Core i3 vs. Phenom II X3 "clock-4-clock"

[STaRGaZeR]

The I3 and I5's are very nice replacements for Core 2. Just because one has 2 core plus 2 HT and another just has 3 cores, if they are priced the same then the number of core is irrelevant. Both are great budget chips that can handle nearly anything you throw at them. I still think the BE 550 unlocked to 4 cores is by far the best value around at this point.

It's irrelevant from a pure end user standpoint if you only consider how much they cost, but think about power consumption, heat, etc. and you won't want to buy anything AMD until they come with a new uarch at least. From a technological and economical POV it's also VERY relevant. Bigger chips, bigger costs, less revenue...

[Hornet331]

The only fair way to compare clock for clock, core for core is to disable HT on the i3 and compare to 550BE @ 2.8Ghz. Then again, the only relevance here is price. If the BMW 335i was the same price as Honda's Accord, you might say that's an unfair comparison. I would call it checkmate.

Of course physical cores>logical cores. But the HT has long been Intel's bread and butter and if you're going to market its multitasking prowess then you better have the results to back it up.

Na i just meant it would be nice to show how much the i3 gain from HT in multithreaded apps.

[RaV[666]]

Amd can compete with these new clarkdales in performance front pretty easily.
I hope they will refresh theyre lineup with c3 revision on a whole spectrum.
However i think amd chipsets are long in the tooth in the power department.
Im almost sure system power consumption is much higher then intels because of this.
Mine 790FX ,all voltages at min, cpu clocked at 1ghz with 0.8v and damn system eats 130W of power.Thats wrong.
I really hope 800 series is more power friendly.

[Mats]

Amd can compete with these new clarkdales in performance front pretty easily.
I hope they will refresh theyre lineup with c3 revision on a whole spectrum.
However i think amd chipsets are long in the tooth in the power department.
Im almost sure system power consumption is much higher then intels because of this.
Mine 790FX ,all voltages at min, cpu clocked at 1ghz with 0.8v and damn system eats 130W of power.Thats wrong.
I really hope 800 series is more power friendly.

Here's an AMD 760G system running 23 W in idle. Even though it's a low end system, it shows what the dated 700-series is capable of. They're not all the same though. The 760G, 780G, 780GX are made in 55 nm, and the 770 and 790FX are made in 65 nm.

Your rig is probably using that much power because you're running a PII together with DDR2, a 4850 that uses quite much power in idle even though it's GDDR3, and the hottest running AMD chipset today AFAIK.

[SocketMan]

"clock-4-clock"

More like 3 vs. 2 cores at the same clock speed. Lame, but I guess this is the best comparison you can do considering AMD and Intel offerings nowadays.

More like 4 threads VS 3 threads.

[Ghostbuster]

More like 4 threads VS 3 threads.

Yes and we also have one here http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3704&p=9 looking at i3 530 vs X3 435..

sample
and

[STaRGaZeR]

I love how you guys nitpick the benches



This time the single threaded bench. Doesn't look too good for AMD it seems, with the lowest i3 destroying the fastest X4. But go read the entire review, maybe (and just maybe) if you skip everything not heavily multithreaded things may start to get interesting for the green camp. This is simple: you get what you pay for. If AMD were there with high perfomance cores you can bet prices won't be like they are today

[KiSUAN]

Remember me the next time i make a render to set it up in single thread, it will sure save me a lot of time, I must buy this awesome CPU, it will destroy even a i7 860!!!!

And of course, single thread is the way of the future, dont look at multithread benchs, they are evil!!!!

[villa1n]

Remember me the next time i make a render to set it up in single thread, it will sure save me a lot of time, I must buy this awesome CPU, it will destroy even a i7 860!!!!

And of course, single thread is the way of the future, dont look at multithread benchs, they are evil!!!!

+1

No one is contesting single core ipc power, and the future of software is multithreaded performance, it matters how the cores work together, and how effective 2 smt threads are in that environment against true cores in a cost benefit analysis. I think that is what most people are trying to show, that it is very close.. price perf wise... to a year old technology.. so intel will need to drop prices to be more competitive.

[kl0012]

Nice summary:

http://translate.google.com/translat...n&hl=&ie=UTF-8

[Ghostbuster]

I love how you guys nitpick the benches

That's not a good example. If you want to nitpick then this is the one.

Stocks matters


Imagine a stock broker firm who sees that graph.

Seems to match some pricing hierarchy we observe.

[R101]

can we compare at 4.2Ghz on the i3 and 3.6GHz on the PII x3?

If that's their average overclock on box cooling then yes, +1!

[WeeMaan]

Wow, this is the most useless review I've seen this year.
Clock for clock? No, not really. Comparing a 3 core AMD against a 2 core Intel..

[ajaidev]

Can anyone tell me whats written in this ya i know its not a i3 but a i9 and a nehalem but the i9 threads are dead so bringing one back to life for this is not that good a idea...

[kl0012]

Written in very bad russian and it says that Gulftown die is higher then Nehalem die but has about the same width as Nehalem die.

[flippin_waffles]

Wait let me get this straight. The intel fanboys are back in favor of higher clockspeeds again, and that we should now ignore IPC? It's hard to keep up!

[Clairvoyant129]

Wow! all the AMD fanboys are coming out in force! They must be rejoicing AMD's 3 cores barely beats Intel's 2 cores in the low end performance market.

[Nedjo]

Nice summary:

well isn't statistics a beach

those graphs are totally out of touch with real world! Pentium E 6300 is better than A II X4 620... yeah right!

[Nedjo]

More like 4 threads VS 3 threads.

Exactly!

[naokaji]

I3? I'd rather take a Phenom x3 or a s775 quadcore (its all the same price anyway).

[mAJORD]

In regards to arguments about die sizes and such, I made a bit of a diagram for people to fluff over..

Pls read the Notes first!. Not an indication of Manufacturing cost, but an interesting comparison of die space dedicated to various functions between the two companies turn-key platforms. Only AMd and Intel themselves could translate yeilds, Fab running costs, and extra cost of a Third party (for AMD) supplier, i.e TSMC.

I have no official figure for the Clarkdale HD chip.. It's estimated from a couple of top view package shots, I just saw another one then and it's giving me somthing closer to 112mm2, so consider it could be as small as 110

Hope someone finds official data, I don't feel like de-lidding one

I'm also missing 785G chip data.

[ajaidev]

Of all the new Intel cpu's only 2 appeal to me. The i7 980X and maybe the quad 32nm CPU "If released", among the AMD side the Athlon II quads "620 and 630" and the Phenom II Quads "925 and 955 C3"

These above processors are very value for money in my thinking, tough i have not yet played with any quad 32nm CPU but given how much i like the Nehalem it would be a hoot. But i am sure the i9 aka i7 980x i have will have enough muscle to challenge sandy bridge "mainstream"

In all i totally love the performance price ratio of the 925 and the 620 and the deadly raw performance i get with the i9, not to mention once i OC the thing

[Hornet331]

Wait let me get this straight. The intel fanboys are back in favor of higher clockspeeds again, and that we should now ignore IPC? It's hard to keep up!

lol i dodnt knew ipc is now measured with different cores... with that logic a i7 at 2.8 ghz has more ipc then an i3 and a gulftown at 2.8 ghz has more ipc then a i7... wtf man...

[ajaidev]

In regards to arguments about die sizes and such, I made a bit of a diagram for people to fluff over..

Pls read the Notes first!. Not an indication of Manufacturing cost, but an interesting comparison of die space dedicated to various functions between the two companies turn-key platforms. Only AMd and Intel themselves could translate yeilds, Fab running costs, and extra cost of a Third party (for AMD) supplier, i.e TSMC.

I have no official figure for the Clarkdale HD chip.. It's estimated from a couple of top view package shots, I just saw another one then and it's giving me somthing closer to 112mm2, so consider it could be as small as 110

Hope someone finds official data, I don't feel like de-lidding one

I'm also missing 785G chip data.

[IMG]http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/6758/chips2small.png[/]

The 115mm2 is close its 114mm2 actually and the 785G is 72mm2 with 205 million since its made on same 55nm as 780g.

Also a very good diagram puts things into perspective, also you should have written that P55/H55 needs much better quality components as compared to 785G and 780G, thats why the P55 is more expensive to make than a 785G.

[kl0012]

well isn't statistics a beach

those graphs are totally out of touch with real world! Pentium E 6300 is better than A II X4 620... yeah right!

You don't like it?
You don't expect all programs turned to be very well multithreaded in one second, right?