Intel’s 45nm Penryn Processor – Hitting 4 GHz with Air Cooling : Revamping the Core 2 Architecture – New Flagship: Extreme QX9650
Source: Tom's Hardware UK – Keywords: intel, core2, penryn
Categories: Hardware
Revamping the Core 2 Architecture – New Flagship: Extreme QX9650
Rarely have things looked as good for Intel as they do right now. Exactly 18 months after their introduction, Intel is updating its highly successful Core 2 CPUs. The chipmaker is shrinking the structures from 65 nm to 45 nm and is already preparing the next step – the transition to the Nehalem platform. However, that’s all still in the future and won’t come to pass until the end of 2008, at the earliest.
The revision of the Conroe architecture in order to boost its performance, incorporate new instructions, and, most importantly, reduce power consumption is right on schedule. Until now, Intel’s Core 2 processors always played second fiddle to AMD’s Athlon 64 X2 processors when it came to power consumption, at least in idle operation. That was also the reason why we built our Solar-Powered PC around an AMD platform. However, this situation has changed with the Penryn core of Intel’s Core 2 Extreme QX9650.
Simultaneously, Intel has also made radical changes to its production process, breaking with the conventional method. Instead of producing the MOSFET transistors inside the CPU using the conventional silicon-oxide technique in use since 1960, Intel now fabricates the transistors using a new High-K Dielectric technique. As a result, the Penryn core can improve over the previous CPU generation in several ways.
Before we begin, we should note the following about our tests. Since AMD was unable to supply us with a 4x4 system, we are using AMD’s fastest dual-core processor, the Athlon X2 6400+ Black Edition, for this comparison instead. Of course the complex dual-socket system has practically no real presence in the market anyway, but we nonetheless feel obligated to mention it, just to be fair. Also, we want you to understand why we are comparing Intel’s quad-core CPU to a dual-core processor from AMD. For now, since we don’t have any alternatives, it’s the best we can do until Phenom arrives.
This is what we can tell you after several nights of burning the midnight oil, gruelling tests and experiencing the deficiencies of several components first-hand. The new processors, which are now produced on a 45 nm fabrication process, not only consume phenomenally little energy, they also offer outstanding overclocking potential. Even with the processor overclocked to its limit, its thermal dissipation and power consumption are almost on par with those of today’s Core 2 CPUs – at their default settings. The new SSE4 instruction set and the larger L2 Cache of 12 MB are meant to give the already speedy Core 2 architecture another performance boost. Does this really make sense?
We already saw several overclocked systems using quad-core Penryns at this year’s IDF in San Francisco, as mentioned in our articles Intel Shows off Hotrod PC with 8 CPUs and 4 Graphics Cards and 5.9 GHz Quad-Core Sets new Records.
- Next page New Dielectric Minimizes Leakage...
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Just a small typo on the first line on thelast page... i'm sure the word that is meant to be there is "reticent". Other than that an excellent, informative and thorough review, thank you
wow... poor amd
the green bars are getting smaller for AMD
i still going to get an AMD64 5000+ Black edition as my server needs an new cpu, mobo and ram
i do not want to replace my motherboard just yet as it performs Fully stable for me and i not looked into stable/good OC boards for Intel yet
but darn that CPU has some power behind it lol
Yup.... AMD seems pwned for the time being
Bad for them and surely bad for us 
I hope their quadcore (on a single chip) solution is a success...
Are THG listening to the readers? This is a lot better than articles of recent times!! Now what about the follow up article... 'Penryn Hitting 5Ghz on ambient watercooling!!'.
Thanks guys!!
Bob
PS Like the detail on the new SSE4.1 instructions + history of SSE instructions - nice touch!!
I agree with Bob- It's nice to get a decent, in depth technical article, the likes of which got me reading THG in the first place!
I like the picture at the bottom of page 9. Nice toastie air blowing right into the arse end of that video card, just as well its not a scorchy pentium 4
)
Yes indeed it will be nice to see how well it performs with a watercooling system, who knows even liquid nitrogen will be nice.. If they reach with Intel Pentium 4 more than 5GHz I wonder how much GHz might give a 45nm processor heheh
P.S. With liquid nitrogen I'd like to see how well it performs TOO!! [of course a more simple solutions like a watercooling overcloking still is a good thing, especially if it's in a video to see exactly what is going on]
Sounds like a 805 ... only more expensive, faster and twice the cores
I thought I left some feedback a few days ago.. oh well I was just saying why not a review of an overclocked intel processor reaching lets say 5Ghz? or even 6GHz with some liquid nitrogen perhaps. I currently have an Athlon 64 X2 5000+(running on more than 3.1GHz on water from 2.6GHz and planning for some peltier stuff soon to reach over 3.5-4 GHz)
I think 4GHz is slightly disapointing and production samples will rapidly push past 4GHz once they hit their second spin.
If we're already seeing 3.6GHz+ air cooled on Q6600's @ 65nm then another 20% hike in speed should be pushing it to 4.2GHz easily.
The scary thing for all should be what the hell happens when Intel take away AMD's only defense in the way of adding a memory controller to the die. Low latency access with a shared L2 and ridiculously scalable frequency leaves AMD looking a rather poor second choice.
With Intel sandbaging already and enjoying healthy margin that is only going to be worse for AMD later on.
Whilst the article makes for very interesting reading why did TH choose to test the QX9650 CPU? This is one of the most expensive processors on the market today and well beyond the reach of all but the most well off users.
I understand that you want to achieve the best results possible and therefore chose the best performing processor for the job. However, this particular processor is the only one available with an un-locked multiplier. The majority of users don't have this luxury and only have an option to increase the FSB if they want to overclock their system. This sort of makes the test you've performed redundant for the majority.
A much better processor to test would have been the Q9550. While it's eventual clock speed wont match that of the QX9650, percentage wise it should be near as damn identical.
Otherwise, great article :-)
Whilst the article makes for very interesting reading why did TH choose to test the QX9650 CPU? This is one of the most expensive processors on the market today and well beyond the reach of all but the most well off users.... Blah Blah
Wakey, wakey idiot... This thread is months old and thats all that was out at the time...
Bob