Intel Core Duo (Yonah) Performance Preview - Part II
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 19, 2005 12:55 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Final Words
With updated benchmarks and a more level playing field comparison to the Pentium M and Athlon 64 X2, we're truly able to see the potential of Intel's Core Duo processor. Our initial analysis still holds true, that for a notebook processor, the Core Duo will be nothing short of amazing for professionals. Looking at the performance improvements offered everywhere from media encoding to 3D rendering, you're going to be able to do a lot more on your notebook than you originally thought possible (without resorting to a 12-pound desktop replacement). In the past, power users on the go had to sacrifice mobility for CPU power, but with the Core Duo, that is no longer the case. You will still most likely have to resort to something larger if you need better GPU performance, but at least your CPU needs will be covered. The one thing that Intel's Core Duo seems to be able to do very well is to truly bridge the gap between mobile and desktop performance, at least in thin and light packages.
But what about the bigger picture? What does our most recent look at the performance of Intel's Core Duo tell us about future Intel desktop performance? We continue to see that the Core Duo can offer, clock for clock, overall performance identical to that of AMD's Athlon 64 X2 - without the use of an on-die memory controller. The only remaining exception at this point appears to be 3D games, where the Athlon 64 X2 continues to do quite well, most likely due to its on-die memory controller.
The problem with the Core Duo is that its clock speeds aren't going to be quite high enough to be competitive, on the very high end, with AMD. Luckily for Intel, Conroe should be able to offer higher clock speeds without much of a performance penalty, thanks to its 4-issue core. It is always interesting to note that Intel's marketing focus is moving away from focusing on ILP (Instruction Level Parallelism), yet one of its biggest features of their next-generation microarchitecture is a significant increase in ILP.
Honestly, as it stands today, if Intel can get clock speeds up, the only area that they will need to improve on is gaming performance to be competitive with AMD. We wouldn't be too surprised if the comparisons that we have shown today end up being very similar to what we encounter at Conroe's launch: with AMD and Intel performing very similarly at the same clock speeds, but with AMD's on-die memory controller giving it the advantage in gaming.
Intel's Core Duo launches in January at CES, so if you've been thinking about buying a new laptop, we'd suggest waiting at least another month or so. You won't be disappointed.
With updated benchmarks and a more level playing field comparison to the Pentium M and Athlon 64 X2, we're truly able to see the potential of Intel's Core Duo processor. Our initial analysis still holds true, that for a notebook processor, the Core Duo will be nothing short of amazing for professionals. Looking at the performance improvements offered everywhere from media encoding to 3D rendering, you're going to be able to do a lot more on your notebook than you originally thought possible (without resorting to a 12-pound desktop replacement). In the past, power users on the go had to sacrifice mobility for CPU power, but with the Core Duo, that is no longer the case. You will still most likely have to resort to something larger if you need better GPU performance, but at least your CPU needs will be covered. The one thing that Intel's Core Duo seems to be able to do very well is to truly bridge the gap between mobile and desktop performance, at least in thin and light packages.
But what about the bigger picture? What does our most recent look at the performance of Intel's Core Duo tell us about future Intel desktop performance? We continue to see that the Core Duo can offer, clock for clock, overall performance identical to that of AMD's Athlon 64 X2 - without the use of an on-die memory controller. The only remaining exception at this point appears to be 3D games, where the Athlon 64 X2 continues to do quite well, most likely due to its on-die memory controller.
The problem with the Core Duo is that its clock speeds aren't going to be quite high enough to be competitive, on the very high end, with AMD. Luckily for Intel, Conroe should be able to offer higher clock speeds without much of a performance penalty, thanks to its 4-issue core. It is always interesting to note that Intel's marketing focus is moving away from focusing on ILP (Instruction Level Parallelism), yet one of its biggest features of their next-generation microarchitecture is a significant increase in ILP.
Honestly, as it stands today, if Intel can get clock speeds up, the only area that they will need to improve on is gaming performance to be competitive with AMD. We wouldn't be too surprised if the comparisons that we have shown today end up being very similar to what we encounter at Conroe's launch: with AMD and Intel performing very similarly at the same clock speeds, but with AMD's on-die memory controller giving it the advantage in gaming.
Intel's Core Duo launches in January at CES, so if you've been thinking about buying a new laptop, we'd suggest waiting at least another month or so. You won't be disappointed.
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Spoonbender - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
Am I the only one recalling the old Athlon days?AMD smashes ahead with a great CPU, until around what, 2600+ or so, where they run out of steam, letting Intel overtake them.
Looks like the same might happen again...
Not sure if it's just AMD screwing up, or if it's really a question of resources.
For AMD, Athlon 64 was really a last-ditch gamble. They had to do something big, or they wouldn't exist 5 years from now.
Well, they did, and enjoyed a lot of success, but they might just not have the resources to follow up on it. Instead, their only option might be to milk the A64 for all it's worth, and then take a beating for a year or two, until they're ready with a next-gen architecture
LuxFestinus - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
A question of availability needs to be raised. Are these new duo Intel processors available now? Can anyone say paper launch. How long has the dual Athlon64 been out? I thought so.Griswold - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
I dont see where you're coming from. The A64 is a K7 on steroids. The P-M is a P3 on steroids and Conroe will also just be a P-M on steroids. Both companies didnt come up with flashy, brandnew architectures over the last few years, they only added flashy things to existing designs. Here and now, it's still Intel playing the catchup game until we see Conroe in stores. And then you always have to keep in mind that AMD is yet to move to 65nm. It will certainly give them some more clockspeed headroom.I agree with the conclusion of the article, we'll see a neck to neck race in a year from now where the better price will make the difference. AMD really doesnt have to flex its muscles now, they can milk the crowd with a superior product - and people will pay whatever to get it, or so it seems.
Calin - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
Several of the flashy brand new architectures of the last few years had any kind of success. Itanium/EPIC, Transmeta, Netburst... As long as Transmeta was supported by a company with very little financial power (so their loss was somewhat expected), Itanium is crawling ahead on life support, and Netburst (while being king of the hill for a good time) will be discontinued.Griswold - Tuesday, December 20, 2005 - link
The point is: Netburst is certainly a design that could be considered newer or more radical compared to the P3->P-M->Yonah/Conroe/Merom route. In the end netburst was still a technical failure, but certainly not a financial mistake.Well and Epic, thats much older than you think. But yes, it never ended up where Intel wanted it to be: on the desktop.
allies - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
It seems like with Intel's new chips, we're going to be back to a point where neither company has a true lead on the other. AMD is in great position at the moment, but they need to get their Turion X2 out to combat Intel's Centrino Duo. Otherwise, they'll find themselves losing laptop sales, an area which they've come a ways in.Right now, although clockspeed isn't increasing as fast as it once was, is a very exciting time for computer technologies. Parallelism, die shrinking, heat reduction, among other strides are paving the way to the future.
ncage - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
Are you sure the improvements in games are due to the different Memory Controller technoliges? Are you sure its not the FPU?tfranzese - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
I was thinking the same, considering his thoughts are pure speculation on his part. So, until Anand can provide data to back that up, he should stick to commending AMD's architecture rather than trying to credit all their success to the on-die memory controller (which surely helps, but it's only one part in the formula).I would doubt AMD is sitting idle though, and as they work on their next architecture will keep their lips sealed in order to maintain an element of surprise. Surprise like when they added SSE support to the Palomino and SSE3 support to Venice - both unexpected additions.
Furen - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
The K8s execution core is pretty much the same as the K7s. If you compare performance (in games) between the two you'll notice that the K8 performs much better. This is due to the fact that it removes the FSB bottleneck (by integrating the memory controller), increases the width of the L2 cache (and the size) and dramatically drops the memory access latency. Sure there are other minor differences but they're mostly minor improvements, like better branch prediction, etc.tfranzese - Monday, December 19, 2005 - link
I don't see where the two of you are going with this and only serve my point that pinning the successes of the architecture on the memory controller is only speculation.