Intel Core2 Duo Preview (tests not done by Intel either)

[Alec§taar]

See subject line/title, & this review:

Intel Core2 Duo Preview

http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?cat=cpu&id=456&pagenumber=2



* Man, I was surprised @ the results... It's "looking good" for Intel!

(These weren't test results submitted by Intel either, so nobody can really say "Oh, it's just Intel rigging results again" (not that they ever did or that I am aware of @ least)).

APK

P.S.=> I was most surprised @ the speed diff.'s possible in the CPU's used in the test (one of which I use, see signature) & in what areas!

See - I run MOSTLY "middle-of-the-road" on the tests cpu-wise, in QUITE the crowd of contestants, but all in all, I was ok with that... when there are more than 20% diff.'s are the only areas that concerned me, & there weren't all that many (8 of 21 total tests, & 3 of them were only 21% - as I feel that anything less than 20% variations in results speeds is negligible)...

My CPU vs. all others & % from "top spot" & diff. in performance & what areas:

21% - PC Mark 2005
21% - CounterStrike Source
21% - WB: Microsoft Windows Media Encoder
24% - 3D Mark 2001 SE
26% - WB: Adobe Photoshop
26% - WB: Mozilla
29% - Far Cry
29% - UT 2004

Good read for those of you with CPU's of the types used in the test, so you know where your current rig 'stacks up' vs. the "big boys"... apk

 

[magibeg]

I wish they displayed the cpu temperature on load and idle after the OC just for curiousity sake. But Core 2 Duo seems to be a major player as far as cpu's go. I can't wait until i can see what amd plans to counter it with (hopefully not just their 4x4 which looks more expensive then anything). Cheers to competition. *gives all consumers a 1st place ribbon*

 

[Ketxxx]

Sigh. Also notice how the tests done are all traditionally CPU limited. So tell me again, what difference does 30FPS make when its already flying along at 130FPS?

 

[yogurt_21]

an i the only one who notices that there wer no multicore apps. used in that review? 3dmark 01,03,05, then no 06? why? and quake4 has been tested on different review but on version 1.2? not the multithreaded patch? why? is intel having problems getting good performance under multicore situations?

 

[Alec§taar]

Sigh. Also notice how the tests done are all traditionally CPU limited.

I really do THINK that was the point of the test - to extoll the gains from pure CPU power alone...

So tell me again, what difference does 30FPS make when its already flying along at 130FPS?

Well, possibly, quite a lot - especially during a 'pitched-battle' when the blood splatters & explosions occur...

APK

 

[Alec§taar]

an i the only one who notices that there wer no multicore apps. used in that review? 3dmark 01,03,05, then no 06? why? and quake4 has been tested on different review but on version 1.2? not the multithreaded patch? why? is intel having problems getting good performance under multicore situations?

Good point I suppose, not one I was "on" about... I know that AMD stuff is excellent here, & their missing testing that MAY be one area that Intel's upcoming crop may (or may not) perform as well, vs. AMD stuff!

APK

 

[Ketxxx]

I really do THINK that was the point of the test - to extoll the gains from pure CPU power alone...



Well, possibly, quite a lot - especially during a 'pitched-battle' when the blood splatters & explosions occur...

APK

Now theres optimism at its best. Does it really matter if a game drops to 100FPS while blood splattering and the like is going on? hell no, you wont even notice. Not to mention modern games have a FPS cap as is recent trend. Even in practical tests like MP3 encoding the difference isnt stellar, all of around 1 minute. Its hardly earth shattering or anything to write home about.

 

[Alec§taar]

Now theres optimism at its best.

That's me: EVER the "optimist"...

Does it really matter if a game drops to 100FPS while blood splattering and the like is going on? hell no, you wont even notice.

I'd take it, especially vs. players online you want to beat... they're the tough ones.

Not to mention modern games have a FPS cap as is recent trend.

Easily released, @ least in Doom III &/or Quake 4 SMP (which I do for both, IDSoftware fan).

Even in practical tests like MP3 encoding the difference isnt stellar, all of around 1 minute. Its hardly earth shattering or anything to write home about.

That I agree on, absolutely, & posted the diff.'s in %-wise terms (as they were noted @ the testing page's site)... unless it's more than 20%? I don't believe you can note it, however, more than that?? I would think you could.

APK

 

[PVTCaboose1337]

When lots of things go on in a game, higher FPS is good, but personally I cannot tell, anything over 80! The cpu IS faster, but hotter? Multithreaded apps are too few to matter... dual core is taking a long time to be phased in...

 

[Steevo]

From other reports Core 2Duo is not as fast as some of the latest available dual core and or HT EE chips on multi-tasking.


It is more like a severly OC'd AMD 64 with out the heat.

 

[W2hCYK]

Originally Posted by Ketxxx
Even in practical tests like MP3 encoding the difference isnt stellar, all of around 1 minute. Its hardly earth shattering or anything to write home about.

improvements in products usually dont jump by 50-75% increases. Even if they did a 20% increase, thats still 20% more. The improvement from their past P4 chips is incredible, and they do beat out AMD's top of the line $1k+ chips in quite a few tests. 1 minute less in media encoding is a jump in the right direction, and if I were you, i wouldnt criticize intel, they seem to know what they are doing very well, as they are making chips cheap, and high performing. Making their chips cheap is making AMD have to do the same, as is shown with their up coming(if not already here) price drop of A64's (I think 3000+) down to $89 for the lowest.

I used to want an AMD for my next rig, but now I think i'm going to continue going with Intel. I'm buying next summer, of 07, so I'll have a while for some more upgrades to come along. Something tells me intel will hold for about 2 years or so.

 

[magibeg]

Its good to finally see some improvement. But as for the multithreading i read on another site (i cant quite find it now) that had listed several core 2 duo chips as well as a p4 EE edition that the p4 EE was ever so slightly faster in some multi threaded application. So slightly slower then intels current top end chip on that one particular thing. In everything else the core 2 duo destroys pretty well everything

And as for the comments about how they're showing games that are cpu limited its for a reason. That way they can more accurately measure that your getting that much more speed from the cpu as opposed to something more video card related. Sure its 30 extra frames per second when your comparing 100 to 130 but if one is doing 50 and the other is 65 you could notice that difference. And in reference to most video games being capped for frame rates what is usually happening is that the game is not letting you get a frame rate higher then your monitors refresh rate.

 

[yogurt_21]

yeah I was afraid of the lack of multi and yes it matters seeing as you don't buy a dual core to run single threaded apps. lol that's what merom is for.
that'd be like buying a highend gpu to play starcraft. yes there aren't many apps out for dual, but people buy them to be more futurproof it's the whole point of paying more for a second core.

don't get me wrong I'm rooting for intel here it's high time amd feels whats it's like to get spanked again. they've run amok on cpu prices for far too long (remember the xp days? 3200 was 250$ at the expensive stores lol, and the tbird days the 1.4 was 200 even). It's time intel reenters the market and beats the crap out of their leader in order to get them back to the drawing board to release not only a great cpu to follow, but a cheaper one.

 

[Alec§taar]

When lots of things go on in a game, higher FPS is good, but personally I cannot tell, anything over 80!

Agreed, & around that mark (80-100fps) is more than sufficient for smooth playback under "normal/ordinary" gaming circumstances... I mean, e.g.-> Television displays @ what? 60fps??

However, when the explosions, blood spatters, etc. - et al, startup, the extra speed matters...

Multithreaded apps are too few to matter... dual core is taking a long time to be phased in...

This you may want to question, & also check yourself on your end/your system!

Open up taskmgr.exe, select more than the std. amount of columns visible for the processes tab (via the VIEW menu, SELECT COLUMNS submenu), & see how many apps use more than 1 thread...

(I'd wager, you're running 2-n threads on @ LEAST a good 85-95%% of what you have running all the time. They're out there, & by the droves, in multithreaded applications & thus, your system & software ARE "smp ready" etc.!)

E.G.-> 22 processes running here right now, not a 1 has just 1 thread... they are 2-57 (last one is "system process", I generally don't count that, but the next most was 44 in Norton/Symantec AntiVirus RtvScan process).

APK

 

[_33]

More Preview Core 2 Duo

AMD 64 SUCCEEDED IN 3DMARK06!!!

In my opinion, 3DMark 06 results are very strange. No, they are quite clear for the ATI video card and they correlate well with the results in 3DMark 05. A difference between the systems on Intel and AMD processors does not exceed 2-3%. Athlon 64 is more often victorious here. This insignificant difference can be explained by the same factors: the Conroe testbed is not fine-tuned, frequency and timings of its memory. But I don't understand what happened to GeForce 7900 GTX. It's either the problem of NVIDIA drivers or something went wrong during our tests. I haven't got a better explanation to these figures. The 15-30% difference in favour of Athlon 64 is evidently anomalous, judging by the results of absolutely all previous tests and the results of the same system with the ATI card in the same 3DMark 06. Therefore this benchmark results on GeForce 7900 GTX are most likely incorrect, but we are bound to provide them because this popular 3D benchmark must be a part of the article. Let's consider this a preliminary review of a sample that, along with the infrastructure, is to be refined.

The INTEL fanboys are in flame for this one...

No INTEL doesn't have a magic stick, and they can do errors and miscalculations. I think it's just a question of efficiency in some fields where the A64 marchitecture exceeds.

Now where is the K8L??????

EDIT: X6800 REVIEW guys?

 

[Alec§taar]

This review's been updated, INTERESTING!!!

QUOTE/EXCERPT of Changes in review & WHY:

"After publishing this article, we got some inquiries on testing the effects of lower memory latencies and Core 2's performance. This is exactly what we've done on this page using the Corsair DDR2-1066 kit that has 2 x 1GB modules with SPD timings of 5-5-5-15. The following table shows the latencies we've used and the results with specific applications

http://forums.techpowerup.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=106750&

The table above (see URL, apk edit) shows that higher latencies dont really effect Core 2 that much- a very different picture than the one painted by AM2 CPUs that rely a lot more on better latencies. This is good for consumers as they can pretty much pick any DDR2 module and expect good performance."



* People, more & more, this "CONROE" upcoming CPU release from Intel's looking better & better, vs. AMD's latest stuff (& I am NOT knocking either, I use both oem's products here & both are excellent in what I have imo)...

APK

 

[Alec§taar]

ANOTHER REVIEW OF THE INTEL CORE 2 vs. AMD ATHLON 64 x2 4800+

Here's another recent review of the Intel Core Duo CPU family:

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Overclocking with Air Cooling

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=3&artpage=1916&articID=465

* Good one for me to see @ least, because it is head-to-head against an AMD Athlon 64 x2 4800+ (overclocked no less to 2.8ghz), which is what I run here...

(This Intel cpu gets the better of it, by far)

APK

P.S.=> An interesting read... especially for guys ready to go out & update/upgrade @ some point this year... apk