they'd be showing slides of performance numbers, and they'd have super-cooled Conroe chips running as fast as possible to come out on top. Pitting an air-cooled CPU against an FX-60 just doesn't smack of difficulties at all.
What's going to be far more difficult is selling us all on the need for quad-core processors come 2007. Dual-core? Sure, that's reasonable, since people will often do two tasks at the same time. Beyond two cores it gets difficult to see home-desktop uses for more processing power. Oh, sure, I'll be glad to see WMV9, DivX, etc. encoding speeds increase substantially, but I really don't do any of those tasks all *that* often. (And GPU acceleration can probably do it a lot faster anywat.)
Oh, one last question: six months? Where did that come from? That puts Conroe launch in September; I thought Conroe was coming in July, which would make it more like 4 months. Did Intel push Conroe back and I missed it? :(
Frumious1 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
This is in response to http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03/if-only-they-...">Rahul Sood's rantThe BIOS chip used is programmable, so 6.00PG is simply the revision of the chip being used. The question is *how* the chip was programmed, and the screen shots don't show. I'm not sure what Rahul and others are going on about, but I've got a DFI RDX200. It runs fine, even with the old BIOS. Where did he find out that "the DFI bios version 'D49C-32' they are running is from 10/11/05" - I don't see that posted anywhere, but maybe I missed it? Anyway, I'll be happy to try and run some benchmarks with the old and new DFI BIOS if I can manage to get $1000 worth of GPUs. (Damn, I knew there was some reason I couldn't generate similar results!)
There are only http://labs.anandtech.com/products.php?sfilter=400">five other CrossFire boards currently available, and arguably the DFI RDX200 is the most enthusiast friendly. http://labs.anandtech.com/products.php?sfilter=460">RD580 boards are starting to show up, but you can't reasonably blame Intel for not having an ASUS A8R32-MVP in the system, since it just showed up within the past three days.
So, the motherboard choice wasn't an intended slight. How about the BIOS version? I've got an Opteron 146 in my DFI board, overclocked to 2.8 GHz. I don't have X1900 cards to benchmark in it, but the differences between the 10/11 and 12/15 BIOS revisions was incredibly small. Hey - the CPU was at 2-2-2-5-1T timings instead of 2-2-2-8-1T, and perhaps 8 tRAS is better as well? The difference between minor memory tweaks is never more than a couple percent for the same timings.
An "unknown" CPU is also rarely a problem; all that means is the BIOS doesn't specifically know the model name. Hmmm - what's the model name for a 2.8 GHz FS dual core chip again? I don't know it either, though I suspect it will be FX-62. Cool 'n Quiet set to disabled by default? Well, unless CnQ is malfunctioning, the CPU will run at full speed in stress situations. Besides, Intel may have set it to disabled manually - after all, they almost certainly set the memory timings manually!
All told, I've seen nothing in any of the critiques that amount to a serious indictment of the results. Best case, the AMD FX-62 system might have been 5% faster with an appropriate BIOS and a few other tweaks. 5% is NOTHING! I repeat: NOTHING! Start a stopwatch and then count to 60 in your head without looking at any clocks. See if you can come within 3 seconds of the real time. In contrast, see if you can come within 15 seconds of the real time, because that's about where Conroe will be in all likelihood.
Let's also not forget that many of the AMD supporters (VoodooPC among them) have a lot to lose if Intel suddenly takes the lead again. They have to worry about sales between now and Conroe launch, they have to worry about new products, they have to start working with someone they snubbed for a couple years (Intel), etc.
Whom should I trust more: Anand that runs a website that caters to the enthusiast - a site that has been continually recommending AMD processors over Intel for the past two years! - when he says that Conroe appears poised to trounce anything AMD will have for the next nine months at least... or the word of a man that *wasn't* there to benchmark the system, sells 4 Intel desktop setups (vs. 16 AMD configurations - and 1 Intel laptop vs. 3 AMD laptops), and he stands to profit or be hurt by what enthusiast sites might say about an upcoming CPU transition?
Personally, I'll just wait and see what happens when everything finally ships. My bet is that Anand gets proven right (again), and Intel comes out on top (after their 3 year fall from grace). And if Intel manages to launch that Extreme Edition at anything near 3.0 GHz, AMD is pretty much screwed in terms of being "performance champion" until they get 65 nm chips shipping en masse. Even then, I'm not sure they can close the gap without a new architecture. After all, K8 is just K7 with 64-bits (who cares?), SSE1/2, and an integrated memory controller; great performance but it's certainly not a revolutionary design.
DSaum - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
If Rahul Sood's http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/">http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/ is a true account of the errors in the Anandtech Conroe/AMD review then Anadtech should be prepared for a lawsuit by AMD shareholders like me who lost value as a result. It appears that Anadtech is either incompetent or malicious.raskren - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Get a grip.Nighteye2 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
You'd have more chance sueing Intel for that. Anandtech could easily have been honestly misled, with no ill intent. Sue the one who sents the message, not the messenger.peternelson - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Well this article has precipitated quite a lot of AMD vs Intel debate.
However my comment is about the MOTHERBOARDS for Conroe.
You say the test was done on "AN Intel 975X motherboard".
You might have been more specific as to the motherboard model. ie was it one of those "BAD AXE" 975X motherboards you recently reviewed (with a bios update) or some other yet to be released Intel board - (the so-called "platform refresh")?
Since Conroe exists now and specs are being talked about at IDF, can you establish PRECISELY what voltage specification it requires from the motherboard? There has been much confusion about this on the web and no definitive statement.
It seems to me the up to date VRM (module) or VRD (on mobo regulation) spec is VRD 10.1
Can you establish from Intel that a board complying with VRD 10.1 is sufficient for Conroe requirements or establish very precisely what it may need IN ADDITION to VRD10.1.
Now, having said that, you have reviewed FOUR 975X boards. Can we say if any or all of these may be legitimately described as "Conroe ready"? Maybe ask if they are designed to VRD 10.1?
Also I thought you were going to review more 975X based boards - eg what about MSI, ECS, DFI?
If purchasing an expensive motherboard I would like it to be at least a slightly medium term investment, so being able to take the next cpus is an important influencing factor. Since the 975X chipset will support conroe, it would be a shame if the motherboard didn't. Therefore please can you tell us (from Intel at IDF or the mobo makers at CEBIT) which CURRENT boards will work with Conroe?
Finally as a general point on the 975X reviews... There were repeated comments that they did not include Firewire 800 as being a big error! I disagree!
I would certainly value the second Gigabit ethernet port, but firewire B? Unnecessary. The chipsets are more expensive and look at the adoption - some macs and little else uses it. Firewire 400 is ubiquitous because of iLink DV Camcorders. But the 800 speed is now obsolete! Why? Because of SATA and ESATA. ESATA 300 blows away firewire 800 in performance. Someone who needs high disk bandwidth will use SATA/SATA2/ESATA, SCSI or SAS. USB disks suffer from excessive overhead and simplex comms, firewire suffers arbitration penalties when you go above one drive. SATA is by far the preferred technology to any serious users, and ESATA offers a way to make it external and portable. Don't criticise motherboard manufacturers for leaving out the Firewire 800. It seems they all think alike on this matter, so they must think like me.
2803 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
So if I go get last years top AMD board...set it up to be slow as possible and then take an Intel processor that won't be out for 6 months and compare the two...can I get paid to post the results on here too.I hope some sues your pants off for false statements resulting in share holder losses.
Clauzii - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
On my old AsRock AK7S41, if I drive the FSB higher than around 148, the machine boots saying it´s a XP2700 Unknown.For the driver issue: I won´t complain if rewriting the ATI (or nVidia) drivers for stuff - I´d raise my hands and say thank´s, that´s what I paid for (performance, stability, support etc.).
I´m in no doubt confident that AMD will comming up with their stuff in due time, and keeping talking about CPUs as some kind of war going on is utterly nonsens to me. It´s not a war but progress/evolution/engineering/refinement that goes on and on and on and on...
And just like tidal waters things keep changing. But roughly 200 posts on a thing that´s not gonna be out in 6 months - I´m wasting my time here....
(AMD user since 2002)
EnergyWatcher - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
From http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/">http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/...
First of all, though it’s claimed that you’re running an FX-60 processor on the machine, I have yet to see an established motherboard and processor with an image that says "processor unknown".
You’ll notice that the image I am referring to on Anandtech's website states that the AMD processor is “unknown” which makes me believe that the bios they are running is outdated. So, I did a bit of digging and low and behold, the DFI bios version “D49C-32” they are running is from 10/11/05. There has been 1 major revision with major fixes that include:
Set Cool 'n' Quiet Default to Disabled
- With Cool & Quiet enabled, AMD processors will throttle in order to save power and bring their thermal load down. This means the processor could be running as low as 800MHz in certain programs – no matter what the program is. In theory Cool & Quiet is supposed to throttle up to maximum in games but this is not always the case. No enthusiast PC goes out with Cool & Quiet enabled unless it’s a fanless machine or media center.
Add Support for AMD Athlon 64 FX60 CPU
- According to DFI the FX-60 will not operate correctly without this bios update. Without official support for the FX-60 CPU I’m not sure what we’re comparing against here.
Fix Memory Timings 2-1-1-1-1 and 4-1-1 Mode Wrong & Fix Read Preamble Table Error.
- Memory latency can make a massive difference in performance. If the latency was not running at the correct latency we can see a pretty big difference in all kinds of performance. Anandtech stated “The AMD system used 1GB of DDR400 running at 2-2-2/1T timings…” Apparently this isn’t the case, but they would not be able to tell without having the platform in house.
Fix Fill 3114 SVID&SSID under Cross fire mode.
- More apparent performance issues under Crossfire mode.
Next, when you take a future Intel chipset and compare it to a chipset that no enthusiast supports (RD480) with an outdated bios it’s like taking a Ferrari and putting it on Bias-Ply tires. It’s just not a good way to show off a “new” technology.
...
So now a few numbers caught my attention based on another email I received last night.
If we go and check out the numbers on Anandtech we’ll see the Unreal Tournament 2004 benchmark showing 160fps on the unknown AMD X2 processor while the Intel Conroe at 2.66GHz came in significantly higher at 191fps.
Though this isn’t exactly conclusive, if you go back and re-read some old FX-57 reviews on Tom’s Hardware you’ll see a benchmark for the same game set at the same resolution, the FX-57 running at 2.8GHz scored 183.4fps. The funny thing is it’s using an Nvidia Geforce 6800 GT which seems to me that something is totally wrong here - perhaps it's somewhere locked in the settings, but I won't know until I sit down and compare our own benchmarks with consistant settings. Note that a single core Athlon 64 4000 achieved a better score in the benchmark run by Tom (160.5fps) than the one provided by Intel (160.4) at IDF. Here is a link to Tom’s review. http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/06/27/athlon_64_f...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/06/27/athlon_64_f...
...
finalfan - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
BY the way, you can take a look at http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2540...">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2540... which shows FX55 running on a ATI X800XT. For the same game, at same resolution, it only scored 67.3 while 6800 scored 66.8. Of course, 6800GT perform better than 6800, but it won't make me to believe that a FX57 and 6800GT can score 183 if the same demo is used.Based on the fact, the demo toms used is no way the same as Intel used.
finalfan - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Good catch. But a small line under Unreal Tournament says it's using THG demo. S they are not the same demo.Nighteye2 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Intel preparing the overclocked AMD system, as well as the benchmark programs...They may have done a nice job on making it look like nothing's been tampered with, but for the moment I remain skeptical.
Let's all just wait and see Conroe's true performance, after it hits the market.
flyck - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/">the cripplingdoes not change the fact that conroe is an impressive cpu. can't wait to see what it does against AM2 in 6 months
Mithan - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I am an AMD Fanboy. This article is false and a great marketing conspiracy from Intel.There is no conceivable way that Intel could ever be faster than AMD, ever again, period.
Also, Intel is evil and we need to make them go bankrupt so only AMD (the force of good) can reign supreme!
Did I do a good job summing up the AMD argument? ;)
Anyways, nice benchmarks but no surprise. We all expected Intel would regain the performance crown eventually, just we all expect that sometime in the future (probably 2008), AMD will probably leapfrog them again.
This is competition and how it should be anyways.
dysonlu - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Wake me up when that "beast" is actually available AND reasonably priced and unanymously crowned as king of the hill.Until then... it isn't worth sh*t.
damnhao - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
...that in the first page it said "Athlon 64 FX-60 overclocked to 2.8GHz running on a DFI RD480 motherboard. And in the other corner, a Conroe running at 2.66GHz (1067MHz FSB) on an Intel 975X motherboard." yet in the benchmark testing, the cpu was an Athlon 64 X-2 2.8GHZ. So which one is it? Did I miss something?brownba - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I don't think there's any difference between the FX60 and the latest X2's, is there?They use the Toledo core, have 2x1MB L2.
So is the FX60 just a higher clocked X2?
Griffinhart - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I'm forced to take these results with a grain of salt for now. I'd rather see a completely independant review where Anandtech or another site had 100% control over the systems being tested.That said, if the results are remotely true, Kudos to Intel on finally coming out with something that not only competes with AMD but seems to have a decent advantage. Of course, I fully expect AMD to have some sort of answer to Intel's offering at some point. I look forward to comparing Intel and AMD when they are on the market.
Honestly, the way I see it, if it weren't for AMD's innovation Intel would be still eeking out modest clock increases rather than coming out with a meaningful processor. Competition has spurred intel to design a processor that not only performs better, but runs at lower clockspeeds and uses less power than their previous chips. A 40% increase while lowering clockspeeds is terrific.
I can't wait to see this sucker come out and I can't wait to see AMD's competition.
fendell - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Isn't this the cpu from Intel that will have a Trust Enforcer chip inside the cpu?in that case, no thanks, I'll pass... no DRM for me
I hope AMD doesnt do the same...
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Oh, then I guess you can get no CPU :)): http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1031714538.html">http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1031714538.html
Who knows what future Intel or AMD CPU will have DRM like support?? Also the fact that most people think DRM is Intel only makes me feel most are AMD fanboys, or at least Pro-.
fendell - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Oohh bollocks, doesn't look good for me then :-)I'm no AMD fanboy tho, I'm just anti-Palladium, and won't buy a single cpu if it can't be disabled....
So I guess, in 10 years I'll be sitting on my 9 year old dusty computer :-p
*better stock up on spare parts*
Yianaki - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Most of those games that saw tremendous differences saw little to no difference at all when running gaming benchmarks on anads. This is especially true for fear. You could put just about every type of cpu and the benchmarks will only be affected by what GPU you are running for fear. The cpu speed made hardly any difference at all. I really don't believe intel on this one. They probably did a worse case best case senario test if you ask me. Especially when you look at the huge performance gains for the games. I just don't belive the CPU would have such a drastic effect in this day and age of GPU limited games. This smacks of the Skype AMD can't possible do a 10 person conference call bullshit. When the intel cpu's are released then we can talk, or at LEAST let the reviewer set up the system.tleeds - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I agree with the above.In the anand benchmarks, FEAR goes from 46FPS on a 7800GTX 512MB to 84FPS on the same card in SLI. This points to a game that is very video card limited.
Since the intel benches were conducted with hardware rendering at 1280x1024 (not 640x480,software as you'd normally do on a CPU faceoff), You kind of have to wonder how any CPU, no matter how new or amazing would have that sort of a performance jump. I'm sure the intel system is very fast, probably even faster than the AMD system, but given the circumstances, it's a little odd.
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
WRONG. Look here: In the anand benchmarks, FEAR goes from 46FPS on a 7800GTX 512MB to 84FPS on the same card in SLI. This points to a game that is very video card limited.
Using Athlon 64 FX-57 CPU clocked same as the IDF FX-60 that is overclocked.
At 1280x1024, the resolution AT chose to test, 7800GTX 512MB only goes from 88 to 119, a gain of 33.7%, rather than the outrageous 82.6% gain, which is ONLY possible at the higher resolutions.
Even at 1600x1200, you are proven wrong. It gains from 46 to 69 a gain of 50%.
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
A link for AT's article: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2607...">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2607...
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
fikimiki - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
If you look at IDF F.E.A.R. benchmark run by Anandtech and then lookhttp://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2575...">here:
you will notice that AMD 2.8GHz and Conroe can achive amazing results (both):
I don't know what test Anand did during IDF but he wrote that THE SAME AS IN STANDARD HARDWARE TESTS.
Now if you look at performance achieved on nVidia 7800GTX+FX55 - you will see 74 fps.
I don't belive that demonstrated hardware can be 2,5x or faster than tested in Anand's labs.
Second, Intel didn't show any synthetic benchmarks - why?
Maybe because the results on 3dMark05 andn others show not what Intel expected when comparing one year old AMD design...
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Yea yea yea whatever
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2679...">http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2679...
Now if you see the link I gave above, you can see X1900XT's get 92 frames per second, while the IDF system is on CROSSFIRE!!!
Also we can see that the X1900XT review uses FX-57, which is same clock as the overclocked FX-60 on IDF system and can expect similar performance.
fikimiki - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
So you see even with Crossfire it is difficult to achieve 100fps not to mention180 fps on Conroe. Let's wait for the real comparision on nForce, not previewed ATI chipset.
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
So you see even with Crossfire it is difficult to achieve 100fps not to mention180 fps on Conroe. Let's wait for the real comparision on nForce, not previewed ATI chipset.
Let me disapprove you. Go to here: http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/printpage.php?id=430">http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/printpage.php?id=430
Tbreak X2 4800+ 2.4GHz FEAR 1280x960: 124, and UNLIKE what you claim, it gets similar 96 fps on NON-CROSSFIRE X1900XT, and 29% better on Crossfire
IDF FX60 X 2.8GHz FEAR 1280x1024: 132, hey looking at clock speed differences, and the fact that IDF has SLIGHTLY better resolution, it looks about right
Tbreak X2 4800+ 2.4GHz Quake 4 1280x1024: 131.70, 123.60 without Crossfire
IDF FX60 X 2.8GHz Quake 4 1280x960, SMP off: 143.6
Though Tbreak's doesn't mention SMP being off, it correspond's to Anand's SMP off numbers, Again, looks about right.
Anyone doubting the POST screenshots, the REAL BIOS numbers are not shown, its at the bottom, where on the IDF pic, its cutoff, and as Jarred mentions, some boards do not recognize the CPU properly. But it seems that doesn't deter anything in performance does it??
JumpingJack - Thursday, March 9, 2006 - link
This is an interesting concept, has the rig been rigged...can FEAR actually run as shown....This site who also got an hour or so on the setup and re-tested at low resolution, eye candy off to ensure CPU limited performance:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/03/08/intel_conr...">http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/03/08/intel_conr...
Based on this data, it does appear that memory timings, C&Q default off or not, the result posted for the FX-60 at IDF and reference FX-60 are in the ballpark and seems to lend some credence to the AT results.
Interestingly synthetics are also at:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4843">http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4843
PrinceGaz - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
You are missing the point.The benchmarks he linked to show that an FX-55 at stock-speeds (single-core, 2.6GHz) is quite capable of running the FEAR benchmark at well over 155fps -- at 640x480 the X1800XT averaged 155fps, and a 7800GTX averaged 153fps, and they were STILL GPU LIMITED as the framerate vs resolution was only slightly beginning to taper off indicating very little CPU limitation. It looks like the FX-55 would probably be able to average as much as 180fps with a faster graphics-card. Why then on the systems that Intel set up was an FX-60 clocked at 2.8GHz (higher than the FX-55) only able to average 135fps, whereas a Conroe at 2.6GHz averaged 186fps.
Now before you complain about different graphic cards (X1800XT instead of X1900XT Crossfire) and different resolutions (640x480 instead of 1280x1024), it doesn't matter which card or resolution you use so long as the test is CPU limited. Unfortunately it is still *GPU* limited on an X1800XT or 7800GTX even at 640x480, which suggests that even a pair of X1900XT cards will definitely be GPU limited at 1280x1024 despite having much higher pixel-shader power as they are having to deal with over four times as many pixels per frame.
So the problems with the test are:
1. Why is the FX-60 @ 2.8GHz giving a much lower FEAR benchmark score than would be expected if it truly was CPU limited?
2. A pair of X1900XT cards cannot give an average framerate of over 180fps in the FEAR benchmark at 1280x1024 regardless of the CPU, in fact they would struggle to achieve over 150fps. How come a Conroe magically lets them achieve 186fps?
3. Why on earth did the graphics-card driver need to be "modified to recognize the Conroe CPU"? What does it do differently when it detects a Conroe CPU? As far as I know, all the driver needs to know are what instructions the CPU supports (eg. SSE, SSE2 etc) and that does not rely on knowing the specific CPU model, only checking the CPU capability flags.
4. following on from no.3, what effect did the modifications Intel made to the driver have when it detected a non-Intel CPU? We all know from the Skype issue how Intel are quite happy to cripple features when running on non-Intel processors, or how Intel compilers have produced code that only used SSE etc on Intel processors. That gives the comment "but that driver was loaded on both AMD and Intel systems" a whole new meaning. It's speculation on my part but I wouldn't be surprised if the modified driver checks for CPU capabilities based on CPU model rather than capability flags, and that Intel only included their own processors in the list. I hope I'm wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't.
Now ideally Anand will bring back a CD from IDF with copies of the Intel game benchmark files, and also a copy of that Intel modified ATI driver on it so that he can run more extensive tests on systems he has set up, both with and without the modified driver.
Having said that, the media-encoding benchmarks on Conroe are very impressive but again we don't know if anything funny is going on with the setup. What do Intel have to gain by cheating you may ask? How about making people decide not to buy an Athlon 64 X2 over the next six months thus damaging AMDs slim profit-margin. If Conroe really is as good as the benchmarks suggest though, then AMD have some catching up to do-- probably by releasing the K8L core earlier than intended and using it into sectors other than only the server market.
Shintai - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
You are paranoid.Both systems used x1900XT crossfire setup. The Conroe ran with DDR2-667 memory. When it ships it will run with DDR2-800.
For synthetic tests, here is a few:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4843&am...">http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=4843&am...
And brace yourself for a 2.93Ghz Conroe in Q4, 65W aswell. Ohh..and let me give you all the prices so we dont have to argue about that too.
The SKUs are listed as up for sale in june/july for desktop and servers.
Mobile: (Merom) 667Mhz FSB, Dualcore, 65nm, 35W or below, i945/ICH7m/ICH8m.
T7600 2.33Ghz 4MB 640$
T7400 2.16Ghz 4MB 420$
T7200 2.00Ghz 4MB 295$
T5600 1.83Ghz 2MB (Singlecore) 240$
Desktop: (Conroe) 1066Mhz FSB, Dualcore, 65nm, 65W or below, i965/ICH8.
E6700 2.67Ghz 4MB 529$
E6600 2.40Ghz 4MB 315$
E6400 2.13Ghz 2MB 240$
E6300 1.86Ghz 2MB 210$
Desktop Extreme: (Conroe XE) 1333Mhz FSB, Dualcore, 65nm, 95W or below.
3.33Ghz 4MB, 999$
Server: (Woodcrest) 1333Mhz FSB, Dualcore, 65nm, 80W or below.
5160 3.00Ghz 4MB 850$
5150 2.67Ghz 4MB 700$
5140 2.33Ghz 4MB 470$
5130 2.00Ghz 4MB 330$
5120 1.86Ghz 4MB 270$
5110 1.60Ghz 4MB 230$
Aelius - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
It's nice to see Intel trying to take the lead but this proves no evidence of them being on the top.Here are a few things I look for in a system and I'm sure others, with experience building system, will agree too.
1. Price: If it costs $2000 for an AMD system or $3000 for a similar performance Intel system then you know what I will pick. Bottom line is we don't know price till it hits the streets as availability and other factors will impact it and I never take any price points as gospel from AMD or Intel as stores (retail and online) set the standards. Paper says $300 store says $350 etc. Talk is cheap.
2. Stability: Unless a stable system exists I won't touch it with a 10 foot pole. I have been burned on both ends by both AMD (most recently due to poor motherboard offerings until just recently under socket 939) and Intel (due to faulty CPUs and re-branding of CPUs under a new name with a few tweaks and sold as new, see class action lawsuits) systems. My next $2000 system is not going into new tech but established proven tech where I won't have to fight for a year and a half to get it to work right or replace half the system to make it so nor worry that I got hoodwinked by a shady company capitalizing on its own brand name.
3. Bottleneck: Anyone with some knowledge knows that CPU is not the bottleneck in high end systems and nobody in their right mind spends a couple of grand on a mid-high level system to run it at resolutions that you haven't used since the late 90s. Show me scores based on resolutions used in 20" or higher LCDs including widescreens and then I'll bite. So the jury is out for a few months until that happens.
4. Ethics: I find it very difficult to even think of buying Intel simply because of the company ethics regarding employees and general behaviour (much like any other major corporation) so I'm happy that at least I have an option.
You won't find performance on my list because its so subjective and because I think it belongs under Stability. It won't matter if you have a horse that can run laps around all others if it decides to stop to smell the roses whenever it damn feels like it.
So 3 cheers for competition but I'm biting down with a huge grain of salt and most likely won't wait a year to make sure the system is established before I upgrade as that will happen within 6 months for me. Perfect time to get a top end socket 939 system before it's phased out and instead invest the savings into the real Bottleneck found at the mid-high end where I and so many others play. Video cards...
PeteRoy - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
AMD fanbois I have one thing to say to you: EAT IT AND LIKE ITsp1nfer - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Possible Intel fanboy: Go wash, brush your teeth, make your bed, have breakfast and go out. There's 6, SIX months ahead, you can predict none. Nice try, who's the fanboy now?saiyan - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
After all, performance per dollar is what everyone should be looking at.If Conroes will be priced at around or lower than the comparable AMD processor, I might get one. But then AMD may decide to lower prices on its chips.
Hmmm.. Competition is good.
fikimiki - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
1. If you just compare UT 2004 anand benchmark test for Athlon64 3800+ X2, you will notice that on similar configuration with UT 2004 they can achieve 56 fps 1024x768.And Intel on IDF can get 160 (1280x960) on FX machine!!!??
Do the same comparision to real Anand tests and what was tested on IDF.
If you belive Intel, you just belive that FX60 2.8GHz is 100% faster than Athlon64 X2 2GHz...
IntelUser2000 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Yea yea yea, another skeptic. You might realize Crossfire X1900XT is more powerful than single X850XT PLUS the A64 3800+ may use Botmatch while IDF system may use Flyby. A big difference.
JackPack - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
There's about a 0% chance that the timedemos used are identical. You can't draw any conclusion.xenon74 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy 'cause Kansas is going bye bye!x74
mkone - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
What size file was used in the iTunes test. In one test, a 304MB file tooks 32s to encode on an Athlon FX60, and here, we have 73s, so this file should be at least approximately 696MB. Is this the case. It would be nice to get an indicative figure.Visual - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I'm with all you guys saying "wow" at these results.I can't help but wonder why Intel releases such details right now though. Sure, it's IDF and they just have to brag with their products like every other year, sure it's probably gonna convince a couple enthusiasts to wait up for the release in 6 months and not buy an AMD... but such detailed benchmark results are also like an advance warning to AMD that they need to prepare an "Emergency Edition" chip or some other innovation now for Q3. It might have been a better strategy to just attack out of the sun come August (or try move it even earlier, if they do indeed have it working).
Also, is it just me or does anyone else find it surprising that they're actually comparing their stuff against an AMD? Up to now, they never even mentioned AMD (nor did AMD mention "Intel", using the more general "the competition" instead). This is the first time I see Intel acknowledging any competition at all.
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?IHYLN - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I stopped reading when I saw that the FX-60 rig couldn't even detect the FX-60. Like what a previous poster brought up something is definitely fishy. FEAR at that resolution is GPU limited so I can't understand how the cpu ALONE could make such a huge difference. This simply doesn't make sense. Obviously Anand doesn't know a CPU from a stick in the mud. I wouldn't even have published this nonsense after seeing that.brownba - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
could it be it wasn't recognized since it was overclocked?IHYLN - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
since when do you overclock a CPU and the motherboard doesn't recognize what processor class it is afterwards? Right...brownba - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
all the screenshot says is 'model unknown'...i'm pretty sure that's what my athlon xp says with a small overclock,
since it's not running at an official model clock anymore, it doesn't know what to report.
IHYLN - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I've had 2 s939 boards, a K8N NEO2 Platinum and a DFI UT Lanparty SLI-DR. Both ran my FX-55 which is overclocked to 2.8ghz and both recognize what CPU class it is regardless if it runs at stock or overclocked. I'm not buying that excuse and neither is anyone else.JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I've got several boards (including the DFI Lanparty RDX200) that report "AMD Athlon Model Unknown" on any overclocked CPU. I mean, go ahead with the conspiracies if you really want to, but what point would it really serve to blatantly lie (either by us, Intel, both, etc.)? If we do it, we lose credibility. If Intel does it, we'll have the truth before launch anyway.Occam's Razor: Intel is damn happy with their performance, and they want to brag about it. I would if I were in their position. We're 4-6 months from launch, so there's not a whole lot AMD or anyone can do to immediately counter.
As I said earlier, who seriously thinks that Intel set out to match or come close to Athlon 64/X2 performance when they started architecting Core? [Intel: "You know, AMD is currently faster than us. Let's throw a lot of money at the problem and see if we can close the gap a bit...."]
clnee55 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
AMD fan boys would think so.Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
You don't need to buy any excude. You disqaulified yourself from having any meaningful input when you said FEAR is GPU limited at 12x10 on a x1900 crossfire setup.IHYLN - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
my mistake, I missed the crossfire note.photoguy99 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
These results (if validated) are simply amazing on so many levels - forget the fact that this processor is not released for months - It will take AMD *years* to catch up.- The sheer amount of percentage increase has rarely been this large over the previous records with the introduction of any CPU (new architecture or not). In fact how many times has there been a jump this large in the last 10 years?
- They did it at a lower clock speed. Devastating because AMD just doesn't have the headroom to out scale them on frequency.
- They did it at lower power consumption. Again, very difficult to counter.
- AM2 will probably not even provide a 10% boost. The tabloids are reporting initial samples were actually *slower* than socket 939.
- Even if AMD has a new architecture out in 6 months to a year, it will be hard gain back that much performance per clock.
- This spanking only required a 2.66Mhz CPU! And my god the Conroe EE will run at 3Ghz? Good luck competing with that.
- Price to manufacture has always been in Intel's favor because they are ahead on the process curve. So not only will they lead in performance, they can cut the profit legs totally out from under AMD because Conroe is cheap to manufacture on 65nm, and it will only get worse with 45nm.
Not only am I not an Intel fan boi, I'm writing this on an FX-60 clocked at 3Ghz which I paid a lot of money for thinking it would be one of the fastest systems around for a year. Looks like I won't even be close.
AndreasM - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I agree, the EE will be at least a thousand times faster... :)
But I wouldn't be so hasty to count AMD out just yet, they'd have to be pretty dumb to not prepare for the day when Intel comes out with a better architecture. The AM2 cpus that were tested were of a very early revision, final performance will likely be much higher. Anyways, excellent news, hopefully the Athlon X2 prices will drop to more reasonable levels in the near future. :)
photoguy99 - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I don't think AMD is dumb, in fact they've done an amamzing job catching a giant sleeping and capitalizing on it with great CPU designs. Also agree that AMD is obviously working like crazy to make K9 as great as possile.The problem is it's just too big of a leap to make in a race where deep pockets really do give an advantage.
Also while power effieciency has become more important to becoming a performance leader, remember Intel has actually been ahead of AMD in power efficiency since the first Pentium M - they just haven't been able to move it to the desktop until now.
Yes, it's early to speculate - but at this early date my speculation is a reversal in stock prices which I'm predicting on my blog so it's http://spaces.msn.com/techrelease/blog/cns!59F693F...">http://spaces.msn.com/techrelease/blog/cns!59F693F...down for the record.
Avalon - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
For those of you doubting the validity of the benchmarks, Anand ran the FEAR in game demo that is supplied with the game, not Intel. You know what the best part is? They benched FEAR, arguably one of the most *GPU* limited games out there, at 12x10, and gained ~30% performance gains with just a *CPU* switch. Incredible!I was going to be jumping to an X2 3800+ 35w and AM2 setup when that came out in a few months, but forget that. I am completely sold on Conroe. I haven't used an Intel since...1998...jeesh. Welcome back blue.
Sunrise089 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I don't doubt that the results are great for Intel, but people shouldn't expect these kinds of gains when gaming. Look at what Intel did - they supplied a fast processor, so no one could claim AMD wasn't able to show their best. Then they supplied a very fast GPU pair, putting the bottleneck on the CPU. They then ran it at a resolution no one in their right mind would use with this hardware. Anyone who can spent $1,000 on video cards and another $1,000 on a CPU will not use a $350 1280x1024 LCD. They will be running on a 1920x1200 Dell2405 or the like, where those X1900s won't be able to push those kind of frame-rates. In that sort of a configuration, Intel would still win, but rather than 120fps versus 180fps type of scores, it will be more like 50fps versus 55fps, unless the game is REALLY CPU limited. Not many games are at the kind of resolutions people with $4000 PCs tend to game at.Leper Messiah - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Seriously, if these benches are true, My next computer will have a conroe. It remains to be seen however...Diasper - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Obviously there's a bit of contention here because the setup was controlled by Intel BUT what is possible is to set up a similiar testbed to see if the figures are in the right approximate ballpark. Tests you could run would be both on FEAR and encoding (assuming you have the same file).I would suggest Anandtech do this just because not many people have a FX-60 or so to overclock and a X1900 Crossfire setup. Besides following up on it would be good for this website and its reputation.
StriderGT - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Excellent point, in order for one to trust intel's results they should be REPRODUCABLE at least as far as the athlon64 X2 is concerned. Anand could and SHOULD provide us with this valuable insight!Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Ummm...You realize NONE of Anand's tests have ever been reproducable?StriderGT - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I do not know whether I should bother answering to someone who posts like an intel PR representative....Do you understand why Anand reviews have detailed CONFIGURATION data before the results???
Use your brain plz
PS Before you start ranting about the impossible exact same configuration of intel's test down to the HDD bla bla read the original post about the ballpark. And remember this is a HW enthusiasts site, there are lots of people around here who know what they are talking about....
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Okay, show me one web site that has ever independently reproduced Anand's results.To the best of my knowlege, none of the files that Anand uses for benchmarking are available to the public.
There may be lots of people around here that know what they are talking about. Think, and someday you may be one of them.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Just to list a few:Doom 3 test uses standard file (Demo1)
Far Cry uses standard maps
Battlefield 2 tests have been linked a few times (I created them; ask for a link if you can't be bothered to dig it up)
HL2 maps have been made available before; I don't know that anyone else has our current maps, though.
FEAR uses the built-in benchmark
DivX/Xvid encoding (Sum of All Fears Ch.9) can readily be found if you want
Winstones is used elsewhere and *could* be downloaded/puchased (it's no longer officially supported)
Sysmark is used elsewhere and can be downloaded/puchased
Worldbench is used elsewhere and can be downloaded/puchased
SpecViewPerf is publicly available
PCMark, 3DMark are publicly available
There are plenty of tests that can be corroborated. Do some of our tests use internal files? Sure - every site does that. Generally speaking, though, when configured with identical hardware our results are consistent with what's reported elsewhere. Let's not forget that most other results are just as proprietary as any of our results; that's the real problem.
StriderGT - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Will you get into the trouble of producing numbers for the A64 X2 2.8 that would resemble intels's benchmark? At leats where this is possible. I think it would create lots of cretive buzz...JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
I'd reproduce it if I had such a chip. ;)Maybe someone else at AnandTech can help out. If I can get my hands on an FX-60 and appropriate other hardware, I could give it a shot. The only test we can directly verify is FEAR, of course - the others used Intel demos, so we'd only be able to show scores for our demos on other games.
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Thanks Jarred, I guess I could have explained myself better.
That's basically my point. Nobody's tests have been independently verified. If someone is going to throw out the testing that Anand did at IDF, then pretty much ALL testing Anand has ever done needs to be thrown out also.
I'm attempting to tell people that you can't pick and choose for arguments, there's too many smart people here to fall for that. Either Anand's testing is valid (I think it is), or it's not. Someone can't say that one day it's valid and anothr it's not just because it doesn't show the results they want it to.
Sunrise089 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
No, this is wrong. What Jarred posted means that if you or I set up a rig with the same hardware as AT uses, normally an FX-57 and 2x512meg of DDR-400 2-2-2-? for game benchmarks we could get the EXACT SAME RESULTS AS THEM, within a reasonable margin of error, so long as you use the same testing files they did, which according to Jarred are freely available. Just because most other sites have slightly different test rigs by no means suggests AT's tests are not independently verifiable. To state otherwise calls into question AT's integrity as an information source.Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
That's the same thing I said.Sunrise089 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I see that now. I think I let my desire to defent AT outrun my need to carefully read the post I think I disagree with. Sorry.Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Hey, no problem!StriderGT - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Anand did not configure the test at IDF. They reported the results...HUGE difference
StriderGT - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
"Okay, show me one web site that has ever independently reproduced Anand's results.To the best of my knowlege, none of the files that Anand uses for benchmarking are available to the public."
Timeless piece of human intelligence:
Okay I will show you some berries and my closet full of benchmark files
PS If you do not trust anandtech's reviews how do you trust them reporting intel's?!?!?
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I never said I didn't trust Anand's reviews.YOU said that Intel's have not been verified. I pointed out that neither have Anands.
StriderGT - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Wake up call from HW land:Intel produces intel procs...
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Oh, and by the way, a little google search will show you that the A64 benchmarks are right on.StriderGT - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I hope u did not look at intel's or apple's sites...JackPack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Why would there even be a mention of A64 on those sites?flyingpan - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I think the additional 32bit alu reserved for 64bit operation of Conroe is used for 32bit power-up, but what results about 64bit?flyingpan - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I want to see 64bit benchmarks on upcoming MS Windows Vista(64bit)flyingpan - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
And 32bit benchmarks on Vista too....it would be closeJackPack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Let go, the straws you're hanging on to are about to break.rayo123 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I didn't see anything about fp specs. I don't care about games. My main processor hungry apps use a lot of floating point. I'm sure the new design will help, the question is how much. If it's 10% vs 40% for fp, it's not much use to me, except may be in the overclocking potential.Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I assume then your apps use SSE. Conroe basically doubles SSE performance.dstz - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Seconding the poster above about some FPU informations.And there i speak for myself : it's really about the FPU. Some commercial audio plugins (VST) may be SSE optimized, but one shouldn't take that for a given. So it's really the FPU that matters when looking for a audio synthesis oriented system, and near futur doesn't seem quite brillant for FPU heavy users :-(
clnee55 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
If more articles come out of IDF, there might be a problem with AMD fanboys. The hospitals might be too busy to handle such many heart attacks. Come on, fanboys. It is just a chip. No matter what chip you use, thank you for continue upgrading your system. It helps to drive the US economy. I hope every body will upgrade to Conroe this year and then upgrade again next year when K8.5 or K9 comes out.rayo123 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I can't drive the economy by buying those chips, if the chips don't help me to make more money! That usually means FPU performance, not games!!!munky - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Something definitely looks fishy in the FEAR benchmark. Fear is such a gpu-intensive game, there's no way you'd see such a huge boost just from the cpu alone. Check out how FEAR scales on a single 7800gt at medium settings, 1024 x 768:http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/28cpu...">http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/28cpu...
The difference between a slow P4 and a FX57 is less than the supposed difference between the 2.66ghz Conroe and the 2.8ghz A64. Until I see some official benches from reputable sites, I'm gonna be skeptical about Intel's new "benches"
Accord99 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
But they're not using a 7800GT. They're using a pair of 1900XTs, which are massively more powerful in shader-heavy games like FEAR.EnergyWatcher - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
...at 73 seconds, when this benchmark (http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2668">http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2668 ) shows it at 32? And this despite the fact that today's benchmark is supposedly using an FX-60 overclocked to 2.8GHz, and the previous benchmark used one stock (2.6GHz)?Could this have something to do with the BIOS abnormalities I've already noted?
Something is extremely fishy here.
-e
Briggsy - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
IF the AMD system used such an old BIOS, then is it possible that the BIOS would not have enabled processor specific enhancements since it was written - SSE2 for example?How do the benchmarks shown compare with other reviews online currently? Sure, they aren't directly comparable, and I would hope that Intel wouldn't cripple the competitor's board intentionally when their processor is so far ahead it wouldn't change the result in all likelyhood, but it would be an interesting comparison.
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Try anything to pick apart an Intel win, eh?Bladen - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
It doesn't say it uses the same file for that test as the previous test...SilverBack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
You can't necessarily judge times for encoding as the files encoded were probably different.EnergyWatcher - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
> You can't necessarily judge times for encoding as the files encoded were probably different. <Anand should have noted it if the files were different and the results, therefore, were not comparable. I didn't see anything like that in this review.
-e
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
The files were different, whenever benchmarks were identical to what we've run for our CPU reviews in the past I tried to mention as such. Otherwise you can't assume that the numbers are comparable to previous reviews using our own hardware.Take care,
Anand
SilverBack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
As far as I can tell his post above has merit.The BIOS Version 6.00 PG0 pre dates 2004....
What exactly is going on here?
Tuor - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I don't see how you could say that Intel has regained the speed crown when the product hasn't even shipped yet. Sure, you can say it is *poised* to regain the speed title, but doesn't the headline jump the gun a bit? I think so.BTW, call me a AMD fanboi if you want, but there are reasons, despite pure speed or even bang-for-the-buck, that make me not want to buy Intel's chips: I *despise* their business practices. If the were to change their ways, as OCZ appears to have done, then I will reconsider, but not until then.
overclockingoodness - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
It hasn't been proven that Intel uses strong-arm tactics by the court of law. Until I get a statement from the court convicting Intel, I won't care what AMD has to say. Intel and AMD are both in it to make money, there's no way AMD is the innocent underdog they claim themselves to be.Sunrise089 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Just because a company that is "in it to make money" does not make them unable to be declared "innocent". Instead, AMD tries to make money in order to better their shareholders, and all the while gives us wonderful parts in our PCs, helps the economy, creates jobs, and assists in international trade. It isn't either company's pursuit of capitalism and therefore profits that makes one good or evil, it's Intel's corruption of capitalism by denying fair competition that creates the problem.gimpsoft - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
are those CPUs full DRM ?Bladen - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
The K8 has the advantages of the integrated memory controller and hyper transport. are these features not more advanced than what is in Conroe?It's not like AMD are still using punchcards...
Al though this prefomance advantage is as big as I had hoped, and bigger than I expected.
EnergyWatcher - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
From the article:------
Both systems had a pair of Radeon X1900 XTs running in CrossFire and as far as we could tell, the drivers and the rest of the system setup was identical. They had a handful of benchmarks preloaded that we ran ourselves, the results of those benchmarks are on the following pages.
------
Why does the AMD system's BIOS screen say "AMD Processor Model Unknown" and "(C) 1984-2003"? And what about "AwardBIOS v6.00PG"? Are they really running the AMD system with a BIOS that's so old that it predates the entire FX-series, and (IIRC) the entire Athlon 64 (K8) series?
And why does this page documenting ***AMD K7*** motherboards list an "Abit KX7-333" (among others) using "Award BIOS v6.00PG"? http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/kt333-rou...">http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/kt333-rou...
And what does this "misconfiguration" mean for how the BIOS and OS configured the processor and system? Could that explain Intel's "superior" performance?
-e
raskren - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
The AMDroid are really reaching now...Sh0ckwave - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
You have no idea what your talking about. I have just checked two Nforce 4 Athlon 64 systems, and guess what, they all have "AwardBIOS v6.00PG" The BIOS version is at the bottom of the POST page, not at the top - its not in that screenshot. So you dont know what bios version it was running.gersson - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Holy Crap -- why??? Muslim extremist??? O_o5150Joker - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I won't support their chips because they use strong arm tactics to keep out the competition and secondly because their R&D facility is in Israel and I refuse to support anything that comes out of that place.ATC - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Actually, Intel has plans for a large facility to open in the Gaza strip to help out the Palestinians. It is a very nobel move by Intel. Good on them.JumpingJack - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
And I agree with the agree'ers :) .... this was not only inappropriate, but majorly inaccurate. Intel has R&D in several locations, the design originated in Israel, but the chips on display were developed/manufactured and produced at Intel's largest (main) R&D site in Oregon.JackPack - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
You can tell from the codename which is designed where.Only Conroe was designed State side. The Core architecture, and Merom is clearly Israeli.
JackPack - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Forgot to add: 5150Joker's comment is despicable.dali71 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Take your anti-semitic rant somewhere else, jackass. Aren't you late for your Klan rally?Sunrise089 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I agree with dali71, and it's wonderful to see 5150Joker someone using such neutral and kind language as "that place". Of course I'm sure each and every Intel employee in Israel is personally responsible for all of the region's problems, and are not simply men and women trying to do the best they can earning a living in a dangerous situation, right 5150Joker?IHYLN - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
awesome marketing drivel, anand.ChronoReverse - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Drivel? It's interesting information. It might turn out not to be accurate, but they're reporting what they do know for now.That said, when I first heard about the archictectural changes for Conroe, I already knew that it would at the very least be as fast as K8. It'll be interesting for sure when actual products come out.
JackPack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Leave him alone. I can already smell his perspiration from here. Any more stress, and they'll have to be taken away by men in white lab coats. ;)mfurse - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
...I can't help but think apples are not being compared to apples. I don't suspect the benchmarks but rather the generational gaps in the processor architectures. I mean AMD has had the K8 out for many years and has continually tweaked and updated it, always keeping a general performance lead over the P4 netburst, especially in dual-core and especially since Intel took the netburst and made the pipeline longer. Netburst v K8 fair match I would say - architectures of the same period in time.So AMD have showed innovation. And now, so have Intel, as they should - considering the resources and the time it took to get to Conroe! AMD might have AM2 K8's lined up, and its clear that they probably won't compare with Conroe - but AMD have been supplying samples of the AM2 chips for months now, so in comparison with Intels "Conroe - in sixth months" its still an old K8 architecture.
Congratulations Intel for finally achieving what I think they should of along time ago. Time will tell what further innovation AMD will counter with.
Hulk - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
These chips aren't released yet so AMD still sells the fastest chips you can put in your computer.mircea - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I am an AMD fan. Only my 1st PC (1997) was a pentium II and ever since all my systems were AMD, as well as 99% of the systems I build for my friends. I'm upgrading my system right now from 3200+ to an X2 4400+.Stil I can be glad for this news. If AMD can counter this by AM2 then it's all OK. If not, then they will have to work harder on K9/K10 and when that comes out we will have even better chips. But if AMD will have nothing for a while I can still be happy cuz my next upgrade will be much cheaper. That's all AMD will be able to do. Reduce some more.
So let's see:
1. Intel has a GREAT CPU - hip hip hip hurah???!!!
2. Maybe AMD has something as great in AM2 - hip Hurah!!!!
3. Maybe AMD has nothing in AM2 so has to lower prices on curent chips to compete. I can get a better chip (then what I have) for less - hip hip Hurah!!!!
3. AMD has to work to get something better out to compete in the future so we will have even better chips than this great Conroe sometime in the future - HIP HIP HURAH!!!!!!!!
Do you upgrade because there's something faster out there, or because you need something faster? Let's see:
Short term:
See even if Intel might be better, when I upgrade my AMD system I will still get more performance than what I had. It's the same performance I would have got even if the new Intel was crap. But I might get it cheaper since AMD might lower prices to compete.
Long term:
AMD has to make an even better CPU to stay in the market - I will have a great time using that performance.
Intel keeps the performance crown over the next years - I will be able to jump platform once upgrading is necesary but stiking to AMD gives me nothing more, and have a great time using that performance.
In the end I will be much better because of Intells and AMD's fight to a better CPU.
n7 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I knew there was gonna be a change in performance leader when Conroe came out.However, i honestly didn't expect it to quite this big.
Very impressive i must say.
I will reserve final judgement for when both AM2 & Conroe are actually out, but it appears i might just be jumping on the Conroe bandwagon later this year!
Dubb - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I'll be skiping a planned upgrade to 1207 opterons...will the initial woodcrest motherboards be upgradable to quad core clovertons?
gamara - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I doubt that will occur. There will be different power requirements between 2 and 4 cores.goz314 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Clovertown and Woodcrest use the same socket type (i.e. socket J) and they are pin compatible. As long as a given board's VRM is designed to support both processors and a suitable BIOS is available, then I don't see why it can't be done.ninjit - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Just wondering if Apple has any sort of presence at IDF?I know they are waiting for something better than the P4 from intel before they migrate the Power Mac line over from PPC, Conroes seems like it will fit the bill nicely.
Also, will conroe have 64-bit addressing? I didn't see anything stated on the slides you put up.
Thanks.
Doormat - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
The real question is can Conroe be put in multiple socket configurations? Thats what matters for the Power Mac/Mac Pro (whatever its called). Apple has their "Quad" configuration, and unless they plan on decreasing the amount of power available on the high end, they might need to dip in the Woodcrest pool in order to provide the same amount of threads and horsepower that is currently available. I'd even venture to say that its not out of the picture for Apple to use quad core chips come this December in a 2S configuration for eight cores in a high end power mac.Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Apple will most likely use Conroe in the Power Mac replacement this fall. Conroe, Merom and Woodcrest are all 64-bit processors. I'll be able to talk more about the architecture tomorrow.Take care,
Anand
DarthPierce - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Though not Anand, I can say that this is the chip generation apple is looking for, and I can say that Conroe is 64 bit.Quodlibet - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
can you disclose the bus speed (1067 vs 1333 mhz) ?Quodlibet - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
oops in the article it says 1067 ...JackPack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Probably 1066. I'm not Anand, so obviously, I can't confirm.But only Conroe XE (3.33 or 3.0) should be 1333. All XE and non-XE are 4 MB.
danidentity - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I thought Conroe was supposed to be released in July. But the article states the release is still six months out. Did something change?hans007 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
i think the idea with the 2.8 ghz x2 was smart.that is just about all amd will be able to ship in september when conroe comes out, as thats basically the top speed their architecture is doing maybe 3.0 ghz next year.
amd's roadmaps dont show a 65nm transition until 2007 anyway.
face it the conroe is agood chip. everyone knew it would be. it uses a lot of good tech, micro-ops fusion, share l2 caches, etc.
not to mention this isnt even the best one as the 2.93 ghz /1333 bus EE one with 4mb instead of 2mb cache would be likely even faster. also
to the ones who said it'll be gpu limited, by the time these cards are out, another generation of gpus will probably be ready anyway since the 7900gt/gtx is just a shrink and 1900xt is also not a major change from 1800xt. we could see a chip based on the xbox360gpu and a futher evolution of the nvidia architecture by then.
Doormat - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Even cutting the performance advantage in half would still be a tremendous improvement.What makes me wonder is why is Intel still 6 months away from production? If I were them, I'd get them out in July or August, instead of September or October.
JumpingJack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Conroe will be out in the first week in July. Merom will be out end of Aug/start of Sept. with Woodcrest to follow shortly after.kalaap - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Well with Intel picking up Apple as another customer, they probably need a little more time to ramp up volume shipments.JackPack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Apple is small potatoes. They sell around 1.25 million Macs per quarter.Intel manufactures around 40 million processors in the same period.
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
They may, remember Yonah shipped six months early.Intel also likes to have lots of product in the pipeline when something is launched. All the board people and system makers have to be ready. That's why you can buy a Dell ot HP system on the day Intel launches a chip.
I'll bet you that right now Conroe in being manufactuered on production lines.
Doormat - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Well thats what I'm thinking - I kinda expect Merom and Conroe in time for WWDC in early August (pushed back from its usual July timeframe). The fact that it was pushed back a month makes me a little suspicious on that Apple is waiting for Intel to annouce and ship the parts.Justin Case - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
At the resolution and settings level they tested most games (ex., FEAR), the game is GPU-limited, not CPU-limited. In other words, if the graphics card, chipset and driver really were matched, the game would perform at exactly the same speed, and the difference would be in the CPU load (a faster CPU would show a lower load, because it would spend more time waiting for the GPU to finish rendering each frame). I have a feeling the drivers had some strategic "tweaks"...Also, bear in mind that a 20% performance increase is to be _expected_ from a product to be released four months from now (in other words, it's simply following Moore's law).
But anyway, if you trust benchmark results coming from Intel (or AMD), you might as well believe Apple's marketing. I'll wait for the real product, and independent testing, thank you very much. I still remember Intel's claims about the original Pentium 4 (3 times faster than the Pentium III, they said) and Prescott (a.k.a. Pres-hot!), not to mention the Itanium, the Paxville Xeons, etc., etc., etc....
DarthPierce - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Your inability to grasp what being GPU limited means or when it occurs astounds me. an example of GPU limited would be you're running FEAR at 1600x1200 on an ati 9600. In this example, any cpu (that doesn't suck horribly) would give roughly equally bad scores.If the CPU is changed and the score changes, that itself shows that a task is not GPU limited.
Think!
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
We were limited to 1280 x 1024 because of the LCDs we were testing on, but a dual X1900 XT setup isn't going to be GPU limited at 1280 x 1024.As I posted above:
"As far as I could tell, there was nothing fishy going on with the benchmarks or the install. Both systems were clean and used the latest versions of all of the drivers (the ATI graphics driver was modified to recognize the Conroe CPU but that driver was loaded on both AMD and Intel systems).
Intel told us to expect an average performance advantage of around 20% across all benchmarks, some will obviously be higher and some will be lower. Honestly it doesn't make sense for Intel to rig anything here since we'll be able to test it ourselves in a handful of months. I won't say it's impossible as anything can happen, but I couldn't find anything suspicious about the setups. "
Take care,
Anand
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Use your head, if it was GPU limited, there would not be a performance increase between the systems with a different cpu. The vid card would cap the frame rates.BTW, do you really think a x1900 crossfire system is GPU limited at 1280x1024?
AndreasM - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
You should read his post more carefully. What he is saying is, that because F.E.A.R. is GPU-limited these results cannot be correct, because there should be no performance increase. I do however agree that it probably isn't GPU-limited at that resolution.ninjit - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Explain how 1280x1024 is GPU limited on an ATI X1900 Cross-fire system (i.e. 2 cards)???Idiota!
radzio - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Media encoding tests (e.g. DivX) were not GPU-limited. Result ?Conroe 2.66MHZ is 30% faster than overclocked Athlon Fx60 (2.8MHz).....
JustAnAverageGuy - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
532 Average FPS in F.E.A.R.?I'd sell my opteron right now if that were the case.
/typo notifier
Justin Case - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Unless your monitor happens to support a refresh rate of 532 Hz, it would be kind of useless. Not to mention that your eyes can't really tell the difference for anything above 120 fps or so (that's one of the reasons why no monitor bothers with refresh rates higher than that).sp1nfer - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Please cut the 'our eyes can't see more than <insert pointless number here>' bs. You have no concrete fact to prove it. Let me give you some: some games play smooth at 30fps but as they drop below 25, gameplay gets hindered.And please provide a link to the Hz:FPS ratio/link.
Having 500fps in a game with a processor and 300 with another clearly shows there is more room ahead for the 500fps processor even if you can't enjoy all of them.
Fenixgoon - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
See wht happens when Intel actually has to produce a good CPU?I'm no Intel fanboy, I go for what fits my budget. Of course, I can afford neither an A64 or a Conroe, but hopefully this will drive other CPU prices down on both sides.
flyck - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
p4 was also a good cpu. only not the best.looking @ those benchmarks i would have to say i'm pretty amazed by it. AMd might get 10% closer with AM2.... but i think they'll have a problem with there K8 like it is now. Well i think we are back in the days of northwood(800) vs XP. maybe a bit worse for amd, but we have to wait for 6 months to say that.
SLIM - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
WOW, Awesome performance. Can't wait to see the real reviews against the then current competition.PS: Please fix the average framerate graph for FEAR, last I checked average framerate was not usually 3x the maximum (or reverse the titles of the graphs or something).
goz314 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I'm sure the AMD cult and Intel naysayers will try to find something wrong with this initial impression of Conroe's performance, but for the time being it's nice to see the 800 pound gorilla "wake up" again.BrownTown - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I'm an Intel fan and I see stuff wrong with these benchmarks. Its just a litle bit of a stretch to see that much improvement on benchmarks set up by Intel and not suspect something fishy is going on.Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Why?Here's the part you're not getting - this is an entirely new generation of CPU. Think of when AMD when from K7 to K8 - they had significant performace increases. If AMD could do it, I would expect that with the resources Intel has available, they could do it also.
Justin Case - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Actually, the first K8s were slower than the high-end K7s. Just at the first P4s were slower than the top PIIIs, and so on. Every new generation is introduced at a speed slightly below the previous one. I suspect independent benchmarks of real, shipping CPUs will show a similar story. This is marketing, people, what did you expect Intel to show? Benchmarks where they lose?Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Nice try.Please detail for us how a shipping CPU could be around half the speed of the one Anand just tested himself.
bob661 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Hell! Show me a shipping Conroe?JackPack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
LOL. It's now down to these bottom-of-the-barrel arguments.Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Don't expect better from bobby-boy. He can't handle the fact that Intel could recover from past missteps.bob661 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
They weren't running Anand's benchmarks!!!!!! Like the other poster said, why in the hell would Intel show themselves in an unfavorable light? And where are the other benchmarks?Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
As Anand said himself (you did read the article, right?) there's only so much that could be done. You're not going to get 40, 50 percent improvemnts tweaking a game.I'm loving watching the AMD fanboys blowing an artery!
formulav8 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
What is it with you? You call everyone else a fanboy when YOU are the absolute worst of them all. Get a life and actually add some good to the community for once. No wonder almost ALL of your replys are -1's. Because you add NOTHING for the better. Its always a stupid fanboy reply. I can't understand you fanboys in the least. You are one of the many fanboys that should be banned from posting. Please add something good for once.Jason
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Okay, here's something good; I do sincerely hope you will take the advice.You are the one that should look into getting a life if some anonymous person on the internet has this kind of an effect on you. If anything I write causes you any emotional response other than the occasional smile, then I really think you should go out with your friends and get some stress relief in the real world.
formulav8 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I was honestly hoping you would see that you Should try alittle harder to resist fanboyism. I see my attempt was futile. You well know I was right in what I said in my earlier post. But you are right, I should have just let you be. I will just leave it at that. Alot of these post reap of nothing but desperate fanboyism on both sides anyways. Off to the forums I go.Jason
Ozenmacher - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I am not an AMD or Intel fanboy. I am simply a fan of competition. Competition is good for everyone. It lowers prices , and forces the competition to create better products. AMD fanboy's should all be rejoicing, even if they hate Intel. This is good for the consumer.Falloutboy - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
this part sounds fishy also"They had a handful of benchmarks preloaded that we ran ourselves"
tbh the more I look at these numbers the more they seem a bit odd.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
As far as I could tell, there was nothing fishy going on with the benchmarks or the install. Both systems were clean and used the latest versions of all of the drivers (the ATI graphics driver was modified to recognize the Conroe CPU but that driver was loaded on both AMD and Intel systems).Intel told us to expect an average performance advantage of around 20% across all benchmarks, some will obviously be higher and some will be lower. Honestly it doesn't make sense for Intel to rig anything here since we'll be able to test it ourselves in a handful of months. I won't say it's impossible as anything can happen, but I couldn't find anything suspicious about the setups.
Take care,
Anand
Reflex - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Actually it would make a lot of sense for them to rig a demo and get a credible site like yours to report it when you consider the recent market share figures. They can make up any claim they want later on to explain lower performance than what you saw today(bad yields resulting in a disabled part of the core or lower clock speeds). All will be forgotten in six months anyways except for the hardcore fanboys, and they have thier minds made up regardless of this article.If this gets a few people to say "Wait until the new Intel chips arrive" it was well worth the potential backlash. I am NOT saying Intel cheated here, but I find the gains demonstrated to be very questionable. I'd be curious about if the games you benched are actually CPU bound in the first place, the gains seem too great to be simply CPU. Those tweaked graphics drivers could just as easily disable a couple pipelines when put on an AMD system. Why do they need to be tweaked to 'recognize' Conroe in the first place?
Just some thoughts. I'm not making any accusations, I'm just bringing up a few questions that hit me...
JarredWalton - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
If done properly, 33% wider execution plus a better tuned core/architecture can easily account for the gains. There's no reason to really expect that these results are rigged. I mean, does anyone here honestly think that Intel made a goal of matching AMD's performance? Of course they're going to try and surpass them by a decent margin, and given enough engineers (Intel has that), time (Intel had that), money (yup).... This is pretty much what I expected to happen, give or take 5%.As someone else pointed out, Dothan and Yonah scores very well clock-for-clock against K8, and this is a better tuned, more powerful architecture. (Bleh... "Core"... NetBurst was better IMO as a name.) Yonah plus better SSE plus higher clockspeeds plus wider execution = Conroe. What did you think would happen?
This is not to say AMD can't close the gap, and who knows whether or not there are special Core optimizations in any of the applications. That said, Intel has always been way ahead in terms of getting out better compilers and optimizations.
gamara - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Was there no way to make the Media Player 9 encode more apples to apples with previous reviews? It was interesting to note that the previous review (FX60) had the WM9 in FPS, not encode time. Makes it tough to even compar vs a prior review.Ozenmacher - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Wow, this is simply amazing. I honestly was not expecting such performance. Granted, we have to wait until we see a full suite of benchmarks (not done by Intel) before we come to conclusions, but this is amazing. I sure hope AMD has something up their sleeves for AM2, or we may be left waiting for something better (K9).Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
A new cpu interface isn't going to get 40% performace inceases.If Intel actually get's these out the door, they will be on top, period.
bob661 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Period my ass. You have the nerve to talk about AMD fanboi's? None of us really knows what AMD is up to nor do we have unbiased benchmarks from a reliable source to really make good judgements from. I say wait until Conroe AND socket AM2 appears in our hands before we decide who is the new king.Briggsy - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I'd say the evidence is enough to support 'Wait For Release and Reviews' rather than 'Bah, sod Intel' which has been the path for upgrading the past couple of years because Intel's been lost in the wilderness. However right now Conroe looks like a beast!AMD might gain at high clock speeds with DDR2-800, for applications where memory bandwidth is beneficial, especially if multithreaded.
When Anandtech reviews dual-core, it'd be interesting if they did scaling tests to see if DDR2 helps the X2 at high speeds compared with DDR1.
Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
As I said to you alter ego Griswold in another thread.Go ahead and tell me AMD is launching another architecture this year. Say K9 is shipping.
Please make yourself appear as foolish as Grissy.
Griswold - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
You sure sound like you get a free conroe soon. Doesnt take idiots like you to convince me that Intel could very well be the better choice very soon. It's previews like this that does the trick not your fanboi comments that we had to read even before anyone had any clues as to what Intel may come up with.Doormat - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
K8L could ship this year. It wouldnt surprise me to see AMD push the K8L out to all segments intead of just the server segment if they are in fact that far behind Intel's Conroe on the desktop.Falloutboy - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
looks like intel put a bit more into conroe than just making a faster Pentuim M, hopefully AMD has something up there sleeves to combat this. Had a feeling intel wouldn't sit back another generation. but one thing to keep in mind is the 2.8ghz part was only running with ddr400 I'm woundering what the performance picture would look like with that A64 running the ram at ddr600 type speeds.vijay333 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
dammit, there goes my well-laid plans for upgrading my system. come on amd, don't make us pay for over-priced intel chips again :)code65536 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Don't forget, the Pentium D is currently cheaper than the X2, so AMD is not necessarily cheaper.Questar - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Now that's impressive.Griswald won't have much to to say in this thread.
Griswold - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Oh yes I do, I'll still give you a warm fuck you, because you're a fanboy and meanwhile I have no problem to admit that I will buy an intel based machine when my next upgrade is due in 2007 - if AMD doesnt have anything better.Questar - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Impressive use of language there. You're really showing off your level of education.DigitalFreak - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Yep. Provided that there's no cheating going on here, then gratz to Intel. I'm not a fanboi of either camp, so may the best chip win!BrownTown - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
is there a catach ehre that I'm not seeing or something?, just can't believe that a new processor could spank the old generation that bad in gaming.Lifted - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
The catch is my next CPU will be an Intel. It was nice knowing you AMD.Patrese - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Any news about the price of this thing? If it is priced properly, I mean, if it is not 40% more money for 20% more performance, then I'd say WOW. If it is about the same prices we have today, then it'd be some massive kick on AMD a**...Doormat - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
Prices were posted at DailyTech a few weeks ago - the 2.67Ghz chip is $540, the 2.4 is $300 or so.Furen - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
4 speed grades will be offered at launch so I'm sure there will be something that is priced low enough for most of us. I wonder how much of a performance hit the 2MB L2 parts will have, though, since I was those will be the more affordable ones.brownba - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
there's gotta be some catch, right?Intel even overclocked the competition... that's quite admirable.
brownba - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
spankBrassbud - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
I don't know why anyone is finding this surprising. Haven't you all seen OCed Pentium M benchmarks? In many tasks a Pentium M is 10-20% faster than a comparably clocked A64. So now that we basicly have an optimized, die shunk Pentium M on the desktop that runs at comparable clock speeds to an A64, why is anyone surprised that performance is ~20% better on average?Yes, the performance is impressive. Yes, its disappointing in some ways to see Intel on top given all the success of the underdog AMD lately. But no, I am not surprised in anyway by these results. Perhaps there are inequalities in the benchmarks, perhaps not, but anyone who didn't see this coming wasn't being realistic.
stupid - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Actually, it is not at all surprising given the fact that Socket AM2 is merely a socket change for the moment. Other than DDR2 support, virtualization, and some other things that I don't know about, AMD officially announced that there will not be much initial performance gains. Hence the fact that with the exception of the Athlon 64 5000+, all releases of the AM2 CPU will match the speeds of the S939 Athlons.There probably will not be any increases in speeds until AMD switches over to the 65nm process. While it is disappointing that AMD is not releasing a next generation CPU to compete with Intel this year, this is a transistional year for AMD. While it is possible to release a 65nm next generation CPU in a new socket, it is also prone to become a potential bust if the process does not go smoothly. Using the 65nm process and Socket AM2 on a current product is a smart move because it is already a stable product so less can go wrong.
A company can't always be on top of their game. It's always a leap frog race where the competition is always trying to get ahead of the other. Look at what's going on between ATI and nVidia, granted GPUs do have shorter product cycles than CPUs. Anyone, who expects AMD to remain on top of Intel and release new products at the same time does not truly understand the concept of competition in conjunction with research and developement.
smut - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
We are still comparing Intels NEW core to AMDs old core. Its like ATI pitting their 1900XT against the 7800s. A new card against a card thats been out for awhile (in the computer world and the way new tech comes out, its been awhile). I could care less who wins as more competition is always better for US, the consumers. I just want to see a new core against a new core. We can only hope AMD designs a new core so we can all have this awesome new tech from Intel/AMD at even cheaper prices. If AMD doesnt catch up to conroe then you will see me setting up an Intel rig! Long live competition!z3R0C00L - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
Not at all...Let's do some looking back here.
Pentium Pro/II/III were known as 686's, hence there use of the codenamed "P6" bus.
The AMD Athlon/XP were known as 786's, hence there use of the codename "K7".
Intel Pentium IV/D were known as 786's, as they came after the P6 processors effectively making them 786 generation.
The AMD Athlon64 is known as the K8..that's right 886.
So Conroe and the K8 are both 8th generation designs. What does this mean?
Means it's comparing two chips from the same generation ;) When you do that, you will notice that Intel is always ahead of AMD... and always has been. Unlike the 6month cycle we see in Graphics cards.. CPU's are milked much longer.
RAVENCZ - Sunday, March 12, 2006 - link
At last, someone who hase good overwiev and good memory. I absolutely agree with you man. No more gap or excuses, that AMD doesn't have a new CPU on a market. It is not truth. AMD had jumped over Intel's generation CPUs, when they released K7 (Athlon) CPU. But These Athlons were competeing with an "old" generation of P III until P 4 had finally arrived. And for that period of time the generation race was equal, bud AMD needed a new generation to overrun Intel's solution (as always). And K8 was born. But in our midst, it is nothing more than Athlon XP with on-die memory controler and slightly improved integer operations plus 64bit execution capability in the main. After this K8 line there were again not equal condition. And no one was complaining at all. And now when Intel is about to releas its 8. generation of CPUs to really show us, how 8. generation has to look like, there are many people complaining, that it is not equal. Craps!! It is equal 8. gen from Intel versus 8. gen from AMD. And we will see who is better in designing CPUs. I believe Intel is. They have always been. Will really AMD need an 9. generation to compete with Intels 8. gen???? (as always)RAVENCZ - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
At last, someone who hase good overwiev and good memory. I absolutely agree with you man. No more gap or excuses, that AMD doesn't have a new CPU on a market. It is not truth. AMD had jumped over Intel's generation CPUs, when they released K7 (Athlon) CPU. But These Athlons were competeing with an "old" generation of P III until P 4 had finally arrived. And for that period of time the generation race was equal, bud AMD needed a new generation to overrun Intel's solution (as always). And K8 was born. But in our midst, it is nothing more than Athlon XP with on-die memory controler and slightly improved integer operations plus 64bit execution capability in the main. After this K8 line there were again not equal condition. And no one was complaining at all. And now when Intel is about to releas its 8. generation of CPUs to really show us, how 8. generation has to look like, there are many people complaining, that it is not equal. Craps!! It is equal 8. gen from Intel versus 8. gen from AMD. And we will see who is better in designing CPUs. I believe Intel is. They have always been. Will really AMD need an 9. generation to compete with Intels 8. gen???? (as always)JackPack - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
AMD doesn't have a radically new core in time for Conroe.Look at S754->S939 benchmarks and you'll realize the gains aren't even 10%.
AM2 doubles bandwidth, but diminishing returns means the gains from Rev.F are probably 5% or less.
coldpower27 - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
You compare what's currently out to what currently out, it doesn't matter that much what generation it's from, they will be competitors for the meantime.Conroe is likely engaging Socket AM2 DDR2 Athlon 64x2's at up to 2.8GHZ initially, so that's what AMD is gonna battle with for the time being at Conroe introduction.
ChronoReverse - Tuesday, March 7, 2006 - link
In any case, no matter how you look at it, AM2 by itself isn't going to help AMD that much. We all know that the K8 isn't bandwidth starved. AM2 gives us DDR2 and... more bandwidth.smut - Wednesday, March 8, 2006 - link
yeah I know they dont have a new core out. I said if Intel is still king when its time to upgrade you will see me building an Intel rig. Im just saying it would be nice to compare both companies new cores *if* AMD had a new one. Thats when you will really see who is better at designing and building, thats all! It would be nice if Intel can make Conroe even faster by the time it launches!wingless - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
Here we are 9 years later in 2015. Intel took the performance crown and kept it. Today, we're not sure if AMD will be around in the form we know in 1 to 2 years.michaelbillington - Friday, August 6, 2021 - link
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