Anandtech's Conroe vs. FX60

Anandtech did a test on a couple of Intel-supplied boxes one containing
a pre-release Conroe vs. an FX60. And exactly as Intel said, their box
beat the FX60 in every test by about 30%.

AnandTech: Spring IDF 2006 Conroe Preview: Intel Regains the Performance
Crown
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2713&p=1

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Rahul Sood has a counterpoint:

Rahul Sood's Weblog
http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03...ine.html#links

Yousuf Khan

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Yousuf Khan wrote in part:
Anandtech did a test on a couple of Intel-supplied boxes one
containing a pre-release Conroe vs. an FX60. And exactly
as Intel said, their box beat the FX60 in every test by
about 30%.

AnandTech: Spring IDF 2006 Conroe Preview:
Intel Regains the Performance Crown
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2713&p=1

I'm appalled Anand would accept Intel's build of an AMD FX60.
Too much room for sandbagging. Can't he build one himself?

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Rahul Sood has a counterpoint:

Rahul Sood's Weblog
http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03...ine.html#links

Some good points, esp BIOS & CnQ.

-- Robert

On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 23:55:15 +0000, wrote:

On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:15:58 GMT, Robert Redelmeier
wrote:

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips Yousuf Khan wrote in part:
Anandtech did a test on a couple of Intel-supplied boxes one
containing a pre-release Conroe vs. an FX60. And exactly
as Intel said, their box beat the FX60 in every test by
about 30%.

AnandTech: Spring IDF 2006 Conroe Preview:
Intel Regains the Performance Crown
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2713&p=1

I'm appalled Anand would accept Intel's build of an AMD FX60.
Too much room for sandbagging. Can't he build one himself?

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Rahul Sood has a counterpoint:

Rahul Sood's Weblog
http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03...ine.html#links

Some good points, esp BIOS & CnQ.

-- Robert

I'd rather refrain from jumping to conclusions about the superiority
of new Intel architecture until after production Conroe systems are
compared with then-current A64 systems using publicly available
drivers and benchmarking software.

Since this is AISA, I was wondering about the drop in AMD's stock (wife
insisted on buying back in shrug). The problem I see with the Intel
announcement having an affect on AMD's value is that Intel is sucking wind
too. Me thinks techs in general are on the outs with investors.

--
Keith

On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:51:51 -0500, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

Anandtech did a test on a couple of Intel-supplied boxes one containing
a pre-release Conroe vs. an FX60. And exactly as Intel said, their box
beat the FX60 in every test by about 30%.

AnandTech: Spring IDF 2006 Conroe Preview: Intel Regains the Performance
Crown
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2713&p=1

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Rahul Sood has a counterpoint:

Rahul Sood's Weblog
http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03...ine.html#links


Well, I do tend to agree with some others that it's a bit early to
make any final judgments here, but it DOES look like Intel will
finally be competitive again. It's been a few years now since Intel
had any hope of competing against AMD on the desktop, workstation or
server front, basically not since the Opteron/Athlon64 were released.
The latest dual-core chips from each company only served to highlight
just how far behind Intel had dropped.

With these new chips it looks like Intel should be right back up there
in terms of performance AND power consumption. I suspect that these
benchmarks are going to be a bit of a best-case-scenario sort of
thing, and AMD will probably still end up winning some benchmarks.
However I don't see any major improvements on the way from AMD any
time soon, really DDR2 is the only thing planned for the rest of this
year. Given that, my money is on Intel being top-dog for the second
half of the year and into next year at the least.

The good news to all this is that it means we'll finally have real
competition again, and that should push prices down! It seems to me
like prices had kind of stagnated for the last while. AMD had Intel
beat so badly that they didn't need to lower prices much, and Intel
has sufficient numbers of loyal customers (ie Dell) that they don't
need to worry about the fact that they aren't competitive anywhere
outside of laptop chips.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla underscore 20 at yahoo dot ca

On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:51:51 -0500, Yousuf Khan wrote:

Anandtech did a test on a couple of Intel-supplied boxes one containing
a pre-release Conroe vs. an FX60. And exactly as Intel said, their box
beat the FX60 in every test by about 30%.

AnandTech: Spring IDF 2006 Conroe Preview: Intel Regains the Performance
Crown
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2713&p=1

One thing I don't get here is the large difference in game scores - I
thought that at those resolutions, 1280x1024, the CPU was overwhelmed by
the GPU in frame rate scores - has this changed?

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Rahul Sood has a counterpoint:

Rahul Sood's Weblog
http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03...ine.html#links

Seems like Intel has really taken the bull by the horns here. If they
screwed with the benchmark system setup, even unwittingly, they're gonna
get gored... and of course, the truth "will out".

Also, I have to ask: what the hell are they going to do about the umm, P4
inventory over the next 4 months? They really expect people to buy them
after this?... maybe put all the fabs on furlough?:-)

--
Rgds, George Macdonald

On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:15:58 GMT, Robert Redelmeier
wrote:

I'm appalled Anand would accept Intel's build of an AMD FX60.
Too much room for sandbagging. Can't he build one himself?

I don't think they have a choice. Intel set up the two systems and
gave them an hour without advance notice. However since then Anand has
updated that article with a revisit.


Of course, not everyone is convinced. Rahul Sood has a counterpoint:

Rahul Sood's Weblog
http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03...ine.html#links

Some good points, esp BIOS & CnQ.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2716

The updated BIOS crept AMD upwards by 1FPS here and there. The main
killer was Anandtech configured the AMD settings for FEAR wrongly,
1280x960 vs Intel at 1024x768. But overall Conroe is still sitting a
comfortable overall 20% ahead of an overclocked FX-60.

So even with AM2/DDR2 improvements, it wouldn't be unreasonable to
think that Conroe is likely to be seeing at least a 10% lead on the
competition at launch?

--
A Lost Angel, fallen from heaven
Lost in dreams, Lost in aspirations,
Lost to the world, Lost to myself

In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips The little lost angel wrote in part:
On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:15:58 GMT, Robert Redelmeier
I'm appalled Anand would accept Intel's build of an AMD FX60.
Too much room for sandbagging. Can't he build one himself?

I don't think they have a choice. Intel set up the two
systems and gave them an hour without advance notice.

No problem. Anand grabs a disk of low-level diags, and goes visit.
Runs diags to check clock, cache, memory timings, etc. Then writes
down benchmark results. Goes home, builds AMD as close as he can,
and rebenches.

This isn't perfect, 'cuz he cannot know if Intel has done opty things
with the OS install or drivers. But he can have some assurance
they didn't cripple the competition, 'cuz only he could have.

Being courted by big powerful vendors is flattering, but if an
evaluator is to remain independant they have to do some work.



However since then Anand has updated that article with a revisit.
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2716

The updated BIOS crept AMD upwards by 1FPS here and there.

Nothing from disabling CnQ?

The main killer was Anandtech configured the AMD settings
for FEAR wrongly, 1280x960 vs Intel at 1024x768.

Well, these sorts of 36% goofs are bound to happen when
he hurries.

But overall Conroe is still sitting a comfortable overall
20% ahead of an overclocked FX-60.

Maybe so. AFAIK, Conroe (a suburb of Houston) is good
technology from P6/PentiumM after lots of laptop (power savings)
optimization. Intel also knows a lot more about SMP (X2) and
avoiding contention/stalls. Overclocking never has been all that
great (proportionate) and other systems (busses) have to keep up.

So even with AM2/DDR2 improvements, it wouldn't be
unreasonable to think that Conroe is likely to be seeing
at least a 10% lead on the competition at launch?

It's certainly possible. I'd be more worried about this
DDR2/666. That sounds like a double pumped 333 MHz (or is
it quad 166?). Those mobos won't be easy to make.

-- Robert

On Thu, 09 Mar 2006 04:57:28 -0500, George Macdonald wrote:

On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 16:51:51 -0500, Yousuf Khan wrote:

Anandtech did a test on a couple of Intel-supplied boxes one containing
a pre-release Conroe vs. an FX60. And exactly as Intel said, their box
beat the FX60 in every test by about 30%.

AnandTech: Spring IDF 2006 Conroe Preview: Intel Regains the Performance
Crown
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/...spx?i=2713&p=1

One thing I don't get here is the large difference in game scores - I
thought that at those resolutions, 1280x1024, the CPU was overwhelmed by
the GPU in frame rate scores - has this changed?

Of course, not everyone is convinced. Rahul Sood has a counterpoint:

Rahul Sood's Weblog
http://voodoopc.blogspot.com/2006/03...ine.html#links

Seems like Intel has really taken the bull by the horns here. If they
screwed with the benchmark system setup, even unwittingly, they're gonna
get gored... and of course, the truth "will out".

Also, I have to ask: what the hell are they going to do about the umm, P4
inventory over the next 4 months? They really expect people to buy them
after this?... maybe put all the fabs on furlough?:-)

I was thinking the same thing but then I looked at the prices of the
PD and all my questions were answered. I bet Dell will have a lot of good
sales on desktops for the next few months.

I also see this a a job well done for AMD, just look at how long it took
Intel to catch up? When the release of AM2 happens, which people knew was
only a ddr2 update, AMD is only 10% behind. I would say that is one big
accomplishment. The real question is where are all the Intel server parts?
We all know that bread and butter is in the server parts, lets see some
benchmarks of those parts.

Also like the fine article mentioned, Intel was flogging chips but where
were the motherboards? Manufactures were showing AM2 boards but no AM2
chips. I think when June comes around you will be able to pick up an AM2
chip and have a good choice of boards to choose from. I also bet SM, Tyan
will have boards available, we all know how people love getting their
hands on product when its released. I don't know about you but if a
company has a choice of boards, and availability is good, then I see it as
good for AMD. I also see it as problematic for Intel as who else is making
the chipsets? I see this as a supply demand problem, the demand for the
new chipsets will be greater, and will encourage people to go another
route. If your chip is only 10% slower on some benchmarks, and price is
good then I don't see the gloom and doom that some predict of AMD.

Would you want to buy a first generation Intel chipset given the last few
years, and Intel's current track record? All I can say is it's going to be
good for the consumer.

Gnu_Raiz

*** Free account sponsored by SecureIX.com ***
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On Wed, 08 Mar 2006 22:37:21 -0500, Keith wrote:

Since this is AISA, I was wondering about the drop in AMD's stock (wife
insisted on buying back in shrug).

While not betting any part of my body on this, here is my take on it:

AMD down to under 30 by the end of summer, and back to at least around
40 about a quarter (maybe a little longer) after 65nm release,
assuming they don't screw up on it. If they do... well, they better
don't. Unlike Intel, AMD doesn't have such a luxury as being able to
afford to screw up...

The problem I see with the Intel
announcement having an affect on AMD's value is that Intel is sucking wind
Of course it is - Conroe is at least a quarter away, so Intel will
lose a few more percentage points of market share by the time it is
released officially, and then some before it is awailable in
quantities from PC makers (AAPL is not one of them). Or alternatively
Intel will lose quite a bunch pushing Netbust at firesale prices. Or
a combination of these 2.

too. Me thinks techs in general are on the outs with investors.

Keith wrote:
Since this is AISA, I was wondering about the drop in AMD's stock (wife
insisted on buying back in shrug). The problem I see with the Intel
announcement having an affect on AMD's value is that Intel is sucking wind
too. Me thinks techs in general are on the outs with investors.

Well, it's also CSIPHC. :-)

I think AMD's recent stock price downturn can be entirely blamed on me,
I chipped in for a few more shares a couple of weeks back. I'm sorry.
;-)

It is rather amusing that AMD got hammered more than Intel for taking
marketshare away from Intel. Signs are everywhere, over 80% AMD
marketshare in retail desktops, over 1/3 share in laptops. I dread the
day when AMD takes 50% overall marketshare in everything. :-)

Yousuf Khan