I hereby bury AMD and name my firstborn Intel

[TrinireturnofGamez]

 AMD is doomed,  why ? :
                                Speed           Cache       Price
Core 2 Extreme X6800    2.93 GHz   4 MB         $999
Core 2 Duo E6700    2.67 GHz    4 MB    $530
Core 2 Duo E6600    2.40 GHz    4 MB    $316
Core 2 Duo E6400    2.13 GHz    2 MB    $224
Core 2 Duo E6300    1.86 GHz    2 MB    $183  = my baby .

  Conroe  supposedly launches July 23rd with these prices , this puts DUAL CORE conroes against SINGLE core AMD processors under 200us ie the 3500+ , intel has a processor 2-3 times as fast as amd at every price point <300  (just did cxc maths ) ! Even the semprons will be outdone by old stocks of  dual corePentium D's .....
   AMD will loose huge profits , either by loosing processor sales to cheaper , faster intels , or bieng forced to drop prices on their low end and loosing profits..
     Intel brightened up my day,  cxc arrived with maths papers 2 hours late and had me doing maths from 10 :30 to 3 .
   poor amd...

[Beomagi]

I'm sooo snagging an E6600
thanks for the pricing

[TriniXaeno]

lol @ naming convention.

Core 2 Extreme X6800 sounding like Graphics Cards.

Trini, what makes you say 2-3 times faster?

Are you telling me a Conroe 2.4 Ghz @ US$316 will be 2-3 times faster than an Athlon 64 3500+ 2.4Ghz @ US$159.00?

As in generally 2-3 times faster? Not just in some exotic benchmark, under very specific conditions?

Got any evidence/benchmarks to back that up?

Sounds too good to be true.

Also, after my experience with Rise of Legends, you may want to bump your baby up to the E6400 @ 2.13Ghz.
The game disabled certain options when it detected my CPU was below 2Ghz. May be a trend of the future. To be safe, ensure the base Ghz is 2.0 and up.

[TrinireturnofGamez]

    i plan to oc that conroe to at least 2.6ghz anyway  , conroes reportedly go up to 3.4 ghz on stock voltage , stock cooling from an intel boxed prescott , 2.6 not gonna hurt it... plus it can run 1 to 1 with DDR 2  667 at those clocks.
    , all intel processors will be <3.2ghz for awhile to come , games will be programmed to suit  ...   
  All benchmarks show  conroe on average 20-40% faster than an equally clocked a64 , considering TWO cores will be available on the cheapest conroes ONE on  some of the a64s,  You will have at least twice as much processing power , though no ONE game will use that now alot of applications can  eg. rendering a scene will take less than half the time with a conroe vs athlon 64 encoding mp3s etc. , and future games will be highly multithreaded
 
  A 2.4ghz conroe does 1 million pi in 21 seconds , an  2.4 ghz A64 4000 in 35 , thats a 60% increase in speed !
 Super pi is a single threaded app , if it was able to make proper use of both cores , you can expect to see even half that score!  direct game comparison is hard due to different graphics cards , drivers etc . so don't expect much until june . 
  conroe link: http://vic.expreview.com/read.php?1&part=4
  a64 link :  http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1666&page=7

[Narcissus]

i swear i see snow fallin in hell

[TriniXaeno]

overclocking that processor won't help you with Rise of Legend.

Tried doing that, but it still said my processor was a 1600Ghz CPU and did not allow the features to be enabled. Not sure what it is using to identify the CPU but overclocking didn't change the ID.

Get 2.0Ghz @ stock just to be safe!

As for the Conroe = AMD x 3, by your own words above, a conroe will not be twice nor thrice as fast as a A64 under general use at the same clock speed.

You now  say 20-40% which is still great, but not worth the double price premium.

$319 Core vs $150 A64

I will stick with my Athlon 64 3500+ for now. Never did I say...damn, I wish my processor was faster so this mp3 would rip quicker. lol

My computer is a game machine. That is the only "killer app" that makes me spend money behind my rig. If a game is laggin, then $$ gonna start flowin.

[Kaizen]

amen to that baego

[W1nTry]

Come on guys you know trini is a turn tale, quick to abandon anything at the drop of a proverbial benchmark. We expect and hope for great things from intel in the conroe dept and so far all the hype seems to indicate so based on the engineering samples which are generally not as good as the finished product, but don't count AMD out yet. Yuh have to look at it this way. A64 is built on the going on 3 yr old archetecture of Hammer. Conroe is built from Yonah spawn of Dothan span of PIII. Point however is, that it's the next gen of intel processors. If they didn't kick @$$ then it wouldn't be any good. It's like P4 to A64, huge jump, now A64 to conroe well we still have to see how large a jump. Point is, better for us and don't assume AMD has been resting on it's laurels. K8L will have to come sooner than later, but even so July is around the corner but it;s not TODAY. The Opeterons wdf PWN the current server market and I read that they'll still wdfpwn (not as much though) the 4 way market thanks to Hypertransport. Until CSI comes with intels next platform review AMD safe. Trini crying wolf but all yuh could see right now is a silloette of something that could be a DINGO. Time will tell, only given is that WE the consumer should benefit (save they pump their tech full of DRM and other such tech :p which intel is very interested in if not doing it behind de scenes).

[TrinireturnofGamez]

 i'm buying a new rig THIS YEAR , not next year or the year after , all that matters for me and anyone in the same position is performance now and in the near future , AMD won't bring out K8L till 2007  , and i DO plan to possibly go to an AMD rig in 2008 using the same DDR II in the conroe rig.. 
   even if the k8l WTFpwnzor cornoe  , i can't wait for it , my 6600gt died a horrible death and i'm running on an FX 5200 ,  its a HUGE downgrade , i suffering to even play war3 at a good frame rate.. waiting a few months is bad enough as it is , a YEAR is unacceptable .

[TriniXaeno]

The reason for going conroe / dual core in general for gaming has yet to present itself. Though from all looks of it, the industry is heading in that direction.

When we get there, that argument will be valid. (but not a minute before)

gone are the days of a techie trying to "future proof" a machine for three years. Leave that for people who buy their computers at Courts and Pricesmart.

The rest of us expect to make piece meal swaps several times over that period.

[Crixx_Creww]

I think you lookin at it the wrong way Baego.

From what trini saying, you should not be comparing the price point of the 2.4 conroe to that of the 2.4 a64. You should be comparing the 2.4 a64 to the 1.83  conroe.

They closer in price, and the conroe is likely to out perform the a64, which I believe was his point. That for the same or similiar price point, Intels offering out performs AMD, and so for amd to compete, they would have to push their price point down EVEN further which will result in massive profit losses.

And even if they do that, Intel has their pentium Ds that they can drop the price on to compete in ultra low price range.

THere is NO doubting conroes power, especially in light of how oc'able they are, and on air to boot.
The choice is clear.. clear eyes.
Lol

Only thing left to do is get a new mobo and sit there waiting for yur conroe.

Interesting thing to note, is that their is no hyperthreading on the dual core conroes, which removes the sort of "problem" dual cores face with hyper threading, where sometimes there is no way for the OS to differentiate between real and virtual processors and yu may end up having data sent to two virtual processors instead of split between two real ones

[Narcissus]

let's wait till trini builds his rig an we'll see what the benchmarks look like...so hurry up dawg

[TriniXaeno]

well that is one aspect, but remember....one of my favourite games already won't run with features on for a CPU less than 2.0GHz

So I am not considering that 1.83 Conroe at all.

2.0 Ghz and up for my gaming needs.

Hence why I targeted the 3500 A64 and the 2.4 Conroe.

We can agree from preliminary benchmarks that it will be faster.....but not by the magnitude Trini first quoted. 2-3 times faster would mean goodbye AMD indeed. 20 - 40% at a higher pricepoint still leaves room for competition.

Especially for a component that is no longer a gaming bottleneck with all but the highest end graphics cards.

[Crixx_Creww]

Well 2.ghz aside

the comparison should still be by price, so instead of comparing the mid to high range 300+ core duo, compare the sub 300 one, which will more than likely be way more than 20-40% above the a64 yu quoted.

[TriniXaeno]

If we are going by price, that only makes matters worse for your argument.

Remember, I was putting a US$166 Athlon 64 3500+ (@ 2.4Ghz) against the new Core 2 Duo E6600   (@2.40 GHz)    which Trini expects to retail for  US$316

Pretty much twice the price.

If you want us to compare by price and not Ghz, then we are going to put the slower Core 2 Duo E6300    (@1.86 GHz)  for $183 against that same US$166 Athlon 64 3500+ (@ 2.4Ghz)

[Beomagi]

I'm sure by the time core 2 comes, price structure would change remarkably for the current core duo, turion, athlon 64,  athlon X2, opteron 1xx, pentium 4, pentium D, sempron and celeron. I'm not going to even look at price comparisons atm, just waiting

[TriniXaeno]

you're no fun! lol

[TrinireturnofGamez]

If we are going by price, that only makes matters worse for your argument.

Remember, I was putting a US$166 Athlon 64 3500+ (@ 2.4Ghz) against the new Core 2 Duo E6600   (@2.40 GHz)    which Trini expects to retail for  US$316

Pretty much twice the price.

If you want us to compare by price and not Ghz, then we are going to put the slower Core 2 Duo E6300    (@1.86 GHz)  for $183 against that same US$166 Athlon 64 3500+ (@ 2.4Ghz)

              http://www.pconline.com.cn/diy/evalue/evalue/cpu/0605/791941_15.html

 Your pulling an intel on us , comparing clock speed and not performance , the 1.86ghz conroe will stomp  on the A64  3500 , in some benchmarks it beats an Athlon Fx 60  @ 2.8ghz ( see link) !
    Clock speed does not matter , those same games that detect clock speed will probably be patched.. or intel might declare the clock speed to windows as  the model number ie. ''6300mhz'' for the 1.86ghz conroe etc.... It would also help people wanting to buy cheap Pentium 4s and A64s over Conroe based on clock speed  by  rating the chips on model numbers rather than clock .

[TriniXaeno]

Hey, if I am comparing by Ghz, that is to your advantage. You get to square off a higher end Conroe against the A64 3500+.

If by price, then the lowest end Conroe has to face the A64 3500+

Nice link though. It actually has some good gaming benchmarks in there and you would notice, that at clock for clock, the conroe was only marginally faster than the AMD processor for gaming, except in Doom 3, where the jump was like 40%.

Also, notice the video card used....an ATI X1900XT, which further proves what I said before....this is only a factor for gamers who can already afford the best GPU on the planet. If they were running on a 7600 GT, 7900 GT, the processor will not be the bottleneck.

Good show though. An excellent link.

These should be interesting next month indeed.

[Beomagi]

Also, notice the video card used....an ATI X1900XT, which further proves what I said before....this is only a factor for gamers who can already afford the best GPU on the planet. If they were running on a 7600 GT, 7900 GT, the processor will not be the bottleneck.

notice the fps - I get nowhere near that when i'm maxing out 1280x1024 - and that's the lowest res i'd ever use with that card. They're running a high end card on lowest settings to show cpu differences more - nothing wrong with it, but it's not indicative of actual game settings. I'd still obviously pick a core 2 over anything else atm.