SupahDonkeh :
Was just checking out intels site, noticed they have these new cpu's, ex the I7 2600k, I5 2500k... are these better than the i5 750+'s or what?
They sound quite interesting for a budget build.
The Sandy Bridge CPUs are a mixed bag and if they are better or worse than the outgoing LGA1156 "Lynnfield" i5s and i7s depends on what you intend to use them for.
Positives
-
About the same price as Lynnfield parts, but they perform better.
- Considerably higher clock speeds than existing Lynnfield-based parts
- Somewhat better performance per clock than Lynnfield
- The LGA1155 socket the chips work in have a chance of working with newer CPUs, while LGA1156 is dead.
- K-series Sandy Bridge i5 and i7 CPUs on P67 motherboards can overclock farther than Lynnfields can.
- Lower idle and load power requirements compared to Lynnfield
- A few trick features like the QuickSync video decoder, which can help with video encoding in some situations
- All of the LGA1155 Sandy Bridges have an IGP, and the IGP is much better than the IGPs in dual-core LGA1156 i3s and i5s.
Negatives
- The CPU is practically unusable on Linux if you use the CPU on an H67 board with the IGP active.
- Cannot overclock Sandy Bridge i3 CPUs *at all*. They lack Turbo Boost or an unlocked multiplier and thus cannot be overclocked.
- Cannot overclock *any* Sandy Bridge CPUs on H67 chipsets. That means no overclocking if you want to use the IGP.
- Overclocking is limited to 400 MHz above the top Turbo Boost clock speed on non-K-series i5 and i7 Sandy Bridges on P67 motherboards.
- There have been reports of burned LGA1155 sockets when overclocking, just like what happened with the first crop of Foxconn LGA1156 sockets.
So all in all I think the new Sandy Bridges are better than the outgoing Lynnfields as overall they perform better for the same price (at stock speeds) than Lynnfield i5s and i7s and use less power while doing it. You just need to be very careful with what specific chipset and specific CPU model you pick for what intended uses as there is no way to take advantage of all of Sandy Bridge's features at any one time.
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