First Hands-on Review of Intel Core Duo Desktop

**Lemur** · 05-19-2006, 20:15

I know AnandTech did a write-up previously, but that was engineering samples. Some madmen in the U.K. have actually laid hands on shipping parts. Here's their write-up.

Key quote:

When Yonah is running at the same clock speed as AMD's Athlon 64 FX-60, we found that it beat it into a corner in just about every situation. The only situation where we didn't find the 2.6GHz Core Duo chip outperforming the FX-60 was in the MP3 encoding test. The most notable performance advantages were in our Xvid encoding test and all of the gaming scenarios.

**SwordsMaster** · 05-19-2006, 20:35

Originally Posted by Lemur

I know AnandTech did a write-up previously, but that was engineering samples. Some madmen in the U.K. have actually laid hands on shipping parts. Here's their write-up.

Key quote:

When Yonah is running at the same clock speed as AMD's Athlon 64 FX-60, we found that it beat it into a corner in just about every situation. The only situation where we didn't find the 2.6GHz Core Duo chip outperforming the FX-60 was in the MP3 encoding test. The most notable performance advantages were in our Xvid encoding test and all of the gaming scenarios.

hehe, as they say, 2 processors are better than one...

**edyzmedieval** · 05-19-2006, 21:30

The Dual-Core seems a turning point in processor technology.

**SwordsMaster** · 05-19-2006, 22:08

Originally Posted by edyzmedieval

The Dual-Core seems a turning point in processor technology.

Oh, paleeease! The concepts behind dual core are already outlined in one of my hardware courses.... edition dating back 1986. No breakthrough here, my friend. It is just cost effective now, and it wasn't 20 years ago. Not like it couldn't be done.

In my university there is a machine with 16 processors - for experimental purposes - so nothing groundbreaking here...

**Lemur** · 05-19-2006, 22:19

Originally Posted by SwordsMaster

hehe, as they say, 2 processors are better than one...

... assuming the software is threaded for multiprocessing. Otherwise, it's not worth writing home about.

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 05-20-2006, 00:40

Does performance drop if the code isn't meant for dual core?

**Lemur** · 05-20-2006, 04:00

If the software is not optimized for multiple cores, the app will not see any benefits from more than one processor. So it won't behave any worse than it would on a single version of the same proc, but it won't take advantage of the environment.

Ugh. There must have been a better way of phrasing that. Please forgive me -- I'm deep in Screaming Newborn Fatigue Syndrome.

**Alexander the Pretty Good** · 05-20-2006, 04:42

I understand what you mean; thank you!

**Blodrast** · 05-20-2006, 04:50

Originally Posted by Lemur

... assuming the software is threaded for multiprocessing. Otherwise, it's not worth writing home about.

Which it isn't - far from it, actually - yet anyway.
One of the major problems is that all these uber-multi core architectures are available now, but nobody knows how to use them - to benefit from what they're offering. On top of that, applications can't take advantage of that, either. Of course running different applications might (NOT always, because of the way that caches and other functional units are shared) lead to improved performance over a single cpu...

Anyway. How is this new arch different from Intel's Hyperthreading ?

**edyzmedieval** · 05-20-2006, 10:18

Hyper Threading means overclocking of the computer to get more power.

**LeftEyeNine** · 05-20-2006, 10:27

Hyper threading is not overclocking, it was some kind of "trick" that made the appropriate OS and software see 2 CPUs, which could make a performance increase around %20-30s.

The head of Crytek -producers of FarCry- say that the most exciting news in hadware area is about these dual cores. He said that their limits are far broader with this technology.