Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs way ahead of schedule, could be with us this year

[duploxxx]

Intel is keeping its very strong strategy on technology launch, nice.

I did accept responsibility for my purchases. I didn't take them back to the store like alot of people might.

I did. The CPU still clocked down, only then it would jump back and forth between full speed and idle, still causing jumps in the video that made it impossible to watch.

Excuse me ~CS~ but I don't consider it FUD when these are my experiences. If you want to disagree that's fine. But basically calling me a liar is over the top considering I tried to make it clear I didn't want a flamewar starting. I don't get involved in flamewars and I will NOT respond to any more comments from you.

perhaps you have to invest some more time in reviewing parts before you buy, to me it seems you buy the wrong parts for the wrong purpose at the wrong timeframes. I am sure you have loved your netburst parts more

[Hornet331]

i want to know TDP that is pretty much it. what is the TDP of the enthusiast class desktop?

Pretty sure its still in the 130W region, as always.

[naokaji]

For some people AMD doesn't ever enter the equation, so they only compare prices to other Intel models.

I've also tossed the I5 750 in the mix which gives you double the cores for a clockrate drop at dual core price.

[Johnny87au]

Yes the i3s are so horrible overpriced that they are and where cheaper then E7xxx dualcores at release...

I can build a cheap ass rig for $400, dont see how their over priced..

[Fuji]

Pretty sure its still in the 130W region, as always.

well if you believe fudzilla's report:

It's 95W/65W/40W

http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/p...-bridge-is-95w

http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/p...ore-in-65w-tdp

http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/p...at-40w-tdp-kit

[PatRaceTin]

what is an intel shortest life socket?

[-Boris-]

My first was a 486dx2-66 that was slower than my 486dx2-50.

That is simply impossible to blame on the processor. If all the other components were the same the AMD one couldn't possibly be slower.
If you have two identical systems with identical processors the one with the higher frequency is the fastest one.

Next I tried a 1Ghz AMD athlon(????). It was crap compared to my Intel p3 850mhz.

How was it crap? I can't recall a single program in which a PIII 850 would be able to beat a 1GHz Athlon.

Then, most recently and regretably I tried an athlon x2 laptop. I was told that they had been doing much better after supposedly beating Intel's performance on the p4s. I had seen the benchmarks that AMD was even or superior on benchmarks but my friends always wondered why my p4s would boot up and play games better than their (what should have been superior) computers. Anyway, I wanted to be able to watch videos when traveling and it should have been able to cut the mustard. Instead, when I unplugged it I couldn't watch the 720p videos I had. I was so pissed off because I had spent $1200 on that laptop and it couldn't server the ONE purpose I had for it. The problem was as soon as you unplugged it, the CPU immediately clocked itself to the lowest frequency and locked itself there.

I called HP and they said that AMD's laptop line does that for battery life. I swore on that day I'd NEVER EVER EVER buy AMD again if I had any kind of performance based expectation. If/when AMD gives me a computer, I'll CONSIDER giving them another chance. Until then, I've soaked $3k+ over the last 10+ years and every time the computer would be less than a week old and was worthless to me. As for that laptop I paid 1200 for, I gave it away for $250 a month later because I couldn't stand to have it in my house it disgusted me so much.

This have nothing to do with the processor, it has to do with settings in windows. You can't blame AMD for this.


In seems to me that there is something you aren't telling us, like a significant lower amount of ram in the AMD systems or a graphics card that isn't as good as the one in the intel systems you compare with.

Are your computers built by you or are they OEM systems?

[MrMojoZ]

Next I tried a 1Ghz AMD athlon(????). It was crap compared to my Intel p3 850mhz.

Sounds like you have chosen to blame the CPU for a bad computer build. Oh well, you've made up your mind. Good luck to you.

[naokaji]

what is an intel shortest life socket?

Depends how you look at it, for example s775 had a rather long life, but that did not mean that every s775 cpu worked in ever s775 board.

1156 socket is probably the shortest lived one from intel as it will be replaced by 1155 with the release of Sandy Bridge.

[terrace215]

well if you believe fudzilla's report:

It's 95W/65W/40W

http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/p...-bridge-is-95w

http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/p...ore-in-65w-tdp

http://www.fudzilla.com/processors/p...at-40w-tdp-kit

No, he was asking about the ENTHUSIAST (a.k.a high-end) parts coming in mid-2011.

Same TDP as the current 980X, etc: 130W

[josh1980]

@ Duploxxx

I did try to do my homework. I've never built an AMD system, they've always been friend's "elite" systems that they were upgrading with something even more "elite". My issue was with the gaping performance comparisions. Some I was left speechless (like EQ at 20 fps when Intel's was 35+ with the exact same physical RAM and GPU).

@ -Boris-

As for the 486 issue I have no idea what to think. It was a CPU upgrade so everything was identical to the intel CPU. If I remember correctly the AMD 486s were complete identical copies to the Intel 486s. I could never figure out what was different about the AMD chip, but as soon as the Intel chip was put back in and the DIP switches changed to the correct speed the computer got faster.

As for the laptop not working, I don't know what I'm "supposed to know that I'm not metioning". The issue from all of my troubleshooting pointed squarely to the CPU dropping to it's lowest speed as soon as I unplugged the laptop from the wall. I could watch videos and play 3d games on lower-mid settings. I had no issues with it until I tried to take it on the road where I had no wall to plug it in. Watching the CPU speed in CPU-Z was how I identifed the problem. The CPU would switch back and forth from 800Mhz(I think) to higher speeds and back every few seconds. When the CPU speed increased the video would play fine. But after a few seconds it would drop back to 800Mhz and the video would start skipping badly. It was as if the CPU couldn't figure out a good speed to stay at and and kept jumping between frequencies without finding a happy medium.

If the settings in windows are to blame I'd expect the same issues with Intel CPUs. For some reason, I've never had an issue with Intel CPUs like I have AMD. I'm not ruling out a Windows bug, but I'd think AMD would be pressing Microsoft to fix an issue as significant as the one I might have witnessed. Regardless of who is actually to blame for the issue, I see the issue as an issue with either AMD or Microsoft and I don't want to buy any more products that have those issues in the future. As for my Intel laptop it had less ram, smaller and slower hard drive, and much slower video card. I'd have used my intel laptop for travel except it has a 17" screen and I didn't want to lug that with me for travel.

@MrMojoZ

You are correct. I've built every desktop I've ever owned except the families first computer. Families don't trust 9 year olds to build computers . I've always had more than enough RAM for the tasks I use them for. My desktop has 24GB of RAM right now, and I've never seen it use 10GB before.

I did try getting advice from AMD friends for any special drivers I might be missing, but no matter what I did, it just never quite "worked right" for what I would expect.

[-Boris-]

what is an intel shortest life socket?

Might be S423. But both S478 and S775 had many revisions that were incompatible. Using the same pin count don't guarantee longlivety.

S775 was changed when Pentium D was introduced, the same goes for C2D, and again with C2Q. And each time the bus increased.
Which means that in order to be able to always use the latest Intel CPU you would need to buy a new motherboard at least 7 times during the life of S775.

[savantu]

..

How was it crap? I can't recall a single program in which a PIII 850 would be able to beat a 1GHz Athlon.

...

It didn't have to. It is called "chipset" and usually means the difference between actually doing something on the computer versus : "I have the computer so I can spend my time fixing it ".

The 440BX generation and the follow-on 81x series were some of the most stable chipsets I ever had the pleasure own. Those were miles away compared to VIA ( remember the KT series ? ), Ali,Sis and other "famous" brands.

Back in those days, when I visited friends with AMD systems, you didn't know where to start, is it Windows, the drivers or the chipset ? Heck, I didn't had those worries on the Intel platform.

[saaya]

Interesting. Maybe we'll have a short period of LGA1155 fun if the CPUs clock to the moon

ehhhh not really.... ^^

Next I tried a 1Ghz AMD athlon(????). It was crap compared to my Intel p3 850mhz.

say whAAAAAT?
dude, i had a p3 700E (7x100) overclocked to 7x140 and when i replaced it with an athlon 1ghz overclocked to 1.6ghz with ddr memory it was a different world... seriously, that was the single biggest performance upgrade i have witnessed until today... it was similar to going from hdd to ssd, but even better...

It didn't have to. It is called "chipset" and usually means the difference between actually doing something on the computer versus : "I have the computer so I can spend my time fixing it ".

The 440BX generation and the follow-on 81x series were some of the most stable chipsets I ever had the pleasure own. Those were miles away compared to VIA ( remember the KT series ? ), Ali,Sis and other "famous" brands.

Back in those days, when I visited friends with AMD systems, you didn't know where to start, is it Windows, the drivers or the chipset ? Heck, I didn't had those worries on the Intel platform.

i looooved bx440
it overclocked really well... if only it would have supported ddr memory and ddr fsb... the 81x chipsets were cr4p imo... they didnt offer anything over 440, on the contrary, it overclocked WORSE, since intels fsb was still not ddr, the ddr memory support and rambus memory support was completely pointless as the fsb was the bottleneck, and oh boy, what a bottleneck it was...

the first sb parts will be 95W tdp max afaik, but thats without turbo, so realistically it will probably be close to current cpus when maxed out. ive heard from several people that 1155 might launch this year, the big 2-3 players are almost ready with their boards, so it will all depend on intel... since 1155 will be rather short lived as well i think they will have a hard time holding the board makers back to launch a new platform and make more money... then again... i really dont get how intel wants to sell 1155 though... i can already see the mass confusion evolving from the 1155 launch... the most asked questions will be "huh? im having a dejavu, didnt this platform launch last year? its new? are you sure?" and the follow up question which everybody will have a VERY hard time answering "ok, so that was 1156 and this is 1155... well whats new then?"

its a tiny bit cheaper
its a tiny bit faster
its a tiny bit more energy efficient
it has a faster igp, but of course you still cant game on it...
theres avx... which will make SOME apps faster... later...

i think they will focus on the igp and probably a lot of marketing about how awesome and advanced fusion is

[sdsdv10]

Interesting. Maybe we'll have a short period of LGA1155 fun if the CPUs clock to the moon

ehhhh not really.... ^^

Curious, just wondering why you say this?

[josh1980]

It didn't have to. It is called "chipset" and usually means the difference between actually doing something on the computer versus : "I have the computer so I can spend my time fixing it ".

Back in those days, when I visited friends with AMD systems, you didn't know where to start, is it Windows, the drivers or the chipset ? Heck, I didn't had those worries on the Intel platform.

You are right on target with my philosophy. With Intel CPUs and all of the computer's I've owned after installing Windows you install the intel chipset drivers and whatever drivers the motherboard/video/etc manufacturers have and it just works. With my AMD computers there was issues and I had no idea where to start. AMDs are a little different. AMD's website offers tools and utilities, but when I had an issue I had no clue where to go to try to fix it. I don't want a computer so I can spend my time fixing it. Believe me I enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure out what was going on with my AMD systems. But after running out of options of how to fix it, it becomes frustrating and since nobody else I know is more detailed and thorough with computer systems knowledge I was left with nowhere to turn to but to accept that it was beyond my ability to fix it and I was stuck.