Intel Core i7 Review Thread

**ap4lifetn** · 11-03-2008, 10:00 AM

now the debate begins, cost effective q9550 or beastly i920??!! DDR2 or DDR3?!!

**RaZz!** · 11-03-2008, 10:37 AM

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/h...treme_edition/

wondering why the nehalem lose to the penryns in the game benchmarks though.

but it's funny to see how 3-way sli with the gtx 280s scales with core7. kinda impressive results

**Shintai** · 11-03-2008, 11:08 AM

Originally Posted by RaZz!

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/h...treme_edition/

wondering why the nehalem lose to the penryns in the game benchmarks though.

They test with a 9800GTX card...

**RaZz!** · 11-03-2008, 11:16 AM

Originally Posted by Shintai

They test with a 9800GTX card...

yeah, that's true, but what does this prove? that nehalems are slower with a midrange card than penryns? i don't see your argument here. if the 9800gtx+ was bottlenecking the benchmarks the nehalems should atleast be equal to the penryns.
i would expect new processors to improve gaming performance on my "not-ultra-highend" card as well - and not worsen it

**afX** · 11-03-2008, 11:17 AM

I know what I want for Christmas, lol, yeah... like I'm gonna get that as a gift.

Whatever I'll just pretend I'm getting it for Christmas.

I hope that socket change rumor is all BS tho.

**initialised** · 11-03-2008, 12:39 PM

Takes the top spot in CustomPC's Leaderboard (Above several 5GHz+ C2Qs on LN2, Refrigerant and Chillers) http://www.custompc.co.uk/benchmarks

Full Reviews of Ci7, P6T: http://www.custompc.co.uk/reviews

**Jacky** · 11-03-2008, 01:02 PM

I know Tom's article mentions that, but I'm not sure this is entirely true, as Anand has overclocked an i7 920 using an ungodly amount of voltage up to 3.8ghz, which has been pointed out in their comments. http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/int...px?i=3448&p=15
THG is not the most credible site IIRC, so there's still hope.
If the limit is 3.8-4.0ghz for budget chips, then it's not much of a protection anyway.. Anyone with some first hand knowledge?

**initialised** · 11-03-2008, 02:23 PM

Originally Posted by Jacky

If the limit is 3.8-4.0ghz for budget chips, then it's not much of a protection anyway.. Anyone with some first hand knowledge?

4.0GHz Stable, 4.2GHZ into Windows (poor cooler), 4.44GHz POST on Ci7 940 on P6T

My feeling at 4.2GHz was that there was something getting in the way but given that on removal of the core contact, three HPC cooler I noticed that only one of the HPCs was making good contact so probably poor cooling. It would happen at ~80-115C depending on the voltage so my guess is that if the temperature swing between idle and load was smaller the lock up would not happen.

We have a Titan cooler to try next, the base in smoother so I'm expecting better results.

**Macadamia** · 11-03-2008, 04:43 PM

Originally Posted by Jacky

I know Tom's article mentions that, but I'm not sure this is entirely true, as Anand has overclocked an i7 920 using an ungodly amount of voltage up to 3.8ghz, which has been pointed out in their comments. http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/int...px?i=3448&p=15
THG is not the most credible site IIRC, so there's still hope.
If the limit is 3.8-4.0ghz for budget chips, then it's not much of a protection anyway.. Anyone with some first hand knowledge?

Isn't that an ES?

AFAIK everyone reviewing these chips have an ES.

**villa1n** · 11-03-2008, 06:10 PM

Originally Posted by Macadamia

Isn't that an ES?

AFAIK everyone reviewing these chips have an ES.

Interesting point, so you think aside an unlocked multi, they would also have inbuilt protections disabled that wouldnt be in a retail?

**JumpingJack** · 11-03-2008, 05:01 PM

Originally Posted by Jacky

I know Tom's article mentions that, but I'm not sure this is entirely true, as Anand has overclocked an i7 920 using an ungodly amount of voltage up to 3.8ghz, which has been pointed out in their comments. http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/int...px?i=3448&p=15
THG is not the most credible site IIRC, so there's still hope.
If the limit is 3.8-4.0ghz for budget chips, then it's not much of a protection anyway.. Anyone with some first hand knowledge?

Tom's is incompetent.

EDIT: This is why ... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...e-i7,2063.html the dimwits didn't even think about flipping that bios option "over current protection" off to try over-clocking.

**Astratuner** · 11-03-2008, 01:31 PM

guys I've got a question for you :

What is SMT Enabled? What does SMT stands for? What does it do?

Can anybody please explain me cause I can't find it on the web :$

**Spectrobozo** · 11-03-2008, 01:34 PM

Originally Posted by Astratuner

guys I've got a question for you :

What is SMT Enabled? What does SMT stands for? What does it do?

Can anybody please explain me cause I can't find it on the web :$

is the "hyper threading", like in the Pentium 4, or the Atom...

**Astratuner** · 11-03-2008, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by Spectrobozo

is the "hyper threading", like in the Pentium 4, or the Atom...

So it was that easy after all

Thanks mate!

**ap4lifetn** · 11-03-2008, 01:32 PM

SMT = simultaneous multi threading, aka hyper-threading on P4's

**rge** · 11-03-2008, 02:51 PM

That would be nice if the 130W, 100amp limits only applied to turbo mode. That is not what the toms article says, but they could be wrong. All those i940's reaching 4ghz at idle is not relevant, as no chip will reach 130W at idle. The claim by tom's is once the chip is loaded (prime etc) if load exceeds those limits the "cpu reduces its clock speed" . What I would like to see is several of those i940's at load with prime or linpack with cpuz showing the clock speed to make sure it does not downclock on load.

**Helmore** · 11-03-2008, 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by vengance_01

The cost of the boards, DDR3 and the chips will prevent people from getting this right off the bat. Its clear this chip was designed for the server market where it will excel vs current Xeon Core 2 based Quads. For 95% of the desktop market Dual Core Core 2's like the 8400 will offer the best bang for your buck. Even so the platform costs are just to high(mainly the 300$ X58 boards)

It's not meant to be the mainstream platform, for that you will have to wait for Lynfield and Havendale on socket LGA1156 (around summer 2009).

EDIT: Tom is simply talking crap, besides, turbo-mode can be turned off as far as I know.
Just check the last BIOS screen on this page:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/15816/4
They also state this on the following page:

Originally Posted by The TechReport

We also kept the Core i7's Turbo mode enabled for testing, although we did disable it when overclocking the boards.

**Hornet331** · 11-03-2008, 05:07 PM

ouch, when a game engien is only decent programmed for multithreading even a 920 destroys a QX9750.

Anyway thats just bonus, can't wait till i see how that monster does at distributed computing... imagine 3,8GHz 8 threads.

**JumpingJack** · 11-03-2008, 05:14 PM

Originally Posted by Hornet331

ouch, when a game engien is only decent programmed for multithreading even a 920 destroys a QX9750.

Anyway thats just bonus, can't wait till i see how that monster does at distributed computing... imagine 3,8GHz 8 threads.

When the GPU horsepower is there, Nehalem shows it's muscle:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i...ance-review/19

You could also look at this processor as a good investment for future (much faster) graphics cards.

I warned people about this, that most reviewers would run it up against the GPU wall, and then conclude the CPU was not a 'gaming cpu'. For SLI/xFire setups, this will be the CPU to pair it with.

**Hornet331** · 11-03-2008, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by JumpingJack

When the GPU horsepower is there, Nehalem shows it's muscle:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i...ance-review/19

I warned people about this, that most reviewers would run it up against the GPU wall, and then conclude the CPU was not a 'gaming cpu'. For SLI/xFire setups, this will be the CPU to pair it with.

yeah i saw that, nearly double the performance when the gpu isn't the limit.

But since im not into SLI/CF that don't really bothers me.

**JumpingJack** · 11-03-2008, 05:39 PM

Originally Posted by Hornet331

yeah i saw that, nearly double the performance when the gpu isn't the limit.

But since im not into SLI/CF that don't really bothers me.

Yeah, the scatter of data we saw today ... it would be hard to recommend a pure gamer to use Core i7 unless they were really interested in having just a 'future' upgrade path with just the GPU or they are going to plunge all he way into massive multi-GPU setups.

Most all GPUs today are not well paired with this CPU, the current crop of cheaper 45 nm or Phenom/Deneb will do fine.

**Metroid** · 11-03-2008, 05:24 PM

Originally Posted by Custom PC

Overclocking A Core I7

We started off overclocking the Extreme Edition to 4.1GHz, raising the overall score to a phenomenal 2,037 – the fastest ever recorded. However, the 2.66GHz Core i7-920 also proved highly overclockable, as we could also boost its frequency to 4.1GHz by raising the base clock from 133MHz to 205MHz. At these settings, the overclocked Core i7-920 proved incredibly fast, running Crysis at a minimum frame rate of 51fps, and scoring 2,005 in our Media Benchmarks.

In comparison, even when overclocked to 4GHz, the QX9770 could only manage a minimum of 39fps in Crysis and 1,679 in the Custom PC Media Benchmarks. The 6.218 seconds taken to run WPrime on the Core i7-920 overclocked to 4.1GHz was the second fastest time on the planet at the time of writing.

Conclusion

The graphs show the new range of Core i7 CPUs in direct comparison to what was previously the fastest processor in the world, the Core 2 Extreme QX9770. Our testing proves conclusively that Core i7 is significantly faster clock for clock than any other CPU series, and great for everything from video encoding to gaming.

Source Custom PC

They summed up pretty good.