Conroe / Core 2 Duo OC update

[Kougar]

The latest B0 steppings have yielded quite a few improvements, so one should expect a retail EP6700 Conroe to easily surpass the benchmarks taken by Anandtech during the Intel black box bakeoff ;)

So far people have managed to attain 3.8ghz with a E6700 Conroe on stock voltages, default is 2.67ghz. Perfectly stable, and SuperPI 1m times at 12.9 seconds. Not to shabby, considering my Northwood is able to get 39 seconds at 3.5ghz. :D

Another individual has managed to push a E6600 Conroe past 4ghz with a voltage increase to 1.56v and disabling a core, stock is 2.4ghz.

Keeping in mind that both users are unable to have the full range of OCing as one cannot adjust his vcore, and the other is using a motherboard with limited OCing/FSB potential...

[mousiness]

100% sure that in a year conroe will be the new leader of ultimate gaming CPUs, especially with a range of that much OC'ing power, i bet there wont be motherboards that can support that kind of OC'ing power for a while after conroes out.

[Johnie]

Conroe 4ever! ;)

I believe that its gonna be the new leader for sure...at least from everything that I read so far...so guys @ AMD will really need to work hard to beat this...:mrgreen: :twisted: :cool:

[mousiness]

ive been an intel fanatic all my life and its finally payed off!!! and yes conroe will lead probably until the next generation of CPUs after the vista revolution as i like to call it, maybe even beyond!

[Kougar]

A year from now everyone will be raving about AMD's K8L uArch for the AM2 socket. ;) It actually has two tricks taken out of Intel's playbook, such as the ability to run 128bit SSE instructions in a single clock. This is one of Conroe's abilities, before now that instruction had to be broken down into smaller handfuls and parsed out over 2 through 4 clock cycles depending on the processor in question.

I'm highly likely to be getting Conroe myself, because just if it can lay the smackdown on an 3.2ghz clocked FX60, then once it's overclocked over 1.2ghz further to 3.8ghz on stock voltage I should be set for 5 years, and will only have to bother with GPU upgrades. :D

My Pentium M chip in my lappy is already running circles around my currenty 3.41ghz clocked Northwood running the PAT enhanced memory timings when doing folding@home crunching... I expect to makeup a few years of crunching within months with a Conroe processor ;)

K8L arctually may have the ability to tie Conroe, and AMD rolled the K9 design into the K10 architecture/team. After K8L and Conroe will be Nathan(sp?) and K10, with quad-cores probably filling the high-end of the consumer desktop segment by then.

[mousiness]

I will definietly be buying a conroe for my next build or already-built pc but i still dont have faith in AMD to pull of such amaizing overclocking capabilities, sure, the features may be equal but in the end these CPUs are high-end gaming cpus so it will all come down to overclocking abilities, but the conroe will still be a high-end gaming CPU but the quad-core will be like the P4 EE or FX-60 while the conroe is like the pentium D 9XX series, but even then i still believe it will come down to OC'ing capabilities

[Kougar]

Overclocking is not always everything. Intel has always had a good margin for overclocking, but even their best overclocked chips often would not be as fast as a stock AMD processor.

Many AMD fans will be quick to point out they are expecting that once AMD transitions to 65nm with their improved SOI process in place, they expect the clock speeds to ramp near to Intels. I would agree the clock speeds will ramp a good bit, but I'd be hesitant to say much past 3.4ghz to the degree Intel's CPUs can do. I am impressed enough with the stock performance of Conroe, the overclocking headroom will just be lots of icing on the very big cake ;)

[mousiness]

yes its true oc'd intels have been beaten out by stock AMDs just for the reason of AMD's super FSB power, if intel doesnt increase their FSB power they will never be able to reach AMD, but thats why conroes so fast, the FSB is uber-fast and the clock speeds are a plus, intels have been good oc'ers in FSB but AMDs still beat them out simply because the way they work is much differently, but im still going for conroe becauseit beats out even the fx-60 and probably and new AMD, there will be no certain answer until at least the new architecture and CPUs are fully develloped like in the 2nd year of production, by then the CPUs will have been matured and will face true competition then, even now its still too early to judge any performance.

[werty316]

Come July Intel will take back the performance crown it hasn't seen in s few year now. Heres a link to the off a 3.6GHz OC'd E6600 Conroe with some sweet xFire X1900XTxs:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=99892

Here is is at 3.9GH!

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1458104&postcount=153

4.0GHz!

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1458145&postcount=162

[mousiness]

oh really in july? looks like im building a new pc earlier than i thought, and now that i know it is to be realeased in july its very clear that conroe is the new leader in gaming CPUs

[Yatenkaiohu]

So it is coming out in July? I havent yet managed to buy a new computer and i'm going to in July and that's perfect if it is!

[mousiness]

lol nice, thankfully i had delayed my next 2k build so that gives me time to rack up money and get a conroe, maybe not also because its the first generation.

[werty316]

So it is coming out in July? I havent yet managed to buy a new computer and i'm going to in July and that's perfect if it is!

Yep it is scheduled to be released sometime in July.

[mousiness]

i cant wait until the QUAD core conroes, those are supposed to be the pinnacle of CPUs in the world undoubtedly, lol its funny becaause companies like transmeta are still struggling to put out decent single core CPUs lol

[Yatenkaiohu]

Any one have the exact date of when it's gonna be released.. Like before July 17th D:?

[mousiness]

no way THAT early maybe a bit more, late july maybe evn early august

[werty316]

Uh not sure maybe if you ask Intel they can tell you ;)

There hasn't been an exact date other than "July".

Between July and September. July will bring the Core 2 Extreme chip and the E6700 2.67GHz, 4MB cache chip, while by September the entire range should be available.


For all your Conroe goodness:
Core Extreme Edition Series - 1333MHz FSB, EM64T, EIST, VT, SSE4
Core Extreme Edition - 3.33GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 32+32KB L1, 4MB L2, Dual Core, TDP 95W - $999 - Q3

Core E6000 Series - 1066MHz FSB, EM64T, EIST, VT, SSE4
Core E6800 - 2.93GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 32+32KB L1, 4MB L2, Dual Core, TDP 65W - $720 - Q4
Core E6700 - 2.67GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 32+32KB L1, 4MB L2, Dual Core, TDP 65W - $529 - Q3
Core E6600 - 2.40GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 32+32KB L1, 4MB L2, Dual Core, TDP 65W - $315 - Q3
Core E6400 - 2.13GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 32+32KB L1, 2MB L2, Dual Core, TDP 65W - $240 - Q3
Core E6300 - 1.86GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 32+32KB L1, 2MB L2, Dual Core, TDP 65W - $210 - Q3
Source (http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Collection-Conroe-Data-Core-Duo-Core-Extreme-ftopict183765.html)

[mousiness]

maybe, but i hope its not gonna be like the ps3 that delay was the stupidest and most annoying thing on earth

[Yatenkaiohu]

Well I sure hope the 999 dollar one is released in July for me to buy :P

[werty316]

Well I sure hope the 999 dollar one is released in July for me to buy :P

Rich much

[mousiness]

lol agreed

[Yatenkaiohu]

No not at all believe me lol. I've just been saving up money for my new computer! ^_^

[mousiness]

Uh not sure maybe if you ask Intel they can tell you ;)

There hasn't been an exact date other than "July".




For all your Conroe goodness:

Source (http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Collection-Conroe-Data-Core-Duo-Core-Extreme-ftopict183765.html)

ok those are some crzy readings there

[Kougar]

i cant wait until the QUAD core conroes, those are supposed to be the pinnacle of CPUs in the world undoubtedly, lol its funny becaause companies like transmeta are still struggling to put out decent single core CPUs lol

Ah, when you start dealing with quad-cores, AMD is actually far ahead of Intel, in that AMD designed their uArch from the ground up to scale well as you add cores, by preventing bandwidth bottlenecks. Intel hasn't done this, choosing to stick with their "FSB" instead of switching to something more akin to AMD's HyperTransport 2 and the just released HT 3 spec. I have heard of some pretty fancy stuff being worked out by Intel to "fix" this for Conroe's successors, but the end result is it is only a work-around and not a true fix.

While AMD will be pushed to some degree around in the consumer market, they will still be calling the shots for the high-end server market where quad-core chips are needed. This is one reason why Dell has finally gone with selling AMD, because there is a demand for AMD's quad-core Opterons in the server market and Intel's older Xeon's can't compare. Due to FSB contraints, the quad-Conroe flavor of Xeons are expected to be hurt de to a sheer lack of FSB bandwidth... but I've not seen any concrete numbers yet.

One of the newest threads I have come across states that Intel is looking to hold the Conroe EE 3.33ghz 1333FSB chip in reserve, and only release it if under pressure from AMD. Instead, the high-end chip will be the 2.93ghz Conroe, 1066mhzFSB, with an unlocked multiplier. On a bit of god news however, these chips are expected to OC to 4.0ghz on air easily....

[mousiness]

ah there goes dell again with its marketing schemes and common sense, and im very impressed with intel finally unlocking the multipliers for clock speeds on their cpus!!! 4ghz on air cooling is crazy! imagine what you could do with liquid cooling even though the voltages would quite work

as for quad-core AMDs i never knew that they were far ahead of intel, tahts interesting to know because i hardly even know about am2 and now youre telling me something i have never even heard about, looks like more reaserch for me. :)

[werty316]

No not at all believe me lol. I've just been saving up money for my new computer! ^_^

Why not get a cheaper model and overclock it?

[Kougar]

and im very impressed with intel finally unlocking the multipliers for clock speeds on their cpus!!!

as for quad-core AMDs i never knew that they were far ahead of intel, tahts interesting to know because i hardly even know about am2 and now youre telling me something i have never even heard about, looks like more reaserch for me. :)

All the "Extreme Edition" parts tend to come unlocked, nothing there there. They have to at least offer something tangible for the huge price....

Intel may have the faster processing cores in their Conroe quad-core design, however AMD's quad-cores are not bottlenecked with a FSB limitation. AMD's quad-cores have HT links linking the cores, and then linking them to the motherboard northbridge, all of which are not yet close to becoming a bottleneck.

[Yatenkaiohu]

Why not get a cheaper model and overclock it?


I'm kind of scared to do that. And i'm also quite a noob when it comes to overclocking. I'll have the money to spend on it so I might as well.

[mousiness]

All the "Extreme Edition" parts tend to come unlocked, nothing there there. They have to at least offer something tangible for the huge price....

Intel may have the faster processing cores in their Conroe quad-core design, however AMD's quad-cores are not bottlenecked with a FSB limitation. AMD's quad-cores have HT links linking the cores, and then linking them to the motherboard northbridge, all of which are not yet close to becoming a bottleneck.

theyve been unlocked cores on EE? i thought they were like regular processors just OC'd, do they have their multipliers unlocked for other conroes?

[Kougar]

There are actually some good reasons why someone might pay more for a faster processor. Intel has a way of gauging how long a chip should last rated at different voltages AND clock speeds... So even though a specific processor could run at 3.4ghz they will bin it down to 2.8ghz so it would last longer, voltages and other things being equal. There is a much better analysis of this in the Conroe information thread on THG's forums, from two people in that business, one working @ Intel ;)

Both Intel and AMD leave the multiplier unlocked only on their flagship processors... that means the FX line and Extreme Edition line. The drawback is that since the processors are already clocked so high, there usually isn't much headroom left anyway, especially for AMD until they match Intel's 65nm die sizes....

[mousiness]

thats what i was thinking, but intel has speedstep already which cuts down power on most of their lappy processors and 64 bit processors, intel 6xx series and up, thats why intels are more expensive because their features are more advanced while AMDs last less but worthwhile because of their amaizing speed.

[Kougar]

AMD has their own version of "Speedstep", infact I think AMD actually came out with "Cool n Quiet" before Intel developed "Speestep", but I don't recall for sure.

And last I checked, AMD's processors were the most expensive, and Intel is the one selling $125 shipped Dual-Core cpus that OC to 3.4ghz on stock voltages ;)

[mousiness]

AMD high-end processors are more expensive, but their X2 and their single core series are much cheaper and deliever better performance, and yes, you're right, AMD came out with cool n' quiet before intel came with speedstep, but the thing is if youre not planning on OC'ing your AMD their cool n' quiet is only useful for their laptop ML-XX Turion Series (dual core)

[Kougar]

No, there a published results of AMD's desktop processors at stock with Cool 'n Quiet disabled. It makes as much of a difference for them as Speedstep does for Intel at decreasing power and heat.

And I don't see why one would buy a single core processor for the same price or more than a dual-core chip, that is very capable of holding it's own once OCed and smoking any single core chip left on the market. Intel's intention to undercut everyone/everything with the Pentium D 805 just makes buying any single core Intel or AMD processor not worthwhile.

[mousiness]

all the 805 is a lower clocked 820, and people buy single core expensive preocessors just because of the name's sake and the price, the more the better as people say, and if you had the money kougar, would you buy an fx-60 or fx-57 or an 805? lol

[Kougar]

Ah, but that is my point! I am coming from the best value for your $. It is completely different if you have the money to throw around for the best ;) The Pentium D 805 is by far and long the best bang for your buck processor regardless of whether you don't need a second core.

And if I have the money, as you say, I'd wait until June 6th for Core 2 Duo Extreme... ;)

[mousiness]

that is one h3ll of a processor i can twait till then, its gonna be the price of an fx-60, maybe evn more!!! and yeah i agree best bang for your buck is the 805

[werty316]

I'm kind of scared to do that. And i'm also quite a noob when it comes to overclocking. I'll have the money to spend on it so I might as well.

Ah ok that is understandable.

[mousiness]

yeah hes like me, i prefer not to oc especially with intel processors, i prefer to pay for more expensive processors at high clock speeds already, tahts the reason i went with mostly intel processors for my systems.

[werty316]

I prefer getting a good OC'ing chip and well,... OC'ing it to save cash. Its the best bang for the buck and I consider it easy after some light reading. People think OC'ing is too complicated but its not bad at all really.

[mousiness]

but when something goes wrong with an amateur like me i could destroy my enitre rig :eek:

[werty316]

Or create a plastic and PCB filled bonfire ;)

[mousiness]

hahaha that would be so awesome, ive already smashed up some old orange asus motherboard it was cool, its like, dad/son/whoever i smell burning hair, it actually smells like burning hair, dont ask lol

[Yatenkaiohu]

yeah hes like me, i prefer not to oc especially with intel processors, i prefer to pay for more expensive processors at high clock speeds already, tahts the reason i went with mostly intel processors for my systems.

Said it for me :D!

[mousiness]

isnt that the reason most pplz buy intels? unless youre a stupid average-joe and thinks intels are better than AMD because of their big numbers and they think that intel is the only CPU manufacturer in the world lol

[Yatenkaiohu]

Maybe I have no idea =p

[mousiness]

lol its actually a fact, whenever i go to pc stores the people are always like, UGH ITS AN AMD, THEYRE WEAK AND SLOW GET ME AN INTEL lol

[werty316]

isnt that the reason most pplz buy intels? unless youre a stupid average-joe and thinks intels are better than AMD because of their big numbers and they think that intel is the only CPU manufacturer in the world lol

Not really; I think it it is just people who don't really know alot about PCs and that all they know is Intel. Don't forget that if you are in a store chances are the salesperson would tell you whatever it takes to get some commission.

[mousiness]

probably, and then theres the people that simply 'must have an intel' but the majority of people i see looking for a ready-made pc are looking for the clock speed HDD capacity and RAM, general things taht we look into detail about, all the average-joe looks for is the higher the number the better

[Kougar]

Do you two have to hijack every thread? :p

Back to my favorite topic! :D

A 2.67ghz Conroe processor has just been OCed to a stable 4.ghz, on stock voltage. Super_PI 1M was a quick 12.609 seconds.

[mousiness]

on stock voltage 4ghz.... i bet with WC'ing and higher voltages it will go to 5ghz even though the conroe isnt designed to have such high clock speeds, and lol, yes i ahve to hijack every thread

[werty316]

Do you two have to hijack every thread? :p

Back to my favorite topic! :D

A 2.67ghz Conroe processor has just been OCed to a stable 4.ghz, on stock voltage. Super_PI 1M was a quick 12.609 seconds.

Care to provide a link please? Never mind found it:

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/8629/clipboard018om.th.jpg (http://img116.imageshack.us/my.php?image=clipboard018om.jpg)
SuperPi_1M on a 2.66GHz B0 stepping Conroe @ 4.0GHz: 12.609 seconds <-- http://coolaler.kj.idv.tw/WR/4000_1M1.gif
Coolaler has pushed his Conroe to a stable 4.0GHz overclock at stock voltage. This chip is a beast. Imagine what will be possible with a multiplier unlocked XE on a fully conroe supporting motherboard...
Thats is insane.

Keep in mind these are all with A0 stepping Core 2's, meaning they are only the first run in the fabs. Production products (rumored to be B0 or later) will meet or exceed these results, clock for clock.

[mousiness]

yeah they might do something for the multipliers, you enevr know until the final product is here like werty said

[Kougar]

I was wondering if anyone would ask for one :p

Actually you have to be careful, that specific overclock/PI score was with a B0 revision to Conroe. The new B0 revisions to Conroe have just started showing up, so some of the thread is getting spliced into the first post.

You can expect either B0 or B1 steppings on the retail shelf when Conroe launches, assuming no last minute problems are found.

[mousiness]

well the true answer will be when the first person to buy a conroe starts a fire with it and then well know for sure :) im not planning on OC'ing anything but an old processor if i ever decide to OC so i wont kill my brand new 1400$ conroe

[Kougar]

Holy...

Coolaler got a new revision for his MSI motherboard that supports voltage changes.

He's taken his 2.67ghz Conroe processor up to 4.6ghz as shown here http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1471031&postcount=127 (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1471031&postcount=127). Someone else has now reached a verified 11.359 seconds for SuperPI 1M. :-D

[werty316]

4.6GHz form 2.67GHz is crazy fast.

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/2888/wr48gx.th.gif (http://img519.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wr48gx.gif)

[Kougar]

This is getting out of hand...

New May 26, 2006 Records:

SuperPi_1M: 10.750 seconds <-- new world record
TAM got his hands on an E6800 (2.93GHz stock) Conroe and has overclocked it to.... 4.74GHz. And this is just the beginning.... this was in an INTEL motherboard at 1.324 Vcore, lol.
Link: http://u-san.net/c-board/file/X6800-4739_10s750.gif

[werty316]

http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/5503/x6800473910s7503gk.gif

[Kougar]

Well, I finally got some stable net access back, so I'll post an update.

The Core 2 Extreme processor has broken 5ghz, and acheived a SuperPI score of 10.281 seconds.

http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/1142/x6800500310s2813vq.gif

[werty316]

Here we have a new comparison of Core 2 Duo E670 versus Intel's current Flagship offering the Pentium XE 965.

We found that it was faster than the current flagship Pentium Extreme Edition 965 processor in nearly every single-threaded scenario, but there were times where Conroe fell behind in multi-tasking scenarios. One area that completely blew us out of the water was the sheer prowess when it comes to gaming. This is an area where Intel has been traditionally weak.

With Multi threaded games maybe the Core 2 Duo(Conroe) won't own as much.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/06/04/intel_conroe_performance_preview/1.html

[Kougar]

Thanks for the link :)

I'm honestly getting rather annoyed though at the plethora of Conroe "Previews", and the lack of any substantial "reviews"... Supposedly the NDA was to lift today, but I guess either the info given out on Dailytech was wrong or there is something I am missing. :confused:

[werty316]

Intel's Conroe Takes On The AMD Athlon 64 FX-62: First Official Benchmarks (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/06/05/first_benchmarks_conroe_vs_fx-62/)

Not sure if THG can really say this.

[Kougar]

Yeah, I posted that over here just a split second before ya... http://www.bjorn3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8541&highlight=conroe

What I said there pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter... THG's articles have gone downhill and the "sensationalizing" of them has gone up to compensate. :???:

[mnnw]

Any ideas when conroe will released?? Was going to buy new pc and now i saw conroe benchmark have to say n1 :)

[Bio-Hazard]

Last week of July if I remember right.

[Kougar]

Yep, July 23rd is the release date for Conroe.

I think I have some new benches to post, but I've been holding off until I get around to reading 'em... One of them looks to be the most thorough, independent review done to date, so far.

[zachig]

WOW!!! I'm really looking forward the offical release of Conroe...INTEL really "played it" this time...

Altough, I guess I'll keep staying an AMD fan!!! As I always say: "In AMD we trust!!!" :mrgreen:

[werty316]

Heres the newest benches for those eager readers:
Here we see Conroe besting an overclocked (2.8GHz) FX-60 system in benchmarks such as FutureMark PCMark05 and 3DMark06, as well as real life workloads such as Quake 4 single threaded and multithreaded, low and high resolutions, FEAR, Farcry, LAME Audio encoding, DIVX encoding, and Photoshop filtering. The 2.66GHz Core 2 consistantly wins by 15-30% and the Core 2 Extreme wins by larger margins, as expected.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Collection-Conroe-Data-Core-Duo-Core-Extreme-ftopict183765.html
http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=832&cid=1

The Core 2 Duo E6700 beats the FX60 with ease.

[Kougar]

Here is another, fairly comprehensive set of benchmarks. These should also be taken with a grain of salt, the numbers shown for the Pentium EE 955 are way off of anything ever shown in tests by Anandtech.com or other sites. Also the two AMD systems in this review only have 1gb of ram, every Intel box got 2gb. I don't know why people bother sometimes... :roll: They built the machines themselves, why not use the exact same RAM as the Conroe system? The AMD rigs were both AM2 processors. :roll:

This was an independent review, although the numbers are skewed in Intel's favor... And considering the some of the results the Pentium 955 EE put in, I am not even sure I can say that at least the Intel systems can be compared to one another.... Not even the much better Pentium 965 EE is able to put in some of those results the 955EE did... http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/914/1/page_1_benchmarking_intel_conroe_core_2/index.html (http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/914/1/page_1_benchmarking_intel_conroe_core_2/index.html)

[Kougar]

ExtremeTech gets to test a different Intel black box benchmark bakeoff, this time a 2.67ghz E6600. And as usual, Intel lays the smackdown at half the cost and almost half the TDP of the AMD system... http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1976397,00.asp (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1976397,00.asp)

[Kougar]

Okay, some new stuff... this is just amazing.

There are now Stepping 5 Conroes appearing. These are able to reach an overclock to 4ghz on air!

Furthermore, someone in Japan has reached a 500FSB (266FSB is default for Conroe), which works out to be 2,001mhz QDR :shock: This was done with an Intel D975XBX Rev.303 (Volt modded to support Conroe) "Bad Axe" motherboard no less... Linky (http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=103390)

I think Intel is just toying with AMD, they seem to have way more headroom left then they are letting on. :roll:

I have also started to see mentions of possible HyperThreading showing up on the 3.2ghz EE Conroe part due out near the end of this year, however this is currently only just supposition & rumor. I've not seen anything credible as of yet... even if "Core" is almost designed for HT use from the ground up.

Edit: Found this... If you like getting into the technical bits of a processor then you'll enjoy reading this. Linky (http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=178335&highlight=). Answered my question about the new SSE4 instruction set... as it was designed for Tejas (Successor to Prescott) it won't be worth very much... but Intel is working on a SSE5 set designed for Core's uArch, so that one should be interesting if it gets used by program developers...

[werty316]

Heres another preview; so far nothing but Intel boards were used but this time a NF590 SLi Intel Edition reference board was used. The results are obvious.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=265

One result that is too sweet if the power consumption
http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/4046/power8yc.gif

[Kougar]

I was trying to figure those numbers out, then I realized that "Intel 965" is not the chipset, but the 965XE processor. Once I realized that, and knew both the Conroe and FX62 were using nForce 590 SLI motherboards, those results made more sense. Even so, the above numbers are the worst showing I've seen for Conroe to date ;)

(Sorry for the image size, these aren't mine)

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2139/core2extreme49fo.png

http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/3627/core2extreme36iq.png

Above charts were compiled with:

Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz/4MB
MSI 975X-Platinum (i975X)
Corsair DDR2-800 2x1GB
HIS x1300

AMD Athlon 64 FX 62 (AM2) 2.8GHz/1MB x2
Foxconn C51XEM2AA (nForce 590SLi)
Corsair DDR2-800 2x1GB
HIS x1300

Source (http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fhkepc.com%2Fhwdb%2Fx6800v sfx62-11.htm&langpair=zh-CN%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools)

Edit: I forgot to add, that any of the benchmarks below the E6600 2.4ghz Conroe should not be relied upon, as all of those processors will only have half the L2 cache and in the article they simply downclocked their 4mb cache chip to get those numbers. It's an all but certainty that halving the cache will have a fairly good to large impact on performance over lowering the clock speed...

[werty316]

Don't forget those numbers are total system usage and not just CPU usage.

[Kougar]

Don't forget those numbers are total system usage and not just CPU usage.

I know... but that 4800+ X2 makes Conroe look bad, and we can't have that now can we... 8-)

[werty316]

Considering the power difference between idle and load of the E6700 is only 9W is damn good in my opinion.

[Kougar]

Unfortunately I don't speak French, but Google's webpage translations are pretty good... Another comprehensive review using all 939, AM2, and Pentium D/XE processors, and the entire range of Conroe's is at http://www.hardware.fr/articles/623-11/intel-core-2-duo-dossier.html (http://www.hardware.fr/articles/623-11/intel-core-2-duo-dossier.html)

I don't know if the Conroe parts listed at 2.13ghz and 1.86ghz numbers from were downclocked 4mb cache or the real 2mb cache parts, but the Conroe's at or above the 2.4ghz mark will all be the correct 4mb L2 cache numbers. AMD gets stomped pretty badly, although all the Preslers might as well not even have been included... :mrgreen: Also the couple graphs where the Pentium XE's with HT on were interesting, really took a chunk out of performance on one or two of them.

[werty316]

Based on info from THG the whole E6000 series has 4MB; I thought the E6400 and E6300 only had 2MB cache.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Collection-Conroe-Data-Core-Duo-Core-Extreme-ftopict183765.html

[Chakka]

I am glad that Intel finally decided to get back into the game. However, the most important thing for me is that it seems like conroe will force AMD to bring down the prices of its current AMD and AM2 chips....which in turn will force Intel, then AMD, etc, etc, etc.

Same goes for nVidia and ATI...just love it cause the war between those 2 since ATI came out with its powerful 1900 series vid cards has caused nVidia to lower prices too.

Its just great that prices are coming down and guess what - we all win in my book!

[Kougar]

If you follow the whole thread through and through, it basically amounts to some misinformation that originated from sites reporting on Conroe, that didn't realize the cache differed so they reported the entire series as having 4mb. :)

Only the Conroe's rated 2.4ghz and higher will come with the full shared 4mb L2 cache. Intel has to be able to sell the CPUs that have some defective cache, so they will just disable sections of it and bin them down into 2mb L2 cache parts. All of the Woodcrest Xeons have 4mb of L2 cache however. Interestingly though, you made me realize that I have not once seen even a mention in passing about the Celeron lineup... If those will be going by the wayside then there will definitely be 2mb / 4mb cache options on the Core 2 Duo...

[Kougar]

Lots of new info on Conroe and Kentsfield...

Latest stable OC is with LN2 @ 5.2ghz for a X6800. SuperPI 1m reached the first SUB 10second mark, clocking in at 9.828seconds for a 1m run. In comparison, a FX62 overclocked to 3.6ghz is reaching ~23 seconds from some other forum threads I glanced into. Complete pwnage... :twisted:


Now for some more independent review benchmarks:

(One thing to note here, is that the 2.13ghz E6300 Conroe Engineering Sample used here has a full 4mb cache. The retail E6300 will only have 2mb of cache, and this will have a huge impact on performance, enough to let AMD sweep most to all of the benchmark wins against it. But the benchmarks are still valid otherwise, and shows what a full 4mb cache Conroe is capable of at slower clockspeeds ;) )
Preliminary Tests of Intel Core 2 Duo in Games

Testbed configurations


Athlon 64 - based system
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 4000+, 2.4 GHz, 1 MB L2 Cache
Chipset: NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16
Motherboard: ASUS A8N32 SLI Deluxe
RAM: 2 x 1 GB DDR400 SDRAM, 2.5-3-3-6 timings
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JD 160 GB SATA.


Conroe-based system
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo Engineering Sample (Conroe), 2.13 GHz, 4 MB L2 Cache
Chipset: Intel 965/ICH8
Motherboard: Intel DG965SS, BIOS MQ96510J.86A.0066.2006.0428.1622
RAM: 2 x 1 GB DDR2-667 SDRAM, Corsair XMS2-6400PRO, 5-5-5-15 timings
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JD 160 GB SATA.


Testbeds run under Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2, DirectX 9.0c API. We used the IIYAMA Vision Master Pro 514 (22") monitor.

We have come up with two fastest video cards for our performance tests:
PCI-E ATI RADEON X1900 XTX 512MB GDDR3 1.1ns (650/1550 MHz)
PCI-E NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB GDDR3 1.1ns (650/1600 MHz)

Full battery of game benchmarks is at http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/conroe.html (http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/conroe.html)


Another full range of benchmarks with some real applications using a FX60, FX62, E6400, and E6700 set up is also posted here: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/cpu/intel-conroe-2-13-ghz.html (http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/cpu/intel-conroe-2-13-ghz.html)

[werty316]

As both my X1900 cards are cold bugged, while making a waterchiller for the cards, I tried SLI on Intel 975 Bad-Axe
Source (http://forums.vr-zone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=77740)

Motherboard with 2xInno3D 7900GTX at safe clocks of 980/980MHz. The result with Intel Conroe X6800 @ 4.75GHz is amazing! It hits 15,877 3D Mark 06, with his first run!

[mousiness]

he should get pair of ASUS XTX's on that rig then wed see how high theyd be:wink:

[werty316]

Once he makes a waterchiller for it expect those scores to be even higher.

[mousiness]

waterchiller whoa might as well put it in a damn freezer gees that thing has such an OC'ing capacity its surreal

[werty316]

I guess since he said his X1900s have a cold bug so no choice but to make one.

[Kougar]

Source (http://forums.vr-zone.com.sg/showthread.php?t=77740)

Motherboard with 2xInno3D 7900GTX at safe clocks of 980/980MHz. The result with Intel Conroe X6800 @ 4.75GHz is amazing! It hits 15,877 3D Mark 06, with his first run!

Nice find! Interesting memory heatsinks there too... That's another reason I don't care much for synthetic benchmarks, it doesn't matter if you have the best or not, your scores won't compare at all to anything within 6 months :mrgreen:

DX10 cards in SLI/Crossfire will probably require 3dmarks2007 to properly benchmark, else the scores will be to high...

And his CPU score with a 4.75ghz Conroe is still about 800 points short of a 3.2ghz Kentsfield's score... :lol:

[werty316]

How true a Kentsfield would help even more but still those scores are quite good.

[mousiness]

were so close to the real thing and you never know what intel might do to the chips until then even though its less than a month away, so im not really getting my hopes up until i can get a review of a final piece of conroe

[werty316]

The numbers you see in preview benches are gonna be right on to retail chips. New revision are poping up that most likely are will be retail chips.

[mousiness]

well thats good to know seeing as i have spent many many hours reading about the new core 2 series

[werty316]

Most of the time engineering samples perform and look the same as final products.

[mousiness]

thats a helpful fact for the next time something revolutionary is prepped to come out

[ToXic_WaSTe]

Well intel is suppose to release a new stepping of Core 2 duo's, and they are suppose to OC way better:P So dont go buying cheap samples

[DarkstaR]

i really want one of these!

[Slider]

Picked up P5W HD today and now I just have to wait until the 6700 comes into stock, hopefully next week I can start putting it all together.
It seems that a lot of people are queuing up for the 6400 from what the guy at the shop told me. It seems that its a great Overclocker and very good value for money.

[werty316]

Yep the E6400 and E6300 seems to be a good value since the performance difference between the 4MB and 2MB models is not huge and they OC'd quite well. If I was going to buy a Core2Duo CPU I would go for the E6300 for costs reasons as the Core2Duo aren't cheap.

[Kougar]

Yep, the E6600 is the best bang for your buck, after that it is a toss up...

ClubIT and ZZF both were selling the E6700 at okay prices, but both are currently out. Fry's Electronics is selling the E6300 for just $209 shipped though, they list an ETA to ship the rare E6600 on the 14th, so I'd suggest keeping an eye out there for a E6700 at a good price.