Core i5 / P55 Lab Update
by Gary Key on September 11, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Gary's First Looks
This has been an interesting week to say the least for those of us stuck in the labs and not at AMD's DX11 GPU press briefings. Based on feedback from the Lynnfield launch article we have spent the last couple of days running additional benchmarks to address overclocking and clock for clock requests. Yes, we do listen and respond to the comments no matter how outlandish (you know who you are) some may be at times.
I will interject a personal note here, the emails/private messages that outlined a strong case for additional research and testing certainly held a lot more weight than comments like "You are on Intel's payroll...", "Worst review ever...", and the moonshot , "Illegal benchmarking methods..". First off, if we were on Intel's payroll we would not be working here (a logical conclusion, right? ;) ) As for the other comments, everyone is entitled to their opinions. We do our best to keep an open forum and let the comments fall where they may, but offering constructive criticism and facts to back up those comments is what actually causes change, not endless shock posts or attention grabbing statements. I still have hope in people abiding by the rules of Internet Etiquette, but apparently we are still a long ways off from that happening. I will step off the soap box, well, until the next article....
Just to set this up now, our overclock comparisons will be at 3.8GHz for the Core i5/i7 and Phenom II x4 965BE processors. Why 3.8GHz, well it is an easy number for all of our processors to hit on fairly low voltages with retail or mid-range air coolers. It is also an ideal clock range for the "set it and forget crowd" interested in 24/7 overclocking. Certainly we could go higher on air or water cooling and actually ran most of our Core i5/i7 numbers at 4.2GHz for the motherboard roundups. Our Phenom II x4 965BE is the hold up for higher numbers in our clock for clock comparisons.
AMD continues to have serious problems with their Phenom II processor range clocking above 3.8~4GHz on air with a 64-bit operating system. Unfortunately, there is nothing AMD can do to correct this in the current stepping, but they are actively working on improvements with each processor release. In fact, the latest Athlon II x2 processors are the first products we have that allow for 24/7 stable operation at 4GHz under Windows 7 x64. The quad cores are still lagging although our latest retail 965BE is showing promise around 3.92GHz in early testing. I state this now so it does not come as surprise later.
I will post several benchmark results later today based on our motherboard test suite. Anand will provide a more in-depth analysis next week along with an updated look at the Core i7/860. He might even have a surprise announcement from AMD. In the meantime, I have just about completed this additional testing and will return my focus on completing the first (of many) P55 motherboard article(s) that will be up in a couple of days. Our first review will cover the Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 among others. We recently received several other micro-ATX P55 motherboards and will look at those shortly. For now, this board is a perfect match for the Core i5/750 for our mainstream audience looking to upgrade an older platform.
Our graph below is an example of the information we will provide late today. Hopefully, this type of information will be useful for your purchasing decision along with our commentary about the results. I know there is not a Core 2 product listed, that will be forthcoming in the near future.
9/11 Update - I am still working on the FarCry 2 and H.A.W.X. benchmarks so the short update will be delayed until tomorrow morning.
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Xortin - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link
Cyrix chips were a problem many moon's ago. Have not had a lot of problems with either Intel or AMD in a long while. Server setup or desktop.JarredWalton - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link
Actually, I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about, in part because you were so vague. My guesses:Intel IGPs still frequently suck, especially in terms of drivers. NVIDIA chipsets also have issues on a regular basis... but then, problems with drivers and chipsets have plagued pretty much every company.
As a whole, I would choose Intel chipsets over the competition, but it's a tough call. (Note: if we're talking about IGP chipsets, that recommendation would change. Sadly, good IGP chipsets frequently come with the less desirable other items, like unstable chipsets/drivers or slower CPUs.)
While I have used plenty of AMD setups in the past, I buy for what is currently the best platform. That means all of my Athlon 64/X2 systems are gone now, except for the one Athlon 3200+ 939 setup I keep around for my daughter. My main work and play systems are actually both running Kentsfield processors -- Q6600 @ 3.30GHz and QX6700 @ 3.20GHz. There's also an old Pentium D sitting in the corner gathering dust... though it has an X38 motherboard so I should probably get a different CPU from Anand or Gary.
The rest of my computers are now all laptops in various stages of testing. Two are AMD-based, and frankly they're the slowest and least desirable *laptops* by a large margin. The Dell Studio 14z is actually looking like a very good laptop that starts at $650, and $200 extra will get you pretty much everything you really need. Battery life, performance, stability, and even a 1440x900 LCD, with a package that weighs in at less than 4.5 pounds. You can get AMD-based setups for less money, but they're slower in every area and offer about 2/3 the battery life.
Totally off topic post, I know, but some of you might be interested in reading it. :-)
yyrkoon - Saturday, September 12, 2009 - link
Speaking of laptops, I purchased one recently too, and could not be happier with it. It is not a high performance jobby ( but I did look at one of those too; By Asus even ), but it also only set me back $399 , or $450 if you include the 4GB Crucial kit I purchased at the same time.The main reason I purchased this laptop is that everyone I have spoken with that has owned one of this brand has been very happy with them. But these people also try to take care of their equipment, so they may/may not be bullet proof. The one I purchased is definitely flimsy, but I do not move it around a lot, and when I do, I go out of my way to take care of it. So, it is not perfect either, but I am very happy because it does the main thing I expect from any system I own, or build. It does not crash.
Speed is important too in some cases, but when you purchase a pre built system ( laptop in this case ) with a T3400, 2 GB of RAM, 160GB HDD, and Intel 4500M IGP. What are *you* expecting ? I would also expect AMD laptops to not be top performers, but you have to know this going in. This is why lots of "research" is nearly mandatory, other wise not matter what you purchase is going to be a big let down.
So, I guess my point here is that "desirable" in this context is subjective. Myself, I purchased a laptop mainly because we're 100% solar ( off grid ), and could not afford to spend $30,000 for batteries, plus more for other equipment like panels, or wind turbines *JUST* to run my desktop. By comparison, it is a beast, and is gaining on a couple of years old now. It also sucks down 224W continuous while playing Modern games. 165W while idling. The laptop ? 40W while gaming, or 17W idle. Big difference. So I chose an Intel laptop only based on they seem to be leading the market in low power systems that are still usable for most every day tasks. Read: an atom ain't going to cut it. That, and I payed less than what they seem to be asking for a high end atom system.
yyrkoon - Saturday, September 12, 2009 - link
Strikeback hit it on the head. Asus, and ABIT. Roughly, very generalized, and blown out of proportion.I will miss ABIT sorely, but not because of the name, because of the product. I had never, ever had any product from this company that was not maintained for a long time, or at least until all the issues were ironed out. I am far from alone in this school of thought. VERY far. The products in the end were perhaps a tad slower than some of the competition ( they usually landed in the middle of the pack from memory, with a rare speed demon from time to time ), but were very solid as far as Stability went.
They were not however perfect, as no one is. I had a system board go south after 5 years, because of the substandard capacitors used. 5 years . . . and they were not the only company who fell into this pit as it were. The board was a KT7A RAID-100 board, still have it ( for parts ), but it does not function any longer despite a cap replacement.
Anyways, my point on this subject is not to glorify ABIT ( although maybe they deserve it ), or blow smoke up anyones butt. My point is that the practices used by this company should be the rule, and not the exception. Instead, we get hardware that people from reviews call stable after running successfully for a very short amount of time( and in the real world the darned things will not run a week without some form of a crash related to hardware ). This is even with stock proper settings. And it is not even the reviewers fault, except that perhaps these products get awards that they should not have, until they exemplify true ability by reputation. Enter our "budget line" product . . .
Now, this is not just a problem with motherboards. This is a problem that seems quite capable of popping up in any part of the market. Many of us know this, and avoid these companies/products like the plague. This is not because of fanboiism, this is because those of us who do run small businesses do not wish to lose business because of substandard garbage. Maybe my thinking here is antiquated . . . but you know, if it "just works" I can actually get some work/play done, instead of fixing the damed thing ( again ).
By the way, I prefer systems with Intel chipsets, and if the system is for play, I just drop in a discrete card. I am not adverse to other products, but lately the product would have to be proven to me in person. I am also pro Intel CPUs, even though I have used many AMD CPUs in the past( even before the Athlon ). Cost factor is what played the biggest role for me, because like I said in a previous post. CPUs are very rarely an issue. Sometimes different branded CPUs are slower, sure. That is a given. If the CPU exhibits serious problems, hell we'll find out about it before we need to use one ( because of sites like Anandtech ), and we can just bite on the next revision. Right ?
yacoub - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link
Wow I didn't realize Abit was gone... just read the Wikipedia article. I was wondering why I hadn't seen a board from them in a while. Kinda sad. I used to like their boards back in the day. :( Though I did also have problems with one and that was what got me looking at other brands for my motherboards since.lyeoh - Saturday, September 12, 2009 - link
Hi, regarding the slow laptops, have you ever tried benchmarks with the NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate registry setting set to 1?This might also affect filesystem benchmarks on SSDs.
See: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc75856...">http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc75856...
The reasoning behind this is random writes on laptop drives are very slow. Random writes on some SSDs are slow too.
With the default NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate setting, Windows will write to the disk every time it opens a file or directory.
I suspect this might affect performance a lot. Maybe you can benchmark it :). Naturally this might screw up some apps, but I have NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate=1 for years and it's fine for my usage.
strikeback03 - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link
My guess is specific motherboard vendors, such as abit and Asus.SJD - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link
So basically, clock for clock these things run almost identical with LGA1366 processors. That's really interesting, but doesn't take away that as a stock processor the i5 750 makes a really sweet choice at a great price for those who don't want to overclock and want lower power consumptionAnn3x - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link
Thanks for taking the time to do the extra tests. Good to know youre listening.Yeah some people went over the top with the stupid irrational criticism but what did you expect with incendiary remarks like (paraphrasing) "all CPUs below the 965 are now pointless".
To me personally, that was what really annoyed me about the 1st article. A silly blanket statement ignoring many of the real world reasons for choosing a 920 or whatever.
Anyway, thanks for the additional testing. Lets hope thats the end of it regarding this debate. Anandtech has always been a site Ive admired for its high quality and insightful testing i guess to have read one review that I disagreed with in 3 years isnt really too bad!
murphyslabrat - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link
Could you give a real-world scenario involving the justified purchase of a 920? I sure as hell can't.