Super fast Conroes save Intel's face

IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS A SCREWUP. The processor under the codename Conroe, first made its appearance at the INQUIRER in February 2004.

The successor to the failed Netbust marchitecture was supposed to be built upon the very foundations that made the company famous for CPUs. Intel knew that it has to manufacture a product which would appeal to gamers, overclock like heck, and yet have all the performance to reply to an attack AMD had been building for years.

Winning in the notebook sector was not enough, the company needed to make a K8-killer for servers and desktops as well. Price was also a problem, but the company has started a fierce price war, especially as we know that it won't be able to supply more than 27% of Core 2 Duos to the market by the end of the year. So Enter Conroe, the core of Intel's intentions to recapture the hearts and pockets of users.

Goal: 40% Faster Performance for 40% Lower Power

First of all, I have to say that Intel pulled a classic move with the naming of the product. It is impossible to describe microarchitecture without stumbling upon the word core at least once. The funny thing is, the word is even copyrighted by the Intel Corporation.

But Core 2 Duo marchitecture really hits the spot from day one. To say that this marchitecture is a variant of Pentium III is just an offence to the teams who worked hard to assemble a totally new CPU marchitecture. Now, this is the only reason why you will see the results here - Conroe is a totally new baby. And it's a cracker.

Intel uses five different technologies to stir the Core 2 Dualistic cocktail, and by making these five technologies work together, the company has managed not only to achieve a goal of 40% better performance while only using 40% of the power consumed by products using Netvurst marchitecture. In fact, you will see that its original plan is bettered.

If you have been living under a rock for the past two years, the basics of Conroe CPU are relatively simple. The company ditched Megahurts Madness and went for the "we're slower, but we're technicians" stance. The pipeline is shortened from 31 stages to a half, with only 14 stages being in place after the L1 cache. The number of logic units has increased in order to fit four instructions in a single cycle. This was done by converting instructions into ?Ops (micro-operations) and then executed inside the almighty "Wide Dynamic Execution Engine". Secondly, two technologies that Intel pulled from its rabbit's hat are intelligent prefetchers and Advanced Smart Cache. We'll just skip the mumbo-jumbo tech part, but for one very, very important point, the way L2 cache is shared. There is no Gandalf wizard that decides who gets which part of the cache, it is a matter of two cores fighting for the same environment. The core with a higher valued process wins. This "war for cache" actually improved performance by a mile, since single-threaded apps can take a massive part of the cache, while the second core is keeping lower priority apps at bay. For games and encoding applications, you just cannot get a better scenario than this.

The line-up is divided into two parts: sub-$200 Conroes have 2MB of L2 cache that is in the middle of the fight betweenthe two cores, while the more expensive models come with 4MB of L2 cache. But both 2MB and 4MB Conroes should be overclocking monsters, with only motherboards setting the limits on how far you can go. This is music to enthusiast's ears. But with the multiplier locked, the market is wide open for motherboards that can hold an FSB that goes over 500MHz QDR - that's 2GHz in marchitecture talk, of course.

The Hardware
We tested five CPUs using two different systems. In the Blue corner, we have Core 2 Duo E6700, Core 2 Extreme X6800 and Extreme Edition 955. Sadly, the 965 arrived dead, with a single core working and a CPU being detected as "Intel Pentium Processor 6.00 GHz", but we'll put that in another story.

The home of these three CPUs was a new revision of the D975XBX motherboard, third one in seven months - first one came out with EE955, then E965 and now for the Conroes. This is odd, but we'll have to explore that later.

In the Green corner, we have two CPUs, the $1031 heavy Athlon 64 FX-62 and its EOLed younger brother, Athe thlon 64 X2 4800+. Since this 2MB L2 baby is being killed by AMD, we would advise you to pick that before July is out. After that, only Ebay will be able to help you. The motherboard used for the AMD system was an Asus M2N32 SLI DeLuxe, sporting a new feature packed chipset from Nvidia, the nForce 590 SLI.

The rest of the components were shared ones:
? 2GB of GeIL PC2-8500/9600 MultiConfig DC Kit
? Zalman CNPS9500Cu
? 300GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 SATA hard drive
? MSI SATA DVD Combo Drive
? Asus EN7900GTX GeForce 7900GTX 512MB
? Hiper Type-R 580W PSU
? Dell server keyboard + branded Logitech el Raton

We did a fresh install of Windows XP SP2, with all of important updates and installed "Theo's Summer Special test-suite". The suite is divided into scientific, multimedia, gaming and synthetic. The fifth part of the suite includes the impact on MultiThreading and Virtualization, but we had to can those due to ill-fated timing of first core on EE965 dying out and the X6800 mysteriously crashing in 3DMark06 and getting disastrous scores in Quake4.

Test results - Codename: Hammering the Hammer

3DMark06	Index	CPU Score
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	6.225	2.349
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	6.117	2.267
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	5.841	1.879
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	6.163	2.119
Intel Extreme Edition 955	5.114	1.634

LAME MP3 702MB encode min:sec	One Thread	Multithreads
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	2:37:00	1:25:00
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	2:54:00	1:56:00
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	3:28	2:37
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	3:20:00	2:31:00
Intel Extreme Edition 955	4:34:00	2:45:00

Everest 3.0 Ultimate Edition	RAM read	RAM write	RAM copy	Latency (ns)
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	7.360	4.833	5.373	64.60
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	7.288	4.716	5.239	64.90
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	8.152	6.940	8.471	43.10
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	9.157	7.964	9.015	40.60
Intel Extreme Edition 955	8.278	5.617	5.873	78.10

Everest 3.0 Ultimate Edition	CPU Queen	Photo Worxx	CPU Zlib	CPU Julia
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	5.339	26.618	38.312	7.814
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	4.823	25.920	34.620	7.052
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	4.655	23.353	28.794	2.902
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	5.431	25.000	33.617	3.379
Intel Extreme Edition 955	3.816	21.558	25.096	4.416

PCMark05	Index	CPU Score	RAM Score	Encrypt/ Decrypt
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	7.497	7.402	5.923	78.89/39.27
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	7.060	6.732	5.653	72.73/36.60
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	6.356	4.876	4.595	45.58/21.02
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	6.832	5.197	5.349	53.43/24.40
Intel Extreme Edition 955	5.515	5.484	4.418	73.45/38.47

ScienceMark 2.0	Index
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	1,613.24
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	1,501.87
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	1,425.00
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	1,617.91
Intel Extreme Edition 955	1,035.46

SuperPL 1M	(seconds)
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	17.00
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	19.00
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	33.96
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	29.95
Intel Extreme Edition 955	40.43

Sisoft Sandra 2007	CPU	MM	RAM
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	26783/ 18487	159355/ 86040	5624/ 5628
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	24300/ 16778	144555/ 78039	5588/ 5599
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	17502/ 14009	45386/ 49446	9078/ 9044
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	20395/ 17261	52905/ 57640	10158/ 9701
Intel Extreme Edition 955	15124/ 18553	45423/ 58449	6434/ 6418

FarCry 1.33	Research	Training
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	289.68	182.35
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	273.18	169.62
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	212.88	132.18
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	230.60	138.78
Intel Extreme Edition 955	187.50	94.25

F.E.A.R
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	142
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	150
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	136
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	142
Intel Extreme Edition 955	109

Quake 4 high quality	Single	Dual	MP Speedup
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	69.75	83.75	20.07%
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	61.60	76.32	23.89%
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	57.44	72.84	26.81%
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	60.90	78.50	28.89%
Intel Extreme Edition 955	42.82	47.53	10.99%

UT2004 16-bot match	CTF-Citadel	DM-Inferno
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800	135.16	155.22
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700	123.54	148.71
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+	112.94	122.45
AMD Athlon 64 FX-62	120.11	140.33
Intel Extreme Edition 955	134.73	87.19

As you can see from the results, Intel takes a decisive lead in all categories but one: memory bandwidth. In Sandra 2007, Intel lags by astounding 100% when compared to the AMD products. Both E6700 and X6800 are sitting on the wrong end of a saturated 1066MHz FSB - and it's enough to have DDR-II 667 memory in DualChannel mode and your 10.6 GB/s is used to the fullest. However, it seems to us that AMD's huge bandwidth just isn't used by the cores, since having over ten gigs of bandwidth per second is more than the massive majority of graphic cards on today's market. Still, the AM2 provision is just more stable and has better overclocking potential in the sphere of system memory bandwidth.

The two apps where Conroe just destroyed everything else are SuperPI and LAME MP3 encoding. Taking a minute lead to convert a 700MB .wav file into MP3 when using a single core is a testament as to how single-threaded application can acquire all L2 cache for itself and execute microOps like there is no tomorrow.

However, there is still one thing that disturbs me about the Intel Conroes. The load times on our Far Cry tests simply took ages, regardless of whether we used a NetWurst craptecture or Core marchitecture. AMD loads FarCry in a matter of seconds, and in this particular game, we feel like watching Athlon 64 to complete SuperPI after running Conroe for three years. B-o-o-o-ring. A big surprise for me was the fact that Quake 4 gameplay also experienced more hiccups on Conroe platform than it did on a competing AMD platform. After all, it is a fight between GeForce on an nForce motherboard and LinkBoost is a nice improvement as well.

Also, CPU-Z showed that it cannot get its act together when it comes to reporting the true clock speed of E6700. It reported flawless clocks for the X6800 and EE965/955, but E6700 was stuck at 1.6 GHz no matter what. Oddly enough, we transferred the installation of CPU-Z from the AMD test bed, but still no change.

Looking into the crystal ball
If the claim that "Intel makes great CPUs" is true, the claim "Intel sucks at motherboards" is true as well. Sadly, the testing was conducted with third revision of the very same motherboard. If you're investing in Conroe right now, bear in mind that your machine just might not support the future quad core Kentsfield CPUs, which are bound to use a 1.33GHz front side bus. To us, the safest bet for a Conroe based computer would be to hold out for an nForce4-SLI-16X or nForce 590 SLI based motherboard, but then there's ATI's plans, of course. We would also avoid betting your shirt on any of the 965 chipsets, since the lack of IDE controller and current zerg-rush bolting of UATA-133 support does not add to the corporate stable image Intel is trying to convey to its customers. Also, there is the small matter of Windows Vista compliance. But you do not want to buy these CPUs with integrated graphics.

First Thought: E6700
We think the Core 2 Duo and Extreme marchitectures are highly positive and gives consumers a real choice. E6700 offers great performance, and you no longer need to shell out $1,000 for a gamer CPU. Fifty three per cent of the price will be sufficient. $500 for a CPU may sound like a large sum of money, but we're talking about $500 that achieves the same or better performance than FX-62 which costs more than double the money. For the price of a single Athlon 64 FX-62, you get a CPU, an excellent cooler, a motherboard and a 7900GT graphics card. Did we say "better performance" as well? However, do not place four drives in RAID5 before the BIOS update or B-2 revision of CPU kicks in. There were some weird happenings, and they repeated on Bad Axe and ASUS P5W motherboards. We are waiting for a new motherboard with a non-Intel chipset, to get to the bottom of this.

First Thought: X6800
The GeForce 6800 was the "back in the game" point for Nvidia, and the X6800 is finally the first decent Extreme Edition processor. It was no secret that older EE CPUs were paper launched, press-editioned and the like. During a certain period of time, FX was outselling EE on a 17:1 ratio globally. When we take a look at old EEs, we can only wonder why anyone on Earth would buy one. The performance of both Athlon X2 4800+ and E6700 clearly demolish the old EE955.

The X6800 is a different beast. It outperforms its direct competitor by roughly the same ratio that FX had over EEs, which only speaks about the great work done by Israeli team. However, it is unacceptable that an Extreme Edition of a product suffers from different sorts of issues, ranging from weird CPU utilisation curve if using four drives in a RAID5 array to mysterious performance drops with several applications. We even clean installed Windows, changed half a dozen cards and still got nada. Plugged in an E6700 or E6300, and things just went "yippie".

What about AMD then?
Besides the Reverse HyperTransport/HyperThreading nonsense that will plague at least two AMD employees until the rest of their lives, AMD is taking Intel's launch with ease. We will be publishing a second INQpression with the explicit focus on performance in mid/heavy multitasking and virtualisation environments. As far as Socket 4x4 goes, it is so far unclear what AMD will do, but we already hear rumours about several non-AMD chips that will occupy that second Socket.

I want Conroe...today!
Unless you are a journalist or beloved of Intel, that's just not going to happen. July 14th was chosen as the launch date chosen to diminish the importance of quarterly results, and July 27th is the Core 2 Extreme X6800 release date. If you are not eager to shell out $1,000, you will have to wait at least for another week, when regular E6600/6700 are scheduled to appear. The rest of the line-up will be slowly introduced into the channel, but not before the company finishes its basement sale of Pentium 4 and Pentium D processors. Sadly, with this level of performance, the maximum price for the old lamps shouldn't exceed $20. Because that's how P4 and PD are looking when compared to the Conroe monsters.

It is the personal opinion of the author of this article that the guys from Core 2 team should be awarded with at least two weeks on Richard Branson's Island of Joy. Sadly for that team, Intel's policy is probably that they are close to losing their right to a mandatory sabbatical and that they will have to work hard to get next-generation marchitecture out of the door.

Intel has regained the performance crown. It only took five years, but the company did it. If you are planning to buy a new system, however - we are putting up a warning flag. Today, the processor is just one of the parts that need to work in harmony in order to achieve good results. For ATI lovers, RD600 is getting more and more fans each day, and our friend and die hard enthusiast Rahul from VoodooPC stated numerous times that we should watch out for ATI. The fact that DirectX 10 graphics is coming in late September or early October certainly should also have considerable impact on your spending decision. ?