Anand has Lynnfield Preview Up

[Bman123]

I dont see how you cans say I can do a i7 build for the same price when you have no clue what the final price is gonna be on the cpu and mobos.Not to mention the ram will be cheaper also

 

[alyarb]

The RAM isn't going to be cheaper. You will just be buying two DIMMs instead of three. This saves money because you are buying less. It doesn't make DDR3 cheaper. DDR3 is DDR3. I kind of liked how bloomfield forces you to get six gigs instead of the usual four.

I'm sure there will be deals on 1366 parts throughout the summer. and to clear up any confusion, lynnfield does not have an IGP. havendale was supposed to have that IGP but it was cancelled. Clarkdale will be available at the end of the year.

 

[Jabbernyx]

Originally posted by: Bman123
I dont see how you cans say I can do a i7 build for the same price when you have no clue what the final price is gonna be on the cpu and mobos.Not to mention the ram will be cheaper also

True, but I'm guessing it'll be pretty close.

Didn't Anand put some chip prices up? So say $196 for the 2.66GHz part and $100-150 for a good OCing P55 mobo (not unrealistic given that current P45 mobos start around ~$85 or so and something like the EP45-UD3L is $100).

Seems close enough to me and how would RAM be cheaper? Granted, I missed out on the ~$40AR OCZ Platinum 6GB DDR3-1600 kit from Amazon from March but there are lots of low voltage + timing 6GB kits for around $60AR now. DDR2-800 is running about $40 for 4GB kits so I don't see how this is expensive.

 

[Bman123]

If I can get a i5 and mobo for $300 I am gonna do it,also if my ram is only like $50 that makes it better.
I dont want to drop 1k on a build if I dont have to.Hell I am playing on a 17inch monitor 1280x720 is my res.Sure I would like a new montior and I may get one.It all depends on how the i5 reviews are.
Shit I can get away with a $120 video card and be in great shape/

Hopefully the i5 is a good deal in price and performance.If it performs well I will drop the cash and go up to 1920x1080 and get a gtx 280 or whatever is comparable at the time.

I just wanna see soem actual reviews of game demos like call of duty and the such.It is too early to tell what we will get.Hopefully i5 is a success

 

[Jabbernyx]

At that res, you won't even need a $120 vid card. A $75AR 4850 would be fine. Heck, even the 4890 can be had for $150AR.

For something that OCs well, I think you might be looking at $350 for the 2.66GHz part + mobo, which is what I paid for the i7 920 and EX58-UD3R.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Will i5 boards have SLI and Crossfire?

 

[Nemesis 1]

I really don't know what to make of this. I feel the 2.66 is to expensive. Befor ya jump on me let me say why. 4 th qt 32nm clarksdale is released. Now I would say the 32 2core will extend turbo further. If intel feels it wont cut the ht line of 4 cores . But I will say this . I think ya should here. 2core 32.will clobber the 2.66. @core will blow this 4 core away without HT active. 32nm 2core has ht. Either Intel has mid range dualie moving into this spot . Or the 2.66 is to expensive. The 32nm should be cheaper even wwith crappy graphics on package. The other thing that makes 32nm look good is timing . I wouldn't buy the first M/B versions noway. I have enough problems with the stuff I test. To know better than pay for it.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Originally posted by: Bman123
If I can get a i5 and mobo for $300 I am gonna do it,also if my ram is only like $50 that makes it better.
I dont want to drop 1k on a build if I dont have to.Hell I am playing on a 17inch monitor 1280x720 is my res.Sure I would like a new montior and I may get one.It all depends on how the i5 reviews are.
Shit I can get away with a $120 video card and be in great shape/

Hopefully the i5 is a good deal in price and performance.If it performs well I will drop the cash and go up to 1920x1080 and get a gtx 280 or whatever is comparable at the time.

I just wanna see soem actual reviews of game demos like call of duty and the such.It is too early to tell what we will get.Hopefully i5 is a success

Well is going to be better than what we seen here LOL was that not good enough lol.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Originally posted by: INOUTx64
In my personal opinion, giving clock speed with model number is bit misleading for i7. Almost all the time, it seems to run at higher clock speed than specified speed. Based on Anand?s article 2.93 processor will run between 3.2-3.6 Ghz. They could have called this as 3.6Ghz processor that will under clock to save power when cores are idle/less work. All the modern processors do under clock one way or another anyway. It is not as if I hate i7 processor, I like this processor. I only hate what I feel as a Marketing Name. AMD?s marketing team could call Phenom 2 as 800Mhz processor that will over clock to 3.2Ghz when required. My 2 cents.

The important thing friend is your only paying for the stock speed . Turbo is a gift from intel to you. In my family we thank givers. It a consumer plus its innovation. That intel has worked years on to bring to you at affordable price. Same applies to HT its a gift . Compare pricies to performance its clearly a gift. I would still wait for dual core lol.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Good article.

And a very good move from Intel to integrated the PCIe link to the graphics chips on the processor. This will give some performance boost as well since there are less bridges to cross between the gfx chip and the cpu chip. I once hoped AMD would do this when they aquired ATI. A hypertransport connection between the cpu and the gfx chip. Since hypertransport has a lower latency then PCIe (at that time, i do not know what is the current situation, i assume it is still holding). This would also give a performance boost.
That is afcourse if a programming model is used that actually uses that improvement.

Oh, you might think that this is not handy for customers who want a nvidia gfx chip. Nvidia is also a hypertransport member and as such had the technology available as well.

But anyway, Intel has done the best move once again.

And Intel has done what i hoped AMD would do. Since i have not yet bought a PhII system ( i have been holding because of waiting on more mature chips, motherboards and drivers) , it is now in the realms of reality that i will buy an Intel system. On board memory controller, power efficient, one less bridge between the gfx and cpu / main memory. Everything i was hoping for fora new system when comparing with my old one.



One thing puzzles me :

What does Anand know ?

Why would anyone want a LGA-1366 system then? I believe there are three major advantages to the LGA-1366 platform for single-socket desktops:


1) Support for Gulftown. You can only get 6-cores from the LGA-1366 platform in 1H 2010, Intel currently doesn't have any 6-core LGA-1156 parts planned.

2) More overclockable CPUs. The best yielding Nehalems (and highest clocked Nehalems) will be LGA-1366 processors. I wouldn't expect any 1GHz+ overclocks from LGA-1156 CPUs.

3) More bandwidth to PCIe slots. I don't see this as a huge advantage today, but there may come a time when having as much bandwidth to your GPUs as possible is important. I'm thinking general purpose GPU computing, DX11, OpenCL sort of stuff. But we're not there yet.

Lynnfield (LGA1156) has a direct link between memory controller (on the cpu die) and PCIe while the nehalem chips have a PCIe -QPI- link between the gfx and the cpu. Although QPI is fast, it is still a delay in between. Does this mean that there is some bottleneck inside Lynnfied ?

EDIT :
I assume the lynnfield also has some crossbarr connection between PCIe and the memorycontroller/cpu.

 

[alyarb]

the delay in transmission has nothing to do with the width of the transmission media. QPI gives the i7 a very wide path to the I/O hub, which has a total of 40 pci express lanes. the P55 chipset only has 16 lanes. this is bandwidth.

While lynnfield has an on-die pcie controller (less latency than having an extra chip in the middle), the connection is not as wide.

PCI-SIG is way bigger than the hypertransport consortium. you will never see HT used as a video bus in x86 machines. also, going from P45 to P55 will bring a latency upgrade for PCIe, but it is not a bandwidth upgrade. you still only get to use one card at full speed.



comparing lynnfield, bloomfield, and deneb in high-resolution game performance is going to be interesting because we will get to see which games prefer low latency to high bandwidth, and vice versa (for instance, why does the lynnfield average 3 FPS higher than bloomfield in crysis?).

 

[William Gaatjes]

Originally posted by: alyarb
PCI-SIG is way bigger than the hypertransport consortium. you will never see HT used as a video bus in x86 machines. also, going from P45 to P55 will bring a latency upgrade for PCIe, but it is not a bandwidth upgrade. you still only get to use one card at full speed.

True on both accounts.

Since the customers want speed, and there is some percentage speed up possible would it not be an interesting situation where a hypertransport based gfx card would run faster then a PCIe card. Assuming afcourse the speedup does exist ?

And hypertransport is scalable as is PCIe , 2 full speed connections simialir to 2x PCIex16 connections is fully possible.

But then again, it is a muscle and money rolling situation and AMD has always been able to roll there muscle but not money.

the delay in transmission has nothing to do with the width of the transmission media. QPI gives the i7 a very wide path to the I/O hub, which has a total of 40 pci express lanes. the P55 chipset only has 16 lanes. this is bandwidth.

True, as long as there is no bandwidth saturation we would see a faster system with the lynnfied. When we see more gfx cards added and those cards can saturate the PCIex8 bus (for as far as i know not even PCIex8 is being used to the full extent by 1 gfx card but that is based on old information). This is true also for 1 PCIe x16 card.
The X58 based systems would be the winner. That is logical, Intel would not throw rocks into there own windows.

 

[INOUTx64]

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1

Originally posted by: INOUTx64
In my personal opinion, giving clock speed with model number is bit misleading for i7. Almost all the time, it seems to run at higher clock speed than specified speed. Based on Anand?s article 2.93 processor will run between 3.2-3.6 Ghz. They could have called this as 3.6Ghz processor that will under clock to save power when cores are idle/less work. All the modern processors do under clock one way or another anyway. It is not as if I hate i7 processor, I like this processor. I only hate what I feel as a Marketing Name. AMD?s marketing team could call Phenom 2 as 800Mhz processor that will over clock to 3.2Ghz when required. My 2 cents.

The important thing friend is your only paying for the stock speed . Turbo is a gift from intel to you. In my family we thank givers. It a consumer plus its innovation. That intel has worked years on to bring to you at affordable price. Same applies to HT its a gift . Compare pricies to performance its clearly a gift. I would still wait for dual core lol.

My point is i7 always(at least lower end models) run higher than quoted speed. But doing clock for clock benchmark comparison is bit unfair to me because actually it is not a clock for clock comparison.

 

[alyarb]

i7 does not always run higher than the rated speed. when your CPU is idling, it operates below its rated speed. not all CPU loads cause it to go into turbo mode, either. if a multithreaded application loads all four cores, you will not go into turbo mode. other loads do not permit the use of turbo mode as well depending on how much multitasking you do and how busy other cores are (for instance, it is impossible to run core0 and core1 at 3 GHz while other cores run at some other frequency). it depends on the depth of the C-state of each core. the C state, temperature, and amount of elbow room allowed before exceeding TDP determine if turbo mode is used or not. even if you have two cores that are only 10% loaded, while other cores are 0% loaded, turbo boost will not accelerate those unused cores because when 4 cores are in the C0 state, turbo mode is not allowed. Even with three cores in the C0 state, turbo mode is not used.

 

[error8]

Why is the reviewer came up to this conclusion : "The best yielding Nehalems (and highest clocked Nehalems) will be LGA-1366 processors. I wouldn't expect any 1GHz+ overclocks from LGA-1156 CPUs."
Why wouldn't it overclock like crazy on one of those sweet P55 mobos?

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: error8
Why is the reviewer came up to this conclusion : "The best yielding Nehalems (and highest clocked Nehalems) will be LGA-1366 processors. I wouldn't expect any 1GHz+ overclocks from LGA-1156 CPUs."
Why wouldn't it overclock like crazy on one of those sweet P55 mobos?

Processors of the same design are not just randomly labeled like "this one is a Phenom 9650, that one over there is 9950". The processors are labeled according to how good they are. LGA 1366 is a very high end platform, so you can expect it to get the best chips. LGA 1156 is more of a budget platform, so it gets budget chips.

It's like comparing a wolfdale E5200 to a wolfdale E5400. One is labeled better than the other because it's likely made from better material. If those two chips used different sockets, you would assume the E5400 would use the higher end socket (1366) and E5200 would go on the lower end socket (1156).

 

[Drazick]

The i5 is exciting, yet the platform around it should be more.
Will the P55 support USB 3, SATA 3 and UEFI? Will it be SSD Optimized?

Those are the real questions .

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Originally posted by: alyarb
The RAM isn't going to be cheaper. You will just be buying two DIMMs instead of three. This saves money because you are buying less. It doesn't make DDR3 cheaper. DDR3 is DDR3. I kind of liked how bloomfield forces you to get six gigs instead of the usual four.

Why do people keep thinking this? You do not have to get 3 (or 6) DIMMs if you get an i7 machine. No one is forcing you to do so because i7 works in dual channel as well as triple channel RAM, and the difference between them isn't great.

And if I'm being harsh, it's just because of your choice of words. i7 does not "force" you to run in triple channel. I would much rather people say "i7 gives me the option of running 3 or 6 DIMMs".

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: Drazick
The i5 is exciting, yet the platform around it should be more.
Will the P55 support USB 3, SATA 3 and UEFI? Will it be SSD Optimized?

Those are the real questions .

I'm curious about it as well.

As for i7 vs. i5, the difference is quite clear-cut. Once matured, I think i5 will be faster for games due to onboard PCIe. However, if someone wants more powerful system i5 may not cut it. For example if you want SLI/CF along with a RAID card, i7 will be the platform of the choice, between the two. This is especially true if/when SSDs become more readily available.

Another interesting point is how i5 manages PCIe on-die. DMI is probably nothing more than PCIe lanes, so it'll be governed by PCIe controller as well. That rings the bell in my head, how terrible Intel boards are when it comes to PCIe overclocking. This by itself isn't an issue, but if PCIe clockgen is somehow entangled with CPU clockgen then there is a possible link to a headache when overclocking.

Assuming that's taken care of, there is an issue of heat. We know that PCIe lanes = heat. So between i7 and i5 at a like clock speed, i5 may be a hotter running chip despite one less memory channel. But on the flip-side, i5 motherboards should be extremely cool-running except VRM areas. There is no more 'north bridge' to speak of, and south bridge stuff don't heat up things. Motherboard should be definitely be cheaper to make.

Last but not least, look at the prices.. $196, $284, $562. And the $196 one is going to be a crippled one so the completely functional i5 starts at $300. What disturbs me more than the absolute amount is how the prices are differentiated.

2.66GHz = $196
2.80GHz = $280
2.93GHz = $562

So you have to pay $100, $200, $300.. more for the next higher grade which is measly 133MHz faster than the last.. Sure, there will be cheaper ones (like dualies) but we've always had those, under the name of 'Celery'. Intel is officially restoring its old pricing regime..

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: INOUTx64
In my personal opinion, giving clock speed with model number is bit misleading for i7. Almost all the time, it seems to run at higher clock speed than specified speed. Based on Anand?s article 2.93 processor will run between 3.2-3.6 Ghz. They could have called this as 3.6Ghz processor that will under clock to save power when cores are idle/less work. All the modern processors do under clock one way or another anyway. It is not as if I hate i7 processor, I like this processor. I only hate what I feel as a Marketing Name. AMD?s marketing team could call Phenom 2 as 800Mhz processor that will over clock to 3.2Ghz when required. My 2 cents.

If they did this, you would probably complain they are falsely marketing this chip and lying to consumers saying it runs at 3.6GHz when it only gets there with some cores at certain times via "Turbo". There should be a class action suit against Intel for misleading consumers like this!!!

Am I wrong?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: lopri

Originally posted by: Drazick
The i5 is exciting, yet the platform around it should be more.
Will the P55 support USB 3, SATA 3 and UEFI? Will it be SSD Optimized?

Those are the real questions .

I'm curious about it as well.

As for i7 vs. i5, the difference is quite clear-cut. Once matured, I think i5 will be faster for games due to onboard PCIe. However, if someone wants more powerful system i5 may not cut it. For example if you want SLI/CF along with a RAID card, i7 will be the platform of the choice, between the two. This is especially true if/when SSDs become more readily available.

Another interesting point is how i5 manages PCIe on-die. DMI is probably nothing more than PCIe lanes, so it'll be governed by PCIe controller as well. That rings the bell in my head, how terrible Intel boards are when it comes to PCIe overclocking. This by itself isn't an issue, but if PCIe clockgen is somehow entangled with CPU clockgen then there is a possible link to a headache when overclocking.

Assuming that's taken care of, there is an issue of heat. We know that PCIe lanes = heat. So between i7 and i5 at a like clock speed, i5 may be a hotter running chip despite one less memory channel. But on the flip-side, i5 motherboards should be extremely cool-running except VRM areas. There is no more 'north bridge' to speak of, and south bridge stuff don't heat up things. Motherboard should be definitely be cheaper to make.

Last but not least, look at the prices.. $196, $284, $562. And the $196 one is going to be a crippled one so the completely functional i5 starts at $300. What disturbs me more than the absolute amount is how the prices are differentiated.

2.66GHz = $196
2.80GHz = $280
2.93GHz = $562

So you have to pay $100, $200, $300.. more for the next higher grade which is measly 133MHz faster than the last.. Sure, there will be cheaper ones (like dualies) but we've always had those, under the name of 'Celery'. Intel is officially restoring its old pricing regime..

I think the improved Turbo function of i5 is a prominent factor alone. Especially in single threaded apps, a 600MHz boost on one of the cores could seriously improve performance better than i7 could. And even though the overall pricing seems to be the same as i7, one should look at the overall cost of ownership of i5 compared to i7. Motherboards will be much cheaper and you can use memory in dual channel without feeling your cheating yourself if you did this on i7. Total cost for i5 will be significantly lower than i7. At least it will until some mobo partners totally deck out a P55 board and charge 300 bucks for it, LOL.

I might be interested in an i5 platform in a few months. I'll see how it goes. I am still quite happy with my Q6600 on 790i. But that's just me. hehe.

 

[2March]

Originally posted by: alyarb
i7 does not always run higher than the rated speed. when your CPU is idling, it operates below its rated speed. not all CPU loads cause it to go into turbo mode, either. if a multithreaded application loads all four cores, you will not go into turbo mode. other loads do not permit the use of turbo mode as well depending on how much multitasking you do and how busy other cores are (for instance, it is impossible to run core0 and core1 at 3 GHz while other cores run at some other frequency). it depends on the depth of the C-state of each core. the C state, temperature, and amount of elbow room allowed before exceeding TDP determine if turbo mode is used or not. even if you have two cores that are only 10% loaded, while other cores are 0% loaded, turbo boost will not accelerate those unused cores because when 4 cores are in the C0 state, turbo mode is not allowed. Even with three cores in the C0 state, turbo mode is not used.

I'm afraid your information in incorrect.

My system only goes out of turbo mode (21x for the 920) when temps get too high. No other reason except low usage will switch of turbo. It can happen in FSX when load on the cores goes below +/-25% but then powersave options come into play aswell. Since cooling is sufficient on my sytem hours of full load benchmarking on all cores will not allow the processor to drop out of turbo once!

I expected the behaviour you described aswell but it doesn't seem to work that way. Only single core turbo (that's 22x for the 920) behaves that way but getting that to engage appears to be troublesome anyway because real single core usage barely ever happens IRL.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: Bman123
If I can get a i5 and mobo for $300 I am gonna do it,also if my ram is only like $50 that makes it better.
I dont want to drop 1k on a build if I dont have to.Hell I am playing on a 17inch monitor 1280x720 is my res.Sure I would like a new montior and I may get one.It all depends on how the i5 reviews are.
Shit I can get away with a $120 video card and be in great shape/

Hopefully the i5 is a good deal in price and performance.If it performs well I will drop the cash and go up to 1920x1080 and get a gtx 280 or whatever is comparable at the time.

I just wanna see soem actual reviews of game demos like call of duty and the such.It is too early to tell what we will get.Hopefully i5 is a success

i5 Mother Boards are supposed to be mainstream so they will be around the $100 price point. If you want a $300 mother board, then just buy a x58 and pop a i7 into it instead.

 

[SickBeast]

I get the impression that the Lynnfield is a terrible overclocker. Anand needed to overvolt it in order to hit 2.66ghz. Unless it has a lower stock voltage than the i7, this is bad news.

I don't understand how a CPU that overclocks so poorly and has such a low default clock speed is somehow the "CPU to get in 2009".

To me, if you look at the Phenom 2, it is a much more exciting processor in terms of what it can do for the amount of money you spend on it.

I really wish that reviews would cover performance/$ and performance/watt. Those are really the only two things I care about.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I get the impression that the Lynnfield is a terrible overclocker. Anand needed to overvolt it in order to hit 2.66ghz. Unless it has a lower stock voltage than the i7, this is bad news.

I don't understand how a CPU that overclocks so poorly and has such a low default clock speed is somehow the "CPU to get in 2009".

To me, if you look at the Phenom 2, it is a much more exciting processor in terms of what it can do for the amount of money you spend on it.

I really wish that reviews would cover performance/$ and performance/watt. Those are really the only two things I care about.

Why don't you read the disclaimer in the article first before you come to that conclusion.

The First Lynnfield Sample
Let me preface this with the usual disclaimer. Intel did *not* supply me with this chip and it is most definitely pre-production silicon, not necessarily indicative of final, shipping performance.