Intel Penryn Performance Preview: The Fastest gets Faster
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 18, 2007 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
You knew it had to be coming. A year ago Intel previewed its first Core 2 processors ahead of their release, and with Penryn due out before the end of the year the boys in blue are back again.
Penryn is still pretty early, although Intel was able to reach over 3GHz on all of the samples we tested. Not surprisingly, the number of benchmarks we were able to run was quite limited. Intel also provided us with a handful of its own test results demonstrated at IDF Beijing which we have reproduced here as well.
Penryn in action
As a recap, Penryn is the 45nm micro-architectural update to Intel's current Core 2 processors. The slide below shows most of the improvements to Penryn:
A faster divider and super shuffle engine both improve IPC in very specific applications. As we mentioned in our IDF day 1 coverage, faster FSB speeds appear to be reserved for Penryn based Xeon processors at this point as desktop Penryn cores will use a 1333MHz FSB. Penryn takes the total amount of L2 cache up to 6MB per two cores, giving the quad core Penryn chips a total of 12MB of on-die L2 cache. Penryn also has improved power management technologies, but only for mobile Penryn chips.
Penryn up and running
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Roy2001 - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
Well, Barcelona vs. Penryn/Conroe is not like Athlon 64 vs. Pentium 4. AMD just need RAW speed with Barcelona. Otherwise they are rather in danger position than we expected. AMD does not have the man power and money to develop mArchitecture every 2 years. Intel's strategy is much like nVidia's now, one generation new structure and one generation die shrink.GlassHouse69 - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
2 months ago, amd released information that the new technology will speed things up vs raw clock speed....raw clock speed is winning.... amd might be toast :(
sux i hate intel
KhoiFather - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
Man, I just hope I can afford one of these bad boys when it comes out to the public. Its just amazing I tell ya and Intel just keeps rolling out their new CPUs. I'm guessing I'm going to need to upgrade my Gigabyte DS3 to another mobo to support the new Yorkfield CPU eh?qquizz - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
These won't even be availabe til sometime in 2008, at least that is my understanding. So you got plenty of time to save up your money and by then I will talk you into buying AMD anyway In conclusion, I agree with the title of your post ;)KCjoker - Wednesday, April 18, 2007 - link
That's what I'd like to know, which current IF ANY mobo's will work with these new CPU's.Webgod - Saturday, April 21, 2007 - link
bump.If the Wolfdale is just a faster 45nm C2D, will the currently shipping Bad Axe 2's work with it with perhaps a new BIOS?? I mean Intel has a history of requiring all new gear. The Bad Axe 1 had to be tweaked to work with the Conroe C2D. Surely even if they're discontinuing the Bad Axe 2 (eventually sure) they could see that passing on the compatibility would get them off the shelves. And, it would be good PR for a change as far as compatibility goes, historically.