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

[HEXUS]

We take three Intel Core i7 processors and put them up against the best of the rest. See who wins.

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[Biscuit]

Unsurprisingly then, you need to have multithreaded apps/games to see any real difference. Turboboost (i bet its not voice activated like Kitts though ) feature looks interesting! Suggested price tag is too high though they need to drop the 930 below 200 for it to make sense to me. If there is no plans for the to do such a thing soon after the release i think il probs just get a decent C2Q and 4870, il have far more benefit from that.

[jimbouk]

Where's the famous Hexus bang for buck rating? There must be something you can calculate to give you a value even if it is just a few scores mashed together...

[SiM]

w00t. Finally out!

[randomgiblets]

Its not one of the best hexus reviews. many errors on the net today across a variety of articles. Such as sites imitating the 940 with the 965EE. I notice Driverheaven.net got it right by not allowing over 1066mhz ram with the 940 which is how the end user will experience it (965EE is unlocked so allows higher than 1066mhz ram settings, 940 retail wont). Also notice that more sites like guru3d and hexus are using flash graphs which is something ive noticed Driverheaven using for years. When did Hexus stop leading the way?

The Hardocp review is very poor, looks like they couldnt be bothered.

[Tarinder]

Yup, we are.

Things are being added to the review as I write this. I've been up all night writing this after Intel pulled the launch forward by two weeks.

We have articles focussing on overclocking and individual X58 motherboards to come.

[Biscuit]

I notice Driverheaven.net got it right by not allowing over 1066mhz ram with the 940 which is how the end user will experience it (965EE is unlocked so allows higher than 1066mhz ram settings, 940 retail wont).

Hold on, i just asked this question in another thread but what you say here seems to contradict. Are you saying that any of the lower end i7 chips will not benefit from ram speeds higher than its native 1066?

[Tarinder]

You can increase the speed of the CPU clock (133MHz base) and concurrently raise memory speeds.

So yes, faster-than-1,066MHz RAM can be run on the CPUs and they will benefit from it.

[Biscuit]

But to benefit from higher speed ram you have to essentially overclock the CPU?

[Webby]

Would seem that way yes!

Oh and a quick question why was the Phenom run with memory at 800MHz when it is designed to run at 1066? I realise the timings were 4-4-4-12 rather than 5-5-5-15 but in the memory tests you will have reduced its scores some.

[Whiternoise]

Suggested price tag is too high though they need to drop the 930 below 200 for it to make sense to me.

The pricing is pretty reasonable to my mind, given the performance you're getting and for a new technology.

For £250, you're beating out pretty much all the processors that cost double the price at the moment.

And this is of course a release price, give it 6 months and i imagine they'll have dropped considerably (but of course by then you'll be looking out for the die shrink )!

[choc]

You can increase the speed of the CPU clock (133MHz base) and concurrently raise memory speeds.

So yes, faster-than-1,066MHz RAM can be run on the CPUs and they will benefit from it.

Like biscuit I'm well confused... surely if you raise the 133 base then everything linked to it is increased... What randomgiblets seems to be saying is you cant keep a 940 at its advertised speed of 2.9ghz with a 22 multiplier and use DDR3 past 1066 at its native speed. (Something you have done with your review sample in this review because it was actually a 965 which allowed DDR3-1333 and 22x)

I had a quick look at the driverhaven one mentioned above and they have some interesting pics like http://www.driverheaven.net/reviewim...es/memmess.JPG which seem to indicate the 940/920 cant use anything above 1066 without overclocking the 133mhz base.

[Webby]

So if this is the case I guess people will be not be buying any 1600+MHz memory any time soon, guess we will all be looking for low latency 1066 or 1333 (for overclocking) depending on what memory dividers are available.

[Tarinder]

Would seem that way yes!

Oh and a quick question why was the Phenom run with memory at 800MHz when it is designed to run at 1066? I realise the timings were 4-4-4-12 rather than 5-5-5-15 but in the memory tests you will have reduced its scores some.

Hi,

Because the Phenoms are notorious for not liking 1,066MHz memory. You wouldn't believe the grief we've had in getting test systems stable with that speed.

[Tarinder]

DDR3-1,066MHz is the limit for the non-EE processors on the Intel reference board, yesm but there's no reason why motherboard manufacturers cannot design their mobos to feature faster-than-default speeds - it happens all the time.

[randomgiblets]

DDR3-1,066MHz is the limit for the non-EE processors on the Intel reference board, yesm but there's no reason why motherboard manufacturers cannot design their mobos to feature faster-than-default speeds - it happens all the time.

Well it may well happen, and I agree, but I still think you should have run the processor with memory settings in keeping with offical specifications. Really its quite misleading and isn't indicative of what a consumer will experience when they go into a store and purchase the exact systems you tested. (obviously they wont be buying a 965EE and copying a lower spec processor). Also the Phenom tests seem weird, I know a friend who runs at 1066 perfectly fine, and surely on your theory then you should really have tried to push it (if thats what you say is right for the intel side of the coin here).