X-bit labs

Contemporary Dual-Core Processors Shootout (page 11)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 01/30/2008 | 02:33 PM ]

Conclusion

In fact we have already shared all the conclusions that can be made basing on the results obtained during this test session. So, now we will simply sum everything up stressing the most important things.

So, new Intel Core 2 Duo E8000 processors based on 45nm Penryn cores do not have any worthy competitors at this time. They are considerably faster than Core 2 Duo with smaller model numbers and outperform the top AMD Athlon 64 X2 CPUs with overwhelming advantage. Add here their fantastically low power consumption and pretty democratic official pricing and Core 2 Duo E8000 will turn into a potential market hit. It is especially true for Core 2 Duo E8200 and E8400 models.

Only retailers can cast a shadow over this rosy situation, because they keep the prices for these promising models at a pretty high level since the market hasn’t been saturated with them just yet. However, this problem should very soon get resolved.

As for the top Athlon 64 X2 processors, they turned out seriously overpriced after the launch of the new Core 2 Duo E8200. Today they can only compete against Core 2 Duo E4000 and Pentium E2000. Moreover, we can check out how reasonable AMD’s price policy actually is with a simple empirical rule: for AMD Athlon 64 X2 processor to perform as fast as a Core 2 Duo E4000 or Pentium E2000, it should run at about 20% higher clock speed.

It means that from the performance standpoint AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ should cost as much as Core 2 Duo E4600, and Athlon 64 X2 5000+ shouldn’t be priced higher than Pentium E2200. Only in this case the dual-core processors pricing would be considered fair and reasonable. Moreover, we will have to disregard the power consumption rates in this case, because regular Athlon 64 X2 cannot be considered economical.

So, the results of our today’s dual-core processor shoot-out indicate clearly that Intel processors win the “Best Buy” title in every single price segment. And it will remain this way until AMD reduces the prices on its Athlon 64 X2, which keep rapidly losing their appeal. The situation may also change if they launch revised triple-core and dual-core processors on Phenom-like architecture, which have a chance of become more competitive against Core 2 Duo. However, it will hardly happen any time soon.