Intel Core i5 And Core i7: Intel’s Mainstream Magnum Opus

[playerone]

Nice job Chris!

AMD is really in the soup right now, but I think one thing that should be remembered is that the I7-920 maybe still the best bargain for those that overclock at the upper end as even Intel has admited that the P55 cant compete at the upper end of the I7-900 due to the fact that the onchip PCI of the p55 I7s is being overclocked along with the proc and it doesnt have seperate voltage control or any ability to seperate the frequecy (not yet).

Was nice to see the FSX results, that game is a monster esp if you add those delicious scenery and aircraft packages like PMG or HongKong/Manhatten scenery etc. I think someone should lend you a hand on the setup however as "capped" is def not the way it is used to its max and there are ways to get a good repeatable bench out of the game. you have to turn some of the features that become random like certain weather and airtraffic settings off. It is possible to get steady FPS of low 30's in well overclocked Intel or AMD setup with many of the settings maxed out while using incredably adavnced and detailed add-ons.

BTW: Asus my be the only ones with an AMD SLI setup right now but MSI are soon to release a very nice tripple SLI AM3 board. I was setup Asus N4N82 3-way SLI board and it took a 940 up to 4ghz on air with 8gigs or ram at near 12000 levels. pretty impresive, but its a bugy board with ref clock going in steps of 2, 0.6 and then 3.4 etc...weird.

I think my next personal build is still going to be I7-920 and MSI micro @ $170 or the EVGA SLI LE @ $210. 4-4.4Ghz on air with I7-920 cant be beat and the price is just a tick over the p55 with more O/C headroom.

I do like that new MSI p55-80 board though! Chow!

 

[cangelini]

No prob player--if you have a "favorite" config for FS X, feel free to shoot it over! I'm at cangelini at bestofmedia.com.
Take care!
Chris

 

[scryer_360]

The article does make a great point: allowing the processor to "bin up" gives greater performance in modern applications.

But that leads me to something that the article doesn't talk about (and didn't aim to, but still): the problem of multithreading. Really, the i7-920 at (stock speeds) would blow away the i7-870 (when turbo boosted) if the programs we were seeing could be spread over more threads. But programming for multithreading is a pain, and many companies avoid it as it could introduce bugs.

That is where programs like Snow Leopard's "Grand Central Dispatch" come in. Currently, not all the transistors on the processor can be utilized, and we end up with increasing clock rates to deal with it (even though we've been stuck at a 4 gigahertz ceiling, realistically, for some time). Efforts need to be made to get more programs to be capable of fully utilizing all available threads, just like GCD does for new Mac programs.

At that point, we will finally see some real speed improvements in our computers.

 

[cangelini]

Why would the 920 blow the 870 away, though? The 870 runs a higher stock clock rate, supports higher Turbo Boost frequencies, and includes Hyper-Threading. The only thing is lacks in relation to the 920 is X58 and a channel of DDR3 memory. The 870 should win across the board

 

[scryer_360]

/facepalm. I was aiming for the i5-750, but was reading "i7-870" when I wrote that. Stupid fingers, betraying my true intentions....

 

[scryer_360]

I'm also shaking my head thinking about the future of the Intel platform. Two sockets? So no more starting out with a lower end processor, then upgrading to the higher end one?

Also, although right now having only 2 x8 lanes for the GPUs doesn't matter, in the future I can see the need for full PCIe x16 slots. Which means either an entirely new motherboard and processor, or letting you GPU performance be crippled.

 

[cangelini]

Ah ha! Yes, in that case, I would expect a well-threaded app to favor the 920, for sure

 

[Annisman]

I think Angelini is a shmuck, but he does write some very good, in depth articles.

 

[Stardude82]

Okay... CPU's are now at 32nm... Why is the R700 the only GPU @ 40 nm?

 

[Guest]

Let us see what the 32nm Gulftown looks like before we jump to any conclusions. Are any of the enthusiast minds up for a dual Gulftown workstation, with RAID 1+0 SSDs, and obscene amounts of RAM? While we are at it let's plug in four NVidia C1060 cards for some parallel processing capability via CUDA; given they will be older but still very competitive with whatever NVidia releases next.

 

[Idle]

Computing performance these days is heavily influenced by whether the application supports the technology available in the new CPUs or not. Determine what you will be doing and you determine what hardware you need.

 

[Idle]

Computing performance these days is heavily influenced by whether the application supports the technology available in the new CPUs or not. Determine what you will be doing and you determine what hardware you need.

 

[agawtrip]

for me, i find this review is misleading if you are not a gamer - for i5-750 and PII x4 965.

why?

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
--- TOTAL -------- $385

PII x4 965 - $245, GIGABYTE GA-MA785GMT-UD2H - $90, no video card
--- TOTAL -------- $335

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

 

[cutterjohn]

AMD just squandered their lead that they held for several years and ending in 2006. It just makes one wonder what they were doing with all that cash when they could charge premium prices v. Intel and now have nothing to show for it.

As to mb features, they seem to stack up about the same in features at similar price points.

AMD & GPUs: Their drivers really and truly suck for X, and they have some niggling windows problems, but are adequate there. (I've been waiting for a halfway decent catalyst for X since 9.2 and still haven't gotten one.)

nVidia failures: actually TSMC failure at using a new soldering process.

Failing caps in late 90s/early 00s were actually from a Taiwanese company that tried to pirate a Japanese company's electrolytic formula for their caps, but stole the wrong formula and then didn't test before producing. Those bad caps affected all sorts of electronics not just motherboards, of which Intel mbs were also affected. I'm just happy that most mbs use solid caps now instead of electrolytics as even good ones will eventually "dry" out, and higher system temps today don't help the situation at all.

 

[Guest]

I would like to see the i7 920 2.66ghz at $279 against the i7 860 2.8ghz at $299, because i cant decide =S

 

[overshocks]

fail..

 

[enterco]

On the page "QPI, Integrated Memory, PCI Express, And LGA 1156" you forgot to mention "2008 - Intel launches 45 nm Processors for 1066MHz FSB, older boards with 965 series chipset are incompatible due to VRD requirements".

 

[mapesdhs]

Assuming I've correctly understood how the Turbo mode
works in the new i7s, am I right in thinking that if all
three CPUs (860, 870, 920) were oc'd on air to their best
extent, then for video encoduing using all 4 cores the 920
would win out because it can oc higher due to the voltage
issue? (ie. once force-oc'd, Turbo isn't relevant anymore)

Chris, do you have any comparison results for oc'd 860/870
vs. 920? I was planning on building a 920 setup at around
3.8GHz for video encoding, with a view to supporting the
6-core CPUs later on.

Ian.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]mapesdhs[/nom]Assuming I've correctly understood how the Turbo mode works in the new i7s, am I right in thinking that if allthree CPUs (860, 870, 920) were oc'd on air to their bestextent, then for video encoduing using all 4 cores the 920would win out because it can oc higher due to the voltageissue? (ie. once force-oc'd, Turbo isn't relevant anymore)Chris, do you have any comparison results for oc'd 860/870vs. 920? I was planning on building a 920 setup at around3.8GHz for video encoding, with a view to supporting the6-core CPUs later on.Ian.[/citation]

I don't yet. I'd like to get my hands on a retail chip first, as I've seen two pre-production i5s--one that hit 4.1 GHz and one that hit 3.7 GHz. Hoping retail chips give a more consistent representation

 

[neiroatopelcc]

Got a couple of questions:
1) How's the integrated x16 and the chipset provided x8 link work together? I'm considering an upgrade to an i5, and thus looked at motherboards a few days ago. I noticed that Gigabyte offers a ga-p55m-ud4 (think it was ud4) that provides two x16 pcie connectors, one running 16 and one 8 on a micro atx board. Does that mean that all chipset based pcie are wired to the second slot? (would imply that audio, lan etc would run pci32) Or does it run x8 on both when using two cards? I've got a 4870, and would consider adding a second one)
2) does the power management logic allow for exceeding the tdp when overclocking (or disabling the system), or are you handicapped compared to the 'old 920' ? I don't recall any system of mine not being overclocked since I replaced the pentium 133 with a 233, and I don't wish 2009 to be the time where I run 'stock' again and have to refer to myself as an old deranged fart (like my opensource fanatic workmates)

 

[mapesdhs]

I had a look at the bit-tech piece; though they obtained decent overclocks with their
750 and 860 (less so with the 870), the 920 won out despite a lower oc.

Here in the UK, the 860 is about 25 UKP ($40) more expensive than the 920. I had
thought an oc'd 860 might be an option for me, but now I'm less sure, especially
given the existence of good well-priced X58 boards such as the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R.

Anand has some oc'd results (all chips at 3.8GHz), showing the 860 and 920 on a par.

Hmm, tough call.

Ian.

 

[youssef 2010]

You stated that Intel is pretty confident that its DMI link will never be saturated except if you connect some SSDs & Storage controllers But,I can't Imagine Why anyone would do that in the mainstream market.Usually its an SSD for OS and a mechanical HDD for storage so,Intel is parially right here.I mean you said it yourself that the servers will need the extra X58 connectivity.

 

[alexie]

Well there's no plan told here about i3s. Will intel make a core i3 CPU with 2 cores / 4 threads? I think this will be the most power efficient CPU. Also will intel make i3 CPU for 775?
I think we can't get the whole picture until intel sell i3 CPUs on the market.

 

[Guest]

Very informative review!

A thing i think many would like to know including me.
Would there be a performance increase if a triple channel DDR3 @ 1333 mhz RAM is paired on an i7 Lynfield processor as compared to a dual channel DDR3 @ 1333 mhz, which these Lynfield processor supports???
Because im kinda confused which type of RAM is best for an i7 860 processor in order to maximize its performance???

 

[korzal]

i really wish the 860 was on here since its the same price as the 920. been trying to decide between the two for the past couple weeks