New $300 Intel E6600 Core 2 Duo faster then the $1100 AMD FX-62

NubyCanuby_OFC · Post by **NubyCanuby_OFC** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:44 am

Wow. I might be going back to Intel for my Vista rig next year. Hopefully the new Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs will be available at the suggested retail price in a few months.

Here's a quote from the conclusion of Anandtech's review:
The Core 2 Extreme X6800, Core 2 Duo E6700 and E6600 were pretty consistently in the top 3 or 4 spots in each benchmark, with the E6600 offering better performance than AMD's FX-62 flagship in the vast majority of benchmarks. Another way of looking at it is that Intel's Core 2 Duo E6600 is effectively a $316 FX-62, which doesn't sound bad at all.

Core 2 review

tunis5000 · Post by **tunis5000** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 9:46 am

Sweet! This means AMD will be forced to lower prices...

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 10:15 am

hehe That's what I'm thinking too Tunis.. I'm still going to go AMD one way or the other..

eGo

MegaVectra · Post by **MegaVectra** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:17 am

AMD fanboys....

GuardianAsher · Post by **GuardianAsher** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 11:29 am

AMD RULES ALL!!!!

Lazlo Panaflex · Post by **Lazlo Panaflex** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 2:19 pm

"We should all thank AMD for bringing out the very best from Intel, as well as proving that competition does indeed work..."

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 3:40 pm

No great loss for AMD. They're making their bread and butter now on servers. AMD Opterons are blowing away the Intel server CPUs and there's no immediate hope in sight. Intel really goofed on server CPUs.

That 's the main push behind Dell going with AMD. In the serious high-end server world everyone is using AMD. If you don't sell AMD servers now, you're not taken seriously. The BIG thing is performance per watt. You can run 14 or so AMD servers drawing the same power as 10 or so Intel servers in the same rack, and if you're running a big data center, then it's a no brainer. The big costs for companies running huge server farms is electricity and airconditioning.

And don't forget that the multicore Opteron design allows AMD to scale up to 4 processors on the same CPU and draw the same amount of power as a dual core CPU.

But yeah, they've been talking about this new desktop CPU line Intel is coming out with and it does outperform AMD. There's some trade-offs though and I'll be interested in seeing real-world gaming benchmarks.

Also keep in mind that AMD's design is scalable. They are ready to go to 4 or 8 CPUs on a die almost anytime. Intel's design is stuck at 2 processors on a die. There are serious memory bandwidth limitations to to Intel's design that will cause serious problems beyond 2 processors.

Intel has to abandon their current design soon if they want to keep improving performance while AMD can squeeze a lot more out of their current design.

Should be interesting, and a win-win for the consumer as prices should drop.

NubyCanuby_OFC · Post by **NubyCanuby_OFC** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 4:46 pm

The trouble with the benchmarks is they're using an SLI crossfire X1900XT to show off the capability of the CPU. I'd like to see what difference it would make with an X800 or 7900GT. If you check out all the reviews, Intel is significantly faster in gaming then AMD. Also this new Core 2 overclocks like crazy.
When I buy my next rig I'll be looking at the price to performance ratio for gaming.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:12 pm

AT got some monster overclocks off these chips...but check out the gaming specs at Hard**p - they do not find that much difference using a 7900 or so

NubyCanuby_OFC · Post by **NubyCanuby_OFC** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 1:36 am

Excellent find wvjohn. It wouldn't suprise me if the x6600 never makes it to the retail channel. Why would you buy the $500 and $1000, x6700 or x6800, when you will get about the same real world performance for $300, with the capability of overclocking the x6600 above the x6800 on default voltages. Right now it won't really benefit me, but when I'm looking for a new system it'll be the one to beat.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 5:16 am

I have the core duo in my new lappy - 1.66 mhz - unclear whether it is a conroe chip or not - but the Sandra benches on that bury my A64 3200

rogue · Post by **rogue** » Sat Jul 15, 2006 10:00 pm

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin

AMD Opterons are blowing away the Intel server CPUs and there's no immediate hope in sight. Intel really goofed on server CPUs.

he BIG thing is performance per watt. You can run 14 or so AMD servers drawing the same power as 10 or so Intel servers in the same rack, and if you're running a big data center, then it's a no brainer. The big costs for companies running huge server farms is electricity and airconditioning.

Not true anymore. The new Woodcrest (Xeon) Core 2 Duo based chips kill the Opteron in performance & performance per watt: http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=2793&p=6

Originally posted by FlyingPenguin

Also keep in mind that AMD's design is scalable. They are ready to go to 4 or 8 CPUs on a die almost anytime. Intel's design is stuck at 2 processors on a die. There are serious memory bandwidth limitations to to Intel's design that will cause serious problems beyond 2 processors.

That's not important as much as the fact that AMD willl have no real response to the Core 2 Duo until at least Q2 2007. Meanwhile, Intel can simply crank the frequency of the Core 2 Duo up and blow away all of AMD's K8 based chips.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 5:43 am

Hmm should keep things interesting, although I hear from the engineer types that AMD still has the edge in real world power consumption. AMD's automatic clock throttling seems to be more cost efficient than Intel's.

Plus there's this little rumor which was also hinted at at the AMD TechTour when a friend of mine asked the AMD engineer some questions:

AMD to Boost Single-Threading Performance on Multi-Core Chips, Say Sources.
AMD to Launch “Anti-Hyper-Threading” Shortly
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/displa ... 43710.html

Either way, competition is good for all and AMD is still in the fight.

nexus_7 · Post by **nexus_7** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 9:35 am

[quote]Originally posted by rogue
Not true anymore. The new Woodcrest (Xeon) Core 2 Duo based chips kill the Opteron in performance & performance per watt: http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=2793&p=6

Actually, that is only 1/2 the facts. the processor uses less power, but they raised the wattage used on the north bridge, and the new memory the intel system requires takes even more memory.

Greg

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Jul 16, 2006 10:06 am

Ah, yeah, I forgot they talked about that at the AMD Tech Tour. You add in the wattage of the Northbridge and you're almost back to where you started.