Intel Core 2 Reviews Are In!

[BFG10K]

Here are a few to get you started:


[*]Anandtech.

[*]Computer Base.

[*]Firingsquad.

[*]HardOCP.

[*]PC Mag.

[*]Sharky Extreme (lots of games tested).

[*]Tech Report.

[*]Tom's Hardware.


Impressive performance to say the least.

Edits: add new links as required.

 

[akshayt]

hardocp.com

 

[Bobthelost]

Damn, so they are worth the hype.

I want one.

No, make that two.

 

[Ika]

By shipping the Core 2 Extreme unlocked, Intel has taken yet another page from AMD's Guide to Processor Success. Unfortunately for AMD, this wasn't the only page Intel took.

lolz, that got me going.

It seems that Cache and FSB make a minimal difference, but still have a fair impact.

It also seems that this chip runs circles around AMD, occasionally stomping on it's face.

Even though it was hard-locked at a 9 multiplier it reached an amazing 4GHz in the overclocking tests. That represents a 67% overclock.

And another one for the BIOS kiddies...

Gawd every time I look at this chip I start to cry.

 

[iamaelephant]

Pretty much what was expected - Conroe has destroyed the Pentium D lineup and unless AMD drops it's prices radically there should be no reason to buy a high end AMD chip for quite some time. Very interesting indeed.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Good job Intel for coming back.

 

[Imyourzero]

That's awesome, and I'll probably end up getting a Conroe, but I just want to remind everyone that's thinking about dumping their AMD setup to keep things in perspective. Consider the following:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTEwOCwxMCwsaG5ld3M=

And: "As for the AMD Athlon 64 FX-62, all of our testing shows that it does trail the two new Intel CPUs in gameplay performance. So, if you wanted to point one out as being a ?winner? then for sure it is the new Intel Core 2 X6800 and E6700. But, if you look at the amount of difference between the AMD and Intel CPUs, you will see that it isn?t enough to amount to anything. The only game that we saw any real-world difference in was Oblivion, and even that was tiny. A little overclocking would clear that difference up. Overall, the performance difference isn?t enough to amount to any gameplay experience differences in these games. One thing is certain: these are very fast platforms and they all provided a very enjoyable high-end gaming experience in every game."

Now I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, and if you're in the market for a new system, Conroe should be at or near the top of your list. But the hype around here often leads people to think that their current hardware is inadequate, and that's definitely not the case at this point, at least for games.

 

[Tsuwamono]

arent these still Pre Approved intel benchmarks though? Im waiting until we get real world guys out there with the actual processor.

 

[InlineFour]

good job intel. you've finally managed to do something right in the desktop arena.

 

[jlbenedict]

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
arent these still Pre Approved intel benchmarks though? Im waiting until we get real world guys out there with the actual processor.

I'm sure these sources have the actual processor. The NDA was lifted lastnight.
Just because the product hasn't been officially released for retail distribution doesn't mean the processor doesn't exist in the real world.
They were being sold before the NDA was lifted; which I'm still dumbfounded as to how they can get away with that without catching some heat from Intel about it..

 

[iwantanewcomputer]

so who wants to join me in shorting amd and buying intel. i know that this doesn't mean everything, but the huge marketshare amd has gained since the althon 64 came out were due to performance leadership...i expect all those customers to be going with intel now. Furthermore, amd will have to slash prices on cpu's that still cost the same to make. There is no way they can remain very profitable when their top o the line is competing with intel's bottom

 

[JAG87]

These are the actual processors... and they are real world guys, unless the guys at Anandtech and HardOCP eat snails and meggets for dinner. Im pretty sure they eat burgers.





So this is fantastic, here is yet another amazing cpu, the X6800, that is not any faster then what we already have.

Why you ask? Because anybody who can afford an X6800 does not play at 640x480. Nor 800, nor 1024. They are probably playing at 1920, 2048, or maybe even 2560, where having an X6800 or an FX-62, an E6600 or an overclocked 3800+, makes absolutely no difference.

Sure is nice to be able to buy an E6600, and get pretty much top notch performance for 300 bucks, without having to waste your life overclocking and testing for stability.





Now im gonna get some bozo who says gaming is not all a PC does, and that CPU speed matters a lot in other environments. Thats nice, congratulations on waiting 2 minutes less on your movie encoding job. Nobody really cares. We want 60+ fps at the highest resolutions we can afford with the latest games all cranked up. AM I WRONG PEOPLE?

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: JAG87
Now im gonna get some bozo who says gaming is not all a PC does, and that CPU speed matters a lot in other environments. Thats nice, congratulations on waiting 2 minutes less on your movie encoding job. Nobody really cares. We want 60+ fps at the highest resolutions we can afford with the latest games all cranked up. AM I WRONG PEOPLE?

Yes. I'll settle for most of the eye candy 30fps and that 2 minutes on my movie encoding thanks

 

[AMDZen]

All I want to know now is, when can I buy one. I've searched but nobody has them in stock (to be expected). Please someone post when they find an eTailer with these in stock.

 

[jlbenedict]

Originally posted by: AMDZen
All I want to know now is, when can I buy one. I've searched but nobody has them in stock (to be expected). Please someone post when they find an eTailer with these in stock.

If you have ready any of the release articles from Intel, they specifically state that July 27th is the official release. Retail chips will then trickle to retailers August 7th.

 

[OSX]

Around the first week of August, according to Intel.

 

[JAG87]

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: JAG87
Now im gonna get some bozo who says gaming is not all a PC does, and that CPU speed matters a lot in other environments. Thats nice, congratulations on waiting 2 minutes less on your movie encoding job. Nobody really cares. We want 60+ fps at the highest resolutions we can afford with the latest games all cranked up. AM I WRONG PEOPLE?

Yes. I'll settle for most of the eye candy 30fps and that 2 minutes on my movie encoding thanks

let me guess, you do a lot of super pi and cinebenching, and I do a lot of 3d marking. I like what I do better. Have fun crunching numbers.

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: JAG87

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: JAG87
Now im gonna get some bozo who says gaming is not all a PC does, and that CPU speed matters a lot in other environments. Thats nice, congratulations on waiting 2 minutes less on your movie encoding job. Nobody really cares. We want 60+ fps at the highest resolutions we can afford with the latest games all cranked up. AM I WRONG PEOPLE?

Yes. I'll settle for most of the eye candy 30fps and that 2 minutes on my movie encoding thanks

let me guess, you do a lot of super pi and cinebenching, and I do a lot of 3d marking. I like what I do better. Have fun crunching numbers.

Wouldn't core have a big impact on 3D rendering? If so, that could drastically reduce the wait time for animation to render. A friend of mine has an animation with 4000+ frames and each one takes 10 seconds to render...

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: JAG87

Originally posted by: Bobthelost

Originally posted by: JAG87
Now im gonna get some bozo who says gaming is not all a PC does, and that CPU speed matters a lot in other environments. Thats nice, congratulations on waiting 2 minutes less on your movie encoding job. Nobody really cares. We want 60+ fps at the highest resolutions we can afford with the latest games all cranked up. AM I WRONG PEOPLE?

Yes. I'll settle for most of the eye candy 30fps and that 2 minutes on my movie encoding thanks

let me guess, you do a lot of super pi and cinebenching, and I do a lot of 3d marking. I like what I do better. Have fun crunching numbers.

I've never run super pi or cinebench, as for 3d mark i only run that when i've just got the machine and i'm testing the settings and overclock. There's no point. However I do a lot of movie transcoding.

If you don't care then that's irrelevant, the idea of slicing around 1/3 off the time taken to transcode movies is rather appealing to me, and to many others. So yes, you are wrong, twice now, are you going to try for three ?

 

[JAG87]

nope, because I dont care. a few minutes are not relevant to me.

 

[River Side]

I hate it when they leave the cheapest options out of the benchmarks and overclocking.. why'd i want to overclock an already fast E6600 which everyone is already planning to buy.. show me the overclocking potential of the E6300 the poor man's conroe.. that's more within reach of mere mortals like me..

 

[smartis]

Originally posted by: JAG87
Now im gonna get some bozo who says gaming is not all a PC does, and that CPU speed matters a lot in other environments. Thats nice, congratulations on waiting 2 minutes less on your movie encoding job. Nobody really cares. We want 60+ fps at the highest resolutions we can afford with the latest games all cranked up. AM I WRONG PEOPLE?

Gaming is not all a PC does and CPU speed matters a lot in other applications.

The people who don't care about saving time, but only about games either:

1 Are kids with plenty of time to play games.
2. Are people without a job who have plenty of time to play games.
3. Are people whose job is to play games.
4. Are people who have nothing better to do in life than play computer games - sad really.

The majority of us who work for a living tend use our computers for other tasks like encoding MP3's, internet stuff, photo editing and so on, preferably all at the same time. Because we work, we DO tend to care about saving what free time we have. Time is a valuable commodity and saving time often means saving money.

It's obvious that the new Intel chips will save us time at a lower cost than the last generation of chips and this is good.

If you're only bothered about games, then spend your money on the best graphics solution available.

I don't care who makes my CPU. I just want the best price/performance for what I need and for now that is made by Intel.

 

[River Side]

well we all wish.. but i wouldn't base purchasing decision on these released prices.. since they're trumping AMD in all benchmarks.. expect everyone and their grandma to want one and suddenly these won't be that price competitive anymore because of their scarcity.. look at Nikon e.g. they come out with winner camera bodies and lenses but they still can't outsell competition because they can't match demand and cuz of immense popularity prices for available stock if any go through the roof.

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: smartis

Originally posted by: JAG87
Now im gonna get some bozo who says gaming is not all a PC does, and that CPU speed matters a lot in other environments. Thats nice, congratulations on waiting 2 minutes less on your movie encoding job. Nobody really cares. We want 60+ fps at the highest resolutions we can afford with the latest games all cranked up. AM I WRONG PEOPLE?

Gaming is not all a PC does and CPU speed matters a lot in other applications.

The people who don't care about saving time, but only about games either:

1 Are kids with plenty of time to play games.
2. Are people without a job who have plenty of time to play games.
3. Are people whose job is to play games.
4. Are people who have nothing better to do in life than play computer games - sad really.

The majority of us who work for a living tend use our computers for other tasks like encoding MP3's, internet stuff, photo editing and so on, preferably all at the same time. Because we work, we DO tend to care about saving what free time we have. Time is a valuable commodity and saving time often means saving money.

It's obvious that the new Intel chips will save us time at a lower cost than the last generation of chips and this is good.

If you're only bothered about games, then spend your money on the best graphics solution available.

I don't care who makes my CPU. I just want the best price/performance for what I need and for now that is made by Intel.

First post at AT and it is a good one. :thumbsup: I agree with you fully.

 

[Ausm]

Originally posted by: smartis

Originally posted by: JAG87
Now im gonna get some bozo who says gaming is not all a PC does, and that CPU speed matters a lot in other environments. Thats nice, congratulations on waiting 2 minutes less on your movie encoding job. Nobody really cares. We want 60+ fps at the highest resolutions we can afford with the latest games all cranked up. AM I WRONG PEOPLE?

Gaming is not all a PC does and CPU speed matters a lot in other applications.

The people who don't care about saving time, but only about games either:

1 Are kids with plenty of time to play games.
2. Are people without a job who have plenty of time to play games.
3. Are people whose job is to play games.
4. Are people who have nothing better to do in life than play computer games - sad really.

The majority of us who work for a living tend use our computers for other tasks like encoding MP3's, internet stuff, photo editing and so on, preferably all at the same time. Because we work, we DO tend to care about saving what free time we have. Time is a valuable commodity and saving time often means saving money.

It's obvious that the new Intel chips will save us time at a lower cost than the last generation of chips and this is good.

If you're only bothered about games, then spend your money on the best graphics solution available.

I don't care who makes my CPU. I just want the best price/performance for what I need and for now that is made by Intel.

I will clue you in that grown ups who have high paying jobs and pay a ton in taxes play computer games too

Ausm