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

[cangelini]

We set off testing Intel's Lynnfield processors with low expectations, but were surprised to find the new LGA 1156-based CPUs are capable of holding their own and then some. Read on for more about Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, P55, and our recommendation.

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

 

[caamsa]

Dang! AMD better get their $4iT together. Now I need to decided between i7, i5 or phenom II when I do my next upgrade........technology happens too fast. Looking forward to more reviews on the i5 and mb prices.

 

[Guest]

People need to be careful when comparing the i7-870 to a i7-920, alot of people pre-release were worried that the 1156 platform was going to dominate the 1366. However when you see the 870 out perform the 920 people need to remember that a 870 is double the price of a 920, and even when you factor in a motherboard a 920 setup comes out cheaper than a 870.

Now the i5 750 on the other hand is great performance at a great price, and would certainly be the budget gamers new weapon of choice.

I currently have an i7-920 setup which is my main rig and am very happy with it and not at all upset to the see the 870 outperform it (since the 870 would cost me twice as much). I also have had an i5 750 setup now for over a week (the 1156 processors and motherboards have been available here in Australia for nearly 2 weeks now) and it is an amazing processor for the price of it.

So what am I trying to say? 1366 is still a good platform for the top end of the market. The i5 are fantastic new processors for their price, and the 1156 i7's are just confusing and I'm not really sure who they are going to appeal to? I could understand it if Intel launched the 1156 i7's in 6months time when alot of users are already using the 1156 platform and are looking to upgrade their CPU without a new mobo. But to anyone looking at getting a 870, just get an 920 and use the extra cash on the mobo and ram to go with it.

 

[Nintendork]

A little confusing the charts.

I would prefer a bench with HD4890. They scale better in CF.

 

[aspireonelover]

I can tell, I'm gonna fall in love with the i5 processor

 

[cabose369]

Intel needs to come up with a simplified naming system for their products. They are as bad as NVIDIA is right now in terms of naming their products.

There is sooo much to learn and there is so much information here.... I feel confused!!

 

[alikum]

Well, I just hope that the Core 2 Quads will drop in prices significantly so that I could grab the high-end one for my final LGA775 upgrade!

 

[buzznut]

Well this is good news for consumers. I'm not certain why it took so long for Intel to make some mainstream proc like i5, but for intel fans it seems worth the wait.
This will also compel AMD to bring some more value to the market. Nice article.

 

[jawshoeaw]

damn, 150 watts at idle?? Is that just the cpu? I hope the gaming rigs built on these processors are not left on 24/7. My old AMD X2 3800 system including the monitor uses less than 150 watts at idle (50 of which is the 22" LCD).

 

[unclewebb]

i7 Turbo is a good tool to monitor the multiplier of Core i5/i7 CPUs.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/3/3/1794507/Turbo.zip

It uses the method that Intel recommends in their November 2008 Turbo White Paper.

 

[evolve60]

"Intel Core i7-920 Extreme (Bloomfield) 2.66 GHz, LGA 1366, 4.8 GT/s QPI, 8 MB L3, Power-savings enabled"

Since when has the I7-920 become an extreme?

 

[Dekasav]

[citation][nom]jawshoeaw[/nom]damn, 150 watts at idle?? Is that just the cpu? I hope the gaming rigs built on these processors are not left on 24/7. My old AMD X2 3800 system including the monitor uses less than 150 watts at idle (50 of which is the 22" LCD).[/citation]

The power readings are for the whole system, not just the CPU. And their readings are a bit higher than yours because their video cards are almost certainly more power-hungry than yours, and they have a quad-core cpu, running significantly faster than your dual-core (4 cores at ~3Ghz vs. 2 at ~2Ghz, which SHOULD use more power?)

 

[dragonsprayer]

Nice article as always THG rules! Ouch amd!

hey guys some tests done at the same cpu speed would be helpfull! thx!

 

[cangelini]

Thanks Dragon--check out the In Theory piece that also went up today. It has i5, i7, i7 LGA1366, Core 2, and Phenom II at 2.8 GHz in a bunch of games!

 

[th_at]

[citation][nom]Deekay_[/nom]alot of people pre-release were worried that the 1156 platform was going to dominate the 1366.[/citation]

Who was "worried"? It would've been AWESOME (although not to expect of Intel) if the lower-price platform would've outperformed the high-end item.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]evolve60[/nom]"Intel Core i7-920 Extreme (Bloomfield) 2.66 GHz, LGA 1366, 4.8 GT/s QPI, 8 MB L3, Power-savings enabled"Since when has the I7-920 become an extreme?[/citation]

Typo--thanks for the catch evolve. Pulled that table from a previous review and missed the Extreme!

 

[dragonsprayer]

Also - this address people above too and the article.
When you set up an i7 system you turn off the HT and turn up the speed! Turning off a core might even be an upgrade for some. But i agree, the i5 is really a good plateform the mid-mid high level people and at a lower price.

above - too long for intel? for main stream? you could buy a 8400 and run it 3.8 in any system and it rocks.

people have to learn that overclocking is not what it once was, intel does not build all that into the procesor and chipset for nothing so use it! core 2 is still a good main steam system, abit, no upgrading

 

[Korok]

Where is the i7 860?

Great read, by the way
All the mixed rumors were really misleading

 

[Intel_ARK_Dude]

FYI: All of the Lynnfield-based parts are here:
http://bit.ly/Lynnfield

And a side-by-side comparison with all the key stats are here:
http://bit.ly/LFDcomparison

 

[bigdaddycool]

The problem with Intel no matter how special they make they CPU's is they have absolute crap when it comes to motherboards.

AMD is feature packed, Intel is feature lacked.

Intel make good chipsets yes, Intel make good reliable boards (proper intel boards) yes, intel make good CPU's yes.

But Intel have worthless motherboard line ups.... I am happily an AMD fan, I will take my Phenom II with the slower speed for the quality of board I can buy to run it.

Intel & Motherboards = Fail.

Until they improve there, numbers mean zero to me. Why pay more when you get less?

PS. We used to sell all Intel at my work, we now sell 99% AMD. Price, value as a packaged. If Intel had better feature motherboards things might change until then. AMD builds a platform not just a CPU.

 

[JeanLuc]

The AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE is running at 3.4Ghz.............I can remember only a few years ago AMD bragged about getting 'more work done per cycle' where as Intel responded by increasing the clockrate. It now looks like the tables have completely turned and it's AMD that has to keep increasing the CPU frequency to stay competitive.

 

[anamaniac]

Fantastic article Angelini, as always.

I kinda went head into my i7 partly because of impatience, but also partly of initial reviews demoting the LGA 1156 iver the old LGA 1366 i7s.
I don't regret my choice though, I will just wait for a better LGA 1366 platform likely. ^_^

I know Intel released its sexacore quite a while ago, but it's worth 3x my current build...

So, instead of upgrading this round, I think I'll finally upgrade my monitor. Though I may do my brother a i5 build. ^_^
Nice to know the i7/i5s will still kick ass and chew bubba gum, all at a great value.

These i5s/i3s seem like they will rock the mobile market however.

Hey Intel, how about having HyperThreading like TurboBoost? Have it deactivated by default, and only activate it when a heavily parralized enviroment is detected, likely saving power ands optimizing performance were needed.... just a thought.

Think they will make a nice P55 MOBO with 8 DIMMs? Ramdisk FTW! (As annoying as they are to use on Win7...)

 

[dragonsprayer]

nobody buys an intel mobo i know?

ASUS is full of features
next is gigabyte
then well if your desperate MSI

EVGA is junk! they have so many failures - i can not tell you how many failed pci-e slots, cpu slots....etc. You get an asus use on the 10th mobo and its bad and they post 1 egg at the egg seller, you get someone on the 3ed replacement of evga and they say how great the tech support is and give it 4 eggs


nobody uses intel

What features does an amd mobo have? what else there: sound, lan, slots, controllers? esata? Asus mobos are loaded for intel cpus - the p6t deluxe had a nifty SAS conroller.

o if your talking bios options? they are way more then you ever need unless your running n2 or phase cooler - so what features are you talking about?


amd fantics!

 

[dragonsprayer]

you can not go wrong with the 1366 if your buying know, the testing that shows 1156 as slightly faster is bias. turn off the ht and turn up the speed!

the lose of 26 of 36 pci-e lanes is pretty sigificant and the third channel memory may come in handy in a few years?

hardware for normal users is so far a heat of software for the most part - you only saving $100 or so with the 1056. Sure that is great when people want a sub $1200 gaming system. or $1000 office machine that is very fast - i think later we see that 1366 is the correct choice - and you can run 2 gtx 295 in style and still hog up your Areca raid control card!

 

[bigdaddycool]

dragonsprayer. dont even mention the absolutely useless company asus.

And I wasn't talking about "Intel branded motherboards". I refered to "Intel Branded Motherboards" as being reliable........ for things like servers.

When it comes to desktop (choose your brand) any company has to WORK WITH intels LACK OF FEATURE CHIPSETS.

Companies like ASUS who expand on the already failing chipsets by intel by adding more things only compound the fail as they make useless motherboards in general.

"In reference to Intel chipsets below"

ASUS = Overclocking fail, motherboard fail in general.
Gigabit = Take a look since G31's... ram set to TURBO on Intel boards, RAM FAIL, BOARD FAIL. Sound fails on alot of boards, LAN fails on alot of boards.

INTEL SUCK PERIOD.

They do make FAST CPU's...... no doubt, it's kinda like making the best fuel in the world....... but not having a car that'll last very long on it.

Anyone remember the old prescott P4's....... and the asus motherboards that most ultiamtely choose to go with them. ... busted caps.

Whats funny, looking at the same erra........ it's only been the past 6 months we've EVER seen any busted 939's...... 754's of AMD's.

Sure they had the whole bad fluid in the caps for the socket A's...... but again not made by AMD, not an AMD chipset.

If you want a ego boost you buy Intel, it's kinda like a dyno result of a car......... doesn't count in any REAL WORLD performance situation... total output doesn't mean jack.

I've used a few i7's........ they are nothing special, everyday use they arnt any snappier....... maybe vantage, maybe stressful things they'll put out...... but not enough to cough the dough up to get one.

CPU's may be similar priced, but is the motherboards, ram etc ???... or how about the fact on an Intel board what do you get? ... NVIDIA GTX something a rather....... the fact the two companies (intel and nvidia) hate each other.......

I'd much prefer a sound, stable, feature packed motherboard(via chipset outwards, not aftermarket addons by faulty motherboard manifactures).... with supportive graphics to boot.

Buy Intel i7, Gigabyte motherboard with plain intel chipset, nvidia gfx. 3 fails..... only thing to boost ego is benchmark result?

Buy AMD, Gigabyte motherboard with a REAL chipset VGA, DVI, HDMI etc etc etc... esata, firewire, 12usb ports etc... and a AMD gfx card all talking the same language.... = serious ready to do my job system.

*** Just to clarify something here:

Beleive me, if where was ANYTHING and I mean ANYTHING to boast about Intel's gear. I would. But no offense Intel, stealing AMD's archicture is not cool especially when you cant even back the rest of it up.

GO ALL THE WAY BACK IN TIME.

Intel. Who hired who to help them FIX/MAKE their cpu in the first place?

I highly The problem with Intel no matter how special they make they CPU's is they have absolute crap when it comes to motherboards.

AMD is feature packed, Intel is feature lacked.

Intel make good chipsets yes, Intel make good reliable boards (proper intel boards) yes, intel make good CPU's yes.

But Intel have worthless motherboard line ups.... I am happily an AMD fan, I will take my Phenom II with the slower speed for the quality of board I can buy to run it.

Intel & Motherboards = Fail.

Until they improve there, numbers mean zero to me. Why pay more when you get less?

It's kinda like here in Australia. We have a whole HOLDEN/FORD debate upon our car manifactures.

FORD is kinda like Intel. HOLDEN like AMD.

Ford makes faster cars, keeps upping the game while Holden refuses to step up and make Turbo 6's etc....

The difference, Holden being (feature packed) is Australia's best selling car many times over. As they focus on the point. The whole package.... not just making it fast, neglecting interior and stuff like that.

Intel is like this, it'd be like being 6'8" driving a little WRX having no space but hey I GOT A FAST CAR RIGHT.

......... arg endless point.