Conroe Preview Benchmarks vs FX-60

8 Mar, 2006 at 3:42pm ET Article published in Tech

At the IDF, Intel has configured two similar machines, one running a Conroe @ 2.66ghz (1067MHz FSB Intel 975X motherboard) and another with a FX-60 overclocked to 2.8ghz (DFI RD480). Anandtech was allowed to run some benchmarks comparing the two.

In every benchmark ran the Conroe was 20-40% faster than the OC’d FX-60!

Benchmarks:
Quake 4
HalfLife 2: Lost Coast
Unreal Tournament 2004
F.E.A.R.
Window Media Encoder 9
Divx v6.1
iTunes v6.0.1.3

Article: Spring IDF 2006 Conroe Preview: Intel Regains the Performance Crown

The AMD system used 1GB of DDR400 running at 2-2-2/1T timings, while the Intel system used 1GB of DDR2-667 running at 4-4-4. 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. Tomorrow we’ll be able to go into great depth on the architecture of Conroe, but for now enjoy the benchmarks.

The grandson of the Pentium 3 arrives to reclaim its family honor!

Source: Anandtech

Comments

8 Mar 2006 ~ 3:55pm primesuspect I like Ars Technica's writeup on the benches.... Especially the "gigantic grain of salt" bit
8 Mar 2006 ~ 4:24pm Omega65 Ars-technica's scoffs aside, this type of performance was foreshadowed by by the Dothan. It was 10-15% faster in integer performance (clock for clock) than the Athlon 64. And at the time Intel said that a enchanced version for the desktop would be 20-30% faster.

The new single cycle SSEx performance is going to help in a lot of multimedia benchmarks (read Apple)
8 Mar 2006 ~ 10:47pm Qeldroma

Omega65 wrote:

...
The new single cycle SSEx performance is going to help ...

...

I'm afraid this need for speed technology has finally passed me up- I'm staying right where I am! (Sorry, I couldn't resist )

Personally - I think they can't get Conroes on the shelf soon enough. I'm really itching to buy a dual core like yesterday, but the price is just too much for a Toledo/Denamrk right now.

Whatever happened to the good old days when paying more than $250 US for a competitive AMD processor was getting pretty steep and more than $200 for a video card was almost unheard of? Soon I'll be spending that on the power supplies just to keep them all going .... >Sigh<
8 Mar 2006 ~ 11:16pm Well AMD and Intel play leapfrog but I've learned not to put too much stock into Intel. I dunno just always seems to good to be true with them.
9 Mar 2006 ~ 7:20am Omega65

Qeldroma wrote:

...
Whatever happened to the good old days when paying more than $250 US for a competitive AMD processor was getting pretty steep and more than $200 for a video card was almost unheard of? Soon I'll be spending that on the power supplies just to keep them all going .... >Sigh<

Your Memory is Faulty..
The 3DFX Monster 3D debuted with a price of $300 as did the Radeon 9700 Pro. The Pentium II 300 was $1000 when intro'd. Intel drove AMD Athlon XP prices down by selling their low end P4s cheap but the highend P4s were expensive. That is until the Athlon 64s arrived and started kicking butt.

The Best stuff is always expensive (>$300). Expect Conroe Prices to be Sky High.
9 Mar 2006 ~ 7:59am Qeldroma

Omega65 wrote:

...
The 3DFX Monster 3D debuted with a price of $300 as did the Radeon 9700 Pro...

Didn't go back far enough. I'm talking about a new Radeon 7000 AIW for $149. You might have have paid $300 for a card at the time- but that was just a sickening amount of money to spend on a bleeding edge video card.

Omega65 wrote:

...
The Pentium II 300 was $1000 when intro'd. Intel drove AMD Athlon XP prices down by selling their low end P4s cheap but the highend P4s were expensive. That is until the Athlon 64s arrived and started kicking butt.

The Best stuff is always expensive (>$300). Expect Conroe Prices to be Sky High

Let me explain better. I bought a 2600 Barton for my wife for $110 when the 3200 was going for $750 (overclocked it once to almost match- backed off and she still uses it today). Intel was kicking AMDs butt with Northwood and AMD 64s weren't really being seriously considered at the time.

Try finding that kind of deal in X2 land- you "can" but you can't. I'm dialed in on having a dual core processor- but not while they still cost more than a two processor equivalent (compare 3700s to 4400s). What we are paying for right now is the "premium" of dual core. I'm not wanting the best stuff- I'm still waiting for the "deal" of dual core- and I don't expect it until AMD has real competition.
9 Mar 2006 ~ 12:34pm drasnor I'm pretty much already committed in all senses of the word to AMD and s940 due to being an early adopter of Opteron. I don't regret the decision since there really wasn't much choice at the time, it was either dual Opterons or single P4 w/ HT. Easy decision.

I'm happy to see that Intel has decided to be competitive. AMD and Intel will at least be able to keep each other honest on prices and we'll actually have a choice of platforms (at least the non-fanboys will).

By the way, I don't think the Radeon 7000 was ever "new". It's a down-clocked Radeon at heart (at least it is on the Mac side) so comparing it with a 3dfx Monster 3D or 9700Pro is like comparing a GeForce2 MX440 with a GeForce2 Pro.

-drasnor
9 Mar 2006 ~ 12:46pm Omega65 Dual (& Dual Core) CPUs cost more than two single equivalent CPUs. Not all that long ago (about 18months) Two Athlon MP 2800+ were $300 each. A Dual Core 4400+ o Apteron 170 is a bargain comapred to that.

We all got used to cheap AMD CPUs because AMD was dumping it's CPUs onto the market a depressed price simply to make enough cash to survive. Now prices have returned to normal. I had 2 of those pricey MP 2800+ I mentioned earlier so I find a that a Opteron DC 165/170 to be a steal considering historical prices.

You can still find Dual Core bargains, the Intel 805, 820 are cheap DC CPUs but as AMD has limited manufacturing capablity vs Intel and their CPUs are in high demand you're not going to see your pricing level for awhile if ever.
9 Mar 2006 ~ 1:04pm Linc As an FYI, PC Perspective has another article on the subject:

Intel's Merom and Conroe Details

PCPer.com wrote:

With all this new energy efficiency from Intel's new core, it would seem that single core processors might again be an option but Intel is not going down that path. This slide shows what Intel’s sees as the balance between power consumption and performance. The center two bars represent the current status of a single core performance normalized and a single core power usage normalized as well. On the left of that you'll see a typically overclocked processor, as many of our readers are familiar with.
9 Mar 2006 ~ 8:31pm Omega65

drasnor wrote:

By the way, I don't think the Radeon 7000 was ever "new". It's a down-clocked Radeon at heart (at least it is on the Mac side) so comparing it with a 3dfx Monster 3D or 9700Pro is like comparing a GeForce2 MX440 with a GeForce2 Pro.

-drasnor

The Monster 3D predates the Radeon 7000 by several years. The point was to show that the best hardware is expensive when it debuts and that the prices for it are historically high.