Some interesting conroe readings for you all.

[Jimbo]

Not sure if you lot saw this, but its starting too hot up now...


Intel Core 2 Duo Reviews Ahoy !
Posted by: Perkam on Friday, July 14, 2006 - 05:44 AM
Intel has finally decided to make Conroe Launch official and though retail availability may be a few days away, the reviews for Intel’s next processor architecture, the Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme, internally known as Conroe, have been pouring in all day. With a constantly updated listing of all official Conroe reviews, you can view benchmarks, voice your opinion, or find links to the reviews in alphabetical order on the XtremeSystems Forums.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=104147


I find this interesting....

Core 2 Extreme is not truly "unlocked". Officially (per the BIOS Writers Guide), it is "a frequency limited processor with additional support for ratio overrides higher than the maximum Intel-tested bus-to-core ratio." Currently, that max tested ratio is 11:1 (aka 2.93G @ 1066 FSB). The min ratio is 6:1. However, do note that the Core 2 Extreme will boot at 2.93G unlike prior generation XE processors which booted to the lowest possible ratio and had to be "cranked up" to the performance ratio.

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Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 didn't lose a single benchmark in our comparison; not a single one. In many cases, the $183 Core 2 Duo E6300 actually outperformed Intel's previous champ: the Pentium Extreme Edition 965. In one day, Intel has made its entire Pentium D lineup of processors obsolete. Intel's Core 2 processors offer the sort of next-generation micro-architecture performance leap that we honestly haven't seen from Intel since the introduction of the P6.

Wow...... just wow.

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Overclockers UK is listing the chips on pre-order, starting at £152 for the E6300. The Core 2 Duo E6400 comes in at £182 including VAT - we think that this represents excellent value for money. Having said that, the Core 2 Duo E6600 represents great value, too. At £252 including VAT, it is marginally more expensive than the Athlon 64 X2 4600+, but the performance delivered by it is in a completely different league altogether. Meanwhile the Core 2 Duo E6700 and Core 2 Extreme are on pre-order for £411 and £775 respectively.
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Conroes gonna punch us all in the face... HARD!!!

 

[Gashman]

i like the way one of those reviews comes to conclusion conroe offers no 'real' performance increase at high resolutions (such as i play on 20" WS monitor) over the FX-62, not even the 'almighty X6800' at the most the advantage is utterly neglagable, so AMD are far from in trouble. fair enough intel have the enthusiast market, but the other 99% of the world won't be overclocking and won't see any real improvement, buy FX-62 system or X6800 system the non-enthusiast market isn't going to notice any difference in the slightest i would guess. however for the enthusiasts and overclockers core 2 duo is a smashing hit

Edit: roll on woodcrest and 65nm AMDs and for anyone interested im refering to this article http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTEwOCwxMSwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

 

[Dolph]

i like the way one of those reviews comes to conclusion conroe offers no 'real' performance increase at high resolutions (such as i play on 20" WS monitor) over the FX-62, not even the 'almighty X6800' at the most the advantage is utterly neglagable, so AMD are far from in trouble. fair enough intel have the enthusiast market, but the other 99% of the world won't be overclocking and won't see any real improvement, buy FX-62 system or X6800 system the non-enthusiast market isn't going to notice any difference in the slightest i would guess. however for the enthusiasts and overclockers core 2 duo is a smashing hit

Only because at high resolutions the limit is the GFX card, not the CPU..... Surprisingly if you test any system with the same weakpoint for a given test the results will be the same....

 

[Journey]

the other 99% of the world won't be overclocking and won't see any real improvement, buy FX-62 system or X6800 system the non-enthusiast market isn't going to notice any difference

Just like the those people have not noticed AMD in the first place because AMD was the enthusiast's CPU of choice, while the general public have been quite happy with the Intel P4's and Pentium D's they have been using.

Intel will achieve what they set out to do, gain back their reputation in the market where people actually care whats in their machine whilst still pretty much domintating the consumer and business segments, making there market share go up and their share value.

 

[Dave2150]

Just like the those people have not noticed AMD in the first place because AMD was the enthusiast's CPU of choice, while the general public have been quite happy with the Intel P4's and Pentium D's they have been using.

Intel will achieve what they set out to do, gain back their reputation in the market where people actually care whats in their machine whilst still pretty much domintating the consumer and business segments, making there market share go up and their share value.

AMD have so much more of the CPU market than compared to 5 years ago - this is not going to dissapear overnight.

The funds raised by the success of the A64 have been poured into their next gen core, so thats going to be something special Id imagine.

Its not over for AMD dude, sorry to tell you.

 

[Gashman]

Only because at high resolutions the limit is the GFX card, not the CPU..... Surprisingly if you test any system with the same weakpoint for a given test the results will be the same....

the thing is though, lots of people play at increasingly higher resolutions all the time, so we need some truely monsterous graphics cards to unlock the true potential of conroe, woodcrest and the next generation AMD, or were all gonna be stuck at X FPS as its held back by graphics card, so honest opinion, do you believe conroe has any benefit at all at higher resolutions over AMD X2 and FX, were talking 1600*1200 and above, using identical graphics.

 

[Journey]

Its not over for AMD dude, sorry to tell you.

I never said it was over, I said it hardly got started. Look at the server market and AMD have made massive gains due to their 4 & 8 way Opterons and thats where the money is.

The likes of Dell and all the other high street brands have always been Intel users it has only been lately that people have started recognising AMD as an actually CPU manufacturer.

"Oh my new system does it have Intel Inside?"

Thats is a typical question from the public, so with Intel offering a better CPU for less or the same money, why would you not go back to them even if you were using AMD?

 

[Journey]

the thing is though, lots of people play at increasingly higher resolutions all the time, so we need some truely monsterous graphics cards to unlock the true potential of conroe, woodcrest and the next generation AMD, or were all gonna be stuck at X FPS as its held back by graphics card, so honest opinion, do you believe conroe has any benefit at all at higher resolutions over AMD X2 and FX, were talking 1600*1200 and above, using identical graphics.

You do realise that a CPU is not just for games?

 

[Gashman]

I never said it was over, I said it hardly got started. Look at the server market and AMD have made massive gains due to their 4 & 8 way Opterons and thats where the money is.

The likes of Dell and all the other high street brands have always been Intel users it has only been lately that people have started recognising AMD as an actually CPU manufacturer.

"Oh my new system does it have Intel Inside?"

Thats is a typical question from the public, so with Intel offering a better CPU for less or the same money, why would you not go back to them even if you were using AMD?

i can see where he was coming from on this post, since this forum has been utterly inundated with 'AMD are dead', 'AMD are doomed' threads for some weeks now, he just stated with good reason that conroe won't kill AMD, far from it. when AMD was performance king most enthusiasts went down that road but the other 99% of the world got off the shelf PC mostly using intel pentium IV or celeron Ds, though AMD creamed them both in perfomance they have no support in the mainstream market, now they do there sales are undoubtably better than ever regardless of core duo

 

[Dolph]

the thing is though, lots of people play at increasingly higher resolutions all the time, so we need some truely monsterous graphics cards to unlock the true potential of conroe, woodcrest and the next generation AMD, or were all gonna be stuck at X FPS as its held back by graphics card, so honest opinion, do you believe conroe has any benefit at all at higher resolutions over AMD X2 and FX, were talking 1600*1200 and above, using identical graphics.

Using current cards (apart from SLI setups), probably not, but as cards become more powerful, the X2 and FX will become CPU bound before the Conroe system does.

It's also worth reading the Techreport review for some more interesting benches where they plot not just the average framerate, but the minimum as well, at high resolutions in a few games... And there is plenty of evidence there that it definitely does make a difference.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2/index.x?pg=1

The question is, do you believe the sole judgement of a cpu is ingame performance at high resolutions?

 

[Journey]

I have to say I will not be buying a conroe CPU any time soon, I have a great system an Opty 146@3GHz, 2GB RAM, and a 7900GT@680/1850, even with my 24" TFT it's ok for what I use it for, and when I do want to go dual core, I'll pick up a cheap Socket 939 X2. This system with a single change of graphics wil more than likely see me through till K8L is out then I'll be interested.

 

[Dolph]

i can see where he was coming from on this post, since this forum has been utterly inundated with 'AMD are dead', 'AMD are doomed' threads for some weeks now, he just stated with good reason that conroe won't kill AMD, far from it. when AMD was performance king most enthusiasts went down that road but the other 99% of the world got off the shelf PC mostly using intel pentium IV or celeron Ds, though AMD creamed them both in perfomance they have no support in the mainstream market, now they do there sales are undoubtably better than ever regardless of core duo

I've never said anything about AMD being dead or similar, such talk is unnecessary and inaccurate.

However, it's also worth noting that AMD would never have been a mainstream supplier, irrespective of whether or not people want them, simply because they don't have the manufacturing capacity to meet such a demand.

The enthusiast market barely registers in the grand scheme of things anyway.

 

[Gashman]

I've never said anything about AMD being dead or similar, such talk is unnecessary and inaccurate.

However, it's also worth noting that AMD would never have been a mainstream supplier, irrespective of whether or not people want them, simply because they don't have the manufacturing capacity to meet such a demand.

The enthusiast market barely registers in the grand scheme of things anyway.

i meant AMD doomers in general, no toward any person in particular. yeah AMD aren't anywhere near as big as intel so they can't keep up demand sometimes, as you said enthusiasts are tiny segment of market, sorta like compairing ferrari and a motoring giant like ford or general motors, ferrari is like proberbly 1% of fords sales

 

[Jabbs]

Best way to look at it is, the market needs both or we will be stuck with stupid high prices if just one is about.

Conroe is a blessing as AMD have to slash prices to keep up, so for us amd peeps that don't have any interest in changing to conroe atm, its great news.

 

[drunkenmaster]

to be honest when looking at cpu's you should really look at gaming, why? well as well as 99% of users not knowing basically anything, or caring, whats in their computers. those same 99% are likely to, if ever stress their cpu be doing it while gaming. think about it, sure some people encode dvd's to save space(lets be honest most not for legit reasons either), some people render high def images or do very high end design work which need powerful cpu's. thats not 99% of users, even most design work doesn't need powerful gfx or cpu, i mean web page design doesn't really need any power does it.

most people that buy computers use e-mail, internet and the odd bit of word processing, then a lot of families will buy a computer and the most intensive thing they'll do is gaming, they won't run benchmarks, they won't be doing anything intensive at all and they wouldn't be able to tell you the difference between a 4Ghz conroe and a 2Ghz sempron, they just wouldn't.

be honest, think about everyone you know around you, family friends, people at uni, school, work. i could name 20-30 people on media design courses that use computers but don't really need anything powerful and the thing they do most is game when it comes to intensive cpu stuff. before i built comps i would say our family machine was heavily used for gaming, other than that nothing. generally most of my friends either have family, or their own computers use them for gaming and school/uni work thats it.

this is why amd won't suddenly dissappear, and this is why 90% of people on this forum won't see any benefit from a conroe right now either.

but saying that why buy a worse cpu, for anyone without a decent system i would say buy a conroe, i would never recommend an upgrade to a conroe unless they do something more than game/surf/office work.

as for more powerful gfx, why would they want a more powerful cpu? if a x1900xt can give you 100fps in hl2 with any decent cpu then a crossfire setup would give you 180fps at the same res. the point of crossfire is to be able to run a higher resolution, then at that resolution you end up gpu limited again. there are a few RTS benchmarks that even at high res show way diff fps, but then even the lowest cpu gives playable framerates due to the fact 20fps is fine on a rts.

as far as i can tell only really FEAR gives a single gfx card issues at 1600x1200, but its still playable with a very decent detail levels. basically crossfire for even 1600x1200 is overkill. i don't think anything great is going to be out before the next set of cards so unless you have a 1920x1200 res monitor at least crossfire is a waste. bit miffed, crt's died, completely, can barely buy any anywhere. what i would kill sometimes for a crt that could do 2000x1400(ish) at 85hz at least. the only other option is 24" lcd which aren't cheap and which don't(so far) have the best refresh rates, also i find 24" just toooo big to sit comftably near

 

[locutus12]

I have to say I will not be buying a conroe CPU any time soon, I have a great system an Opty 146@3GHz, 2GB RAM, and a 7900GT@680/1850, even with my 24" TFT it's ok for what I use it for, and when I do want to go dual core, I'll pick up a cheap Socket 939 X2. This system with a single change of graphics wil more than likely see me through till K8L is out then I'll be interested.

common sense how dare you :/

 

[FrankJH]

However, it's also worth noting that AMD would never have been a mainstream supplier, irrespective of whether or not people want them, simply because they don't have the manufacturing capacity to meet such a demand.

So what are AMD if they arent a mainstream supplier? ( You seem to have gone from past tense to present so if I have taken your post wrongly I appologise)

I agree they arent as widely used or have the capacity of Intel (probably only about 10% of Intel) but to be honest if JP Morgan and other huge investment banks are using AMD now - and have done for a year or so - they must be pretty mainstream by now, wouldnt you say.

(PS I have taken delivery on behalf of JPM of good quality AMD equipment in the recent past, so this isnt guess work)

Also huge highstreet retailers are also advertising AMD widely

As I said if I misunderstood your point I appologise

 

[Stelly]

It looks very bright for Intel, I cant wait to get my processor tomorrow, and have just confirmed the day off with my boss

Stelly

 

[Iraklis F.C.]

, and have just confirmed the day off with my boss

Stelly

yeah thats the spirit!

 

[Stelly]

yeah thats the spirit!

Told the girlfriend that I'm working on my masters dissertation lol... like thats going to happen

Stelly