Westmere vs Sandy Bridge

[Gon Freecss]

How much faster is Sandy Bridge over Westmere?

 

[tanckattb]

Well I don't really think it's even a question.


With sandy bridge you are getting higher IPCs, as well as referring to an i5 model, you are getting twice as many cores. E.g The i5-2500k vs the i5 655k
(Correct me if I'm wrong) the i5 2500k is a quad core variant while the i5 655k is a dual core I think.

Also you're getting better oc potential, and faster single core speeds due to the lack of Two physical cores.

Also, since it is a newer variant, it probably won't be as much of a bottleneck compared to the latter

If not convinced, or you want details, check out websites like these:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6808/westmereep-to-sandy-bridgeep-the-scientist-potential-upgrade/6


Or just put in the processors in cpuboss to get a rough idea of synthetic benchmarks

 

[Gon Freecss]

Well I don't really think it's even a question.


With sandy bridge you are getting higher IPCs, as well as referring to an i5 model, you are getting twice as many cores. E.g The i5-2500k vs the i5 655k
(Correct me if I'm wrong) the i5 2500k is a quad core variant while the i5 655k is a dual core I think.

Also you're getting better oc potential, and faster single core speeds due to the lack of Two physical cores.

Also, since it is a newer variant, it probably won't be as much of a bottleneck compared to the latter

If not convinced, or you want details, check out websites like these:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6808/westmereep-to-sandy-bridgeep-the-scientist-potential-upgrade/6


Or just put in the processors in cpuboss to get a rough idea of synthetic benchmarks

How is it not a question?

Also, Nehalem has quad-core i5s code named Lynnfield. While not exactly built on the same 32nm process as Westmere, it's basically a 45nm Westmere minus a couple things.

I want to know how faster Sandy Bridge is than Westmere, and possibly, Nehalem. I'm curious.

 

[1LiquidPC]

Nehalem and Westmere are about the same performance-wise. Lynnfield and Bloomfield are different sockets, but both Gen1 Nehalem architecture. Westmere is mainly the shrink to 32nm. Both are Gen1 i series CPUs. I had a Nehalem i7 920 1366 and still use a Westmere i7 980X 1366 socket CPU. Sandy Bridge is Gen2. Really, its only going to be a 5% average IPC boost between Gen1 and Gen2.

 

[Gon Freecss]

Nehalem and Westmere are about the same performance-wise. Lynnfield and Bloomfield are different sockets, but both Gen1 Nehalem architecture. Westmere is mainly the shrink to 32nm. Both are Gen1 i series CPUs. I had a Nehalem i7 920 1366 and still use a Westmere i7 980X 1366 socket CPU. Sandy Bridge is Gen2. Really, its only going to be a 5% average IPC boost between Gen1 and Gen2.

Westmere is a die shrink, so it should theoretically be faster. It also has new instruction sets over Nehalem.

From what I looked at so far, Sandy Bridge seems to be around 14% faster than Nehalem on average.

 

[vitalyshilo]

Nehalem and Westmere are about the same performance-wise. Lynnfield and Bloomfield are different sockets, but both Gen1 Nehalem architecture. Westmere is mainly the shrink to 32nm. Both are Gen1 i series CPUs. I had a Nehalem i7 920 1366 and still use a Westmere i7 980X 1366 socket CPU. Sandy Bridge is Gen2. Really, its only going to be a 5% average IPC boost between Gen1 and Gen2.

Westmere is a die shrink, so it should theoretically be faster. It also has new instruction sets over Nehalem.

From what I looked at so far, Sandy Bridge seems to be around 14% faster than Nehalem on average.

I own a Westmere Xeon 5650 2.66 Ghz. Performancewise it's close to Nehalem i7 3.2 Ghz. The core remained the same, I guess, the boost in peformance is mainly due to 12 Mbytes (slower) cache vs 8 Mb in Nehalem, and 6 cores/12 threads vs. 4/8 in Nehalem, it also supports faster RAM (1333 vs. 1066). I think that it fits somewhere at the level of top i7 Sandy Bridge Socket 1155 CPUs, or i5 Ivy Bridge. But weaker than i7 Ivy Bridge CPUs, at least without big overclocking (my mobo doesn't let overclock, so I can't test it). And the top 1366 Westmere CPUs like 5680 or 5690 should beat ANY Socket 1155 Sandy Bridge, I guess. What I would like to know now is how do Westmere compare with Socket 1356 and 2011 Sandy Bridge CPUs, which are often multicored and have huge cache and 4 channel memory, but often tremendously downclocked , having like 2.4 Ghz. Those 1356 and 2011 CPUs are in heaps on second hand market now but I still don't know if it's worth it to go into that upgrade direction.