Core i3 530 vs X4 630

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I was interested to see the comparison between the X4 630 and Core i3 530 as they are going to similarly priced:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...px?i=3704&p=16

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpu...0-cpu-review/1

As expected the Core i3 is generally ahead for gaming but I am quite surprised that in non gaming tasks the X4 630 is still quite competitive!! I thought with the higher clockspeed,hyperthreading and L3 cache the Core i3 530 would be ahead in everything but it does not seem so. It would interesting to see how the X3 710 and the cheaper X2 550BE also fares against the Core i3 530 for gaming too as the Phenom II should have better gaming performace. There are comparisons with the much more expensive Core i3 540 but not against the cheaper Core i3 530. OTH, lets hope that the newer Intel motherboards are much cheaper than the P55 ones.

[scaryjim]

... I am quite surprised that in non gaming tasks the X4 630 is still quite competitive!!0 I thought with the higher clockspeed,hyperthreading and L3 cache the Core i3 530 would be ahead in everything but it does not seem so. ...

In anything multithreaded the clockspeed advantage is used up by the overhead incurred in HyperThreading. Of course, the i3s also lack TurboBoost, so they're not going to get the big kick-up in single threaded applications that the i5s will, and they run at lower stock speeds which is going to hold them back in multithreaded applications compared to the i5s too...

I was actually surprised at how well the i5 661 Hexus tested kept up with the Phenom II X4 905e. Its clock speed advantage of 33% almost makes up for its lack of physical cores in heavily threaded applications.

Since TurboBoost makes it fantastic in single threaded applications, it's a compelling choice in a mid range system - decent mutlithreaded performance coupled with fantastic straight-line speed in single threaded apps, which will automatically switch based on which is needed. It's a shame they haven't included automatic graphics switching on the desktop versions - would've made them near perfect...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

In anything multithreaded the clockspeed advantage is used up by the overhead incurred in HyperThreading. Of course, the i3s also lack TurboBoost, so they're not going to get the big kick-up in single threaded applications that the i5s will, and they run at lower stock speeds which is going to hold them back in multithreaded applications compared to the i5s too...

I was actually surprised at how well the i5 661 Hexus tested kept up with the Phenom II X4 905e. Its clock speed advantage of 33% almost makes up for its lack of physical cores in heavily threaded applications.

Since TurboBoost makes it fantastic in single threaded applications, it's a compelling choice in a mid range system - decent mutlithreaded performance coupled with fantastic straight-line speed in single threaded apps, which will automatically switch based on which is needed. It's a shame they haven't included automatic graphics switching on the desktop versions - would've made them near perfect...

You do realise that the X4 905E is priced around the same as an X4 955BE!!

The i5 661 is overpriced!! Both the Core i5 750 and Phenom II X4 965 are cheaper and are faster for gaming:

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/...i5661_review/6

The estimated RRP of the Core i5 661 is around £140 to £150!!

If it was priced around the £100 to £120 though the Core i5 661 would make much more sense. I do hope Intel does also release cheaper motherboards too.

It will be interesting to see how AMD are going to respond to this new onslaught by Intel. I suspect they will release some higher clocked parts.

[scaryjim]

You do realise that the X4 905E is priced around the same as and X4 955BE!!

Yes, I do - my point was that performance-wise its 4 physical cores @ 2.5GHz are about equivalent to the i5s 2 HT cores @ 3.33GHz, and they have a not disimilar power profile too (the i5 661 uses a bit less power).

The i5 661 is a waste of money as it is overpriced!!

Given that there are virtually no Clarkdale i3 / i5 processors (or H55 motherboards) in etail yet I think it's a bit early to talk about the pricing - give it 2 weeks and then we'll see the real state of play.

Bottom line for me, at full load the i5 661 uses only 50% of the power of an X4 965BE, but returns better performance in single-threaded applications and at least 70% of the performance in multi-threaded applications. It's a much better performance/watt ratio which means that you end up with a lower TCO whatever your application spread. And that's for the highest TDP version: the almost identical 660 uses about 17% less still. That makes them much more appealing in a lot of situations than the "performance at any cost" choice of a 965BE...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Bottom line for me, at full load the i5 661 uses only 50% of the power of an X4 965BE, but returns better performance in single-threaded applications and at least 70% of the performance in multi-threaded applications. It's a much better performance/watt ratio which means that you end up with a lower TCO whatever your application spread. And that's for the highest TDP version: the almost identical 660 uses about 17% less still. That makes them much more appealing in a lot of situations than the "performance at any cost" choice of a 965BE...

TBH,if you are spending £150 on a CPU I think that power consumption is the least of your concerns!!

The E8500 and E8600 offered much better single threaded performance than a Q9550 too and much lower power consumption too but they were overpriced.

People harp on about CPU power consumption but TBH ignore things like graphics cards and monitors which also consume a lot of power and many people don't seem to care that much about these things it seems. Even having a more efficient PSU and one which is suited to the actual power requirements of your system will make your system consume less power.

Funnily enough even the Hexus reviewer considers that the idle power consumption of all the platforms to be quite decent which means in reality TCO won't be much different. However,if you do run your CPU at 100% utilisation for over 8000 hours a year then you are on to something.

The Core i5 661 is still overpriced and the Core i5 750 is still a better choice for the same price.Like I said the price needs to drop. I assume that since the Core i5 750 has much higher power consumption than the Core i5 661 we should not consider this either??

I assume that the socket 1336 based systems are pointless too since they have high power consumption too when compared to socket 1156 processors.

I use a relatively hot running overclocked Q6600, with a highly overclocked HD4830(had an 8800GTS 512MB in there previously) and a 975X chipset(which is not very power efficient) in a Shuttle SFF on a 400W PSU and the CPU temperatures are well within spec. It shows you that modern systems don't consume a lot of power.

If you are worried about TCO get a notebook. Consoles have better power consumption than PCs for gaming providing you use an efficient screen. Since you upgrade them less often they are better for the environment too!!

The H enthuiast review was spot on.

The dual core Core i3 and quad core Core i5 make much more sense. Intel should be releasing lower clocked Core i5 700 series processors instead.

[Terbinator]

Can AMD actually release any higher clocked parts.

[Terbinator]

The dual core Core i3 and quad core Core i5 make much more sense. Intel should be releasing lower clocked Core i5 700 series processors instead.

The S series is confirmed - just a shame there not the same clock and a lower TDP.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Can AMD actually release any higher clocked parts.

This is going to be the problem IMHO and they are behind in the fab process they are using too for their CPUs. TBH,it is a good thing that ATI is part of AMD. It is funny though that Intel released a CPU+GPU before AMD though,as AMD was talking about this years before Intel.

Good thing they got a gift from Intel recently!!

The S series is confirmed - just a shame there not the same clock and a lower TDP.

Good news!! Intel needs to release some lower end quads IMHO to replace the Q8000 and if the Core i5-750s is priced around £125 it is probably worth a recommendation over the Phenom 955 for a single card setup.

[scaryjim]

TBH,if you are spending £150 on a CPU I think that power consumption is the least of your concerns!!

That depends on the purpose of your PC, how much you use it, where you use it, and where the £150 came from. If I was buying 5 new PCs for the analysts at work I'd be negligent if I didn't consider power consumption as part of the TCO. If I'd been given the money as a present but didn't normaly have any spare cash in a month, I'd be concerned about how much extra power my new computer was going to use. There's all sorts of reasons for considering power consumption regardless of how much you are spending on your CPU.

People harp on about CPU power consumption but TBH ignore things like graphics cards and monitors which also consume a lot of power and many people don't seem to care that much about these things it seems. Even having a more efficient PSU and one which is suited to the actual power requirements of your system will make your system consume less power.

Couldn't agree more. Which is why I have recommended the 5750 512MB to several people as it has a much lower power draw than similarly priced and performing cards. A 660 + 5750 would make a remarkably high performance, energy-efficient midrange gaming PC on a H55 OR P55 mobo.

Funnily enough even the Hexus reviewer considers that the idle power consumption of all the platforms to be quite decent which means in reality TCO won't be much different. However,if you do run your CPU at 100% utilisation for over 8000 hours a year then you are on to something.

At full pelt it doesn't need to be anywhere near 8000 hours to make a real difference. The 73W difference between the 661 and the 965BE would save you £1 per roughly 130 hours. Given that many gamers on here run up well over 1000hours of gaming in a year that'd be upwards of £10 - and obviously if you go for a 5750 to pair with it you could be looking at huge savings year on year.

The Core i5 661 is still overpriced ...

Since we've not got a proper view of retail pricing yet this is conjecture...

... and the Core i5 750 is still a better choice for the same price.Like I said the price needs to drop. I assume that since the Core i5 750 has much higher power consumption than the Core i5 661 we should not consider this either??

I assume that the socket 1336 based systems are pointless too since they have high power consumption too when compared to socket 1156 processors.

I didn't say the other CPUs shouldn't be considered / were pointless, just that the power / performance ratio of the Clarkdale i5s actually makes them worthy of consideration - you've edited it now but your original post described the i5 661 as "a waste of money" which is the point I was answering

If you are worried about TCO get a notebook. Consoles have better power consumption than PCs for gaming providing you use an efficient screen. Since you upgrade them less often they are better for the environment too!!

Actually, most people don't upgrade their computers either, so that point is moot - in fact I could invert it by pointing out that if you bought both a laptop *and* a games console that'd proably be environmentally worse than just a desktop! If energy efficiency is your *only* concern then you should choose a notebook, yes, but if you're looking for a good combination of low power draw and good performance then the Clarkdale i5s are worth consideration.

The dual core Core i3 and quad core Core i5 make much more sense. Intel should be releasing lower clocked Core i5 700 series processors instead.

I'd be very interested in the i3s certainly, but their lack of Turbo Boost means they won't be as competitive in single threaded performance. Lower clocked i5 700s would also be interesting but again the lower clocks will reduce the single threaded performance, and a lot of people still use legacy programs that will be affected by that.

Anyway, since you've removed the "waste of money" phrase from your earlier post we are nearer to an accord - the new Clarkdales just throw more options into the ring, and choice is a good thing, IMNSHO

[Pob255]

I just want to point out a couple of factors.

In the cpu performance tests

Today you'll see results from the Core i5 661 as well as a simulated Core i3 540 and Core i3 530.

They simulated this by underclocking the core i5 661 to the speed of the core i3, however at the start of the artical where they looked at the architechture.

Clarkdale kicks it off die again. The IMC is housed in the 45nm GMA die. It’s still on-package, but not on-die. The benefit is super fast memory access for the graphics core, but slower memory access for the CPU core.

So just by slowing the clock speed of the i5 down doesn't make it the same as the i3 with it's weaker memory controller, although how much that will effect it is still unknown.

Overall thoes numbers look like the much vaulted onchip, please note NOT on die, infact calling it OnSubstrate would be more accurate, really isn't up to that much.
And before any of you start going up in arms, look at it again.
It beats the pants off the G45's GMA X4500 which is not hard as the GMA are some of the weakest IGP's around.
The 790GX's HD3300 beats it in performance but loses to power consumption.
However, why did they use that? esp in light of the 785G's HD4200 which both beats the 790GX in performance and has far lower power consumption.
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.ph...=19568&page=11

EDIT: also thoes articals power consumption figures don't look at igp to cpu ballance load and HD playback performance, if the cpu is being loaded on both systems, then I'm not surprised that the x4 is so much more as that's a far more power hungery cpu.
But given their figures and the Hexus numbers for the power difference between the g45, 790gx and 785g the e8600 + g45 vs x2 250 + 790gx look about right, add in a rought estimate based off the hexus numbers for the 785g and you'd end up around the same power consumption as the new intel, with better performance.


This looks more and more like Intel just couldn't graft the IGP onto the cpu with out such radical changes that would make the cpu no longer a 86 cpu and so incompatible with windows.
So they just took a dual core cpu, got HT working on it, then die shrank both it and there new GMA northbridge and jamed them onto one substrate.
This is reminisent of the Pentium D, where they just jamed two pentium4's onto one substrate.

[UseItNow]

I'll throw a spanner in the works, how does the E8400 perform against the Core i3 530?

It's in a HTPC with an Intel DG45 but I might upgrade to the Core i3 530 just for newer tech/features of the H55/57 chipset. Would it be worth it?

Also what would I get for my E8400 and DG45ID motherboard?

Thanks.

[Pob255]

Looking at thoes articals, esp the multimedia scores, slightly better, but how much of that is down to improved effeciency from the HT and die shrink and how much is down to the far better IGP is hard to call.

If you're using the IGP then you should see a jump in performance, if you're not then probably less of a jump.

[Terbinator]

I'll throw a spanner in the works, how does the E8400 perform against the Core i3 530?

It's in a HTPC with an Intel DG45 but I might upgrade to the Core i3 530 just for newer tech/features of the H55/57 chipset. Would it be worth it?

Also what would I get for my E8400 and DG45ID motherboard?

Thanks.

Does a HTPC actually need more grunt that an E8400 - unless your upgrading for energy reasons.

[scaryjim]

Took too long typing this: I'm replying to Pob's earlier post

I hate to nitpick, but I don't think any of that is true.

Memory Controller / i5 Downclock
Both the i5 600 and the i3 have the memory controller in the IGP package, and on both sets of chips the CPU core is 32nm and the IGP / Memory controller is 45nm. In fact, the only differences between the i3 and i5 incarnations of Clarkdale are a) clock speed and b) the i3s don't support TurboBoost. It's worth noting that in the Hexus review the bandwidth available to the CPU was significantly lower than to an i5 750, but only marginally lower than available to the AMD processors. The i5 661 has a higher IGP clock than the i3s as well, but assuming they also downclocked the IGP, downclocking an i5 661 to i3 speeds and disabling TurboBoost should give a pretty good indication of the latter's performance.

IGP Performance / 785G vs 790GX
The i5 661 differs from all other incarnations in having the IGP clocked at 900MHz instead of 733MHz. Hexus managed to overclock it to 1066 though, so presumably the IGP on the other Clarkdales will be receptive to overclocking as well.

At 900MHz, Intel HD Graphics (according to Hexus, at least) beat a HD4200 by a small but consistent margin. I strongly suspect this is due to the relatively high memory bandwidth available to it as it's housed alongside the memory controller. That isn't surprising though, because HD3300 (790GX) has better performance than HD4200 (785G), according to the review that you linked to! So IGP performance currently goes HD4200 -> Intel HD Graphics -> HD3300. Of course, you can overclock the HD4200 to HD3300 levels pretty easily, and then you're looking at a different picture.

Intel grafting IGP + Memory Controller to single die
They've already done this with Atom - the new version has all three functions on a single piece of silicon. But the new Atom uses a lower performance IGP design and is all taped out at 45nm. What Intel have done with Clarkdale is take the most pragmatic approach in terms of real world performance vs real world cost, and decided that packaging two separate pieces of silicon together and linking them via QPI is the best balance. The performance figures back them up on the technology side, so it's really going to come down to whether the retail pricing makes them appealling enough to the major OEMs. Given that a lot of major OEMs design their own motherboards and Clarkdale takes a lot of complexity off the motherboard, I'd say it'll probably go over very well with the like of Dell and HP. But only time will tell.

In terms of genuine fusion silicon, Atom 2 is already out there proving it can be done. AMD are working on their version, which I assume will take the form of a monolithic die, but won't be launching it for a year yet, according to general rumour. Which leaves Clarkdale as the only decent-performance CPU + GPU package available, regardless of how it's been put together.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I'll throw a spanner in the works, how does the E8400 perform against the Core i3 530?

It's in a HTPC with an Intel DG45 but I might upgrade to the Core i3 530 just for newer tech/features of the H55/57 chipset. Would it be worth it?

Also what would I get for my E8400 and DG45ID motherboard?

Thanks.

TBH,you could sell E8400(at least £80 on Ebay) and DG45ID motherboard and get a 785G motherboard and an X2 235e for less money. You could also re-use the DDR2 RAM you have.

This Biostar motherboard has an HD4200 IGP which has dedicated DDR2 RAM on the motherboard for the IGP too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Biost...-RAID-mATX-VGA

Here is a review:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/809/1

Also Scan had a few DDR2 790GX based motherboards during the weekend for around the £60 to £65 mark such as the Asus M3A78-T and DFI JR 790GX-M2RS which have an even faster IGP.

The very similar X2 240e has very low power consumption if this is a concern:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//i...1&limitstart=4

Edit!!

TBH, an E8400 and a G45 based motherboard should be fine for media use so I would probably keep it as the CPU has enough grunt. You could always try undervolting the CPU if you want to reduce power consumption.

[Terbinator]

} or sepnd £40 on a GT220 - am i right ?