Reviews - Intel Core i7 - everything that Core 2 should have been - performance numbe

[magneticman]

so tempted to upgrade, price could be an issue though - looking forward to the x58 motherboards on the horizon..

[CrazyMonkey]

Well when i see some overclocking details and some final pricing i'll make my judgments then.

Looks promising though - But i expected some more on stock.

[DR]

Intel have allowed publications to go with reviews of the CPU/technology - they are saying 2 weeks for availability.

[shaithis]

Well if the case is that the specified memory speeds are limited by the CPU which was my original worry then im deeply dissapointed. I can understand them locking the multi on the chip so that only the extremes can do the serious overclocks but locking the memory seems pretty unfair on the consumer. Intel have too much control over the market atm

Look at the memory scores.

Now look again.

Look once more.

Now, do you not think they are good enough????

I am sure later revisions of BIOS or board or CPU will allow asynchronous memory speeds but it's a matter of waiting for the first round of improvements to go to manufacturing.

I think a lot of people forget what the "on chip" memory controller meant for AMD......just the fact it is "on chip" means the performance advantage you get it miles better then any increase in RAM speed.

There are a few concerns about i7, I personally would not count memory bandwidth as one of them

[Biscuit]

Look at the memory scores.

Now look again.

Look once more.

Now, do you not think they are good enough????

for £250 (cpu)+ £200ish (mobo) + £120(ram) - no not really. Maybe im acting a bit spoiled or something but it seems daft to give a CPU the integrated controller which greatly improves the memory bandwidth, then limiting it at the other side so the feature cant be used to its fullest.

I am sure later revisions of BIOS or board or CPU will allow asynchronous memory speeds but it's a matter of waiting for the first round of improvements to go to manufacturing.

I hope your right but i guess its a bit of playing the waiting game.

[atmadden]

The numbers are impressive but at a huge cost £600 at least for 6GB mem, cpu and a X58 motherboard no where near worth it in my opinion and a new platform always has teething problems. I certainly won't be investing for some time.

[zephod]

Knowing this and appreciating that the Core i7 920 will be priced at around £250 when launched later on this month, it makes practically all Core 2 CPUs priced above this level and destined for new PCs kind of redundant, we feel. Why buy expensive, old technology when something newer and cheaper does the trick?

Not sure this is true, given the cost of X58 and DDR3. Especially as some people STILL aren't particularly willing to o/c their Core2s. All looks very tasty but this whole Vdimm issue is bothering me. Don't feel anywhere near as safe playing with one of these as I do with any core2 setup... Lucky I can't afford to completely overhaul my rig then I guess

[=assassin=]

Is the Q9650 likely to fall in price alot when Nehalem arrives? It seems the 920 is roughly similar performance, if not a little better overall, and if that's around £250, then surely the other CPU's will have to lower in price?

[Tidus]

Here's a multi GPU review with this CPU for anyone interested in how much the CPU has to offer at higher resolutions. http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i...mance-review/1

[Biscuit]

they have compared it with a dual core 8400 tho :/ Still it seems to have given games a fair boost with multi GPU systems.

[Tarinder]

randomgiblets, webby,

I've re-run the numbers with the 940's memory set to DDR3-1,066MHz instead of 1,333MHz, as originally published. The new numbers are active now, and there is very little difference, surprisingly.

However, as a quick-compare results.

DDR3-1,066 vs DDR3-1,333, latencies are the same.

Sciencemark - 37.6ns vs. 35.4ns
Memory bandwidth - 17.2GB/s vs. 20.1GB/s
HEXUS. PiFast - 29.22s vs 29.15s
WAV encoding - 96.6s vs. 96.8s
DivX encoding - 196.1s vs. 195.2s
Cinebench - 16677 vs. 16855
POV-ray - 3631.2 vs. 3643.1
WinRAR - 287s vs. 288s

Quake 4 - 329fps vs. 333.4fps
ET 1024 - 128fps vs. 130.7fps
ET 1680 - 83.3fps vs. 83fps
CoH 1024 - 214.1fps vs. 216.5fps

I'm pretty suprised that the gap isn't bigger than this and shows that extra bandwidth cannot always be used in scenarios where a single application is run in isolation.

[kalniel]

How hot did the northbridge get Tarinder? Is there really a need for such mad cooling solutions now that it only handles PCI-E channels?

[Tarinder]

Not hot or cool enough to merit particular commentary, Kalniel.

[kalniel]

Not hot or cool enough to merit particular commentary, Kalniel.

Cheers. So in your opinion is all the crazy cooling we see on the non-intel X58 boards just bling?

[j.o.s.h.1408]

i cant wait for these to come out

[Tarinder]

Cheers. So in your opinion is all the crazy cooling we see on the non-intel X58 boards just bling?

The Smackover is a well-designed board but the fact that it uses passive cooling kind of says it all, I feel.

Crazy-ass cooling is just another way to justify a ~£30 price hike.