Sandy Bridge i7 & i5 Reviews

[Epsilon84]

If the max multi is ~47x then that is a bit disappointing, as I was hoping for a ~5GHz overclock on air with the 2500K. Still, 4.7GHz isn't bad and would leave any current i5 750/760 in the dust.

[Johnny87au]

For the price it's i7 860 vs. i5 2500k. i7 has HT, and 8MB of cache. However 2500k can clock up to 4.7GHz before the multi runs out, which the 860 cannot do. Say 4.2-4.3GHz on the i7. Is the SB chip really worth it over the 860 at this point?

honestly i think not, anyone who has a p55 i5, i'd say stick with what you got and upgrade in 2011, as if u go SB your gonna have to upgrade again as 2011 high end is gonna kick some serious butt, 8cores vs 4 core hmm

[RPGWiZaRD]

What's the point of more cores though if barely anything you do on the comp benefits from more than 4 cores. IPC & max OC gains helps in all cases though. I won't buy 6-8 core CPUs until they are reasonably priced like Intel quad core CPUs today (I don't want to pay a premium for something I don't need), I'd expect that to happen the very earliest by aprox 10 months until more than 4 core CPUs becomes very interestingly priced though. But we shouldn't disregard AMD this time around either, doesn't necessarily have to turn into another budget CPU setup this time.

[Fuji]

i don't recall anyone mentioning this, but none of the benchmarks take advantage of AVX is that correct?

I would expect a rather large performance increase if AVX was used.

[sin0822]

yes especially because these processors are designed to work very well with AVX

looks like 2600K is the only viable option

[saaya]

i tested 8 2500K CPUs (1 retail and 7 ES) and all had a limit that doesn´t depend on voltage or cooling..

for example, one sample can do 4800MHz (48x100) but can´t boot 4809MHz (48x100,2). And this can also not boot at x49 multiplier etc...

i don´t know if it is a bios or cpu bug, but all cpus have a limit. ask the other guys that test the ES CPUs, they´re tell you the same.

Btw i tested also one with LN2 @ 1.6v VCore but no difference, reached same clock as on air!

you really think its a bug ^^
just as intel ACCIDENTALLY broke bclock overclocking? come ooooon now...

Well even if it did average 5Ghz on air, isn't the difference roughly negligible between ~4.3G and 5G in normal applications?

well thats over a 10% boost, plus the ipc boost of 0-20%...
so it depends i guess... for me, no, it doesnt make sense to upgrade, especially since i have to get a new board...

upgrading from 775 makes more sense, but even there... idk...
getting a new vga or ssd or bigger display or more memory is all going to have a bigger impact than upgrading the cpu...

Enthusiasts wait for S2011 anyway.

you honestly think enthusiasts wont touch 1155?
what "enthusiasts" are you talking of?

its what many here thought it would be, on average its 15% faster than the previous generation....not bad, not earth shattering; but its still a good achievement.

15% average depends on what benchmarks you choose to create an "average"

i spend most my time browsing the web, typing and watching videos... and i can guarantee you i wont see a 15% boost on average ^^

but higher bus speed makes the cpu faster ? right ?
also if i OC via mutiplier only , i need higher Vcore than normal ?

not anymore, qpi has such a massive bandwidth that its not limiting anything, even at the lowest bclock its more than enough...
besides, the bclock isnt the bus speed, its the reference clock, the actual bus speed is half the marketing number that intel uses for QPI
so 6.4GT/s means the bus speed is 3200MHz, at least as far as i know...

Nah it saves the OEMs a few cents and thats why they love it.

so intel isnt saving any money? come on...
cut the costs by 10% and reduce the price by 5, its always like that...

Don't be suprised when you see something similar form amd in the near future.

oh actually i WOULD be surprised cause contrary to what intel claims, its not a big deal to enable bclock overclocking on fully integrated clock chips, and other than intel, amd is happy about any bit of attention they can get through enthusiasts.

i don't recall anyone mentioning this, but none of the benchmarks take advantage of AVX is that correct?

I would expect a rather large performance increase if AVX was used.

if there isnt even a benchmark using avx, why should anybody care to begin with?

as soon as there are real case scenarios where avx helps, im sure people will benchmark it and pay attention to it, but so far... intel isnt really good at pushing new instruction support...

hey what ever happened to moviemans 5.3Ghz sb chip?

[Jodiuh]

Don't know about Fermi + Phenom. But this thread's much less painful than the Cayman disaster. I honestly thing SB will do more for my gameplay than a red card.

[Metroid]

Nice... I'm on air (Xigmatek S-1283 heatsink) with my 920.

I'm on water. I need an ambient temperature = 1c for a lower Vcore, more than 10c makes this thing too hot, temp goes as high as 85c.

[stasio]

yes especially because these processors are designed to work very well with AVX

looks like 2600K is the only viable option

Right sin0822,2600K or nothing.

[zalbard]

Don't know about Fermi + Phenom. But this thread's much less painful than the Cayman disaster. I honestly thing SB will do more for my gameplay than a red card.

If you already have a 4GHz Quad Core then it will not really do much if at all... Unless you are CPU limited due to using 3-4x GTX580, of course...

[Aberration]

your not hurting, my quad is.... I am getting a 2600K as soon as humanly possible 3.8GHZ Q6600 (great CPU BTW) to a 5GHZ 2600K can you say upgrade?

About the same no?

[Jodiuh]

Definitely not the same. I felt a difference going from a Q9550 to an i5 760 in L4D2 and especially BC2. Both games had higher minimum framerates giving me a much smoother experience.

20% per clock improvement from Lynnfield to Sandybridge using 1 card @ 1680. While that may be a best case scenario, that's a very popular game.

[flopper]

3.2ghz to 4.2ghz i7 950 30fps difference average 5760x1080.
Looking for a 4.8ghz SB to replace this

[roadie]

Any news on the max memory frequencies retail SB will support and the dividers that motherboard manufacturers will enable?

[[XC] hipno650]

About the same no?

well maybe for web browsing, we must use our computers for different things...

[Vozer]

Ah... if they could release a 95W - ??W i7-2605K without the integrated GPU, that would be great.

[[XC] gomeler]

If I remember correctly Sandybridge runs the "uncore" at the same frequency as the core which might explain why we are all hitting sub 5GHz... just a thought? I've tried everything to crack 5GHz

Any news on the max memory frequencies retail SB will support and the dividers that motherboard manufacturers will enable?

2133MHz is the max at the moment.

[PatRaceTin]

I would expect X50-X65 Max Multi for 2600K ???

[Hornet331]

Did people really epxect that they can do 5ghz with any of the shelf cpu?

People forget that now with SB the whole L3 has the same clock as the core, with Nehalem it was hard to go over 4ghz uncore speed and now we even have 4,5-4,7 for pretty much every cpu that was tested till now. My guess is, that if we want see higher speeds guys need to bump L3 voltage (if there is such an option).

[Aberration]

your not hurting, my quad is.... I am getting a 2600K as soon as humanly possible 3.8GHZ Q6600 (great CPU BTW) to a 5GHZ 2600K can you say upgrade?

well maybe for web browsing, we must use our computers for different things...

Come on now, context.

I mean your Q6600 @ 3.8 to my i7 920 at 3.6.

[JPQY]

Very nice..and that still on air..will you later try my chess test Chris..pleassssssssse

JP.

[EagleRock]

So the Intel mobo is better than the Asus ?

[[XC] gomeler]

No but i got a newer Bios for the intel board (from end november), the asus use a bios from mid. october..

Very nice. What voltages are you feeding the chip? My board BIOS has all sorts of new names for the sold old stuff I think One I think is called "Chip I/O" which I think is vtt?

[RPGWiZaRD]

haha these seems nice for SuperPi for such crappy DDR3 speeds the result is very nice. 2600K @ 5.5GHz or so at higher DDR3 speed could provide quite good results already, maybe 6.8x~6.85'ish. Too bad these won't provide much fun for LN2 benchers, aircooling users might still have some fun benching sessions though.

[Olivon]

Crazy results