Core I7 review

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Some more:
http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3448
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Core-i7-Nehalem,2057.html
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1642/intel_core_i7_nehalem_arrives_and_fsb_departs/index.html
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=229&Itemid=63
http://www.guru3d.com/article/intel-core-i7-920-and-965-review/
http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-multigpu-sli-crossfire-game-performance-review/1
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=634
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=16187
http://techreport.com/articles.x/15816
http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=726776&P=1
http://www.tbreak.com/articles/8/1/Intel-Core-i7-920-amp-965-EE-CPUs/Page1.html
http://www.trustedreviews.com/cpu-memory/review/2008/11/03/Intel-Core-i7--Nehalem--Architecture-Overview/p1
http://techgage.com/article/intel_core_i7_performance_preview/
http://www.techspot.com/review/124-intel-core-i7-920-940-965/
http://www.custompc.co.uk/reviews/605115/intel-core-i7.html

OCAU has a nice summary chart of i7 improvements over Core 2:
summary.jpg
 
Spend $1000 for 1 more FPS in Crysis over your E8600. Sounds like a good deal to me!

...............

The gains are definetly alot "higher" under low resolutions. But why would you be playing at a low res on a system with this proc? More than likely you would at least have a 8800GT or what not
 


I notice a disturbing lack of any of the Core 2 Extreme processors in the comparisons. Why would you not compare the new flagship processor to the old flagship processor?
 


They have a Q9650 which is exactly like a QX9650 minus the unlocked multi obviously.
 


They're probably using low res to make the CPU the bottleneck and therefore show that the new processors are more powerful. I do agree that it is pretty much a useless result though as it most likely won't reflect a real world scenario. Can't be any worse than some sythetic benchmark I suppose.
 

not everything is based on crysis...if you actually care about anything else besides that game, the i7 is actually pretty exciting
 


I suppose, but why not have the QX9770 seeing as it's the current flagship?
 


Hmm I didnt think about that, youre probably right.

This chip is powerful no doubt, but its just not worth tossing my good DDR2, Q6600, and P45 out. A year or so from now it might be a different story, completely unlike C2D where it was a a HUGE leap from the Core Duo and Pentium D's and AMD X2's and what have you. Hell I snagged an E6300 2 days after they were on Newegg.
 


Who knows, LH is not one of the 'big' hardware sites like Anandtech or THG so maybe they didn't have one at their disposal? Nevertheless we can get a good enough picture of how i7 stacks up to Core 2, its not like an extra 200MHz is going to drastically change the picture.

Anyway, the OCAU review is now up, here's a snapshot summary of how i7 965 compares to a QX9770:

http://www.overclockers.com.au/articles/726776/summary.jpg
 
Now this is interesting, a look at CF/SLI performance on i7 compared to C2D:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-multigpu-sli-crossfire-game-performance-review/1

It appears that a high end multi GPU setup receives tangible improvements in certain games with i7, although I wish Guru3D tested with a C2Q as some of those improvements will inevitably come from the extra cores/threads on i7, especially with the newer games like Crysis Warhead and Far Cry 2.
 
So where is the problem with Core i7. A 3ghz Core 2 maxes out any single card. Not many problems use more than a single core for rendering. Until games start doing proper multi core support we won't see any real gaming improvement with Core i7.
 
Todays multi-GPU setups = tomorrows single GPU setup. So when the X5870 or GTX380 comes out, at least we can be sure it'll run better on an i7 than a C2D.

I wonder how JaydeeJohn will react to this. 😉 😉
 
Other thing people need to realize is a Core 2 Quad is actually 2 dual cores die in a single package. The Core i7 Quad is a single quad core die and 2 can be put into a single package. I believe it is already in the works which means a 8 core / 16 thread Core i7 is the replacement for the 4 core / 4 thread Core 2 Quad.
 
I'm not jaydee, but will I do?
Some solid gains there. Most seem to be aimed more at the server market though.
Going that route may just allow AMD to catch up a bit on the desktop.
TBH, I just dont care. This chip will never be in my price range. It wont give me wet dreams or nightmares, but it is a good step forward for Intel.
 


And I think this is what a lot of us won't get.

Yeah, there are some "neato" bells and whistles like turbo mode that caters to the overclocker, but by and large, this is aimed as shoring up the SERVER space.

Let's look at it this way -- if you are already besting the competition clock-for-clock, and are losing on scalability -- where is it that you try to improve? Scalability.

The funny thing is, I suspect that a lot of us "tech geeks" will not be that impressed with this, since it doesn't give us the 30% improvement, or a whole lot more of O/C headroom. The big question is if hte non-plussed attitude based on DT applications will give the *image* of poor server chip. I have no doubt that, by catering to the enthusiast, intel gained marketshare in the enterprise space. Will we see a similar (reversed) trend?
 
I think once you get beyond opening day prices and look at some details, you start to get the picture.

Look at how much faster the 2.66Ghz i7 920 is over the 2.66ghz Q9450. The reason for that is bandwidth. As faster, lower voltage DDR3 comes along, we'll see some big gains.

I'll be so happy that I don't have to explain, yet again, how upgrading your RAM won't get you anywhere.

The real questions are these:

Will this first generation of CPUs be marketed and sold to gamers with more cash than sense? (You betcha, capitalism, caveat emptor baby.)

Will the people building graphics and video editing machines be glad they waited for i7? (Very happy.)

Will the cost of a Q9650 drop now or go up? (??????)

 
So it looks like a Ci7 can push CFX and 3 way SLI to its limits and get the most bang for your buck out of those cards.

My only thing is this. Crysis even with a quad CF setup was not able to be maxed? And even the new supposively more optimized Warhead version? What the hell does that game need? A PC from 20 years in the future?
 
If every game I played was multithreaded, I would buy i7. But as everyone has been pointing out in the Duo vs. Quad debate, that is simply not the case.

For existing users, for gaming at least, there is still no reason to upgrade from a Quad.
 
I find the OCAU comparison table impressive nonetheless. Penryn is already exceptional, unlike P4, and now we see across the board improvements in both single/dual-thread and poor-scaling (CS3, WinRAR, DivX) applications, and even better results from well-scaling apps courtesy of HT.

Across-the-board that is, with the striking exception of games. I find it hard to believe that this CPU would so accurately discriminate gaming from regular app code, and given the breadth of improvement on the app side, I'm tentatively going to go with the common assessment that GPUs or the platform are manifesting a bottleneck. Modern GPUs and game APIs are much more complex than they used to be; it may no longer be a simple case of benchmarking at 800x600 low-quality, or assuming that a newer GPU performs everything faster than an old one.
 
The true comparison will be when Deneb is released at all price points and flavors (Deneb and Hekus, Propus and Rana). Tom's article pointed out that i7 was 145% faster than the B3 9950, but looking at some individual benchies that weren't solely optimized for dual cores, the fastest B3 was only a minute behind.

So, that leaves me with some hope for Deneb. Sure, Nehalem will still be faster, but AMD might still have the price performance for budget builds and big box store name brand PC's. At any rate, if I were an Intel fan and had a Q6600, I'm not sure the low end Nehalem would be worth the upgrade.

It seems like only the EE will have an unlocked multiplier and the others won't do that much better in games than Core 2 quads. AMD will be hurt on the server space if businesses want to shell out the money to switch over (not sure of that over the next year).

Both Intel and Nvidia seem to go for very expensive products at the high end with a new generation who's major purpose is to win benchmarks and establish dominance. That dominance didn't last for Nvidia, because they got complacent, and we'll have to wait past Deneb to see if any new AMD architecture can match Nehalem, but Intel fans will be buying Core 2 anyways; they won't be buying Deneb or Nehalem.

Considering how badly i7 fares in games, in price/performance, the one thing Intel fans might be needing is a Core 2 quad to replace a dual core as games and apps accept more cores.

edited to change "they" to "the".
 
Oh by the way people, in games the GPU is the limiting factor as is discovered in some of the results. The processor didn't make much of a difference because of the GPU. Now in the case of raw processor power you obviously saw the results where the programs relied on processing power rather then graphics. Take it for what it's worth but everything doesn't revolve around games.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom