Intel Core i7: Dual-Channel vs. Triple-Channel Memory Mode

[Blauhung]

Why? Isnt it slower than i7, so it will be like their current c2d offering with ddr3 yay? Doesnt seem like much of an upgrade surprised intel would even release it with chip sales as they are.

I can't find them at the moment, but there were some benches showing it was about the same clock for clock if not a tiny bit faster. These weren't in the benches, but the platform also has less latency between the CPU and GPU as well as a very nice power usage decrease.

[Frank M]

I can't find them at the moment, but there were some benches showing it was about the same clock for clock if not a tiny bit faster. These weren't in the benches, but the platform also has less latency between the CPU and GPU as well as a very nice power usage decrease.

Yeah, but what about long(er)-term support?
AFAIK, LGA1160 won't get a 32nm 4- or 6-core upgrade, just a 2-core
plus gpu. Has that plan changed since?

[Blauhung]

Yeah, but what about long(er)-term support?
AFAIK, LGA1160 won't get a 32nm 4- or 6-core upgrade, just a 2-core
plus gpu. Has that plan changed since?

I'm unsure, but I think there is something in the plan that just probably hasn't been announced as there isn't really much demand for the middle ground right now. Most of the money in the consumer space right now is in cheep low power stuff, so we aren't really pushing developement there. If Intel sees good sales on i5 desktops and the performance desktop segment continues to be valuable, then there will be a refresh down the line. If all the interest stays in Atom stuff and larger notebooks, multi-core CPU's may just stay in the server and higher end desktop market. Remember that the platforms that we are currently looking at are probably all going to change somewhat drastically later on in 2010

Also, from Intel's standpoint, there's a reason to keep the HEDT platform upgradeable as that is the market that will be swaping out CPU's and other hardware as better stuff comes available, but the performance and lower desktop market is normally sold through OEM channels and the platform is much more likely to be updated as newer stuff comes out.

[B.E.E.F.]

6 memory slots are better than 4 memory slots.

Triple channel wins.

[Frank M]

I'm unsure, but I think there is something in the plan that just probably hasn't been announced as there isn't really much demand for the middle ground right now.

Ok, then hope isn't dead yet.
I think there's still higher demand for the middle ground than the high-end,
and i5 would show much higher numbers than i7 if it was already available.
E.g. I'm planning an upgrade this fall, and it will probably be i5, i7 is just too
expensive to justify for me.

[saaya]

who cares about i7 swindle. release the i5 already

regardless of what reasons you have to not like i7, what makes you think i5 will be different? i5 will be the same, cut down, and cheaper...

I'm truly surprised they managed to find such positively ancient DDR3 modules.

yeah, i was thinking... has there ever been slower 1066 actually?
i cant remember seeing 999... the slowest i remember was 1333 999 and thats probably even faster than 1066 888, LOL

Old news. We covered this in a review months ago.

yeah! the xcpu article was way better! still one of the best if not the best enthusiast pov i7 review ive seen

id love to see some more i7 in depth testing tho, max cas8 vs max cas7 vs max cas6 with the new elpida ddr3 and a few more benchmarks comparing sc dc and tc. maybe boblemagnifique will pull this off, he did a really great article like that for p35/x38/x48

[ColonelCain]

The big reason that I won't go with i5 is because of the cut-down PCI-E lanes.

yeah! the xcpu article was way better! still one of the best if not the best enthusiast pov i7 review ive seen

id love to see some more i7 in depth testing tho, max cas8 vs max cas7 vs max cas6 with the new elpida ddr3 and a few more benchmarks comparing sc dc and tc. maybe boblemagnifique will pull this off, he did a really great article like that for p35/x38/x48

Xcpu's could probably pull this off as well... maybe you could send us a bloodrage to test with?

[mstp2009]

regardless of what reasons you have to not like i7, what makes you think i5 will be different? i5 will be the same, cut down, and cheaper...



yeah, i was thinking... has there ever been slower 1066 actually?
i cant remember seeing 999... the slowest i remember was 1333 999 and thats probably even faster than 1066 888, LOL

yeah! the xcpu article was way better! still one of the best if not the best enthusiast pov i7 review ive seen

id love to see some more i7 in depth testing tho, max cas8 vs max cas7 vs max cas6 with the new elpida ddr3 and a few more benchmarks comparing sc dc and tc. maybe boblemagnifique will pull this off, he did a really great article like that for p35/x38/x48

So much to cover.

I've been up to my eyeballs in SSDs data. I was going to publish an article on the ICH10R, but the results just weren't worth the space. In a nutshell ICH10R bottlenecks at 600-625MB/s on RAID 0. 3rd party RAID controllers, surprisingly, are not yet validated for SSDs (some will work, but no manuf. provides a guarantee).


I've had a gem of a dual-socket 1366 board in house for a week (don't get me started).

[ColonelCain]

I've had a gem of a dual-socket 1366 board in house for a week (don't get me started).

You'd better lock it and the two chips that go with it in a safe... else Movieman might rob you tonight....

Have you tried running 8 VM's on it? How many PCI-E slots?

[Quintero]

I believe this is mainly about marketing. The third channel allows the user to install 50 % more memory without getting the drop in clock frequency associated with the use of two DIMMs per channel. While this drop should be of little parctical significance, I still welcome Core i7's flexibility.

[duploxxx]

we know already the differences from 2-3 imc channels, why don't they investigate more what would happen if you for example use 2 imc but run both with 2 dimms each, that would be interesting to see what the performance hit is against the performance "increase" going from 2 imc to 3 imc

[hollo]

triple channel is cool cos you can cheaply install 12gb, whereas for all other desktop platforms 8gb is the max affordable amount.
eg get 12gb for US $160 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148246
that's great value if you have a use for it.

[ewitte]

Even if it doesn't speed things up much your at 6GB versus 4GB on triple channel Or 3 versus 2, 12 versus 8, etc. I thought about it myself and think its more there for headroom on future processors. And yes some applications make use of all the memory they can handle (someone mentioned this earlier) yet still don't make much of a difference dual versus triple. Aquamark loves as high of memory clockrates as possible. In my previous system much faster CPU/Video, etc never increased the score much as all. Through 3-4 upgrades the score was almost the same. But all you have to do is increase the memory clocks from 1200 to 1600-1700 on the i7 and the score goes up like 20%.

[mstp2009]

You'd better lock it and the two chips that go with it in a safe... else Movieman might rob you tonight....

Have you tried running 8 VM's on it? How many PCI-E slots?

Gem was sarcasm. Bloody thing won't boot

[Donnie27]

I'm unsure, but I think there is something in the plan that just probably hasn't been announced as there isn't really much demand for the middle ground right now.

Please don't take this the wrong way or just keep ignoring me if you like. You guys really don't have lot to offer in the "middle ground" right now. AMD not only has the low end covered, where most of the current sales are in this screwed up economy, but most of the "middle ground" as well. AMD's high end is stuck in the middle. Offer more affordable "middle ground" products and sales and demand would increase, bad economy or not.

DC vs TC wasn't tested right IMHO, the system has to be heavily task/ed to show why TC would be needed. It doesn't reflect negatively on i7 as at least two posters might have implied since just because it's there, doesn't mean its needed if the system will not be stressed out. But if that's the case, why bother?

Bandwidth isn't or hasn't been a problem IMHO, since real DDR 3200 and not high latency PC-2700 re-badged as PC-3200 shipped. It is why I said and got flamed for, IMC on the a Single Socket Desktop is almost a Gimmick. Core 2 pretty much proved that.

Again, i7 needs a frackin commom sense platform

[Blauhung]

Please don't take this the wrong way or just keep ignoring me if you like. You guys really don't have lot to offer in the "middle ground" right now. AMD not only has the low end covered, where most of the current sales are in this screwed up economy, but most of the "middle ground" as well. AMD's high end is stuck in the middle. Offer more affordable "middle ground" products and sales and demand would increase, bad economy or not.

DC vs TC wasn't tested right IMHO, the system has to be heavily task/ed to show why TC would be needed. It doesn't reflect negatively on i7 as at least two posters might have implied since just because it's there, doesn't mean its needed if the system will not be stressed out. But if that's the case, why bother?

I agree completely that AMD does have a very strong and competitively priced middle ground right now with Phenom/PhenomII going up against C2Q's right now. It's not that Intel doesn't have a lot to offer as there are a complete range of performance that directly competes with AMD at pretty much any level you can point out, it's mostly that there just isn't anything new. The goal of i5 is to offer a platform that has been cut down in simplicty and cost of ownership and will perform on par with current i7 products out now as they will be replaced shortly after i5 release with Westmere. i5 will be that more affordable middle ground as the platform itself has less components on it and it uses less power.

Now the more I think about the probable lifespan of i5, the more I can see why the platform may not see a direct 32nm refresh with a Westmere based chip. I completely forget what it's called at the moment, but the 32nm dual core with a MCM'd IGP has been pulled into this year, showing Intel's confidence in the 32nm process. This also allows for an accelerated timeframe on Sandy Bridge which can pull in and overshadow the release of a Westmere based middle ground quad core near Q4'10. So not speaking as an employee, there's a chance that we will could see the new architecture come in on both middle and high end segments before 2011

Bandwidth isn't or hasn't been a problem IMHO, since real DDR 3200 and not high latency PC-2700 re-badged as PC-3200 shipped. It is why I said and got flamed for, IMC on the a Single Socket Desktop is almost a Gimmick. Core 2 pretty much proved that.

Again, i7 needs a frackin commom sense platform

Again, I agree with you, IMC and tri-channel on i7 is not really needed, but it's not there as a selling point although marketing people need to use it that way. It is there to make the platform work using the server chips that require Tylersburg as a hub. We will really see the benefit in lower power and lower platform complexity on i5. The fact that there's no longer a NB does help a lot.

[Donnie27]

I agree completely that AMD does have a very strong and competitively priced middle ground right now with Phenom/PhenomII going up against C2Q's right now. It's not that Intel doesn't have a lot to offer as there are a complete range of performance that directly competes with AMD at pretty much any level you can point out, it's mostly that there just isn't anything new. The goal of i5 is to offer a platform that has been cut down in simplicty and cost of ownership and will perform on par with current i7 products out now as they will be replaced shortly after i5 release with Westmere. i5 will be that more affordable middle ground as the platform itself has less components on it and it uses less power.

Now the more I think about the probable lifespan of i5, the more I can see why the platform may not see a direct 32nm refresh with a Westmere based chip. I completely forget what it's called at the moment, but the 32nm dual core with a MCM'd IGP has been pulled into this year, showing Intel's confidence in the 32nm process. This also allows for an accelerated timeframe on Sandy Bridge which can pull in and overshadow the release of a Westmere based middle ground quad core near Q4'10. So not speaking as an employee, there's a chance that we will could see the new architecture come in on both middle and high end segments before 2011



Again, I agree with you, IMC and tri-channel on i7 is not really needed, but it's not there as a selling point although marketing people need to use it that way. It is there to make the platform work using the server chips that require Tylersburg as a hub. We will really see the benefit in lower power and lower platform complexity on i5. The fact that there's no longer a NB does help a lot.

That for that great common sense reply. The problem isn't AMD, it hasn't been performance since the first Conroe tests showed up. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Real prices are lower, but this is of set by this screwed up WORLD economy.

I really do get it as far as the whole High-End only and wait for the i5 that is more sensible. The problem is what if the economy is even sicker then?

Look, many companies are reaching out to folks during these harder times than when the cheapest A-X2 sold for $339. You have restaurants serving cheaper menus, car dealers offering to take your card back if you lose your Job and not mess up your credit, Intel should do something more along these lines maybe. Anyway, thank you very much for listening.

[Hornet331]

Look, many companies are reaching out to folks during these harder times than when the cheapest A-X2 sold for $339. You have restaurants serving cheaper menus, car dealers offering to take your card back if you lose your Job and not mess up your credit, Intel should do something more along these lines maybe. Anyway, thank you very much for listening.

I don't know how much cheaper you want your systems... retailers are selling dualcore (X2, Pentium E) systems with 2gb for less then 180€.

If i compare this with 3 years ago its just unbelivable (singelcore Semprons with 1 gig sold for ~250€ back then).
Even now with the screwed up economy, computers get cheaper and cheaper and performance increases.

[initialised]

Try comparing 1600MHz dual vs 1600MHz tripple instead

[Donnie27]

I don't know how much cheaper you want your systems... retailers are selling dualcore (X2, Pentium E) systems with 2gb for less then 180€.

If i compare this with 3 years ago its just unbelivable (singelcore Semprons with 1 gig sold for ~250€ back then).
Even now with the screwed up economy, computers get cheaper and cheaper and performance increases.

No, I'm talking about $235 to $250 i920 Processor and a $130 to $150 mobo. Something like that Gigabyte X58 with only 3 RAM slots. See, we know it only needs 2 X 2GB sticks of memory This would then push the current Q9550 to a sweeter $220 retail and just leave the Q9650 around $315 and don't touch the top model. On topic, knowing I can save money on buying just two sticks is a good thing

Compared to 3 years ago is just what I was talking about. Banks weren't being bailed out all over the world. The US stock market was breaking records 3 years ago. The current money climate can't be compared to 3 years ago. Hell, it can't even be compared to Last year about this time. If the economy/s didn't suck so much, my post might look a little different.

Intel doing more to and for the mid-range isn't a call for charity, it just seems to make better BUSINESS sense to me. No, it almost has nothing to do with AMD except it looks it looks like Intel is giving AMD a hand up. It's left a clear section of the market for AMD to have to themselves. In the current climate, a $300 processor might look like a 5 or 6 hundred dollar processor did 3 years ago.

Last but not least, one AMD Fan was absolutely correct when he said something like; How will the current i7/X58 buyers feel when i5 ships and they see how they got ripped off? I once said during all of the secrete AMD Phenom stuff that if AMD had something to show, they'd show it. Holding back i5 is Intel's version of the same thing. They know i5 would show i7/X58 isn't all that and not really the Bees knees.

[Hornet331]

Last but not least, one AMD Fan was absolutely correct when he said something like; How will the current i7/X58 buyers feel when i5 ships and they see how they got ripped off? I once said during all of the secrete AMD Phenom stuff that if AMD had something to show, they'd show it. Holding back i5 is Intel's version of the same thing. They know i5 would show i7/X58 isn't all that and not really the Bees knees.

Riped off?

Everyone who buys/bought the X58 platform should know that the platform is a server platform and comes with a premium, its not like the extra layers and components on the boards come for free.

Complaining that the a server platform (i7) is more expensive compared to a platform that is made for the mainstream and desigend to be cheap is ridiculous.

Im glad that I did go with X58, cause so i can jump right onto a westmere hexacore thanks to compatibility. I can't do that with i5.

Also dont think that while the i5 platform is labled as "cheap", that there won't be 200€ plus mobos.

[Nedjo]

Last but not least, one AMD Fan was absolutely correct when he said something like; How will the current i7/X58 buyers feel when i5 ships and they see how they got ripped off? I once said during all of the secrete AMD Phenom stuff that if AMD had something to show, they'd show it. Holding back i5 is Intel's version of the same thing. They know i5 would show i7/X58 isn't all that and not really the Bees knees.

absolutely correct!

[Donnie27]

Riped off?

Everyone who buys/bought the X58 platform should know that the platform is a server platform and comes with a premium, its not like the extra layers and components on the boards come for free.

Complaining that the a server platform (i7) is more expensive compared to a platform that is made for the mainstream and desigend to be cheap is ridiculous.

Im glad that I did go with X58, cause so i can jump right onto a westmere hexacore thanks to compatibility. I can't do that with i5.

Also dont think that while the i5 platform is labled as "cheap", that there won't be 200€ plus mobos.

I don't think so. Comes at a premium why? It is the pinnacle but it is a FAKE pinnacle since they have to hold back the mainstream i5 to make it look that way. If it is High where are the high end results?

All you hear about is that X58 is High-end, there's no room for a MID-RANGED version since it is so high-end. Folks looking for something not so high-end should wait for the "lower performance cheaper stripped down version called the i5 and P55". So I must respectfully disagree with you here. What on the X58 that drives up the cost?

I wasn't promised a Server chip when talking to Intel employees last year about this time. Also, I have less to complain about processor wise and NO, I don't see the Processor as much of a Rip-Off as X58.

@Nedjo
See? Right or wrong, I call em' as I see em' and Intel shouldn't get a free pass here IMHO.

[deathman20]

Blah blah blah...

Way I see it. I had 4Gigs of memory and was starting to use it all up, now I have 6Gigs with some breathing room and if I need more well I go to 12 Gigs with plenty of room to spare. Much more options so im happy about having 3 Channel ram.

[xVeinx]

I don't think so. Comes at a premium why? It is the pinnacle but it is a FAKE pinnacle since they have to hold back the mainstream i5 to make it look that way. If it is High where are the high end results?

All you hear about is that X58 is High-end, there's no room for a MID-RANGED version since it is so high-end. Folks looking for something not so high-end should wait for the "lower performance cheaper stripped down version called the i5 and P55". So I must respectfully disagree with you here. What on the X58 that drives up the cost?

I wasn't promised a Server chip when talking to Intel employees last year about this time. Also, I have less to complain about processor wise and NO, I don't see the Processor as much of a Rip-Off as X58.

@Nedjo
See? Right or wrong, I call em' as I see em' and Intel shouldn't get a free pass here IMHO.

This isn't any different than when AMD did 4x4 (in a sense at least). Releasing a platform that can command a higher price only to have the "midrange" catch up isn't anything new. Sure, it would be nice to have lower prices, but then you have to consider margins. x58 motherboards already are hitting the $200 range, which is reasonable considering the complexity of the components. I guess I just don't see the point of constantly demanding lower prices. The pricing will come down soon enough, and the economy is bad, but the volume of processors sold is good enough for the moment (for Intel). Realize, Intel could lower prices enough such that people would buy more mid-range, but then they are simply buying less of the atom-based processors/systems. Another words, they are going to buy volume x of something; lowering prices changes the percentage of product y in total volume x, but not volume x itself (for the most part). If the atom gets them better margins, then they are more likely to keep things as is than lower prices elsewhere too much.

In terms of feeling bad you bought i7, if your sad that you paid a lot of money to have the most powerful system available (for the last 6 months at least), then you wouldn't have bought it in the first place. Should the people who bought the E6800 be pissed that the E8400 creams it for less a little over a year later? I don't see any clear brightline as to when we should feel "good" about our purchases based on your analysis. Making a decision based on needs/desires, in conjunction with the current pricing and a little future-perusing ought to be enough. If we can't ever be satisfied (to a point, I'm as much a hardware junky as anyone else ) then we have bigger problems than just Intel's pricing to be concerned with...

EDIT: Just to clarify, this is in no way a personal attack. I love to argue (in a constructive sense), and fully expect people to disagree with me.