Intel i5 6XX and i3 5XX Reviews

[BatteryOperated]

Just us when and where AMD Thuban is coming. now.

[Aberration]

What I want to know is if there is going to be something like a hybrid SLI for this?

I travel a lot, and like to game. So I got a laptop now with a decent GPU but the battery life is horrible for when I actually use it for work.

If there was a hybrid SLI, or just some way to disable the power hungry GPU then I would be so down for upgrading to a new laptop with one of these.

[tajoh111]

I think people seem to be entirely forgetting about the notebook sector.

i5 desktop might not be great but the notebook reviews are glowing.

http://www.mobileedgeblog.com/2009/0...tops-sales-up/

80 percent of retail US PC's solds are laptops and that number is growing. Penryn already beat AMD mobiles parts by 30 percent and have much better matter life. Add on top arrandales beat penryn by 20-50 percent and has the same battery life, AMD is seriously going to take a pounding. i7 notebooks were never really a threat for AMD, however i5 and i3 is essentially game over for AMD mobile market. AMD has the worst mobile marketing department so it can only drop AMD notebook down to netbook pricing levels to control the damage.

The sad thing is a mobile phenom II architecture is a generation behind to keep up with arrandale(and it isn't even out yet) and and it's going to be the only product AMD can release for a while. AMD needs a mobile breakthrough fast.

[Aberration]

Or they should just not bother with mobile for now.

[ajaidev]

I think people seem to be entirely forgetting about the notebook sector...... e(and it isn't even out yet) and and it's going to be the only product AMD can release for a while. AMD needs a mobile breakthrough fast.

+1

As i said the mobile i5's/i3's make a lot of sense. The added modes such as the GPU turbo is very useful and since its a laptop the igp will be used 100% and a nvidia GPU with switching ability would be sweet.

Its faster than C2D's and the Phenom II mobiles that are suppose to come will come later in May, 2010 and in those the dual core AMD's will be not much of a match, but the quads are quite lethal, if priced right a Phenom II N920 would perform quite well and come in as a cheap mobile quad

[tajoh111]

Or they should just not bother with mobile for now.

That would be the biggest mistake they could make. Desktop processors is a shrinking market. AMD needs Revenue growth potential and it cannot abandon the mobile market.

Part of AMD eroding revenue has been because of the surge in notebook sales and declining desktop sales. AMD has typically been inferior to Intel in the mobile battery life, particularly after centrino. AMD needs to play catchup bigtime.

[matose]

Yeah, but where can you buy a 785G and not have sideport ..? Thus wouldn't apples to apples be with it enabled?

The Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H I tested didn't have SidePort onboard

[Wesker]

i looked over all the previews, but I'm still left with this debate:
what will consume less power in idle: s775 E5200 + G41 IGP configuration or new Pentim G6950 and its IGP?
If someone can deduct this please help or post a link!

The G6950 should consume less power if the motherboard is energy efficient.

Sorry, I can't remember the link, but a low spec motherboard (like an Intel built board) that's energy efficient should consume less than most Core 2 + G41/G45 combos.

[ajaidev]

I want confirmation that i3+H55 can do 6-8 LPCM over HDMI it may turn into a very good HTPC box for me.

The fit-PC2i i pre ordered may just get canned who knows, but my AV receiver is old does not support Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD the only thing it supports is 6ch LPCM over HDMI. Now i know both DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD can be sent as 6ch channel linear PCM but in that case they use the receiver's DAC extensively.

[AndreYang]

so, if you wonder if you are a good overclocker, this is what you should have got ... (those numbers come from Belgium OC team)
On Ln2 : http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=921805 6.9Ghz
On Air : http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=909358 5.4Gz


Where is the 7Ghz ? 7! 7!
I ll reward the 1st person passing 7Ghz on it ... email me

Thanks to Thomas for opening the ballet!

7G here you go

Thanks Nickshih


http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=928132

[Xoulz]

The Gigabyte MA785GT-UD3H I tested didn't have SidePort onboard

Interesting! Thank you.

[zalbard]

Thanks Nickshih


http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=928132

I'm sure you'll have something to show us, too, Andre.
That's a great result, though!

[XS Janus]

You might to check over in the AVS HTPC forums: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=26

A suspect this question might be answered over there quite soon

thanks for that! I'll keep an eye on that

[SocketMan]

Juicy internal details:

Clarkdale 32nm CPU - 81mm2 "But this does not have the PCIe or Memory controller"
Transistor Count - 383M

Propus 45nm CPU - 169nm "But includes memory controller does not have a internal PCIe"
Transistor Count - 300M

Propus has 83M less transistor's wow "This must be because of the L3" Other than that the PCIe and memory controller in the 45nm companion chip must be around 40-45m2 out of 114mm2 so 32nm seems working quite well...

That's for the quad Athlons,the dc are even smaller:

CPU Type DualCore AMD Athlon II X2 250, 3360 MHz (14 x 240) CPU Alias Regor

CPU Physical Info
Package Type 938 Pin uOPGA
Package Size 4.00 cm x 4.00 cm
Transistors 234 million
Process Technology 45 nm, CMOS, Cu, Low-K, DSL SOI, Immersion Lithography
Die Size 118 mm2
I/O Voltage 1.2 V + 2.5 V

[Hornet331]

That's for the quad Athlons,the dc are even smaller:

CPU Type DualCore AMD Athlon II X2 250, 3360 MHz (14 x 240) CPU Alias Regor

CPU Physical Info
Package Type 938 Pin uOPGA
Package Size 4.00 cm x 4.00 cm
Transistors 234 million
Process Technology 45 nm, CMOS, Cu, Low-K, DSL SOI, Immersion Lithography
Die Size 118 mm2
I/O Voltage 1.2 V + 2.5 V

yeah but regor is no match for i3, heck i think it even will have problems with the G9650, cause it fights the Pentium E5xxx/E6xxx series.

[SocketMan]

yeah but regor is no match for i3, heck i think it even will have problems with the G9650, cause it fights the Pentium E5xxx/E6xxx series.

Regor is more versatile: DDR2/DDR3,can run in any mobo with up to 4 gpus,cheaper and probably runs a lot cooler then i3.

[Ghostbuster]

Regor is more versatile: DDR2/DDR3,can run in any mobo with up to 4 gpus,cheaper and probably runs a lot cooler then i3.

I doubt it.. even for battery life. You can check THG review and see...

[ajaidev]

That's for the quad Athlons,the dc are even smaller:

CPU Type DualCore AMD Athlon II X2 250, 3360 MHz (14 x 240) CPU Alias Regor

CPU Physical Info
Package Type 938 Pin uOPGA
Package Size 4.00 cm x 4.00 cm
Transistors 234 million
Process Technology 45 nm, CMOS, Cu, Low-K, DSL SOI, Immersion Lithography
Die Size 118 mm2
I/O Voltage 1.2 V + 2.5 V

I knew this but as it stand Regor is not a good match, the Athlon II x2 255 @ 3.10 GHz may come close to the performance of the G9650 but cant touch others.

Most Athlon X4's are at the same price they were when they were launched and i have heard the x4 620 sells quite well in OEM form.

The total die area for the i5 of 81mm2 is relatively more expensive to make than say 81mm2 in 45nm simply because of the added complexities not only that the use of High K also adds a bit in the price.

A $100 Athlon quad can quite successfully take on a $200 i5 in some tests so its quite a good offensive by AMD IMO.

[Ghostbuster]

The total die area for the i5 of 81mm2 is relatively more expensive to make than say 81mm2 in 45nm simply because of the added complexities not only that the use of High K also adds a bit in the price.

Have to take into account yields as well.

A $100 Athlon quad can quite successfully take on a $200 i5 in some tests so its quite a good offensive by AMD IMO.

However the i3 and i5 outperformed the $100 Athlons in gaming performance which many buyers who plays games look at.

[KiSUAN]

Have to take into account yields as well.

However the i3 and i5 outperformed the $100 Athlons in gaming performance which many buyers who plays games look at.

That’s a good thing but in most part irrelevant because that isn’t the market or intended purpose of the series, besides in the % of gamers that already is small, the ones that would look at this line of CPUs to buy is even smaller, so I guess the fact is pretty irrelevant.

[ajaidev]

Have to take into account yields as well.

However the i3 and i5 outperformed the $100 Athlons in gaming performance which many buyers who plays games look at.

For games you need this and for performance you need this simple.

For $141 its a far cry from the $195 charged for the i5 660 or the $176 charged for the i5 650.

[Ghostbuster]

For games you need this and for performance you need this simple.

For $141 its a far cry from the $195 charged for the i5 660 or the $176 charged for the i5 650.

Eh? You gone off the charts comparing CPUs that are in different price ranges..

For gaming CPU pricing wise they have to compete with Core i3 530 and Core i3 540 which happens to be in that range, anywhere from $125 to $145. The 925 will have to compete with i3 540, both of which trade blows in that chart.

For performance CPU overall, who wants to look at the slower Athlon II X4s? For mission critical stuff where time is important, nobody would pick those. That would be the domain of i5 750 and PII X4 965, both of which are competing. You get what you pay for...

[saaya]

Cos you can score 51K in 05 easier than you can do it on some Bloomfield's. Yield will tell the tale, but Bloomfiled was hit and miss at sub-zero a lot more than these have been so far.

oh come on...
even if you claim clarks will beat blooms in most benches, which i dont see happening, you know very well that there are 32nm 1366 chips inbound that will blow clarks away, and the quads wont even be expensive...

The nitpicking? Well you don't actually run many benches or write many if any reviews, yet critique as if you'd do a better job.

the "as if youd do a better job" is 100% in your head... so theres nothing i can do about that. about criticizing a lot, its not personal... and you dont need to be a cook to tell a good dish from a bad one.

i guess you meant that clarks will be competitive in 05... i dont think so, but i can understand why youd say that...

its funny how the previous chipset cycles are now shifted to the cpus...
we had the 975x and then 965P cycle thing for a long time with chipsets, and now that its all integrated, its all happening with cpus and the entire platform... 1366 is kinda like the 975x of cpus/platforms while 1156 is the P965 of cpus/platforms.
i wonder if this will go away when the imc is integrated for the mainstream cpus as well...

[rony1434]

Hi.
Hey mate thanks for sharing this review.
Its really helpful.

[dartaz]

Why are you linking games, Athlon II cant do good in them u need a juicy L3 for that.

Because there are way much more that play games than people who use 3d rendering

Other than that Microsoft Excel always favors Intel, Sonar is single threaded. The Benchs that matter from all those you have posted are:

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/c...5346/21153.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/c...5346/21133.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/c...5346/21167.png
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/c...5346/21162.png

Good

Not to mention that Core i3 consume less power and have much Bitlocker Performance because of the new AES instruction, which I didn't mention

Now see the post i made above

1- the 7-zip bechmarks you posted is a not real world benchmark
In real world Core i3 530 outperformed Athlon X4 630 in 7-zip
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/c...5346/21133.png

2- Not many people do 3d rendering

3- In video encoding, the Athlon X4 630 performed better. Video encoding might be important, but personally I would rather have better gaming and winrar performance than better video encoding.

And sorry for my late respond