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 Oblivion
Oblivion has never been kind to Intel's NetBurst processors, but it loves the new Core 2 processors:
Our first test is the "Town" benchmark we used in our Oblivion performance guides. Here the Core 2 Extreme X6800 manages a 26% performance advantage over the FX-62. While the E6600 is still faster than the FX-62, the E6300 loses a few places and finds itself offering performance somewhere in between the X2 4600+ and the 4200+. Keep in mind that our Oblivion tests are hand run using FRAPS so the variance between runs is much higher than normal; differences of up to 5% should be ignored to be on the safe side.
In our "Dungeon" test, the Core 2 Extreme continues to dominate the charts, as do the E6700 and E6600. Once again we find the E6300 around the X2 4600+ in performance.
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MrKaz - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
So how do you calculate performance/watt?Based on Doom3? Quake4? Lame? PowerDVD? Divx encoding?
My point is, this is "impossible" to do, unless you do it for all progs and games.
Picking up just one of them is being biased...
JarredWalton - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Including performance/watt on *ANY* game is a bit odd, given that the GPU will comsume more power than the CPU. That's why when we talk about performance per watt on GPUs, we use the same platform for all tested systems.If we're going to talk about performance per watt and we're worried about the CPU and platform, then we should look at benchmarks that stress that portion of the system more than anything else. In fact, you could argue that we should drop down to the lowest power GPU possible, or even go with an integrated graphics solution. Anyway, here are a few of the results using WME9:
0.358 FPS/W X6800
0.319 FPS/W E6600
0.279 FPS/W 4600+ EE
0.276 FPS/W 3800+ EE
0.273 FPS/W 5000+
0.244 FPS/W FX-62
0.244 FPS/W E6300
0.228 FPS/W PD XE 965
Part of the reasons on the lower performance Core 2 Duo chips score so poorly is because we are measuring Watts of the entire system. It's reasonable to say that the motherboard, hard drives, graphics card, etc. probably use up on average 100 W of power, give or take. The AMD motherboard and peripherals might also use a bit less power than than the Intel board, or vice versa, so the 12 W difference in power draw at idle shouldn't be considered really significant.
What is significant is that other than the two energy efficient AMD chips (which you can't yet purchase on the retail market), Core 2 offers better performance per watt at similar price points. We could go and measure performance per watt on a bunch of the other applications (even games, though the differences are going to be greatly diminished given the GPUs requirements), but the results really aren't likely to change much. Core 2 is faster than AMD, and at worst it matches AMD's power requirements; ergo Core 2 offers better performance for watt.
epsilonparadox - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Intel didn't start the focus on performance by watt. AMD started it and ruled the charts based on that measure. Every single X2 vs P4D review has a chart for that measurement. Intel w/ the C2D just turned the table back on them by harping on the same issue. If this measurement didn't become a big deal, you'd likely be running dual 1000W psus to run dual core/multi gpu setups.Furen - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
It's hard to do a performance/watt chart because processors perform differently under different applications. I'm sure you'll agree with the fact that the E6600 is much faster than an X2 3800+ yet draws only slightly more power.bupkus - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
: (Where's the pics?
My browser doesn't show them on the first page.
Gary Key - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
What browser?bupkus - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
FirefoxGary Key - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
I have tried three different versions of FireFox on varying machines without an issue so far. Still looking in to it.JarredWalton - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Options ->Web features ->
Load Images ->
UNCHECK "for the originating web site only"
ianwhthse - Friday, July 14, 2006 - link
Mine is already unchecked, however I cannot see the pictures either. [Firefox]Kicking and screaming, which is somewhat disruptive @4am, I opened Internet Explorer and I cannot see the images there, either.