Unbiased look at the 6xx CPus

[Sentential]

Ive seen so many fanboy type remarks concerning Intel CPUs that I feel it is neccessary to show the truth

As taken from my thread at ocforums:

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=368536&page=1&pp=30

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v180/Sentential/p4bench.jpg

 

[clarkey01]

Depends on what you want them for ?> I mean, there fine for everything, beats athlon in multitasking, some encoding, but for games, business apps the crown belongs to AMD. There isnt much else to know, its be said....Gee, a million times.

Im not sure on thier price, I think for the performance gain ( a few %) there not worth what there priced at.

 

[Sentential]

Well it is more the issue that the newer 600 cores are within 5% of gaming of AMD which is alot better considering how bad they once were.

It only pisses me off when I see people "claiming" that a 5.2ghz Intel is somehow slower than an FX55. That is simply impossible by any account

 

[LTC8K6]

The point of the 600's is the 64bits though, isn't it? That's still up in the air until Microsoft and everyone else gets 64bit OS and drivers ironed out.

 

[clarkey01]

Originally posted by: Sentential
Well it is more the issue that the newer 600 cores are within 5% of gaming of AMD which is alot better considering how bad they once were.

It only pisses me off when I see people "claiming" that a 5.2ghz Intel is somehow slower than an FX55. That is simply impossible by any account

It shouldnt piss you off. As for 5% in games, im not sure about that, athlon has a very good F math calculation or something which gives it the edge.

And if your like me, you'll know that that article was bull and not worth reading. AMD is sitting on its hands at the moment, waiting for Intel to catch up.

I think when you consider how little power the athlons use in contrast to the 6 series (granted theres a slight inprovement but nothing that major over the 5xx) its still not quite up to the design on the K8.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: clarkey01

Originally posted by: Sentential
Well it is more the issue that the newer 600 cores are within 5% of gaming of AMD which is alot better considering how bad they once were.

It only pisses me off when I see people "claiming" that a 5.2ghz Intel is somehow slower than an FX55. That is simply impossible by any account

It shouldnt piss you off. As for 5% in games, im not sure about that, athlon has a very good F math calculation or something which gives it the edge.

And if your like me, you'll know that that article was bull and not worth reading. AMD is sitting on its hands at the moment, waiting for Intel to catch up.

I think when you consider how little power the athlons use in contrast to the 6 series (granted theres a slight inprovement but nothing that major over the 5xx) its still not quite up to the design on the K8.

The K8 is also at a clockspeed wall, the thermals and power dissipation on the highest chips have increased sharply. That point is kind of moot though as AMD has topped out at a slightly higher performance plateau, giving them a comfortable lead.

 

[clarkey01]

Hmm, You'll see 2.8 Ghz out of it im fairly sure. 3 ghz, maybe.

They still have not implemented SS. I think that comes with revision E does it not ?

 

[Fenuxx]

The biggest problem I see with the 6xx series is the heat output. As a former Intel-fanboy, I can say that I did seriously look at the 775 platform before landing with a S939, and it was mainly because of heat issues. Also, with the increased latency with the extra cache, it doesn't help Intel's case any.

 

[christoph83]

Originally posted by: geforcetony
The biggest problem I see with the 6xx series is the heat output. As a former Intel-fanboy, I can say that I did seriously look at the 775 platform before landing with a S939, and it was mainly because of heat issues. Also, with the increased latency with the extra cache, it doesn't help Intel's case any.

Thermal use is down on these chips.

Also the extra cache didn't hurt it overall. 21 out of 35 tests the cache helped or stayed even. And while most of the negatives were 1% performance hits. It picked up almost 5% more fps in doom 3. A place where it needs performace boosts. And in other tests picking up 8% and 13% in some.

Not trying to nitpick though, winchester is a good choice, I have one in my main system. But I think the cache latency complaint by a lot of people here is unfounded.

BTW Sentenial I liked your thread. I was defending this chip in another thread here trying to give a different perspective on the benchmarks, saying how close these p4's and AMD really perform only to get called an intel fanboy. It's nice to see a middle ground perspective for a change. Although more benchmarks would rule =P

 

[chick3nhead]

I havnt seen anything on the within 5% thing. All the benchmarks ive seen shows that the amd and intel are maybe within 5% of each other on a lot of tests but when it comes to gaming the benchmarks show amd is far superior. The price is also better with amd when comparing amd models to intel models. It just comes down to, I would not pay extra for a little faster encoding when the gaming performace would decrease pretty sharply.

not 5%

Look at the link, more than 10% just looking at the best benchmarks, and thats not including HL2 which AMD rules in.

 

[clarkey01]

lol, intresting bit on Power consumption lifted from aces :

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, on to power consumption:

With an average of 50w difference between the P4 family and the A64 family for total system power consumption, some strange conclusions can be drawn.

Now, let's suppose Intel is selling 100 million of these per quarter, which are replacing older, lower power chips, or instead of new A64 sales.

Let's guess that these new computers are going to run perhaps 1/3 of the time.

Intel is causing the consumption of an additional 20000 megawatts peak, if all the computers are on at the same time, say, during the day.

With an average 50 Mw facility costing 30 million dollars US, Ratepayers have to subsidize the cost of construction of at least 132 new 50 Mw power plants to the tune of 3.6 billion dollars worth of new power plants per year.

6,754 metric tons of CO2 per year per megawatt, 6664 megawatt years with the 1/3 duty cycle.

45,008,656 metric tons of carbon per year to use the P4 instead of its alternatives.

At 7 dollar per ton under Kyoto, 315,060,088 dollars per year in carbon charges. Sort of a silly figure considering that the US did not sign Kyoto, and no dollars will be spent for carbon.

The additional power costs to rate payers? at 8 cents per Kw/hr the foolish P4 buyers will spend an additional 4.6 billion dollars a year on electricity over their A64 purchasing counterparts.

8.5 billion dollars is what the power consumption of the p4 costs over it's A64 counterpart for a year's worth of production over the course of a year.

 

[clarkey01]

Im not sure Intel even sells 100 million a quater, but intresting read none the less.

6xxx is fine, but its nothing amazing, and AMD will see 2.8 Ghz atleast with the winnie revision E, so they are in rush, as 2.4 Ghz (4000+) is able to keep up with the 3.8's. 400 more Mhz should make it look like it was before.

I think they will send out a 2.6 Ghz 90 nm part next month (4200), a 2.8 Ghz (4400+) part and leave it at that. They may even mess with the cache and trade clockspeed for cache, there pulling the strings at the moment.

 

[chick3nhead]

lol, thats pretty silly in how in depth it is, but it still is pretty funny and an interesting way to think.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: clarkey01
The additional power costs to rate payers? at 8 cents per Kw/hr the foolish P4 buyers will spend an additional 4.6 billion dollars a year on electricity over their A64 purchasing counterparts.

Wow, that sure starts to put things in perspective, doesn't it? Wild.

(Perhaps I will re-think my stance on always disabling every little power-management feature on my system, as a sort of stability-enhancing "computer voodoo" act, since I run near-load temps even idling, so I'm definately wasting power or cycles, one of the two. Although my little Athlon at 40C is still pretty lightweight in the grand scheme of power-wasting CPUs. Plus, it does actually heat my room in the colder months, so it's not completely "wasted" power.)

 

[gobucks]

Here are my thoughts about the 6xx series
1) In terms of performance, you get less for your money with the 6xx. For example, a 630 costs about the same as a 540, but is usually slower, because the cache isn't as good as the extra 200MHz
2) In terms of features, the 6xx is quite nice. EM64T is a welcome addition, as is the NX bit. I'd feel much more comfortable buying one of these in terms of useful life.
3) Amazingly enough, the 6xx series manages to tame the furnace tendencies of Prescott, despite adding ANOTHER 40 million transistors to the core. Power usage is still higher than 90nm AMD parts of the same grade, but is often lower than the 130nm AMD parts. Considering the ridiculous temps the 5 series was having, this is quite an accomplishment.
4) In terms of value, things change when you talk about overclocking. The lower multiplier and lower heat of the 6xx series might make for better overclocking value. For example, if a 630 hits 4.0GHz, and so does the 540, then the 640 represents the better value, and will likely run a lot cooler, too.
5) Unfortunately, Intel still hasn't combined performance, features, and price together to make a better value than the A64. Either you can have close to the same performance as an A64 (albeit in differing benchmarks) for close to the same cost but with less features and more heat, or you can have all the features and temperatures of the A64, but with lower performance. Until Intel combines both, I still have to recommend the A64 over either the 5xx or 6xx series.

That being said, if I were in the Intel only camp, I'd definitely take the slight performance hit and go for the 6xx series due to the features and power management, and possibly overclocking potential.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: clarkey01

Originally posted by: Sentential
Well it is more the issue that the newer 600 cores are within 5% of gaming of AMD which is alot better considering how bad they once were.

It only pisses me off when I see people "claiming" that a 5.2ghz Intel is somehow slower than an FX55. That is simply impossible by any account

It shouldnt piss you off. As for 5% in games, im not sure about that, athlon has a very good F math calculation or something which gives it the edge.

And if your like me, you'll know that that article was bull and not worth reading. AMD is sitting on its hands at the moment, waiting for Intel to catch up.

I think when you consider how little power the athlons use in contrast to the 6 series (granted theres a slight inprovement but nothing that major over the 5xx) its still not quite up to the design on the K8.

The K8 is also at a clockspeed wall, the thermals and power dissipation on the highest chips have increased sharply. That point is kind of moot though as AMD has topped out at a slightly higher performance plateau, giving them a comfortable lead.

Where do you get that from? Their .13 chips do 2.6Ghz RETAIL without any overclocking. The .09 are still new and will go over the 2.6, let alone the added upgrades.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: clarkey01

Originally posted by: Sentential
Well it is more the issue that the newer 600 cores are within 5% of gaming of AMD which is alot better considering how bad they once were.

It only pisses me off when I see people "claiming" that a 5.2ghz Intel is somehow slower than an FX55. That is simply impossible by any account

It shouldnt piss you off. As for 5% in games, im not sure about that, athlon has a very good F math calculation or something which gives it the edge.

And if your like me, you'll know that that article was bull and not worth reading. AMD is sitting on its hands at the moment, waiting for Intel to catch up.

I think when you consider how little power the athlons use in contrast to the 6 series (granted theres a slight inprovement but nothing that major over the 5xx) its still not quite up to the design on the K8.

The K8 is also at a clockspeed wall, the thermals and power dissipation on the highest chips have increased sharply. That point is kind of moot though as AMD has topped out at a slightly higher performance plateau, giving them a comfortable lead.

Where do you get that from? Their .13 chips do 2.6Ghz RETAIL without any overclocking. The .09 are still new and will go over the 2.6, let alone the added upgrades.

Reading comprehension?

The power draw and heat dissipation of the 4000+ is much higher for the tiny speed bump over 3800+.

 

[clarkey01]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Marlin1975

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: clarkey01

Originally posted by: Sentential
Well it is more the issue that the newer 600 cores are within 5% of gaming of AMD which is alot better considering how bad they once were.

It only pisses me off when I see people "claiming" that a 5.2ghz Intel is somehow slower than an FX55. That is simply impossible by any account

It shouldnt piss you off. As for 5% in games, im not sure about that, athlon has a very good F math calculation or something which gives it the edge.

And if your like me, you'll know that that article was bull and not worth reading. AMD is sitting on its hands at the moment, waiting for Intel to catch up.

I think when you consider how little power the athlons use in contrast to the 6 series (granted theres a slight inprovement but nothing that major over the 5xx) its still not quite up to the design on the K8.

The K8 is also at a clockspeed wall, the thermals and power dissipation on the highest chips have increased sharply. That point is kind of moot though as AMD has topped out at a slightly higher performance plateau, giving them a comfortable lead.

Where do you get that from? Their .13 chips do 2.6Ghz RETAIL without any overclocking. The .09 are still new and will go over the 2.6, let alone the added upgrades.

Reading comprehension?

The power draw and heat dissipation of the 4000+ is much higher for the tiny speed bump over 3800+.

Revision E my freind. You will see 2.8 Ghz, it may be a little hotter buy AMD have yet to implement SS (the new so called "Breakthrough IBM/AMD thing " reported a month or two back). As it stands the FX 55 is made on a .13 micron and can hit 2.6 Ghz, so its very likely they will hit 2.8 Ghz on 90 nm process, yes there will be more heat and power consumption will be up but it'll batter a 3.8.

And why pounce on AMD for higher power consumption when Intel have the same problem.

 

[clarkey01]

"Reading comprehension?

The power draw and heat dissipation of the 4000+ is much higher for the tiny speed bump over 3800+. "


There is no speed bump (they run at the same speed). 2.4 Ghz, and the 4000+ has 512k cache more.

 

[Zebo]

:roll:So you spent twice the money and got less performance.. how wonderful.

 

[Vee]

Originally posted by: Zebo
:roll: .. how wonderful.

Yes, and so "unbiased". 😉

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Zebo
:roll:So you spent twice the money and got less performance.. how wonderful.

But you did get more heat than the Athlon64 !! (90nm to be specific)

 

[Leper Messiah]

I'm suprised that GreenPeace hasn't like sued intel or something over their powersink they like to pass off as 'Processors'. 😉

Both companies are really sitting there with their thumbs up their metaphoric asses. They're just biding their time until the dual core procs come out. I still think that with .09, SOI and SS, we'll see 3.0ghz with a FX series (59?)

 

[Sentential]

Absolutly ridiclous. Has any of you *ACTUALLY* owend both are are you just gonna keep spewing fanyboy crap.

Winchesters do *NOT* clock 2.6+. On average they do 2.5 MAYBE that. Overall newcastels still are much more consistant in terms of overclocking.Second my A64 setup was plagued with issues. Abiet it was chipset derived but that point remains the same.

Was the Intel more expensive? yes. Do I regert it? Hell no. It is much more stable than my K8N could ever hope to be. Obviously you pplz dont knwo what the hell you are talking about.

A64s are indeed faster in alot of respects. I agree wholly, hwoever as a platform its buggy as hell, especially on AGP

Unlike y'all we actually keep track of member's overclocks (listed here) :http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=319185

Only way you can possible get a winchester to consistantally clock past or to 2.6 is on water or phase. It is *highly* unlikely to get that on air.

Even if you go phase you run into the sub-zero issue that 1/2 of all winchesters have. Most dont boot below 0c*

 

[Sentential]

Originally posted by: Markfw900

Originally posted by: Zebo
:roll:So you spent twice the money and got less performance.. how wonderful.

But you did get more heat than the Athlon64 !! (90nm to be specific)

As for the heat issue ill be honest. At stock prescott is actually cooler than my Winchester was. However as soon as you crank the volts to about 1.5 or 1.45 it acts just like a D0 (100W+) and the load temp goes to the high 50s and sometimes past 60 with my HHE delta