- Back to homepage
- Related articles
  Related articles

Intel Clarkdale vs AMD Phenom II with 785G – Mainstream Showdown

CPU by massman @ 2010-01-11

With the launch of Clarkdale by Intel, they have finally released a Nehalem for the masses, the Core i3 and i5 variations with integrated graphics are a direct competitor to the market segment currently held by AMD Phenom and Athlon CPUs. In this article we compare the performance of the IGP on the Intel Core i5 661 to and AMD system with 785G chipset.

Lavalys Everest test results

Lavalys Everest

We used the latest version of Lavalys Everest to test the memory bandwidth throughput and latency of both platforms.

Madshrimps (c)

The bandwidth provided by both platforms is pretty much the same, although we do have to note that the Intel platform had lower clocked memory. Also, it has been proven that Intel's Core technology is capable of increasing the memory frequency much further than what AMD's Phenom is capable of.

Madshrimps (c)

The latency is, of course, heavily affected by the non-ability to alter the memory timings in the bios of the Intel DH55TC mainboard.

Comment from jmke @ 2010/01/11

Comment from wutske @ 2010/01/11

Too bad the memory timings of both systems weren't the same because this biasses the results (as you've mentioned in the review).

Comment from jmke @ 2010/01/11

yes and no.
the memory subsystem for Clarkdale is noticeably lower due to its design, but even then the CPU is never bandwidth starved, even with the slowest of DDR3 sticks.

Comment from wutske @ 2010/01/11

okay, but now it's not only the CPU which needs the memory but also the GPU.
And some synthetic benchmark do benefit from the lower latencies (like on the AMD setup).

Comment from Massman @ 2010/01/11

There are still issues with the current H55 mainboards in terms of delivering decent memory performance. Either the Clarkdale is just no good for high memory bandwidth, or the bioses are too immature.

All information and graphics contained in Madshrimps are sole property of the Madshrimps crew and may not be reproduced or copied in any manner without written permission from us.