Intel Yonah Performance Preview - Part I: The Exclusive First Look at Yonah
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 30, 2005 2:50 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Power Consumption and Final Words
At 2.0GHz, Yonah is basically equal to, if not slightly slower than an Athlon 64 X2 running at the same clock speed in virtually all of the tests we ran. The important distinction here is that Intel is able to achieve that level of performance, without an on-die memory controller. But there is also one more thing to note, Yonah can offer that level of performance with significantly lower power consumption:
While the Yonah and Athlon 64 X2 systems consumed relatively similar power at idle, Yonah hardly eats up any more power under full load. In fact, a 2.0GHz Yonah under 100% load consumes less power than an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ at idle. Obviously Intel has the advantage of being on a much lower power 65nm process, but it won't be until the second half of next year before we see any Athlon 64 X2s at 65nm, so it is an advantage that Intel will have for quite some time.
Although we didn't consider it as such here today , Yonah will be quite impressive on notebooks. The thought of having such a cool running dual core processor in a notebook is honestly amazing, and the performance difference (especially for multitaskers) over what we have today will be significant. The other thing to keep in mind is that when you go from a single core to a dual core Pentium M notebook, you won't be giving up anything at all. On the desktop side, you normally give up clock speed for dual core support, but Yonah will be running at very similar frequencies to what Dothan is running at today. In other words, you won't be giving up single threaded performance in favor of multi-threaded performance - you'll get the whole package.
As a desktop contender, Yonah is a bit of a mixed bag. While its performance in content creation applications has definitely improved over the single core Dothan, it still falls behind the Athlon 64 X2 in a handful of areas. Intel still needs to improve their video encoding and gaming performance, but it looks like we may have to wait for Conroe and Merom for that.
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nserra - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Well he is assuming it will, if not.... another Intel fiasco. But then, I’m still impressed with the power consuming numbers.But how will it scale performance/power consuming? At 2.6Ghz 20%?
xsilver - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
my guess is that its an asus and it will be ridiculously priced.it will also be funny how intel will sell this as the "fastest" processor in the world . blah blah blah.. even though it still cant beat the p4 in video encoding
has it been reported that there will be wide desktop mobo support, unlike the pentium M series so far? more manufacturers need to get in on the action b4 even the possibility of it becoming cheap.
VooDooAddict - Thursday, December 1, 2005 - link
First version of a next generation Intel CPU... Slower then the previous generation? NEVER!nserra - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
"Intel still needs to improve their video encoding and gaming performance, but it looks like we may have to wait for Conroe and Merom for that."Yes i will wait, the wait, wait. Wait for wait. You must wait for wait. Then wait will wait for wait. Then i will wait for wait.
Marlin1975 - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
wow intel chaning the pin/board layout to force others to buy all new gear, who would have thought.
shabby - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Geez they moved one little pin just to spite us, friggin sad.Shintai - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Yonah and Dothan is electrical incompatible.You only end up with either a fried chip or simply no ability to even run it.
The new socket is however future proff. It will work with the Merom mobile chip aswell.
Nyati13 - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
It's "rumoured" to be future proof, but Intel will probably change sockets between Yonah and Merom, like they always do.nullpointerus - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
Um...how do you know they didn't just move the pin to prevent people from frying the chip in older boards? In other words, does Yonah have a completely different use for the pins, or is it just a marketing scam?Deathcharge - Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - link
I think Intel has a lot of potential, this is a great mobile cpu and we've come a long way from the original P4 (which is what I am using to type this comment). I think this is really just a taste of things to come and if I was AMD I would be looking at what else I have to remain competitive. Sure what they have is far better than anything Intel TODAY but this time next year might be a completely different story.