Tests
Unfortunately we did not get to pick and choose the tests to run on these processors. We didn’t even run the tests actually. All tests were run internally by Intel themselves. As a result, all numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. However, we wouldn’t expect Intel to exaggerate anything, since they really don’t have any reason to. Even if Penryn did not offer a sizable performance increase, it’s current lineup far surpasses all competition. That said, Intel chose to run several very good tests that test either processor performance or overall system performance, both of which are certainly good things to test!

3DMark06

In addition to the standard 3DMark score that gamers and enthusiasts have come to hold as the holy grail of system performance benchmarks, the suite from Futuremark also produces component specific scores. One of these scores is for the processor.


While the dual-core Penryn processor comes up short of the QX6700 from Intel, its quad-core sibling does quite well against the gold standard. When comparing the score of the quad-core Penryn against that of the QX6700, it appears that the difference tells two-sided story. This performance difference cannot quite be explained by the simple speed bump from 2.67 to 3.33GHz. We presume the SSE4 instructions capability of the Penryn processors, which aid in multimedia operations, play a significant roll here.


The differences evident from the overall test seem to back up the theory that the SSE4 capabilities of the Penryn chip offer a substantial performance boost. However, when testing 3DMark06 with a video card as capable as the GeForce 8800GTX, the final performance numbers are always going to be high and usually fairly consistent. Because of this, we don’t think 3DMark06 is the greatest test for comparing two micro-architecture generations, due to its heavy dependence on the graphics subsystem.