Six years ago, Intel debuted the Pentium 4 processor running at a then-blazing 1.5GHz on the socket 423 platform. The Pentium 4, based on brand new technology called NetBurst, was the first Intel processor that did not carry pieces of architecture forward from the five year old Pentium Pro chips. The Pentium 4 revolutionized the lineup of processors Intel offered. It brought out the quad-pumped FSB which resulted in FSB speeds of 400MHz and it offered the fastest speeds on the market.
But was it enough? Looking back and reflecting on NetBurst, it just never lived up to the Intel name. The architecture quickly became outdated next to competitor AMD, and Intel quickly boosted clock speeds to just below 4GHz. Performance still lacked at such extreme speeds.
The solution, many people thought, would be dual core processors with faster FSB speeds. Intel launched their Pentium D 8xx series processors in May 2005. Again, performance just didn't present itself in as much force as many enthusiasts expected. Intel sought yet another solution to the problem. I believe they have finally struck upon something that has potential.
Intel finally did away with NetBurst and focused their R&D department on slowing down the clock speeds and working on a more efficient method of computing. The Core 2 Duo offers the latest, greatest architecture that is exclusive to the Core 2 line of processors. As in the name, all Core 2 Duo processors are dual-core and offer up a whole new platter of features. What's the fastest Core 2 Duo you might ask? The 2.66GHz E6700 is, and I assure you, it's faster than any Pentium 4 processor that clocks in at 1.2GHz higher.
Table of Contents
Page 1: Processor Specifications / New Technologies
Page 2: Side-by-Side Comparison / Temperatures / Test System Specifications / Benchmarks Performed
Page 3: Synthetic Benchmarks
Page 4: Synthetic Benchmarks (cont'd)
Page 5: Audio / Video / Gaming Benchmarks
Page 6: Pi Benchmarks / Concluding Remarks
Processor Specifications
- Speed: 2.66GHz
- Manufacturing Process: 65nm
- Socket: LGA775
- Bus Speed: 1066MHz
- L1 Cache: 32KB
- L2 Cache: 4MB
- Bus/Core Ratio (Clock Multiplier): 6-10
- Cores: 2 physical
So What's New About the Core 2 Duo?
I promised a whole new architecture and here it is. Intel has introduced a number of technologies aimed at improving x86 and x64 performance.
Intel?Wide Dynamic Execution
Dynamic execution is a combination of techniques (data flow analysis, speculative execution, out of order execution, and super scalar) that Intel first implemented in the P6 microarchitecture used in the Pentium?Pro processor, Pentium?II processor and Pentium?III processors.
Now with the Intel Core microarchitecture, Intel significantly enhances this capability with IntelÉïide Dynamic Execution. It enables delivery of more instructions per clock cycle to improve execution time and energy efficiency. Every execution core is 33% wider than previous generations, allowing each core to fetch, dispatch, execute and retire up to four full instructions simultaneously.
Intel Wide Dynamic Execution also includes a new and innovative capability called Macro-Fusion. Macro-fusion combines certain common x86 instructions into a single instruction for execution.
Combined, Intel Wide Dynamic Execution increases instruction execution efficiency thus increasing performance and energy efficiency.
Intel?Intelligent Power Capability
Intel?Intelligent Power Capability is a set of capabilities designed to reduce power consumption and design requirements. This feature manages the runtime power consumption of all the processor's execution cores. The result is excellent energy optimization enabling the Intel Core microarchitecture to deliver more energy-efficient performance for desktop PCs, mobile PCs and servers.
Intel?Advanced Smart Cache
The Intel?Advanced Smart Cache is a multi-core optimized cache that significantly reduces latency to frequently used data, thus improving performance and efficiency by increasing the probability that each execution core of a dual-core processor can access data from a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem.
Intel?Smart Memory Access
Intel?Smart Memory Access improves system performance by optimizing the use of the available data bandwidth from the memory subsystem and hiding the latency of memory accesses.
Intel Smart Memory Access includes an important new capability called "memory disambiguation," which increases the efficiency of out-of-order processing by providing the execution cores with the built-in intelligence to speculatively load data for instructions that are about to execute before all previous store instructions are executed.
Intel?Advanced Digital Media Boost
The Intel?Advanced Digital Media Boost is a feature that significantly improves performance when executing Streaming SIMD Extension (SSE/SSE2/SSE3) instructions.
They accelerate a broad range of applications, including video, speech and image, photo processing, encryption, financial, engineering and scientific applications. The Intel Advanced Digital Media Boost feature enables these 128-bit instructions to be completely executed at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, effectively doubling, on a per clock basis, the speed of execution for these instructions as compared to previous generations.
