LGA 1156 Core i7s & Core i5s Reviews

[kl0012]

Linfield is a good performer, as expected. Imo, i5-750 is a best in performance/price area.
Noticed the following words from xbitlabs article:

LGA1156 proves to be an excellent gaming platform. When we switched to Windows 7 operating system, all former issues with Core i7 performance in games vanished. As a result, even a $200 Core i5-750 is by far faster than Phenom II and Core 2 Quad. Core i7-870, however, quite successfully competes against the LGA1366 solution – Core i7-950.

http://xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/dis...-i7-870_9.html

[Mads321]

Intel Core i7 870 vs.

AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE
AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Intel Core i7 920

Crysis


3DMark Vantage


Sisoft Sandra


Cinebench 10



Rest of the review (google-translated from danish: http://translate.google.com/translat...istory_state0= )

[zalbard]

I want to see the overclocking potential.

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15308/1/1/2/
Nothing to look forward to if you ask me.
Will improve over time I guess, though.

[Newblar]

keep in mind these are stock cpu values in the benchmarks
just because a i5-750 out performs a i7-920, doesnt mean it will be the same when overclocked. turbo is annoying at this point

[XS2K]

Intel Core i7 870 vs.

AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE
AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
Intel Core i7 920

Crysis




Rest of the review (google-translated from danish: http://translate.google.com/translat...istory_state0= )

Damn that Crysis chart looks weird,X4 II 955BE is a whooping 10FPS better than the I7 920?That's like more than 30%

[Pt1t]

Our french review

http://www.pcworld.fr/article/materi...0-banc/445781/

[iboomalot]

keep in mind these are stock cpu values in the benchmarks just because a i5-750 out performs a i7-920, doesnt mean it will be the same when overclocked. turbo is annoying at this point

where do you see the i5-750 dominating the i7-920 ???

The I7-870 at stock clocks is winning but thats not clock 4 clock either.

i7-920 seems to be OCing a little better than the i5-750 and much better than the 870s but time will tell.

[ajaidev]

Ok now even at this point of time i am split between the two.

In anandtech's review in games first the 965 wins then i5 750 wins then i5 750 wins and last one also the 750 wins. But in most the difference is low. The general difference between the 965 and 750 is around 200-300mhz "Turbo mode gets the 750 to 3.2Ghz"
Also i am not that happy about 1.4v for 3.9Ghz, also CF takes a beating pointless in getting a 1156 for even 5870 CF.

I am think about getting a 920 before they go bye bye, but i will have to buy a top class mobo so that i can upgrade and OC a six core i9 later. On the other hand i can get a 955 OC it around 3.8Ghz "Most likely i will reach 3.8Ghz with a Asus M4A785TD-V EVO" and the 750 will probably go good till 3.9Ghz "Most likely i cant reach 3.9Ghz with a Asus P7P55D-LE"

[takamishanoku]

I'm getting confused too. I keep seeing the 955 beat them on benches (albeit oc'd). What's the go here? I would have thought the 955 would be blown away by the i7's...

[informal]

Turbo mode is really a saving grace for 750. Without it(3.2Ghz) it is slower in most cases than 965 and even 955. What matters is that most "advanced" desktop users won't use stock settings but will OC their systems to the max(or to the sweet spot for their chip). In this case there is no turbo to help 750 to boost its results since it's already OCed. At this point the difference is in price between AMD or intel rig(board,memory,cooling,crossfire support and scaling abilities).
I'm still to read a good i5/i7 1156 review that covers multi gpu scaling and the see how good (or bad) is the int. PCI-e controller.

[iboomalot]

I am think about getting a 920 before they go bye bye, but i will have to buy a top class mobo so that i can upgrade and OC a six core i9 later. On the other hand i can get a 955 OC it around 3.8Ghz "Most likely i will reach 3.8Ghz with a Asus M4A785TD-V EVO" and the 750 will probably go good till 3.9Ghz "Most likely i cant reach 3.9Ghz with a Asus P7P55D-LE"

if you are near a MicroCenter 199 for a 920 is impossible to beat

Iam sure a X58 Gigabyte would handle a i9 in the future and isn't too bad price wise.

I play all day at 4.3 ghz and 1.3v

[Vozer]

Our french review

http://www.pcworld.fr/article/materi...0-banc/445781/

The Core i5 750 is weaker than Core 2 Quad Q9550?

[Migi06]

Ok now even at this point of time i am split between the two.

In anandtech's review in games first the 965 wins then i5 750 wins then i5 750 wins and last one also the 750 wins. But in most the difference is low. The general difference between the 965 and 750 is around 200-300mhz "Turbo mode gets the 750 to 3.2Ghz"
Also i am not that happy about 1.4v for 3.9Ghz, also CF takes a beating pointless in getting a 1156 for even 5870 CF.

I am think about getting a 920 before they go bye bye, but i will have to buy a top class mobo so that i can upgrade and OC a six core i9 later. On the other hand i can get a 955 OC it around 3.8Ghz "Most likely i will reach 3.8Ghz with a Asus M4A785TD-V EVO" and the 750 will probably go good till 3.9Ghz "Most likely i cant reach 3.9Ghz with a Asus P7P55D-LE"

I think this review say pretty much everything (i´m also wondering 750 or 920/xeon, dont think that Xeon will disappear): http://74.125.39.132/translate_c?hl=...itt_einleitung

[informal]

I think this review say pretty much everything (i´m also wondering 750 or 920/xeon, dont think that Xeon will disappear): http://74.125.39.132/translate_c?hl=...itt_einleitung

Thanks for posting the link. From the conclusion :

Sums it up perfectly.It's from a range of 26 applications(includes synthetics,office and multimedia and lastly games).

[kl0012]

Turbo mode is really a saving grace for 750. Without it(3.2Ghz) it is slower in most cases than 965 and even 955. What matters is that most "advanced" desktop users won't use stock settings but will OC their systems to the max(or to the sweet spot for their chip). In this case there is no turbo to help 750 to boost its results since it's already OCed. At this point the difference is in price between AMD or intel rig(board,memory,cooling,crossfire support and scaling abilities).
I'm still to read a good i5/i7 1156 review that covers multi gpu scaling and the see how good (or bad) is the int. PCI-e controller.

For i5-750 TB in multithreaded apps is only 2.93GHz. I'm sure one more gigaherz will be felt very well.

Thanks for posting the link. From the conclusion :

Sums it up perfectly.It's from a range of 26 applications(includes synthetics,office and multimedia and lastly games).

I think that games have too much weight in the final sum, espetialy when 9800GTX is used for the games.

[informal]

There are still some singlethreaded apps used in tests on many review sites,so the 3.2Ghz is important Turbo mode target. MT is still kinda new,especially programs that can effectively utilize more than 2 threads(and not distribute 2 or 3 threads across 4 cores so that it "looks" like it is well threaded while in reality the total CPU utilization is still ~50%)..

One more chart from another review(thanks to vardirox for posting it):

[Humminn55]

I would certainly hope an AMD processor that is currently quite a bit more expensive than a lower level and lower cost Intel processor, the i5 750 vs. the 965, would perform better. And its (the 965) speed differential does help in a lot of situations.

But, at least to me, the "value" graphs are rather meaningless. What weight is put into what metric? How were they chosen? It's just too easy to skew the results in the "value" graphs to show anything you want....give me pure performance graphs, period, and forget the "value" graphing.

Taking into account that you've got a cpu that's $50 cheaper (i5 750 @ $179 vs. 965 @ $229), motherboards are in the same price range, and it performs at least on par with the 965 in most worst cases, flat out beating it in best cases, I cannot see how anyone can consider an AMD platform today.

(And by beating it, I refer to the majority of content creation benchmarks like second pass video encoding, WinRAR encoding, Sony Vegas Blu-Ray disc creation, Excel spreadsheet, Blender, SPECapc 3dsmax CPU rendering test, DivX / XMpeg 5.03 1080p encoding, Photoshop CS4 performance....there is more to computing than just gaming. And the i5 750 is ultra competitive in gaming, too, much to the embarrassment of the 965.)

Oh well, guess the AMD fanbois will have to clutch at any staws they can reach right now.

[informal]

Those are pure performance graphs,both of them(average from the whole battery of tests). They are only presented in percentage since some tests are time to bench complete and some are "points". None of the 2 charts is value. And boards are not priced the same,you can always go cheaper with 140W supporting 785G board that is packed with features. And yes, 750 has a turbo function so in majority of cases it doesn't even run at 2.66Ghz(which is not bad,but is a bit misleading, at least while you try to figure how it stacks against phenoms and c2qs).

[gosh]

I cannot see how anyone can consider an AMD platform today.

Those who run more than one application simultaneously.
Prefetchers work well when there is a margin, no margin and they don't kick in.
There you need cache with high hitrates

[highoctane]

And yes, 750 has a turbo function so in majority of cases it doesn't even run at 2.66Ghz(which is not bad,but is a bit misleading, at least while you try to figure how it stacks against phenoms and c2qs).

Its not misleading, its part of the normal functionality of the cpu itself, if you fire up the cpu without altering anything in the bios thats how it will function.

If you want to isolate the performance a certain clock speed then you would want to disable turboboost but other than that it is now part of intels normal cpu function.

If the benches show an advantage from the use of turboboost than I would say its safe to say turboboost is a success in delivering more real performance when you need it based on load type.

[Chickenfeed]

The idea behind turbo boost is essentially a refined power management of sorts and it does make sense for many reasons. I am pretty impressed with how it works with the 750 and 8xx cpus compared to the 9xxs however. Very aggressive yet still has respectable power draw and heat output.

I would like to see them take things a step further and have turbo boost function on separate cores for even more aggressive clocking for single threaded apps (similar to how AMD can clock individual cores on their newer cpus ). It will only offer further benefits for your average user and make overclocking less attractive / required for general usage.

As far as it being misleading, I feel it kind of is (comparison wise) as unless you document it in a review with each test, you can't always say when the multi has been increased or is at stock for a given benchmark / comparison. As long as it is properly noted I don't take issue with it.

[informal]

Like I said it's not a bad functionality,it's quite useful. But it can make one believe 750 does the same numbers in test while running at 2.66Ghz,which is not the case. What I'm trying to say is that it's harder to evaluate the possible performance of OCed 750 while looking at defaults out of the box numbers with turbo on(since while OCed the turbo won't be able to help it and the scaling from turboed clock to say 3.8 or 4Ghz would yield lower increase than one would expect-from 2.66Ghz as the box stamp says).

And there is still the unknown factor of CF/SLI on the new platform when the latest and greatest AMD/NV GPUs arrive.Will the integrated pci-e controller allow for the same scaling as off-die approach? Is there any review with present high end cards in CF/SLI done on s1156 boards?

[highoctane]

And there is still the unknown factor of CF/SLI on the new platform when the latest and greatest AMD/NV GPUs arrive.Will the integrated pci-e controller allow for the same scaling as off-die approach? Is there any review with present high end cards in CF/SLI done on s1156 boards?

Lynnfield in sli: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...=expert&pid=11

[kl0012]

What I'm trying to say is that it's harder to evaluate the possible performance of OCed 750 while looking at defaults out of the box numbers with turbo on(since while OCed the turbo won't be able to help it and the scaling from turboed clock to say 3.8 or 4Ghz would yield lower increase than one would expect-from 2.66Ghz as the box stamp says).

What's the problem?
I suppose you've missed this link:
http://lab501.ro/procesoare-chipsetu...eld-in-actiune

[informal]

Lynnfield in sli: http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...=expert&pid=11

Thanks for the link,will read it now .Still,I'd like to see HD58xx in CF on s1156.