Digit Magazine pitted Intel’s new Xeon, previously codenamed ‘Woodcrest’ and based on the same chip technology behind the company’s Core Duo processors, against AMD’s newly launched Opteron processors. Intel’s new Xeon’s are also the chips used by Apple’s first Intel-based workstation, the Mac Pro.
“The results show that Intel has reclaimed its crown in a majestical fashion. The Xeon 5150s were 35 per cent faster in Maya software renderer and 16 per cent faster in mental ray than the Opteron 2218s. Intel’s chips also gave an 18 per cent boost to Photoshop over AMD’s rival,” Neil Bennett reports for Digit.
Bennett reports, “The performance over the Power PC G5s was equally impressive. The 5150’s Maya software rendering time was a whopping 90 per cent faster, and its mental ray score was 32 per cent faster. It was also 27 per cent faster in Photoshop – though this is not something you could translate to the new Mac Pros as an Intel-native version of Photoshop is still at least six months away.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple flies aboard Secretariat, while Dell plans to hop on a nag headed for the glue factory. Who’s the Chief Processor Picker for Dell and what, if any, were his criteria exactly, besides their usual “lowest price, performance be damned?”
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple chose well: Anandtech – Intel Core 2 Duo ‘the fastest desktop processor we’ve ever tested’ – July 14, 2006
Report: Dell signs deal with AMD for millions of chips for full range of desktops, notebooks – June 26, 2006
Apple chose well: Intel poised to take massive lead across the board over AMD – June 07, 2006
Dell opts for AMD’s Opteron; deal confined to servers at this point – May 18, 2006
One thing the Opteron – new and old – have in common is that they can run 32-bit and 64-bit apps simultaneously. The Intel chips are either/or with Windows.
A minor nit to pick, but significant for people who would buy workstations like those priced to compete with the MacPro.
BTW: Sun is also using AMD chips in it’s “x86” lines.
The Wal-Mart of Computing.
Enough said
Yes and with Leopard the Intel chips will do the same thing. It’s just that Microsoft can’t code an OS to save thier lives.
That would be because Microsoft went with AMD’s extensions back when developing 64-bit Windoze.
Thank God that Apple choose Intel
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plus, dont you need a different version of windows for 64bit amd and 64bit intel, dumb windows
I heard an interesting little tidbit from my partner yesterday, who is a PC consultant and has some kind of Dell sales/service status. (no idea what it is but who cares) Anyway, he ordered some 3 gig Quads yesterday that will only run windows, after a phonecall to a mid level sales exec at Dell turned up some interesting intel. (take how much a mid level exec actually knows with several grains of salt, but I found it interesting) My partner asked why the Dell workstation was so much more expensive, and if they would match the price of the Mac Quad. To make a long story short, the exec told him the price was bellow there manufacturing costs, and Apple is getting better than normal pricing (even in Dell purchasing terms) and is Intel’s new darling. This kind of makes sence seeing how Dell just flipped of Intel with this AMD deal. Whats even more interesting is according to the dell guy, Apple got first silicon way before anyone else the industry, soemhting that dell always bosted. Interesting times we live in!
I don’t care how good a computer is, I want CHEAP!
Agreed about the MS/AMD link. Part of the reason for this was that Intel decided to go with two differentiated lines, while AMD decided to scale. Now Intel won’t license the AMD code. Still … Apple managed to create an OS that gets the job done.
Sun, though, mainly deals with 64-bit apps and could use any 64-bit CPU they wanted.
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Minimum of 256 MB of physical RAM (or 512 MB for PXE booting)
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For SPARC platform-based processors, 250-MHz minimum
For x64- or x86-based processors, 120-MHz minimum
DVD or CD-ROM drive
Oh … that’s for the Parallels crowd.
One thing to note though is that Apple doesnt currently support Xp64 with BootCamp. That was a bit of a bummer. Lets hope that changes soon.
DLMeyer,
Do you know something the rest of the world doesn’t? Everything I’ve read says that 64-bit versions of Windows can only run 32-bit applications and drivers in an emulation layer. That would be independent of the processor.
If somebody’s going to nitpick about 64-bit/32-bit compatibility, they shouldn’t even be considering Windows when 32-bit apps and drivers can run side by side on a Mac without emulation layers.
Dell is going to Hell
“majestical fashion”???????
What cereal box did this guy get his journalism diploma off of?
MW = college, interestingly enough
I love words that have extra syllables that add absolutely no meaning–like majestical. (It means majestic.)
How old are the woodcrest chips and how old are the opteron chips? Exactly. Wait until the new opteron chips come out.
Brad, the Woodcrest chips are Intel’s latest and greatest (brand spanking new) and the Opteron tested is AMD’s latest and greatest (even more brand spanking new). These ARE the new Opteron chips.
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The IBM/Motorola woes are a distant memory.
Mike Napolitano, I think you are right and I have mentioned in some previous post(s), not long ago, suspicions that Apple was getting low ball pricing and delivery preference from Intel. Dell moving strongly to AMD has lost them their favorite status at Intel, whereas Apple is now in the favorite’s seat. Any Apple Mac victory is an Intel victory.
Another piece of data from late July is that Intel only expected to be able to produce 1 million Core 2 chips in the first ten weeks since the announcement – ramp up always takes time. I was not at all surprised at Apple’s Mac Pro announcement, but the fact that they were ready to deliver at the time of the announcement shocked me. I predicted that they would announce, but not ship for a month or so. I was wrong. Preferential treatment would seem to answer your rumor. If Apple can start stealing market share with the Mac Pro and then start making serious inroads in the server market (inherently in the business market), then Intel is using Apple as a weapon to defeat AMD and its customers in the business world. Intel and Apple are playing a win/win cooperative game. My AAPL stock is having an orgasm.
Intel chips may be “either/or” with Windows, but not with Leopard! You can run BOTH 32-bit and 64-bit apps at full speed in Leopard.
Where’s “lisa” with an incoherent rambling anti-Intel rant when you need her? Someone should set up a museum of famous MDN trolls.
This is one of the worst articles I have ever seen on MDN. The Opteron is about to go quad-core (before Intel), and is just barely beaten on per-watt performance after a year and a half in the lead. Moreover, the Intel processors on the low-end (non-Xeon), the Core 2 Duo and Core Duo, are still about even with the Opteron-derived AMD chips. AMDs next generation is about to hit, Intel’s just did. What do you expect?
AMD is not a nag headed for the glue factory. Do a little research and you’ll see that. They just made a major acquisition, too, and will soon be in the platform business. What happens when an 8 core CPU has two cores on-die dedicated to GPU processing? You’ll find out.
“majestical”?
LOL
use a spell checker. that way you can write more gooderly.
Abe J>
What happens when an 8 core CPU has two cores on-die dedicated to GPU processing? You’ll find out.
I’m not sure, but will I be able to replace my Dell Bar-B-Q-omatic.
One thing thats left out Dell has been riding the nag for too many years now they finally jumped on the winner AMD heh heh. These Intel losers get me , Hey wait till AMD runs over your Conroe with their Bulldozer Ha Ha.
Come with their what??
Are we now adding AMD vaporware to Microsoft vaporware, as opposed to shipping product on shipping product. Don’t buy a Woodcrest-based Mac Pro now, because you’ll be able to buy Vista running on Deerhound sometime in 2007.
No scrap that, don’t buy Vista in 2007 on Deerhound because by Xmas 2008, you’ll be able to buy AMD Cadiz.
But by then, we’ll be able to buy Leopard on an 8-core Yorkfield with 12MB of L2 cache, and we’ll be a year away from Bobcat or Cougar.
Seriously, this is geek masturbation of the worst sort.
Ugh apple fans… Once riding the jock of ibm/moto who were just plain slow, now crowing in glee that intel’s latest beat the good old k8 based opteron. The opteron got a new socket to accomodate ddr2, the conroe is a new architecture. I know I shouldn’t expect apple fans to know the difference as these are the same boobs who say that a 1 ghz g4 is equal to a 3ghz opteron and p4(Though a 3ghz p4 and a 3ghz opteron aren’t even comparable). That said AMD will hit quad first and it’s new architecture which is really the conroe competitor hits first half of next year. The current opteron is still k8 it is not new, it is just a bump in speed and now it posseses the ability to use the possibly cheaper ddr2. This is the same processor that has been at the top for a year and a half! It damn well better be slower than the latest and greatest architecture. I guess you can’t really expect people who think their computer purchase makes them elite to understand reality or technology. I mean geez you guys know less than a child does and yet you are as arrogant as f*** about your “tech knowledge”.
Hiero>
When you’ve got a K9 or K10 or whatever in your hot little hand, come back and have a chat.
However, be aware that Intel might be shipping Kentsfield by that time (2 x Woodcrest on a single die). So AMD might have an advantage or – then again – they might not.
I’ll admit it is nice to have bragging rights for now just as it’ll be nice for AMD fans to have bragging rights when they’re back on top, and it’ll be nice again when/if we get Yorkfield (8 cores) and even nicer if Intel manages to execute the technology of Keifer/Gulftown.
However, the key thing to Macintosh acolytes is: Can we buy and use Macintosh systems that make our lives easier or our businesses more profitable? Computers are for doing real work, not jerking off over SpecMarks (a means to an end if you like) – that’s why benchmarks that aren’t based on real-world apps are, with the best will in the world, a waste of processor cycles.
If there is arrogance, smugness or whatever adjective or epithet you wish to apply, it’s because the OS platform we use shows up Windows XP (otherwise known as Windows 2000 with pretty pictures) as a badly-designed, poorly-written piece of crap. And if you think Vista will be any better, think again: three months from a scheduled Golden Master stage (if it is to achieve a release to volume licensing customers in 2006) and recent betas still have major flaws in the lower levels of the network stack which has been re-written from scratch.
Of course, you might be a Linux fan who has no time for Windows! If so, peace be with you – I don’t think any Macintosh fan has any issue with Linux except some concerns about whether it’s ready for primetime on the desktop (there can’t be any doubt in its suitability for corporate/scientific/web delivery unless you’re MSFT’s marcom function).
Fanatic Realist: Amen brother, amen!
Fanatic:
Kentsfield is a joke, similar to Pentium D. The 2 x Woodcrest aren’t on the same die. They’re on two separate dice and are glued together. Here’s why that’s bad:
1. They must use an off-die means to communicate with each other (which is MUCH slower).
2. They can’t have a shared cache between the 4 cores, so if core 1 wants to know a variable that core 3 has stored in it’s cache, it must use the slow off-die bus to communicate with core 3 which then communicates with its cache. In a shared cache situation, core 1 can talk directly to any variable that core 3 stored in the shared cache.
3. You know that off-die bus that sucks? Yeah, well, the bandwidth that it uses up to allow the two dice to communicate is bandwidth that can’t be used to communicate with system memory, GPU, etc…
Overall, Kentsfield won’t stand a chance against quad Opterons.
Innovation and preeminence is transitory in the processor business. Good companies always improve their products, so what’s new?
Brayn: I know it drives the Mac faithful to hear it, but yours is a good call.
Personally, I was hoping against hope that these new Woodcrest parts would indeed be the supernovas everyone – and I do mean EVERYONE – in the PC world intoned they would be. After all, that would be hugely good for Apple (my favorite computer company). But the numbers just aren’t bearing that out. Yes, the Woodies win, but as the tests here show, not by a whole heckuvalot considering how long K8 has been around.
Other sites don’t even show the MacPro totally wrecking the G5 Quad – it’s more like a dogfight, one topping the other depending on whatever benchmark or app is being used. Overall, the MacPro is just about as much faster than the Quad as it’s increased clockspeed would suggest a basically equal CPU would be. That the G5 Quad does so poorly in this test is purely a function of how much slower these benchmarks (and Photoshop too, apparently) are on OSX when compared to Windows.
Anyway, after the Yonah letdown (and yes, that chip is an expensive ‘sidegrade’ compared to either the dualcore Turion or dualcore G4, nothing more) I wanted to see the horse really come out of the gate with the 64bit Core 2’s. But if this is the best Woodcrest can do against old K8, I have no doubt the K8L (depending on what exactly AMD is going to do to improve the basic K8 arch) is going to at least match it, core for core. And given Intel’s wheezing FSB, when the two companies come out with their 4core parts … well, I just hope Intel comes up with something more than what they’re showing now by then.
I guess the real performance fruits of this whole switch hullabaloo will have to come when Core3Duo comes out!
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True enough, the Kentsfield solution of sticking stuff together with spit and sealing is a crap solution – although it’s one that AMD might well be flirting with according to some rumours, but it’s the half-assed quad-core stopgap that Mac users will have to use until a ‘true’ quad-core Intel chip becomes available – I’m not sure, it might end with …field, but who knows given that I’m now very confused by Whitefield (does it exist or not?), how many cores Tigerton might have or indeed any number of things (including why hot dogs come in packs of four, yet buns come in sixes).
One thing I’m pretty certain of though is that there wasn’t a dual-core G4 – did Freescale ever ship anything, btw or is it just same old Moto with a different logo.
Fanatic Realist:
Yeah, Freescale made it – it’s called the MPC8641D. I don’t know how many they’re now selling, as I have a feeling this was done mostly with Apple in mind, but they had it available around the same time Yonah as the debut, so Apple definitely knew it was coming. Plus Freescale had the single core MPC7448 processor (based on the same e600 core as the 8641) available even before that. It was/is pin-compatible with the 7447a that was the final G4 version Apple used (meaning, the last PowerBook upgrade before Yonah – the one that everyone said was a bust cause the CPU was the same as before – could have been much better too). Here’s the link:
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=0162468rH3bTdG7249
And of course we now know PASemiconductor was talking with Apple about their 64bit/lowpower/dualcore PPC CPU too. They say their first “PWRficient” chip, the PA6T-1682M, will dissipate between 5-13 watts, running 2GHz on up, with two DDR2 memory controllers, 2MB of L2 cache, and an integrated I/O subsystem that will support 8 PCIe controllers, two or four Gigabit Ethernet controllers sharing 24 – all on chip! According to their site, it’s supposed to sample in the 3rd quarter of 2006 (soon), with single-to-quad core versions due all through 2007 (I guess the higher core counts come later) and an eight (octo?) core version in 2008. This is no fly-by-night company either – the founders were the guys who invented the Alpha chip, they got all sorts of patent cooperation from IBM, and have long since signed contracts for independent Fabs to build their stuff. Here’s their site where you can investigate:
http://www.pasemi.com/
Merom comes out sooner, but there’s no chance it will go to 8 cores, it’s still tied to Intel’s FSB, and the thermal numbers are a lot worse. Yonah’s thermal numbers are almost exactly the same as the dc G4 (and that’s if you ignore Intel’s notoriously optimistic estimates).
Kind’ve makes you wonder, what this whole switch was really all about, doesn’t it?
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Odyssey>
1) Money – there’s no denying that Apple benefits from Intel’s economies of scale. See the pricing on the new machines as a guide. I don’t care if Intel is cutting Apple a sweetheart deal because they’re young and in love, and – to be honest – neither will customers or shareholders.
2) Stability – it’s all very well saying that Freescale is actually shipping something or that PASemi has Plan A or Plan B, but Apple has had its fingers burnt so badly on so many occasions that it obviously decided enough was enough. Want examples…
• Apple’s original participation in AIM was, in part, motivated by Moto’s inability to come up with a successor to the 68040 that powered the Quadra. 88K simply didn’t fly from Apple’s point of view as Sculley and co. were becoming increasingly concerned that they were hostages to Moto’s forttune.
• Whatever happened to PPC 620 that was supposed to succeed 604.
• G4 – the speed of evolution for G4 was, to be honest, unacceptable. And that was a direct function of Moto’s lack of strategic commitment (phones being more important that microprocessors) combined with an inability to keep a fab clean. This eventually gets resolved by Moto spinning out Freescale. BTW, can you provide proof that a dual-core e600 is actually shipping, because at Freescale’s site you get a press release, but – as far as I can tell – you can’t order either bulk or samples.
• G5 – 3GHz within a year ring any bells? So long as we’re talking a year on Mars, we’re golden. In fact, that still doesn’t cut it as Jupiter is beginning to look like a more likely target. So no 3GHz, unless you’re on an Xbox 360 (which isn’t even a proper G5). Of course, by now IBM’s semiconductor division was having its head turned by new relationships with Microsoft, Sony, AMD, Toshiba and others – so we’re back to a lack of strategic commitment, despite Apple contributing a lot of work to Altivec and literally begging for more power.
Maybe it would have been better if you could put 64-bit G5-like power into a laptop. But – for one reason or another – that never happened. Maybe IBM could have developed the 370 (or whatever it was called) instead of just talking about it. BTW, where is the 976 (970 on 65nm)? Where is the 980 and the rest of the ‘missing in action’ IBM roadmap?
Don’t tell me – it must be Apple’s fault because they swapped to Intel thus removing the raison d’être for any future improvements to the 9xx line. Horse crap. If they were good processors, IBM’s platform division would use them. They don’t exist, because IBM Semi lost interest and became obsessed with serving Xbox and Cell.
As for PA Semi, I can presumably buy this box of wonders now? Because – as far as I can tell – PA Semi is a press release and a presentation at some trade events. As per Freescale, I can’t find any way to purchase any PA Semi products unless they have a t-shirt or a baseball cap in my size, and I’m not even certain about that.
3) Stealth – would you have Crossover if we were continuing on PPC? Or VMWare? Or Parallels? Or BootCamp? I’m guessing No personally, but presumably you have an alternate view.
These developments basically allow Apple to attack Microsoft at a software level (if I were Jobs, I’d be secretly passing the authors of Crossover bundles of cash wrapped up in brown paper) and the Windell hardware assemblers (I’d call them something more if they deserved the title) at a hardware level.
All of them are made possible by moving to Intel (or maybe AMD in the future) and they help to prevent Apple becoming known as “the iPod company that makes those funny little computers”.
Still, just my point of view based on reason and fact – feel free to argue.
What exactly has happened here? Now that they are using Intel, Intel is the fastest. Before that Opteron was ignored by the Macidiots. It is amazing. Neither site linked to here is in any form reputable. I still await good Opteron versus Xeon numbers that I can only hope Johan is working on.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> Until then I won’t believe much of anything, and certainly never anything posted at a Mac site.
AMDZone >
That’s a gross oversimplification even for somebody who probably thinks that Windows is the height of software excellence.
Apple had no interest in NetBurst-era Pentium/Xeon because of the whole megahertz myth. Intel has undergone a design philosophy conversion, doing away with hyper-pipelining which has an instruction per cycle cost, in favour of a philosophy that Apple finds more acceptable going forward.
It wasn’t that they/we hated Intel as a company, just their products which simplistically promoted clock-speed as the arbiter of performance, whilst ignoring power consumption, heat generation, die size and everything else.
Now that everybody seems to playing by performance/watt as a measurement, there will come a point where sometime AMD will have its turn in the sun, as will Intel as will Sun with Niagara or whatever it’s called.
As I previously stated, the concern to Mac users is Does this new architecture provide more bang for the buck, compared to the previous solution available to us ? If the answer is Yes, this is a good thing; if the answer is No, it’s a bad thing. That should be simple enough to understand.
I don’t get why you AMD-heads are so concerned about what Mac-heads think if you don’t care about our platform. It’s like social conservatives getting steamed up about sex on television – if you don’t like it, don’t watch it. Surely you’ve all got more important things to do with your day? You can’t all be running Linux, so surely there are some computers that need to be patched or rebuilt somewhere.
And just one other thing.
Digit is a “hardware-neutral” magazine for creative professionals. It’s not a Mac site by any means. But you cling to whatever caters to your insecurity.
And just to prove you’re a doofus, the review compares Windows on Intel and Windows on AMD. Apple’s only contribution to the test is that they use a dual 970MP G5 Power Mac to provide some contrast.
So just to recap…
The review’s not on a Mac site.
The review’s not about Macs in any way.
See how easy it is to get your facts straight.
Like many Mac users, when the Intel switch was announced, I wondered why Apple didn’t chose to go with AMD. It seemed a more natural fit for Apple, with two smaller companies joining forces to combat the Wintel juggernaut.
But after reading a far bit about Intel’s new CPUs, I’m convinced Apple made the best decision. According to respected PC-centric sites like Anandtech, Intel’s new chipsets have reclaimed the speed crown by a wide margin. Even more importantly, Intel appears ready to go from strength to strength in the coming months, and AMD isn’t likely to wrest the performance crown from Intel anytime soon.
For edification, take a look at Anandtech’s analysis. And I know readers here can provide many more links that essentially say the same thing. (And this review talks more about Conroe than Woodcrest).
<http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795>
So to sum everything up:
1) AMD is in a solid #2 position for at least a year.
2) Dell stuck with Pentium4 while Athlon64 was in the lead, but now that the Core 2 Duo is kicking Athlon64 butt, Dell finally is going to try AMD. Brilliant planning, Dell!
3) Apple is using the best CPUs available for their entire product line. It’s a great time to be a Mac user.
4) folks like Odyssey67 need to take off the tin hat. If you’re frustrated about Adobe taking until 2007 to go universal binary, don’t blame Apple.