why are the new intel core 2 duo processors so good?

ps3ud0 · 2 Dec 2006 at 15:23

tomanders91 said:
just wondering, for example the ntel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz, why are these apprently so good and better than amd with only 1.86ghz? i always thought more ghz was better? just how exactly are they better?

The Pentium Pro

councilofdespai said:
In other words AMD made Intel take a good look at themselves in order to raise the bar and define new a architecture that can take the battle to AMD.

More the fact Intel realised its Netburst architecture wasnt in the long run the way to go and looked at previous ideas and developed them further...

ps3ud0 :cool:

NathanE · 2 Dec 2006 at 15:41

Well to be fair, Core 2 Duo isn't the 'way to go' for the long term either. It's yet another stop-gap solution to fend off AMD for another couple years while Intel cooks up something really worth getting out of bed for

Nowt wrong with NetBurst, it will be back sooner than you'd think.

Boogle · 2 Dec 2006 at 15:42

Gashman said:
this is ridiculous, what is it with people and saying conroe is THAT MUCH faster than K8, its not as fast as people make it out to be, reading benchmark at the moment and its not even beating K8 in some applications, even though its a crap test and people know FINE WELL K8 NEEDS very low latency memory to work at its fastest and they keep testing it against the non-latency dependant conroe with CL4/5 memory, its totally ridiculous, conroe fans need to realised AMD only need to get about 10% more performance out of K8 and its equal to conroe (before you go having a hissy fit look at benchmarks, really look how close it is, yeah sure K8 is clocked slighly higher but your making it out like conroe is so obserdly faster than K8) put conroe at 3.0Ghz against the new K8 rev. F2 at same clock speed (with low latency memory) and i bet theres a couple of % between them

Edit: http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/06/05/first_benchmarks_conroe_vs_fx-62_uk/index.html

So you're saying I should get a more expensive AMD CPU, then I should go out and also get some much more expensive low-latency memory too?

I think I'll stick with my E6300 thanks, its cheaper in the short-term and cheaper in the long-term (talking power consumption here).

When K8L comes out, Conroe will not only have been improved when it comes to architecture, but it'll also have 3MB cache per core (12MB total cache in quadcore) that's also shared. K8L has 2MB cache per core, plus another 2MB shared L3 between all cores (so 10MB cache total, with 2MB of that being rather slow L3). So yeah, K8L is faster than K8, but Conroe will also have had it's peformance boosted.

Rroff · 2 Dec 2006 at 16:13

Gashman said:
this is ridiculous, what is it with people and saying conroe is THAT MUCH faster than K8, its not as fast as people make it out to be, reading benchmark at the moment and its not even beating K8 in some applications, even though its a crap test and people know FINE WELL K8 NEEDS very low latency memory to work at its fastest and they keep testing it against the non-latency dependant conroe with CL4/5 memory, its totally ridiculous, conroe fans need to realised AMD only need to get about 10% more performance out of K8 and its equal to conroe (before you go having a hissy fit look at benchmarks, really look how close it is, yeah sure K8 is clocked slighly higher but your making it out like conroe is so obserdly faster than K8) put conroe at 3.0Ghz against the new K8 rev. F2 at same clock speed (with low latency memory) and i bet theres a couple of % between them

Edit: http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/06/05/first_benchmarks_conroe_vs_fx-62_uk/index.html

Actually in raw performance in almost all synthetic benchmarks theres a 25% performance difference between a K8 at 3gig and a conroe at 3gig... no guesses as to which one is faster...

Even when the K8 is loaded up with 25+% faster, very low latency RAM and the conroe is sitting on CL5 value ram there is still a 22% performance difference between them. Not to mention the price difference.

When it comes to real world testing, i.e. games the performance difference is even higher.

tomanders91 · 2 Dec 2006 at 16:15

ok so im getting a E6300, despite its only 1.86ghz is it still good for gaming?

Rroff · 2 Dec 2006 at 16:16

Its great for gaming, and very fast for desktop use too...

drunkenmonkey · 3 Dec 2006 at 17:36

NathanE said:
Well to be fair, Core 2 Duo isn't the 'way to go' for the long term either. It's yet another stop-gap solution to fend off AMD for another couple years while Intel cooks up something really worth getting out of bed for

Nowt wrong with NetBurst, it will be back sooner than you'd think.

......what makes you think this nathan!

mk17 · 3 Dec 2006 at 18:20

btw, and I hope this is within forum rules, there's a very good article on AMDs plans for quad-core and Intels roadies over on thg.

Mods please delete if this is out of order.

clv101 · 3 Dec 2006 at 18:26

tomanders91 said:
just wondering, for example the ntel Core 2 DUO E6300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.86GHz, why are these apprently so good and better than amd with only 1.86ghz? i always thought more ghz was better? just how exactly are they better?

You can ONLY use GHz to compare processor performance within between processors using the same microarchitecture. It is irrelevant/meaningless to compare an Athlon 64 with a Pentium 4 with a Core 2 Duo on the basis of their clock speeds - hence way AMD dropped the clock speed identification a few years back and now use a PR rating and why Intel have also dropped the clock speed rating more recently.

Boogle · 3 Dec 2006 at 21:43

drunkenmonkey said:
......what makes you think this nathan!

Ultimately you can't stay with short pipelines indefinitely, longer pipelines will eventually provide more performance.

Having said that with multicore coming in, pipelines will go the way of the dinosaur just like that have in GPUs. Pools of 'processing power' are the future.

tomanders91 · 4 Dec 2006 at 17:01

well im going for an E6300 now, should serve me longer

going to overlock it a bit, not too much but to about 2.4 ish.

The $6m Dan · 5 Dec 2006 at 02:05

Why do people keep on saying the E6300 is cheaper???
It's over 20% more than the AM2 x2 3800, and AMD have just announced further price cuts.

NathanE · 5 Dec 2006 at 08:03

The $6m Dan said:
Why do people keep on saying the E6300 is cheaper???
It's over 20% more than the AM2 x2 3800, and AMD have just announced further price cuts.

A E6300 and X2-3800 isn't comparing like for like though.

MajorMaccas · 5 Dec 2006 at 10:10

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2802

Read + Weep. Some of those benchmarks, an e6300 keeps pace with a FX-62! 1/4 of the cost!

Basically, they're the best. Simple as.

Even the dual CPU, dual core AMD 680a chipset nVidia released for special Opterons dressed up in FX-72 and FX-74 atire was beaten by a Core 2 Quadro Extreme Edition in everything.

The $6m Dan · 5 Dec 2006 at 13:50

NathanE said:
A E6300 and X2-3800 isn't comparing like for like though.

No, it's comparing the cheapest AM2 to the cheapest Core 2.
People in this thread have been saying that Core 2 is cheaper than AM2 which is incorrect.

If you want to benchmark all day then the Core 2 is the way to go.
If all you do is internet, email, watch DVDs etc then the AM2s price point makes more sense.
Heck even for gaming they're not that far behind, and bigger gains will be seen by spending the cash saved on a beefier GFX card.

If you're on the tightest of budgets and want to play games then an X2 probably makes more sense right now. If you have a little extra then sure, get the Core 2

clv101 · 5 Dec 2006 at 13:58

The $6m Dan said:
No, it's comparing the cheapest AM2 to the cheapest Core 2.
People in this thread have been saying that Core 2 is cheaper than AM2 which is incorrect.

Comparing the cheapest to the cheapest is pointless. The only thing it's worth doing is to compare equivalent performance. If you need less performance than the E6300 then great, buy a cheaper AMD chip once your performance requirements get up to E6300 level then Intel are dramatically cheaper.

MajorMaccas · 5 Dec 2006 at 14:09

slap ed said:
i have got a t5500 core 2 duo 1.66ghz in laptop that does the same super pi score as my amd x2 4600 at 2.6 ghz in my desktop machine so clock for clock its doing the same work at 1ghz slower

Actually, the T5xxx series are just Core duo/solo, not Core 2. Only now are these appearing in mobile laptops, and they're a different range to both the Core Duo (T5xxx), and the desktop Core 2 Duos (e6xxx), just to confuse bloody everyone rofl

Still Core infrastructure rules

NathanE · 5 Dec 2006 at 14:28

The $6m Dan said:
No, it's comparing the cheapest AM2 to the cheapest Core 2.
People in this thread have been saying that Core 2 is cheaper than AM2 which is incorrect.

If you want to benchmark all day then the Core 2 is the way to go.
If all you do is internet, email, watch DVDs etc then the AM2s price point makes more sense.
Heck even for gaming they're not that far behind, and bigger gains will be seen by spending the cash saved on a beefier GFX card.

If you're on the tightest of budgets and want to play games then an X2 probably makes more sense right now. If you have a little extra then sure, get the Core 2

I see what you're getting at but I don't see its relevance. So what if Core 2 Duo's bottom end pricing is higher than the bottom end of X2 pricing? What does this prove? Nothing. It's not Intel's fault if people get locked into the "I want a Core 2 Duo or I don't want an Intel processor at all" mentality. There still exists a very formidable Pentium D "Presler" range, most of which will beat a X2 3800 quite easily and are being flogged very cheaply at the moment.

The $6m Dan · 5 Dec 2006 at 16:33

People were claiming that it was cheaper, I just wanted to point out that, that was incorrect. If they'd said bang for buck then I'd agree whole heartedly.

If you didn't want either the Core2 or AM2, then an A64, socket 939 can be had for £45 and would probably be my recommendation for an ultra cheap gaming system.

clv101 · 5 Dec 2006 at 17:16

The $6m Dan said:
People were claiming that it was cheaper, I just wanted to point out that, that was incorrect. If they'd said bang for buck then I'd agree whole heartedly.

If you didn't want either the Core2 or AM2, then an A64, socket 939 can be had for £45 and would probably be my recommendation for an ultra cheap gaming system.

Yeah and you can pick up an old Pentium 3 from your local paper for a tenner... it's just not comparable!