HEXUS.reviews :: WORLD EXCLUSIVE! INTEL CONROE BENCHMARKED

[mark_a_scott]

nice work intel I was looking at the AM2 5000+ chip for my new system but seeing the figures and its made me think again. Custom PC didnt have much to say on the FX62 or the AM2 motherboard but thats just one board and one chip.

I am keeping a watching brief for the next few months to see how it all pans out

[ishtar]

Yea I just read about the asus mb for the am2 and it is quite faster than the foxconn so I wouldn't believe all this, this is still prelimenary theres a lot of factors ram, drivers . hd m/b video card bios settings like I said a 2 fps difference in gaming isn't gonna make a big difference you remember the test at the intel booth man that thing was running at least twice as many framerates than the overclocked athlon !!! Huh what happened wait till the real world testing happens you'll see that its slightly faster than the athlon , till amd comes out with the new tech.

[Dianoda]

Yea I just read about the asus mb for the am2 and it is quite faster than the foxconn so I wouldn't believe all this, this is still prelimenary theres a lot of factors ram, drivers . hd m/b video card bios settings like I said a 2 fps difference in gaming isn't gonna make a big difference you remember the test at the intel booth man that thing was running at least twice as many framerates than the overclocked athlon !!! Huh what happened wait till the real world testing happens you'll see that its slightly faster than the athlon , till amd comes out with the new tech.

The reason why the difference in the real world gaming test is so small is because pretty much all modern games are gpu limited anyway. That's why tests are run at low res and low detail, to see how much faster the game can run when it is cpu limited.

[mxyztplk]

Conroe E6700 spanks FX-62's botty EVEN MORE FIRMLY than was calculated in the article, in percentage terms.

The percentages of how Conroe performed relative to FX-62 were incorrectly calculated in all cases in which a "lower is better" result is referenced.

For example, in the DivX encode benchmark, Conroe E6700 is 32.20% faster than FX-62 (rather than the 23.78% listed in the article).

The corrected percentages of the Intel Conroe E6700 system's advantage/disadvantage, relative to the HEXUS FX-62AM2 system, are as follows:

-38.02% ScienceMark 2.0 memory bandwidth
- 2.12% ScienceMark 2.0 memory latency
+26.41% HEXUS Pifast
-12.57% HEXUS Cryptography
+19.09% Realstorm Raytracing 2004
+31.20% DivX encode - multithreaded
+32.46% WAV conversion multithreaded
+15.77% CINEBENCH multi-CPU render
+51.32% KribiBench v1.1 - Jetshadow model
+39.47% Far Cry - 1024x768 - speed
+ 3.67% Quake 4 - 1600x1200 - 4x AA 16x AF
+ 0.88% Splinter Cell: CT - 1600x1200 - 4x AA 8x AF

(The corresponding Conroe percentages vs. the Pentium EE 965 are similarly incorrect in the article.)

[rad]

I think the results are all nice and everything, however it all comes down to price per performance. We don't know what AMD will do with their cpu pricing, and we don't know for sure how intel will price theirs.
Also, two other things:

1, Even though running games at low res, shows up how good the cpu is. I doubt that people who purchase these kinds of computers would run at those med to low resolutions, because if they do they are wasting their money (A computer half the price can run at those resolutions.) What I am trying to say is, that comparing the benches at the higher resolutions is more applicable because thats what people will use, and a difference of a few frames per second is fairly insignificant.

2, These reviews also tend to forget about overclocking, which a lot of people tend to do on their systems. So the benches at stock speeds are irrelevant for a lot of people (including myself). That is, if a cpu is great a stock speeds but can't overclock or overclocking doesn't increase its performance proportionally, then that cpu may still not be the most cost effective.

3, The benches that matter, are the ones that are applicable to each user. if someone just plays games, then they are the benches that matters most, who cares about science mark etc, because they are irrelevant to the person that just plays games.

Anyway, I am excited to see how things will pan out in the end. I could be persuaded towards Intel, if and only if price per performance is better than AMD in the areas that matter to me (ie games + high resolutions).

[acrobat]

Hi all.

I have a few questions, so im hoping someone here can give me some facts or links to some facts, and if not, just help me guess

1) Is the Conroe chip 64bit? I cannot find confirmation on the internet... Either way, is it an issue, considering Windows Vista (which is 64bit), is due out early next year? If a 64 chip has big improvements in a 64 bit OS, then the current range of AMD chips (and AM2) could really take take a big lead once Vista is released - assuming the Conroe chip is 32 bit. If its 64 bit aswell.... then.... poor AMD.

2) Whats the deal with DDR2? Are we likely to see much better varieties of it released later this year? Also, do you need to overclock the 800Mhz DDR2, to make it run as well as current low latency DDR-400 ram? Or will an off the shelf 2 gig DDR2 combo work well? And lastly, at scan, i notice they have a matching 2 gig set of mediocre timed DDR2 ram for an ok-ish price of about £162. But theres also a low latency version for about £280........

Thats an aweful lot of money to spend on RAM.

I plan on upgrading as soon as the Conroe is released, but i would hate to spend $280 on some nice ram, only to find it get utterly superceded in a few months once the "real" DDR2 chips start reaching us. Is that likely?

3) When is conroe due? Im pretty sure that article said its due in a few weeks.... But everywhere else says Q3 of 2006. Did i read it wrong? Or did you guys confuse it with AM2? Or am i in for a great suprise?

Thanks alot in advance.

---edit--- Here ya go. Your article said, "It's abundantly clear that Conroe will be the fastest CPU in town when it hits in a few weeks' time.".

Everywhere else i have read suggests Q3/September. Some places did say July/August tho. But either way..... "a few weeks" would be really good news for me! So im hoping to confirm.

[Cannyone]

(snip...) but since I grew up with Intel I am glad they are FINALLY getting back on track from being a marketing driven company to an engineering driven company. It's just a shame that there is more money to be had from a marketing driven company than engineering because 'we' the consumers are too stupid to look through the big numbers so really we should blame Intel's sidetrack on us.

You can be so gracious as to accept responsibility for Intel's decision Benji. Just don't include all of "us", I personally saw Netburst for what it was and refused to buy one EVER. However, I will agree with you on this, I'm glad to see Intel make this "turn-around" in CPU architecture.

[FatalSaviour]

Right guys, you know where to send me the review samples once you're done with them
Now to get the Quad SLI ordered

[rad]

1) Is the Conroe chip 64bit? I cannot find confirmation on the internet... Either way, is it an issue, considering Windows Vista (which is 64bit), is due out early next year? If a 64 chip has big improvements in a 64 bit OS, then the current range of AMD chips (and AM2) could really take take a big lead once Vista is released

Thanks for reminding me about that. It will be also interesting how these cpus run on 64 bit operating sytems. Previous experience shows that AMD CPU's run faster on a 64 bit OS than Intel, so I will be interested to see a review covering this.

[Con_roe]

I dont know if this has been brought up or not, But why are you using 4x512 and looser timing for FX? I bet that's 2T, isn't it?
You call this kick botty? For the look of it I say FX is kicking Con-roe's botty yours included. if you use 2T 4x and looser timing (dont care what speed) you need to Ad 7% for looser timing + 5% for 2T, and another 5% for using 4x instead of 2x you will end up an addition of 17% added to FX.
Am I being Bias and exadurating the percentages, or are you just kicking your own botty?

[The Codfather]

I love how many replies in this thread seem so sour at the thought that Intel may have a chance at clawing away at the FX's hold on the top end of the CPU sector.

It's just competition people, Conroe looks like a great chip and no doubt this is Intel's year so well done to them, but we know that AMD will pull something out of their hat when K8L is released, and Intel will fight back again soon after and so on..
It's horrible to think that fanboyism could actually partake in something like this. Surely as a gamer or a power user you just want what's best for your money at the end of the day? It shouldn't matter what name is on the damn chip as long as it pulls the best for what you can afford.

I've used AMD for years, because they've always offered the best to me, due to the Conroe benchmarks it looks like this years build will be Intel.

I just hate seeing people being so petty over a name. At the end of the day it's just business, AMD and Intel couldn't care less who you go for as long as they're getting your money.

[keta]

ok to answer alot of ur questions , intel conroe 2.66 ghz is 529 US , FX 62 is 1219 US , now even if conroe was extremly the same performance its still a spanking cuse the conroe 6700 is HALF THE PRICE! soo any of u amd fanboys tryin to knock conroe , go spend ur extra 700 US dollars on a fx62 , cuse im gannna save that 700 us and spend it on dual gfx cards , i was gnana buy a am2 fx 62 but since intel conroe is coming out very soon iv changed my mind im waiting the extra few weeks and geting a conroe cuse id personaly rather buy a processor dual gfx cards all for the price of a fx62? lol , but seriously all of yous can do anything u want and buy a fx 62 and waste all that money but if ur smart and get over the biasness and stop being amd lover boys , ull save alot of money and have atleast the same performance and some apps ull have alot more but its ur choice just pointing out the plane facts that its not good to be a fan of companys the best thing to do is buy the best products at the time , atm its amd am2 fx 62 but in a few weeks time conroe will b the best choice and its worth the few weeks wait

[keta]

OMG The Codfather u took the words right outta my mouth well put btw read my post before check the pricing thats another huge thing for intel , good performance and cheap , if u wnana pay fx 62 prices wait a couple of months for the intel conroe XE 3.33 ghz 1333mhz fsb , that thing will b a killer but thats like l8 q3 early q4

[kempez]

I'm hoping to pick up a nice Conroe soon....and maybe an AM2

[zag2me]

Wow I can encode a divx 10 seconds quicker, hurrah

I care more about heat/noise and price tbh.

[lusonico]

I dont know if this has been brought up or not, But why are you using 4x512 and looser timing for FX? I bet that's 2T, isn't it?

Yeah it has! By me in the second page of the thread! But nobody has commented on that! I'm curious to see how the conroe will really do against a "non crippled" FX rig...

ok to answer alot of ur questions , intel conroe 2.66 ghz is 529 US , FX 62 is 1219 US , now even if conroe was extremly the same performance its still a spanking cuse the conroe 6700 is HALF THE PRICE!

Is Conroe out yet? No? If not how can you compare the price of a FX already available with a CPU that will only be coming out to public months from now? The FX is expensive because it´s the best out NOW, when conroe gets out, BY THE TIME IT GET'S OUT, FX will price lower.