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Conroe 3.6Ghz, X1900 Xfire....

Hmmm... I've still got lots of questions relating to the Conroe and its implications. I've been told to hold off buying a new CPU til a Conroe comes out, so obviously I want to make sure I'm making the right choice.

Firstly, it's obviously going to require a new mobo. But there'll be a lack of Conroe mobos out there surely, so we won't know for a while which are the goods ones and what not. Also, these will be pretty expensive I'm sure.

Secondly, what are the temps lilke on the Conroe? Is it another Prescott and will require a beast of a heatsink? Or will it be controllable. Is it highly overclockable or not so much?

I guess my issue is that the alternative for me is buying a £280 chip now, i.e. an AMD X2 4400. Will the equivalently priced Conroe be much better? Will any of the Conroes fit in this price bracket?!
 
Stelly said:
I'm sure that AMD will do something before quad core mate... well I would hope so anyway :)

Stelly
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Yeah they've got DDR2 and some MHz increments on the way. Nothing that will fend off Conroe considering its doing ~20% more work per clock cycle and has demonstrated scalability to 3.6GHz... Also AMD is still on 95nm and their 65nm won't be overtaking their 95nm production till mid-'07.

Dodge777 said:
Secondly, what are the temps lilke on the Conroe? Is it another Prescott and will require a beast of a heatsink? Or will it be controllable. Is it highly overclockable or not so much?
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The mainstream Conroe parts are 65W TDP so pretty darn cool. Some of the A1 stepping parts have been clocking to 3.2GHz on air and much further with more exotic cooling. As yields and processes improve with the mass production B0 stepping parts the overclockability can only increase further. Just keep an eye out on forums to find out which models are the best clockers on launch day.

Dodge777 said:
I guess my issue is that the alternative for me is buying a £280 chip now, i.e. an AMD X2 4400. Will the equivalently priced Conroe be much better? Will any of the Conroes fit in this price bracket?!
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Yes there will be at least 2, probably 3, models below that price bracket on launch day. Obviously give it 3 months and there will be about 5 more under that range...

Dodge777 said:
Firstly, it's obviously going to require a new mobo. But there'll be a lack of Conroe mobos out there surely
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Conroe compatible P4-generation boards have been shipping for about a month now.
 
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This is totally noobish, and I apologise, but how do you tell if a mobo is Conroe compliant? I.e. what socket does it take?

Secondly, can someone point me in the direction of a site which explains how the speed system works between CPUs. Tried googling it briefly but nothing that explains it all. I mean, my Prescott that I have at the mo is meant to be 3.2 Ghz, but the new Conroes and AMDs are all talking about being 2.4, 2.6 Ghz, etc?
 
So like it would seem Intel is making a come-back?.

Anyone got a link to some benchmarks that includes games?.
 
Dodge777 said:
...but the new Conroes and AMDs are all talking about being 2.4, 2.6 Ghz, etc?
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Yeh well, it's obviously not all just about clock speeds nowadays. Judging from recent and old articles I've read Conroe looks like a shocking CPU. :) Benchmarks are showing it. If the price is right, I'd like to get one of the lower end Conroe chips for a new HTPC.

Efour2 said:
ill be eagerly checking the MM for a nice dual core s939 the day these come out
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Yes, you can take mine for the retail price I paid for it? :)
 
Going to Cali said:
How much can we expect these to retail for?
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I believe they're going to be retailed at a reasonable £250 - £300? Though don't quote me on that.
 
NathanE said:
Yeah they've got DDR2 and some MHz increments on the way. Nothing that will fend off Conroe considering its doing ~20% more work per clock cycle and has demonstrated scalability to 3.6GHz... Also AMD is still on 95nm and their 65nm won't be overtaking their 95nm production till mid-'07.
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K8L will being coming out in Dual core variants at the start of 07. Its just the quad cores that wont be around till the second half of 07, apparently.
There is gonna be both K8 and K8L server quadcores around then.... not sure why they would produce a K8 one but there must be a market for it.

Quad core Conroe/Woodcrest should be interesting... i wonder if there gonna be able to make them much faster than the duals, what with the severe FSB bottleneck they have... hmmm.

Its gonna certainly be interesting. I hope some K8L preliminary benches are up before i buy as i might go AM2 with the mindset of upgrading to K8L duals early next year, don't want to be changing the mobo that early.

these chips do look just astonoshing, only thing i query is why on earth do people base their oppinions so heavily on the Pi1m time? for most on here its got to be about the 3dmark and games tests and then for others the productivity test (for media its likely to absolutely own as well mind).... which there seems to be a distinct lack of in any of these threads?
 
NathanE said:
Yeah they've got DDR2 and some MHz increments on the way. Nothing that will fend off Conroe considering its doing ~20% more work per clock cycle and has demonstrated scalability to 3.6GHz... Also AMD is still on 90nm and their 65nm won't be overtaking their 90nm production till mid-'07.
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sorry - just had to


edit: btw you guys do know gibbo has an am2 rig up and running for benchies (check the these 3dmark scores any good thread)
 
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VoG said:
nah not relevant at all. it's just one of the chosen few, vapo'ing a pre-release cherry chip in search of WR's. now, if he was thrashing a retail chip that'd be relevant, very relevant, anything else is just hype/PR generation on behalf of the manufacturers.
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lol of course it's relevant, it's still an indication of the CPU performance, and besides many different CPU speeds have been tested on the Conroe so its not as though we've been unable to see it running at different levels. There is also no reason whatsoever to assume retail chips will not clock as high, in fact history has shown that the final products usually clock better.

The CPU's are still going to OC to a good level, and performance is still going to be outstanding. FUGGER is just showing us whats possible with the CPU, and considering this is an Overclockers forum... i'd say thet was relevant wouldn't you?

oweneades said:
Personally I am dissapointed with the 3Dmark benchmarks. Especially since this chip is *so called* +-25% faster clock for clock than a FX60. It certainly isn't showing it there.
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3DMARK is still a synthetic benchmark, and also geared towards graphics cards... it's not a clear indication of what a CPU can do.
 
In a serious dilemma here, been offered a very good price for my current rig but I may seriously hold off till these babies arrive. What do you guys reckon? Is it really worth the wait?
 
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