Real Quad?

[chluk2425]

Hi, I've heard that the Q6600 quad core is made from two Core 2 6300, and combine with each other to form a quad core... and so the L2 cache is not shared with each other...

Is that true?

Thx!!

 

[Thanatos421]

Yes, it is true, but don't use those AMD buzz words around here, or you'll get flamed to death

Also, it would be two E6600s, not 6300s

The double-cheeseburger design that Intel uses works just fine and in fact, better than the current native quad AMD design. 2 cores in a Q6600 will share the L2 cache on one die, the other 2 cores will share the L2 cache on the 2nd die. It may not be as elegant as a native quad, but it seems to work better at least for the moment (AMD's fault, not Intel).

Intel will be moving to the native design soon as well. What you should take from this is that both designs are valid and reliable. AMD is just having some problems they need to sort out, and Intel might have a few as well when they go native quad.

Long story short, it's nothing to be worried about. It doesn't affect performance at all, Intel did a great job with the Q6600.

 

[rochin]

No, it is 2 E6600 cores. I do not know if all 4 cores share the 8MB of cache, i tend to say no. I have the Q6600 and I am very happy with it over my e6600 that I just replaced.

 

[TechnologyCoordinator]

The benchmarks don't lie. Intel's slowest quad, the Q6600 is vastly superior to AMD's best, top of the line, Phenom.

If you want speed, go Intel.
If you overclock, go Intel.
If you're on a budget, consider AMD, as they are cheaper. However, Intel has the best price/performance.

Also, I'd wait for B3, they may clock higher and will be less buggy (we hope).

 

[spaztic7]

One of Intel’s marketing personnel said in a interview "It does not matter how you get the cores there, as long as they are there. That’s what matters."

If you have 4 cores, then you have 4 cores. Just because Intel has two cores talk over the fsb dose not mean anything. Most of the time, you do not use your entire fsb anyway. (It was found a while back that some of the most intense games (for its day.... THIS IS NOT UP TO DATE!!!!) would only use half of the fsb. So, the fsb was 800 MHz and if you would declock it to 400 MHz you would not notice a difference until you started get slower the 400 MHz.

So... in the end, Intel did the right step on its way to move to quad processing. AMD I think jumped the gun and stood in front of its own bullet. We all hope that B3 will fix the issue and they become competitive again.

The Q6600 is faster and better then the best current Phenom.

 

[yomamafor1]

One of Intel’s marketing personnel said in a interview "It does not matter how you get the cores there, as long as they are there. That’s what matters."

My sig

 

[chluk2425]

First of all, thanks for all replies!!

AMD's buzz word? Do you mean this news is given out by AMD?
Because I saw a similar question in a chinese site, but it doesn't give a good answer, so I translate it and ask it again in here.

 

[yomamafor1]

To put it short, no, there's no such thing as a "true-quad core". Its all marketing buzz words. The fastest Phenom on the market (Phenom 9900) is about the same as Intel's slowest quad offering, Q6600.

 

[thepinkpanther]

i dont understand why intel or amd doesnt take their best duel core and half it! then glue all 4 of them together...thus being native quad core! is this so hard? then later they can introduce a l3 cache.

 

[yomamafor1]

That's effectively what AMD did with K10. They slightly improved the core of K8, and put all four of them together, coupled with a L3.

 

[keithlm]

The benchmarks don't lie. Intel's slowest quad, the Q6600 is vastly superior to AMD's best, top of the line, Phenom.

If you want speed, go Intel.
If you overclock, go Intel.
If you're on a budget, consider AMD, as they are cheaper. However, Intel has the best price/performance.

Also, I'd wait for B3, they may clock higher and will be less buggy (we hope).

I always like people that propagate incorrect data. It happens a lot on these forums.

Intel's slowest quad is not "vastly superior" to AMD's top of the line Phenom. As you mention: Benchmarks don't lie. Intel's slowest quad is faster than all of the Phenom quads that clock at frequencies that are lower than the Intel. (As if that was a big surprise.)

When you compare chips at an equal clock speed... the chips are about equal. When you look at the top "planned" Phenom which is only available as engineering samples... it is as good and often better than equally clocked Intel chips.

The planned 9700/9750 is about the same as the Q6600. The 9900/9950 is better. (And that's just the engineering samples with the bad/evil/showstopping TLB bug.)

But we're not supposed to point out these nasty little truths. Plus... if you aren't interested in overclocking... then they will not allow you to call yourself an "enthusiast". Somehow by not overclocking... your IQ goes down and you can't be interested in any of these things. (And I think your body odor goes up and people of the opposite sex ignore you... so you had BETTER be overclocking!)

 

[yomamafor1]

I always like people that propagate incorrect data. It happens a lot on these forums.

Intel's slowest quad is not "vastly superior" to AMD's top of the line Phenom. As you mention: Benchmarks don't lie. Intel's slowest quad is faster than all of the Phenom quads that clock at frequencies that are lower than the Intel. (As if that was a big surprise.)

When you compare chips at an equal clock speed... the chips are about equal. When you look at the top "planned" Phenom which is only available as engineering samples... it is as good and often better than equally clocked Intel chips.

The planned 9700/9750 is about the same as the Q6600. The 9900/9950 is better. (And that's just the engineering samples with the bad/evil/showstopping TLB bug.)

But we're not supposed to point out these nasty little truths. Plus... if you aren't interested in overclocking... then they will not allow you to call yourself an "enthusiast". Somehow by not overclocking... your IQ goes down and you can't be interested in any of these things. (And I think your body odor goes up and people of the opposite sex ignore you... so you had BETTER be overclocking!)

That's weird, because xbitlab disagree with you completely.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/amd-phenom_2.html#sect0

 

[epsilon84]

I always like people that propagate incorrect data. It happens a lot on these forums.

Intel's slowest quad is not "vastly superior" to AMD's top of the line Phenom. As you mention: Benchmarks don't lie. Intel's slowest quad is faster than all of the Phenom quads that clock at frequencies that are lower than the Intel. (As if that was a big surprise.)

When you compare chips at an equal clock speed... the chips are about equal. When you look at the top "planned" Phenom which is only available as engineering samples... it is as good and often better than equally clocked Intel chips.

The planned 9700/9750 is about the same as the Q6600. The 9900/9950 is better. (And that's just the engineering samples with the bad/evil/showstopping TLB bug.)

But we're not supposed to point out these nasty little truths. Plus... if you aren't interested in overclocking... then they will not allow you to call yourself an "enthusiast". Somehow by not overclocking... your IQ goes down and you can't be interested in any of these things. (And I think your body odor goes up and people of the opposite sex ignore you... so you had BETTER be overclocking!)

OWNED.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/05/amd_phenom_9600_black_edition/page13.html

"I always like people that propagate incorrect data. It happens a lot on these forums."
LOL, speak of the devil! Your honest assessment of yourself is welcome. :lol:

 

[spaztic7]

That's effectively what AMD did with K10. They slightly improved the core of K8, and put all four of them together, coupled with a L3.

I think this whole L3 cache things is stupid. The farther you move memory away from the CPU the slower it will be. Intel is doing what is smart. Increase the L2 cache! I think someone should increase the L1 cache!!!

 

[speedbird]

Intel's slowest quad, the Q6600 is vastly superior to AMD's best, top of the line, Phenom.

Superior yes, Vastly superior? no. You make the Phenom sound like a Celeron.

 

[epsilon84]

Superior yes, Vastly superior? no. You make the Phenom sound like a Celeron.

From an enthusiasts perspective, it's vastly superior. Q6600s routinely overclock to 3.6GHz without hassles. A 3GHz overclock from a Phenom is considered a miracle. In fact, as THG's 9600 BE review shows, an overclocked Phenom can't even beat a STOCK Q6600.

 

[jerseygamer]

The benchmarks don't lie. Intel's slowest quad, the Q6600 is vastly superior to AMD's best, top of the line, Phenom.

If you want speed, go Intel.
If you overclock, go Intel.
If you're on a budget, consider AMD, as they are cheaper. However, Intel has the best price/performance.

Also, I'd wait for B3, they may clock higher and will be less buggy (we hope).

You are comparing a Porche to a Escort. 2 CPU sets that in now way had ever been meant to compete with eachother. AMD has yet to release a cpu that is meant to compete with the q6600 and that is the epic fail atm but then again whats the rush considering the quads dont sell as it is.

 

[keithlm]

OWNED.

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/02/05/amd_phenom_9600_black_edition/page13.html
http://images.tomshardware.com/2008/02/05/amd_phenom_9600_black_edition/tabelle_001.png

"I always like people that propagate incorrect data. It happens a lot on these forums."
LOL, speak of the devil! Your honest assessment of yourself is welcome. :lol:

Thank you for your post... it is always nice to have people post things thinking they are being clever... when in reality it shows exactly the opposite of what they are trying to claim.

Your little graph there shows without a doubt that the 2.7GHz Phenom does much better than the Q6600. It also show that the chip that runs slower does not keep up. (Oh... Big shock.) You should add benchmark results for a Phenom clocked at 2.4GHz so you would have a real baseline to base claims of "clock for clock" off of.

BTW: If you do a bunch of benchmarks and then add/subtract percentage deltas to get a "result" than I would have to question your intelligence. Luckily most people will realize that doing that is a less than intelligent way to analyze benchmark results. How do we know that another benchmark wasn't run that when added to the graph will show dramatically different results? That is one of the problems with presenting data results in this faulty manner.

Did you notice that the 2.7GHz Phenom prevails on relevant benchmarks? (I guess it's kind of dumb for me to ask that question of someone that posts a graph showing delta arithmetic.)

 

[speedbird]

From an enthusiasts perspective, it's vastly superior. Q6600s routinely overclock to 3.6GHz without hassles. A 3GHz overclock from a Phenom is considered a miracle. In fact, as THG's 9600 BE review shows, an overclocked Phenom can't even beat a STOCK Q6600.

True of course , but I was referring to the speed difference at stock. The Intel wins, but TC stated the performance difference is huge which is an exaggeration.

 

[epsilon84]

You are comparing a Porche to a Escort. 2 CPU sets that in now way had ever been meant to compete with eachother. AMD has yet to release a cpu that is meant to compete with the q6600 and that is the epic fail atm but then again whats the rush considering the quads dont sell as it is.

LOL that's a good one! :lol: Phenom not meant to compete with C2Q? What is it meant to compete with then?

Quads don't sell? Oh man, you're on a roll! Yeah, did your read that article where Intel and AMD had to take their quad cores to landfills?

 

[epsilon84]

True of course , but I was referring to the speed difference at stock. The Intel wins, but TC stated the performance difference is huge which is an exaggeration.

True, if stock rocks your boat.

 

[runswindows95]

Overall, Intel has the better quad as of right now. Will things change with the new B3 Phenoms? I hope so for the market's sake. I for one don't want to see the day where I'm paying $500 just for an entry level Intel CPU!

 

[epsilon84]

Overall, Intel has the better quad as of right now. Will things change with the new B3 Phenoms? I hope so for the market's sake. I for one don't want to see the day where I'm paying $500 just for an entry level Intel CPU!

You think a stepping revision will allow AMD to leapfrog Intel?

CPUs will NEVER be $500 in the low end, whether AMD is around or not. This isn't the 80s. I wish people would stop using such ridiculous arguments.

 

[MrCommunistGen]

This is a bit of a technicality, but a "native" quad core *IS* better than 2 dual cores stapled together. Now, let me make this abundantly clear: this is not to say that AMD's native quad is better than Intel's dual-dual solution, because its not due to the designs of the cores themselves. That's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. What it does mean is that if AMD were to make a dual-dual with Phenom cores it would probably be worse than the current X4 Phenoms and if Intel were to somehow make a "native quad" with current Core 2 technology it would probably be a bit faster than current chips.

-mcg

 

[epsilon84]

This is a bit of a technicality, but a "native" quad core *IS* better than 2 dual cores stapled together. Now, let me make this abundantly clear: this is not to say that AMD's native quad is better than Intel's dual-dual solution, because its not due to the designs of the cores themselves. That's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. What it does mean is that if AMD were to make a dual-dual with Phenom cores it would probably be worse than the current X4 Phenoms and if Intel were to somehow make a "native quad" with current Core 2 technology it would probably be a bit faster than current chips.

-mcg

On the other side of the coin, Intel could easily run into the same problems as AMD if they went the 'native' approach. They even said it was too difficult to create one on 65nm. Perhaps if they had attempted it anyway we would be looking at C2Qs stuck at 2.3GHz with TLB bugs and whatnot.