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Hardware Intel "Conroe-L" Performance Unveiled
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - April 11, 2007 11:00 PM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 34 comment(s) - last by Justin Case.. on Apr 30 at 3:55 PM

"Conroe-L" CPUID information courtesy of HKEPC
The single-core Celeron's give AMD's Athlon 64 a run for the money

Intel cancelled the single-core Pentium E1000-series before it saw the light of day for the dual-core Pentium E2100-series. The single-core Conroe-L core that formed the cancelled Pentium E1000-series lives on in the upcoming Celeron 400-series. Intel expects to launch two Celeron 400-series models next quarter, the Celeron 440 and 430. These new Celeron models feature 2.0 GHz and 1.8 GHz clock speeds, respectively.

Aside from missing a core from its dual-core counterpart, the Conroe-L-based Celeron 400-series has 512KB of L2 cache like the current Cedar Mill based models. Unlike previous generation Celeron models, Intel equips the Celeron 400-series with an 800 MHz front-side bus, similar to its Pentium E2100 and Core 2 Duo E4000-series. When the Conroe-L Celerons hit, they will replace current Cedar Mill Netburst architecture models at sub-$60 price points.

Intel’s Celeron 400-series will have to take on AMD’s single-core Sempron and Athlon 64 processors. Early benchmarks of the Celeron 400-series show promising performance from the value-priced processor – beating out or giving the Athlon 64 3500+ a close run.

Application Benchmarks
Application
Celeron 440
Athlon 64 3500+
Cinebench 9.5
 317
332
ScienceMark 2
1030.58
1183.13
Super Pi
32s
39s
DivX 6.2
1:50.2s
2:03.9s
Lame 3.97
35.56s
35.59s

The Celeron 440 shows its strengths in multimedia benchmarks, beating out the Athlon 64 3500+, despite the 200 MHz frequency advantage of the Athlon. It also beats out the Athlon in benchmarks such as PCMark05, SiSoft Sandra 2007 and Super PI.

3D Benchmarks
Game
Celeron 440
Athlon 64 3500+
Doom III
103.1fps
105.2fps
F.E.A.R.
88fps
89fps
Serious Sam II
81.6fps
96.5fps

Gaming benchmarks are a tossup, however, the Celeron 400-series stays close to the Athlon 64 3500+.

Celeron 400
Processor
Number 		Core
Frequency 		Bus
Frequency 		L2
Cache
4402.00 800MHz 512KB
430 1.80GHz 800MHz 512KB

Expect Intel to launch the Celeron 400-series next quarter for $59 and $49 for models 440 and 430, respectively.

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AM2 X2 3600+
By Spartan Niner on 4/12/2007 12:07:17 AM , Rating: 5
With the availability of AM2 X2 3600+ Brisbane processors for $65 shipped @ the Egg and elsewhere now, I find that despite it being low-end, it's the best price/performance bargain out there. Throw on a $10-$15 Arctic Cooling cooler and get anywhere from 2.4GHz-3GHz and you have very reasonable performance out of a budget dual core. Paired with a nForce-based AM2 motherboard and some Super Talent 667MHz DDR2 you can have a great budget rig. With upcoming price cuts AMD may very well solidify its price/performance advantage in the low-end/budget-overclocking market.




RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By aurareturn on 4/12/2007 12:17:28 AM , Rating: 5
Even better... The X2 3600+ is now $55. The Celeron cannot compete with that.


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By spartan014 on 4/12/2007 12:33:38 AM , Rating: 2
Intel needed to bring this out before the AMD announced its price cuts..

Still, I think loyal customers of Intel will rather go for this option rather than the AMD solution. Good to see that Intel caters to the average consumers, who would rather look at the price than performance. With this chip they can switch from netburst to conroe for better performance..


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By Milliamp on 4/12/2007 1:49:59 AM , Rating: 2
AFAIK Intel will be doing their own price cuts on April 19'th.


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By JackPack on 4/12/07, Rating: 0
RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By hubajube on 4/12/2007 11:27:29 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
It's a losing proposition selling your premium branded, 126mm2 processor for $55.
Since when are Celerons "premium branded"?


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By JackPack on 4/12/2007 6:57:24 PM , Rating: 2
I'm talking about Athlon 64 X2.


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By maroon1 on 4/12/07, Rating: 0
RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By hubajube on 4/12/2007 11:27:59 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Celeron 440 can beat 3600+ in single threaded applications
Who cares it's $55!


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By nofumble62 on 4/12/07, Rating: -1
RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By Justin Case on 4/12/2007 12:58:48 AM , Rating: 1
And where did you hear that, exactly? With AMD's current yields (which are pretty good), low-end CPUs should have no problem reaching mid-range speeds. Sure, you might get a lemon, but the same goes for any CPU.


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By Dactyl on 4/12/2007 1:08:59 AM , Rating: 4
Low end (slow) CPUs from both manufacturers have plenty of headroom

Expensive CPUs from AMD have almost none (10% is lucky) but Intel has lots (30% is easy)


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By Justin Case on 4/30/2007 3:55:44 PM , Rating: 2
If they all had "lots" of room (and 30% surely is lots - it means getting a 3GHz CPU to run at 4 GHz), then Intel would simply sell them as a faster grade. They're not a charity, and they would love to have a stable speed grade above the current maximum.

When more than 20% of their CPUs can reach a speed more than 20% higher than the current limit, they'll release a new model, it's as simple as that.

Until then, you might get lucky and get a unit that overclocks a lot, but chances are that the high-end models won't have more than 10% headroom with stock cooling (and probably no more than 20% with _any_ cooling).


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By Kurz on 4/12/2007 1:13:18 AM , Rating: 3
Ummm... the AM2 X2 3600+ can get up to 3150GHZ
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By DrMrLordX on 4/12/2007 6:24:58 AM , Rating: 2
I was able to do some benchmark runs on my X2-3600+ at 3.2 ghz (on air). Couldn't quite get everything stable though.


RE: AM2 X2 3600+
By gramboh on 4/12/2007 4:42:19 AM , Rating: 2
I just built a C2D E6600 and am loving it, but I will not deny the awesome value of the Brisbane 3600+ X2 at $55US, that is just insane value if you are going to overclock and can hope for 2.6-3GHz, at those speeds an X2 is pretty powerful.