2007 -- A Year Of Promise

Tomorrow will be a new year. A lot of people will be looking for the Q4 06 results and making predictions for Intel and AMD in 2007. However, given what I've heard in the last couple of months it will be difficult to sort the wheat from the chafe. I'd like to look at where things are now and where they are going.

Reality has been a bit at odds with appearances in 2006. All of the fanfare has been from Intel. Revision F from AMD was a minor announcement as was 4x4. In contrast, Intel started the ad campaign blaring back in Q2 long before Core 2 Duo was actually available. And, it hasn't stopped. We have seen review after review of Woodcrest and Conroe and Kentsfield and Clovertown. Each review has been so hopeful and practically giddy with all of the incredible speed of C2D over K8 as well as lower power draw. Add to that, all of Intel's production capacity and AMD's capacity limitations and many Intel proponents were ready for announcements that Intel had taken back significant share from AMD. Except, it didn't happen.

The fourth quarter of 2005 was the best quarter that Intel has ever had in terms of processor sales. Yet, this didn't stop AMD from taking 4% volume share from Intel. I was a bit cautious about this in the first quarter of 2006 because I thought the gain could have been temporary and the volume share could have switched back. However, AMD not only held onto its 4% but managed to add another 1.5% giving it a total gain of 5.5% by Q3. Intel has gained none of this back nor has Intel gained any microprocessor revenue share. I'm guessing that some are waiting for the Q4 reports to see if Intel has gained anything. However, with AMD's capacity constraints Intel could have temporary gains if the market volume surges more than AMD can match. This wouldn't be a real gain because the % share would fall back again in Q1 07 when the volume drops. The best time to see volume share will be the second quarter when volume is lowest. Sales at that point should reflect a true preference in hardware for the market unless the total revenue falls. With falling revenue, share increases by AMD may not be accurate which is why I wasn't sure about AMD's volume share increases until Q3 of 2006. However, if the market stays up then Q2 should be accurate.

That Intel has not gained share is simply not believable to some. They point out that C2D is better and therefore Intel should gain. The problem with this idea is several things. First of all, Intel started producing C2D in mid year and then has ramped to 25% of production by today. This puts C2D at only 6.25% of production in Q3 and 18.75% of production in Q4. So, C2D accounted for only 12.5% of Intel's production for 2006. This has simply not been enough to have much effect on share. AMD will leave 2006 with the best year it has ever had with twice the processor revenue that it had 2 years ago. In contrast, Intel will leave 2006 with about the same processor revenue as 2 years ago. I think anyone with common sense can see that AMD has done much better than Intel in 2006.

Seemingly to fix what some must perceive as a devine right by Intel to take back share, some have invented paper gains for Intel by including the X86 sales from VIA with the volume figures. With one of their processors being end of life, VIA dumped these on the market. If we include these processors in the numbers then this lowers Intel's Q2 share even further which then makes the Q3 numbers appear to be increasing because the VIA share is gone again. However, these are only paper gains and don't reflect any actual increase by Intel. If we look at the share between AMD and Intel only then Intel has lost more share since Q4 05 and there has been no gain for Intel in Q3. Those who stoically ignore such attempts or perhaps who find the small paper gains to be insufficient then turn to early 2007 with great hope for share gains by Intel. The basic argument is that Intel is still ahead with C2D and with its higher percentage of production they argue that Intel should be able to gain. However, AMD is not actually that far behind. The latest reviews that I've seen suggest that K8 is about 10% slower per clock than Intel. However, since K8's are priced lower per clock than Intel this makes the AMD processors about the same except for FX-62 which is more expensive.

That AMD's processors are priced about the same as Intel's for the same power has again caused a lot of consternation from Intel fans. Some have even insisted that AMD should price its X2's below the lowest priced C2D, the E4200 but this has not happened. I still see the arguments popping up, groundless though they may be. It seems that some just cannot understand that the fact that E6700 is faster than FX-62 doesn't mean that all C2D's are faster than all X2's. The AMD X2's priced similarly to E6300, E6400, and E6600 have similar peformance for most tasks. And, there is the neverending misuse of benchmarks to prop up smoke and mirrors arguments about C2D. For example, it is understandable that video conversion benchmarks keep all of the data in memory to test the processor. However, this does not mean that users will see the same speed when the data is pulled off the harddrive under actual use. This is true of common user applications which spend most of their time waiting on the user. There are similar problems with tests that don't use all of the cores, benchmarks that show big gains because of cache, and benchmarks that are based mostly on the graphics processor. For example, a benchmark might be very speedy due to cache when it is the only thing running but this doesn't reflect a real computing environment at all where that same process would have to make do which much less cache.

Perhaps because of the lack of gains by Intel there has been a flurry of negative rumors about AMD lately. This includes ideas that AMD is behind in 65nm, is having problems with 65nm, and won't deliver K8L on the desktop until Q4 07. AMD has said that 65nm production is at 25% at the end of 2006. It is impossible that AMD could be at this level without having shipped something like 8 million processors. Some of these would have to have been delivered early enough to be out before year's end yet rumors persist that AMD has delivered no 65nm chips. The second idea comes from the fact that the 65nm chips are not half the size of the 90nm chips. This has led to some rather wild speculation that AMD has added new undocumented sections to the die or that AMD is having problems with 65nm. Actually, neither of these are true. Although 65nm is capable of producing die features that are half the area of 90nm you can't simply shrink 90nm transistors like you would a photograph. If you just shrink the 90nm transistors then at some size they will stop working properly. The first production with 65nm is only a partial shrink because this is the first round of 65nm transistors. These will get tweaked better for the 65nm process in revision H (K8L) and will be able to be reduced more. The 65nm dies that AMD produces at the end of 2007 should be shrunk more than what is being produced now. Again, this is not unusual as AMD did the same thing with 90nm.

As to the idea that AMD won't deliver K8L on the desktop until Q4 07, AMD has contracts with one supercomputer that will be running by end of Q2 07 so K8L production has to start in Q2. Desktop versions of K8L will come out in Q3. Apparently, the fact that the intitial supply of K8L is tight because of preordering has led some to believe that production won't start until Q3. Then apparently the logical assumption is to push back the desktop production to Q4. People have likewise pushed Intel's production of 45nm up from Q4 to Q3. This would then have 45nm being released from Intel before AMD has any desktop K8L's. However, not even Intel is saying this. Real production of 45nm by Intel in Q3 07 is unlikely.

And, what would rumors be without speculation of a point to point bus for Intel? Supposedly, Intel will release a point to point bus (CSI) in Q3 07. Actually there is no indication of this at all. The earliest that it looks like Intel could release CSI is early 2009. It looks like people are getting CSI confused with Intel's quad FSB chipset which will finally allow Woodcrest to be 4-way. The confusion seems to come because Intel insists on calling this a high speed bus rather than a Front Side Bus. Other than the name change it looks and works exactly the same as the current Intel FSB's that connect the processors to the northbridge. A true use of CSI would require an onboard memory controller like AMD has plus a new socket since you cannot run a memory controller on the current socket 775/771. There are other cards to fall yet. For example, AMD is releasing a faster Athlon 64 which should match E6700. This could be offset by a faster 3.2Ghz Conroe but only if Intel slides its prices down one notch. I'm sure Intel will do this eventually but perhaps not in Q1 07. There have been rumors that Intel will have 3.5Ghz chips by end of 2007 but then again the rumors insisted vehemently that Intel was going to have a 3.2Ghz Conroe at launch and this hasn't happened yet.

So, 2007 becomes a race. Intel will ramp C2D up from 25% while AMD continues to ramp 65nm on FAB36. Then once the new bump and test facility is completed AMD will begin taking FAB 30 down for conversion to 45nm. The best situation for Intel would be that the market expands rapidly which would allow Intel to grow faster than AMD since AMD will be capacity limited through most of 2007. With normal expansion, Intel is likely to continue to slowly lose share to AMD. This may seem unfair however AMD has cultivated better relationships with customers than Intel has in the past. By the time Intel has demonstrated any change AMD will have K8L. Further, Intel's gains have mostly been on the desktop which is the least profitable area. AMD has gained in mobile which is more profitable, has produced fewer low end Semprons, and is still holding onto the top 4-way server market. Intel won't be able to move into 4-way until Q3 07 at the earliest when it finally has a chipset with 4 FSB's. Further gains by Intel on the desktop will most likely be offset by gains from AMD in both mobile and corporate areas. I would expect AMD to end 2007 with a gain of about 2.4% in volume share.

The problem for Intel today is that this isn't like 2002 when Intel was able to grab back large amounts of share. Intel now has to deal with an AMD that has a credible name in servers, a growing presence in corporate, total system solutions from the ATI purchase, a growing presence in mobile, and both reduced costs and increased capacity with a second 300mm FAB. The situation would be completely different today if AMD still had only FAB 30 and if this were the case all my money would on Intel. However, with FAB 36 coming up in capacity and AMD's uncanny ability to do rennovation without taking a FAB completely offlline I just can't see anyway for Intel to take advantage. If the market expands quickly then AMD would gain less volume share but revenue would be better for both AMD and Intel. I'm still expecting Intel to have to do more divestment and probably another reorganization in 2008. Overall, however, 2007 should see Intel's and AMD's product lines and graphics support move much closer. By end of 2007 Intel should have something to compete in 4-way but it will have increased competition in 2-way and the desktop. 2008 will then bring new mobile competition from AMD as well as increased server and graphic competition. Intel will have to be on its toes in 2008 to stay competitive and 45nm by itself won't be enough. Looking further ahead Intel proponents are quick to point to CSI but Intel will then be facing an AMD with two functional 300mm FABs, tightly integrated graphics, and a modular core for easier upgrades so 2009 will still be highly competitive. Worse still for Intel, with 30% of the cpu market for AMD, Intel's monopoly will be broken. So, appearances in 2007 should be better for AMD and Intel should be able to climb back up to the 2005 processor revenues but mainly the advances by both Intel and AMD will be good for consumers.

Music -- The Collapse Of An Industry

I've seen several Time/Life commercials for music collections lately. The problem is that while these collections don't really solve a problem they do tend to point out just how awful the quality of music has become. Somehow, music producers have slowly disconnected from their own customers. Today, the quality of music is so bad that there is no strong incentive to buy it. However, at the same time the channels for delivering classic music are so poor that this is cost prohibitive. Today, there exists a huge demand for music that is not being met while music producers are either unaware or unable to meet the demand. According to the recording industry's own data, music sales are down 33% by volume.

I've recently seen commercials for Time/Life's 70's collection. This is 10 CD's with 150 songs for $150. The problem is that this pitiful collection doesn't even scratch the surface of 70's music. The minimum collection would be 200 songs from each year which would amount to 2,000 songs and presumably 134 CD's for $2,000. This is not an offer that is likely to appear from Time/Life. I doubt though that anyone at TL even realizes or cares how insulting this notion is; 150 songs just does not and cannot do justice to a decade of music. 200 per year would be a bare minimum. A more reasonable number would be 10 new songs per week and about 500 songs total per year. This would give us 5,000 songs total for the 70's and would take over 300 CD's. This just isn't practical. How many people are prepared to fork over $5,000 at $1 per song to have a genuine collection of 70's music? And, what about the 60's and the 80's? How many people have a spare $15,000 for music? And, my estimate of 10 songs per week is just a ballpark figure; we could still be scraping off some very good music with this number. Perhaps 10,000 would be better but this of course would just make the disparity even greater. And, TL is not unusual on its pricing. Assuming that a 10,000 song 70's collection would even be available at iTunes the price would basically be the same at 99 cents per song. It is clear that cost is a prohibitive problem with delivering classic music.

I can identify with music from the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's however, it appears that there is a definite deterioration starting in the 90's. This trend appears to have bottomed out and has now stayed at the same low level since 2000. To put it simply, the quality of music today is only a fraction of what it used to be. I wondered what could have happened to throw the music industry so badly off the track that it had followed for half a century. It appears that the problem is radio. Although music producers create and distribute the music it has been up to radio stations to make buyers aware of new music. This was never a problem in the past as the great number of independent radio stations were all too eager to cater to many different tastes in music. However, during the 90's these independent radio stations were bought up by media conglomerates and the process began to short-circuit. Rather than having independent programming, the play schedules became homogeneous across dozens of stations from city to city. As consolidation continued the number of choices became less and less. This had a chilling effect for music producers since there were fewer and fewer independent radio stations to promote new music. In the past, a good song would always be picked up and played by a disc jockey somewhere and there are many examples of hit songs that started from just one station. With independents gone it became important to music producers to have music that was acceptable and this has led to drastically reduced risk taking by producers both in terms of style and in terms of costs.

The rise of rap music was not so much due to embracing a new genre by music fans but rather a genre that has been pushed by producers due to cost considerations. With typical music production studio time is very expensive and requires long hours laying down multiple layers of instrument and vocal tracks and then many more hours mixing and adjusting the sound until it's right. However, rap and hip hop typically use pre-recorded music so this removes the studio time spent recording and mixing the instrument tracks. Rap and hip hop also typically do not have as many vocal layers. For example, a traditional song might require four music layers for percussion, rhythm, lead, and solo instruments using half a dozen musicians. If instruments like saxophone or trumpets are used then it will take more layers because these instruments tend to have different volume levels than other instruments. These layers can be much more elaborate as when The Eagles used symphony music for Wasted Time and Fleetwood Mac used a marching band for Tusk. The vocal tracks can also run to many layers since there will be verse, chorus, and backup vocals and sometimes multiple layers of the same singers for self harmonies as was common with The Carpenters, Air Supply, and Janet Jackson. One album can involve several song writers, many musicians and vocalists. In contrast, A rap album often involves pre-recorded music with one song writer and one vocalist. Even when these are stretched it doesn't usually involve more than a drum or rhythm loop and one or two other vocalists. With much less effort involved, the cost of producing a rap or hip hop album is only a fraction of the cost of a regular album. This has made rap and hip hop much more attractive to music producers since the up front costs and therefore the risks are much less.

It isn't difficult to tell that radio stations in general have declined. When I was in high school there were two local radio stations that played popular music. These are both gone. Popular music was also available on AM however the AM band has almost entirely been replaced by talk radio. Judging from what I have heard on country music stations it is possible that country music has fared better. It is clear, however, that both variety and quality of popular has drastically declined. I am just not seeing bands today of the caliber of The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Journey, ELO, Foreigner, Chicago, Steely Dan, Moody Blues, Temptations, The Doors, Spinners, Beetles, BeeGees, Air Supply, Reo Speed Wagon, Styx, Duran Duran, Jefferson Airplane, Herman's Hermits, Queen, Hall and Oates, Heart, England Dan and John Ford Coley, Credence Clearwater Revival, Crosby Stills and Nash, Police, etc. This list is just a tiny sampling of very good groups and their replacements are nowhere to be seen.

The need to contain costs has led to fewer bands in favor of solo artists as well as the rise of rap and hip hop. Likewise the strong need to reduce risks has greatly curtailed variety in music that is produced today. This drastic reduction in both quality and variety has caused a sharp drop in demand for music which has in turn created a downward spiral for music producers. With less demand, there is less chance of having an investment payoff and this in turn leads to less risk taking which leads to less variety and quality and ultimately even less demand. The demand is actually there and as strong as it has ever been; it's just that the demand is not for what is being offered. The present situation is incredibly strange as there are both a vast number of talented songwriters, musicians, and singers who want to fill the demand along a huge pool of consumers who badly want good music. Supply and demand have become so out of balance that it is a bit like New Orlean's being below sea level. The only thing currently holding back supply from demand is the unnatural damning effect of the radio conglomerates and the ever more conservative music producers.

The traditional mechanisms of radio involves commercials and advertising support. However, with less variety and quality there is less reason to listen to a given radio station. Consider that while the radio conglomerates are trying to scrape by with less variety I can listen to 70's music with no commercials on my cable all day long for only about $10 per month extra. This is drastically less than it would cost to purchase the music outright from iTunes or to buy a TL collection. The music industry seems to be stuck with the idea of total ownership rather than temporary use of a song. When I listen to music on cable it's only temporary; I don't keep or own the music. I'm not sure if it is the idea of piracy that prevents the music industry from a more reasonable temporary pricing rather than outright pricing. With 1,000 songs per year and 4 MegaBytes per song this would require about 120 GigaBytes of storage to have a good collection of 60's, 70's, and 80's music. This is certainly within the range of common harddrives today so storage would not be a limiting factor. However, organization would be. Having the artist, song title, albumn title, and year of release for 30,000 songs would be no minor task. Without some type of database to keep track of all this information it could be nearly impossible to find the songs that you want to listen to even with your harddrive stuffed full of mp3's.

However, if the music industry were actually doing its job then this wouldn't be a problem. The music industry could easily maintain records of music titles, artists and groups, year of release, along with much more more information such as lyrics, band members, songwriters, covers, etc. It should be possible to find a band by knowing the name of one band member or to find a song by knowing some of the lyrics and it should be quite easy for individual playlists to be compiled for each listener. Perhaps this will happen at some point. Perhaps we will have distribution via some type of WiFi, and music will bypass broadcast radio altogether. This could allow more tailored advertising and sampling of new music based on your established tastes. I'm thinking that something like this will have to happen because I cannot see this vast gulf between talent and demand continuing forever nor can I imagine that music producers will be dumb enough to leave themselves cut off from their source of income indefinitely. However, until something like this happens presumably music production will stay at the low level of quality and variety that it is today and radio conglomerates will continue to choke off supply.

Intel Versus AMD: The Truth Unfolds

It has not been easy to find out the real story of how Intel hardware compares with AMD hardware. The reviews from places like Anandtech and Toms Hardware Guide have been so sloppy and unprofessional that no useful information could be obtained. However, after a second review at Tech Report there is finally enough accumulated data to draw some conclusions.

Often when I mention the horrible state of hardware testing today I get some flack from Intel fans who really want to believe that any published test results that show Intel favorably must be true. I suppose there have been a number of people who have suggested that I have been somehow denying reality by not embracing these results. Of course, these people don't understand at all how I think. Poor testing doesn't mean that AMD is better; it just means that you don't know. With proper testing, the results could show that Intel is even better than what was shown with poor testing. I suppose since I'm now talking about testing done at Tech Report some must be wondering if I am endorsing Tech Report as a good fact source. Well, not exactly. The problem is that it has taken two reviews (and sometimes a third) to get the facts at Tech Report. If the testing had been truly prossional then we would have been able to get what we needed from the just one review. But, this is not the case; it is necessary to look at two or more reviews to find out how reliable the tests themselves are. What this means is that some of the data published by Tech Report does not fully show what is happening with the hardware and therefore this data can be misleading (and the author's comments can be incorrect as well). However, by using more than one set of tests there is finally enough information to draw some conclusions. I suppose this is at least better than most other review sites where the testing still shows essentially nothing even with two reviews in hand.

One of the issues that keeps getting tossed out is the idea that Intel processors now draw a lot less power than AMD's. This seems to be due in part to a desire to throw off the very bad reputation that the Prescott cored processors had. Yet, there is no indication of any big advantage for Intel. The highest clocked chips from both companies are rated at 120 watts and the second level from both companies runs about 80 watts. You have to add a bit to the Intel numbers because their TDP isn't a maximum like AMD's and you also have to add the power draw for the Northbridge which is included with the AMD numbers. However, Intel's C2D processors have much better power management than AMD's current Revision F and 65nm Revision G processors so this tends to even out. The sole advantage that Intel currently has for any class is for their quad cored processors and this is only because AMD doesn't have a quad core out yet. You could however argue that if you rate processors by SSE performance per watt then Intel is better. This is true if you use SSE most of the time such as for heavy duty rendering or scientific or engineering calculations. But, for most areas Intel and AMD are about equal. This shouldn't change until late 2007 when Intel releases 45nm chips.

The first benchmark is Cinebench which renders a graphic scene. Surprisingly, Intel and AMD are almost dead even on this benchmark. This is not due to AMD's greater memory bandwidth because this test is not memory intensive. I would have expected Intel to be faster but this is not the case. At the same clock speed the two are tied. This benchmark also does not scale very well; perhaps the code will be better by the time AMD has its own quads out.

The next is Pov-Ray and once again the results are very close; Intel trails by about 4% at the same clock. Either Pov-Ray does not make use of SSE or AMD is gaining more from the 64 bit code. This application is not memory intensive but it does show good scaling even with 8 threads. A dual socket Clovertown Xeon 5355 system should deliver about the same performance as a quad Opteron 8218 system and a single socket Kentsfield QX6700 should be about the same as a dual socket Opteron 2218 system.

With 3DS Max scanline rendering there are two factors. First of all, for a comparable system, Intel is 25% faster at the same clock than AMD. This is probably due to better SSE. Secondly, this code does not scale very well. Intel shows a 22% drop-off when scaling from 2 threads to 4 while AMD shows a 29% drop-off. This looks suspiciously like poor NUMA support. Finally, in contrast to the scanline rendering, 3DS Max's ray tracing code is so poor for multi-threading that it isn't useful at all for comparison beyond 1 core.

In the Quad FX review the Valve Source engine particle simulation numbers are all over the place. I've tried to see if anything can be gleaned from this information but unfortunately there are no matching numbers in the Clovertown review. This is a good example of a benchmark that less knowledgable fans might point to as an Intel win but these numbers are far too erratic to tell anything. The Valve VRAD map build however shows Intel 26% faster at the same clock. There really isn't anyway to tell if this is due to cache, integer IPC, or SSE but Intel is clearly faster. This will be a good benchmark to repeat with K8L. Since K8L should increase cache, integer IPC, and SSE the results should be much closer.

3DMark is not in the Clovertown review but after comparing with an older review with C2D E6300 it is clear that 3DMark 06 CPU Test 1 is good and not simply gaining from larger cache; Intel is about 10% faster.

The MyriMatch test is interesting. It is clear that this code is terrible with multi-threading and quickly loses efficiency as threads increase. However, the numbers drop off not only with more threads but with faster clock speeds as well. Worse still, the Intel numbers show variances of 5% when increasing clock by 15% and the AMD variances are even greater at about 8%. This leads to a very unreliable spread showing Intel is somewhere between 3% and 27% faster. Since I did not see this variance in the other tests and there would be no reason for Tech Reports to have reconfigured the systems during this test I would have to say that the code is at fault and the test is therefore useless.

The Euler 3D computational fluid dynamics test is a good example of how misleading the data can be and how equally far off the author's interpretation can be. He claims that the code is both floating point and memory intensive. Yet, when comparing the two sets, there is no evidence of any drop-off due to memory. With double the memory bandwidth, the dual socket woodcrest system is actually slower because of the higher latency FBDIMM's. There is no gain at all from the higher memory bandwidth, therefore the code is not memory intensive in the sense of saturating the memory bandwidth. Intel seems to be about 18% faster. However, some of the scores are far worse than 18% and this again brings up suspicions of NUMA problems. Looking more closely, we see that in spite of claims that the Quad FX tests were done using a NUMA compatible OS, there is clear proof of the opposite. Quad FX and the dual socket Opteron 2218 system are very similar as both are dual core on dual socket. And, their scores are almost identical even though the FX is clocked 15% faster and uses faster memory. Apparently, the interleaving that was used with the Opteron is making up for the faster speed of FX, but this could only happen if the FX were running without NUMA support. This means that for any code in the FX review that uses large working sets the FX processor will show an anomalous dropoff. This is why one review was not enough; you can't see this without comparing with the second review. So, Intel is 18% faster rather than the 73% as would be suggested by the FX numbers. Even with the interleaving hack this very poor number would have been cut in half and then half again with proper NUMA support.

The Folding @ Home series is interesting. But, there are errors in the totals for both reviews. The actual totals are pretty close and would give Intel about 6% more speed. However, what we really want is the best rather than totals or averages and this would give Intel about 25% more speed. However, it is stated that the same code for AMD uses 3DNow! rather than SSE so the actual difference could be less. However, I think 25% due to better SSE is reasonable. This is a benchmark to watch because it should have an increase with K8L unless the code is not actually making use of the AMD hardware.

The Sandra benchmarks are both good and bad. The Multimedia Integer tests are way off. I'm not sure what they are testing but whatever it is does not show anything real about the processors. If these scores were taken at face value Intel would be 253% faster in integer. Or to put this a different way 1 C2D core would be 89% as fast as 4 AMD cores. This is yet another published score that unknowledgable fans might tend to mention as a sign of the phenomenal speed of C2D. However, this is obviously impossible theoretically, architecturally, and from the fact that no other test shows speed like this. Therefore, we have to ignore this test. However, the Multimedia Floating Point test looks good. Intel is 79% faster. This is reasonable since Intel can easily do 100% faster with SSE and could theoretically, with perfectly matched data, actually hit 4X AMD's speed. However, this is not a likely thing to occur. This is another benchmark that should become about equal with K8L. Perhaps by the time AMD releases K8L we will know what is wrong with the Integer test.

The Windows Media Encoder shows a significant drop with 4 threads, but it drops about the same for Intel and AMD. With the original code Intel had a 23% lead, however with the newer 64 bit code this lead drops to only 15%. This is true for both 2 and 4 threads.

PicColor contains some anomalous scores which lessons confidence in the set's overall accuracy. The extremely low cpu usage graphs add to the uncertainty. The best I can say is that for most tasks Intel seems to be about 12% faster but is about 60% faster on floating point.

Panorama Factory is not memory intensive. It shows poor scaling with 4 threads and truly horrible scaling with 8 threads. However, the scores appear consistent. Intel is 7% faster. The only odd score is the FX-74 score which is slower (12% instead of 7%). This seems to be due to NUMA problems for the large datasets. Apparently, interleaving is enough for this task but FX-74 without even that shows a drop-off.

Tech Report has used three different methods of power consumption testing with the three reviews I referenced. This somewhat diminishes the value of the power consumption tests. For example, the Quad FX review does show some advantage for Intel, however the load application is Cinebench which has poor scaling. In the Clovertown review the load application is Pov-Ray which scales well and the power consumption is very similar. Realistically, Intel only seems to gain with lower power draw with its Kentsfield QX6700 processor. There is no real difference with dual core/single socket between Intel and AMD nor with dual socket.

I generally give Intel a 15% integer lead so I'm surprised that Intel doesn't seem to show this kind of lead for a lot of the tests. For example, I usually match X2 4200+ with E6300, 4600+ with E6400, and 5000+ with E6600. Yet, it seems for many tasks, Intel only appears to be 10% faster. This would mean that 3800+ would match with E6300, 4200+ with E6400, and 4600+ with E6600. This would make 5000+ equal to E6700 but AMD would still have no procesor to match X6800. This seems to be about right if we exclude SSE. However, if SSE is needed then Intel is the current bargain.