Official Independent X6800 vs FX-62 Benchmarks are here

[Kougar]

While at Computex Anandtech has somehow managed to finagle and "borrow" not only a FX-62 but a X6800 (2.93ghz EE Conroe) for some first plreliminary but truly independent tests of their own, in their hotel room. :mrgreen:

Complete specs for both systems below. They look pretty balanced to me!

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/1415/anand16dm.png (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2771)

We're happy to report that we gathered enough parts to build two systems while in Taiwan for Computex. We managed to acquire a Socket-AM2 motherboard equipped with an Athlon 64 FX-62 and a P965 motherboard equipped with a Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz at our hotel, along with two sets of 2x1GB of DDR2-800 (only 5-5-5-12 modules though), a pair of Hitachi 7K250 SATA hard drives, and two NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTXes (one for each system) - it helps that all the major players have offices in Taiwan. Of course we happened to pack some power supplies, monitors, keyboards and mice in our carry-on luggage, as well as copies of Windows XP, Quake 4, F.E.A.R., Battlefield 2, SYSMark 2004 and Winstone 2004.

When faced with the choice of testing Conroe or sleeping , we stayed up benchmarking (we'll blame it on the jet lag later). The stage was set: Intel's Core 2 Extreme vs. AMD's recently announced FX-62, and while it's still too early to draw a final verdict we can at least shed more light on how the battle is progressing. Keep in mind that we had a very limited amount of time with the hardware as to not alert anyone that it was missing and being used for things it shouldn't be (not yet at least), so we weren't able to run our full suite of tests. We apologize in advance and promise we'll have more when Conroe launches, but for now enjoy.

Direct URL: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2771 (http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2771)

One thing to keep in mind, is that while the prices on Intel's Flagship processor and AMD's Flagship processor are roughly the same, it should be noted that the newer core steppings of 2.93ghz Conroes can acheive 3.8ghz either on AIR or STOCK voltage, take your pick. I'm not sure about doing both, but individually it's been done. Add some exotic cooling you can expect 4ghz. LN2 will get you 5.1ghz. AMD's FX-62 will only be left further behind as they seem to top out at 3ghz on air, and 3.4ghz on LN2 or similar coolhing methods.

I'll just add Anandtech scored some major points in my +karma list...

[Scott]

But I want you to look at the real killer thing about that review. We have not even begun to push our GPU's!! They need processor power to push them even faster. I may have to get me a Conroe system when Vista comes out.

[Kougar]

Yes! I was noticing that in many of the unofficial Engineering Sample & Intel setup/sanctioned Conroe game benches. Conroe really is able to crank out those extra FPS to the lower more CPU bound resolutions. When game designers start taking better advantage of the 2 or 4 physical cores in their software, these performance gains should pale in comparison!

Here is a second "independent" review now, also brief but they have some Quake 4 benchmarks on the 2nd page. Keep in mind this is a $316 priced 2.4ghz Conroe pitted against a FX-62, and it seems about a draw. To be fair, no mention of the memory config is there, only that the same x1900XTX card and same drivers were used. They managed to OC it to 2.93ghz before they ran out of time, so no benches of it OCed were used... http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/intel_core_conroe_benchmarks/ (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/intel_core_conroe_benchmarks/)

I forgot to mention Anandtech stated they would be conducting a full review of Conroe later... Some of the TDP numbers I've seen are real shockers though, but since none so far are either official or comparable I won't name them... And some real, non-synthetic and actually apples to apples benches with Conroe overclocked to the max on air pitted against the same for AMD will be great to finally see as well... :)

I can't recall if it was mentioned here or not so I'll just throw this in. I would seriously suggest staying away from the ES Conroe processors floating around eBay... the going prices are about double to triple, and most Engineering Sample Conroe's were the poorer A0 steppings... and they if they don't work you'll be SOL.