Intel's Core 2 Extreme & Core 2 Duo: The Empire Strikes Back
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 14, 2006 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Gaming Performance using Quake 4, Battlefield 2 & Half Life 2 Episode 1
Our gaming performance analysis starts out with Quake 4 running at 1600 x 1200 with High Quality visual settings. We used version 1.2 of Quake 4 and SMP was enabled:
The performance advantage in Quake 4 starts off high, but not astronomical for the Core 2 processors. The Core 2 Extreme X6800 is just over 11% faster than the Athlon 64 FX-62, mainly because we're looking at it in a more GPU bound light than we have in the past. Regardless, it is a performance advantage and far better than the older days of NetBurst chips where Intel's best could barely keep up with AMD.
Looking at Battlefield 2 performance, Intel begins to improve its gaming performance lead as we are becoming more CPU bound:
The Core 2 Extreme X6800 now attains a 19% performance lead over the FX-62, and the E6600 manages a 10.9% advantage itself.
Next up we've got the recently released Half Life 2: Episode 1, running at default quality settings (auto detected with a pair of X1900 XTs installed) with the exception of AA and aniso being disabled. As with all of our gaming tests in this article we tested at 1600 x 1200:
Half Life 2: Episode 1 provided us with numbers closer to what we saw with Quake 4, the performance advantage here is just over 12% for the X6800 over the FX-62. With a couple of speed bumps, AMD could equal Intel's gaming performance here. But the real issue for AMD is the fact that the E6600 priced at $316, is able to outperform the FX-62 at over twice the price. The E6300 continues to provide a great value but isn't nearly as impressive as the rest of the Core 2 line.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Corrected, it was a misprint.Take care,
Anand
Zorba - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Why is the article talking about how Intel is killing AMD on power consumption when AMD is on the top for both idle and load? If you are doing a performance/watt ratio you need to show that on the graph. This page (page 7) just makes the how article look completely baised.Calin - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Because the EE SFF processors were hard to obtain by Anandtech even for testing purposes. I'm not sure they are available in retail market any more than Conroe isAnand Lal Shimpi - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
The Core 2 Extreme X6800 has a performance per watt score of 0.3575 in WME9 compared to 0.2757 for the X2 3800+ EE SFF. I'll put together a performance per watt graph now and see if I can stick it in there.Take care,
Anand
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
I included the performance per watt scores I mentioned above in the review now, hopefully that will make things a little more clear.Take care,
Anand
JarredWalton - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
I don't see the chart, Anand - I hope I didn't accidentally overwrite your change. Sorry!MrKaz - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Don't put it because it's a biased chart,Why based on WM9 benchmark? Why not one of the others?
Why put it now, if you never put it when A64 was killing the P4s?
coldpower27 - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Because AMD didn't real make a big deal about the performance per watt intiative back in the day. They focused on their price/performance instead.MrKaz - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
So?Just because Intel focuses now on that Anandtech must be obliged to put it?
So for you where was the price/performance (A64 vs P4) charts on Anandtech reviews?
coldpower27 - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Yeah, due to their making people aware of it, it has now become a issue.It was only after Prescott, that we became more aware that thermals were starting to get out of control and paid more attention to wattage numbers.
Price/Performance is not as hard to calculate.