“Based on what we’ve seen, one can’t help but conclude the Core Duo’s performance per watt is unmatched in the world of PC processors. The Core Duo is obviously the best mobile CPU on the market, more than doubling the peak performance of the Pentium M while operating in the same power envelope. What’s more shocking is the fact that the Core Duo T2600’s outright performance is easily superior to Intel’s supposed flagship desktop processor, the Pentium Extreme Edition 965. Given its performance, the Core Duo is clearly well-suited for desktop use, where performance is king but quiet computing is still a blessing,” Scott Wasson writes for The Tech Report.
“This combination makes the Core Duo Intel’s most attractive processor for PC enthusiasts, and that proposition could become downright irresistible if Asus or somebody else can deliver a mobo and BIOS with the kind of tweaking options PC enthusiasts have come to expect. The T2600 can’t quite take the overall performance crown from the likes of the Athlon 64 FX-60 or the X2 4800+, but jeez, it’s startlingly close. If we could get the Core Duo overclocked reasonably well, it might just be able to make a run at the title of the fastest x86-compatible CPU—or at least grab a share of that title,” Wasson writes. “As it stands, the Core Duo is an excellent choice for a quiet desktop PC or a silent gaming rig, and it’s perfect for a home theater PC, where the 64-bit memory space issue isn’t likely to rear its ugly head for at least several years. Were it not for the fact that Core Duo can’t handle 64-bit addressing, I’d say Intel should transition its desktop and server product lines to this microarchitecture right now rather than waiting for Conroe, Merom, and Woodcrest.”
Wasson writes, “Macophiles have to be reading these words with a certain glee, given that Apple has already transitioned several of its products to Core Duo, including the iMac. They should be pleased with the performance and power efficiency of Apple’s new chosen engine—or at least they should once universal binaries are widely available. They’ve gotta be thinking that the severe case of whiplash from the ‘Intel sucks ‘- ‘Intel rules’ about-face was worth it. The Pentium Extreme Edition scores in this review even gives them plausible cover for the dissonance. I’m happy for them.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We only said “Intel sucks” when they did. Times change. No whiplash here; Mac users are all about the ability to change and adapt rapidly. We don’t cling to last century’s tech for the sake of backwards compatibility – that’s why we’re so far ahead with our operating system, for one example. Or why we were using Wi-Fi Apple iBooks before anyone else even heard of it. After reading the full review, it just offers more confirmation that Jobs made the right move. Again.
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Related MacDailyNews articles:
Intel’s Merom 64-bit CPU reportedly swappable into current Apple Mac mini – April 12, 2006
Intel showcases next-gen multi-core ‘Conroe’ processors, may turn up in future Apple Power Macs – March 07, 2006
Intel to launch 64-bit Core Duo successor ‘Merom’ in September – March 07, 2006
any comparisons with the macbook and a dual g5?
I read today that the Macbook Pro graphics card is quite seriously under-run. Any comments?
Using iSquint, it compresses AS fast or slightly faster than the desktop dual G5 that I have. No more waiting to get home to compress video.
Now, all I need is Final Cut an I’ll be set! I can only imagine how much faster the new processors for the desktops are going to be.
Just shows you how much Jobs bullshat about the G5’s benchmarks.
I am glad Apple did the decent thing.
Where is my 17″ Macbook Pro?
“We only said “Intel sucks” when they did.”
Tell me, is that brown stuff on your face from the crap you used to drivel out about Intel and everything “PEECEE”, which you are now having to eat? I was here in the winter of ’05, I read the posts. You guys are only harping Intel’s greatness now because Stevie says to. Most of you are sheep with no minds of your own.
On a lighter note however, I’m writing this on my new 20″ iMac Core Duo. Nice. Very nice.
I am so amazed on how the FUD get thrown around by the MAC faithful.
Look the G5 is still a great chip.
The G4 is an OLD chip that can’t compare to the new Intel dual-cores.
The comparisons made of IBM vs. Intel were 5 years old.
This is technology, things change and when they change, they change quickly.
To those who say Steve lied, they are comparing old information with what is out here now.
It’s like the Iraq war; the whole world believed Iraq had WMD’s. NOW, we find out they don’t.
The Bush/USA haters are saying the Government lied.
BUT, those who say this are glossing over the fact that before Iraq was invaded, the world governments thought Iraq had WMD’s.
And for those that try to change history – it wasn’t just the US or Britain.
If Russia, China and France (who supported Iraq) believed Iraq didn’t own WMD’s that would have screamed it all over the press.
They didn’t.
And why? Because even Iraq’s supports believed Iraq had WMD’s, not just the US.
My two cents.
hey, ease up on MDN!
The core duo was not available in ’05. Just as MDN said, Intel has changed. Before the core duo they had the Pentium M, which may not have offered much advantage compared to the G4 as a mobile processor. And the G5 compared to the Pentium either.
Apples and oranges, people! These new benchmarks have been legitimizing Intel for Mac users only because of the brand spanking new processor!!!!!
Even Jobs said at the conference that the Intel advantages will be borne out OVER TIME – not immediately. Otherwise we’d already have full line replacements all with Intel processors!!!! At this point, it only makes sense to go with CPU replacements that could exploits the core duo to its full advantage.
enough of this Iraq had WMD’s thing.
we already found out that the intelligence was manipulated, cherry picked. the inspectors found nothing, and the Plame story showed that the whole basis of the war was fabricated. we have documents clearly showing that Bush wanted to invade Iraq irrespective of WMDs or terrorism. 9/11 was just an excuse to hold over America and Congress, not even the rest of the world.
much of the world did not agree to invading Iraq, history revisionist or short memoryist!!!
now, do you wonder why China and Russia didn’t really care if we went to Iraq. As John Murtha said, the only people happy that we are in Iraq are the people who want us to be weakened by putting our men and resources at all the wrong places.
I was for the war too, and now that I have actually read all the documents being released, I realized I’ve been had.
You can’t hide from actual history and actual facts no matter how much of an opinion you have!
Performance per watt is a con
Let me explain, it’s good for laptops because you can have the computer operating longer and at lower temperture.
But it’s just a temporary measure. The Core Dual 2.16 has a X-Bench CPU score of only 76!! My companies Dual 2 Gz (seperate processors) built three years ago gets a CPU score of 100.
Really the new Core Duo should be having a CPU score greater than some three year old PPC chip right?
Why not? Because of heat, laptops can’t handle it. Is the Core Duo 2.16 hobbled in some way to keep the heat down? Perhaps.
So all this “performance per watt” marketing hype is temporary measure, the realitiy is (as IBM found out) you can no longer get processors any significantly faster like before because they generate too much heat.
A whole new technology is needed for laptops. We will get some small performance benefits with the newer processors, but nothing like great leaps of processing power.
Laptops will always be hobbled, desktops, especially Towers, with their more room for cooling, is the way to go.
I priced a Core Duo MacBook Pro at $4500 with all the options, A Quad is a better buy.
Invading Iraq was a decision made by people who have a HELL of a lot more information than they can possibly reveal at this time.
I say the most likely reason is Iran and nukes. Given the inflamatory rehtoric that has come out of the leaders of Iran recently, I say we have another Hitler on our hands.
A long time ago the US had a policy of isolationism, it came to haunt us with wars that cost many times more American lives than if we would have gotten involved earlier. So now we get involved earlier and since Saddams signature was on the order to use WMD on thousands of Kurds, I say the invasion was justified.
Prevention is easier than cure.
Remember September 11th.
and the other space-wasting flamage will remain.
And none of it will change the fact that the PENTIUM line DOES and DID suck. Which is why Apple waited for Intel to deliver a WORTHY chip.
IBM’s inability to update their chip line in a timely fashion had to contribute to Apple’s decision to go with Intel. IBM announced a few months back that they were going to focus on making chips for consumer (non-PC) electronics and servers only – no more desktop/laptop chips. Apple can’t put a server chip into their desktops or laptops because of heat and noise issues.
Andrew,
Right on brother. We need to learn from history. This yahoo running Iran (as well as the mullahs who back him) is nuts. A steep price will be paid if we do what is necessary to take out Iran, but it will pale in comparison to the toll that we will endure if this idiot is allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.
Mac Zealot
The Bush/USA haters are saying the Government lied.
Oh yeah, that’s right, if you disagree with Bush and think he’s done a terrible job, you hate the USA. Is that you, Bill O’Reilly?
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“Performance per watt is a con.”
I’m not sure I’d go that far…
As you said, it is important for many of Apple’s products. The iMac, the Mac mini, and of course the laptops. However, what I’m going to be curious about is the Intel PowerMacs. That is the environment where what is important is speed.
Sure, it would be nice to have a quiet machine that sips power. But, ultimately, I need to get that rendering done by 5:00 so I can get home.
So it will be entertaining to see the latest and greatest Intel desktop CPU in a Macintosh Pro stacked up against a PowerMac G5 Quad. Personally, I’m still betting on the Quad, but we’ll see.
I’m hoping once Apple releases a Macintosh Pro, they’ll blow out the PowerMac G5 Quad…
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Hey, MDN, your new ads are the way to go; don’t have to see them unless I want to. And, no matter what, we do need advertising to help us know what’s availble.
Okay, for the Intel chips, I’m with MDN – seems that Apple changed because they are better for the future than the IBM/Motorola route.
MDN magic word: (sshhshhh…) “level”, as in who cares about a “level” playing field. I want every advantage I can get…
I apologize for commenting about Iraq, but I just have to add my 2 cents.
Andrew: Iraq had nothing to do with 911. Not a damn thing. Bush lied, time and time again, about ties Iraq had with Al Qaeda, but truth is, Bin Laden HATES Saddam. (Maybe we should’ve invaded Saudi Arabia. Weren’t something like 18 of the 911 hijackers from there? Oh, no, we can’t invade Saudi Arabia, because they own half our country and all of the present administration.
We invaded Iraq for no reason whatsoever. If we had let the inspectors do their jobs, we would have known there were no WMDs before a single shot was fired. Don’t tell me he was a bad guy that needed to be “taken out.” What about China and their miserable human rights violations? Oh yeah, that’s right, we only pick on countries that can’t fight back. There are plenty of other countries that are in dire need of a regime change, but they don’t have any oil so I guess we’ll just ignore them. We didn’t do a damn thing about the genocide in Sudan because they’re useless to us.
We, the U.S., is in need of a regime change. I, personally, would like a president who can spell, who reads a goddamned newspaper every once in awhile, and for f**k’s sake, knows how to pronounce NUCLEAR. Is that too much to ask???
And to think people wanted to impeach Clinton because he lied about getting head in the Oral Office from Chubby McChubbs. No one died when Slick Willy lied.
ITMFA. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. ITMFA.
m
I was never really on the fence about whether this ‘performance-per-watt’ thing was the real deal, or just a bunch of hype. I always saw more smoke in that rational, even before the MacBook Pro proved even more of a ‘lap toaster’ than the old alumninum G4s ever were.
However, I have to say that all the idiots posting here pushing the ‘Iraq War Good/Iran War Better’ angle seem to be rabidly cheering ‘Performance-per-watt/Intel is Great’ just as hard. Well, that seals it. Since the former is clearly and irrefutably BS, I’m more certain than ever that the latter is too. Frankly, anyone nuts enough to trust Bush and his ‘threat assessments’ now, AND push for an even bigger, bankrupting mess in the Mid East than we already have, is not someone I would trust on ANY issue – even one as unrelated as CPU design. Crazy is crazy, after all.
So I’m just gonna stick with my G5 tower and G4 laptop, and maybe buy an AMD powered rig of some sort next year – waiting patiently for the hack that’ll let me run OSX86 on it. IBM may not have upgraded their CPUs regularly enough for Apple’s taste, but my G5’s doing more than alright by me – better than anything equivilent from Intel – and probably will continue to satisfy for years. As for AMD; Athlon/Opteron/Turion have a real world track record of keeping Intel’s ass nice and red. Intel has excelled at nothing but marketing and monopolistic business practices for at least a decade. Maybe their upcoming new stuff will temporarily even the scales, but it won’t last. Once the next multicore AMD 64bit CPUs come out in early ’07, Intel will be dropping their pants & bending over all over again (and Apple right along with them).
Oh – and for all you wanna-be neocons out there; go get some lithium pills you freaks. You’re time is over.
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the world governments thought Iraq had WMD’s
but they were wrong
Posters are trying to use Steve Jobs’ G5/Pentium comments to diss him when he’s talking about G5/Core Dual processors
but they are wrong
At one time, Iraq did have WMD, Gulf War 1 took care of those. The “facts” Bush presented to the UN were a different story. At one time G5s where better than Pentiums, The new Intel processors are a different story.
Bush Backers, sorry only 32% of Americans approve of the way Bush is handling Iraq, but you’re not going to build up your base by trolling on a tech site.
You know, I never thought we were being misled about the G5. I think it was a good chip, speed wise. Performance/Watt, of course not. How anyone thought we’d see a G5 in a laptop is beyond me.
Just got my new Intel iMac a couple weeks ago, and the thing is fast. I use a dual 1.8 G5 at work, and the iMac is MUCH faster than it. I mean, you can feel the difference. Of course, that G5 came with a 64mb video card, which is embarassing. (So glad Apple has gotten better with the stock vid cards these days.)
So yes, I really like the Core Duo. My iMac is so quiet it’s actually unnerving. My old G4 sounded like a Piper Cub, but it was a comforting sound. Great to fall asleep to. The iMac is virtually silent. It’s freakishly quiet.
I was kind of worried about buying the iMac only to have a 64-bit desktop released a few months later. But at this point, I’m really happy with my purchase. Best computer I’ve ever owned, by far.
G5s vs Intel Core Dual?
See this article at CreativeMac:
When I set off to benchmark the MacBook Pro, the question I wanted answered was how close the MacBook Pro could come to matching the performance of a common G5 tower. That it matched or exceeded the performance of the G5 in the vast majority of tests was quite surprising to me.
mikey 2,
enough of this Iraq had WMD’s thing.
And the relevance to Intel’s Core Duo performance is….?
Go to a political blog if that’s what you need to discuss.
Please quit hijacking threads here.
(Oh I get it, your point is Bush lied to us and so did Jobs. However, Jobs didn’t decide to invade Iraq, nor did Bush decide to switch Apple to Intel. It’s laughable to even compare the gravity of the two decisions. Totally, totally different subjects.)
mikey 2,
Opps, I didn’t see the post before yours that lit this off. Sorry for being a bit rough.
But the point stands to everyone. Please take the politics someplace else.
Odessey67,
You’re back dishing out the same rubbish – nice to see that as the world moves on from 2004 you will still be there!
Mate – there is no denying that the Core Duo runs a bit hotter than the G4 – but is also a HELL of a lot better processor in terms of performance!
You MAY be right that a G5 is still better than the Core Duo – but a G5 would probably mely a hole through the core of the EARTH if it was in a laptop – remember the water cooling required in a MASSIVE desktop case!
Also the heat issue you mention is once again a little snippet you have LATCHED onto to prove your case. This issue was something that came up in EARLY rev. reviews.
Most of the later reviews with later rev. machines have not noticed the heat to be as much of a problem (and remember ALL laptops get hot under heavy use – it’s the laws of physics and thermodynamics that dictate that!)
As an example of a later review why not read the one from AnandTech click here
Anand Lal Shimpi is known for his rigourous and balanced reviews. He isn’t a FANBOY pushing an agenda.
I’d also bet he knows a lot more about technology than you – mostly because he doesn’t need to resort to comparing someone’s political views to their technology preferences – LAME mate!
Also you were setting yourself up for looking like a fool stating that people that believe in performace per watt are fools that also pushing the pro-war in middle east line.
I have no interest in getting into politics on here, but I have to state this:
I did NOT agree (or more accurately fall for) with the bullshit reasons given to invade Iraq.
I DO believe SOMETHING had to be done about Saddam.
I DO believe Iran is a threat, but I also believe a BIGGER threat is all the chest beating coming out of Washington.
I am not left wing, but I am FAR from the neocon right that dominates in America.
I DO believe in performace per watt and believe that anyone comparing the heat generated by the 1990’s G4 technology to the heat from a 1st generation, early build, 2006 processor is a left wing loon!
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See how CRAZY comparisions like that look?
Grow up – go read some more (from technology EXPERTS) – and OPEN your mind when you are reading to the possiblity that YOU may be wrong, and a growing amount of evidence is mounting to support that case.
Luke