Penryn Vs Agena

Arterion · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:26

Ok, admittedly I know next to nothing about forthcoming Penryn cores and a fair bit about Agena cores (on an AM2 socket).

Which is gonna be better? If Penryn is gonna kick Agena a$$ THAT severly i'll spend the extra cash and get a P35 board and a 6420 for now...

Also a bit concerned about how new this P35 suff is. Are these rather expensive boards any good at this early stage? Any boards particularly stand out? (preferably a not-too-expensive one !!!)

Jono8 · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:29

my p35c-ds3r has been fantastic so far. Got my e6320 to 3.1ghz at stock volts no probs. Only my ram is holding me back. All the games and apps ive played run great. So far i can't fault it from what i've asked for it so far.

Journey · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:30

Ignoring the first bit of your post, but answering your question about the P35 boards. you can get a Gigabyte GA-P35-S3 for around £66 inc. V.A.T. Built two system with these and they OC just as well as a board 2x the price

Craig321 · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:31

Arterion said:
Ok, admittedly I know next to nothing about forthcoming Penryn cores and a fair bit about Agena cores (on an AM2 socket).

Which is gonna be better? If Penryn is gonna kick Agena a$$ THAT severly i'll spend the extra cash and get a P35 board and a 6420 for now...

Also a bit concerned about how new this P35 suff is. Are these rather expensive boards any good at this early stage? Any boards particularly stand out? (preferably a not-too-expensive one !!!)

I reckon Penryn will beat Agena, unless AMD have figured out how to make C2D-style CPUs

Craig

Cenuij · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:35

I've heard favourable things about most of the p35 boards, my new DQ6 kicks ass with a 6420, the P35-DS4 has similar features for about £50 quid less than the DQ6

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9578038&postcount=348

The 6420 is a stop gap until I can suss out the penryn's after release...

jaykay · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:35

Craig321 said:
I reckon Penryn will beat Agena, unless AMD have figured out how to make C2D-style CPUs

Craig

Um C2D cpu use the basis of AMDs cpu do. Low clock speed and high IPC except Intel took it one bit futher than AMD did.
No one knows which ones gona beat who but theres a few rumors that agena wont clock as high as peryn but will have a higher amount of IPC and of stuff to counter it.

Craig321 · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:36

jaykay said:
Um C2D cpu use the basis of AMDs cpu do. Low clock speed and high IPC except Intel took it one bit futher than AMD did.
No one knows which ones gona beat who but theres a few rumors that agena wont clock as high as peryn but will have a higher amount of IPC and of stuff to counter it.

Yep, I know they use the same basis, but will AMD actually match up to it... we'll have to wait & see

d34d_m34t · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:38

We really wont know how well penryn and barcelona stack up until some hard benchies are released, so that questions is a bit difficult to answer. The only thing I have seen that looks really bad for AMD was that POV ray test where an 8 core intel set up beat a 16 core Barcelona set up, but then again the intel's were clocked to 3.0 ghz and apparently the AMDs weren't running much faster than 1.6 Ghz. Going by that, clock for clock the agena and penryn could be very close indeed...however with intel moving to 45 nm they should be able to get the higher clocks.

Cenuij · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:41

Craig321 said:
Yep, I know they use the same basis, but will AMD actually match up to it... we'll have to wait & see

Honestly I hope so, good competition is great for us. AMD made Intel have a rethink, Intel stepped up to the plate. Now hopefully AMD can push back again.

Choice is good

Jokester · 24 Jun 2007 at 15:46

From the results I've seen, Penryn is about 5-10% quicker on average than Conroe based cores across most benchmarks. Rumour is though that'll overclock further than Conroe based cores.

Barcelona is a bit of an unknown, though it is apparent that the FX chips will be 2.4-2.6GHz when they're released the end of this year and they are supposedly very close clock for clock to Penryn.

It all comes down to how they overclock from my point of view, at the moment Intel would seem to have the edge, unless AMDs FX chips are hitting 50% or more overclocks on standard cooling (which would be a first).

Jokester

Arterion · 24 Jun 2007 at 16:03

a lot of these comments seem based to some degree of an expectatoin of overclocking a Penryn. Does this mean that for the non-overclocker an Agena on the AM2 (not AM2+) socket might be more viable?

d34d_m34t · 24 Jun 2007 at 16:11

Arterion said:
a lot of these comments seem based to some degree of an expectatoin of overclocking a Penryn. Does this mean that for the non-overclocker an Agena on the AM2 (not AM2+) socket might be more viable?

Well they may be clock for clock comparable, but i think at stock some penryns will be around 3.3 ghz whereas barcelona will be max 2.6...so even at stock penryn could be ~30% faster.

Sinny · 24 Jun 2007 at 16:36

what it all comes downto i think is nm, the penryn will be a 45nm 1333fsb dual/quad core beast, what does the Agena have that the penryn hasnt, as i take it amd are slow on the processors size uptake these days.

it will all end up to benchies at the end of the day, but i think intel will succeed following an improved version of their hugely succesfull Conroe's.

Arterion · 24 Jun 2007 at 17:55

Aaaah this is driving me nuts! It's really annoying that I need to get these parts soon (because my current rig died) when there is so much speculation and uncertainty about what is the pretty near-future. Choices are good, except when you have to make them!!

*praying for reliable benchmark leaks of Agena AM2 and Penryn chips*

Journey · 24 Jun 2007 at 18:07

I think you can safely assume that the new AMD is not going to be much faster/slower than the Penryn, so I go with what is fastest for you hard earned now rather than speculating on things to come.

jaykay · 24 Jun 2007 at 18:07

Arterion said:
Aaaah this is driving me nuts! It's really annoying that I need to get these parts soon (because my current rig died) when there is so much speculation and uncertainty about what is the pretty near-future. Choices are good, except when you have to make them!!

*praying for reliable benchmark leaks of Agena AM2 and Penryn chips*

If you want some leak benchmarks then check out fudzilla, though this does come with a warning as hes one of the least reliable people. (He was correct about the 2900xt though

)

Arterion · 24 Jun 2007 at 18:09

Journey said:
I think you can safely assume that the new AMD is not going to be much faster/slower than the Penryn, so I go with what is fastest for you hard earned now rather than speculating on things to come.

True, but will a P35 board be more useful for longer? Surely Agena's wont ALWAYS be able to work on the 'limited' HT of an AM2 board? And don't P35's have DDR3 support?

Journey · 24 Jun 2007 at 18:33

Arterion said:
True, but will a P35 board be more useful for longer? Surely Agena's wont ALWAYS be able to work on the 'limited' HT of an AM2 board? And don't P35's have DDR3 support?

So you are agreeing with me that the P35 seems like the obvious way to go then. I hardly doubt that having DDR3 is going to make a difference for at least 9-12 months anyhow so you can always change your motherboard if you go that route.

Gashman · 24 Jun 2007 at 18:54

no-one can creatively comment on either of these processors, especially agena, we've seen nothing of AMDs new processor, so you can't say it'll only be equal to penryn clock for clock, cause we don't know how fast it is, we don't even have any idea how fast its gonna be, sure K8 didn't overclock all that great (wasn't exactly terrible either though) but had good IPC, don't count AMD out of the upcoming fight so quickly, they've had a lot of time to improve upon K8 and im sure they've made a fair few improvements, lets just wait and see shall we?

Kamakazie! · 24 Jun 2007 at 23:40

Arterion said:
True, but will a P35 board be more useful for longer? Surely Agena's wont ALWAYS be able to work on the 'limited' HT of an AM2 board? And don't P35's have DDR3 support?

DDR3 support yes, but AM2 supports processors well in to 2H'08 where as with Intel, the next major CPU upgrade is Nehalem in 2H'08 which WILL require a new socket.

Make a choice based on your gut feeling. Both Agena and Penryn are going to be beasts in their own right and will be a step up from what is currently on the market. You should not be unhappy with either, regardless which you chose. I chose the AM2 route back in October last year when thing were even less uncertain and i have not regretted it. I have a very fsat PC that does everything i want of it and more. I now have the lovely option of upgrading to Agena come October'ish time this year just in case i need that speed bump (which i won't, but might get anyway).