CPU gigahertz battle resumes

Intel vs AMD: Core i7 975XE vs Phenom II X4 965BE, both unlocked!

Drowned out by the recent buzz was the fact that, for the first time in a long time, AMD has announced a desktop CPU at a clock rate faster than the highest frequency Intel chip of the moment.

Yes, the new Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition runs at 3.4GHz out of the box, a tad tick higher than the 3.33GHz Intel Core i7 975 Extreme Edition. Of course, that overlooks the automatic Turbo mode on the i7 that ups its clock rate to 3.46GHz or more by default, plus of course the average 15 to 20 per cent clock-for-clock performance advantage that Intel claims its chips deliver over AMD's.

Nevertheless, it is a welcome change for the benchmarking community. At least there is something upon which to compare the two on similar terms, for the first time in a while.

Furthermore, if you pour on some liquid helium after using liquid nitrogen for a first round of freezing, the Phenom will do a Phenomenal 7+GHz for a short while, while Intel's top Core i7 can't quite reach that level, it falls short by a full gigglehurts in fact. Now that must hurt, until you realise that the number of users on the planet who will run such a configuration for longer than a few hours is, well, roughly zero.

What are the prospects for the competition here 'til the year end? The unlocked Phenom II X4 965BE will do well against the $US300-class Core i7 860 Lynnfield part, until the user lets the latter's Turbo go all the way, clocking all four cores at 3+GHz, at which point the performance battle will even out. The $US550+ Core i7 870 parts will still have a bit of an edge over the fastest Phenom here, and remember, these are mid range parts, mind you.

But then, AMD's Phenom II BE parts are unlocked, unlike most of Intel's new "Lynnfield" parts.

A stepping and a process tune more, I guess, and AMD should easily be able to release a 3.6GHz or even 3.8GHz flavour before year end, although a L3 cache latency decrease or size increase - remember, AMD does have some nasty dense cache cell technology - will do as much for a performance boost as a clock step up. Intel can do that as well.

But AMD can do something Intel can't before at least February 2010, that is, repackage its six core Istanbul chip into a desktop package and pick the best dies to let the six cores run at somewhere around 3.2GHz or higher. Now, in some benchmarks at least, that baby would seriously threaten even the Core i7 975XE. Yes, at the cost of drawing 150W TDP, but then, hey, people are willing to risk their lungs with oxygen-eating liquid helium, so what's a few more watts? In the end, the Core i7 975XE also guzzles power too.

Since we won't see anything from AMD's Bulldozer stable until the middle of next year at the earliest, not far from the first Sandy Bridge parts, tuning its six core parts for the extreme desktop may work well for AMD to grab some benchmark wins and, at least, effectively counter Intel's hyper-threading, which is helping Intel well in quite a few tests. And now, that feature is in Intel's mainstream Lynnfields, too.

AMD, here's a challenge. Can we see 3.2GHz six core desktop parts by Intel IDF Fall (in our Spring)? Or at least the 'lucky' 3.8GHz extreme desktop ones? The Chinese do like anything with an '8', and that's the biggest market now.