Zardon

Read the review here
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Intel have handled this product launch differently because as well as the usual splattering of marketing mumbo jumbo there has been an uncharacteristic level of access to an unreleased product.

The first major example of this was back in May when we were invited to Intel Headquarters in Germany and were able to get hands on with a pre configured Core 2 system, a full two months before retail availability. Initial impressions were very positive however there is only so much faith you can have in pre-configured systems with limited testing, many sites published “their” results which basically were nothing more than glorified Intel PDF’s, we choose to wait until we could build our own systems and do our own indepth testing.

Over a month before Core 2 reviews could be published we were sent a final review kit by Intel. This almost never happens, most launches are shrouded in secrecy and last minute rushes, having over a month to fully test a new product really gives the impression that Intel are confident in their new line of processors, time to find out if this faith is well placed.

Necrosis

Good review.

Hopefully I'll be receiving my e6700 this up coming week.

Alien1

I will wait for Quad Cores and Vista until i decide for a CPU\mobo upgrade

A Graphic card with DX10 support is all what i care right now

X1800XTTOP

Very good review.

Its the first one i see comparing the CPUs at maximum ingame detail (huge plus to you guys for doing so). After all, thats how FX62/Core2Extreme users play their games. In the end, we see a ~6-10 fps increase in games (the extreme model vs the fx62), wich is by no means bad at all.

Also, if i may ask, was the AMD Dual Core driver installed? Its supposed to improve performance with some games. I couldnt find any info about it on the "test system"-page so im very sorry if i missed it.

IamLakota

Very nice review indeed,after a few years of hearing how intels cpu's were not up to par
with AMD's it's great to see them come out with a cpu that makes me want to upgrade.

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CJLMTLCA

That makes me wonder now to upgrade or not... ahhh... I'm tempted by the C2D right now. I guess i can always just pop in a DX10 card later and get Vista... or wait for Core 4 Duo, or will it be Core 2 Quattro...? Four 2 Cores...? ok...

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Necrosis

I have three main reasons why I'm doing an Intel setup now.

1. Video encoding.
2. Gaming performance vs high end AMD processors.
3. I'm turning 30 soon so it's a special "Getting Old" present to myself.

Veridian3

Yes, the latest version of the AMD cpu driver was installed. I always do this as if you dont some versions of PC mark give you issues.

We'll add it to the sys page asap. (my fault for leaving it out)

temeteus82

Ditto that!!!

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X1800XTTOP

Just to make sure we are talking about the same driver. There is an AMD CPU driver (wich basicly adds cools and quit), and there is dual core optimizer. I was talking about the last one

Anyways, keep up the excellent work.

Veridian3

I was talking about the opti one too... also fyi there is a 3rd one which some manufacturers "take advantage" of which is called "AMDaway". MSI use it on their K9A boards for example.

X1800XTTOP

Oh god, there is alot to keep track on

I knew many confuse the two i was talking about, so i just wanted to make sure we were talking about the same. I myself only have the "opti" installed as i dont use cool and quiet (my computer is already cool and quiet ) to avoid any issues.

Zardon

I found some issues with cool and quiet D installed before, depending on bios settings. i never install it either on my FX60/7900SLI rig.

swimtech

Great review guys - Intel obviously has a breakthough product for themselves and computer users/buyers/builders with the Core2 architecture.

From this review, I wonder what the AMD X2 architecture could do if they incorporated the same size L2 cache (shared) and dropped the process to 65nm... With their onboard memory controller, they might come out on top. Shame they can't do it right now...

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Lowfat

man i love the flash graphs you guys use. makes it look awesome

I was actually quite surprised the C2D did that well in games. Usually a CPU doesn't really have a big effect on games.

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riles9262

Great review. What fast chips - it's nice to see some great stuff coming from intel again.

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pr0digal jenius

nice as always.......you have my address, right?

Partizan

Great review.

I really hope AMD engineers are locked in their offices and developing Core 2 killers

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Falstaff

this whole review game me awesome wood!

I have always been an Intel guy.

bought the common sense car.

made all the common sense choices

Use my Spock whenever I wanted value over hype...

but clearly this proc is the new link to future cpu's from Intel that will dominate on all levels.

I have beer taste and a beer budget. but I will spring for this 100 year old bourbon...

I can just taste it now...LOL

Thanx Stew and Allan

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Erroneus

Doubt it They are going to release 0.65nm AM2 cpu's in 2007, but beside they maybe can make a FX66 and a X2 5400 (which wont help much), it wont do anything fantastic. AMD has to "fight" back, by selling their CPU's much cheaper then Intel, until their new core K9? in 2008 is out, because their 4X4 solution doesn't sound that brilliant and sounds expensive.

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CJLMTLCA

I guess as lower latency ddr2 becomes available, it will improve performance... What is the lowest ddr2 right now? Will it ever go down to 2-2-2-5 like ddr?

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WaltC

What AMD is "fighting back" against are the Intel price cuts of recent weeks. So, just what is Intel fighting that caused it to slash its prices across the board?

You may not realize it, but by Intel's own reckoning Conroe will not amount to even 25% of Intel's total processor shipments by the end Q4 '06. Intel actually has stated the percentage of Conroes it will ship by the end of the year will amount to between 15-25% of the total number of cpus it is shipping by then. Industry estimates I've read peg the possible actual percentage of Conroes Intel will ship by year's end to as low as 5% of its total '06 cpu shipment volume. So, again, why is Intel slashing prices?

Basically, Intel finds itself outflanked by AMD where most/all of Intel's *other* processors are concerned, and by the end of this calendar year, it's those other cpus that will represent 75%-95% of all the cpus Intel can ship this year, depending on who you ask. Aside from Intel's Conroe, AMD cpus are already walking all over Intel's other cpus in terms of performance and value...so...because its percentage of Conroe shipments for the entire year will be very small compared to everything else it ships, Intel had to figure out a way to sell the bulk of the cpus it will ship this year--so Intel is "fighting back" against AMD with all of the recent and severe Intel price cuts we've seen.

AMD is following suit in terms of price cuts simply in order to make it much more difficult for Intel to easily sell the bulk of the cpus the company must sell this year. Bottom line is that Intel desperately needs to sell off its existing inventories because of the market share already lost to AMD, but AMD has no intention of making this an easy process for Intel. Ergo, that's what the AMD price cuts are all about.

Like it or not, Conroe isn't going to do much more in 2006 than make a publicity splash for Intel. It will be sometime in 2007 before Intel can make enough Conroes to materially affect its market share numbers, and that's according to Intel's own published production estimates to date. But guess what? Sometime in 2007 AMD will be shipping the K8L at the same 65nm process Intel is ramping up Conroe on, and what this means is that by the time Intel can actually manufacture a quantity of Conroe to meet demand AMD will be able to compete with its 65nm K8L. Thus, in practical terms, Intel's current apparent advantage with Conroe will have been nullified.

Don't know if you've seen the descriptions circulated by AMD as to the upcoming K8L's architecture, but it is every bit the equal to Conroe if not its master. When it comes to multi-core technology, AMD already has the advantage over Intel in terms of a comparison between the supporting buses the two companies are each using (AMD with HyperTransport and Intel with its aging FSB approach.) IMO, the main difference between the two companies at this point is that Intel is milking Conroe for publicity long before it can make enough of them to make a difference, whereas AMD will wait until K8L is much closer to volume production before announcing it formally for the sake of publicity.

Last, certain things about the Conroe announcement remind me very much of the P4EE announcement Intel made a couple of years ago when AMD launched the A64 line of desktop cpus, IIRC. Just as happened with the P4EE, the Core2 cpus Intel has been sending out to web-sites (including the Conroes used for the DH review marked "Intel Confidential"), are engineering samples as opposed to production-grade cpus that consumers can actually buy. We found out later that the so-called P4EE's sent out for review were actually unmarked Xeons, and also were not production-grade samples of actual P4EE's that consumers could buy at the time. Most interesting to consider is this about the P4EE: it was months later, if not an entire year, before the P4EE's became commercially available--and always, of course, in very small quantities at very high prices. As such, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see that desktop Core2's won't actully ship in meaningful quantities until sometime in 2007.

brutusmaximus

Gotta love WaltC rants on forums - educated guy but one of the biggest AMD/ATI fanboys on the net and getting worse every year.. still entertaining though, if even just for the "WTF factor".

Im not going to argue some of the points walt makes (urgh) however I think some of the comments are utterly ridiculous, such as attempting to invalidate the results of conroe on review websites because they "are engineering samples" (or did I in fact pick that up wrong?) . You are aware these processors are EXACTLY the same specification as the ones released to consumers, right? same cache, same clock speeds, everything is identical (although it is possible they are hand picked for overclocking capability but that does NOT invalidate the default clock scores). Just as AMD "engineering samples"would be when they are released to websites. Or is that side of the coin not important? I give major kudos to Driver heaven to NOT publishing results from intels laboratories/HQ as many sites did weeks ago JUST to get hits. I also give Driver Heaven kudos for thorough and detailed testing in real world situations and high resolutions to properly show CPU limiting as well as other everyday testing such as encoding, decoding, DVD creation etc etc. I wish more sites would use the Driver Heaven Photoshop Bench V2, although I saw Hardocp, Madshrimps, Extremesystems and a few others using it lately too, which is great to see.

Im not sure about anyone else reading this thread but Intel have conroe distributed to websites and some are already available in stores and many people on these forums including others like xtremesystems http://www.hardwareheaven.com/overclocking-modding/113299-conroe-d-mine-smoking.html are already benchmarking them and producing results. And no, they arent "intel confidential" processors either - they are already available.

I wont argue the sales figures as I have honestly no idea and im sure waltc has done his research or read something on AMD forums (just like you read on intel forums that AMD are panicing and need ATI's help to produce core design to keep up with intel now - hence the merger) but I will say this. Intel have conroe out and its without question the fastest series of processors available right now, this is great for the consumer as it has resulted in price drops, better options for everyone and has also assured us that AMD have got the wake up call that they arent the only "gaming" solution on the market.

Amazing times for everyone, except the fanboys.

Cba - Andy

Nice cpu's but i for 1 wont b rushing out to buy 1, as would invole a nearly totaly upgrade which dont have money for am happy with what i got gives decent performance.

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bananaman

Good Review, but please stop tempting me!

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mainman

And i wanted to go AMD this time....DAMN YOU INTEL!!

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Erroneus

WaltC you base your "facts" on nothing but rumors? I know there isn't ALOT conroe for sale atm, but if i want one, I have no problem getting one. And my contacts at distrubitors here in Denmark, says they have no problem getting conroes and they will get large shipments in a few days.

And no matter how you spin it and you really are spinning it now, Intel is kicking AMD's ass with Core 2 Duo, no matter what AMD might release or what advantages they might have, FACT is they are kicking ass atm.

And I think brutusmaximus got you all right, your posts smells and looks like a post from a desperate AMD fanboy.

btw. CJLMTLCA reviews has shown low latency on conroe systems, doesnt give that much performance, like in eg. an A64 system and btw. dont expect anything lower then cas3 on ddr2

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Grace

3-3-3-6 is the fastest you can set any RAM at 800MHz on most recent motherboards, and there are modules which can do that.

I do not pretend to know how Conroe behave with better RAM timings, but up to now Intel processors tend to favor high MHz speeds instead. I will let you know once I find one though.



Fact is that Conroe is winning the AM2 socket processors on everything but price. They are faster, they overclock exceptionally well and they have good thermal performance. The saving graces (no pun intented) of the AM2 processors are the very low prices and the very low power consumption. At least over here the dual core 3800+ chips are priced as low as the top MHz Semprons and the 3500+ just went below 110$ retail price...not bad at all, since these processors are something more than fast enough for the majority of PC users. But at the 200+$ category, the Conroes are going to dominate for the time being.

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dipstick

Nice review, I always enjoy reading them. I have to say that the review -like all other core 2 reviews- show me two things; That Intel is finally back and in full force annihilating the best of AMD. And that the X2, while slower by core 2 standards, can still put up a decent fight. While the performance is there and I am tempted, there is not much reason to upgrade from the X2 just yet. If I was forced to upgrade or was putting together a new pc there is no doubt it would be a core2 but I will wait until supply is good and hope prices drop a bit(hopefully some good boards come out soon too).

mainman

Conroe fever over here..online shop i use to buy my pc stuff sold 15 E6400 in 30 min...

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