reviews TESTED. REVIEWED. VERDICTIZED
00 MAXIMUMPC XXXXXXX 2007
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxit to anyone who will pull its string.
Nehalem will be based on the same
45nm process as Penryn, but it will be
signifi cantly different from its predeces-
sors, even going against Intel’s long-held
opinions about front-side-bus topology.
Intel has maintained that it doesn’t need
an on-die memory controller like AMD’s
because its shared front-side bus works
just fi ne. Indeed, the Core 2 seems to
back up Intel’s claims. If the Core 2 is
so much faster than all the Athlon 64s,
doesn’t that prove that on-die memory
isn’t needed? Maybe so, but Intel is
changing its tune with Nehalem.
Intel says an on-die memory controller
makes sense with Nehalem, which won’t
be sharing a mere four cores on a front-side
bus like the current Core 2 Quad CPUs—it
will expose up to eight cores to the OS, withan additional eight virtual cores available
via an improved simultaneous-multithread-
ing design reminiscent of Hyper-Threading.
Not every Nehalem CPU will sport eight
cores; Intel says the CPU will be scal-
able, so it will be possible to construct a
Nehalem-based PC with anywhere from
one to eight cores.
Besides the use of an on-die memory
controller, Nehalem will also feature a
chip-to-chip interconnect not unlike AMD’s
HyperTransport links. Nehalem will also
see Intel adopt yet another AMD initiative:
graphics integrated into the CPU. Intel’s
plans, however, don’t involve a GPU inhab-
iting the CPU die; rather, a graphics chip
will be integrated into the “CPU socket”—
sort of the way two Core 2 Duos are joined
in today’s Core 2 Quad. It’s not known what
Nehalem will be called, but the leap forwardcould be substantial enough to warrant a
“Core 3” brand.A quad-core CPU in the Penryn family
will pack two dual-core chips and fea-
ture 820 million transistors, 12MB of
L2 cache, and a 107mm^2 die—which is
about 25 percent smaller than today’s
65nm Intel chips.PUTTING PENRYN TO THE TEST
could be substantial enough to warrant a
“Core 3” brand.L2 cache, and a 107mm
about 25 percent smaller than today’s
65nm Intel chips.INTELSTRIKESBACK
We knew this was a new Intel when we were invited
to company headquarters to benchmark two Penryn
CPUs and no one confi scated our camera, searched
our cavities, or irradiated us to kill any spy equipment.
Still, we weren’t given free rein. Intel selected all
the tests, which were run in Intel labs with Intel-built
PCs and Intel-installed OSes. We weren’t allowed
to run any of our own tests, but we were allowed to
poke around the machines all we wanted.
Normally, we pass on this kind of arrangement,
as it can foster cheating or allegations of cheating.
This time, however, we decided to run with it since we
also plan to allow AMD the same opportunity when
its quad-core Barcelona/Agena FX is available for a
hands-on evaluation. So, yes, take these benchmarks
with a grain of salt, but it’s worth mentioning that asimilar Intel demo last year of Core 2 proved honest
when we had our own way with the chips.
The tests pitted a Penryn-family 3.33GHz quad-
core CPU (code-named Yorkfi eld) against its 3.33GHz
dual-core sibling (code-named Wolfdale) and the
current speed champ, the 2.93GHz quad-core Core 2
Extreme QX6800. All the machines featured the same
hardware, drivers, and RAM timings, running 32-bit
Windows Vista Ultimate.
Several of the tests are well-known public
benchmarks and apps that need no explanation:
3DMark06, MainConcept’s H.264 encoder, Cinebench
9.5, and Half-Life 2: Lost Coast. Intel threw in a beta
Cinebench 10 test and an alpha build of DivX 6.6 with
SSE4 support using VirtualDub 1.7.1, as well.
The verdict? On the Intel-confi gured test rigs,Penryn looks really good. Although Yorkfi eld had just
a 13.6 percent clock advantage over the QX6800,
Penryn was 22 to 40 percent faster in most of the
benchmarks. And SSE4 truly looks to be more than
merely a new instruction set. Designed just for encod-
ing, SSE4 helped the DivX encodes run 111 percent
faster than on the fastest desktop CPU available today.
These benchmarks indeed show Penryn to be
a formidable chip. With months left for fi ne-tuning,
possibly even higher clock speeds at launch, and who
knows what other added tricks, the upcoming battle
between the new Core 2 Quad and Athlon is sure to
be epic. When you factor in a Nehalem appearance
next year, you can see how rough this tick-tock busi-
ness is going to be.2.93GHZ CORE 2 EXTREME QX6800 3.33GHZ CORE 2 QUAD (MODEL UNDISCLOSED) 3.33GHZ CORE 2 DUO (MODEL UNDISCLOSED)
CODE NAME Kentsfi eld Yorkfi eld Wolfdale
L2 CACHE 8MB 12MB 6MB
EXECUTION CORES 4 4 2
3DMARK06 CPU 4,047 4,944 3,068
3DMARK06 OVERALL 11,252 11,969 11,020
MAINCONCEPT H.264 ENCODER (SEC) 89.0 72.7 119.2
CINEBENCH 9.5 10,551 12,900 7,061
CINEBENCH 10 BETA 1,541 1,917 1,125
HALF-LIFE 2 LOST COAST (FPS) 153.14 213.03 206.06
DIVX 6.6 WITH VIRTUALDUB 1.7.1 ALPHA (SEC) 38 18 22L2 CACHE 8MB 8MB 8MB 8MB 8MB 8MB 8MB 8MB 12MB 12MB 12MB 12MB 12MB 12MB 12MB 12MB 6MB6MB6MB6MB6MB6MB6MB6MB3DMARK06 CPU 4,047 4,047 4,944 3,0683,068MAINCONCEPT H.264 ENCODER (SEC) 89.0 89.0 72.7 119.2119.2CINEBENCH 10 BETA 1,541 1,541 1,917 1,1251,125DIVX 6.6 WITH VIRTUALDUB 1.7.1 ALPHA (SEC) 38 38 18 2222
Best scores are bolded. All tests were performed on Intel BadAxe2 975X motherboards with a modifi cation to allow them to run Penryn CPUs, with GeForce 8800 GTX cards, 2GB of DDR2/800, a Seagate Barracuda 320GB hard drive, and onboard audio.52 MAXIMUMPC JULY 2007