
A more recent addition to our benchmark suite, 3DMark11 is principally a gaming metric—the dedicated Graphics score clearly reflects this in a very tight grouping of results using our GeForce GTX 580 reference board.
However, several components of this test also employ CPU-based physics—specifically, the Bullet library. The result is a more spread-out grouping in the overall Performance test. Even still, it’s hard to start declaring winners with fewer than 1000 points separating 10 different contenders.
Drop down to the broken-out Physics test, though, and it’s clear that the high-frequency quad-core Sandy Bridge- and Nehalem-based chips get favored. In fact, it looks like plenty of Turbo Boost headroom gets the Core i7-2600K and Core i7-875K their first- and second-place finishes, followed by the quad-core (it doesn’t seem like scaling to eight threads matters much here) Core i5-2500K.
What does hurt is having two physical cores—even aided by Hyper-Threading. The Core i3-2100 and Core i5-655K are soundly beaten by the older Core 2 Quad Q9550.




- Core i7-2600K, Core i5-2500K, Core i5-2400, And Core i3-2100 Reviewed
- Inside Of Sandy Bridge: Cores And Cache
- The System Agent And Turbo Boost 2.0
- Sandy Bridge’s Secret Weapon: Quick Sync
- Quick Sync Vs. APP Vs. CUDA
- Blu-ray Playback And Video Performance
- HD Graphics On The Desktop: Intel Trips Up
- Two New Platforms, More On The Way
- Overclocking: Sandy Bridge Changes The Game
- Meet Intel’s Second-Gen Core CPUs
- Hardware Setup
- Benchmark Results: PCMark Vantage
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark11
- Benchmark Results: SiSoftware Sandra 2011
- Benchmark Results: Content Creation
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Benchmark Results: Media Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Metro 2033 (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: F1 2010 (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: Aliens Vs. Predator (DX11)
- Benchmark Results: Power Consumption
- Conclusion
Just this.
i think the author's saying he's a sexually active cyberphile
Fixed, thanks Money!
i think the author's saying he's a sexually active cyberphile
Just this.
Everytime there's a new contest, I see this line. =(
I don't know how AMD's going to fare but i hope their new architecture will at least compete with these CPU's, because for a few years now AMD has been at least a generation worth of speed behind Intel.
Also Intel's IGP's are finally gaining some ground in the games department.
I really wish this weren't the case fakie--and I'm very sorry it is. We're unfortunately subject to the will of the finance folks and the government, who make it hard to give things away without significant tax ramifications. I know that's of little consolation, but that's the reason
Best,
Chris
I believe that says it all. Sorry, Intel, your new architecture may be excellent, but unless the i3-2100 series outperforms anything AMD can offer at the same price range WHILE OVERCLOCKED, you will see none of my desktop dollars.
That is all.
As for overclocking, well it seems a bit odd in the way it is being implemented. But for $216, I can't complain too much about a quad-core with a base clock of 3.3 GHz. Some enthusiasts won't like the limited overclocking features, but others will welcome the simplified approach.
I will be building my brother a new gaming computer for graduation this summer and now I have another viable option to look at. I had planned on going with a P55 + i5 760, but now I will need to consider the P67 + i5 2500K.
Waiting on bulldozer...
Other than that its a great article, and I'm drooling over QuickSync!
QuickSync definitely looks interesting.
This is all very nice, but I'll keep my bclk control for now and maybe move up when I get out of college in seven months and the tech is set in stone and dropping in price a little.
Not a bad chip, and I'm excited to see where they go with it. =]
These things are as fast as the i7 980X and in some cases they're even faster!