backtop

Hardware Conroe Benchmarks Updated
Brandon Hill (Blog) - March 9, 2006 11:00 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 58 comment(s) - last by zsdersw.. on Mar 11 at 7:10 AM
BIOS issues and other concerns are addressed

Anandtech was able to score a second session with Intel's Conroe and an overclocked AMD FX-60. Some concerns and issues were raised concerning the first test, so Anand addresses them with this update.

The performance picture with regards to Conroe hasn’t really changed all that much - on average we’re still seeing a bit over a 20% increase in performance over an overclocked Athlon 64 FX-60.  While it’s worth noting that these results should be taken with a grain of salt, we really were not able to determine any cause for suspicion based on Intel’s setups.  The machines were as clean as they could get, with the BIOS oversight having no tangible impact on most performance.

After this second round of tests, there doesn't appear to be anything malicious or underhanded going on Intel's part. The BIOS had little to no effect on performance and the Conroe still comes out on top. Now all we have to do is wait for AM2 Athlons.

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
Real Comparisons
By m3a2 on 3/9/2006 6:31:15 PM , Rating: 2
I wonder why Intel didn't just compare the new Conroe to one of its own currantly existing chips? Afraid to show how bad their old chips are or how little hey have improved on their new chip?




RE: Real Comparisons
By Brainonska511 on 3/9/2006 6:38:20 PM , Rating: 2
Why would they do that? It is better publicity to bash the competitor's product, since that is what Intel is facing in the market. They are competeting with AMD, not themselves.


RE: Real Comparisons
By clnee55 on 3/9/2006 6:47:06 PM , Rating: 2
I wonder why you wonder. Showing something better than your competitors versus showing something better than your own product. Do you need to ask that question? Actually, if they did as you suggest, the improvement should be larger assuming that Conroe > AMD > P4. They still can be proud of a large improvement. Your argument is so funny. It is like saying "you should be ashamed of your great aacchievement because you didn't do that in the past".


RE: Real Comparisons
By Regs on 3/9/2006 7:58:23 PM , Rating: 2
The K8 has been AMD's blockbuster for many years. Consider a company like mine, one I work for and one I wish not to disclose. Every CEO knows in today's business world that you can only market, sell, and then sit on a blockbuster for so long. Upper management will always stress the importance of research and development even when stocks are up. Sales and marketing is a major part of every successful company, no doubt about that. However on the other end you have the research and development effort. I work for research and development in my company, however I'm only a low level employee. On the first day of my employment I signed a confidentiality contract with the company which holds me responsible and liable for all information in R&D and within my department. Our R&D facilities and directors of research carefully manage all information within the company and more importantly within the individual departments themselves. This allows the containment of information. Even our own CEO, who addresses the shareholders, does not know more than half the information that our R&D department contains. He only known's what the share holders want to hear in reality. Everything else he knows is all numbers and cents. An all too familiar term used in business is number and cents. It's their common language. Our R&D department is basically in another world compared to the more business and legal end of our company. This is exactly the way AMD works. The executives know exactly what they are working on, however all they know right now is how much money and resources they are implementing on the research. Upper management plans the long term goals of the company by managing their resources, personal and capital. The truth is they try to know as little as possible. However when they ask a question to R&D, the expect answers. Conroe was Intel's R&D answer to Intel's executives, board of directors, and stock holders. Intel offered them the capital and resources (like the Israel Research and Development facilities) then R&D provided them with an answer when needed. A working model. One which Intel's business and marketing teams took over. And here it is, on Anandtech's very own site. A solution six months away.

AMD's executives are now asking AMD's R&D departments for an answer. So ask yourself this, did AMD offer capital and resources to their development facilities over the years just as Intel did? Maybe licensing to new technologies, contracts with other semiconductor companies, building or opening new production facilities, or even new machinery and engineers? They are asking questions. Will they deliver an answer? It all maters on one fundamental aspect of business -- did they have the resources in place to make their long term goals a reality?


RE: Real Comparisons
By m3a2 on 3/9/2006 10:13:41 PM , Rating: 2
What i'm saying is this, if they want to claim 20% over their previous chip let them benchmark against that chip and prove it. Benchmarking against your competators chip and claiming % over it and your other chips smells fishy. Oh well we will see in 6 months what happens.


RE: Real Comparisons
By m3a2 on 3/9/2006 10:15:24 PM , Rating: 2
Also is it true, that they ran the AMD with video drivers optimized for the Intel chip?


RE: Real Comparisons
By JackPack on 3/10/2006 1:14:53 AM , Rating: 2
No.


RE: Real Comparisons
By Maskarat on 3/10/2006 7:50:05 AM , Rating: 2
Are you high on dope?? Cause you certainly are blowin smoke out from your @*s


RE: Real Comparisons
By masher2 (blog) on 3/10/2006 8:55:22 AM , Rating: 3
> Benchmarking against your competators chip and claiming % over it and your other chips smells fishy..."

Lol, I actually had to read this twice to convince myself someone actually typed such nonsense. Comparing your product directly to your competitors is "fishy"?

A mind is a terrible thing to waste...


RE: Real Comparisons
By clnee55 on 3/10/2006 12:19:00 PM , Rating: 2

Since you don't believe what Anand did and said, I am 100% sure you won't believe what Intel would do and say. TRy another excuse to support your pain.

Quote:
"What i'm saying is this, if they want to claim 20% over their previous chip let them benchmark against that chip and prove it. Benchmarking against your competators chip and claiming % over it and your other chips smells fishy. Oh well we will see in 6 months what happens."


Unhappy
By Sunbird on 3/9/2006 11:16:15 AM , Rating: 3
Is it me, or does there seem to be some underlying unhappiness that Intel has been found to be doing nothing wrong?




RE: Unhappy
By raskren on 3/9/2006 11:20:24 AM , Rating: 2
Not here.

Maybe if you're an AMDroid.


RE: Unhappy
By kattanna on 3/9/2006 11:36:37 AM , Rating: 2
LOL as a AMD fanboy seeing intel do this makes me VERY happy...

kick AMD out of its complancency

besides dual cores...the processor world has been frankly boring for the past 2 years

but hopefully that is changing



RE: Unhappy
By scabby on 3/9/2006 12:03:38 PM , Rating: 2
Agreed... two sleeping giants makes... well, for loud snoring. Wake up and give us some neat processors please!

A solid Intel product might get AMD off of their duffs. More competition = better products = lower prices in the long run.


RE: Unhappy
By bbomb on 3/9/2006 9:05:44 PM , Rating: 2
I too am hoping AMD gets their asses handed to them. They HAVE become complacent to the point where they aren't too much cheaper than Intel and thought they had overtaken them it seems. AMD has offered nothing really new aside from dual core, if you count that, and are still working with K8 architechture. Do they have any plans to finally abandon it and move on?


More trustworth
By Doormat on 3/9/2006 11:34:24 AM , Rating: 2
These benchmarks seem more trustworthy than their predecessors, however they still arent as good as independently run ones. It does look like Intel will regain the performance lead, and by more than 10% - which means AMD would have to release a FX64 (3Ghz dual core) on the AM2 style to get back close to even to a 2.66Ghz Conroe.




RE: More trustworth
By masher2 (blog) on 3/9/2006 11:45:23 AM , Rating: 2
> "Which means AMD would have to release a FX64 (3Ghz dual core) on the AM2 style to get back close to even to a 2.66Ghz Conroe"

And even then, Intel will still hold the performance-per-watt and performance-per-clock cycle crowns. Not that the latter one is in any way meaningful...but since AMD fans have been touting it the past several years, I wonder how they're going to react.


RE: More trustworth
By bupkus on 3/9/2006 1:29:24 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
...but since AMD fans have been touting it the past several years, I wonder how they're going to react.

Really... who cares?


RE: More trustworth
By bbomb on 3/9/2006 9:09:01 PM , Rating: 2
I will say that both AMD and Intel are doing pretty good jobs of getting people off the Ghz is better thinking. Quite a few less people consider that CPU speed anymore.


RE: More trustworth
By knowyourenemy on 3/9/2006 3:20:08 PM , Rating: 2
More likely AMD will ditch Toledo and just get a better design entirely. By the way, isn't Conroe 65nm?


sad day for computer enthusiasts
By cgrecu77 on 3/9/2006 12:21:48 PM , Rating: 1
I can't understand how some people can be happy with this ... If Intel regains the performance crown by a significant margin it could easily spell the end for AMD. With an agressive marketing strategy and a superior product they could bury AMD and I'm pretty sure that AMD won't have the ability to fight back once more ...
And if AMD goes down we all know what the future holds, 500 dollars for a medium range CPU, $2000 for a top-of-the-line and so on. We will see a 200 Mhz increase every other year if we're lucky ... And since a CPU is so amazingly complex and the technology and resources required to build a CPU are so difficult ti acquire you can be sure that there will NEVER be a competitor for Intel. I just can't understand how so many people hate Microsoft (who delivers decent products at decent prices) while they love Intel (who usually delivers poor products at astronomical prices) ...




By Sensai on 3/9/2006 12:30:40 PM , Rating: 2
hehe.. you're giving your hopes up for nothing... AMD won't go down that easily.... the current 939 and very soon AM2 is what they have now. 90nm am2 is not expected to do any significant jumps in power and performance as we perceive conroe will do. you can hope that the next significant architecture improvement or 65 nm (for wattage) move covers even more ground.