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Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield: Harder, Better, Faster Strongerby Anand Lal Shimpi on 9/8/2009 12:00 AM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
343 Comments
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nikrusty - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - linkWith this article Anandtech is Harder, Better, Faster Stronger.
Seriously AWESOME ARTICLE! It cleared many of my doubts FLAT OUT! Now I know i5 is the way to go especially becoz I dont care about overclocking and just want good gaming performance...nothing screamingly extreme. Budget + Performance always keeps you level headed. Reply
shiro - Wednesday, October 21, 2009 - linkwhat is that monster hoop of death heatsink that's on page 3? lol Reply
Eeqmcsq - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - linkI asked a similar question in one of the other articles, so pardon me if this sounds repetitive.
According to the Turbo charts, the slowest Turbo speed is higher than the stock speed. Why is that? For example, why not just make the 750 a stock GHz of 2.8 GHz instead of 2.66GHz? Reply
Eeqmcsq - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - linkArgh, please ignore. Replied using the wrong Firefox tab. Reply
The0ne - Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - linkClear up what you're trying to show on the graphs please. You're getting more FPS at max setting than at min settings? Label the graphs like you did with the others please. With the others I can just look and understand what you're doing. With these, I'm scratching my head. Reply
The0ne - Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - linkAh, turbo mode represented in FPS >.>' Reply
kkara4 - Monday, September 14, 2009 - linkover at bittech.net, they are saying that it is more worth it to go for the i7-920, if we are considering anything above the i5. this is a conflicting story, since anand is recommending the lynnfields. anand or anybody else for that matter could you please see their articles and tell me what they have done wrong? (or perhaps you guys failed to see something). Your article explains things in great technical detail which i can understand since i have studied microprocessors, hence i am more inclined to go for lynnfield. anyway if someone could cross check that would be good Reply
mapesdhs - Tuesday, September 15, 2009 - link
If I've understood Anand's analysis correctly, the conclusion is that,
for application mixes which involve a lot of single and/or dual-threaded
codes, and assuming one is not interested in high-end SLI/CF setups
or hard oc'ing all 4 cores all the time for tasks like video encoding
or animation rendering, the 750/860 are better buys because they
will internally push 1-core and 2-core clocks to a higher rate than
occurs with the 920 via the Turbo function, giving better results
than the 920, and of course the 750/860 are cheaper solutions
(although the 860 price is similar to the 920, the mbd costs less
than an X58, from what people say).
So it depends on what you want to use your system for. No interest
in CF/SLI? Running games that don't hammer 4 cores? An i5 750 or
i7 860 makes more sense. Using apps that don't use more than 2 cores?
Again the 750/860 is more logical, especially from a cost viewpoint.
This ties in with the other advantage of the X58 platform, ie. the
upgrade path to 6-core and 8-core CPUs. If this is something that
holds no value to you, then P55 makes more sense.
As always, it depends on what you want to use the system for. The
attraction of the 860 from a more general point of view is that it
also offers good quad-core performance when one does use all 4 cores
without sacrificing the traditional higher-clocks possible with
single or dual core setups when one is only using 1 or 2 cores. It's
the best of both worlds, at least for out-of-the-box functionality
However, if one does intend to use all 4 cores almost all the time
(I do) with a strong overclock, then the 920 is a better choice
because of the voltage issue and (IMO) the 6/8-core upgrade path.
Likewise, high-end multi-GPU setups work better with X58.
Given that general usage of a PC rarely uses more than 2 cores, this
is why the 750 and 860 are such attractive options.
As for the 870, despite its 1/2-core speed advantages, the price is
too high IMO. For that kind of money, a 920 makes more sense, paired
with better cooling if one has such a spare budget, or buy a better
GPU setup which, for gaming, is where the real bottleneck lies.
Anand, please correct me if I'm wrong with the above.
PS. As always, real-world pricing issues can make a mess of on-paper
technical conclusions. Also, although many games/apps don't exploit
more than 2 cores now, this is likely to change in the near future as
multi-core coding becomes more pervasive in the industry.
mapesdhs - Monday, September 14, 2009 - link
Re your comments about an X58 advantage being the ability to use
later 6 and 8-core CPUs...
I've been planning to build an i7 920 system for video encoding, so
a max oc on all cores is useful to me; from the article I thus infer
the X58 is a better choice.
However, if I did buy such a setup instead of an i5 or i7 860, what
would the cost tradeoff be do you think when the 6-core CPUs arrive
with respect to upgrading? By that I mean, for total processing
throughput, do you reckon a 6-core upgrade would be significantly
cheaper than simply buying a second i7 920 setup? (gfx not an issue)
If not, then the ability to use 6/8-core CPUs later in this context
is somewhat lessened, something that would apply to animation
rendering aswell (ie. extra complete systems perhaps more cost
effective in increased overall throughput compared to upgrading to
more cores). Any ideas? Also, unless the applications used can
exploit more than 4 cores, the later 6-core CPUs won't help. I have
about 1500 hours of material to convert to DivX. Each file is about
40 to 45 minutes (documentary), so converting multiple files on
multiple systems at the same time is very doable.
Given the above, I'm looking forward to more details on how a max
oc'd i860/i870 compares to a max oc'd 920.
At present I'm just using a 6000+ setup to work out the appropriate
format/conversion paths.
PS. May I suggest you don't bother replying to those moaning in such
an obviously ludicrous manner about the Turbo mode being active? I
have the distinct impression their posts are designed purely to
irritate. Please don't encourage them. Anyone with any sense will
read the article and understand the salient points you've highlighted
about Turbo mode being an integral function of the chip.
Milleman - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - linkI would say that i5 750 and Pehnom II X4 965 is fully comparable. AMD just have to adjust the pricetag and the price/performance will be on par. Looking at the Gaming rig performance, both i5 750 and Pehnom II X4 965 are well enough for gaming pleasure. I wouldn't shell out my bucks for the more expensive Intel top models. It's such a waste of money, unless you are working with huge video and image editing processes. Reply
jnr0077 - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - linkwell i have the better model i5 750 1156 socket gaming score is 5.9 on basic 500 gb hd 7200 with a ssd it hit 7.9 on a gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6 12gb ram. as for the price
cost was cheep intel (R)quad core (TM) i5 750 @2.66 GHz 2.67GHz cost around £100 mobo cost me £100 i though it is a very cheep upgrade considering price i wood like to here what score any Pehnom II X4 965 hit Reply
Milleman - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - linkThe article itself is good. But Why on earth compare a standard clocked CPU (AMD) against overclocked ones (Intel). Makes no objective sense att all. I's like having a car test between a standard car and a tuned racecar. Of course the racecar will win in performance. The overclock results shouldn't be there at all. Maybe as a remark that tell what will happen if one would like to overclock. Looks rather unfair and biased.
So... why?? Reply
Nich0 - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - linkAll I saw in this article is comparison of CPUs in their stock configuration. What's wrong with that? Reply
Bozo Galora - Friday, September 11, 2009 - linkI must say this was a very good logical coherent review with just about all the info one would require
Good job - I had no intention of getting one of these, but now I may change my mind Reply
IntelUser2000 - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkhttp://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-0299...">http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-0299...
According to Intel...
Core i7 870:
Core i7 860:
Core i5 750:
So the i7 870 has higher Turbo mode for 3 and 4 cores than 860 does. Reply
Nich0 - Friday, September 11, 2009 - linkYeah and that means that the OC numbers for the 750 with Turbo don't make sense. For example 4160 / 160 = 26 which would be a Turbo of 6 BCLK.
Same thing for the 860 OC 3C/4C Turbo number.
Am I missing something? Reply
IntelUser2000 - Friday, September 11, 2009 - linkIts likely Anand has ES versions or such which allows multiplier adjustments. But at stock, the linked speeds are the Turbo Boost grades. Reply
Nich0 - Friday, September 11, 2009 - linkYeah obviously I am not disputing the stock OC with Turbo enabled (that sounds weird: stock OC?), ie 160*20= 3200, but just what it means in terms of Turbo: it 'should' read 3.36 for 3/4C and 3.84 for 1/2C if the 1/1/4/4 Turbo spec is correct. Reply
rdkone - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkI don't like the fact that the BCLK directly and synchronously communicates with PCIe buss, thus affecting the videocard negatively (among other PCIe cards)... This is like overclocking years ago whereas the PCI bus would be affected in the same way and causing headaches... This is a major issue I feel for those wanting to push a fairly big overclock on these CPU's... Intel screwed the pooch for us overclockers I feel... Just more justification to limp along with my core 2 quad at 4.1Ghz rock solid... Like others have said, is funny how the articles don't show older CPU overclocks against all this new garb... In the past they used to... But that hurts sales : ) Reply
SnowleopardPC - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkOk, so what type of boost do I get over a Q6600 with 8gb of ram and windows 7 64?
Is it worth upgrading or waiting for that 6 core 32nm to come out next year?
To upgrade to any of these I will need to replace a motherboard and ram with the processor. Reply
Supershanks - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkGreat Article Anand, I read it with great interest.
However I found somthing that was strange and unexpected today
My I7-860 was running at 30x133 3990 when running nucleus, that's according to cPU-z I have a link , but can't post http in this comment ?
I'd appreciate your insight ?
Gary Key - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkYou need to change your version of CPU-Z. I have a screenshot somewhere around here of 48x133. ;) Reply
Scali - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkOn a slightly related note... With these new P55 boards I see that especially Asus uses a new line of onboard audio chips from VIA.
I haven't really been able to find much info on these chips. I'd like to know how they compare to Realtek and other onboard offerings.
Could you guys spend some time on reviewing the onboard audio next time you review one of these boards? Eg, what does the control panel for these chips look like, what features does it have (eg, can you have realtime encoding like DTS connect or DD Live?), what is the general driver quality like (proper support of 3d/eax effects etc)?
I think that's what's been missing in general, the past few years. Onboard audio has gotten quite advanced, to the point where most people no longer use a separate soundcard (some boards actually come with some sort of X-Fi card). However, I rarely see onboard audio reviewed, only audio cards. Reply
agawtrip - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkfor me, i find this review is misleading if you are not a gamer - for i5-750 and PII x4 965.
1. motherboard and video card - non-gamer dont buy sli/xfire board. onboard graphics is fine(780g/785g). for now, boards for i5 setup doesn't have onboard graphics. what will you do? you will be forced to buy a video card (maybe 4550/9400gt for $40).
i5-750 - $195, GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD4 - $150, nvidi 9400gt - $40
PII x4 965 - $245, GIGABYTE GA-MA785GMT-UD2H - $90, no video card
AMD setup is actually cheaper but slower. it's all up to you.
2. power consumption - since you are forced to buy video card, it will consume additional power while AMD setup (780/785G) won't.
well that's just my opinion.
please inform me and the others if i given up wrong informatin Reply
chrnochime - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkOr you can get a motherboard that's quite a bit cheaper:
which is 120..
And yes I know these are NE prices, and that it might be more expensive/cheaper somewhere else Reply
Hrel - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkIt DOES NOT have hyperthreading. Enabling it wouldn't increase the cost of the chip, it purely a political move. I HATE that! If a CPU maker has something that can increase the performance of my cpu, at no cost to them, then should enable it, at no cost to me. EVERY CPU should have unlocked multipliers. EVERY CPU should have hyperthreading. Reply
jnr0077 - Friday, July 27, 2012 - linkhyperthreading steal ram from your pc i have a i5 750 + radeon hd 4850 it plays crysis 2 maxed the witcher 2 maxed skyrim maxed i think you need to read up on it before you comment :) Reply
PhilTaylor - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkFSX is well known as a CPU-limited game, it might be more interesting to test it then a GPU limited game like Crysis. For instance, the difference between 2 and 3 memory channels might have a greater impact on FSX, again due to its CPU-limited nature. Reply
cactusdog - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkA very good, detailed bunch of tests but there is a surprising lack of information regarding temps? Other review sites have done the same thing but there IS temp issues with these CPUs as with i7 1366 ones. That CPU at 4.0 Ghz on air will be around 90 degrees but little is said.
Anandtech is more honest than most review sites (most of which are really just advertisements) but sometimes i get the impression that nobody wants to upset Intel.
araczynski - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - link...bottom line to me, my E8500/crossfire setup still has plenty of gaming life left. I'll check back in a year. Reply
Seramics - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkSo what's the big deal here? I dun tink its that impressive, just good. While S196 of 750 look to outcompete the "way" more expensive $245 of AMD's 965, the truth is that the mobo that you need to pair the 750/860/870 is far from being competitive. P55 is severely stripped down and it is only slightly cheaper than their X58 counterpart. So wht if 750 is cheaper than 965 by about %50? Did you just buy the cpu only? Ppl shud at least look at the CPU+mobo price because they both come together. Truth is, when you take into account mobo price, 750 is far from outcompete 965. Added up, I think its only about balanced. The 750 is a better CPU, but it also cost more. In comparison to their socket 1366 partner, socket 1156 system cost a little less, but they are also inferior a little bit. So what's special them? Sure, there are better turbo and better thermal performance. For me, that is all that is good about the 1156 CPU. For enthusiast, socket 1366 is the way to go. Reply
jnr0077 - Friday, July 27, 2012 - linki have a i5 750 chip cost £100 a gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6 cost £100 as it has six ram slots 16gb max radeon hd 4850 i love this mobo i cant fault it for the price i find it is a brilliant upgrade for cost i spent £250 considering the price of shops build you own pc you get what you put in :) very happy with the i5 750 1156 socket windows score on basic 500gb 7200 is 5.9 sweet 7.9 with a ssd :) can anyone tell me what the amd 965 hit on base score as i will never DV8 to amd intel 4 me allways :) Reply
hob196 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkHi,
Thanks for another great article.
I figure that having PCI-e on chip would be great to reduce the latency. Any thoughts about plugging non graphics PCI-e cards into the second PCI-e slot?
I've heard some motherboards cripple the 2nd slots performance down to x1 if you plug an x1 card in the other slot (in a shared x8 environment)any evidence of this?
In case you're curious I work with digital audio in a studio environment and I'm always striving to reduce the latency of audio going through the CPU.
These days, the latency (in streaming audio) is down to how fast the CPU can push floating point plus any overhead for the buffers in the various busses you go through. e.g. A firewire sound interface adds a few ms because of the inherent buffers between CPU -> Northbridge -> Southbridge -> Firewire -> Interface.
tempestor - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkAnother great article Anand!
You should consider a 2nd job as a novel writer! :D
lp, M. Reply
AndyKH - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI don't really get it:
It is stated that most PCIe cards don't work well with higher frequencies and that the BCLK frequency should be kept at multiples of 133 MHz, and then they overclock it using a BCLK of ~200 MHz in one instance???
Doesn't the 133 MHz requirement make it pretty much impossible to overclock?
Someone please enlighten me. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkIt doesn't make it impossible to overclock, just impossible to overclock (very high) without additional voltage.
Take care,
Anand Reply
AndyKH - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkThank you for the response!
I see how using a higher voltage will increase switching speed of the buffers driving the PCIe bus. However, I fail to see why it would make it any less dificult for PCIe cards to cope with the increased clock frequency, unless the increased voltage is also fed to the PCIe cards (is this the case?). Otherwise I assume they would surely experience the same problems driving communication to the CPU?
Also, you write multiples of 133 MHz but overclock to 200 MHz BCLK. Shouldn't it read multiples of 33 MHz? Reply
TotalLamer - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI really, really don't understand why Anand is so obsessed with Turbo Modes. Any enthusiast who dares call himself such is going to clock this chip to the moon, at which point Turbo doesn't do anything. So with a 4.2GHz i7 870, all you're really left with is an i7 920 with worse multi-GPU gaming performance and and a less-certain upgrade path. Reply
coconutboy - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkYou're assuming all enthusiasts think like you do, but the heavy majority of people (enthusiast or not) want nothing to do with a $500+ i7 870 cpu. The i7 920, 860, and i5 920 are much more attractive options.
There are plenty of "enthusiasts" who instead prefer silent computers that use no fans, or people living in hot climates who focus on very low temps, or all manner of different things. On top of that, the overwhelming majority of people simply do not care about any of the aforementioned, and those people buy the heavy majority of computers.
I started OCing in 1996, and used to OC pretty heavily, but got tired of constant tweaking or seeing my well-worn parts die prematurely. Now I tend to focus on very quiet computers that have a small/moderate overclock. So taking an i5 750 or i7 860 and raising it up 200-400 MHz and leaving turbo on is very appealing to me. Also of note is the extra heat generated and the extra money I'll spend on my electric bill by having a 24/7 overclock versus turbo modes. Dig the link and scroll to the bottom-
The 13 watt increase at idle is no big deal, but 133 extra watts under load, well... it's worth the performance boost and heat to some folks, but other people (like me) look at those things as tradeoffs that need to be weighed versus reliability, cost for extra cooling, noise, my electric bill etc. Reply
Skiprudder - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkI think that some of us are quite honestly getting more green conscious these days too. It's nice to have a CPU this fast that's also this energy efficient. We can get similar to OCed performance at a much smaller power envelope. I know it doesn't add up to a lot over the course of a year (less than $100 I assume), but these things add up and it saves me some dinero on the power bills! Reply
Ann3x - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - link1/ There is no chance that any of these chip can run safely with no fan.
2/ You dont get huge temperature increases if you dont overvolt, just clock changes result in very small temperature changes. look at the article you linked. The 3 new chips use EXACTLY the same power despite their differing clock speeds.
3/ New energy saving technology works with overclock just like it does with stock clock ed CPUs (eg energy states, my i7 is overclocked to 4ghz on stock volts, when its not needed it clock down - same end effect as these new chips (albeit slightly less elegant)).
This whole fuss about turbo mode is just marketing gumph and yet people are totally sucked in by the hype. Reply
coconutboy - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - link1- I never said anything about running the CPU w/o a fan. Fanless watercooling is an option, as is quiet low rpm fans.
2- Clocking w/o increasing voltage does increase heat and whether or not you consider that to be a significant amount depends on the cooling solution you use. I made no claim that OC'd temps would increase as much as overvolting.
Your opinion about the validity of turbo mode is just that, you opinion. You and I can agree to disagree. Reply
titanium001 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI was excited to see the article, but was left wondering and scratching my head when gaming performance was evaluated. I didn't see any 1920 x 1200 or 2560 x 1600 comparisons anywhere. Do the i7 800 series take a significant performance hit in these settings. I guess everything can't be delivered until a full in depth review. Have to just wait. I'll reserve my judgment about the 800 series until then, for now, it's just another proc. Thanks for the initial preview Anandtech.com. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkHave a look at the SLI/CF Multi-GPU Gaming page, I include some GPU limited tests at the bottom of that page.
At higher resolutions P55, X58 and even Phenom II/790FX all perform the same if you're GPU limited. The PCIe limitations of P55/Lynnfield only come into play when you're running in multi-GPU mode because the x16 interface gets broken up into a pair of x8s.
Take care,
Anand Reply
NoobyDoo - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link... remember when C2D was released ? Reply
coconutboy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkAfter thoroughly reading a lot of the articles at Toms, Anand, xbit etc, Lynnfield looks great and has been worth the wait. However, it's not an absolute sell as a gamer box IMO. My g/f and I have been waiting to build a pair of new gaming computers, but wanted to see what i5 had to offer first. Now that NDAs are down, the $30-70 savings for p55 versus comparable x58 mobos is great, but some things about i5 still make me want an i7 920 instead.
My g/f and I plan on buying a pair of GTX 275s, one for each computer. Then later on as our systems age, we'll put both 275s in one box and buy a newer vid card for the other system. We also moderately overclock our CPUs (3.2-3.4 would be what I expect for a i7 920) to boost performance w/o shortening the lifespan too much because our gamer boxes usually end up moving down the line in our home network to become servers or some such.
Taking into account everything I've been reading at hardware sites thus far, we'll likely build one Lynnfield and one i7 for our gaming rigs. I expect one of the current gamer computers we build will migrate to become a VMware machine later on which means an i7 920 w/ (eventually) 24GBs of RAM is very attractive. The ability to use a 6 core CPU later on counts for a lot as well. Reply
coconutboy - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkedit- I meant to be comparing an mildly overclocked i7 920 @ stock voltage and 3.3-3.4GHz versus an i7 860/870, not an i5. I'd often prefer the 920 (but not always of course) for my uses. Reply
thebeastie - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSuch a good complete review, EXCEPT there is no information of how much power the CPU used with it was hard overclocked to its 4.2Ghz mark.
With its intergrated PCIe 100million transistor count controller inside the CPU this would of been really interesting info.
Gary Key - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkThe system power utilized (measured at the wall) was 301W for the 4.2GHz overclock on the 870 under an eight thread 100% load test on the board. Reply
justme2009 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhy are you overhyping this garbage? I'm waiting for Clarkdale. I'm still ticked off that Intel caved to the manufacturers and held off on releasing it, we were supposed to have it in the 4th quarter of this year, now it will be first half of 2010.
This new nehalem (even if it's for desktops) will be nothing compared to the mobile nehalem next year.
My only other question is, why the hell has Clarkdale/Arrendale information been buried? There hasn't been a peep from anyone about it since February. Reply
Gary Key - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkActually the manufacturers wanted Clarkdale desperately for the school/holiday shopping seasons. It is delayed as they are still debugging the platform, unofficially I think that means the drivers are not ready. ;) Believe me, if we had a stable Clarkdale platform worthy of a preview, you would have read about it already. Reply
justme2009 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkYou are incorrect sir. The manufacturers were complaining to Intel that they couldn't get rid of the current stock before Intel released mobile Nehalem, so Intel caved.
Needless to say, I'm waiting for mobile Nehalem (clarkdale/arrendale). With a 32nm manufacturing process, plus starting in 2010, Intel will begin to move both the northbridge and southbridge chips onto the processor die. The move should complete some time around 2011 as far as I can tell.
It will be far better than what we have today, and I'm really ticked off at the manufacturers for holding back progress because of their profit margin. Reply
Gary Key - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI spoke directly with the manufacturers, not unnamed sources. The story is quite different than the rumors that were posted. I will leave it at that until we product for review. Reply
justme2009 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkOf course the manufacturers wouldn't fess up to it. It's bad business, and it makes them look bad. It already angered a great many people. I don't think they are rumors at all. Reply
justme2009 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkPersonally I'm holding off on buying a new system until the northbridge/southbridge migration to the processor die is complete, ~2 years from now. That will definitely be the time to buy a new system. Reply
ClagMaster - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"These things are fast and smart with power. Just wait until Nehalem goes below 65W..."
I surely will Mr Shimpi with this exceptional processor. I am going to wait until the summer of 2010 when prices are the lowest, rebates are the sweetest, before I buy my i7 860. By that time, hopefully, there would be 65W versions available on improved stepping. It's worth the wait.
I would wager the on-chip PCIe controller could use some additional optimization which would result in lower power draw for a given frequency.
Intel sure delivered the goods with Lynnfield. Reply
cosminliteanu - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWell done Anandtech for this article... :) Reply
ereavis - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkgreat article. Good replies to all the bashing, most seem to have misread.
Now, we want to see results in AnandTech Bench! Reply
MODEL3 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWow, the i5 750 is even better than what i was expecting...
For the vast, vast majority of the consumers, (not enthusiasts, overclocking guys, etc...) with this processor Intel effectively erased the above 200$ CPU market...
I hope this move to have the effect to kill their ASP also... (except AMDs...) (not that this will hurt Intel much with so many cash, but it is better than nothing...)
I see that the structure/composition in this review and in many others tech sites reviews is very good, maybe this time Intel helped more in relation with the past regarding info / photos / diagrams / review guide etc...
One question that i have (out of the conspiracy book again...) is,
if the integration of the PCI-Express controller in the CPU die on the mainstream LGA-1156 platform will be a permanent strategy from now on...
and if the recent delay for the PCI-Express standard 3.0 has a connection with the timing of the launch of mainstream LGA-1156 based CPUs with PCI-Express 3.0 controller integrated...
Sure, they can launch future LGA-1156 motherboard chipsets with PCI-Express 3.0 controller, but doesn't this contradict the integration strategy that Intel just started with the new processors?
MODEL3 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI can't edit...
I just want to clarify that the PCI-Express 3.0 question is for LOL reasons, not taken serious...
mschira - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI wonder if a 4xPCIe RAID adapter directly connected to a PCIe slot that is connected to the CPU is any faster than it is for a Core i7 920....
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkLess than a one percent difference in my testing so far. Reply
Jamahl - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhy do your benches falsely state 2.66ghz when they are clearly running faster than that? Reply
rbbot - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linklol - I've just been berating a reviewer on another site for benchmarking with turbo off! In that case the review wasn't targeted at an overclocking audience, but even here I can't see the argument for benchmarking with it disabled.
Yes you do need to turn it off for extreme overclocking, but this review is comparing the chips in their stock configuration and stock configuration is on. Reply
maxxcool - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkAs for false, well gee, you were told it was on. Didn't you read that? or are you snakeoils brother? Reply
goinginstyle - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThey list the base CPU speeds, it was discussed clearly in the article that turbo is enabled, it is not a false statement for reporting what you will purchase. Apparently you just want to flame bait here and I hope they ban you and the two other nut jobs. Reply
rgallant - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkpeople see what they want to see I guess
-I wanted to see the multi gpu test, 1156 vs 1366 , clock vs clock ,fps vs fps ,16x vs 8x on die , not one chip overclocking it's self unless you show the numbers for turbo on and off, what if the 1366 mb used for the benches came out of the box and by the default bios overclocked the i7 920 to 3.8 ,would those numbers be included as stock out of the box. I don't think so , that feature would be turned off on the mb.for the benches. 1156 numbers could mean nothing really.
-all cpu's should been locked at 3.6 at least for the multi gpu test or one test anyways.
-the 8x 8x lane issue is the only crippled feature on the new chips ,and it seems to take a back seat to the $50.00 savings for a mb for a $600.00 i7 870 chip ,or $900.00 CND .lol On sept.05 my local shop had the i7 920 D0 and the i7 860 both at $345 CND.
-good review as always ,just missing that part for me , looking to commit on a 1156 or a 1366 upgrade. Reply
maxxcool - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYeah, you got to get rid of snakeoil, he is quiet the troll on the TechReport forums as well. He has been banned from several sites already. Reply
andrenb91 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linki5 is faster than PII's! but gotta wait for the lower end ones come out
because these $190+ chips aren't the one ones that brings up revenue for companies like amd or intel...of course intel has the upper hand here, it could use as a propaganda do deliver up the slower parts. Amd has value and some good cpus at the lower end... that ones bring profits to the company,amd strategy is looking good for now, but it's design must change (native dual/tripe core versions of Phenom II) and the die size have to get smaller to compete next year (against 32nm low end ones...) well I use amd budget ones, for what I do is good enough, ( thin about $400 pc in USA, live in Brazil...) still, I can play some 40fps games and do some video encoding with my gpu,my point is, amd still have the lower-end market, the problem is, if were some of that people that think pentium is a company name, I would by the pentium cpus instead of amd strange cpus. that's why intel sells a lot more desktops and notebooks, of course the performace is great at some 700+ pcs and laptops, but amd has the lower-end, and there it is what amd is looking for: market share, and taht will pump amd back again by 2011 with its fusion apu, intel already controls 80% of mainstream,and high-end markets, but doesn't have a player for the lower-end, thats what I'm looking for a good old intel cpu that beats p2x3 or athlonIIx4 by intel at about $100. then I'll buy my next cpu, probably an intel, or continue with Amd, time will tell... Reply
andrenb91 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linksorry for my english and, these benchmarks are for windows only, over linux intel i5 will not have this crazy advantage at all, well but who of us uses linux anyway?(don't lie to me, it's a dual boot...) well my system specs are: phenomII x3 705e,4gb ddr3 1333,hd 4650 basicaly a low-end to mainstream.. Reply
lordmetroid - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI am using Linux! Reply
andrenb91 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkc'mon probably u still running windows for somethings...wine doesn't work owith every thin...i run liux on dual boot for years and still trying to make wine run fligh simulator x..which is the only game I play...remember, these benchmarkes are only for win bases pcs, in linux the history is diferent, see it at phoronix.com... Reply
james jwb - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkis turbo boost on for the benchmarks? Reply
snakeoil - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkyes they benchmarked with turbo boost, that is cheating because thats overclocking the processor at least 600 mhz and presenting the results as it were at stock speeds.
that's abusing the reader's trust. Reply
maxxcool - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkHahaha, you are just as much of a idiot here as on techreport snake! ... did you come here and claim to have proof that i5 will not run xp-mode to?
hahahaha, your just sad that Amd did not come up with this feature 1st. Reply
Jarp Habib - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"yes they benchmarked with turbo boost, that is cheating because thats overclocking the processor at least 600 mhz and presenting the results as it were at stock speeds.
that's abusing the reader's trust. "
This statement is a load of bullcrap. Anand's intent is to present the benchmarks in a way reflective of the chip's standard performance in normal use- hence not manually overclocking for maximized performance. The processor's very design revolves on itself automatically shutting down inactive cores and boosting the speed of active cores, *regardless* of what the end user does to the chip in BIOS or what apps he's running. Since all you need to do to use Turbo Boost is just *install the CPU in your system* then benchmarks should be run with it enabled.
If you want to COMPLETELY level the playing field, then TurboBoost should be shut down, for both Bloomfield i7 chips and Lynnfield i5 AND Lynnfield i7, as well as future i3 and i9. Also, HyperThreading must be disabled from all chips, 3DNow!, SpeedStep, Cool N' Quiet, MMX and the entire SSE instruction sets. After all, each different type of CPU executes those standard instruction sets differently. And since the SpeedStep and Cool N Quiet instructions force the chip to underclock and shut off cores while at idle, they must be eliminated from testing as well, or they'll throw off your idle power consumption benchmarks.
Since you will be normalizing the clock frequencies as well, you can save time by only needing to test just one chip from each product line. I'm not sure just how you will normalize the clock frequencies of your test units *without overclocking or underclocking* some of them though. Perhaps you'll let me know?
Meanwhile, back in the real world... Reply
Voo - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThe difference is, that turbo mode impairs the possible benefit of overclocking the chip, while most things you enumerated do not.
If you want to get the maximum out of the 860 you've got to disable turbo mode as we see in the review, so for everyone who'd want to overclock their CPU the most interesting test would be a comparison between the two chips both at their maximum stable performance. Which at the moment means disabling turbo mode as we can see. Reply
erple2 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkA-HA! So really, you're just interested in the benchmark "What does the maximum overclock do", not "How does the CPU perform at normal operations". BTW, does disabling HT does improve overclocking a little bit, so should that also be disabled? Cool-n-Quiet plus SpeedStep may also affect overclocking capabilities. Should those be disabled? I fail to see the difference between what the GP said and your justifications. Reply
MadMan007 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI'm not bothered by enabled Turboboost in a 'stock speed' review either but I would really like to see more sites run their benchmark suite with 3.6-4.0GHz (or higher) C2D, C2Q and Phenom II versus overclocked but non-Turboboost i5/i7. The reason is that this type of comparison would be most directly useful for the site's enthusiast readerships to know what the actual difference between *their rig* and an i5/i7 would be. Reply
Kaleid - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkSeconded. Reply
yacoub - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linklol, what a stupid comment. yes it's "cheating" to benchmark the processor the way it comes out of the box, which also happens to be how it is used in the real world environment. Reply
Voo - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWell there are many users who don't bother with overclocking so the tests aren't "illegal" or anything.
But I tend to agree that most users who would be interested in buying an i7 920 or i7 860 would overclock it, so turbo mode wouldn't help at all, as we see with the OC results.
I'm curious if PCI-e on die is the only problem and if we'll see new chips who benefit from turbo mode even when overclocked. After all the principle behind turbo mode doesn't change if you overclock, does it? Reply
james jwb - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIF that's true, i'm not at all happy with this review. But i'll wait for someone else to confirm this for obvious reasons... anand, confirm! Reply
Voo - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYou read the text, didn't you? It was mentioned several times.. Reply
james jwb - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linki don't have time to read through all of it right now, was just flicking through and immeditaly thought to ask the question. I will read it fully later on, though.
Hence why i asked the question. You say "it", as in which way, benches had turbo, benches didn't? Reply
snakeoil - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkyes again, turbo was on for all the benchmarks which is illegal and biased. Reply
maxxcool - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkyes, the federal government says making a feature that makes your product better is legal. Reply
JarredWalton - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIllegal and biased? Yes, Intel is illegally making their CPUs run better at all workloads for normal users that don't overclock. Someone should arrest them! What would be biased is to test these CPUs in a fashion that artificially limits performance. Sure, it would be nice to see performance compared with and without Turbo enabled, but generally there's not enough time to run every potentially interesting test scenario. Reply
snakeoil - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkthere you go, finally you said it.
all the benchmarks have at least 600 mhz over the processor's stock speed.
that is outrageous, then if you want to compare the result with phenom 2 you have to overclock phenom 2 at least 600 mhz over stock speed.
just to be fair Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThe processor's stock speed is variable according to the workload it's running, that's what turbo mode does. AMD will enable similar functionality in 2011. This is the out-of-box performance of Lynnfield. Turbo mode is a feature of the processor as it has been since the mobile Penryn days (and more recently Nehalem). There's no reason to disable it as no end user would, unless you want to make Intel look worse for some reason.
We also ran Turbo on vs. off numbers in the review: http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=36...">http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=36...
Take care,
Anand Reply
snakeoil - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkwhat part of stock speed you don't understand?
if you are going to compare 2 processors both must have a fixed stock speed, if you increase the frequency of one of them by 1Ghz over the stock speed that is illegal.
or either both have a stock fixed speed to benchmark or both are overclocked.
overclocking is the same it doesn't matter if it's auto overclocking or manual overclocking.
we the people demand justice.
we the people are not stupid.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkYou may find that your desire for fixed speed comparisons will become difficult in the future. Both AMD and Intel are going to be embracing this sort of an approach to clock speeds.
Overclocking is not the same as what is happening with turbo mode. Overclocking is not officially supported by the manufacturer, it is running a part faster than it was sold at in order to improve performance. If an application crashes because you've overclocked your chip too far that's no fault of the manufacturer.
Turbo mode runs the chip at a frequency it's guaranteed to work at, it's operating within spec. It simply re-allocates thermal resources; Intel could disable 3 of the cores and sell a Core i7 870 as a 3.6GHz single-core processor, or disable 2 of the cores and sell it as a 3.47GHz processor, or only disable one core and sell it as a 3.2GHz processor. Instead of making the end user choose, instead you get a dynamic processor that can configure itself in real time depending on the workload.
This is in stark contrast to AMD's Overdrive utility which is actually overclocking. The chips aren't validated at the overdrive speeds and you're thus overclocking. Lynnfield is validated at both its standard clock speed and its turbo speeds, just like Bloomfield. So long as you don't exceed the TDP of the chip, it will work at those turbo frequencies. The things that will prevent it from turboing were outlined in the article.
Once again, I am not increasing the speed of anything - Lynnfield is simply working as designed. Whether it's in a Dell machine or in a custom build, it will always work this way. It's what the end user will see the moment they turn on a Lynnfield machine. The end user would not see the same from a Core 2 or a Phenom II based machine.
Take care,
Jamahl - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkThe problem with this review is it has a bunch of graphs with intel cpus with speeds rated at a lot lower than what they actually are.
When you show a graph of an i5 @ 2.66 gigahertz beating a 3.4 gigahertz phenom II, that is false and that is a problem. This cpu was not ever at 2.66 gigahertz for any of these tests was it?
I suggest there is a problem with your reviewer also, not to mention his attitude about 'having a laugh' because i brought up this point? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkAgain, that is the default clock of the processor - in many cases (especially the heavily threaded tests) it will be running at that speed. Turbo mode is dynamic, it's impossible to put down exactly what speed the chip was running at as it'll change throughout each test.
You might see the chip run at 2.66GHz for several seconds, jump up to 3.46GHz then down to 3.2GHz, up to 3.6GHz and then back down to 2.66GHz all in the course of a single benchmark. It's repeatable, but there's no way to display all of that in a bar chart.
Take care,
Anand Reply
snakeoil - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkWhat you are doing is cheating, and people is not stupid.
you are saying that lynnfield is faster than phenom 2 because lynnfield is overclocked at least 600 mhz.
people is not stupid as you think, and what you are doing is outrageous.
if you are going to benchamark with turbo enabled then you have to overclock phenom 2 at least the same 600 mhz.
show some respect for your readers. or are you really on intel's payroll? Reply
Klober - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI am usually very respectful on the AnandTech and DailyTech forums and comments areas, but you sir are exactly as stupid as you are claiming people "is" not. Please read the article from beginning to end before continuing on your unjustified tirade. The processor is being used as intended by the manufacturer - to not test it in this way would be a disservice to the engineers who designed it and the company that produces it. Reply
snakeoil - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkif you dont want to disable turbo the overclock phenom 2 at least 600 mhz.
just to be fair. Reply
Gary Key - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - link"if you dont want to disable turbo the overclock phenom 2 at least 600 mhz.
just to be fair. "
You do realize that it takes near zero or sub-zero cooling to run the 965BE in stable manner at 4GHz with a 64-bit OS. When I say stable, I mean 24/7 multi-tasking, not a CPUZ screenshot or a SuperPi 1M bench. AMD has not solved this problem with the current stepping.
Once again, and for the last time, Intel's turbo function is a standard feature of the processor. AMD will be offering the exact same technology in their next processor family. Reply
snakeoil - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkthat's not true.
we demand justice and fair benchmarks.
you are losing all credibility and these benchmarks are worthless and unreal. Reply
goinginstyle - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkHow many times do they have to respond to you in a logical manner. You should be banned and in some countries that would mean a beheading for being so damn stupid. Reply
7Enigma - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - link"What you are doing is cheating, and people is not stupid."
Hand meet Face..... Gentleman we have a winner! Could you please post a picture of yourself so I can make a T-shirt? Reply
james jwb - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linki wouldn't go that far at all, but look a few comments above for my feelings on this. The honest way to go about this, Anand, was to do this review as you have done, but have a page or two dedicated to clock for clock, and to state in bold letter that turbo mode was on for the benches in the current review. Do this and all is forgiven
Have you stopped to think how well Turbo mode in Lynfield has boosted benchmarks compared to bloomsfield?
As i said, yep, nice feature, but i do not expect a site to fall for stuff like this, i'd do stock (turbo-crap) results like you have, because this feature is there and cannot just be ignored, but my interest would have been to present clock for clock results on other pages, and it should have been yours as well. You've done a disservice to the enthusiast here. I was loving Lynnfield in your review until i realised turbo was on, then i felt this review was 100% useless to what i care and want to know about - clock for clock, and it must be the same for a huge percent of your readers, who at this stage, some probably haven't even realized turbo was on in your results and are still salivating. All enthusiasts who like to overclock themselves and not have turbo trying to trick us in reviews want clock for clock, you left them out, that is serious cause for questioning what the hell is going on at Anandtech. Sure, for those here who run stock, the review suffices, but, well, i've made my point now i think...
This is the first real blunder i've seen on this site, but imo its a big one, and that blogger who hates you guys and posts up lots of stuff about your contradictions (to which so far i find all his posts false, the server blog guy, you know who i mean), today he'll have a field day on this one.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI can add a disclosure saying that turbo mode was enabled, but this has always been the case for our Nehalem reviews. We always try to review products with all of their features enabled as long as they ship that way and they don't reduce quality (e.g. certain GPU driver optimizations in the past).
While I'll gladly add a clock for clock against Bloomfield in a few tests, flip back to our Lynnfield preview if you want a preview of that (that chip could only turbo up by 1 multiplier - effectively making it a clock-for-clock comparison to Bloomfield).
Turbo mode in Lynnfield does help it against Bloomfield in the lighter threaded apps, do keep in mind that Bloomfield has turbo as well.
It seems like what you're saying is that you want the maximum overclock possible for all cores and as such you will definitely disable turbo mode. In that configuration, the only difference between Lynnfield and Bloomfield (from a purely CPU standpoint) is one channel of memory. As I've mentioned before, that one memory channel is not going to make a tremendous difference for the vast majority of users. But if this is what you're asking for, I can definitely provide it. I'm out in California this week for an unrelated product, let me get back and I'll include that data in my Core i7 860 review.
Take care,
Anand Reply
james jwb - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkthanks for the response, it's appreciated. I hold anandtech on a pedestal, and was just surprised not to see some clock for clock stuff for the overclockers out there. I haven't used a CPU at stock for 6+ years for my main rig, so clock for clock is very important, though as you've said, there won't be too much difference between bloomsfield and lynnfield, i'd still like to see it, though :)
As for your comment below about how intel and amd will be changing things soon for the stock users out there, well, i think clock for clock will become very important for overclocker then in these reviews, more so than ever to find out how each cpu performs, or maybe i'm wrong! Reply
ClownPuncher - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhy would they turn off a product feature when reviewing said product? Because PhII doesn't have it? That is like not including DX10.1 results for AMD in HAWX. Consumers usually buy products based on features, this product has an aggressive turbo boost. Reply
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"there you go, finally you said it.
all the benchmarks have at least 600 mhz over the processor's stock speed.
that is outrageous, then if you want to compare the result with phenom 2 you have to overclock phenom 2 at least 600 mhz over stock speed.
just to be fair "
First off, it is fair as that is how Intel ships the CPU, turbo is an integral part of the CPU's operation and is a major feature, end of subject.
Second, the 965 BE is not going to run stable at 4GHz under a 64-bit OS without near or sub-zero cooling. The Phenom IIs continue to have a problem when approaching 4GHz with a 64-bit OS. AMD has not fixed it yet. Reply
james jwb - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSorry, but i disagree. You seem to have swallowed some genious Intel marketing crap here. Yes, it's a nice feature, but any CPU can overclock, all overclockers will overclock, and your results gloss over that benchmarks were using turbo. This is bad, and the first time i've really seen this site do something really biased, or just stupid, not sure which...
I'm telling you now, a big percentage of your readers will see the results for the 920 and 750 as clock for clock comparisons and think its a very close game here, and it's not.
I'll forgive you once you do a clock for clock comparison, but i won't forget that you pushed turbo results and nothing else, and didn't put a warning big bold statements like you normally do for important info stating these are with turbo on. Watch all excitement for this review from overclockers dwindle if you do. Reply
goinginstyle - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThey had an entire section discussing turbo mode, comments were made in the results about the turbo advantage,and their system setup page clearly states turbo in turned on for both lynnfield and bloomfield. Read the article.
james jwb - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkthe look at turbo is rubbish, we need clock for clock against bloomsfield.
It's not in bold, its of that importance to state this for those who flick through, which you'll find many do.
And still, i have no gripe with the data presented so far (aside from it not being very, very clear that turbo was on), my problem is what has been left out, and that is - a lot of important stuff for the enthusiast who control his own overclock. Reply
goinginstyle - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkLook on page 9 under the system setup, it clearly states that turbo is enabled. It is mentioned several times in regards to the performance results. If you could read, you would have understood that TURBO was ON. Several pages of the article discussed the new Turbo mode and how important it is to the performance of the processor.
I suppose because you have labeled yourself an enthusiast that means you should be treated special. I guess between you, SnakeOil, TA152H, and a couple of others we could hold a special Olympics in your honor. Wouldn't that be special?
What is amazing, is that after reading several other reviews, it appears only Snakeoil at Tech Report is posting the same crap there as he did here. Everyone used Turbo mode in testing so why are you not posting at the other sites about how mistreated you are as an enthusiast.
Probably around 98% of computer owners do not overclock so why is it so hard to understand the testing methodology used here and elsewhere. For those of us that do not overclock, this article was perfectly suited for us and shows that we can get similar performance without opening up the box. Even for those who do overclock, they at least showed clock results and I am sure we will see more based on Anand's comments this morning. Reply
Jamahl - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkDigusting! How much money did intel bung you for this disgrace? Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkHow is that disgusting? It is the stock configuration of the processor. They are not doing all this testing as an e-pissing contest of who has better performance per clock, it is a comparison of retail products in real-world applications. If (and according to the review, when) AMD has something similar, I'd imagine they will test with that turned on too. Reply
Jamahl - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhy not benchmark the Phenom 2 with fusion for gaming anand??? Reply
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"Why not benchmark the Phenom 2 with fusion for gaming anand??? "
Have you actually tried using Fusion with Windows 7 x64? It is a total mess. I will be happy to show some results with it, most will say DNF, but that might not make you happy. ;) That said, AMD is working on it, especially trying to get it to play nice with AOD.
In the meantime, here is the current list of items to watch out for - http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_fusion.aspx?p=3&...">http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_fusion.aspx?p=3&... . Reply
Jamahl - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhat? It's AMD's fault that an unreleased 64-bit os is causing issues with their software?
How many people are using Window 7 64 bit who visit this website? Reply
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIt is just as bad in 64-bit Vista. I imagine a fair amount of people that visit the site are using the RTM version of Win7. Reply
Jamahl - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkwere you benchmarking a processor at 2.66 gigahertz or a processor at 3.2 gigahertz? Reply
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkDo you and SnakeOil live in the same house or is the IP address just that similar? LOL.. The processors were benched as they come out of the box. For Lynnfield that means turbo was on as we stated in the article and here in the comments. For Bloomfield, that also means turbo was on, just as it comes out of the retail box.
If you check all the other reviews on the web at the main sites, everyone tested with turbo on in the primary benchmarks. So I guess you can say there is a huge conspiracy between us to actually utilize the processors as Intel intended for the users.
Apparently, we all failed at covering it up, so congratulations on discovering the Freeturbomasons. A now not so secret fraternal organization bent on world domination through the use of turbo frequencies inside processors carrying the blue "i" logo.
For the AMD Phenom II x4 series, they were benched with all cores enabled just as they come out of the box, even though you can disable each core in the BIOS just like you can disable turbo on the i7/i5. I guess to make things fair, we should disable the cores on the 965 BE as having that "feature" turned on is cheating.
Anyway, thanks for making my day, I needed some much deserved laughter. :)
Chlorus - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSeeing as how Fusion isn't even out yet, that would be hard to do...go troll somewhere else. What is with the idiots coming out of the woodwork on this post? You've got the standard fanboys, as well as insecure LGA-1366 owners who feel the need to defend their purchase, and insecure purchasers of 1156 products who are afraid their choice might be bested in a benchmark somewhere. Reply
Roland00 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWould you please rerun page 9 with an overclocked 975 and the 870. I am wondering how much the difference will grow when the gpus are fed more information due to the faster cpus. Something like 3.8 to 4.0 ghz on both cpus with turbo off (a good overclock yet not in the unreasonable area)
If you are investing 400+ dollars in gpus, and you are building it yourself you are probably going to overclock. Reply
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIntel releases yet another new socket type, offering negligible performance enhancements vs socket 775. Soon they will obsolete another socket type still in use. And this is a good thing? I'm still dealing with the fallout from the socket 478... Reply
DJMiggy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThanks! Some good info! Now to decide what to do... Reply
Rabman - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkFull disclusre -- I work for AMD, my comments are my own and do not reflect my employer, etc.
A clarification on Windows 7's Core Parking feature -- it doesn't actually "[look] at the performance penalty from migrating a thread from one core to another". Rather, Core Parking was designed as a power saving feature for multi-core server machines, and is only enabled on Windows 7 client SKUs where HT is present (I won't get into specifics as to why this decision was made). The side benefit for processors with HT is that the hyperthreads can be parked so the Windows scheduler will spread threads across the "real" cores first, resulting in better performance characteristics. Reply
rbbot - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThat implies that it would have a negative effect on the chances of turbo mode engaging. On other OS, pure random chance would sometimes assign a waking thread to the hyper-core of the one already executing at full pelt. However, this means that on Windows 7, core parking prevents this happening and always wakes a 2nd core for the 2nd thread.
puffpio - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIf you disable turbo mode, will the individual cores still power down when unused?
Take the 860 for example. With turbo mode enabled you get these overclocked speeds:
3C/4C Active: 3.54GHz
2C Active: 3.85GHz
1C Active: 4.00GHz
but with turbo mode disabled you get 3.99GHz at 1/2/3/4 cores active.
If the cores are still able to be powered down w/ turbo mode disabled, it would seem that would give you the best performance at any core activity level. Reply
Comdrpopnfresh - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSpecifically; power consumption, efficiency, and productivity/performance. On the consumer scale though- obviously with single-cpu boards benches geared towards commercial use would be droll. Reply
AFUMCBill - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkGreat Review.
You mentioned the rising popularity of the uATX platform.
I would guess this is related to the rising popularity of laptops.
Except you can't find anything close to the performance of a Core i7 or i5 processor in a laptop form factor at anything remotely resembling a reasonable price - as in thousands and thousands of dollars extra. So people are headed to the uATX platform and the small(er) LAN party type boxes to get mobile performace. In my case I would like to be able to load high bitrate (25 Mbps and up) MPEG2 and MPEG4 footage into my video editor and have at it. My Q6600 handles the MPEG2 fine, but not the MPEG4 (AVCHD).
Found the Core i7 860 available at MicroCenter for $229.99 USD.
For me to make the buy, the only thing that is missing is USB 3.0.
Next year is looking good...and prices are likely to be even lower then :-) Reply
Peroxyde - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkJust checked at Newegg. Is there any error on the price? The newer and more performance i5 750 costs $209. The Q9550 cost $219. That sounds illogical. Reply
AFUMCBill - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI think it's called having old stock that was purchased before the new announcements. Obviously the folks they are going to be selling to are ones who are updating the processor in an older 775 socket motherboard based system - which with the new announcements are now rapidly receding into the past. Reply
C'DaleRider - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSucks to have to depend on Newegg for buying, esp. considering what MicroCenter is doing. $199 for the i7 920 while Newegg gouges at $279, or the i5 750 for $179.
Newegg long ago ceased being the place for the best prices. Reply
tajmahal - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYou fail to mention that Microcenter prices are for IN STORE PURCHASE ONLY. If you live about 6 driving hours away from a Microcenter like i do, then you're screwed. Reply
Chlorus - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkShhh! Don't spoil his self-righteous post with your troublesome facts! Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkDoes Microcenter have a limit on how many processors people can buy? If not, why isn't anyone buying these things and reselling them for less than the ~$280 that Newegg (and every other online retailer) do? Reply
Solema - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkAnand,
I know those prices you quoted are per-unit prices from Intel, but they are much more expensive than actual CPU costs. Given that I can get the following from Micro Center, and that I plan to overclock and run two 8800GTS 512's in SLI, what would you recommend?
i5 750 - $179
i7 920 - $199
i7 860 - $229
It still seems to me that the additional overclocking flexibility of the 920 (especially on stock voltage), coupled with the better multi-GPU performance would make that the best CPU to purchase, no? Given that P55 motherboards currently only retail for about $50 cheaper than many x58 boards, wouldn't the extra $70 cost for x58+i7 920 over a P55+i5 750 be worth it? You get better multi-GPU performance, better overclocking, better RAM performance, and future upgradeability to 6-core CPU's. What am I missing that would tip the scales in favor of the i5? Reply
Pneumothorax - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkthe 920 for sure as you get a HT CPU for even cheaper than the 860. Both should overclock the same. Reply
dman - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSo, do they support Hardware Virtualization? And don't give slack about not targeted at that market, specifically, does this support Windows 7 virtualization mode?
I searched and didn't see it covered. I've read that the i5 and lower do not support vt-d, but, I'm not sure how that translates to Windows 7 "XP mode" support... I do need to review a bit more, would be nice if this was covered in the review.
I do know that this IS something that the Phenom family does support.
ash9 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkNo Virtalization!! That maybe huge for corporate setups,
how did I miss that.
It should have been reported Reply
has407 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkVT-x != VT-d. You want, and may need, VT-x. Most people don't need VT-d, much less know what to do with it or have a system that can make use of it--if you do, you're very unlikely to be using one of these CPUs.
VT-x is Intel's name for processor virtualization features; it is part of the processor. All Core iX CPUs support it. VT-x is required for some hypervisors, (e.g., MSFT HYperV), but not all, although most (all?) require it for running 64-bit guests.
VT-d is Intels name for for IO virtualization (specifically "directed IO"); it is, or has been, part of the northbridge. For VT-d to be useful, you need a chipset that supports it; a MB/BIOS that supports it; and a hypervisor that knows how to use it. VT-d is primarily of interest to VM's that want to dedicate direct access to hardware by guests, and avoid the overhead of the hypervisor for that IO.
When you see "CPU X supports vT-d", it means the chipset for CPU X supports VT-d (the P55 supports VT-d). Whether MB/BIOS vendors choose to support it is another matter. Moreover, support for VT-d isn't simply yes or no; support varies by chipset (e.g., the P55, like the rest, support virtualizating a subset of interfaces).
In short:
1. Based on Core iX chipset capabilities (e.g., P55, X58), VT-d support is an MB vendor decision--not a function of the CPU model.
2. Which vendors support VT-d, and to what extent, is more often than not clear as mud, and the topic of much discussion in some threads.
3. If VT-d is important to you, you're probably running a heavy virtualized workload on an MP system with 10Gbe or very fast DAS--certainly not a Core iX. (Only exception of interest to others might be for access to GPU's by VMs)
What the new processors throw into the mix is an integrated PCIe controller, which also means an integrated DMA controller (at least I hope it does). Whether that supports VT-d is unknown (I haven't been able to find a definitive answer). Reply
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkVT-d is enabled on the i7/870-860. It is not enabled on the i5/750, just VT-x is available on it. I am working on Windows 7 XP mode as we speak. Reply
Jakall78 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkReading this site for years, but there is something wrong going on here. Besides some slideshow pictures from Intel and 2-3 tests... there is nothing. That is not the way reviews are done. Look at the SSD reviews, THAT is a review(both of them actually). Now please look at this review
and say it`s not better...
* I`m not making any false advertising here, I just found a better review. Reply
goinginstyle - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkReally? SuperPi, WPrime, Everest, 3Dmarks and LN2 overclocking defines a better review? How does any of that correlate into real world applications and what 99% of people use their computers for on a daily basis. I counted a lot more than three tests in the AT review, go spam elsewhere. Reply
C'DaleRider - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkReally. All I play is SuperPi, Everest and 3DMarks....oh, and Furmark and OCCT.
Who would ever use their computer to encode video, run Excel spreadsheets, play games like Far Cry or Crysis or Left For Dead, or actually use any other real world application?
Don't you know? Real elite computer users just bench synthetic crap, over and over, for hours and hours, and scoff at anyone who dares do anything productive with their computer.
/sarcasm Reply
geok1ng - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI am not pleased by the news; i5 needs more juice for overcloking. Thats terrible: my E8600 is still on top: it runs at 4.0Ghz with 1.16v on a watercooled setup with 4x120mm fans at 1600rpm. we are talking less than 30dB of noise and less than 55w of power consumption. At 1.25v my E8600 reaches 4.25Ghz and would go a little further if wasnt for the 4 sticks of ram burning the NB. no reason to exchange systems before the 32nm parts arrive. The ability to achieve high clocks with low voltages is crucial for a good system: not only will it consume less power, but it will also be quieter, and that is a point for choosing sub-65w dual-cores in gaming rigs. Reply
papapapapapapapababy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link
honestly... i lol at all the core i7 core i5 "GAMERS"( and their punny 23 lcd with shitty TN panels) also LGA1366? LGA1156? and 285$ for a shitty motherboard? XD I have a better proposition for you INTEL. how about u SUCK MY BALLS XD. MKAY? the story: my old man needed a gaming setup ( mostly simracing) So i bought the cheapest E7200 i could find (oc3.2GHZ), 4gb of ram, the cheapest intel mobo i could find -g31- ( not even pcie2) and gave him my 4770 ... the price? ridiculously cheap... almost nothing. and with all that extra money i saved i got this > a nice 42" HDTV with a perfect s-ips panel and low 1366 X 768 resolution, and a g25 wheel.
btw, the framerates? i never, ever drop below 30fps. ALWAYS 60FPS NO MATTER WHAT, ( with nice 8xAA) XD so the best gaming cpu? the cheapest !
erple2 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkInteresting. Which 42" LCD TV did you get that has a S-IPS panel? Also, a 23" panel at about 3 feet looks bigger than a 42" screen at 6 feet.
papapapapapapapababy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkLG. btw a 23" TN lcd looks like shit no matter how you look at it. Reply
C'DaleRider - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkMy, aren't you special?
papapapapapapapababy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkyes, i know! btw enjoy your small screen gaming, mr sheep XD Reply
chrnochime - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI'd say the same about that barely big enough 42" LCD, but then again why bother... Reply
papapapapapapapababy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkmy bad i meant this > E7300 3.2ghz (+ a cheap 24$ modded heatpipe cooler... 14 dba XD) Reply
Genx87 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkBut after looking at the gaming benchmarks. I am wondering if the i5 is worth the cost to upgrade from an E8400? The best I could come up with from the graphs was the Q9560@3Gz or the E8600. In most of the games they were within a few % points. Ill have to see how the i5 does with the new round of cards from AMD\Nvidia before making a decision if I am going to build a new machine or just upgrade the GPU this winter. Reply
Kaleid - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkDo like I do. Buy a better GPU. I'll stick to my e8400 at least until the 32nm CPU's arrive.
And according to the guru3d review overclocking makes dramatically increases power consumption during load:
"Once we overclock to 4.1 GHz... the power consumption all of a sudden is 295 Watts (!), so an additional 1200 MHz of power is costing us an additional 133 Watts."
http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-750-core-i7-...">http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-7...re-i7-86... Reply
papapapapapapapababy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"the lowest Lynnfield is a faster gaming CPU than Intel's fastest dual-core: the E8600"
bullshit. the E8600 has higher minimum frame rates umm know "when it matters the most"
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/intel/lynn...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/intel/lynn... Reply
scooterlibby - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkNice review. Lynnfield seems like a great deal too for people building a new system, but from a gaming standpoint, I don't see enough performance difference to upgrade my overclocked e8400 setup. Guess it'll be Sandybridge for me! Reply
rbbot - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhat is the maximum memmory you can fit onto a P55 chipset? I notice the Gigabtye board has 6 dimms but their website still says Max 16Gb?
Is there a 16Gb chipset limit? Would it increase once those new high-capacity dimms from samsung make an appearance? Reply
the machinist - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI really don't know what to make of all this. I am about to buy i7 920 and over clock it to 3.6GHZ and then sometime next year upgrade the CPU to i9 6 core on LGA 1366. SLI does not interest me... cores/threads and clock speed are my main concern for 3d rendering.
Is there any reason for someone like me to get this new platform instead? Please advice me. Reply
rsher - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI wish I had an answer for you. I am in the same situation. If you do get a good reply please post it so I could figure out what to buy..BTW what is the i9 CPU?
I have some time before I need to upgrade. HAve you considered using the Xenon processors... I use MAX 2010..
the machinist - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkrSher Xeon are overkill these days considering the price premium. Single socket CPUs are so powerful these days that I just don't see the bang for the buck when it comes to Xeons. i7 920 over clocked matches some of the mid level Xeons anyway. If I was minting it and rendering only then I would get pair of high end Xeons
Regarding your other question....
i9 will be 6 core version that will come out next year and you can use them on LGA1366 Mobos. I think a 8 core version will come out too. They will be expensive but by the time I decide to upgrade they should be less expensive. Reply
PassingBy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkCan get single socket Xeon machines as well. The reason that professional users often prefer them is for ECC support. Up to you whether that matters for your applications. Naturally, for servers, ECC is the norm and that is also the situation for most professional workstations. Xeons can overclock as well, perhaps sometimes even better than the desktop equivalents, but professional users rarely overclock. Reply
Ann3x - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIn some respects a great article. However the assertation that anything below the top end 1336 cpus are pointless is pretty obsurd.
As others have stated the headroom and potential overclock of ANY d0 920 easily beats these new processors.
As it is, i7s are aimed at enthusiasts. FOR AN ENTHUSIAST *ie someone willing to tweak and OC* the 920 is still by fast the best bang for buck choice.
The new platform is only better if no tweeking is carried out (ie if youre not a technical user).
Therefore were left with a column aimed at technical users saying something that is only relevant to non technical users. At best its a gross simplification. As worst its missleading.
Yes, the new platform is good for the mass market, yes its exciting. However keep some perspective with your audience, the i7 920 is still BY FAR the best performance value for money CPU if you have the knowledge required to get the most out of it (as the majority of people buying X58 do). Reply
Scheme - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhy is it assumed enthusiasts or technical users are only interested in overclocking? For me it's about balancing performance, temps, noise levels and power consumption, all with a reasonable cost of entry. All that considered Lynnfield seems to be a good platform. Reply
Ann3x - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWell the d0 can usually hit 3.8-4ghz on std voltages.
So tbh temps dont really come into it. Anyone with a 920 should overclock it because there is really nothing to lose. No need to risk the cpu, negligible temperature increases, its all positive.
If you buy a 920 and dont overclock you either should have a very good reason or you dont know how to.
The 920 is a very meh processor at stock. The reason its so popular is its potential to overclock so easily and so highly not its stock speeds. Reply
Scheme - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link3.8-4ghz will involve more than what I'd consider to be 'negligible temperature increases'. Reply
Ann3x - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI can hit 4Ghz on air with stock voltage with a max load (10hrs of LinX) of 65C. Thats so far within the thermal limits of the CPU to be considered totally negligible. My results seem very typical for d0 920s.
Enthusiast CPUs need to be treated (and reviewed) in context with their market. If some people are too stupid to see the potential of their mid range CPUs then Id at least expect a good site like anandtech to realise it and not act like stock is the only option.
There is a reason why 90% of X58 motherboards are marketed on their overclock and performance options. Reply
erple2 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI'm a bit more interested in relatively low power consumption, and stable (as in for 4 years) operation, not how many fractional increases in performance I can eke out of a CPU at potentially catastrophic failure rates through overclocking. However, I'm buying a CPU for it's solid performance, reliability (the i7's haven't been out long enough to make any judgement of it's long term reliability), and lower power consumption. Also, can you still claim RMA status on a broken CPU that was potentially damaged by overclocking? I haven't read any Intel literature to suggest that you can.
I don't care at all about what you think I my goals with buying a CPU for are. Your class of "enthusiast" is really "the overclocking user", not the "enthusiast".
I suppose it would be more interesting to find out how many of the X58 purchasers actually overclock their CPUs (beyond what "turbo" buys you), and then make conclusions, rather than this handwaving "you're an idiot if you do something other than what I do" mentality that you are showing.
I'd also like to see how many of those "90% of X58 mobos marketed on their overclock and performance options" (reference please!) are actually sold vs. those that are cheaper, and not marketed on overclocking performance. Maybe that "other 10%" sells about 40-50% of the market. Do you have data to suggest otherwise? Reply
Ann3x - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkYou really think you can damage a cpu by just increasing the clock? Wow.
Only things that damage CPUs are overvolting (not needed for a decent OC on the i7) and high temps (usually linked directly to overvolting). The concept that an overclock at stock voltage could cause "catastrophic failure" is frankly laughable.
A sensible overclock will be no more or less stable than stock. The only people who actually risk system stability are the ones who overvolt and push the limits. For the record 3.8-4ghz is most definitely NOT pushing the limits.
Again ill say it. If youre buying an X58 motherboard you are PAYING for the ability to overclock. If you choose not to there is little - no point in the platform (with the possible exception of people who use very multi threaded apps). The proof in this point is actually staring you in the face in the i5/new i7, their design shows that intel realises the headroom they have in the architecture. The aggressive turbo mode of the i5/new i7 is proof that there is NO risk in overclocking within sensible limits at stock voltage.
In reality the main "huge leap forward" of the new platform is simply the acceptance of overclocking within intel.
That you choose to ignore the potential of your CPU is your own loss. Intel think its safe to overclock but hey, you know better right :). Im just surprised that anand chooses to for the most part ignore this and makes absurb attention grabbing statements instead of assessing the real merits of the 2 platforms. It really is a rose tinted glasses review but oh well. Keep your heads stuck in the sand. Reply
yacoub - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkGreat article except it would have been REALLY nice to have the i7 860 data, given that's most likely the best bang-for-the-buck Lynnfield option and it probably makes MUCH more sense price-wise than going for the 870. It REALLY sucks not knowing where that chip slots in for all the tests you did.
This is exactly the concern I listed when the polls were posted that asked which CPU we most wanted to see benchmarked. Clearly we want to see ALL THREE.
That said, it's nice to see Lynnfield is basically awesome, except in Crossfire/SLI which is about the LAST thing I could give a crap about. So really, this looks about perfect. (Only on page 14 though, but if it continues as it has to this point, I'm sold.) I just wish the 860 had been benchmarked. Reply
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI have the 860 in the upcoming mb roundups. :) Reply
yacoub - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI knew there was a reason we all love us some Gary Key. \m/. :) Reply
529th - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI'm not sure what bios setting is Sleep State on the i7 9xx (1366) but for discussions sake, say C1E sleep state is disabled, as overclockers usually do this, does that negate the logical functioning of Turbo mode and run all cores at the max TDP & speed? So would a 1366 system be faster with turbo & C1E sleep state disabled? ...i'm not even sure if i'm asking that right.. i'm still reading up on the PCU and Turbo section Reply
HexiumVII - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI must say that Lynnfield is the best stock processor ever. It will o/c itself without you having to touch it at all. Nearly perfect for the masses. I absolutely can't wait for the notebook incarnation. Reply
ClagMaster - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThe performance of these processors is what I thought they would be based on your May Preview Article. Its great the NDA is lifted and we can now see what this processor can really do.
This is hardly a Celeron. I know a troll in earlier Lynnfield/P55 that should be eating crow. Reply
Apahutec - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkNot sure what "core parking" priorities are (reduce power consumption by grouping tasks on active CPUs, or tune performance by taking into account cache trashing in scheduler decisions), but it sounds like it could even be beneficial on my Core 2 Quad: single socket, no HT, but two Core2 Duo (each with its own L2 cache) glued together. Reply
erple2 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSounds like it, but the logic that controls that on the CPU is on the CPU, and uses up a couple million transistors. That would require a re-spin of the Core 2 parts (which, given the P55 platform release, I think is a safe bet won't happen), however. Reply
Obsy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI don't get how Turbo Boost ends "dual-core or quad-core?" I know that an on-die IGP is a selling point for the upcoming 32nm dual cores, but wouldn't they be clocked higher than these quads and have Turbo Boost too? There will be dual cores clocked higher than quads again. Or is Intel not clocking their dual cores past the speeds of quads? Reply
macs - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWould be interesting an article about P55 mobo with nf200 chip and 2 gpu... Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWe talked to NVIDIA about that scenario a couple of weeks ago. A NF200 chip would not make a significant difference in performance, which is why they're letting manufacturers go ahead and just split lanes with a straight-up bridge chip. Reply
Darkanyons - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThanks for this great article!! Reply
Tomzi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkDo the PCIe controller's voltage demands impose stricter limits on undervolting in the case of Lynnfield processors compared to Bloomfield? I can run my i7 920 at stock frequncies undervolted to 0.9xx V VCore. How much voltage (power consumption) reduction can we expect from the an i5 750?
This might not be a hot topic so close to the release of the new chips when everyone is focused on top performance comparisons but I've always been interested in undervolting/clocking and would like to see a more complete picture.
Tomzi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link750 and 870 undervolted by ~0.1V reported on silentpcreview. Reply
jasperjones - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWonderful article as usual on AT. Read the articles on the website of your main competitor minutes before and didn't learn nearly as much about the LGA 1156 platform as I did here. Well done!
I have one somewhat cheap comment. I always feel there's only one thing I do for which I really "need" my Core i7. And that's test-driving and debugging my well-threaded code (which makes use of OpenMP, MPI, threaded Intel MKL, etc.) before scp-ing it over to a cluster. Obviously, when testing code, I run using 8 threads. Still think that the Core i7 is probably more competitive in that area (performance/$ wise) than in the ones which this review focuses on (simply because I assume such code puts enough stress on the processors such that turbo-boosting is out of the question). On the other hand, I don't really care if gzip takes 2.5 or 3 seconds to compress a file (or if flac takes 8 or 9 seconds to encode my wav).
As I said, it's a cheap point. Just saying that I feel I primarily need "oomph" when running well-threaded stuff. Again, great article!
AeroWB - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThanks for the interesting read, I do agree with some other people that some things are missing (clock for clock comparison) and some things are weird (core i7 with 1066DDR3). Some people are saying that everyone is overclocking their core i7, and while most readers of this article will probably be geeks that overclock I also read these articles as a systembuilder and I know that at least 95% of my customers don't overclock, so I really dig non-overclocked comparisons and results.
There is also one thing I do not agree on, lets have another look at the page "The Best Gaming CPU?" and look to the DoWII results. What I see there is totally different from your conlusion though you do mention it in the text, the Bloomfield has lower minimum framerate then Lynnfield, but still your conclusion is Bloomfield is better then Lnynfield and Lynnfield is better then the Core2E8600. Ehm ???
Lets be clear the core i7 920 really sucks here as of its really low minimum fps you will have stutters. Great gaming is all about having a butter smooth FPS which dependent on the game type needs to be between 30 and 60 FPS. Basically the best game experience here will probably be with the E8600 as it has the highest minimum at 33 FPS which is great for RTS gaming. In order to say which CPU is best you should have an extra statistic like how much and how long the framerate dropped below 30FPS or something but as we do not have this data the minimum framerate is our next best thing. As weve seen before the Core i7 is good when using SLI/Crossfire but on par with the core2 when using a single GPU. Intel also told us themselfs that Core i7 was not made for gaming but for taking a bigger part in the server market. When increasing resolution/quality of gaming when using one GPU the Phenom 2 was often as fast and sometimes even faster then the Core i7. Unfortunately most CPU comparison with gaming are done at low to medium resolutions and quality so this effect couldn't be seen in most tests, but there were very few where this could be seen. So gaming with Core i7 920 only made sense when using SLI/Crossfire (as it scaled much better with these then Phenom2) or when paying the extra money (over Phenom2) because you used the system mostly for other task like video editing or so.
Now we can see this gaming problem of the Core i7 has been (at least partly) solved with Lynnfield, but still the Phenom2 965 has a higher minimum then the Core i5 750 so I would still prefer that one.
The other gaming test are not really relevant as all cpu's score a minimum of 60 FPS (ok one exception on 59) and so you won't notice any difference between all of the tested CPU's with those settings.
Still it is probable that the better gaming CPU in these test will also be better with higher settings, but as I have seen with the weird Core i7 / Phenom2 results I want to see tests with higher settings or test with more demanding games. And we want minimum and average results to determine which is best.
Sorry for the long post Reply
iwodo - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI am waiting for SandyBridge or even Ivy Bridge for FMA.
For now, a C2Q two years ago with money spent on graphics card will do fine.
The whole LGA socket and naming is a complete mess.
Dont get me wrong, it is a good Processors, but not the jump from Pentium 4 to C2D.
Money spend on SSD and Graphics is much better valued. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkMy dual core Opty 185 is still doing fine...Fallout 3 is still playable with my 8800GTS 640. The system has a slight OC and is chugging along at a minimum of 45FPS in the game on decent settings. Granted, it can't play every game - but I can only play one at a time anyway, and my life does not revolve around gaming. Hello...BEER PONG! Reply
Griswold - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI agree. I'll get excited when the 32nm dual cores with HT arrive. That would be a worthwhile "upgrade" (but a downgrade in number of cores, simply because I dont need 4 physical cores that much anymore) from my q6600 on a p35.
Still, its a good product, just not worth an upgrade for everyone. Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI was hoping there would be 32nm quads in this cycle, but it appears not. I'd definitely like something faster than my E6600/P965, but don't think it is worthwhile in time or money to just go to a C2Q. Reply
R3MF - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI spent much of the past year harping on AMD selling Nehalem-sized Phenom IIs for less than Intel sold Nehalems. With Lynnfield, Intel actually made Nehalem even >>>bigger<<< all while driving prices down.
i think you mean smaller. Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkNope, he meant bigger. Same process + more transistors = larger die, as is illustrated in the table. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI think AMD realized years ago that they had awoken a sleeping giant, and it was a smart move to start thinking about competing graphically when they did. They saw how IBM had to change when Intel reared its ugly head. If you put all your eggs in one basket, you'll surely drop your next meal at some point. Diversifying into new markets was a smart move. Anyone who said that AMD didn't have good leadership didn't know what they were saying. Sure, money got really tight - but that's what has to happen to someone in a very competitive market at some point. Just take a look at GM. Giants crumble, little guys take over, and giants can muster a comeback... Reply
blyndy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"I think AMD realised years ago that they had awoken a sleeping giant, and it was a smart move to start thinking about competing graphically when they did."
That's an interesting thought.
I think there were to mains reasons why AMD acquired ATI.
1) in response to the news of Larrabee -- pre-emptive defensive move.
2)To diversify in preparation for Intels technological onslaught to finally kill its only CPU competitor.
So it may have been a smart move. On the other hand, knowing how patent riddled the CPU business is, maybe they could have ramped up R&D, but AMD is puny next to Intel. Reply
JonnyDough - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkWere you purposely reiterating my point? :D
I don't think AMD ever much cared about what Intel was doing. In business class I was taught to keep an eye on a competitor but to really focus on what you are doing. I think AMD was planning their next move, and it had little to do with what Intel was doing or planned on doing, but rather the reaction of what Intel would do when they created Athlon and the next step to being a successful innovative company. Going graphics was just a logical step, since NVidia had no real competition in this space. They saw a market that was ruled by two giants, and decided to combine technology. I'm not so sure that Intel had the idea first. Don't forget, there are leaks in this industry, and people are getting paid to snitch. Reply
tajmahal - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThis is the first time i've ever seen an article written using wholesale x 1,000 prices. Is there any reason you didn't take the trouble to post actual retail pricing? Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkHe probably wrote this article prior to today and based it off Intel's pricing scheme...I would think you'd probably gather that. NewEgg is also not the only E-tailer/Retailer out there... Reply
ViRGE - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThe last time I checked, those are the only prices Intel gives out. The actual retail prices are a combination of what the retailer paid (buy more, spend less) and whatever markup they add. Intel doesn't have an MSRP. Reply
tajmahal - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linki5 750 = $210
i7 860 = $300
i7 870 = $580
Just in case someone wants to buy just 1 instead of 1,000. Newegg prices Reply
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"i5 750 = $210
i7 860 = $300
i7 870 = $580
Just in case someone wants to buy just 1 instead of 1,000. Newegg prices "
Retail prices fluctuate greatly at launch. This is what I paid for our retail processors with tax mind you. ;)
i5 750 = $205
i7 860 = $306
i7 870 = $564 Reply
cycleback - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkCould you post some Linpack and finite element code benchmarks. This would approximate a larger number of HPC workloads. I would really appreciate this as it is difficult to find these sorts of benchmarks. It would also really test the difference in memory bandwidth between Bloomfield and Lynfield. Reply
tacoburrito - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkFrom the benchmarks, the i7 920 and the i5 seems to be even; each winning about half the benchmarks. If costs for both are the same (proc and mobo), I think I'd still go with the 920. Of course I can stop being a cheap bastard and spring for the i7 860. Reply
tacoburrito - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI also meant to add that it should just be a matter of time before Intel cut the prices of the 920. Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkOne thing that's obvious is, after reading this, that the esteemed reviewer modified his review in order to fulfill his preconceived ideas of what he wanted to say. It's really a terrible review.
Most people know this site isn't technical, but still, I always thought it was unbiased. It's biased, big time, just not for a company. It's about making a review say what they want.
For example, I doubt Anand is really as stupid as he sounds in this article. LGA1366 has so many advantages, certainly he knows this. But why the idiotic remarks about asking why it exists?
Why did this review ignore the fact that most people here overclock? Why did it ignore that most people reading these reviews won't use DDR3 1066 memory? Did this site just try to become PC Magazine without the writing talent, and go stock? I think not. It was because they only wanted to give information that was consistent with their preconceived idea.
But, let's look closer. The memory controller on the Bloomfield is actually faster than the Lynnfield when using the same memory, even when running in dual channel mode. Why wasn't it mentioned here?
Why wasn't a clock normalized comparison between the LGA1366 processors and LGA1156 processors made, or even attempted, to get an idea of what the architecture changes accounted for? Strange that this very important data is missing? I think so.
Why weren't overclock processors compared? I mean, will anyone here buy an i7 920 and not overclock it? Probably not many. Since the only real advantage is the more aggressive turbo mode, this was what the article was based on. But, in reality, for readers here, it's not important, since people are going to overclock, and the i7 920 would wipe the floor up with the Lynnfields in the configuration that would be used. Why no mention of this?
There are better sites that have answered these questions. I used to like this site, but this review is another disappointment.
Let's be real though, it looks like the processor's horrible performance in the pre-release configuration is just a bad memory. It's not a bad part by any stretch, but it's hardly made the LGA1366 useless, or even the i7 920. The technical savvy will still opt for it in a lot of instances, since they will overclock it. If you have to recommend something for a friend that won't, these things are fine.
Another really stupid remark was how AMD processors would only make sense if they drop the price. Have you forgotten AMD processors are coupled with excellent IGPs? That's been the big selling point for a while, and this hasn't really changed that, too much. IGP platforms are really big in sales too, so, I'd agree with the premise that AMD probably should lower their prices a little, but not that they don't have advantages even where they are. The processors don't, but you can't get an Intel motherboard with the 790GX either. And if they come out with something better, as rumored, it's just going to give their platform another advantage to help counteract their horrible processors (yes, I agree they suck). Reply
Inkie - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link"Another really stupid remark was how AMD processors would only make sense if they drop the price. Have you forgotten AMD processors are coupled with excellent IGPs? That's been the big selling point for a while, and this hasn't really changed that, too much. IGP platforms are really big in sales too"
You are really dumb and confused (to copy the kind of reply you make to others). Anand mentioned that the Phenom II X4 965 BE needs to fall in price. How many people are buying a $245, 140W TDP processor for use with an IGP? Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkLet's go through this point by point shall we?
"One thing that's obvious is, after reading this, that the esteemed reviewer modified his review in order to fulfill his preconceived ideas of what he wanted to say."
I could actually say the same thing about your comments :)
"Most people know this site isn't technical, but still, I always thought it was unbiased. It's biased, big time, just not for a company. It's about making a review say what they want."
Any thoughts on what the motivation to do that might be?
"For example, I doubt Anand is really as stupid as he sounds in this article. LGA1366 has so many advantages, certainly he knows this. But why the idiotic remarks about asking why it exists? "
I believe I listed the advantages in the conclusion. But honestly, for the majority of users, the i7 920, 940 and 950 are made redundant by the Core i5 750, i7 860 and i7 870.
"Why did this review ignore the fact that most people here overclock? Why did it ignore that most people reading these reviews won't use DDR3 1066 memory? Did this site just try to become PC Magazine without the writing talent, and go stock? I think not. It was because they only wanted to give information that was consistent with their preconceived idea. "
I included two pages on overclocking investigation for Lynnfield, concluded that Bloomfield was a better overclocker and we've consistently looked at Bloomfield overclocking in all of our previous articles. I don't believe we've ignored overclocking at all.
As far as memory speeds go, I try to use the fastest memory officially supported/validated by the platform. Of course we've run Bloomfield at higher speeds and Lynnfield at lower ones. I have DDR3-1066 data for Lynnfield:
SYSMark 2007 (Overall/E-Learning/Video Creation/Productivity/3D)
Core i7 870 (DDR3-1333): 233 199 245 235 257
Core i7 870 (DDR3-1066): 230 195 246 230 256
You're looking at less than 1.5% in the overall performance test.
Given that several readers have requested it, I'll look at Bloomfield at DDR3-1333 in an upcoming article. It's not going to be a huge difference but it's worth addressing since there's interest. Remember what I said in the article: it takes three fully active cores running bandwidth intensive code to stress Lynnfield's dual-channel DDR3-1333 controller. Bloomfield doesn't change that, it already has enough memory bandwidth at 3 x 1066MHz, upping that to 1333MHz shouldn't account for much.
"But, let's look closer. The memory controller on the Bloomfield is actually faster than the Lynnfield when using the same memory, even when running in dual channel mode. Why wasn't it mentioned here? "
I don't believe that's the case, the Lynnfield memory controller is actually very similar to what's in Bloomfield.
"Why wasn't a clock normalized comparison between the LGA1366 processors and LGA1156 processors made, or even attempted, to get an idea of what the architecture changes accounted for? Strange that this very important data is missing? I think so. "
This was an oversight on my part, I didn't realize many would want it after the results from the 750 and 870. It's something that I'll include in a follow-up sometime next week.
"Why weren't overclock processors compared? I mean, will anyone here buy an i7 920 and not overclock it? Probably not many. Since the only real advantage is the more aggressive turbo mode, this was what the article was based on. But, in reality, for readers here, it's not important, since people are going to overclock, and the i7 920 would wipe the floor up with the Lynnfields in the configuration that would be used. Why no mention of this? "
The i7 920 and Lynnfield parts we reviewed here today can generally overclock to about the same levels (they just need voltage). I don't believe anyone is missing any part of the story here. Are you suggesting that users would only buy an i7 920 and overclock it but not overclock an i5 750?
"The technical savvy will still opt for it in a lot of instances, since they will overclock it. If you have to recommend something for a friend that won't, these things are fine. "
Again, the overclocking community will be split into those who overclock but don't care to increase voltages and those who do. The latter group will be served just fine by Lynnfield and save money. Do you not agree?
Our readership spans both overclockers and not, so it's important that we characterize performance at stock as well as overclocked. Lynnfield, regardless of clock speed, will be similar to Bloomfield performance.
"Have you forgotten AMD processors are coupled with excellent IGPs? That's been the big selling point for a while, and this hasn't really changed that, too much. IGP platforms are really big in sales too, so, I'd agree with the premise that AMD probably should lower their prices a little, but not that they don't have advantages even where they are."
AMD does have better IGPs, but not $50 better. If you take the difference in price between a Core i5 750 and a Phenom II X4 965 BE you can buy a better discrete graphics card than any IGP.
Take care,
Anand Reply
iocedmyself - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI have to agree that the technical end of this review, even to the extent of hardware/software configs in benchmarking suite is pretty non-existent
As for any semblance of an unbiased approach, the only way this review could have possibly been more pro-intel is if it were replaced with a picture of a guy on his knees with a hand gingerly wrapped around an intel logo while licking his lips and gazing dreamily at a belt buckle looming slightly above the logo.
As for the logic behind AMD IGP's not being "$50 better when taking into account the price of the 965BE" it's so flawed it makes my panda very very sad. BE's are unlocked...they are for overclockers, and a 200mhz difference is not incentive enough for anyone with even a whisper of a clue to shell out $55 over the 3.2ghz 955BE. I have an undervolted 945 at 1.2875v that is rock solid at 3.6ghz and the half dozen PII chips i've overclocked have all been able to undervolt while still hitting 3.4.
Also something that should be obvious, even buying a 965 BE is still still an upgrade part for AM2+ MB users, where as it's intel's bi-yearly "here's our latest architecture cut down for mainstream..with the briefly anticipated opertunity to buy another new intel cpu socket!"
Then there is also the fact that anyone looking to upgrade machiness in the corprate world would not want a discreet graphics card, in fact they pretty much need an igp which also makes the argument of the 965BE cost irrelivent really as i doubt quads would be in the running for consideration, but oh well.
95w 3.0ghz 945 BE costs $169,
65w 2.5gjz 905e costs $179(likely choice for corporate quad solution)
125w 3.2Ghz 955BE $187
140w 3.4Ghz 965Be $239
Being that 780G is stong enough to run Vista ultimate it's more than strong enough for win7 which will be the OS of bussiness shortly and would also handle even a 965BE so MBs are...
780G Starting at $59-$94
785G starting at $69-$99
790GXstarting at $79-$114
790FXstarting at $89-$188
4 gigs of DDR2 1066 $44-$59 if using a 780G/785G
4 gigs of DDR3 1600 $79-$99 if using a 790GX/790FX
Well gosh....it looks like those unlocked BE chips that short of damage or inadequete cooling can exceed 3.4ghz without a voltage bump. Then their is also the fact that intel doesn't have a comparable IGP to go up against AMD's....the i5 boards infact don't have any IGP's at all nor will they for a good long while. Meaning that if you want to use this cpu you are obligated to also buy a motherboard, and a discreet video card and most likely ram.
So what exactly is this "not $50 better"BS? As it stands the motherboard is included in the price of the I5 putting the price around $320 or so with combo deals.
Which is about the same price as a 790GX+965BE,
or $65 more expensive than a 955BE+790GX
or $100 more expensive than the 955BE+790GX+ cost of discreet card for intel system.
But no, this was very impartial and professional....
goinginstyle - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkSo your suggestion is to buy a $240 965BE, install it on a 780G motherboard (good luck with that), and that should offer all the performance I need in a system. So this setup will handle everything including gaming, not playing poker on the internet gaming, but running Crysis or Flight Simulator X? Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkAnand,
The first part of your response is pretty lame. I really have no vested interest in the P55 being better or worse. I just dislike misinformation. I don't think it's bad, I just don't think it's all good or all bad. You went way out of your way to make it all good, with just little mention of the bad so it seemed unimportant.
Yes, the motivation would be that you built it up, and you probably were shmoozing with Intel, and really wanted this thing to be all that and a box of cheese crackers. Reality is different though, but you didn't want to see it. After all the build up, if it sucked, you'd have eaten a bit of crow. Really, it's not bad, but you really exaggerated your remarks so much, I don't know how you can defend them. There's no point in anything below the 975? What? The 920 is a great processor for so many people. It's got much better i/o for a i/o based server, overclocks like a devil, has better video performance in dual card mode, rapes the Lynnfield where memory bandwidth is important, etc... No uses? You really should have qualified it better, and when you don't, you come off as biased.
I will agree with your remark that the majority of users aren't going to find the i7 920 attractive. The reason being, the majority of users don't overclock, or have seriously i/o heavy applications, or use dual video cards. If you had worded it that way, I would have agreed. You didn't.
You missed the point on the overclocking, and I suspect that's on purpose, but let's assume not. You compared normally clocked processors on all benchmarks, with inferior memory for the Bloomfield. This is what people look at. A few pages at the end saying the Bloomfield overclocks better doesn't have the same impact, especially when, if you overclocked and took benchmarks, the i7 920 would wipe the floor up with the Lynnfields. The reason is the turbo mode advantage would evaporate. I agree you should have shown them normally clocked (although with equal memory), but also overclocked since most of your readers will overclock. You didn't. You showed Lynnfield in the best light possible.
I agree the memory controller is very similar, but the Bloomfield seems to beat it slightly, very slightly. It's only meaningful in the context that it is faster, instead of slower as indicated in some of your benchmarks.
With regards to them overclocking to the same speed, again you miss the point. If you overclock them to the same speeds, the turbo mode advantage of the Lynnfield disappears, completely changing the picture, and giving people a different story. So, yes they would both overclock, but it would help the i7 920 a lot more.
I agree these processors are fine for a lot of people. That's not my contention. You basically exaggerated their abilities, by aforementioned reasons, and then boldly said the i7 920 and i7 950 basically have no purpose (although, with regards to the 950, maybe I don't disagree :-P). So, it's not me saying these things are pointless, it's more my reaction to you saying the stronger LGA1366 platform isn't useful outside of the context of a $1000 processor.
You do make a valid point with the AMD versus Intel IGP situation, especially considering electrical use. I'm really frustrated with AMD not selling a better designed chip, although, just as many people are frustrated with Intel having such poor IGPs. I'll concede this though, you make an excellent point. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI've responded below:
"I really have no vested interest in the P55 being better or worse. I just dislike misinformation. I don't think it's bad, I just don't think it's all good or all bad. You went way out of your way to make it all good, with just little mention of the bad so it seemed unimportant. "
I tried to highlight the good points: turbo, power consumption, price as well as the bad points: multi-GPU scaling, overclocking. The contention here appears to be that you view Lynnfield's memory performance as being much worse than I do.
"Yes, the motivation would be that you built it up, and you probably were shmoozing with Intel, and really wanted this thing to be all that and a box of cheese crackers. Reality is different though, but you didn't want to see it. After all the build up, if it sucked, you'd have eaten a bit of crow. Really, it's not bad, but you really exaggerated your remarks so much, I don't know how you can defend them. There's no point in anything below the 975? What?"
One thing I believe is that you always have to check your ego at the door. Intel never briefed me on Lynnfield, the turbo excitement and my interest in the processor all came on my own. I got my first chip on my own, outside of Intel's jurisdiction and saw a lot of potential in it. I believe it met my expectations. Had it not, you would've heard here. I wanted the first value SSDs to be amazing, but they weren't and that's what folks got to read about here.
It's interesting that you view my comments as exaggerated, as that's what most of your Lynnfield criticisms appear to be. Perhaps this is all an issue of misinterpretation, hooray for internet communication :)
"The 920 is a great processor for so many people. It's got much better i/o for a i/o based server, overclocks like a devil, has better video performance in dual card mode, rapes the Lynnfield where memory bandwidth is important, etc... No uses? You really should have qualified it better, and when you don't, you come off as biased."
Let's go through this point by point.
1) The Core i7 920 is an excellent processor. I'm not sure what you're referring to by it has better i/o for an i/o based server. It does have QPI, which only really helps it in talking to other processors (which it can't do right now, only Xeons get that ability). It also has more PCIe lanes thanks to X58, but I'm guessing that most people who are pushing several GB/s over PCIe for something other than graphics would opt for a server board and Xeon platform instead.
2) It does have better performance in multi-GPU mode, especially with 4 GPUs, but I already mentioned that.
3) It does have more memory bandwidth, but not significantly more. Xbit did a comparison with Lynnfield and Bloomfield at DDR3-1333 at the same timings. Their Everest results showed the following advantages for Bloomfield: 6%, 14%, 4% (read, copy, write). Now those aren't real world performance advantages but rather bandwidth advantages. Very few desktop applications are bandwidth constrained, so if you're lucky enough to find one then you might see half of that in a performance boost. More likely than not you'll see something more negligible.
4) The gains are expensive. The 920 costs $284, you can buy an i5 750 for around $80 less plus opt for a cheaper motherboard. Overall savings? At least $100, most likely more. Never do I say that the 920 is a bad processor, just that it's difficult to recommend it given the price savings. You may view that as biased, but I'm trying to recommend the more affordable platform that delivers a large percentage of the same performance.
"I will agree with your remark that the majority of users aren't going to find the i7 920 attractive. The reason being, the majority of users don't overclock, or have seriously i/o heavy applications, or use dual video cards. If you had worded it that way, I would have agreed. You didn't. "
That was my intention in the conclusion where I said:
"As I see it, LGA-1366 has a few advantages:
1) High-end multi-GPU Performance
2) Stock Voltage Overclocking
3) Future support for 6-core Gulftown CPUs
If that list doesn't make you flinch, then Lynnfield is perfect. You'll save a bunch on a motherboard and the CPUs start at $196 instead of $284. "
I didn't include the bit about an i/o server but the rest seems spot on with what you're asking for. If the reader doesn't find themselves concerned about items 1 - 3 then Lynnfield is a good option. I'm sorry it didn't come off that way, but that was my intention with that paragraph.
"You missed the point on the overclocking, and I suspect that's on purpose, but let's assume not. You compared normally clocked processors on all benchmarks, with inferior memory for the Bloomfield."
Again, I tested both at their highest officially supported frequencies. I'll point you to the Xbit data for now. We're talking about an average performance advantage of 8% in a memory bandwidth test for Bloomfield at DDR3-1333 vs. Lynnfield. I'll have a follow up with some real world data, but you're not going to see that translate into anything significant in real world apps. Most apps are not 100% memory bandwidth limited, if they were we would see no performance scaling at all with CPU speed.
"This is what people look at. A few pages at the end saying the Bloomfield overclocks better doesn't have the same impact, especially when, if you overclocked and took benchmarks, the i7 920 would wipe the floor up with the Lynnfields. The reason is the turbo mode advantage would evaporate. I agree you should have shown them normally clocked (although with equal memory), but also overclocked since most of your readers will overclock. You didn't. You showed Lynnfield in the best light possible. "
Lynnfield and Bloomfield appear to have similar max overclocks when overvolted. With turbo disabled, and both chips around 4GHz, it boils down to a memory controller comparison once more. I don't believe you'll find the huge performance differences you're looking for.
"So, it's not me saying these things are pointless, it's more my reaction to you saying the stronger LGA1366 platform isn't useful outside of the context of a $1000 processor. "
Of course the Core i7 920 isn't a useless processor, even at stock speeds it's seriously one of the fastest things you can buy and in many cases it's even faster than any Phenom II/Core 2 Quad. The LGA-1366 platform loses a lot of its appeal (or usefulness) because there's now something that delivers very, very similar performance, at a noticeably lower platform cost. That was the entire point of the article and something that is echoed in many other reviews of the processors (including the THG review).
Take care,
Anand Reply
TA152H - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkOh, I forgot to ask a couple of questions.
I read on another site that the Lynnfield lowered the L1 cache latency to three clocks instead of four, but X-bit shows the same speed as the Bloomfield at four clocks. Do you have any idea which is correct? I still don't know why this processor has to be slow with the L1 cache, so I'm hoping they bring it down to three clocks. Yes, it's only a few percentage, but it's still bizarre. It's not a high clock speed processor, (as opposed to the Prescott), and the cache isn't so big (it's smaller than the AMD processors), but it needs four cycles? Strange. I think they used slower memory so they could lower power use, but I could be wrong. I'm not really sure of that. Reply
goinginstyle - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkTA152H (or should we say Rich from Toms Hardware),
You have not answered one important question. Considering all of the major sites came to the same conclusion and tested in the same manner for the most part (including your website), why do you not copy and paste your ramblings here at other sites. You are very good at copy and paste routines based on your articles.
Simply put, it is so obvious you are posting here to try and make this site look bad due to your affiliation with another site.
You cannot claim to be fair and impartial when your actions state otherwise. I ask once again, when are we going to see your ramblings at Toms, Tech Report, Xbit, and others?
In the meantime, prove to us that a Bloomfield platform is better to the point than a Lynnfield platform that I should spend extra money for similar performance or worse actually. Where is your article describing all of these points you continue to make? Where is your proof? If you are so good, lets see an article from you proving all of your ramblings. Reply
TA152H - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkHi Anand,
On point one, I'd agree some would get a Xeon, but sometimes, we buy parts (I do this all the time), and when they get older, we find additional uses for them. The superior i/o of the i7 920 can really come in handy, and it's going to be cheaper than a Xeon in most cases. There are still a lot of i/o based applications that can surpass the crippled i/o of the P55, especially with SSDs.
With respect to point two, Xbit really screwed up their article by being imprecise when they measured the memory timings. This is what I find so irritating, computers are precise, articles about them need to be equally so. My contention is based on this - the Bloomfield being used isn't really clear. Unless it's the EE version, the uncore is running slower than on the i7 870. Based on the L3 cache scores, it wouldn't seem so, but it's not at all clear. Also, were the processors allowed to go into turbo mode? Even for memory speeds, this can change the results slightly. It's just not clear how they benched, and they really needed to be for this data to be valid.
On the other hand, when I looked at a lot of benchmarks on other sites, you see some really clear performance leads with the i7 920 on real benchmarks. I'm not as quick to dismiss the additional performance as you are. Maybe what you consider insignficant, I don't.
As far as the i5 750, to me this isn't a competitive processor with the i7 920. It's in a different market, and I don't believe it's useless. Within the context of people that overclock and such, I think anything higher starts to become less supportable, because you start running into a better platform that has features you simply can't get with the P55. You can just overclock the i7 920, but you can't add additional PCI-E lanes, or magically get an additional 64-bits of memory bandwidth with the P55. To me, once you step over that line, unless you're going purely stock (which most people do), these processors are just too expensive to compete with the Bloomfield. The i5 750, however, I'll agree, competes against a different animal, the Core 2, and therefore is attractive even to people who know how to overclock, due to cost.
With respect to overclocking, again, you just aren't seeing what I'm saying. Most people here WILL overclock a 920. If you compared at 920 and the P55s overclocked, the story would be better. You're speculating about the memory bandwidth, whereas you had the ability to produce concrete results. You're way too experienced to know that everything you think should happens with computers, does. We're always surprised, right? But, more to the point, the results you give show an advantage for the Lynnfields because they overclock, when in the configuration most people would use, they would be slower.
Anand, since when did you become stock????? I mean, that's really not what your site is about, yet, this is what this article is. It's just not your typical fare. You can understand why I'd be suspicious? I mean, really, anyone reading this article is going to find your memory used worthless, because no one will use DDR3 1066 for the Bloomfield. We have to extrapolate, with any tests, from what you used to what we would consider using. It's always best if it's the same, and in this case you chose a memory that your readers will not use. You have to know this. DDR3 1333 is cheap enough no one will get 1066. Again, when did you become Mr. Stock? It seems to me to show the Lynnfield in the best possible light. Where I am, wouldn't you think the same?
Take a look at your own Excel benchmark. The Bloomfield destroys the Lynnfield, even the much higher clocked 870(especially if it's turboing). Would your memory numbers have indicated this?
Let's look at some of your remarks in the article -
A) Lynnfield's memory controller: Also faster than Bloomfield.
- In fact, it isn't, unless you use faster memory. It's really slightly slower.
B) Discovery: Two Channels Aren't Worse Than Three
- Yes, they are. A lot of benchmarks show this. It's only a matter of degree.
By the way, the benchmark also disproved your theory about memory bandwidth only mattering for three or more. Since, by your own indications, only two cores were running, and the Bloomfield still had higher numbers, running slower memory, this would necessarily be false.
C)The next thing that the Core i5 750 does is it finally ends the life of LGA-775.
- This is plain wrong. It COULD, if Intel wanted it to, but, really, it's not even close to that. I know you're trying to be dramatic here, and respect that, but, really, it's just wrong. For one, most people buy IGPs, and there isn't one for the P55, yet. On top of that, the IMC complicates IGPs a bit, so, LGA-775 will do fine right now. This really changes very little. If Intel wanted to keep it around, it's a lot smaller, and could be cheaper. It's really up to them what they do with it.
I'd agree it makes a whole lot of Core 2 processors unattractive, but you didn't say that. In terms of market impact, you made a gross exaggeration. When the IGPs come out, we'll see more impact. But, you didn't use a future timeline in your statement.
D)If you didn't have a well threaded application, Bloomfield wasn't any better than a similarly clocked Penryn.
OK, now that's flat wrong. I mean, really, you ran enough benchmarks to know this. It has a totally different cache architecture, and much faster main memory bandwidth. Your review of the brain-damaged i5 750 even proves this. Even without turbo mode, it would beat the Penryn in almost every benchmark by a decent bit. Strange, strange, strange remark.
E)The Core i7 870 gets close enough to the Core i7 975 that I'm having a hard time justifying the LGA-1366 platform at all.
- This is the one that really got me. For a good proportion of people reading this, there are only two processors that make the most sense. The i5 750 if you going kind of low end, or the i7 920. The market for all the others is really small. Why? If you start getting into Bloomfield territory, you should get the real deal and overclock it. You get better performance, flexibility, and expandability. I hate to use absolutes, so there are going to be exceptions, but really, for most of us reading this, the i7 920 still makes a lot of sense is so many situations.
You can't justify the LGA-1366 platform anymore, except in very limited situations? You don't think that's worded a bit too strongly?
A couple of other things. If you use the same memory, you'd see bigger differences in the benchmarks where you do video benchmarking probably. Since the main use of this bandwidth is transferring memory, the slower memory obfuscates the important advantages of the Bloomfield, especially since using main memory creates contention with processor.
Anyway, this is my book writing for the day. Whew, and you thought you were wordy. Reply
Lifted - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkPlease don't waste your time replying to this child. He's making a mountain out of a molehill. He compared the difference between Bloomfield and Lynnfield with such beauties as "wipe the floor" and "raping". He constantly mentions overclocking, so I assume he's referring to games with his colorful comparisons, which makes them even more ironic since most games are GPU limited and often show ZERO benefit from different high end CPU's. Even he has his computer encoding h264 24/7, I don't see how somebody can get so excited over the few minutes they'll save each day.
Feel free to ignore him, your time would be better spent writing articles, being with your family, or even picking your nose. Reply
TA152H - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkYour assumption would be wrong, I use computers for the normal stuff people do, and compiling.
Go back to picking your nose, lowlife. Reply
Skiprudder - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI'm starting to feel like some folks have Bloomfields and now they're trying to justify spending the money they did. At no point did Anand say Bloomfields were 'bad', he's just pointing out that due to current price/performance ratios the new chips are fantastic for the vast amount of folks here. They really area big step up for a lot of people, and frankly a lot of us feel we have better things to spend out money on than $300 X58 mobos. We can now get in on that sort of performance (or better) for a reasonable price, and how isn't this great? Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWell, you might be right, but within this context I'm going to assume you are talking about me, in which case you would be wrong.
I don't have anything new, and I'm actually not going to get anything for a few months. Even if I did, I wouldn't let it cloud my perspective. Normally people who make these judgments are looking through their own personality flaws. I have many, but this is one area I do not.
Maybe I am annoyed at the processor because I was expecting more. I was expecting it to be a really nice processor, and it turned out disappointing. I get annoyed with stupid things sometimes, like the 4 clock cycle L1 cache irks me big time with the Nehalem. With the P55, the platform is just weak and I don't really like it when sites do everything they can to obfuscate the compromises in it.
I'll say this, though, about it, the power use is REALLY nice. I'm really impressed with that. Everything else though, just leaves me cold.
There are some questions that need to be asked, as well. Why is the P55 so damn expensive? It's the same cost as the P45, but without most of the logic.
Why is the 870 so expensive? Is there really any point to this processor at this cost? Maybe some, but not really for a broad segment of the buying population. I'd much rather have an LGA1366 if I were going into that type of expense, instead of the brain-damaged derivative.
LGA1366 motherboards are around $200 now, at least many are, so $300 is kind of an outdated number. For this, you get better i/o, better memory flexibility (you can use two or three dimms; you can't use three with a P55), better performance, etc...
Now, one thing Anand brought up, and I didn't respond to, was something about not needing more bandwidth unless you were tapping out all four processors. Needless to say, this is obviously false, and I wonder why he'd repeat it. A little thought would tell us that even with two cores running, you could gain advantages by having better bandwidth. The reason is simple. Let's say Core A and Core B are both plugging away, and Core A needs a memory read. OK, so it takes the bus, and starts the long process of getting a cache line read. Now, let's say a clock cycle, or two, or twenty, later, Core B needs memory outside of cache. So now it needs the memory bus. Hmmmm, but Core A has the bus. So, Core B has to wait. If you have three memory channels, you transfer data faster, satisfying the cache line faster, and freeing the bus sooner. So, now Core B can get it, and start working sooner. So, you could see better performance with lower processor use requirements than they indicate.
Now, the only possibility this premise is wrong is if the core only grabs 64-bit memory bank at a time, which seems very unlikely to me. In this event, there would still be one memory channel open to the second processor, thus no penalty would occur until three processors needed memory. I don't think this is what they did, as it would lower memory performance on the Bloomfield unless three processors were being used, and also, based on the shared L3 cache, it seems the entire memory bus is always used. Still, it is possible. Maybe Anand can answer this. Reply
mesiah - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkDude, you are so full of shit they can smell it 3 states away. Don't you dare try to rationalize by saying "I was expecting more." Since lynnfield news first broke you have done nothing but trash the part, Call it brain damaged, and skew posted facts to fit your warped agenda. Then, when the retail part is finally unveiled, instead of eating crow (something you suggest Anand do) you act like every crazy half baked conspiracy theorist that ever existed and start ranting about biased reporting, facts being intentionally hidden, and flawed logic.
While I will admit that this isn't the be all end all lynnfield review, this is day one of the launch. I believe more information was displayed in this review than can be reasonably expected for the initial review. In depth overclocking comparisons and the like will certainly come later, but that isn't to say overclocking was ignored.
You read the article and then go off on a tirade about biased reporting and the skewing of facts to meet an agenda when it is you that have been skewing facts all along, and you continue to do so. You make overclocking comparisons between lynnfield and bloomfield calling them similar, then ask why anyone would give up "all the other advantages" of the bloomfield if you are overclocking, but you fail to mention the big advantage for most, which is price comparison. Then later you try to rationalize price by quoting the lowest posted 920 sale price next to the 870 msrp. The parts hit the shelves today, give them a month for prices to normalize. You aren't going to get a smokin deal on the first one to roll off the production line.
Now, go ahead and call me a fool like you do everyone else that is smart enough to see you for what you are. Attempting to verbally abuse another person in order to make yourself feel smarter is a pretty common tactic for feeble minded people who are themselves afraid of looking stupid. Its the equivalent to bringing a gun to a fist fight just in case you start to get your ass beat. So, how about you stop being a pussy, eat a little crow, and admit that all of your talk about how terrible this part was going to be was wrong. Or better yet, just stop posting here because your pissy "I'm better than you" attitude does nothing but bring the site down.
You can reply and call me all the dirty names you want, you wont get a response. I only feed the trolls once a week. Reply
TA152H - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkActually, you're an idiot, and you're changing my words to create an argument.
I never said it was terrible, I said the pre-release performance was terrible, and I expected it to be better for the released version. It was, but I still don't think so highly of the processor, and I wouldn't consider it. I'd rather get the i7 920.
If you're going to argue, at least have the decency/intelligence to not misrepresent someone's position.
I didn't really read the rest of your crap. I could only skim through your sub-literate drivel. I doubt you would have said anything useful in it. Reply
Skiprudder - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkCan you please stop referring to people as idiots and morons? I'm not sure where you acquired your rhetorical skills, but calling folks names is the last thing one should do if you're actually trying to convince people of your viewpoint. Call someone here a moron, and it makes you look like just a troll. Calm down, stay rational, and people will be much more likely to hear what you have to say (and if they aren't, why should you care anyway?) There's no excuse for rudeness. Reply
Skiprudder - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI agree, the 870 isn't priced at all sensibly (but I would argue the top Bloomfields are pretty darn unreasonable too). Prices are rather high right now, and it will be interesting to see what they do over the next few weeks as supplies and demands start to balance out. Reply
chrnochime - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThe sad thing is, right now(at least), in order to get i7 CPU and decent MB to OC with, a P55 set up would run:
~300 for the i7 860
~200 for an UD4P or an Asus P55 Pro.
Whereas for a x58 setup,
I can get an i 7 920 for 200 pre-tax, and should spend about 230-250 for a decent motherboard.
So for me, it's actually cheaper to go with the x58 setup, even though P55 MB are supposed to be cheaper... Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYes, and you'd end up with better performance too. And better i/o, and better flexibility.
Once you factor in overclocking, the P55 isn't really much of an option unless you go to it's really low end, where you simply can't build an x58. Then it's competing with the Core 2, and has a chance. Reply
ClownPuncher - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkGood article, thanks for the clarifications too. Reply
snakeoil - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkand the cherry on top of the pie
core i5 750 and core i3 don't support virtualization.
that's fantastic, colossal intel.
what's wrong with intel Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIntel VT-x is supported by the Core i5 750:
Take care,
Anand Reply
snakeoil - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linksorry incomplete link
http://www.virtualization.info/2009/07/intel-core-...">http://www.virtualization.info/2009/07/...core-i3-... Reply
AssBall - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhat are you talking about? These overclock FINE; read the article. 4 Ghz. Anyone that is gonna overclock bloomfield or lynnfield seriously is opting for an aftermarket HSF, so don't bother arguing that. Your comment doesn't make any sense. Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYou missed the point.
When you overclock the processors, you change the characteristics of turbo mode. Consequently, the big advantage of the Lynnfield disappears, and they run at the same clock speed, instead of the Lynnfield at a higher clock speed.
Do you understand now? Reply
eternalfantasy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linklolemo Reply
goinginstyle - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"There are better sites that have answered these questions. I used to like this site, but this review is another disappointment. "
Just how is that Tom's Hardware gig working out for you? I noticed your name was not on any of their launch reviews since you seem to be an expert on the subject. Why is that? Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThanks for asking.
When I have time, I will be writing another article, which they hopefully will use, but to be honest, the time it takes to write an article, at least a well-written one, takes an enormous amount of time and effort.
Getting and verifying data is only part of it. Writing it in an artistic an interesting way is very time consuming, and, at least for me, requires many rewrites of the same pages. Each page took me at least five hours, some many more, plus the upfront time of deciding which pages to write, which probably took at least 30 hours of research.
The editor of Tom's wrote their articles, and it's clear to see the much more thorough review he did. Personally, I like him and occasionally do communicate with him, and I probably would like Anand too, since he seems like a good fellow, but I have no real affiliation with their site. If I write an article they like, they might publish it. That's it.
But, honestly, if you do it for money, you're a fool. It takes WAY too much time for that. You really have to want to do it, and the money is secondary. Reply
goinginstyle - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSo it took you five hours a page to do a copy and paste from Wikipedia on that so called article of yours? I read the Tom's P55 article, not seeing how it was any more thoughtful than the one here or at Tech Report. At least Anand did some searching and reported on items like PCIe clocking/voltage requirements that I noticed was not mentioned at Toms.
Your only motive for these posts is to try and look impressive at Toms in hopes that they will publish another boring piece of dung from you. Otherwise, your complaints here are just as justified at Toms or TR, yet you are not posting at either site. That is why it is so obvious as to what you are up to with the flame bait comments. Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI never even looked at Wikipedia, since I don't consider it a valid source of information.
Why do you talk about things you don't know about. In fact, some people used Wikipedia to argue some points with me. I made a point never to look at those pages.
But again, what have you done with your, except produce carbon dioxide and speed up global warming? You seem pretty worthless to me. Reply
goinginstyle - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkWhat is worthless here is your continued ramblings about subjects you have no actual knowledge of right now. Do you own a P55 system? If so, let's see an article from you. Really, you come over spouting off and calling everyone idiots, yet, you we do not see any articles from you at Toms about the subject matter. In fact, we do not see any comments from you anywhere else about P55. Toms, Tech Report, and AT all came to the same conclusion, presented the same type of information (although AT discussed subjects like PCIE), and yet you do not comment on those other websites.
Either you are posting here because you think your negative posts will somehow get you attention that your mother never gave you or you are doing to try and look important to the people in charge at Toms. I hope to God that they never allow you to post another piece of garbage on their site. Really, that article was a straight copy and paste from several other articles on the subject along with Wikipedia information. I am surprised you were not sued for plagiarism, maybe you were and that is why you are over here.
So far, all of your ramblings have only proved your total lack of intelligence when it comes to computer components. Once again, when will we see you making comments on Toms about their similar coverage or when can you expect to see your expert PP article on the site? Reply
eternalfantasy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkFully agree up to the AMD part. This is the most biased review I've seen published by Anandtech to date. I think a "Buy me now!" link at the end of the article with an Intel sponsored Ad will complete the article perfectly.
Stock clock speed CPU review is what highstreet mags for average Joes write about. Excluding what's importent for readers of tech sites, such as:
Clock for clock comparison
Maximum overclock with similer priced CPU/platform
is just blatent attempt at glorifying Intel's mainstream platform to look like more then what it really is. A cheaper mainstream alternative to the X58 that has been avaliable over a year ago. Reply
PassingBy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkAs released, Core i5 and 1156 Core i7 have no IGP market, so presumably people reading this review will have no interest in using an IGP.
In any case, we can safely say that your prognostications like 'a brain dead platform for brain dead people' were total bullshit, as many people tried to tell you. Now, many more people can place a Nehalem-based system on their list of possible purchases. Clarkdale will extend Nehalem/Westmere to even lower price points (and yes, then you can start comparing IGPs, if you like). Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYou're really confused.
Honestly, anyone who knows anything about computers would be pretty stupid to get this platform. It's fine stock, but when you throw in overclock, the i7 920 is the better choice.
But, here's your hypocrisy. This article was main for mainstream people, since there's no overclocking comparisons, really. The IGP is what makes AMD work, and they do sell their processors into this market. Anand was commenting on how AMD had to lower their prices, so within this context the entire market is applicable. You didn't understand the context, did you?
I didn't say the platform was brain-dead, although you seem to be. I said it was brain-damaged. It's a Celeron. If you look at the reviews from better sites, you can see the Bloomfield running at the same speed is faster than the brain-damaged Lynnfield. Anand really tried to obfuscate this, by using bad comparisons or those meant to show the Lynnfield in the best light, instead of just presenting the most useful information. He fooled you, because you're a moron, but not everyone.
I do like this site, or I did, but I'm really getting unnerved by the way they test to show what they want to show, instead of test and then make up their minds. It's really problematic, and it's going to bite them when more people figure this out. Reply
imperialsoren - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYou have a nasty way of conversing. Reply
IdolObserver - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkIt's not only his nasty way of conversing. He also doesn't have a clue what he is talking about. Reply
Zymon - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI agree in the main part - there are many aspects which seem to have been completely ignored in this, and many other reviews of Lynnfield.
It seems strange that you haven't used a level playing field between compared systems: ALL 3 platforms can use DDR3 - you've used X48 for Core 2 chips, but apparently used different RAM than i5. Why on earth have you used an AM2+ board and DDR2 ram for AMD? I guess it's *only* been 9 months since AM3 became available?
As mentioned, a true clock-for-clock comparison would be VERY interesting, using the same RAM, at the same speeds and timings between platforms. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSorry if this wasn't made clear in the review but the Phenom II X4 965 BE used the same test platform as our review of that CPU: an AM3 motherboard with DDR3 memory.
I'm out of the office now but I'll update the test tables later this evening to reflect this.
Take care,
Anand Reply
Zymon - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkCheers for the clarification Anand!
- It seemed unusual for one of your articles, hence the comment!
Laters.. Reply
snakeoil - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linki want to know if those benchmarks were with the turbo enabled, which would be cheating, because that's overclocking.
for every benchmark turbo must be disabled to be fair.
readers are not stupid. Reply
Griswold - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYou definitely ARE stupid. Reply
dragunover - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkReaders aren't, but you didn't read... Reply
snakeoil - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkwow, this lynnfield is expensive, and the motherboards are expensive too.
this is a crippled core i7 and you will have problems because the northbrige only have 2 x 8 pcie express electrical.
so if you are going to buy a new directx 11 video card don't commit the mistake of buying a lynnfield which is crippled.
without hyperthreading in some cases is a 40% slower than core i7 Reply
Eeqmcsq - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkAnand, can't you just ban this guy? He's always trolls against Intel here, TechReport, and a couple other tech sites. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI second the notion. Reply
Chlorus - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThirded. Reply
maddoctor - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYour comment will not affect people whose committed to bought these. I think it is more valuable than any AMD platform. I don't think AMD will survive next year. Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkFrom a purely processor perspective, I'd agree, but AMD platforms are pretty strong when you compare IGPs. The G45 compared to the 790GX is worse comparison than the Phenom II compared to the Nehalem.
Don't forget IGPs are a HUGE market, so it's not an unimportant consideration. Reply
PassingBy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYes, the IGP market is huge and Intel dominates that market as it is. If Intel can get its drivers right, then it looks like the IGP on Clarkdale/Arrandale will extend that domination. If you want to game seriously on graphics intensive games, then don't use an IGP. Reply
ash9 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkbroaden your horizons; the real money is in corporate retooling- that said AMD's platform is without question offer more bang for the buck, considering corporate needs...most corporate folk have gone blind because of Intel's IPG's (laptops and desktops)
Anand how bout running the tests that addresses that issue (IPG's and eye strain) Reply
jonup - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkUnfortunately people in corporate world do not make a difference between a HD4500 and a GX790. As lond as the Intel can display spreadsheets its good enough (or better) than a GTX295/HD4890X2, because it is Intel. You can change ignorance when it works. Reply
PassingBy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkMy horizons are broad enough, thank you. The needs of many corporate desktops/laptops will be met by Clarkdale/Arrandale and no, nobody will go blind or suffer eyestrain (by virtue of the IGP anyway). Reply
PassingBy - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkNo edit function, so, as I point out later in the thread, people reading this review presumably won't be interested in IGPs anyway, given that these processors now have no IGP market. Wait for Clarkdale before trying to compare IGPs. Reply
dragunover - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThanks for the review, if not as soon as I wanted it!
Boobs McGee - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkDo you guys have plans to do a motherboard review roundup for P55?
If not, please do. Reply
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI actually have three roundups planned, we have 15 boards here ranging from the $100 uATX items up to the $300 EVGA Classified series. We are only testing with retail products, released BIOS', and retail processors so the delivery of more than 70% of the boards late last week has created a small logjam. ;)
The first article should be up on Thursday with a couple of my favorite boards and then a rather large one up on Monday and the last one a few days after that. Raja is working on a separate roundup of the top three boards targeted for the more extreme OC community. We will also have a P55 memory specific article shortly. Reply
ClagMaster - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkLooking forward to reading these P55 motherboard roundups. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYes, Gary is nearly complete with his. Give him another day and it'll be up :)
Take care,
Anand Reply
Comdrpopnfresh - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkBy creating a new socket- they're providing a disincentive for early adopters of bloomfield. This chip is literally a humpty-dumpty that stands to benefit intel with everyone suffering a small loss of their own. The benefits of lynnfield vs bloomfield come from shuffling the architectural deck of nehalem. In reality, it only shows the possibilities of an inflexible architecture.
The turbo mode isn't cutting it in day-to-day power consumption reduction. On the scale of a day, the average shmoe who is ass enough to leave a computer on for no reason gains no benefit. Lower the reach of a voltage plane, and reduce the number of components sucking juice, that only present benefits under certain situations (a third memory channel), and shmoe is happier.
If it was in the article, I apologize, but with the pci-e controller being on the un-core... what happens on a chipset with integrated graphics? Will the igp be linked to the processor now, rather than a bridge chip? If ati or nvidia made their own supporting chipsets with an igp- would the igp represent a chip onto itself, solely connected to the cpu, or would it have to work through dmi, and leave those on-die pci-e lanes for domestic usage?
It seems this is the warning rattle to nvidia that they chose their place with ion, and are stuck in it. When the change to 32nm comes, and the gpu is integrated into the cpu- what kind of robust 3rd party chipsets could exist in the budget end? Sure, you can always add a dedicated, off-die, gpu... but for budget boards used to eons of making room for a cpu and working a bridge chip around an igp- either horrible inefficiencies will creep up, or higher prices.
My money is on westmere having at least three power planes.
I'd like to know: with the pci-e controller on-die now... what impact this puts on graphics cards with higher on-card memory. Does it strengthen or minimalize it?
And, can the cpu now share the gpu's memory as a way to extend cache- after years of being forced to share the system pool. That 16gb/s link to gddr5 looks mouthwatering. I'd like to see performance tests run with the pci-e varient ssds floating around out there saddled to the on-die pci-e lanes, and a graphics card running off of chipset. Rather than elevating a horse-power driven graphics subsystem, I think the benefits of supplying more 'torque' by freeing mass storage ssds from the SATA interface would be far more substantial, and in all applications of the PC. You already have the means for nearly 2+2/3 times the theoretical bandwidth of SATA-6- which up til now seems rather bug-ridden and defunct.
Also interested in the outcomes of usb3 with this- as usb is built on the foundations of pci-e, is it not? If usb3 can allow for pci-e externally, and you remove the latency issue of usb signaling traveling from some peripheral bridge chip to the cpu, and just jack the usb3 communications into the cpu... could one use usb3 as a computer-to-computer psuedo qpi teaming/networking bridge for inter-desktop cpu communication. skip the entire bottleneck of client-level software implementation, and the subsystem communication buses for out-of-box signaling too...
plague911 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link
The market just got a little more crowded so hopefully this will bring a reduction in prices of the 920. but..
"The Core i7 870 gets close enough to the Core i7 975 that I'm having a hard time justifying the LGA-1366 platform at all. As I see it, LGA-1366 has a few advantages:
1) High-end multi-GPU Performance
2) Stock Voltage Overclocking
3) Future support for 6-core Gulftown CPUs
Your exactly right 1366 I think is going to be be the best option to "future proof" my system however the new chips make the 920- seem a little low on features. With the goal of "performance on a budget" I feel like we are stuck either getting a board with a socket which wont compete in the future, or chip which is weaker than its lower class cousins. Unfortunately I dont see any of this being fixed in the next few cycles. Id like to see a low clocked gulftown (to save cost) feature rich with good OC potential thats on the lower end of the price scale. To me this would be a good follow up to 920 but but it dosent seem like that will be coming out for several cycles. Unless ofc i'm missing something which is probably the case. Reply
ash9 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkAs per Anand's article, "How Much Does it Cost to Build a P55 Motherboard?" Intel is getting around $50 min everytime a P55 board is sold with its new chips...nice, most folk wont link board prices to Intel..way to go Intel; so how much is Intel really making on its $196 i5?? Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI love you. Reply
Avalon - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkHey Anand, how did you test stability on your max i5 750 overclock with turbo mode enabled? You said your max overclock on your i5 75 with turbo was 3.2Ghz. Do you just simply run Prime or some similar burn in that runs on all 4 cores (which would have turbo'd you to 3.96Ghz), or did you actually check a single threaded run on a single/two core(s) at 100% while getting it to run at turbo speed of 4.16Ghz(4Ghz for 2) at the same time? Thanks! Reply
Gary Key - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkStability testing is accomplished by running large renders in Lightwave 3D 9.6 x64 and Cinema4D R11 x64 at the same time while playing FarCry 2 in a window, along with Espresso, Mainconcept Reference, Lightroom, several IE windows, and Maya opened in the background. Also, it was not shown but all of the overclock results were with an 8GB memory load at DDR3-1800 or above. We try to test them like you use them. ;) Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhen turbo mode was enabled we made sure the system was stable with 1, 2 and 4 cores active. It had to pass all tests to be considered stable.
Take care,
Anand Reply
chizow - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkComments like this make me think you're losing touch Anand.
[quote] I'm going to go ahead and say it right now, there's no need for any LGA-1366 processors slower than a Core i7 965[/quote]
[quote]For $196 you're getting a processor that's faster than the Core i7 920. I'm not taking into account motherboard prices either, which are anywhere from $50 - $100 cheaper for LGA-1156 boards. I don't believe LGA-1366 is dead, but there's absolutely no reason to buy anything slower than a 965 if you're going that route.[/quote]
There's about 800 reasons I can think of for other LGA1366 chips besides the Core i7 965, and there was a time you tipped your hat to amazing value gained from overclocking. I guess you're too enamored nowadays throwing that money away on those overpriced $1500 Intel Nehalems on boring Mac platforms that aren't conducive to user modifications to begin with.
jordanclock - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI fail to see how Anand is "losing his touch." He has a very valid point: Buying anything less than the highest range i7's doesn't make sense right now. Lynnfield is very competitive to the sub-965 i7's, but with a much lower price (for both the CPU and motherboard). The 965/975 have many situations where they out-perform the i5's by a great deal, but unless you're buying a CPU for extreme performance, the i5 is a much better deal no matter how you slice it. Reply
chizow - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIt seems you missed the point, entirely. Once you factor in overclocking, there is about 800 reasons to buy a cheaper LGA1366 CPU than the i7 965 because those cheaper processors tend to reach the same maximum clockspeeds as their overpriced siblings. Even a modest 500-600MHz overclock on a "pointless" $200 i7 920 surpasses the performance level you could buy with a $1000 stock XE part from Intel. Failing to acknowledge this reality tells me both you and he are losing touch.... Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkForgive me as apparently I wasn't clear enough in what I was trying to say there.
I would absolutely recommend the Core i7 920 over a $1000 Core i7 Extreme. In fact, I did back when the Core i7 first launched.
What I was trying to say in those sentences was Lynnfield changes all of that. Instead of buying a Core i7 920, I'd recommend a Core i5 750 (and saving money) or a Core i7 860 (and saving a bit less money). Those are both LGA-1156 processors.
The only reason anyone would want LGA-1366 is if they want to build something faster than a Core i7 870, which only leaves the Core i7 965/975.
My recommendation *isn't* to buy a $1000 CPU, it's to buy something much cheaper. Because of this, most of the LGA-1366 lineup is made obsolete by Lynnfield.
Does that make more sense?
Take care,
Anand Reply
chizow - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI see your point and thought it might be what you were hinting at, but the message did come off awfully distorted with the way it was worded. If there was a 3.2-3.3GHz Lynnfield I suppose that would have made the 965 XE obsolete as well? The reality of it is, if there weren't other options besides $1000+ XE CPUs, X58 would be a dead platform akin to other failed Intel efforts of the past like Skulltrail.
But that's not the case. X58 still has a place even though performance overlaps with Lynnfield on the low-end. In multi-GPU and gaming situations there's still clearly a place for X58/LGA1366 as Page 9 indicates. In situations where the end-user intends to overclock, any of the artificial gains from Lynnfield's Turbo modes are going to be negated.
Personally, from a consumer standpoint, I feel Intel botched the whole X58/P55 design and launch starting with the decision to go with 2 sockets. Not only did the feature that provided the least benefit (triple vs. dual channel) drive the reason for the socket/pin count difference, they gimp the platform with superior tech by cutting PCIE lanes in half.
I would've much rather have seen a 32-lane integrated PCIE controller on X58 and have a unified LGA1188 socket instead of 2 sockets, both of which have blemishes and signficant downsides as we have now. Reply
erple2 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link[quoting]
Not only did the feature that provided the least benefit (triple vs. dual channel) drive the reason for the socket/pin count difference, they gimp the platform with superior tech by cutting PCIE lanes in half[/quoting]
I thought that the X58 has the PCIe controller on the mobo, and the P55 doesn't? That the Lynnfield CPU's had a built-in PCIe controller, whereas the Bloomfields lacked the built-in PCIe controller? That appears to be another reason why intel had to make 2 separate sockets/platforms.
Now, whether that was made intentionally to force this issue with multiple platforms is a side issue (IMO). I don't necessarily think that it's a problem. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"Personally, from a consumer standpoint, I feel Intel botched the whole X58/P55 design and launch starting with the decision to go with 2 sockets. Not only did the feature that provided the least benefit (triple vs. dual channel) drive the reason for the socket/pin count difference, they gimp the platform with superior tech by cutting PCIE lanes in half."
I believe it was intentional and not a botch. Intel was trying to separate a high and low end and to sell more chipsets. It's Intel being boss. It's what they do. Confuse the consumer, sell more crap, and hope that AMD stays a step behind. This is why we need AMD.
Intel is good at marketing and getting consumers to jump on the latest trend. Remember the Pentium 4? Why buy a lower ghz chip when the P4 clocks higher right?
The educated consumer waits and pounces when the price is right, not when the tech is new and seems "thrilling". This review is great but no offense it still almost seems to come with a "buy this" spin - which may be the only way a tech journalist can stay privy to getting new information ahead of the curve. Reply
Comdrpopnfresh - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYou purposefully placing the possibility of overclocking solely in the hands of the lower chip, while completely disregarding the history and facts. This-or-that logical fallacy. Third option: You can overclock the higher-clocked chip too.
Granted, I see your point about the hardware being of the same generation of the architecture; that lynnnfield is not the tock to bloomfield's tick (or the other way around if how you hear clocks starts mid-cycle) and therefore the silicon has the same ceiling for OC.
But bloomfield is a like a D.I.N.K. household; dual-income-no-kids. When you overclock bloomfield, not only do you have the physical advantage of lower heat-density due to a large die, but you also don't have the whiny pci-e controller complaining how timmy at school doesn't have to be forced into overclocking. The on-die pci-e controller will hinder overclocking- period.
Just like trying to overclock cpu's in nearly identical s775 motherboards/systems. The system with the igp keeps the fsb from overclocking too much. So then what- you buy a dedicated gpu, negate your igp you spent good money on, just to have your cpu scream?
Except in this case, if one were able to disable the on-die pci-e controller and plop a gpu in a chipset-appointed slot (sticking with the igp mobo situation in s775) you'd be throwing away the money on the on-die goodies, and also throwing away the reduced latency it provides.
Has it occured to anyone that this is going to open an avenue for artificial price inflation of ddr-3. Now the same products will be sold in packages of 3's and 2's? Sorry- just figured I'd change the subject from your broken heard still stick on overclocking. Reply
chizow - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link
You purposefully placing the possibility of overclocking solely in the hands of the lower chip, while completely disregarding the history and facts. This-or-that logical fallacy. Third option: You can overclock the higher-clocked chip too.
Actually in the real world, overclockers are finding the 920 D0s clock as well and often better than the 965s for sure (being C0), and even the 975s D0. You're certainly not going to see a 5x proportionate return in MHz on the difference spent between a $200 920 and a $1000 975. There is no third option because their maximum clock thresholds are similar and limited by uarch and process. The only advantage the XE versions enjoy is multiplier flexibility, a completely artificial restriction imposed by Intel to justify a higher price tag. Reply
philosofool - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkNot seeing it dude. A little overvoltage and LGA 1156 overclocks with 1366. Reply
chizow - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYes and early reports indicate they will overclock to equivalent clockspeeds, negating any Turbo benefit Lynnfield enjoys in the review. That leaves less subtle differences like multi-GPU performance where the X58 clearly shines and clearly outperfoms P55. Reply
puffpio - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIn the article you refer to x264 as an alternative to h264
in fact, h264 is just the standard (like jpeg or png) and x264 is an encoder that implements the standard. i wouldn't call it an alternative.
that would be like saying photoshop is an alternative to jpeg, becuase it can save in jpeg format Reply
puffpio - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link"You'd think that Intel was about to enter the graphics market or something with a design like this."
dun dun dun! foreshadowing?
and since these parts consume less power yet are built on the same process, I assume they run at lower voltage? If so, since they ARE built on the same process, I'd assume they can survive the voltages of the original Bloomfield and beyond? eg for overclocking... Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYes, Lynnfield shouldn't have a problem running at the same voltages as Bloomfield. The only unknown is the PCIe circuitry. I suspect that over time we'll figure out the tricks to properly overclocking Lynnfield.
As far as Larrabee goes, I wouldn't expect much from the first generation. If Intel is *at all* competitive in gaming performance it'll be a win as far as they're concerned. It's Larrabee II and ultimately Larrabee III that you should be most interested in.
The on-die PCIe controller is a huge step forward though. CPU/GPU integration cometh.
Take care,
Anand Reply
Comdrpopnfresh - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkHave you seen bios implementations allowing for the controller to be disabled? Know if anyone intends to do this? Reply
strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkHow would you have graphics then? You would be limited to the 4xPCIe off the P55 on motherboards which support it, as there are no integrated graphics (yet) Reply
MX5RX7 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI'm not sure that CPU/GPU integration is a good thing, from a consumer standpoint. At least in the short term.
For example, in the article you mention how the majority of modern games are GPU, not CPU limited. The current model allows us to purchase a very capable processor and pair it with a very capable GPU. Then, when the ultra competitive GPU market has provided us with a choice of parts that easily eclipse the performance of the previous generation, we either swap graphics cards for the newer model, or purchase a second now cheaper identical card and (hopefully) double our game performance with SLI or Crossfire. All without having to upgrade the rest of the platform.
With the current model, a new graphics API requires a new graphics card. With Larrabee, it might very well require a whole new platform.
Ben90 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYea, im really excited for Larrabee, who knows if it will be good or not... but with intel kicking ass in everything else, it will at least be interesting
With overclocking performance seemingly being limited by the PCI-E controller, it seems like an unlocked 1156 would be pretty sweet
All in all i gotta admit i was kinda bitter with this whole 1156 thing because i jumped on the 1336 bandwagon and it seemed that Intel was mostly just jacking off with the new socket... but this processor seems to bring a lot more innovation than i expected (just not in raw performance, still great performance though) Reply
chizow - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWas worried no one was going to properly address one of the main differences between P55 and X58, thanks for giving it a dedicated comparison. Although I would've like to have seen more games tested, it clearly indicates PCIE bandwidth becoming an issue with current generation GPUs. This will only get worst with the impending launch of RV8x0 and GT300. Reply
Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkPCIe bandwidth on Lynnfield is only an issue with two GPUs, with one you get the same 16 lanes as you would on X58 or AMD 790FX.
If I had more time I would've done more games, I just wanted to focus on those that I knew scaled the best to see what the worst case scenario would be for Lynnfield.
In the end 2 GPUs are passable (although not always ideal on Lynnfield), but 4 GPUs are out of the question.
Take care,
Anand Reply
JumpingJack - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkAnand, a few other sites have attempted SLI/Xfire work ... on in particular shows 4 GPUs having no impact at all on gaming performance in general -- well, 3 or 4 FPS, but nothing more than a few percentages over norm.
Could your configuration with beta or just bad first release drivers be an issue?
Jack Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWould it be possible to incorporate two GPU controllers onto a die instead of one or is that what they'll be doing with future procs? I would think that two controllers with a communication hub might supply the needed bandwidth of x16 + x16. Reply
Comdrpopnfresh - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkwith two gpu's being passable- do you foresee that applying to both two independent gpus, as well as the single dual-card gpus? Reply
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYes. The only difference between the two is where the PCIe bridge chip is. In the former it's on the mobo, in the latter it's on the card itself. Reply
Eeqmcsq - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkTalk about bringing a bazooka to a knife fight. AMD better be throwing all their innovation ideas and the kitchen sink into Bulldozer, because Intel is thoroughly out-innovating AMD right now. Reply
maddoctor - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYeah, I'm agree. I think AMD will be no more as a company next year. I hope it will be happen. I think it is better you throw your AMD rubbish products into the trash. Because, I don't see any valuable of it. Reply
Eeqmcsq - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWell, I hope that it does NOT happen, because we NEED competition to keep Intel honest. Secondly, I would not go as far as calling AMD stuff rubbish. They're good if they fit one's needs at the right price, but they are definitely getting pushed further down the totem pole. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkKEEP them honest? Where have you been? Reply
bupkus - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkA Core i5 750 with HT would not only defeat the purpose of most of the i7s, but it would also widen the performance gap with AMD. Intel doesn't need to maintain a huge performance advantage, just one that's good enough. Reply
maddoctor - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI don't believe Intel will increasing its products because AMD does not have any competitive products. Reply
klatscho - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkactually, they do - if you would care to have a look at price/performance, especially considering that amd has already quietly thinned out its portfolio to make room for price improvements in order to stay in the game.
maddoctor - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkIntel doesn't need to be honest. I hope Intel will lifts AMD licensee as AMD has been breached the Intel - AMD CLA. I believe Intel will always be innovating and makes more cheaper and performance wise products. AMD will be no more and you will not need to miss it, AMD had been doing its duty to made Intel more stronger and competitive. Reply
PrinceGaz - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYou are a fool if you think AMD is no longer needed. The only reason these Lynnfield chips start at just $196 is because AMD is still here and were selling competitive chips at around that price point. No AMD means newer better chips are introduced at high price points and stay there for a long time, just look at Bloomfield's prices to see what happens when AMD offers no competition. The $284 i7 920 is for a slightly higher performing chip than any Phenom and is priced accordingly, but you have to pay $562 and then $999 for performance where there is truly no competition.
No AMD would mean these Lynnfields starting at $284 if you're lucky (that's for something like the i5 750) with the HT enabled ones at the $562 price point, and the only chips you'd find for under $200 would be old Core 2 Duos and Quads. Thankfully AMD are here which is why new chips are introduced at competitive prices. No competition (from AMD) means no competitive prices, so if AMD go bust today, the next generation of Intel chips will start expensive, and stay expensive until they are replaced with the model after it, which won't be for a long time when nobody else can offer anything like their current product. I guess you don't remember the days of the original Pentium in the mid 90's. Reply
ClagMaster - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI agree. We need AMD and it's foolish to assert otherwise.
AMD has been very good to us over the last 10 years. If it was not for AMD, Intel would have a monopoly and we would have not have Lynnfield or Bloomfield today. Intel created Lynnfield because they wanted to be more competitive with AMD in the mainstream market. Bloomfield/X58 was simply too expensive for mainstream and AMD's Phenon II was a better value.
I am discouraged that people have so easily forgotten AMD's past leadership such as the efficient instruction schedulers, first on-chip memory controller,the first single-die dual and quad core chips to market, the first consumer 64-bit processors, the x86-64 architecture extension that Intel followed, and the K8 architecture that kicked Intel Netburst architecture's butt black and blue.
That's why Intel was motivated to drop Netburst and introduce the Core 2 Duo/P965 in 1996. Then adopt the aggressive tick-tock strategy ever since that has given us the 45nm Lynnfield today. Lynnfield has these AMD inspired innovations, and Intel has built upon these innovations with the on-die PCIe controller.
I have a lot of respect for AMD. Don't ever accuse AMD of not being innovative. AMD does not suffer from lack of technological innovation. They have demonstrated plenty of innovation. AMD suffers from lack of capital investment that allows acceleration of technological development and manufacturing infrastructure. Reply
strikeback03 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkYou can't really say Lynnfield is a response to PhenomII when it was on the Intel roadmap before they knew how PhenomII would perform or be priced. It is simply the next progression in their architecture. So you might be able to argue that Intel wouldn't have rolled out the Nehalem architecture as quickly without AMD, but you can't really say any one family is a response to another in that short a timescale. Reply
moronsworld - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - linkTo all you morons that don't understand economics. amd gone = intel monopoly = intel processors overpriced. Plain and simple. Take an economy class or 2, you morons. AMD is a good company, just that Intel's processors are better at the moment. God too many morons in this world that are allowed to vote. We live in a society ruled by morons. Reply
TA152H - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkActually, you don't really know what you're talking about.
On-die memory controllers are nothing new. The Nexgen 586 had it in the mid-90s. Intel just knew when to add it, and when not to. That's why the Core 2 blows AMD processors away, while being significantly smaller.
AMD instruction schedulers were behind Intel's Pentium Pro from 1995 until the Phenom II came out. It still doesn't have full memory disambiguation like Intel introduced with the Core 2, but at least the memory scheduling is now on par with the Pentium Pro. I'm not sure that something they like brought up though.
64-bit processing is also old hat, and really was just an extension of the 386 protected mode anyway, with a lot of Microsoft input.
The K8 wasn't really much of an architecture, it was a K7 with a memory controller, and a couple of extra stages for better IPC, that most idiots thought was for higher clock speeds. It was a failure, and was what put AMD in the situation where they are now. It was, generally, better than the Netburst, but then, is that such a high bar to get over? The problem was, they actually believed it was a good processor until the Core 2 relieved them of that misapprehension. The reality is, Intel's mobile chips were always better than the K8, but the damn fools made us buy the Pentium 4 for the desktop. To AMD's credit, at least they never made anything horrible like that, but, really, their primary claim to fame was based more on the terrible Intel design than a great processor of their own, and the fact Intel wouldn't let us use the mobile chips for desktops. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkPlease work on your English before replying to me in the future. Thanks. Reply
Aenslead - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkSo you *must* have perfect english to reply in these forums?
Gosh, never saw that in the Terms and Conditions agreement when I created my account. So that means that anybody (or a nobody, like you) have a say on what other races and people from other countries that don't speak English as their first language, that LIKE READING and giving their opinion in a FREE MOFO OPEN FORUM, must do to post here?
You and your kind are pathetic. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI didn't say anything about having perfect English. You sir, are a troll. I just wanted his reply to be coherent. This is the ENGLISH version of DailyTech, there are other language versions. His post didn't even make sense, and yours was just trolling. Reply
ginbong - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI understood what he said, maybe you need to sharpen up your analytical skills and stop being a dlckhead on this hardware analysis website.
Better yet, how about taking the money you have saved for your next PC upgrade and enrolling into Grade 1 again. Reply
dastruch - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkand you don't get it too... pathetic Reply
jigglywiggly - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkThis is a hot cpu, except I want 6 cores + HT. 32nm... quads ahh yeah. I still don't like the i5, because I don't want two sockets on one brand at the same time. It just limits options, I am only looking at i7/i9, because I bought this qx6700 in 2006 for 1000$. It was a good purchase, because q6600s were a while away and they were 500$. I got my qx6700 to 3.85ghz, now it's at 3.5ghz stable. Curse you electromigration! Also curse you economy! I don't have enough money for a 6core+6HT 1000$ cpu again. Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - link*Laughs at the moron...
Go buy a Ferrari and then wreck it and sell it for parts. That's essentially a larger scale version of what you did. Reply
Lifted - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkHuh? Buying a $1000 CPU is like wrecking a Ferrari?
"Laughs at the moron" Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkAnyone who buys a $1000 CPU has more money than brains. If you wait six months you can buy a newer budget processor for about 1/15 of the cost, overclock it and obtain the same result. I would think that $925 would be more valuable to someone with sense than bragging rights for six months. I was taught that when people brag they are vain morons. A person's value should not be estimated by the stuff they have, but by the choices they make. We all get a lot in life, it's what you do with it that sets you apart. Unfortunately our society is ruled by greed and capitalism. I choose to speak against that. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you take it up with the greedy capitalist complaint department. They don't care either. Reply
max347 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkHmm, it would seem to me that someone who has $1k to spend on a cpu probably has "alot of brains", hence the better-than-average financial position, enabling the purchase in the first place.
Also, you equate greed to capitalism. This is clearly false. People get what they work for in a capitalist society. I am not saying it is perfect, though what would be a better alternative? People are not going to be financially equal, as some work harder than others. To dispute this would demonstrate a lack of experience...to say the least.
Someone chooses to get the best. It's their money, their choice. But you're right, you should probably call them a greedy capitalist. Reply
fullcooler - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkwow, you said that way calmer than I would have. very classy reply to a young leftist. perhaps when obama passes the "free $1000 cpu's for lazy punk leftists" plan, you and I can pay for his cpu,and he wont be a sellout to the man by working for it. Reply
imaheadcase - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI hate people who used that phrase "Has more money than brains". Doesn't it stand to reason, they have brains..if they have more money than you to buy the CPU... lol Reply
JNo - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkNot necessarily - they might have inherited the money for example.
Maybe you have more money than brains too... Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkYep. These people sound like they have no idea how to be frugal with money. It's ok though, a fool and his money are soon parted. Reply
lyeoh - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkStop doing that ok?
If you discourage too many rich/stupid people from buying the bleeding edge stuff it just makes it harder for the rest of us.
Poor folks like me need those rich guys to rush out and buy the expensive CPUs (and GPUs etc) and work all the bugs out, get the production line ramped up etc.
Then 6-12 months later we have good and cheap stuff to buy.
The best CPU costs way less than an expensive house anyway, so it's not like he's going to cause some sort of nation wide or global financial crisis. Reply
VaultDweller - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkMaybe they don't know how to be frugal with money.
Maybe they don't NEED to be frugal with money.
Sure, a fool and his money are soon parted - but so is a brilliant rich man who has more money than he needs. Reply
niva - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkI disagree with your first statement. There are people who simply want the best/fastest and will pay the money for it. Only in the last 3 or 4 years has top of the line performance become relevant only for gaming. A few years ago all sorts of pros needed the fastest they can get their hands on and purchases like $1k per CPU were actually justified.
Now just because you can't afford a 1k CPU and never have been, doesn't mean people who buy such things are morons. Same goes for buying a Ferrari by the way. Quit being a jealous putz, thanks! Reply
JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWhen you compare value ratios, yes. A $1000 CPU is soon worth about $75. A Ferrari sold as parts is worth about 1/15 of the price also. I didn't think I'd have to spell it out for you. Reply
Ben90 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkWas reading it pretty casually thinking it was just a preview because i didnt think the NDA lifted yet.... then i saw a next page... looked at the tab and it has like 20 pages OMGOMGOMGOMG!!! ITS OUT LOL....Im gonna try really really hard to read the article before i go to the gaming performance though...prolly wont make it Reply
Lashek - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkyou compare it to the Q6600 a lot in the text, but no comparison with an overclocked Q6600 is made in the benches...
If you have figures of an overclocked Q6600, could you add them? all over the web these question are asked but business leaders who own these web sites dont want to challenge a overclocked core 2 duo,and quads,or is it politics?
coldpower27 - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkYou will have to compare an overclocked I750 or i860 to the Q6600 as that would only be fair, no sense doing a stock vs overclocked comparison.
It is well known you can equal todays stock performance by overclocking to some degree, but if your going to compare overclock then you need to overclock both processors.
Q6600 will be destroyed by i750 and i860 if you compare perf/watt however. Reply
Joshaze - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkAnand,
When testing World of Warcraft what processAffinityMask value where you using?
The default value for this variable does not take advantage of all cores on the Core i7 processors.
Here is the article discussing the CVAR: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi...">http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi...
The value should be 255 for 8 cores and 15 for 4 cores.
If not, any chance you could retest using the above values and report back on any changes? Reply
Googer - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkThe lack of PS2 is a real deal killer for me, I have a beloved IBM Clicky Model M keyboard (1391401) and I will not give it up for anything. I know PS2-usb keyboard adapter exist but they just don't work very well.
I am not alone, there are tens of thousands of vintage keyboard lovers out there and the IBM Model 1391401 is one of the more popular ones among keyboard aficionados.
Kind of sad that a 20-30 year old keyboard still works as well as they day it was made, new cheaper keyboards are less acuurate, uncomfortable, very flimsy and are poorly made. You would be lucky to get 5-6 years out of 'some' of these newer $90+ keyboards.
Save PS2, keep it alive. PS/2 has less lag than any USB keyboard I have tried. There are a lot of great keyboards still in use. There is no shortage of real estate on the back IO shields, so there should be no reason not to include a PS/2 port.. Reply
MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkSeconding this. USB is incapable of providing n-key rollover for keyboards. PS2 can. Not everyone needs that, but I won't do without it. Reply
Zoomer - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkI saw at least one PS2 port on these motherboards. What are you talking about again? Yes, they seem to be shared with the PS2 port for mice, but mice work the same on USB anyway. Reply
Taft12 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkThis is probably the most off-topic post I've seen on this site. Fortunately for all of us, your rant is invalid and you never have to say anything about this ever again:
http://www.syba.com/index.php?controller=Product&a...">http://www.syba.com/index.php?controller=Product&a... Reply
boogerlad - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkwhere't ta152h now? That idiot is finally done trolling. Reply
snakeoil - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkall the results of this review are biased because they were made with turbo enabled, that's at least 600 mhz overclocking.
to be fair you must compare this results against a phenom 2 overclockded at least 600 mhz
people is not stupid. Reply
Jeremiahx99 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - linkbiased? they where comparing stock vs stock how can u call that biased, and people is not stupid lol whats that mean? Reply
BlueBlazer - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - linkClock to clock comparison with turbo off..
Phenom II 965 comes in last place, due to IPC differences which is why AMD had to release higher clocked (should I say "overclocked") Phenom II to compete against Core 2 and Core i5/i7 series. Reply
MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkWhy compare to a Phenom OCd by 600mhz? The Phenom doesn't do it automatically like the i7 Reply
ssj4Gogeta - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - linkIt's biased because Intel is giving you more features?? The whole point of comparison is to determine which is better. Next you'll say it's biased because it's comparing a Nehalem to a Phenom II. Reply
ClownPuncher - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - link"people is not stupid. "
Nice Reply
goinginstyle - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkSomebody ban this SnakeOil idiot. Reply
Etern205 - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkNDA is lifted! Huzzah!!! Reply
philosofool - Tuesday, September 08, 2009 - linkNow all I need is for Newegg to get in on the act! Reply
Casper42 - Wednesday, September 09, 2009 - linkhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8... Reply
tcool93 - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - linkI'm posting this to an older review, but just wanted to make a comment. I noticed all the reviews that have the Q9650 included, compare it to the Phenom 965... which isn't a fair comparison at all, because the Phenom 965 is running at a considerably faster mhz than the Q9650 is. Plus the Q9650 can overclock much faster with no voltage increase. I would bet the Q9650 is faster than the Phenom 965 at the same clock speeds. Reply
klokaek - Monday, May 05, 2014 - linkGreat article !! Can you please tell us your references of the article ? Reply
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