Intel's Core 2 Extreme & Core 2 Duo: The Empire Strikes Back

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• Josh7289 - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  When I go to college next year, I know what I'll be buying. :)

• Pirks - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  quote:
  

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  When I go to college next year, I know what I'll be buying. :)

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  When I see AMD price cuts next month, I know what your face'll look like. :)

• theoryzero - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  This review (and the many others from other review sites) is interesting in that it confirms Intel's bold claims made back in March.
  
  However, with that out of the way, what I really want to know is which chipset/MoBo to go with? Is springing for high-end memory worth it on Core2? Any plans for a motherboard review in the very near future? Given the Abit AB9 preview and recent articles on DDR2-1000 memory I kind of expected this stuff to show up after the NDA was lifted too.

• Wesley Fink - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  Conroe starts shipping July 27th - the original launch date. Intel moved the launch date back two weeks because OEMs like Dell and HP were hot to start advertising and shipping Conroe systems. I suspect Intel was also trying to salvage their NDA. Good news is hard to contain and two more weeks of NDA would have likely resulted in more info leaks that Intel did not want to turn into a flood.
  
  You will be able to find answers at AnandTech to your basic Conroe motherboard and memory questions early next week.

• theoryzero - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  Sounds good, thanks!

• bob661 - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  quote:
  

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  You will be able to find answers at AnandTech to your basic Conroe motherboard and memory questions early next week.

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  Thanks.

• Howard - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  I would have loved to see minimum FPS as well as average FPS. The review was great otherwise.

• JarredWalton - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  While we could report those scores, we didn't feel we should at least on Oblivion. The reason for that is because the Oblivion runs were manually tested with FRAPS, and the results aren't perfectly comparable between runs. Anyway, here are some of the numbers, but recognize that the margin of error is going to be larger than what you would see with automated timedemos:
  
  Oblivion Bruma:
  Core E6300: 32-53.7-77
  Core X6800: 47-78.6-117
  AMD 3800+: 27-47.0-72
  AMD FX-62: 38-62.5-94
  
  Oblivion Dungeon:
  Core E6300: 39-81.3-211
  Core X6800: 57-106.5-214
  AMD 3800+: 35-72.0-189
  AMD FX-62: 46-89.9-211
  
  F.E.A.R.:
  Core E6300: 34-92-224
  Core X6800: 41-118-310
  AMD 3800+: 28-83-212
  AMD FX-62: 38-101-247
  
  Rise of Legends:
  Core E6300: 8-68.2-137
  Core X6800: 45-120.5-216
  AMD 3800+: 5-52.1-115
  AMD FX-62: 25-78.4-144
  
  Minimum frame rates in the Rise of Legends benchmark are zero on most of the Pentium D systems, so again we take those with something of a grain of salt. Regardless of how you look at it, though, the Core 2 Duo processors consistently outperform their AMD equivalents in gaming results. We will be looking at additional games next week in our motherboard reviews.

• nowuadmit - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  First off, when u guys reviewed a 486/33 for the first time... it was also "the fastest piece of silicon the world has ever seen"... then later, when u saw the P2-550... THAT was the "fastest piece of silicon... blah blah".
  
  Well its nice that intel has made a really expensive and barely available new chip, so they can finally match (or even exceed by a few points) AMD's reasonably priced previous generation. So now u can say they have the fastest, and if u want to spend thousands on a CPU that is only slightly faster than something that costs hundreds of dollars, HEY BE MY GUEST! there have been worse wastes of money! (in theory anyways, since the avg american wont be able to actually find any of these in the local stores for quite some time, if intel follows their previous habits).
  
  Anyhow the point of my comment... i think this is a good thing. i mean, anything that actually causes an intel fanboi to admit finally that intel has been reaming your butts for 5 years..
  
  while the people who simply buy whatever CPU makes the most sense have been enjoying getting great quality nookie from AMD! SO i present to you, this Technical Quote of the Year, spoken on behalf of all intel fanbois with half a brain!
  
  Technical Quote of the Year:
  
  "...power hungry, poor performing, non-competitive garbage (sorry guys, it's the truth) that Intel has been shoving down our throats for the greater part of the past 5 years."
  
  Congradulations on your honesty, finally.

• MrKaz - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link

  Yes that’s truth.
  
  80% of Intel crap, only 20% is good. The Pentium M.
  
  So they say 5 years ago until now Intel was “all” crap. I think Northwood was/is very good.
  
  My maximum price is 100$ (or 120$ with cooler) for a CPU. Only AMD as an honest performing CPU for those prices.