Intel Penryn Performance Preview: The Fastest gets Faster
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 18, 2007 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Penryn Performance at 3.33GHz in Beijing
Next up are Intel's Penryn benchmark results revealed at IDF Beijing. The system configuration is a little different, as both Penryn systems run at 3.33GHz and the systems are running Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit. The exact config is listed below:
| Test System Configuration | Wolfdale 3.33GHz | Yorkfield 3.33GHz | Core 2 Extreme QX6800 (2.93GHz) |
| CPU | Pre-production dual core Penryn 3.33GHz/1333MHz FSB 6MB L2 |
Pre-production quad core Penryn 3.33GHz/1333MHz 12MB L2 |
Core 2 Extreme QX6800 quad core 2.93GHz/1066MHz 8MB L2 |
| Motherboard | Pre-production BadAxe2 975X |
Pre-production BadAxe2 975X |
BadAxe2 975X |
| BIOS | Pre-production BIOS |
Pre-production BIOS |
Pre-production BIOS |
| Chipset Driver |
|
8.1.1.1010 |
8.1.1.1010 |
| Video Card | GeForce 8800 GTX |
||
| Video Driver | NVIDIA 100.65 |
||
| Memory | 2 x 1GB DDR2-800 5-5-5-15 |
||
| Hard Drive | Seagate 7200.10 320GB |
||
And now the results:
| Benchmark | Wolfdale 3.33GHz | Yorkfield 3.33GHz | Core 2 Extreme QX6800 (2.93GHz) |
| 3DMark '06 V1.1.0 Pro CPU (score) : | 3061 |
4957 |
4070 |
| 3DMark '06 V1.1.0 Pro Overall (score) : | 11015 |
11963 |
11123 |
| Mainconcept H.264 Encoder (seconds) : | 119 |
73 |
89 |
| Cinebench R9.5 (CPU test) | 1134 |
1935 |
1549 |
| Cinebench R10 Beta (CPU test) | 7045 |
13068 |
10416 |
| HL2 Lost Coast Build 2707 (fps) : | 210 |
210 |
153 |
| DivX 6.6 Alpha w/ VirtualDub 1.7.1 (seconds) | 22 |
18 |
38 |
For easier comparison we took the two quad-core chips (Yorkfield vs. Kentsfield) and looked at performance scaling between the two:
| Benchmark | Yorkfield Performance Advantage |
| 3DMark '06 V1.1.0 Pro CPU (score) : | 21.8% |
| 3DMark '06 V1.1.0 Pro Overall (score) : | 7.6% |
| Mainconcept H.264 Encoder (seconds) : | 18.0% |
| Cinebench R9.5 (CPU test) | 24.9% |
| Cinebench R10 Beta (CPU test) | 25.5% |
| HL2 Lost Coast Build 2707 (fps) : | 37.3% |
| DivX 6.6 Alpha w/ VirtualDub 1.7.1 (seconds) | 111% |
The Yorkfield system runs at a 13.6% higher clock speed than the Kentsfield system giving it an inherent advantage, but that's clearly not all that's making it faster. Half-Life 2 went up an expected 21.8% (we're assuming that Intel ran these numbers at 1024 x 768), and Cinebench saw a 25% increase in performance.
The DivX 6.6 test is particularly strong for Intel because it is using an early alpha version of DivX with support for SSE4. With SSE4 support, the quad-core Yorkfield processor ends up being more than 50% faster than Kentsfield, which bodes very well for Penryn if applications like DivX can bring SSE4 support in time for launch.
Final Words
Obviously we'll reserve final judgments on Penryn for our official review of the CPU, but these initial results look very promising. We would expect to see clock for clock Penryn vs. Conroe improvements to be in the 5 - 10% range at minimum depending on the application. Factor in higher clock speeds and you can expect our CPU performance charts to shift up by about 20% by the end of this year.
Intel has shown its cards, now it's time for AMD to respond with those long overdue Barcelona tests...
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Roy2001 - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
Well, Barcelona vs. Penryn/Conroe is not like Athlon 64 vs. Pentium 4. AMD just need RAW speed with Barcelona. Otherwise they are rather in danger position than we expected. AMD does not have the man power and money to develop mArchitecture every 2 years. Intel's strategy is much like nVidia's now, one generation new structure and one generation die shrink.GlassHouse69 - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
2 months ago, amd released information that the new technology will speed things up vs raw clock speed....raw clock speed is winning.... amd might be toast :(
sux i hate intel
KhoiFather - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
Man, I just hope I can afford one of these bad boys when it comes out to the public. Its just amazing I tell ya and Intel just keeps rolling out their new CPUs. I'm guessing I'm going to need to upgrade my Gigabyte DS3 to another mobo to support the new Yorkfield CPU eh?qquizz - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
These won't even be availabe til sometime in 2008, at least that is my understanding. So you got plenty of time to save up your money and by then I will talk you into buying AMD anyway In conclusion, I agree with the title of your post ;)KCjoker - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
That's what I'd like to know, which current IF ANY mobo's will work with these new CPU's.Webgod - Saturday, April 21, 2007 - link
bump.If the Wolfdale is just a faster 45nm C2D, will the currently shipping Bad Axe 2's work with it with perhaps a new BIOS?? I mean Intel has a history of requiring all new gear. The Bad Axe 1 had to be tweaked to work with the Conroe C2D. Surely even if they're discontinuing the Bad Axe 2 (eventually sure) they could see that passing on the compatibility would get them off the shelves. And, it would be good PR for a change as far as compatibility goes, historically.