The Conroe wait anybody?

[Foosa]

Anybody counting the days till conroe is released? I am in a toss up, am2 or wait for conroe. Can conroe be that much better than am2?

I have been reading alot of hype about Conroe chips. I saw that they had one run 1m super pi in 10sec... and overclock to some stupid high numbers. How much of it is true and how much is intel trumping it up?

Who says am2 and who says conroe?

[pam123]

I'm waiting for all the tech bench marks and I'm waiting for the prices.
I won't even begin considering a new build until the fall 2007 so I'll have plenty of time to read up.

[glc]

I'm wary of AM2 right now because it appears the memory controller is really fussy, and anything less than DDR2-800 will give you a performance hit. I have a customer who wants a killer build, and I'm recommending wait for Conroe. I almost built him a Presler EE, but talk about memory hassles..........that one just doesn't work right.

I'm moving this to general discussion because it will inevitably turn into yet another AMD vs. Intel thread. However, keep the VALID info coming.

[thefultonhow]

I like Conroe a lot. IMO AM2 turned out to be somewhat of a disappointment -- granted, the Athlon 64 x2 chips on Socket 939 were already very good, but AM2 isn't really any improvement. Conroe, on the other hand, is based on an architecture (Dothan Pentium-M) that at 2.5 GHz beat the Athlon 64 FX-57 in many benchmarks -- and when Conroe comes out, it will top out at 2.93 GHz. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

[kram 2.0]

Intel is putting a lot on Conroe and Merom. I think it's going to be the light at the tunnel - the way out of NetBurst's downfall. It's really interesting though, that when Intel decided to dead-end the Pentium-III, they decided to go in two ways: out with the old and in with the new with P7 NetBurst and the Pentium 4, or do a major revamp on the Pentium III with the new-P6 and the Pentium-M. The latter method really shined - and with the Core 2 Duos, we'll see the product of yet another revamp of the P6. I'll really look forward to what it has to offer both in the desktop relam and the mobile relam.

kram

[thefultonhow]

I think it's pretty amazing that Intel has been able to keep an architecture allive, even with added instructions and minor architecture changes, for going on ten years. The Athlon architecture is younger, and I think it's safe to say that the Athlon 64, with its HyperTransport bus and built in memory controller, is not just another Athlon.

With that said, I don't think AMD is going to take a backseat to Intel again -- they've shown that they can compete on the merits of their product, not just on price as they did in the K6 days, and then the later days of the Athlon XP.

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by thefultonhow I think it's pretty amazong that Intel has been able to keep an architecture allive, even with added instructions and minor architecture changes, for going on ten years. The Athlon architecture is younger, and I think it's safe to say that the Athlon 64, with its HyperTransport bus and built in memory controller, is not just another Athlon.

Core is based on the Pentium-M architecture, but it's more of a new core once you look at it side by side with the original P6. I sometimes wonder where the Intel line of chips would be if they never decided to use NetBurst and if they continued to milk the P6 for all it's worth.

kram

[786ARS]

i think the fact that as its based off the pentium-M, they are very energy efficient and radiate very little heat make it good for o'clocking, a definite plus. I think the fact it runs cooler and also gets processes done quicker than the old P4, means that it will be a serious contender and a very very viable threat to the new AM2 line.

[Foosa]

The grape vine said intel could have supply problems when they are first released due to all the people wanting them. Is there any merit to that?

Where can i get some legit information on conroe? I have been looking but mainly it was in forums and stuff from last year.

[blue60007]

I'm sure that's a very valid concern...any shortages should be temporary...I would think Intel has enough resources to keep a very high supply going. Here's some info:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...roe+benchmarks

I've read a few of the articles and seem legit.

[Foosa]

i just searched for conroe and core 2 duo. All i turned up was old stuff. But thanks blue60007 i can't work today due to Alberto or what ever this stroms name is so ill be reading up on it.

[jayb1234]

I have seen a few articles that predict that there might be a shortage at first because of Dell, HP, etc. eating up most of the initial production runs.

On the plus side, Intel is going to make some major price cuts to the older models and the price predictions I have seen for the Conroes are pretty good too.

The few benchmarks that I have seen in a couple of articles at anandtech had the Conroes way above the AMDs across the board.

[Foosa]

what kind of prices did you hear for conroes?

[jayb1234]

Prices on this page of this article at anandtech.

[Foosa]

the Intel Pentium D 950 alone is 104$ cheaper by that chart... thats a big drop in price,

Any idea if or how much amd will drop thier prices to counter this?

[Dheann]

just enough to make me feel really really bad...

Stupid healthy competition.

[Foosa]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2800

amd price drop predictions. up to 50% on x2!

[blue60007]

Originally Posted by Foosa All i turned up was old stuff. But thanks blue60007 i can't work today due to Alberto or what ever this stroms name is so ill be reading up on it.

Say, I was just down your way last week...good timing I suppose.

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by Foosa http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2800 amd price drop predictions. up to 50% on x2!

You gotta love the price wars.

kram

[HAL9000]

Doesn't ANYONE question the math???? The biggest X2 cut is $303 to $169 claiming a 50% price cut... this is only 44%... but on the 60 cut of 30% goes from $290 to $139... ummm that's just over 52%.

[blue60007]

The 4600+ has a 46%...44%...50%...close enough if you round em. But yes, the 3800+ has a drop of 52%...not quite 30% guys.

One of the Sempron's has a 20% drop, all the rest are more like 10%

[Foosa]

percentages, ppppft. who needs em. As long as dollar amounts go down im good. Well most of the time. But i was looking at that when i posted, but i really am horrid at math so i didn't post for fear of being way off base.

[blue60007]

I just assumed the author of the article did their math correctly.

[Kareeser]

But these are not MSRPs, are they? I'm sure when they hit the shelves, they'll be a tad more expensive... right?

[Foosa]

They have the 3800+ x2 939 listed at $303 in the above article, but on newegg.com it is only 297. So who knows what the prices will be. The only thing we know is that we don't know what the prices will be just yet.

[thefultonhow]

Prices like that are generally listed as "per 1000 units" -- that is, what each chip would cost when purchased in batches of 1000. Newegg likely purchases larger batches and thus can offer lower prices. However, usually when there is large demand for a chip or other component they will charge what the market will bear and make a tidy profit.

[786ARS]

what socket will conroe require?

[thefultonhow]

People are saying LGA775, but likely they'll also require a new chipset (the 965), so you won't be able to use current boards.

[Foosa]

i was reading that intel is trying to make this as close to a drop in as it can. I heard that most intel boards shipping now should be able to handel them. But don't know how trustworthy that is. We will see in a little over a month.


http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/06/13/co...ch_on_26_june/

Xeon 5100(Woodcrest) to be released on june 26

[MakeYourslf2012]

Found an interesting benchmark:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1976398,00.asp

Perhaps Intel will take a turn in becoming a "tradtional" gaming chip, eh? I've always favored AMD chips, but it looks like this may change....we'll see when it's released.

I've heard that they will be using 45 nm technology by 2007 and then down to 32 nm. And AMD is still at 90 with no word of change, hm.