txnetcop
September 8th, 2009, 01:47
Core i5 750 - 2 new Core i7 860 and 870 processor review
http://guru3d.com/article/core-i5-750-core-i7-860-870-processor-review-test/
Then the more mainstream Core i5 750. For roughly 200 USD this processor is truly grand and will compete with AMD's latest Phenom II 955 and 965 processors. It's priced right and opens up a nice can of processing power. Now I'll be very fair here... my money would still be going to a Core i7 920 which has an unlocked QPI/memory multiplier and triple-channel memory. And I know that doesn't make sense money wise, but just look at the benchmarks, the lack of Hyper Threading really kills off performance in situations that demand it.
On that topic, yeah... what puzzled me somewhat about the Core i5 750 is that Intel decided to cut away Hyper Threading from the Core i5 700 series. I mean, when Nehalem was introduced, next to the architecture, two things really popped out as classy and exciting: these were triple-channel memory and Hyper Threading. Now, the dual-channel memory controller is point-to-point based and really... offers so much bandwidth and tweaking flexibility that really, the lack of triple-channel memory is not at all that important. But the lack of Hyper Threading on the Core i5 750 I feel is a bit of a missed opportunity. Likely Intel did not want the 750 to compete with the 920 too much.
Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI P55 boards are available as well
http://guru3d.com/article/msi-p55-gd80-review-test/
Any negatives then? Well ... all the P55 chipset only has 16 PCie lanes available on the graphics ports. So if you decide to go 2-way SLI or 2-Way crossfire the ports will be split into x8 slots. Now the honest truth is that to date it hardly matters. A test a long time ago was showing a 1 to 2% offset with high-end SLI and as such was insignificant. But with graphics technology advancing in the upcoming year .. it might become a wee bit of a limitation. Furthermore for a motherboard designed for LN2 overclocking festivities the capacitors (http://guru3d.com/article/msi-p55-gd80-review-test/22#) close to the CPU socket seem a little out of place. But that's aesthetic at best and for the rest of the 99.999998% of the end-users not even a remote worry.
I'm still in love with the revision Core i7920 and i7950. Why would I buy a Lynnfield core that just competes with AMD Phenom II?
Ted
http://guru3d.com/article/core-i5-750-core-i7-860-870-processor-review-test/
Then the more mainstream Core i5 750. For roughly 200 USD this processor is truly grand and will compete with AMD's latest Phenom II 955 and 965 processors. It's priced right and opens up a nice can of processing power. Now I'll be very fair here... my money would still be going to a Core i7 920 which has an unlocked QPI/memory multiplier and triple-channel memory. And I know that doesn't make sense money wise, but just look at the benchmarks, the lack of Hyper Threading really kills off performance in situations that demand it.
On that topic, yeah... what puzzled me somewhat about the Core i5 750 is that Intel decided to cut away Hyper Threading from the Core i5 700 series. I mean, when Nehalem was introduced, next to the architecture, two things really popped out as classy and exciting: these were triple-channel memory and Hyper Threading. Now, the dual-channel memory controller is point-to-point based and really... offers so much bandwidth and tweaking flexibility that really, the lack of triple-channel memory is not at all that important. But the lack of Hyper Threading on the Core i5 750 I feel is a bit of a missed opportunity. Likely Intel did not want the 750 to compete with the 920 too much.
Gigabyte, ASUS and MSI P55 boards are available as well
http://guru3d.com/article/msi-p55-gd80-review-test/
Any negatives then? Well ... all the P55 chipset only has 16 PCie lanes available on the graphics ports. So if you decide to go 2-way SLI or 2-Way crossfire the ports will be split into x8 slots. Now the honest truth is that to date it hardly matters. A test a long time ago was showing a 1 to 2% offset with high-end SLI and as such was insignificant. But with graphics technology advancing in the upcoming year .. it might become a wee bit of a limitation. Furthermore for a motherboard designed for LN2 overclocking festivities the capacitors (http://guru3d.com/article/msi-p55-gd80-review-test/22#) close to the CPU socket seem a little out of place. But that's aesthetic at best and for the rest of the 99.999998% of the end-users not even a remote worry.
I'm still in love with the revision Core i7920 and i7950. Why would I buy a Lynnfield core that just competes with AMD Phenom II?
Ted