Anandtech Conroe Performance Preview Follow-Up
 

So we benchmarked Conroe; we previewed it, under the only circumstances we could. Intel setup the systems, Intel installed the benchmarks and Intel only let us run what it had installed. Given those circumstances we did our best to make sure the comparison was as legitimate as possible. We checked driver revisions, we checked hardware configurations, BIOS settings, and memory timings; we consulted device manager to make sure nothing strange was limiting performance. We did everything we could think of to make sure that the comparison we would present to the world was as transparent as it could be. But the one thing I ’ve come to understand and appreciate is that the AnandTech reader will always keep us honest; many of you came to us with questions and we spent all evening answering them.

The performance picture with regards to Conroe hasn’t really changed all that much - on average we’re still seeing a bit over a 20% increase in performance over an overclocked Athlon 64 FX-60. While it’s worth noting that these results should be taken with a grain of salt, we really were not able to determine any cause for suspicion based on Intel’s setups. The machines were as clean as they could get, with the BIOS oversight having no tangible impact on most performance.