Feature Articles

Benchmarking Intel's 45nm Penryn

By Dr. Jimmy Tang - 18 Apr 2007

45nm is Looking Good!....

45nm is Looking Good!

Although Penryn is scheduled for mass production in the second half of 2007 and to launch in the first quarter of 2008, Intel is already demonstrating working samples of Penryn more than nine months ahead of launch. The core clock of Penryn at 3.33GHz is testament that 45nm is running faster than current 65nm silicon and only time will tell if Intel would make these chips perform even faster.

The new enhancements to the current Core microarchitecture, as seen in some of these benchmarks, were quite awesome. The performance of Penryn, especially at video encoding using SSE4 and the Super Shuffle engine, were significantly better than current Core 2 processors. These new features would put Intel ahead of the game and it would certainly be difficult for AMD to catch up just by pure clock speed alone - that is if they continue with their current architecture.

At this point of time, Intel is sampling Penryn at 3.33GHz. By 2008, we are expecting Intel to have a production stepping capable of higher clock speeds. Intel has not detailed any specific speeds at which they will launch Penryn, but we are expecting speeds similar to what we have benchmarked here. Whatever it is, we expect these processors to have great overclockability and we just can't wait to get our hands on these babies as they look prepared to set new performance records.

Intel's 45nm Penryn.

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