Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe) Performance

[MacRumors]

DailyTech reports that the Non-Disclosure for performance benchmarks on Intel's upcoming Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors was lifted today. The new processors, code named Conroe, are the desktop versions of the Core Duo processors which currently reside in Apple's MacBook, MacBook Pro and iMac computers.

Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors have a plethora of new features including Intel Wide Dynamic Execution, Intel Smart Memory Access, Intel Advanced Smart Cache and Intel Advanced Digital Media Boost.

The Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme could make their Mac debut in Apple's PowerMac computers which are rumored to be released on August 7th 2006 at the World Wide Developers Conference.

Intel is expected to start shipping the new processors on July 23rd with an official announcement on July 27th. The Core 2 Duo will have clock speeds of 1.86GHz, 2.13GHz, 2.4GHz and 2.67GHz while the Core 2 Extreme will clock in at 2.93GHz. All share a 1066MHz front side bus with between 2-4MB of L2 cache. Pricing for the chips range from $183 to $999 per chip.

As mentioned above, a number of benchmarks of the new chips have been released today, with DailyTech providing a roundup of many reviews.

 

[ksz]

Bring 'em on, but place them in a mid-tower case.

 

[Chaszmyr]

Why does the high-end Conroe cost more than the high-end Woodcrest?

 

[G5power]

This is good to see. High performance chips from Intel and a great design from Apple, this will be fun to see what is announced at WWDC.

 

[Derekasaurus]

Bring 'em on, but place them in a mid-tower case.

Or a mini. ;-)

 

[danielwsmithee]

Why does the high-end Conroe cost more than the high-end Woodcrest?

Because it has the Extreme moniker.

 

[ctachme]

The Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme are widely expected to make their Mac debut in Apple's PowerMac computers which are rumored to be released on August 7th 2006 at the World Wide Developers Conference.

[whine]I want my MacBook Pro Core 2!!![/whine].

 

[jdechko]

Woohoo! 3GHz here we come. As was mentioned before, though, a mid-sized tower priced at the iMac level (but upgradable) would be the final logical step in the Apple product line. That would leave Woodcrest to the high end MacPro with its quad configuration.

 

[Eidorian]

Woohoo! 3GHz here we come. As was mentioned before, though, a mid-sized tower priced at the iMac level (but upgradable) would be the final logical step in the Apple product line. That would leave Woodcrest to the high end MacPro with its quad configuration.

I might be able to slide with a $1799 education discount tower. I want a laptop though.

 

[TangoCharlie]

Tosh.

[snip]The new processors, code named Conroe, are the desktop versions of the Core Duo processors which currently reside in Apple's MacBook, MacBook Pro and iMac computers.[snip]

Der. No! The Conroe CPU is the desktop version of the the Merom CPU which is not currently used in any Mac.

The Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme are widely expected to make their Mac debut in Apple's PowerMac computers which are rumored to be released on August 7th 2006 at the World Wide Developers Conference.

Der. No! The Woodcrest CPU is widely expected to make its debut in Apple's PowerMac replacement computer (widely expected to be called Mac Pro) on
August 7th 2006 at the World Wide Developers' Conference.

Intel is expected to start shipping the new processors on July 23rd with an official announcement on July 27th. The Core 2 Duo will have clock speeds of 1.86GHz, 2.13GHz, 2.4GHz and 2.67GHz while the Core 2 Extreme will clock in at 2.93GHz. ALl share a 1066MHz front side bus with between 2-4MB of L2 cache. Pricing for the chips range from $183 to $999 per chip.

At last, something concrete!

As mentioned above, a number of benchmarks of the new chips have been released today, with DailyTech providing a roundup of many reviews.

The bench marks show that the Conroe based CPU's are going to smoke the AMD competition.

 

[Eidorian]

Der. No! The Conroe CPU is the desktop version of the the Merom CPU which is not currently used in any Mac.

I don't get where this Conroe in the iMac thing came from either. The power it draws and heat it produces even puts the 970FX to shame.

The bench marks show that the Conroe based CPU's are going to smoke the AMD competition.

Yeah, the FX-62 has some competition. Even the 1.86 GHz model can compete in some tests.

 

[QCassidy352]

wait, now conroe is "widely expected" in the powermacs? I thought woodcrest was... I still think it will be:

mac pro - woodcrest
xserve - woodcrest
imac - conroe
macbook pro - merom
macbook - merom (but months later)
mini - merom (but months later)

We shall know soon!

 

[ksz]

Conroe benchmarks posted on AnandTech are really good. I luv this statement:

As you will soon see, Intel's new Core 2 lineup has basically made all previous Intel processors worthless. The performance of the new Core 2 CPUs is so much greater, with much lower power consumption, that owners of NetBurst based processors may want to dust off the old drill bits and make some neat looking keychains.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Does anyone think we should be hitting 4ghz about now?

I mean weve been stuck on 2.x for ages. Whats the deal? A 4ghz quad would be frickin awesome.

 

[supremedesigner]

Awesome!

Why 2 negatives over 1 positive? Wow.

Is there a way you can upgrade this new chip on previous intel mac? Just wondering. This is new to me.

 

[Chaszmyr]

Does anyone think we should be hitting 4ghz about now?

I mean weve been stuck on 2.x for ages. Whats the deal? A 4ghz quad would be frickin awesome.

Intel got up to 3.4ghz with the Pentium 4, then they went back and released 2ghz with the Core Duo, so we're working back up from there.
The 2ghz Core Duo is faster than the 3.4ghz Pentium 4

 

[gnasher729]

Why does the high-end Conroe cost more than the high-end Woodcrest?

Because Intel is trying to maximise their profit.

Conroes will be in relatively affordable computers, and there will be some people who spend hundreds of dollars extra for the fastest graphics card possible, and hundreds for the fastest processor possible. It will be sold to people who are willing to pay over the top for highest performance.

Woodcrest will be sold in expensive servers to businesses, who will _not_ pay for bragging rights, but only as much as the extra performance is worth.

Two relatively slow Woodcrests could be used to build a system that is faster and possibly cheaper than the Conroe Extreme Edition.

 

[TangoCharlie]

Megahurtz?

Woohoo! 3GHz here we come. As was mentioned before, though, a mid-sized tower priced at the iMac level (but upgradable) would be the final logical step in the Apple product line. That would leave Woodcrest to the high end MacPro with its quad configuration.

The fasted Core 2 Extreme at launch will be 2.93 (ok, that's pretty close to 3GHz).... however, if we're going QUAD, then we're looking at Xeon 5100 series
and the 5050, 5060 and 5080 will be 3GHz and above!

What about a a Mac Pro with dual 3.73 GHz Xeon 5080's??

We might need an enclosure the size of the G5 for those!!

I agree, there's space int he Apple line-up for a single cpu (Conroe) system which is aimed to business and people who want the upgradeability of a "box" but don't want to splash out on dual Xeons!!

 

[Eidorian]

Awesome!

Why 2 negatives over 1 positive? Wow.

Is there a way you can upgrade this new chip on previous intel mac? Just wondering. This is new to me.

iMac = Socket 479 (Yonah)
Conroe = Socket 775

So, no.

 

[w_parietti22]

The new processors, code named Conroe, are the desktop versions of the Core Duo processors which currently reside in Apple's MacBook, MacBook Pro and iMac computers.

...and Mac Mini.

Thats awesome We are going to have some screaming fast macs!

 

[ksz]

Does anyone think we should be hitting 4ghz about now?

I mean weve been stuck on 2.x for ages. Whats the deal? A 4ghz quad would be frickin awesome.

If you raised the clock speed of NetBurst-based Pentium 4s (or Pentium Ds) to 4GHz, you would still not achieve the same performance as today's Conroe at 2.13GHz. Clock speed alone is not an accurate gauge of performance.

Because of increasing problems with heat density, clock speeds haven't been rising at their historical rates. A kind of brick wall was hit when the semiconductor industry moved to 90nm. At those dimensions a series of unexpected problems plagued ramp and ushered a change away from blindly raising clock speeds towards more functionality and more optimized functionality at more manageable clock speeds.

Clock speeds will hit 4GHz and keep rising, but not at the rate we have been accustomed to. But as the Core 2 benchmarks show, Intel has intelligently redesigned the processor to achieve significant speed improvements at existing clock speeds.

 

[TangoCharlie]

wait, now conroe is "widely expected" in the powermacs? I thought woodcrest was... I still think it will be:

mac pro - woodcrest
xserve - woodcrest
imac - conroe
macbook pro - merom
macbook - merom (but months later)
mini - merom (but months later)

We shall know soon!

Right except iMac.... it'll go to Merom which is a drop-in replacement for Yonah (Core Duo)

Although I agree that eventually Mac mini and MacBook will be Merom, I think it may be many months later..... I think the mini with the Core Solo might get upgraded to Core Duo tho' ... so that Apple can boast to be the _only_ major manufacturer to use dual-core across the whole product range!

Note that if I'm right (trust me!), then there's a gap.... no Apple box with a Conroe? I don't think so.... Apple will introduce a new system with support for a single Conroe. Hopefully it won't be the MacPro with a different mobo, but a completely new box (fingers crossed).

Oh.... the recently released educational iMac won't get Merom at first either... it'll get left behind so as to make the proper iMacs better value and worth splashing out for!

 

[TerryJ]

Note that if I'm right (trust me!), then there's a gap.... no Apple box with a Conroe? I don't think so.... Apple will introduce a new system with support for a single Conroe. Hopefully it won't be the MacPro with a different mobo, but a completely new box (fingers crossed).

Perhaps some kind of high performance consumer-oriented/gaming-oriented tower?

(Just pure speculation...)

-Terry

 

[Derekasaurus]

Clock speeds will hit 4GHz and keep rising, but not at the rate we have been accustomed to.

I'm not so sure that 4GHz is a given. Doesn't that pesky speed of light put a practical cap on clock frequency? At 4GHz a signal doesn't have time to cross the chip in one clock, so is there any point to such high frequencies?

 

[longofest]

wait, now conroe is "widely expected" in the powermacs? I thought woodcrest was... I still think it will be:

mac pro - woodcrest
xserve - woodcrest
imac - conroe
macbook pro - merom
macbook - merom (but months later)
mini - merom (but months later)

We shall know soon!

I'm working with Arn on that one... Woodcrest is pretty much slated towards the PowerMacs. We may have to update the story...