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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HDThoreau - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link
So can somebody guesstimate what an i7 920 overclocked to 4Ghz(45C) on air compares with among the i5's overclocked or not?The i7 920 is $200 at Microcenter. For the person which doesn't overclock anything ever, I can see how this article applies. But for people that build their own systems, I'm not seeing the big bonus here.
The comparable i5, which I haven't heard good things about it's 4 core overclock, is running at 20 bucks more. And the P55 motherboards ain't any cheaper than the x58 yet.
So, in summary. What is the advantage of buying an i5 anything rather than an i7 920 clocked at 4Ghz on air? That's it. Thanks.
Twoboxer - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link
For those consumers that DO NOT overclock (and they buy MOST of the chips), the i5 is faster than the 965 out of the box.For those who DO overclock, two things are known:
- The i5 can OC to the same clock as the 965, and
- At the same clock, the i5 is faster than the 965.
WTF is all the arguing about?
Ann3x - Monday, September 14, 2009 - link
The i5 is faster than the 965 at equal clocks??? Lol is that a serious comment?You mean faster:
Except for the lack of HT
Except for the slower PCI-E
Except for the lower memory bandwidth
Except for the lower binning.
Yeeeaaahhhhh. In fact even if you ignore these 4 points theyre going to be the EXACT same speed. So youre wrong on multiple points.
The i5 is simply not faster than the 965. Now better value than the 965???? Hell yes.... Faster, just no.
Nich0 - Monday, September 14, 2009 - link
It sure is not clear, especially because we were talking about Intel processors, but I think that by 965 he meant the Phenom 2 variety. Which is why we got a very interesting -NOT- rebuttal from snakeoil.snakeoil - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link
thats false.papapapapapapapababy - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link
download this bench, and set everything to max (no med@ low res BS...)
http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_re5_downloads.ht...">http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_re5_downloads.ht...
my E6600 3.0Ghz awaits...
CB434 - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link
Gary, you really know how to keep us on the edge our seats.deadrats - Saturday, September 12, 2009 - link
ok people, i have read most of the comments posted by both the obviously rabid intel fans and the equally rabid amd fans and there is one thing that absolutely must be acknowledged...intel's turbo feature IS overclocking, plain and simple.overclocking means to run a processor at a higher than rated speed by either raising the fsb (even with cpu's that have integrated memory controllers the bios still lists a fsb for simplicities sake) and/or increasing the default multiplier.
with the core i5/i7 we have just that: a dynamic increasing of the clock speed from the rated default speed and said increase is only activated when the cpu is under load.
the core i5 750 has a rated clock speed of 2.66 ghz but the fact of the matter is that under most conditions it will be running at 3.2 ghz, it's absurd to compare it to a core 2 or phenom 2 running in the 2.66 ghz range and proclaim the i5 750 as the superior chip when the 750 is benefiting from 600 mhz clock speed advantage.
it reminds me of the muscle cars of the 60's when car companies would purposely under state the horsepower ratings by measuring horsepower and torque at a point below the rpm range when peak power was made, so that it could look like their cars needed less horsepower to be faster than the competition.
in fact, as late as circa 2000 chevy released a camaro ss that was rated at 305 horsepower that was faster than the corvettes of the day, hell the damn thing was ripping a 13 sec flat 1/4 mile time and anyone that ever drove one could tell you that it made way more than 305 hp. one magazine did put it on a dyno and found that it made about 350 hp at the wheels which works out to about 380 or so at the fly wheel.
same thing with intel: they market a chip as being a 2.66 ghz part and then under any condition than idle have it run at 3-3.2 ghz, my question is why not just clock it by default at 3.2 ghz, sell it as such and simple allow it to be down clocked when idle to save power, just the way they have done with the penryn and conroe and the way amd does with it's processors.
turbo mode is a marketing gimmick, nothing more and if i did buy a i5 750 (and i'm seriously considering picking one up) i would turn turbo off, buy a good after market cooler and overclock the chip myself to about the 3.5 ghz range, which should prove to be a very stable over clock.
HavocX - Monday, September 14, 2009 - link
"overclocking means to run a processor at a higher than rated speed""with the core i5/i7 we have just that: a dynamic increasing of the clock speed from the rated default speed and said increase is only activated when the cpu is under load."
Higher than the default speed, yes. Higher than the rated speed, no.
Overclocking means running the chip at a higher speed than the manufacturers settings. Variable clock speed is not overclocking. A chip at stock setting are never overclocked.
That said testing maximum overclock at similar cooling situations is also interesting. What is never interesting is comparing chips at worse than their out of the box settings.
"the core i5 750 has a rated clock speed of 2.66 ghz but the fact of the matter is that under most conditions it will be running at 3.2 ghz, it's absurd to compare it to a core 2 or phenom 2 running in the 2.66 ghz range and proclaim the i5 750 as the superior chip when the 750 is benefiting from 600 mhz clock speed advantage."
This is true, it should be compared to chips of the same price and power consumption. And this comparison is generally favorable to the i5.
"they market a chip as being a 2.66 ghz part and then under any condition than idle have it run at 3-3.2 ghz, my question is why not just clock it by default at 3.2 ghz,"
Because that would allow the chip to run at these speeds at full load on all cores, and they do not want the power/heat to ever raise to those levels. The beauty of turbo mode is that you maxize the performance withing the set power/heat limit. No competing chip do that, overclocked or not.
TA152H - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
This is for all you idiots that keep talking about the term overclocking, like it's a meaningful conversation.
I'll agree turbo mode is a stupid name, since you're not using forced induction, but the technology itself is valid. Idiots can argue over the term, but it gives one a finer granularity on increasing clock speed than a simple overclock would. It's intelligent in the sense it overclocks based on load, and it's a perfectly valid and useful feature for the vast majority of people buying the Lynnfields. They aren't going to overclock their processors in the conventional sense, and get an out of the box experience that gives them extra performance, without violating thermal and electrical characteristics of their processor and system. It's a good technology for a lot of people. Call it whatever you want. That's not the important aspect of it.
I agree with most people here that it's pretty useless, since most of us would just get an i7 920, or, for those who don't want to spend so much, get a i5 750 and overclock it. But, most people buying computers don't do this, and Intel makes most of their money on these people. It's a really good technology for them.