Best offers
|
Core i7 I7-920 Quad Core Processor... | $349.99 Dell Home More info |
|
Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Quad... | $189.99 Newegg.com More info |
|
Core i5 750 Qaud Core Processor... | $199.99 Newegg.com More info |
|
Core i7 Extreme Edition I7-975 Quad... | $1041.17 CostCentral.com More info |
|
Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Quad... | $182.99 Directron More info |
- intel lynnfield
- toms hardware core i5
- intel core i5 q9550
- toms hardware core i7
- prices core i7
- intel core i5 750 vs intel core 2 quad q9550
- phenom ii x4 965 or core i7
- qx9770 vs core i7
- phenom ii core i7 benchmark
- q9550 x4 965
- intel i5 toms hardware
- phenom ii x4 965 vs q9550
- toms hardware core i7 860
- amd phenom ii x4 965 black edition vs intel core 2 quad q9550
- core i5 core 2 quad benchmark
Partners
The Games selection
crazy :
Interactive Boogy
Pick one of the 3 songs, hit on the correct keys matching this boy's dance moves.
|
crazy :
Xiao Xiao 7
A great fight scene from the animation movies Xiao Xiao.
|
Sponsored links
- Email |
- Print |
- Comments (83) |
- Share
I’ll be honest—when I first got my hands on a pre-production Core i5 three months ago, the processor took me by surprise, even with an artificial cap of 2.8 GHz on its Turbo Boost functionality. That was before final specs or pricing was available. Now that we’ve had a couple of weeks with final hardware the Core i5 and Core i7 processor families are even more fascinating.
To begin, they make it much harder to recommend LGA 1366-based Core i7s. We know the i7-900-series is supposed to be higher-end, and it’s hard to ignore the fact that next year we’ll see hexa-core Gulftowns that drop right into our X58 motherboards. But seriously. Motherboards priced under $100? Core i5s under $200? We’re talking a possible contender next time we tackle an Intel-based $650 System Builder Marathon story (AMD fans rejoice—this month we’ll be doing an all-AMD series for you guys). That’s $10 less expensive than a Core 2 Quad Q9550 and $45 less than a Phenom II X4 965.
Alright, so the Core i5-750, specifically, is priced well. What is there to like about it? Reasonable power consumption, a base clock rate comparable to Intel’s Core i7-920, a more-aggressive Turbo Boost able to take the chip to 3.2 GHz in single-threaded workloads, CrossFire and SLI compatibility—it’s a pretty compelling list, actually.
What about the two LGA 1156-based Core i7s? We tested the Core i7-870 and are fairly convinced that, like the Core i7-950, it sits in a no-man’s land. Nearly two times the price of Core i7-860 and only marginally better-looking on a spec sheet, the Core i7-870 becomes Lynnfield’s version of an Extreme Edition processor—without the unlocked multiplier. More attractive for the folks who stand to benefit from Hyper-Threading is Core i7-860. Its price tag puts it in the realm of Core i7-920, its Turbo Boost helps make it faster, and a complementary motherboard is going to cost you between $75 and $50 less.
But based on our benchmarks here and our game testing with single and dual Radeon HD 4870 X2s and GeForce GTX 285s, we’re most excited about the value of Core i5. The fact that it’s regularly able to smack around the current Core 2 flagship (QX9770) is just crazy.
Of course, this launch isn’t all bad news for the AMD enthusiasts out there. When the Phenom II X4 965 BE debuted in August, I hinted that you should wait until today before taking a leap. Now you see why. With i5-750 selling at $199, AMD has no choice but to compress its price list. At the very least, it’ll likely slash the prices on its high-end Phenom IIs. If you held off, great deals are quite likely in your future.
But any price action in the Phenom II or Core 2 lineups is going to be a result of a solid showing today by Core i5, which is why it earns the first Recommended Buy award I’ve given to a processor in almost a year and a half managing Tom’s Hardware.
Stay tuned. Patrick Schmid is working on comprehensive overclocking coverage using these two Lynnfield processors. I've had one sample up to 4.1 GHz in the lab on air, and am excited to see what his story reveals.
- Intel core i5 vs amd phenom ii 965 [CPU & Components]
- Intel Core i5 barebone kit [Homebuilt Systems]
- AMD Phenom II X4 945 vs Intel® Core™ i5 Processor 750 [CPU & Components]
- Intel i5 2.66ghz vs Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz [Homebuilt Systems]
- Intel Core i5 Bus Speed/RAM Speed Confusion [Motherboards & Memory]
Questions? Ask Tom's community!
- 1 / 5
- Next
-
Sponsored links
Related forums topics
- Intel Pentium Dual Core E5400 VS. AMD Athlon II X2 250 BE
- Phenom II X6 is finally coming
- Buying Core 2 Duo or quad core
- What are i7 920 Normal Temps?
- I7 920 load temps
- OverClocking Core i7 on the default fan
- My i5 build
- Should I overclock?
- Need Advice on a wolfdale E6300 Pentium 1066fsb
- Help with E7500, Asus P5Q, and 4Gb Corsair XMS PC6400 1066Mhz
- Boot up problem
- DDR3 24GB ram
- Question about HP pavilion Elite e9180t motherboard.
- Typical Motherboard temperature for ASUS
Related articles
-
Before we dig into the complete Phenom II X4 965 BE review, let's look at our approximated Core i5 comparison: We’re used to seeing big bandwidth numbers from Core i7’s integrated memory controller and triple-channel DDR3 configurations. Pull one...
-
Zalman is a Korean company that specializes in higher-end cooling solutions and cases. You’ll also find thermal grease, power supplies, mice, and even monitors in Zalman’s portfolio. But the company’s core business is still coolers, and we selected one...
-
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Review
There is nothing wrong with an incremental update—especially an update that adds performance without affecting pricing. Such is the case with AMD’s new Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition, which arrived at our performance lab running at 3.4 GHz—200 MHz...
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.
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.
A little confusing the charts.
I would prefer a bench with HD4890. They scale better in CF.
I can tell, I'm gonna fall in love with the i5 processor
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!!
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!
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.
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).
i7 Turbo is a good tool to monitor the multiplier of Core i5/i7 CPUs.
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/ [...] /Turbo.zip
It uses the method that Intel recommends in their November 2008 Turbo White Paper.
"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?
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).
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?)
Nice article as always THG rules! Ouch amd!
hey guys some tests done at the same cpu speed would be helpfull! thx!
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!
alot of people pre-release were worried that the 1156 platform was going to dominate the 1366.
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.
"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?
Typo--thanks for the catch evolve. Pulled that table from a previous review and missed the Extreme!
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
Where is the i7 860?
Great read, by the way
All the mixed rumors were really misleading
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
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.
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.