The Truth: i5 750 vs Phenom II 965 -Updated

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AMW1011

AMW1011

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There has been a lot of heated debate and arguing on these forums about which is better, a Phenom II 965 or an i5 750. On both sides, everyone has failed to back up their point and have posted one or two links at best which is inadequate to answer such a question. I am here to answer that question. The scientific method tells us to do everything in, at least, threes. Three sources, three experiments, three variables, ect. Well I have compiled 8 different sources. None were picked and chosen except for the Lost Circuits article since it keeps getting thrown around.

I must remind everyone that this is a thread to inform those who are trying to choose between the two, I'm not here to settle any vendettas or disputes, I don't give a rats ass about that.

Alright let us discuss Turbo mode. Turbo Mode is where, with 1-2 cores under load, the CPU clocks those cores to 3.2 GHz and with 3-4 core under load the CPU clocks to 2.8 GHz. With Turbo mode enabled, which it is in all the below benchmarks, the i5 750 clocks at 2.8 GHz for most of the app benchmarks, which is 600 MHz (2.8GHz vs 3.4 GHz) lower than the Phenom II 965. In most games the i5 750 is clocked at 3.2 GHz or 2.8 GHz which is 200 MHz or 600 MHz (3.2GHz/2.8GHz vs 3.4 GHz) lower than the Phenom II 965. A reader must take this into account with the below results.

Links:
http://www.techspot.com/review/193-intel-core-i5-750/
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634
http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-750-core-i7-860-870-processor-review-test/
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/intel_corei5750_corei7870/
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/lynnfield/
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2009/09/08/intel-core-i5-and-i7-lynnfield-cpu-review/1
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-core-i5,2410.html
http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=63&Itemid=42

Note: No synthetics were listed here, though I think that they have some merit, the majority opinion is that they do not and therefor they are not included.

Here we go: (continued on next post)

2/24/2010 I have updated the pricing section and some facts. If I'm asked I will add some more articles that are more recent.
 
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@jaydee: thanks for clarifying. i was becoming concerned :S.

i was simply trying to sum it up though, and i think saying that thr i5 is better is pretty fair. in much the same way as a OCZ vertex is better than a Kingston V series. sure they trade blows, but the vertex usually comes out on top. you pay for it though.

and like i said, i would still build a phenom rig before an i5 rig.
 
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Phenom II 965:

1. It costs less:

To be honest, if you are overclocking then there is no reason to get the Phenom II 965 over the Phenom II 955, the 955 overclocks as well and is about $20 cheaper and is $15-$25 cheaper than the i5 750.

Both the i5 750 and Phenom II 955 use the same exact RAM so you can't save money there. Also any AM3 board is only about $10 cheaper than an equivalent P55 board.

Not seeing the "cheaper" thing? Well here it is:

AM3 CPUs can be used on AM2+ boards. This makes it an easy upgrade, but that is not all. If one were to buy an AM2+/AM3 or AM2/AM2+/am3 board, which tend to cost significantly less, and DDR2 RAM, which at this time is slightly less than DDR3, then you can save another $40-$80. This combined with the price of the processor can net you $50-$100 extra spending cash over an i5 750 build.
Click to expand...

Things get blurred when it comes to the cost. Why does the line get blurred?

Well because cost varies on where you get your gear. Let me explain...

For users who live in Canada:

Corei5 750: $234.99
Phenom II X4 965: $220.63

The difference is a mere $14 therefore one can't exactly claim that one costs less than the other. The difference is trivial.

Motherboard it's also too close to call (The AM3 board has a MIR while the LGA1156 board has a special bundle price saving you $5 on RAM):

ASUS P7P55 LX P55 DDR3: $134.99
ASUS M4A79XTD Evo ATX AM3: $134.99


For users living in the USA... there is Microcenter to factor in as well (always worth mentioning):

Corei5 750: $149.99
Phenom II X4 965: $195.00

Of course this is assuming you either:

A. Live near a Microcenter
or
B. Have a friend or relative who lives near a Microcenter

If not then Corei5 750: $194.99

I just don't see how the 965BE is cheaper when choosing comparable parts.

If you plan to overclock then there is no comparison. A Corei5 750 will out clock a Phenom II X4 965 when using Air or Water far more often than not. So you could state that a user could buy a 955 and clock it to 3.6GHz (which seems to be the average overclock those things net).

Well the average overclock for a Corei5 750 is over 4GHz.. I kid you not. In fact I polled this data from Corei5 users:
corei5_750_OC_4.jpg

corei5_750_OC_5.jpg
 
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ElMoIsEviL - I agree with you. People must stop saying Intel better performance AMD better value, this is simply not true... Intel in this case also has the better value depending on the country you live in.
 
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Yeah, Intel is also cheaper in India according to a member from there.
 
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yeah , i was the one who said that , when the phenom 965 was like 255$ in us , that price remained in india for a long time even when the i5 launched ... that price is still there in many places ... only dealers who do high volume sales have updated their pricing to reflect the u.s pricing now (their price for 965 < i5 ) ... but they are rare considering not everyone can pick up from them (and a major online retailer still has it for old price ) ...

to sum it up , u.s price cuts take a long time to reflect here , that is because of much lower sales volume for high end parts ... and the old phenom pricing is plain ridiculous ... because then the i5 has better performance and better value ... it will take some time for the price cut ripple to spread fully ...
 
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the good news is that due to easy online access to tech sites the awareness among buyers is increasing ... and the gaming hardware market is already growing steadily , and it has huge potential .

the market was much much slow when , i still remember , the geforce 2 ultra (launched) at inr 35k (around 800$ by that time exchange rates ) .. lol .
 
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Yeah I had thought about getting other prices for other nationalities, but going the UK and canada route I noticed the difference is about the same. Notice I said the 955 is really only worth it and notice I already said that the motherboard will cost about the same. However, I did show the one instance where Phenom II is notably cheaper.
 
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I never called you an idiot, you were and still are mostly correct. Refer to my post in concern with Jenny:

Better by definition is an opinion as well as a very broad adjective and therefore neither solution can be called "better" just better suited for certain needs.
Click to expand...

OR JDJ had it pretty well:



After all my readings I must say that both are so damn fast you can't go wrong with either, yes at the end of the day the i5 750 is faster, but not all that noticeably. That is where other concerns come in. All in all I like the i5 750 better for the price.
 
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This was a great post, till some people started commenting and trying to pick each other apart.
The only thing I can disagree with is that am3 boards can’t support sli and crossfire. They may not be that many of them but they are out there. Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130236

As far as price goes, it does depend on where you live as other have mentioned. For me the cheapest I can find a i5 at is $194.99 where as I can get a PII 955 for $165.00 or $175.99 for the c3. That’s $20-$30 difference, so we will say $20. The boards that I have been comparing fall in the same category where the i5 boards cost a bit more.

With the test you also have to take note that different motherboards were used. Anandtech and Techspot are perfect examples with both saying that opposite ones are better suited for Photoshop. Maybe different parts of the program run faster on each chip and one place tested one area more or less, but most likely the motherboard had something to do with it.

I also don’t know is I exactly agree with the way you did some of your math.
Ex:
Far Cry2 Small Ranch (FPS high/avg/low): 73.49/32.37/21.96 56.96/31.89/22.69
i5 750 22%/1%/-3% = 7% faster
My feeling is that only the average FPS should have been used to determine the winner. Think about it the average already incorporates that high and low into it; in a way you are “multiplying error”. You also can’t say how long it was at its high or low hence they are kind of irrelevant.

I would also say that any frame rate that is over 120 should have been left out of the final count considering 120 Hz is the point where overkill really comes into effect.

All in all a good post, thank you for digging up that articals.
 
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I'm an Intel fanboi, but AMD is still f'n nice and cooler cpu = ftw.

AM3 is going to be around for a while and current multicore CPUs are more than what you need unless you really have some very hard work loads to make i7 actually worth it.

AMD
 
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First, I mean that most PP5 boards have the ability to SLI and crossfire on the same board, while with AM3 you must either buy an SLI board or a crossfire board.

As for the math, I debated a lot but since a lot of people like to say "well this got more minimum FPS" blah, blah and that it all had to come together with the apps at the end I decided to keep the math the same for simplification.

Yes different reviews have hugely different results, that is the problem with the comments in these threads. One team picks an article that shows one thing, then the other team picks an article that shows the exact opposite. Therefor I decided to get a large article base and see what they all said as an average. However, that wasn't the only reason. I posted, in detail, all the different benchmarks so that it is easy for one to go through them and make their own conclusion.

Thanks, I actually feel like it was worth my time.
 
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This board does both, here is what the one reviewer said "I've built several rigs with this motherboard and have not had one problem yet. Works beautifully nearly all the way around. If you are using a large aftermarket CPU heat sink like the zalman for the AM3 make sure you install the memory in the slots before mounting the cooler! flashed with new bios in a snap. Have done these in SLI and Crossfire setups"
 
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I take issue with AMW1011's virtually baseless assertion that the i5 is a hot running chip where as the Phenom 965 is a cool running chip. I feel that's a misrepresentation.

From the first link you posted...

http://www.techspot.com/review/193-intel-core-i5-750/page10.html

"The power consumption levels for the Core i5 750 processor and the new P55 chipset are very impressive. At idle our Core i5 box consumed 106 watts, while increasing to 198 watts under load.

Compared to the equally clocked Core i7 920, the Core i5 750 is far less power hungry. Compared to older platforms, the Core i5 750 used less power than even the Core 2 Quad Q9650 making it the most efficient platform and processor by far in our tests. "

From the second article you linked...

"Under load the Core i5 and Core i7 870 continue to impress. They both draw less power than a Q6600 or a Q9650, all the while outperforming the two. Power consumption is also noticeably lower than Bloomfield. "

From the third article you linked...

"Temperatures are very good as well. "

So I'm done beating that dead horse... all of those sites (and pretty much the whole Internet) is going to say that the i5 is a low power, low temp, highly efficient processor... some may complain about the stock cooler that it comes with, but that's the cooler... not the CPU they're talking about.

Additionally, some of those gaming tests were done with Turbo Boost disabled... I hardly think that is an accurate representation of what an i5 will do at stock settings. Is Dell gonna turn off that feature when it ships someone a system? Don't think so.





 
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IMO No comparison. Took 5 minutes to hit 4Ghz with a friend's I5 750
Click to expand...

After playing with the P55 BIOS (which was different than my previous nForce BIOS) I had my i5-750 @ 4Ghz stable within about 10 minutes. To be honest I really didn't do any tweaking. Set my settings for where I wanted them, and adjusted the Vcore like twice? Set it for 1.3V, didn't work. Bumped it to 1.32V and bam. Stable. Never had a hiccup since.

As you've probably all seen, I've told many folks that you can't go wrong with the i5 or PII X4 955/965. However, I do honestly believe benchmarks and statistics prove that price aside, the i5 is better. I think that much is black and white from everything I've ever seen. When you consider that the i5-750 can best the 965 (even if only by 5%) with lower clock speeds, it's fairly simple to say it's the faster CPU.

I still think we should get a Phenom II X4 965 & i5-750 together at exact same clock speeds and do a slew of benchmarks with them on equal ground. It just seems like the i5-750 should best the 965 by even more at equal clock speeds, when you consider it can edge out the 965 with lesser clock speeds.

That being said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with building an AMD PII X4 system right now.
 
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I did notice you mentioned the 955 stating that when overclocked it can reach 965 speeds for less.

Since you're making the overclocking argument.. my argument was that a Corei5 750, when overclocked can surpass Core i7-975x speeds. Overclocking logic is applicable to both.

So the better value remains the Corei5 750 which can easily surpass the performance of a $1000USD chip when overclocked (and is so damn easy to overclock it's not even funny as I showcased by supplying poll results where the majority of users hit over 4GHz on air).

So you can make the Phenom II platform slightly cheaper by going for a cheaper chipset and some cheaper DDR2 ram (the chipset which will significantly degrade performance and the ram which will only make a tiny dent of degradation). But when you do that, you're no longer comparing the same performance numbers shown above therefore no longer comparing the Phenom II 965 to the Core i5 750 (it's no longer about "The Truth: i5 750 vs Phenom II 965")
 
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Who gives a *** what they do. EVERY COMPANY DOES IT. :lol:

I'm an Intel fan because it's the better product. Turbo, HyperThreading, Bang For The Buck....
Click to expand...

LOL "Bang for your buck" isn't always the way to go though.

http://www.hi-pointfirearms.com/handguns/40sw/hi_point_40sw.html

You can get REALLY cheap "Bang" for your buck from these guys, but I'd never buy one of their firearms. 😉

But I will agree with you that Intel is the champ for the time being. However, couple years from now when I'm looking for another system overhaul, if AMD is on top, I'm dumping Intel like a pale full of garbage. There's no loyalty for me between Intel/AMD. It's all about who offers the best product at the time.

(Edit: fixed typing error, "dumping" had been typed as "temping")
 
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