Tech Link (Processor): AT's Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Preview from Taiwan

AMDTech did another review, that is, very AMDTech. You know, how they always add negativity to Chipzilla products even if it is trouncing the top of the line A* processor with top of the line chipset and against an early Conroe XE system with mainstream chipset. Yep, mainstream motherboard vs high end motherboard, but of course, both top of the line processor is used. Well chew this, no matter how you slice it, dice it, or mince it, the great taste will always be one that's going to be left in everyone's toungue. Unfortunately, it's AMDTech, so expect some bitter taste will be shoved in between the "niceties" they post. Take the quote below for example:

While Intel's Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Extreme processors will be released at the beginning of Q3 of this year it will take some time for all of Intel's shipments to be Conroe based. The scary statistic is that by the end of this year, only 25% of Intel's Performance Mainstream desktop processor shipments will be based on Conroe. The remaining 75% will still be NetBurst based, meaning they will be Pentium 4, Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition.

We're happy to report that we gathered enough parts to build two systems while in Taiwan for Computex. We managed to acquire a Socket-AM2 motherboard equipped with an Athlon 64 FX-62 and a P965 motherboard equipped with a Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz at our hotel, along with two sets of 2x1GB of DDR2-800 (only 5-5-5-12 modules though), a pair of Hitachi 7K250 SATA hard drives, and two NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTXes (one for each system) - it helps that all the major players have offices in Taiwan. Of course we happened to pack some power supplies, monitors, keyboards and mice in our carry-on luggage, as well as copies of Windows XP, Quake 4, F.E.A.R., Battlefield 2, SYSMark 2004 and Winstone 2004.

When faced with the choice of testing Conroe or sleeping , we stayed up benchmarking (we'll blame it on the jet lag later). The stage was set: Intel's Core 2 Extreme vs. AMD's recently announced FX-62, and while it's still too early to draw a final verdict we can at least shed more light on how the battle is progressing. Keep in mind that we had a very limited amount of time with the hardware as to not alert anyone that it was missing and being used for things it shouldn't be (not yet at least), so we weren't able to run our full suite of tests. We apologize in advance and promise we'll have more when Conroe launches, but for now enjoy.
The Test

In case we weren't clear: we acquired, built, installed and tested these two test systems entirely on our own and without the help of Intel.

CPUs: AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 (2.80GHz) v. Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz)

Motherboards:

nForce 590-SLI Socket-AM2 Motherboard
Intel P965 Motherboard

Chipset:

NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI
Intel P965 Chipset

Chipset Drivers:

nForce 9.34 Beta
Intel 7.3.3.1013

Hard Disk: Hitachi Deskstar T7K250

Memory: DDR2-800 5-5-5-12 (1GB x 2)

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX

Video Drivers: NVIDIA ForceWare 91.28 Beta

Desktop Resolution: 1280 x 1024 - 32-bit @ 60Hz

OS: Windows XP Professional SP2

Source:AMDTech