Intel Core 2 Reviews Are In!

[KeithTalent]

Originally posted by: 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

Yep, I'm one. Well, my job is not that high paying, but it supports all of my bad habits, and gaming is one of them

Anyway, looks like it's going to be tough choice for me between the 6600 & 6700, I guess it will ultimately depend on the Canadian prices once they get here.

 

[Tsuwamono]

I think ill stick with my AM2, i dont think conroe will be on top for long and i want to have a upgrade path when AMD pwns them again

 

[Ika]

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
I think ill stick with my AM2, i dont think conroe will be on top for long and i want to have a upgrade path when AMD pwns them again

be on top for long? AMD has nothing down the road until K8L to top Intel, and K8L isn't slated to come out until mid-2008. That's a long time for Conroe to stay on top, and AMD can't speed up their current architecture to match Conroe at all. Conroe even has tons of headroom, seeing as how E6600s easily reach 3.5ghz. The fastest-clocked Conroe is currently at 2.93...

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: 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.

That post may require an award. A first post by a black guy avatar that makes sense and isn't spam.

 

[Twsmit]

Originally posted by: Tsuwamono
I think ill stick with my AM2, i dont think conroe will be on top for long and i want to have a upgrade path when AMD pwns them again

You're going to have to wait until mid 2008, and even then there is no guarantee that AMD's offering will best Intel's.

 

[xtknight]

Thanks for the reminder. Off to reading them now. Also:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6300.html
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/07/14/intel_core_2_duo_processors/1.html

 

[Baked]

So that's what Anand's been doing in hiding all this time. He's back!

 

[Imyourzero]

Originally posted by: 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.

As do I.

 

[Imyourzero]

Originally posted by: BDawg

Originally posted by: 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.

That post may require an award. A first post by a black guy avatar that makes sense and isn't spam.

Normally I say something to the effect of the black guy avatar not having anything to do with the poster being an a$$hat or not making sense, but after attempting to reason with buck in the mouse thread I would have to say that so far I agree.

 

[JAG87]

Im not saying you should only care about games, but thus far gaming is the most demanding application on a computer. Frankly the fact that a Core 2 Duo can load Firefox, or Word, or Photoshop in 0.024 seconds less then an FX-62 does not mean much.


And the same goes for transcoding mp3s... taken straight from Anands review:

"Unless you frequently encode really large amounts of audio files, however, it's unlikely you're going to notice Intel's 2-4 second lead." Holy shiat. Im such as looser, I work 6am to 6pm every day and I need those 3 extra seconds. Who are you kidding. And thats for a 307 MB wav file. Nice. How and where is AMD trumped... in SuperPi... or in those 0.72 minutes less that the X6800 takes to encode an H.264 video. Tell me please.

 

[Imyourzero]

Originally posted by: JAG87
Im not saying you should only care about games, but thus far gaming is the most demanding application on a computer. Frankly the fact that a Core 2 Duo can load Firefox, or Word, or Photoshop in 0.024 seconds less then an FX-62 does not mean much.


And the same goes for transcoding mp3s... taken straight from Anands review:

"Unless you frequently encode really large amounts of audio files, however, it's unlikely you're going to notice Intel's 2-4 second lead." Holy shiat. Im such as looser, I work 6am to 6pm every day and I need those 3 extra seconds. Who are you kidding. And thats for a 307 MB wav file. Nice. How and where is AMD trumped... in SuperPi... or in those 0.72 minutes less that the X6800 takes to encode an H.264 video. Tell me please.

You know, both camps have some good points. I don't belong to either side but my thoughts so far are:

If the Conroe enables you to cut merely a couple of seconds off of that encoding task, BIG DEAL. The graphs make everything look so impressive, but if people take the time to read these articles they will see that the reviewers often admit that though Intel usually takes the lead, it's barely noticeable in the real world (although as threads from Conroe owners start popping up, they will need to justify their purchases and I'm sure there will be someone that came from an FX-62 rig that claims the difference is night and day).

So since the differences are so small, you can't really use the whole "time management/productivity" argument as an excuse for going with Conroe unless it is truly going to make a huge difference, and at this point it doesn't look like there is a huge difference.

However...the Intel guys do have a point. They can finally claim to be on top and AMD has their work cut out for them if they wish to remain competitive...I mean those prices are just going to have to drop or you'd be stupid NOT to go with Conroe.

If I were building a new system and moving up from an old Athlon XP or P4 2.x setup, I'd definitely skip X2/AM2 and go with Conroe since bang for the buck is definitely there. But I wouldn't trash my existing X2 or FX-xx setup just to hop on the Conroe bandwagon and save a couple of seconds in encoding, although I'm sure there will be dozens or even hundreds of members that do just that.

 

[EvanAdams]

Originally posted by: 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

not untill I see the new AMD pricing. If they cant cut to at least ~ with intell then it is indeed bad times. But if they do cut this could be a new golden age when vista drops. Feels verry 1995 when the pentiums started rolling.

 

[JAG87]

Originally posted by: Imyourzero


If I were building a new system and moving up from an old Athlon XP or P4 2.x setup, I'd definitely skip X2/AM2 and go with Conroe since bang for the buck is definitely there. But I wouldn't trash my existing X2 or FX-xx setup just to hop on the Conroe bandwagon and save a couple of seconds in encoding, although I'm sure there will be dozens or even hundreds of members that do just that.

If I was gay I would kiss you. Especially for that last sentence. That is exactly my point, and since most people here have an existing X2/opty/FX setup, I dont see where all the excitement is coming from. Sure if you have an old POS computer, you have to be stupid to buy AMD now, when Intel offers the same performance for a third of the price. Plus it makes less heat, plus it uses less power.

 

[Bobthelost]

Originally posted by: JAG87
Im not saying you should only care about games, but thus far gaming is the most demanding application on a computer. Frankly the fact that a Core 2 Duo can load Firefox, or Word, or Photoshop in 0.024 seconds less then an FX-62 does not mean much.


And the same goes for transcoding mp3s... taken straight from Anands review:

"Unless you frequently encode really large amounts of audio files, however, it's unlikely you're going to notice Intel's 2-4 second lead." Holy shiat. Im such as looser, I work 6am to 6pm every day and I need those 3 extra seconds. Who are you kidding. And thats for a 307 MB wav file. Nice. How and where is AMD trumped... in SuperPi... or in those 0.72 minutes less that the X6800 takes to encode an H.264 video. Tell me please.

Gaming is the most demanding thing done on most home computers, i doubt you really mean to compare the rendering farms they have at Pixar and the like to a game of WoW. (Would that be three )

Most people don't use photoshop to manipulate and alter hundreds of photos, recode video or calculate trafic flow models. All of which Conroe would be better at by the looks of things, it's not our fault you're unimaginative in your use of computers.

From the same page:
"In something of a change, both the Core 2 Extreme and that E6300 manage roughly a 25% margin of victory over their AMD counterparts in the DivX test. The E6300 very nearly matches the X2 5000+ here."

An encoding run can take an hour with ease on my current hardware (X2 @ 2.5), which is notably slower than a 5000X2. A 6600 could be expected to OC to 6800 speeds or greater. A 1/3 reduction in time, or 20mins in the real world is more than impressive.

 

[AMDZen]

Originally posted by: 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.

And if you had read the AT review, you would have seen

From what Intel is telling us, you shouldn't be able to so much as purchase Core 2 processors until after the first week in August, although you'll be able to get complete systems before then. At the same time, we're hearing that distributors already have some Core 2 parts in stock and will begin shipping very soon. While we tend to believe Intel's assessment of availability, we're hoping it's conservative.

See that "shipping very soon" part. I'm sure you'll be seeing some at eTailers earlier then either date you gave. Besides the AT review was the only one I read, and I must have missed anything other then what I just quoted.

 

[JAG87]

Ok, so why dont you say that Core 2 Duo is amazing because its cheap. That would be perfectly fine. But people here are all excited saying that Intel is trumping AMD. And thats what I cant stand. Just because a 100K viper goes as fast as a 300K ferrari, does not mean Ferrari is ******. Actually believe it or not, the viper beats the ferrari (and this hurts coming form a ferrari fan).

The point I am trying to make is that yes, times change and more powerful processors become less costly to produce and are more affordable. Exactly what the E6600 is doing with the FX-62 (they are on par in most benchmarks). But by no means are we witnessing a revolution in processor history. We have nothing now that we did not already have in terms of speed. People here are acting as if quantum computing was just introduced.

 

[Imyourzero]

Originally posted by: JAG87
Ok, so why dont you say that Core 2 Duo is amazing because its cheap. That would be perfectly fine. But people here are all excited saying that Intel is trumping AMD. And thats what I cant stand. Just because a 100K viper goes as fast as a 300K ferrari, does not mean Ferrari is ******. Actually believe it or not, the viper beats the ferrari (and this hurts coming form a ferrari fan).

The point I am trying to make is that yes, times change and more powerful processors become less costly to produce and are more affordable. Exactly what the E6600 is doing with the FX-62 (they are on par in most benchmarks). But by no means are we witnessing a revolution in processor history. We have nothing now that we did not already have in terms of speed. People here are acting as if quantum computing was just introduced.

Well IIRC the same thing happened with the original GeForce card, the 7800GTX, etc. It happens to some degree every time a new exciting technology comes out, especially when that product offers a fairly large jump in performance.

 

[JAG87]

Ok, but the 7800 GTX totally killed the X850. Like we went form 16 pipes to 24. The performance was nearly double that of the highest offering form the competitor. I dont see how the hell the X6800 is twice as fast an FX-62.

Since very few people do extremely intensive stuff like encode an HD video in h.264 for example, where Core 2 Duo could really show its muscle, the fact that it encodes an mp3 in 2 seconds less does not give me that feeling of revolution. But when the GeForce 7 series came out, and my fps nearly doubled in my games, allowing me to put my settings twice as high as they where before, that really gave me a blood rush.

 

[smartis]

Let me put things in context. I normally buy (or build) a new PC every two or three years but haven't got around to it recently.

I am looking to build a complete system to replace this:

AMD Athlon 'Thunderbird' 1.1 GHz
A motherboard
256Mb Memory
40Gb HDD
Windows 98SE
Sony 19" E400 CRT

Anything will be an improvement.

Most people don't need the sort of processing power that is available now. It's the software that drives hardware purchases, games more so than most.
Only when things like Vista come along do we all have to think about moving up.

The major benefit for most people in CPU tech at the moment is dual-core, particularly when it is properly exploited by more software. Doing more things at once, saving time.

I don't care who 'owns' or 'pwns' who. Whatever.
I understand that some people have brand loyalties but I don't get the irrational, evangelical nature of a lot of people on forums.

If AMD (or Nvidia) have a reputation for, say, more stable systems, fine. That's logical. Reputation and quality can swing the decision away from just price/performance.

When the next generation of chips come out though and people feel the need to defend the last generation - why?
Everyone knows that the new PC you buy now will be fairly poor compared to the new stuff in a couple of years time.
Perhaps it's a need to justify the swift and heavy depreciation of high end computer systems?

Business is business and you can be sure that these companies don't have the same loyalty to their fans as is apparent from lots of posts.
AMD dropped the ball, Intel picked it up, it's business.

If you're a gamer with a decent AMD system then the best bang for your buck is probably high end graphics.

If however you're looking, as I am, for a new all-round system which is a bit future-proof then it's probably Conroe based.

If AMD slash their prices heavily I might build a system around that and buy a new one in a year or two. I think, though that it will be difficult in their position to cut the prices enough to be competitive.

As for graphics, with DX10 around the corner, I'll probably settle for a 7600/7900GT and pick up a new card when they're well supported and the drivers are stable.

PS - The avatar was the default when I set the account up. It doesn't mean anything. I don't feel the need to identify with the little picture on the left

 

[Imyourzero]

Originally posted by: JAG87
Ok, but the 7800 GTX totally killed the X850. Like we went form 16 pipes to 24. The performance was nearly double that of the highest offering form the competitor. I dont see how the hell the X6800 is twice as fast an FX-62.

Since very few people do extremely intensive stuff like encode an HD video in h.264 for example, where Core 2 Duo could really show its muscle, the fact that it encodes an mp3 in 2 seconds less does not give me that feeling of revolution. But when the GeForce 7 series came out, and my fps nearly doubled in my games, allowing me to put my settings twice as high as they where before, that really gave me a blood rush.

I agree, but the fact is people will continue to make a mountain out of a molehill and focus on exaggerating tiny differences in performance. It's not as if going from an FX-62 to a Conroe CPU will enable your frame rates to double or your encoding to go 3x as fast, but some people want the best regardless...and if they're willing to pay for it, more power to them.

I used to be the same way just so I could say I was on top. I'm more about bang for the buck now and I'm lucky enough to not be a fanboi, so I can see that while Conroe is a stellar CPU and AMD prices need to come way down to be competitive, going to Conroe at this point isn't going to make a huge difference in everyday computing for most people. Reading the numerous reviews will tell you that.

 

[EvanAdams]

But by no means are we witnessing a revolution in processor history. We have nothing now that we did not already have in terms of speed.

But we do have WAY lower prices. IF AMD competes $ for $ then I think we are seeing a revolution because it will open up a LOT of CPU speed for a LOT less price.

And I grant you this is nowere near the Gfx card changes. But that is only because games rely more on your Gfx than your CPU.

My hope is someone will find a use for all this CPU power in games. If not I am fine with the commoditization of CPU spped. That is healthy

 

[athfbum]

Review of E6300
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core2duo-e6300.html

 

[athfbum]

After seeing the xbitlabs review of the E6300 I decided it was worth spending the extra $80 or so to get an E6300, rather than a Athlon 64 3500+

 

[EROEIone2one]

"Intel says complete PC systems based on the Core 2 Extreme X6800 and individually boxed products will both begin selling on July 27th, while Core 2 Duo processors with 4MB of L2 cache should show up on August 7th."

So am I reading this right in that the earliest availability of all Core 2 Duo processors (other than the wallet crushing X6800) is August 7th?

Also:

http://techreport.com/onearticle.x/10153

I'm thinking E6600 might be a good buy if it's only $15 more than the comparable AMD 4600, any one else agree?

EDIT: Now that I'm looking at some of the benchmarking tests, I'm surprised there isn't more of a price cut on some of the AMD lineup. Or is Conroe going to be subject to high markup/unavailability issues for the fist few months?

 

[Macro2]

RE:"arent these still Pre Approved intel benchmarks though?"

Sounds like Intel wrote some of the reviews too.

Strangley FP benchmarks like CAD were missing from Toms review.

Were there type benchmarks present in other reviews?

One thng for sure, Intel is a hellava marketing company.