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Intel's Core i5 Analyzed and Tested (150+ Benchmarks)

Gordon Mah Ung — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:00:00 -0500

Intel’s latest troika of new CPUs brings Nehalem goodness to the masses

Nehalem for everyone! That simple sentence best explains Intel’s brand-new series of CPUs, which is sure to please budget users everywhere while confounding power users.

Why would a new CPU that gives you the best bang for the buck in town be greeted nervously? Because Intel’s new CPU brings with it a new socket as well as a new infrastructure. This new infrastructure is essentially a fork in the road that forces users to make a difficult choice: Save money today but get locked out of the high-end, or splurge today knowing that the budget CPU is damn near as good as the top-end part.

For the details on Intel’s new budget monster, savor our full report, consume the specs, and then digest the benchmarks to see just which path your next PC should take.

Meet Lynnfield

We normally don’t use a CPU’s code-name once its real name is known, but to help keep your head from popping off over Intel’s confusing naming scheme we’re going to rely on some code-names here for clarity.

Intel’s newest CPU family is code-named Lynnfield. The lineup includes the 2.93GHz Core i7-870, the 2.83GHz Core i7-860, and the 2.66GHz Core i5-750. Lynnfield chips use essentially the same microarchitecture as Intel’s original Core i7 CPUs, which were code-named Bloomfield, but the new CPUs are incompatible with existing Core i7 motherboards. That’s right, you could walk into a store and buy a Core i7 CPU that will not work with the Core i7 motherboard you just bought. Likewise, the Core i7 heatsink cooler you bought may not work with a new Core i7, either.

Despite its smaller size, Intel’s new Lynnfield Core i7/Core i5 CPU (right) actually features an increased transistor count of 774 million and a larger die size of 296 square millimeters, compared with the 731-million-tranny Bloomfield Core i7 (left) and its 263 square-millimeter die.

Socket Switcheroo

The most notable difference in this new crop of Core i7s is the socket. For Lynnfield, Intel is introducing the LGA1156 socket. This socket is, as stated, incompatible with the current LGA1366 motherboards and CPUs. To irk you even more, even the heatsink cooler mounting holes are incompatible, so you probably couldn’t use an LGA1366 cooler, even if you happened to have one. And even more annoying to enthusiasts, LGA775 coolers are also incompatible. Earlier this year, Intel execs told Maximum PC that LGA775 cooler compatibility was being considered for the new chip, but obviously the company has since ruled that out. To break it down: LGA1366 uses a 12cm gap, LGA1156 uses an 11cm gap, and LGA775 uses a 10cm gap. Yes, one centimeter difference and you have to dustbin your pricey high-rise cooler even though it’s capable of handling the thermals of the new chip.

We asked Intel if it was doing this just to piss people off and the company said no, it did it for legitimate engineering reasons. Intel actually lowered the height of the new direct socket load mechanism that clamps the CPU in place, which required moving the mounting holes out. Existing heatsinks capable of the thermal load should work, Intel said, so long as consumers obtain updated mounting brackets from the cooler maker. We have to also note that very new high-end coolers are coming with mounts for LGA1156 too. Still, make sure that if the box says Core i7, support for LGA1156 is included.

Although Intel wouldn’t confirm this, we’ve been told by high-end system builders that certain LGA1366 motherboards and coolers would flex enough to create a gap between cooler and CPU. The new design presumably fixes that problem.

Sockets Compared

Lynnfield Socket

Bloomfield Socket

The new budget Core i5/Core i7 CPUs use a new LGA1156 socket design (top image), which is incompatible with existing LGA1366 Core i7 motherboards and coolers (bottom image). The design eliminates traces for the third memory controller, but builds in wires that will accommodate forthcoming CPUs with integrated graphics cores.

Memory Loss

Enthusiasts will also question the move from tri-channel DDR3 to dual-channel DDR3—why go back if wider is better? Intel’s decision is based on pragmatism and cost. The tri-channel circuitry in the CPU doesn’t add much cost to the processor, but it’s not cheap to implement when building a motherboard. Those added traces from the socket to the RAM slots mean more layers and pricier boards. That’s one of the contributing factors to excessively priced X58 boards this past year.

Should you be concerned about shifting down to dual-channel? Generally, no. For the most part, only the most memory-bandwidth-intensive apps will actually see any performance hit. The fantastic latency and overall bandwidth capacity of the Nehalem design is more than adequate for today’s applications. This doesn’t mean it’s a non-issue. The vast majority of Lynnfield motherboards we’ve seen are opting for four-DIMM slots. That means a maximum of 8GB using affordable 2GB DIMMs (4GB DIMMs are currently cost-prohibitive). The only board we’ve seen with more DIMM slots is Gigabyte’s GA-P55-UD6, which features six, for a total of 12GB, using 2GB DIMMs. The memory controller in Lynnfield tops out at 16GB, while Bloomfield maxes out at 24GB. Realistically, 24GB of RAM is way overkill for 99 percent of us. Our experience has shown us that most apps do not consume that much RAM; 4GB to 6GB is the sweet spot today.

PCI-E at the Core

Another significant change for Lynnfield is that PCI-E comes directly off the CPU core. In X58/Bloomfield, X48/Core 2 Quad, and 790FX/Phenom II, PCI Express is external to the CPU, residing in the north-bridge chipset. Data is pumped out to the chipset where it must then be directed to the PCI-E slots that connect to the GPUs. As you can imagine, the extra hop creates a latency issue—that’s eliminated with Lynnfield. Lower latency is better, right? Yes and no. While latency is better on Lynnfield, the CPUs feature but a single x16 PCI-E 2.0 lane in the chip. That’s fine for a single GPU, but multi-GPU configurations will have to split the bandwidth. That means an SLI or CrossFire X rig will run both cards in x8 mode. Remember, however, that we’re talking x8 at PCI-E 2.0 speeds, which is 8GB/s for each card. From what we’ve seen and from what vendors have told us, only at the highest resolutions with antialiasing do you see any impact.

But, you say, what about tri-SLI? That, too, can be theoretically supported. Even though Lynn-field supports but a single x16 PCI-E 2.0 lane, additional PCI-E lanes are added through the P55 chipset—at the cost of latency. Previous designs that had PCI-E plumbed from both the north bridge and south bridge were dinged for doing just this. Some vendors are working around the lack of bandwidth by adding Nvidia’s nForce 200 chip to their boards. The nForce 200 doesn’t magically add bandwidth but it does manage the available bandwidth across multiple slots. Thus, a board vendor could add three or even four x16 PCI-E slots and have the nForce 200 chip manage the load for multi-GPU configurations. This would eliminate the need to have the GPUs feed off of the higher-latency connection in the chipset.

CrossFire X support is a given in the vast majority of P55 motherboards. And SLI will be as well for the board vendors who pay Nvidia to “certify” that their boards are SLI-ready. Fortunately, the big names are already onboard with that, including Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, and even Intel.

If you’re wondering why Intel doesn’t just fix the lack of bandwidth by adding additional PCI-E lanes in the CPU, consider this: Intel would have to add additional traces from the CPU and the socket, and even Intel is loathe to introduce yet another new socket standard so soon. The company also doesn’t think it’s worth it as anyone who truly wants full dual-x16 GPU support should really be buying X58: Remember, folks, Lynnfield and P55 are for the “mainstream.”

The Lynnfield LGA1156 again rejiggers the design of the modern CPU. With the Athlon 64 and the Core i7, the memory controller was moved from the north bridge directly into the CPU core. With Lynnfield, the PCI-Express ports are now handled directly by the CPU as well. Furthermore, relatively low-speed data from the hard drives and USB ports flows though a single DMI link at 2GB/s with Lynnfield.

P55: Downsizing the Chipset

In the old days, new core-logic chipsets were almost as exciting as a new CPU. Not so today. With X58 and Bloomfield, the chipset got fired from its job of managing the memory controller. With Lynnfield, it even loses its responsibilities for managing PCI-E, as both features are now integral to the CPU itself. Today, the chipset is nothing more than a glorified south bridge, managing USB, SATA, PCI, PS/2, and other decidedly unsexy items. The P55 might have been sexier if it had USB 3.0 or SATA 6 functionality, but that won’t appear until next year. And even if it had those features, it’s pretty clear where the P55 stands: Its desk has been moved to the basement and its red Swingline stapler has been confiscated.

Tweakability

There was some initial confusion when Bloomfield was introduced. Early reports had it that the memory multipliers were unlocked on the high-end Extreme versions of the CPU, but locked on the lower-end versions. It turned out that was only the case for samples first sent to the press and system vendors. Retail versions of the lower-end Bloomfields were unlocked as well, making it possible for users to set the RAM at speeds higher than the rated DDR3/1066. This time around, there’s no such confusion. All three new Lynnfields feature unlocked memory multipliers and the chips are actually officially rated for operation at DDR3/1333, with higher speeds obtainable through “overclocking.” Of course, the chips are upwardly clock-locked, so you can’t simply set your $200 Core i5 to run at 4GHz by changing the multiplier.

Though open about memory locks, Intel has been cagier about Turbo mode. With Bloomfield, Intel never revealed to consumers the top clock speeds the CPUs could hit under Turbo mode, but with Lynnfield, it’s now publicizing the top speed that a single core can hit. The Core i7-870, for example, can top out at 3.6GHz by overclocking individual cores based on the thermals and power consumption of the chip. That’s actually far greater than the Bloomfield modes can top out at on default. The take-away is that, with the months it has had to tinker with Lynnfield, Intel has improved Turbo mode (now officially Turbo Boost). However, the feature is locked. Only on the Extreme parts will users be able to tinker with Turbo beyond the default caps.

The Big Decision

All this techno-speak is meaningless if the processor doesn’t perform as expected. We don’t want to give away everything here but let’s just say we’re not disappointed. Lynnfield is everything you’d expect of a new iteration of Nehalem and Intel’s now-very-mature 45m process. As such, overclocking, is also fruitful. By simply boosting the base clock of the cheapie $200 Core i5-750, we were able to take it from 2.66GHz to a very stable 3.5GHz without any additional voltage on our very first attempt using a Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 board.

System builders have been equally impressed with these budget parts and have achieved overclocking results every bit as good as, if not better than, the most expensive Core i7-975 Extreme Edition parts.

That brings us to the main question: Why even build a Bloomfield LGA1366 at this point if building a Lynnfield system will save you at least $100 on the board and a little on the RAM, and even more money if you opt for the ultra-budget Core i5-750?

Here’s that fork in the road: Lynnfield is cheaper and gets you 90 percent the performance of a Bloomfield system, but early next year Intel will introduce a CPU code-named Gulftown, aka Core i9. Core i9 adds two more physical cores to the CPU and will likely be the first consumer hexacore CPU. With Hyper-Threading, that’s 12 threads available to the OS and enough to make the most jaded enthusiast perk up. Core i9, however, will only be available on the Bloomfield/LGA1366 platform. If you were to build a Lynnfield LGA1156 box there’d be no six-core for you! At least, not at this point. Intel said it has no plans for an LGA1156 hexacore. You see the dilemma. Save money now and build a really kick-ass LGA1156 or spend the extra $200 to build an LGA1366 that has an easy upgrade path to six cores with Hyper-Threading. It’s not an easy choice to make under normal circumstances, but in this economic climate, it’s even harder—that $200 goes a long way toward a better GPU, better PSU, more RAM, or a bigger hard drive. The choice, however, is up to you.

Next, the CPU buyers guide and benchmarks!

CPU Buyers Guide

What’s the best budget chip available today for those interested in getting good performance on the cheap? We’ll walk you through the top five chips and tell you which one to buy.

CPU Specs

CPU	Core i7-920	Core i7-870	Core i7-860	Core i5-750	Core 2 Quad Q9550/Q9550s	Phenom II X4 965 BE
Socket	LGA1366	LGA1156	LGA1156	LGA1156	LGA775	AM3
Price (Volume)	$284	$562	$284	$196	$266 / $320	$245
Price (Street)	$280	N/A	N/A	N/A	$220 / $350	$245
TDP	130Watts	95Watts	95Watts	95Watts	95Watts / 65Watts	140Watts
Codename	Bloomfield	Lynnfield	Lynnfield	Lynnfield	Yorkfield	Deneb
QPI/HT	4.8GT/s	4.8GT/s	4.8GT/s	4.8GT/s	N/A	4GHz
Core Clock	2.66GHz	2.93GHz	2.8GHz	2.66GHz	2.83GHz	3.4GHz
Turbo Boost (Max 1 Core)	2.93GHz	3.6GHz	3.46GHz	3.2GHz	N/A	N/A
HyperThreading?	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	N/A
Cores/Threads	4/8	4/8	4/8	4/4	4/4	4/4
L1 Cache	256KB	256KB	256KB	256KB	256KB	512KB
L2 Cache	1MB	1MB	1MB	1MB	12MB	2MB
L3 Cache	8MB	8MB	8MB	8MB	N/A	6MB
Die Size (mm^2)	263	296	296	296	214	258
Transistor Count (million)	731	774	774	771	820	758
Process (nm)	45	45	45	45	45	45

AMD 3.4GHz Phenom II X4 965 BE

It’s bad news for AMD’s recently released quad-core. Its best and brightest could never compete with the Core i7-920 in performance, but it certainly outgunned it in price. Now with Intel’s LGA1156 Lynnfields here, it can’t even compete on price. As of this writing, the Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition had a list price of $245. The Core i5-750 has a list price of $200 and it mercilessly punts the Phenom II X4 965 BE up and down the field. Only in the mostly-single threaded Photoshop CS3 and POV Ray 3.7 did the Phenom’s 700MHz advantage put it over the top. Against the Hyper-Threaded Core i7’s though, the virtual cores vaulted the Nehalems over the Phenom II X4 965 everywhere. The good news for the Phenom II X4 965 is that it isn’t dead ass last. That falls to its old nemesis, the 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad Q9550. There, the Phenom II X4 965 BE serves space-cold revenge to the only chip here not to sport an on-die memory controller. Yeah, so you Intel fan boys say so what? Core 2 is an end of life CPU big whoop, but you gotta take your victories as you can get them.

The real bad news for AMD is that it’s not expected to get its next-generation Bulldozer core out now until 2011 so it can build it on a 32nm process. With Core i5 pushing the $200 range and Core i3 around the corner and expected to push into the ultra-budget range, there’s going to be very little maneuvering room for AMD’s rather dated design.

Still, there is place for the Phenom II X4 965 BE: existing upgrades. The processor will drop into a large assortment of existing AM2+ boards (you should check your mobo maker’s web site first for support) and even though it’s slower than a Core i5/i7, it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and easier to remove your current Athlon 64 X2 part and drop in the Phenom II X4 965 BE. Once you do that, you can thumb your nose at the Intel boys who have to replace their LGA775 boards and likely do an OS reinstall to upgrade to Core i5 and Core i7. Heck, there’s even rumors of a six-core AM3 part which would likely drop into modern AM2+ board so there’s some solace for AMD fans even if the performance isn’t there.

Intel 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad Q9550

We’ve said for months that Core 2 was a lame duck and it gets even lamer with the introduction of the LGA1156 parts. The Core 2 can’t compete with its Nehalem brethren on any front. Even the lowly – and cheaper Core i5-750 – gives the Core 2 Quad Q9550 such a bad beat down, that AMD would likely feel bad for it. And as we said, even the Phenom II X4 965 BE mostly smokes the Core 2 Quad. Sure, the Core 2 Quad surprisingly outperforms the Phenom II X4 965 BE in a couple of places, but it’s still the loser. We could have reached for the highest bin Core 2 Quad, the 3GHz Q9650, but at $319 on the street and list, it makes no sense.

Hell, even at the street price of $220, it’s hard to justify the Core 2 Quad Q9550 over a new Core i5 rig. Even AMD’s Phenom II has a better roadmap as the company will support it through at least through 2010 with newer, faster CPUs. The same can’t be said of Intel which is unlikely to introduce faster Core 2 parts. There is still a place for Core 2 though: If your box is rolling a dual-core and the LGA775 board supports 45nm quads, it would be dumb not to get one more upgrade out of it. Outside of that, it’s clear Core 2’s glory days are long, long gone.

Intel 2.66GHz Core i5-750

Of the troika of new chips, Intel’s Core i5-750 is likely to be the big hit. With wholesale prices of $200, the average joe or jane can now build a Nehalem-based system for almost as much as a Core 2 or Phenom II box. The key price differentiator is the motherboards. Board’s we’ve seen will likely top out about $225 but many will dip into the $150 range. That makes it significantly different from when Intel’s Core i7-920 launched. Sure it was only $280 (and still a year later) but the boards for the processor all pushed the $300 mark. Even today, it’s hard to get an LGA1366 board for $250.

In performance, the lower clocked Core i5 schools Core 2 Quad Q9550 as well as the Phenom II X4 BE. The Phenom II X4’s massive clock difference actually gets close to the Core i5 in a few benchmarks and surpasses it in two but the cheap Lynnfield is clearly the winner. Against the Core i7, as expected, the Core i5 loses but for many, giving up 10 percent to 25 percent in performance is worth it to save, oh, $300 over the price of the top-end Core i7-870. The performance delta between the i5 and i7 is the greatest in multi-threaded apps. In gaming and apps not optimized for quad cores, they’re a lot closer.

In the final analysis, the Core i5 falls right where Intel’s bewildering branding scheme puts it: faster than Core 2 and Phenom II but slower than i7 and really damned cheap to boot too. Buy this chip is the vast majority of your applications are not optimized for quad-core or more. If, however, your work counts on an increased amount of cores, go the extra mileage for a Core i7 with Hyper-Threading.

Intel 2.8GHz Core i7-860

If you use the Goldilocks formula, this new quad-core, Hyper-Threaded CPU is “just right.” It’s just the right blend of performance to price. At $266 for a 2.83GHz, its most natural enemy is the Core i7-920 in LGA1366. The 920’s primary advantage is increased bandwidth thanks to its tri-channel DDR3 support. But since the vast majority of apps really don’t need that much bandwidth, the 860 is generally faster by five percent thanks to its 5 percent clock advantage. That’s pretty much what we saw in our tests too – about five percent difference in the vast majority of the tests in favor of the 2.8GHz 860. And of course, the 860 also gets a boost from its increased Turbo Boost clocks. A stock 920 will only Turbo as high as 2.93GHz under some loads. The 860 will max out at 3.46GHz under some loads. Why is the Turbo higher on the 860? The 920 was a first generation Nehalem processor and Intel played it very conservatively with the Turbo. With the 860, the company feels more comfortable pushing it higher.

So what should you buy? Both procs are priced the same at $266, but each has its strengths. The 920 has true dual x16 PCI-E 2.0 support thanks to the X58 chipset and discrete PCI-E as well as tri-channel DDR3. Frankly, we think both of those features are pretty minor reasons to choose 920. The main reason to pick a 920 is the upgrade path. In a few months, Intel will introduce a 32nm-based six-coire processor codenamed Gulftown. With Hyper-Threading, you get 12 threads as well as any goodness Intel can squeeze out of the new 32nm process (both the 860 and 920 are 45nm parts). A rig built on 860 will also not see Gulftown and probably will not see a six-core part for quite some time if ever. Again, Intel intends for LGA1156 to be for the mainstream and the 99 percent of mainstream users don’t need 12-threads for their apps nor will they pay out $1,000 for a Gulftown CPU.

That takes us back to the Core i7-860 part. If you save possibly $150 to $200 by building an 860 rig, that can be put toward a faster GPU, a bigger hard driver or a larger monitor. In this economic climate, that’s pretty appealing and really the pick of the litter if you ask us.

Intel 2.93GHz Core i7-870

In this comparison of five CPUs, the 870 was head and shoulders the fastest CPU. Generally, we saw a 5 percent advantage in the 870 – just what you would expect from a 5 percent clock advantage. We did see some interesting results though. The multi-threaded Cinebench 10 actually saw the 870 with a 13 percent higher score. World in Conflict also saw the 870 run away with a 24 percent higher frame rate than the 860. So here’s the real question: Would you pay nearly 100 percent more for that? For most folks, probably not. At $555 for the Core i7-870 and $266 for the Core i7-860, it just makes a hell of a lot sense to give up some of that performance to put towards something else in your machine. And if you really are into being on the ragged edge of performance, it makes a lot more sense to jump in with both feet for an LGA1366 platform and the promise of a six-core upgrade in a few month. So we’re a little ambivalent about the Core i7-870. But make no bones about it, the Core i7-870 is the king of the CPUs that battled today, it’s just not really a “budget” CPU is it?

Intel 2.66GHz Core i7-920

If you haven’t figured it out by now, Intel’s 920 is the chip all three LGA1156 Lynnfield’s were gunning for. A huge hit among the performance budget shoppers, it overclocked well and got you into the Core i7 club without paying through the nose.

With its three new siblings here, the 920 is mostly pushed to the back in performance and pricing competitiveness. The other chips run at higher clocks, automatically Turbo Boost to higher levels and can save you from $150 to $200 in associated building costs. So why bother with the 920? There is still some magic to this old favorite. In this roundup, the 920 was generally in third or second place in the vast majority of the tests. And in some benches, the 920 interestingly bubbled up to the top. Even though its superior tri-channel doesn’t always pay off, it apparently does in Photoshop CS3 where the 920 took top honors and we suspect its superior bandwidth helps keep it in hunt elsewhere too. We had heard early rumors that Intel would axe the 920 once the LGA1156 procs were out but the company has since told us it had no plans to discontinue 920 right now. That’s a good decision too. While LGA1136 is definitely an exclusive club, there’s no reason for Intel to make it even harder to get in. If your only choice to getting an LGA1366 platform was to shell out $500 for a Core i7-950 or $1,000 for a Core i7-975 Extreme Edition, very few people would choose that route.

Of course, the biggest reason to buy 920 is for the path to the Core i9 “Gulftown” CPU that Intel will introduce in a few months. Ideally, you could build a 920 box and use it for a year or so until the Gulftown derivatives drop down enough to become “budget” chips themselves.

The Benchmarks

To run our test, we tried to balance each particular CPU’s platform as closely as possible but given the differences in each chip’s requirements that’s almost impossible. We used the same make and model Western Digital Raptor 150GB drive for all four builds, the same 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 build, the same make/model/clocked EVGA GeForce GTX280 and the same drivers. Windows 7 was available at the time of our reviews but we felt it would be best to use Vista as drivers were readily available for it.

The only real differences, of course, were the motherboards and RAM configurations. Although the Core i7-920 does unofficially support higher clocked RAM, we stuck with the official DDR3/1066, but 6GB of it. For the dual-channel Phenom II X4 and Core i5/i7, we used 4GB of DDR3/1333. For the dual-channel Core 2 Quad, we used the far more common DDR2/1066 as the vast majority of Core 2 Quad folks are running DDR2. For motherboards, we used three Gigabyte boards: the new GA-P55-UD6 for the LGA1156 procs, a GA-EX58-UDR3 for the LGA1136, and a GA-MA790GPT-UD3H for the Phenom II. For the Core 2, we relied on an Asus Maximus II Formula.

Benchmark Test Setup

CPU	Core i7-920	Core i7-870	Core i7-860	Core i5-750	Core 2 Quad Q9550/Q9550s	Phenom II X4 965 BE
RAM Mode	Triple	Dual	Dual	Dual	Dual	Dual Unganged
RAM Size	6GB	4GB	4GB	4GB	4GB	4GB
RAM Speed	DDR3/1066	DDR3/1333	DDR3/1333	DDR3/1333	DDR2/1066	DDR3/1333
RAM Latency	7-7-7-20-1T	9-9-9-24-1T	9-9-9-24-1T	9-9-9-24-1T	5-5-5-18-2T	9-9-9-25-1T
Hard Drive	WD 150 Raptor	WD 150 Raptor	WD 150 Raptor	WD 150 Raptor	WD 150 Raptor	WD 150 Raptor
OS	Vista HP 64-bit SP2	Vista HP 64-bit SP2	Vista HP 64-bit SP2	Vista HP 64-bit SP2	Vista HP 64-bit SP2	Vista HP 64-bit SP2
GPU	Geforce GTX 295	Geforce GTX 295	Geforce GTX 295	Geforce GTX 295	Geforce GTX 295	Geforce GTX 295
GPU Clocks 3D	670/1458 /1215	670/1458 /1215	670/1458 /1215	670/1458 /1215	670/1458 /1215	670/1458 /1215
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-MA790 FXT-UD5P	Gigabyte GA-P55 -UD3	Gigabyte GA-P55 -UD3	Gigabyte GA-P55 -UD3	Asus Maximum II Formula	Gigabyte GA-EX58 -UD3R

BENCHMARKS

CPU	Core i7-920	Core i7-870	Core i7-860	Core i5-750	Core 2 Quad Q9550/Q9550s	Phenom II X4 965 BE
MainConcept Reference 1.0	1235	1115	1170	1337	1644	1388
MainConcept Refernece 1.0 Pro AVC	696	635	664	769	986	840
Premiere Pro CS3	671	610	630	620	741	733
Cinebench 10 64-bit	16140	18275	16085	14442	12280	14083
Handbrake iPod Classic	994	939	993	1198	1366	1220
PCMark Vantage 64-bit Overall	6929	7536	7299	7208	6241	6824
POV Ray 3.7	3470	3888	3702	2773	2669	3045
Photoshop CS3	116	119	126	128	132	123
ProShow Producer	636	640	617	700	862	911
Everest 5.0 RAM Read (MB/s)	14387	12997	13641	12867	7807	8154
Everest 5.0 RAM Write (MB/s)	11639	10811	10992	9881	7085	6794
Everest 5.0 RAM Copy (MB/s)	15790	15414	15393	14684	7455	10246
Everest 5.0 RAM Latency (ns)	61	53	52	31	64	54.3
Sandra RAM Bandwidth (GB/s)	22.4	16.7	17.2	16.8	7.2	12.7
Fritz Chess Benchmark	21.4	23.94	22.38	17.38	16.97	17.04
3DMark Vantage Overall	15008	15002	14985	14947	14681	14544
3DMark Vantage GPU	12306	12231	12247	12249	12013	11978
3DMark Vantage CPU	44002	46815	45525	44066	40644	40679
Valve Particle Test	143	159	151	124	99	95
Valve Map Compilation	146	128	133	121	129	125
Crysis	146	156	150	147	119	104
Resident Evil 5 Fixed DX9	114	115	118	109	85	89
Resident Evil 5 Fixed DX10	117.7	106.5	119.7	109.4	83.8	89.2
Resident Evil 5 Variable DX9	145.8	155.9	147.2	155.4	133.7	140.3
Resident Evil 5 Variable DX10	150.4	155	157.8	160	133.9	140.2
World in Conflict	221	282	227	266	159	160
WinRar 3.20	581	588	594	706	868	805

Best scores in bold.

Next, our detailed benchmark analysis.

Benchmark Analysis

Sisoft Sandra RAM

(higher is better)

Sisoftware’s Sandra RAM benchmark lets the Core i7-920 strut its tri-channel DDR3 stuff. Keep in mind, we tested the Core i7-920 at its officially rated speed of DDR3/1066 vs. DDR3/1333 for the five other parts here. That extra bandwidth of the 920, in fact, may help it keep pace with the newer processors despite a general clock deficit. Still, as we’ve said, the vast majority of folks just don’t need that bandwidth.

WinRar 3.20

(lower is better)

Now that we’ve said don’t pay attention to bandwidth, here’s a test that does actually show how much it can help. We used WinRar 3.20 to compress a folder of RAW files shot with a Canon EOS 5D. The files, pretty much, are near uncompressible so we thought it would be a good way to stretch the processors. The Core i7-920 just edges out the Core i7-870 despite a 266MHz gap between the two chips.

World in Conflict

(higher is better)

We ran World In Conflict at low resolutions to take the GPU out of the equation for performance. Some have questioned this but it tells you what you would get if you had the fastest GPU in ze vorld. The results were a bit odd but we saws the Core i7-870 up front and then the budget Core i5-750 next in line. Huh? Why would the results be so whacky? We have two theories: Turbo Boost can play havoc with unpredictability. Afterall, it automatically overclocks individual cores for a given thermal load and power consumption load so it’s possible the Turbo Boost for the 750 just kicked up into high gear in the most single-threaded game. Our other theory is that the oddly super low latency that the 750 exhibitied may have contributed to its scores. The other conclusion you can draw from this is that the Phenom II and Core 2 Quad should have just stayed off the field.

Crysis

(higher is better)

We used the same low quality and low resolution mode for our Crysis runs to show you just what kind of frame rates you’ll get in four years when the newest GPUs finally make Crysis its bitch. If you happened to still be running the same rig in 2013, here’s how your CPU would shape up. Unlike some of the multi-threaded benchmarks, we actually saw very predictable results with the most expensive 870 on top, the budget builder’s favorite, the 860, in second, and the 750 and 920 pretty even.

Valve Particle Test

(higher is better)

Valve’s Particle Test is a quad-core optimized test that measures CPU performance. Here, our results were predictable with the Lynnfields seemingly scaling with clock speeds. The surprise again is how well the 920 does which can only be attributed to its third-channel of DDR3.

Proshow Producer

(lower is better)

Our Proshow Producer benchmark hammers all cores available and again, there’s that pesky Turbo Boost messing with us. The Core i7-870 should have been the fastest, but the Core i7-860 just edges past all contenders. If you’ve wondered if Hyper-Threading pays off? Yes. Notice the roughly 10 percent gain the 2.66GHz 920 has against the 2.66GHz 750. That’s generally what we’ve seen from Hyper-Threading in other benchmarks. One other conclusion: Core 2 Quad and Phenom II X4, why are you here again?

Awesome PC Upgrades from Budget to Extreme

The Maximum PC Staff — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:30:00 -0600

Upgrading is an obligation of any self-respecting PC geek. It’s an affirmation of your thirst for power, a healthy rejection of the status quo. Upgrading is an acknowledgement of the fact that there’s always a way to improve your rig. You may have the funds for premium parts—lucky you. We’ll tell you exactly what those parts are. But even if your means are more modest, there are affordable parts in every major component category that can breathe new life into an aged PC.

Regardless of your financial situation, you must address some important questions before embarking on an upgrade. First, you need to honestly assess your rig’s merits. You shouldn’t waste money upgrading your PC if it still sports an AGP slot or a pre-AM2 Athlon 64 motherboard. The question you should ask yourself is whether it’s more cost effective to gut the machine and replace its primary components—motherboard, CPU, memory, and videocard—than it is to do a piecemeal retrofit. If you look at your rig and decide to build new, check out our full build-a-pc guide, but if you’re ready to proceed with an upgrade, click to find out how!

Intel CPUs

The hot new Core i7 offers something for everyone

Intel’s Core i7 is everything the company said it would be: fast, furious, and even inexpensive. Those with an eye toward extreme computing should settle for nothing less than Intel’s 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition (www.intel.com). It demolishes Intel’s Core 2 Extreme QX9770 and does one of those Jedi cut-you-in-half tricks to AMD’s best, the Phenom X4 9950 BE. With its integrated memory controller, tri-DDR3 support, Hyper-Threading, and Turbo mode, the chip is simply untouchable at encoding tasks, or anything else that will exploit the eight threads available to it.

But if a grand is a little too rich for your blood, take heart. Intel already has a pretty darn good budget chip based on the Core i7: the 2.66GHz Core i7-920. It outperforms the 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad Q9550—and costs less, too! One caveat for true budget hounds: The Core i7 requires an LGA1366 board, not to mention three sticks of DDR3 RAM for optimal performance, which significantly adds to the expenditure.

If you don’t want to go that far with your CPU upgrade, Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600 ($185) gets you quad-core performance that’s compatible with most modern Intel motherboards.

RAM

It pays to go name-brand

Quick, what’s the difference between name-brand RAM from respected manufacturers and the generic stuff you get after sorting by lowest price? Blue screens, my friends. While people tend to treat RAM like it’s all the same, it really isn’t. That’s why we’ve long recommended that when you buy RAM, you first consult your motherboard’s QVL (Qualified Vendor List) and then reach for name-brand sticks. Name brands are especially important if you intend to overclock the crap out of your memory. Many high-frequency modules require a ton of voltage, which tends to drastically shorten the life of the memory. Buying a name-brand product means good warranty support, which could come in handy.

How much RAM should you run today? For a 32-bit OS, 2GB is the minimum. For higher-end configs, consider 4GB on Phenom and Core 2 platforms and 6GB with your 64-bit Vista install on Core i7.

AMD CPUs

They’re all budget over here

We admit that it’s pretty difficult to recommend an extreme AMD chip when the company’s absolute top-end CPU sells for a measly $175 bucks. Hell, it costs less than Intel’s two-year-old bottom-end Core 2 Quad Q6600. Still, we understand that some folks are vehemently opposed to Intel CPUs purely on religious grounds. For you AMD diehards, we wholeheartedly recommend the 2.6GHz Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition (www.amd.com). Based on the tried-and-true AM2+ platform, the CPU uses DDR2 RAM, which is cheaper than air; plus, there’s a possibility that the new AM3/DDR3 CPUs will also work with the platform.

So what about the really hardcore budget shoppers? You know, like that friend of yours who, when you suggest splitting an order of fries, actually counts the fries out. Well, first we’d say, dude, just get the X4 9950 BE, you cheap bastard. But then again, he did actually tear the last fry in half, so he would be happy to step down to the 2.1GHz tri-core Phenom X3 8450 ($105) if it could save him a few bucks. Yeah, it’s likely a quad-core washout, but your friend doesn’t care. It’s like getting a scratched and dented fridge—it’s not pretty, but it still keeps the Diet Coke cold.

Optical Drives

Is now the time for Blu-ray?

There’s simply no excuse for making due with an old, outdated optical drive while you wait to see what happens on the Blu-ray front. With HD DVD out of the way, it’s time to accept Blu-ray for what it is. And if you like the idea of storing high-def video or large quantities of data on disc, our top pick is LG’s GBW-H20L (www.lge.com). With a 6x BD-R write rating, the drive fills a 25GB disc in approximately 20 minutes, even when using 2x media. DVD writes are also speedy at 16x.

If Blu-ray’s not your bag, step up to Samsung’s new SH-S223 DVD burner (www.samsung.com). The SATA drive breaks our Lab record by writing 4.38GB of data to a DVD+R disc in less than five minutes, thanks to its zippy 22x write speed.

Videocards

You deserve to play today’s games in all their glorious detail

There’s never been a better time to upgrade your videocard, whether you’ve got just a couple hundred bucks or a cool grand burning a hole in your pocket.

Splurgers on the prowl for a killer single card should check out any of the Radeon 4870 X2 boards. We particularly like Powercolor’s card (www.powercolor.com) but all of the X2 boards shipping today are essentially the same, with the same clock speeds, the same memory configuration, and the same 800 shader units on each GPU. The best thing about the X2? The board enables high-resolution gaming at 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 while taking up just a single slot—and without requiring a 1200W power supply.

So what about multicard configs? We always recommend upgrading to the fastest single card you can afford. The only time to buy two (or more) cards is if you’re buying the fastest cards available.

Budget buyers will get much satisfaction from Visiontek’s Radeon HD 4850 (www.visiontek.com), which pairs an 800-shader-unit GPU with 512MB of GDDR3 memory for killer performance at resolutions common to 22-inch panels. We were able to crank up detail in Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 while running our 4850 at 1680x1080. That’s pretty amazing for a card in this price range.

Monitors

An old favorite continues to earn our love

Gateway’s 30-inch XHD3000 monitor (www.gateway.com) won us over with its ability to play HDCP-encumbered content at its native resolution. But it’s color that counts, and the monitor’s deep black and clear, distinct grayscales sealed the deal for us; the panoply of inputs (single- and dual-link DVI, HDMI, Component, Composite, S-Video, VGA, six USB 2.0 ports, audio inputs for all video inputs) merely adds to our excitement. We originally reviewed this monitor more than a year ago, but when something continues to outperform the competition, we see no need to change for change’s sake.

At the budget end of the spectrum, Envision’s G2219w1 (www.envisiondisplay.com) provides exceptional image quality at a reasonable price.

Storage

Speed, size, or savings? You decide

Hard drives are getting bigger and cheaper all the time, which suits us just fine, as you can never, ever have too many—provided you have enough SATA connections, of course.

Users looking for the ultimate storage upgrade must choose between raw speed and enormous capacity. Intel’s 80GB X-25M solid-state drive (www.intel.com) produces, by far, the fastest single-drive read speeds we’ve ever seen, topping 200MB/s in sustained reads. And though its write speeds are nothing to write home about (which is typical of multilevel cell SSDs), they’re not terrible, either. And the added reliability of a solid-state drive (no moving parts, no noise, less heat generation) is a bonus, too.

If capacity is your priority, we have even better news. The 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 (www.seagate.com) smashes the terabyte barrier with panache—it’s nearly as fast as a terabyte drive but has half again the storage space, and it can be found for less than $200.

Shoot, if money is no object, why not get both? Load your OS and some apps onto the X-25M, and use the Seagate drive for storage and backup. Sure, it’ll set you back about $800 for the duo, but that’s what makes it an extreme option.

Budget-conscious users, fortunately, can still stay in the game. Seagate’s 500GB Barracuda 7200.11 (www.seagate.com) is fast and roomy. And half a terabyte for less than a C-note is nothing to sneeze at. It’s the drive of choice in all our budget-building guides.

CPU Coolers

Beat the heat with either water or air

If money’s no issue, CoolIT’s Peltier cooler, the Freezone Elite (www.coolitsystems.com), is the product to have. It chilled our test system twice as much as a standard stock cooler on both an idle and full-burn CPU, crushing the best air and water coolers we’ve tested. The Freezone Elite is expensive, but you will not find a chillier solution!

We’ve been big fans of Arctic Cooling’s Alpine 7 Pro (www.arctic-cooling.com) on the budget end, as it matches the performance of the best coolers we’ve tested when a CPU is running idle. It’s not quite as powerful on full-throttle CPUs, but it still outperforms a typical Intel air cooler by nearly 10 degrees—that’s quite an upgrade for the price.

Fantasy Island

There’s an upgrading tier that lies even beyond the extreme. Practicality plays no part in it, nor do matters of need. These upgrades are nothing short of awe inspiring

Six Drives. Two RAID Arrays. No Mercy

Our ultimate fantasy storage setup incorporates two RAID arrays with six drives total. Raw speed is the goal of the first array: a 160GB RAID 0 array using two 80GB Intel X-25M SSDs. We’ll run this one using the motherboard’s integrated RAID controller.

For the second array, we use an Adaptec 5405 RAID controller (www.adaptec.com) to create a RAID 1+0 array (also called RAID 10), which combines the speed of RAID 0 striping with the redundancy of RAID 1 mirroring. We’ll use a whopping four 1.5TB Seagate Barracudas to achieve 3TB of storage that can tolerate up to two disc failures before data is lost.

Triple Threat

Going over the top with videocards used to be easy, just buy the two fastest cards and drop them into one machine. Unfortunately, achieving ultimate performance is more complex these days—you have to choose between three GeForce GTX 280 cards in SLI or a pair of dual-GPU Radeon 4870 X2 boards in CrossFire.

We pitted three overclocked EVGA GeForce GTX 280s (the FTW edition) against a pair of stock-clocked 4870 X2 boards and the results were surprising. While the 4870 X2s won a few benchmarks, the clincher was Crysis. Because the game can take advantage of only three GPUs, the CrossFire setup’s fourth GPU lays fallow, giving the edge
to the trio of GTX 280s for uber-extreme gaming performance!

Bigger, Badder Broadband

The U.S. lags far behind most developed countries in Internet speeds and prices.

But if you’ve got the dough, and you’re fortunate enough to live in one of a few test markets in the nation, you might be able to get download speeds of up to 50Mbps.

If you live in New England or the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, you can get your hands on Comcast’s DOCSIS 3.0 “wideband,” which will get you up to 50Mbps down and 10Mbps up, for only $140 a month!

Verizon’s fiber-optic FIOS service offers similar service for similar pricing (albeit with 20Mbps uploads), but also lacks wide deployment.

Core i7 Pricing Leaks From Newegg

Justin Kerr — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:40:20 -0600

It may have been little more than a cruel mistake, but Newegg certainly got our hopes up by showing Core i7 CPU’s for sale a whole three days before the official launch. The offending links and advertisements were quickly pulled from the site and now, little more than a handful of screenshots exist as evidence.

Core i7 is currently slated for launch on November 17^thand it appears as though we’ll have to wait until then to place our orders. Normally, this incident wouldn’t classify as news, but the Newegg slip up does give us a pretty good idea of what the retail pricing will be on the three new SKU’s. The site was offering the 2.66GHz entry level part for $319.99, while the 2.93GHz and 3.2GHz models were priced at $599.99 and $1069.99 respectively. UK customers are seeing similar pricing and power users the world over are waiting with egger anticipation to embrace the new architecture. This isn’t surprising given that early benchmarks have the entry level Core i7’s mopping the floor with pricier, and higher clocked Core 2’s.

So are you going to buy a Core i7 on Monday?

(Image Credit Engadget)

Core i7 Dissected and Benchmarked! Does Intel’s Next-Generation Chip Live Up to the Hype? Hell Yeah!

Gordon Mah Ung — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:00:00 -0600

Core i7 Up Close

Tick tock? More like ding-dong, mutha—shut your mouth. What baby? We’re talkin’ about Core i7.

Our apologies to Isaac Hayes, but if he were alive, we’re almost certain he would have been tapped to hammer out a theme song for Intel’s most significant CPU launch in, well, ever.

Why is this CPU more significant than the 8088, Pentium, or Pentium M? As the second new chip produced after a series of embarrassing losses to archrival AMD, the Core i7 will answer for the world whether Intel is prepared to ride the momentum of its Core 2 launch with another winning chip or if it’s content to rest on its laurels, as it did with the Pentium 4.

Core i7 also represents a major new direction for Intel, which has stubbornly clung to the ancient front-side-bus architecture and discrete memory controller for years. Indeed, with its triple-channel integrated DDR3 memory controller and chip-to-chip interconnect, the block map of a Core i7 looks more like an Athlon 64 than a Core 2 chip.

Intel actually has three quad-core Core i7 CPUs ready: the top-end 3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme Edition, the performance-oriented 2.93GHz Core i7-940, and the midrange 2.66GHz Core i7-920. For the most part, all three are exactly the same except for clock speeds, multiplier locking (only the Extreme is unlocked), and QuickPath Interconnect speed. See the chart on page 42 for details.

The bigger issue is how Core i7 performs. To find out, we ran the Extreme 965 against AMD’s fastest proc as well as Intel’s previous top gun in a gauntlet of benchmarks. Read on for the results.

Intel takes a bold approach to processor architecture, multi-core computing

As a buttoned-down company, Intel rarely likes to make sweeping changes, but its upcoming Core i7 CPU is a major break from the past. Gone is the ancient front-side bus that connects all of the current-gen CPU cores. Instead, cores will communicate via a high-speed crossbar switch, and different CPUs will communicate via a high-speed interconnect.

Also on the outs is the need for an external memory controller. Intel, which has relied on gluing two dual-core chips together under the heat spreader to make its quad-core CPUs, is now placing all four cores on a single die.

Even overclocking, which was once verboten to even talk about within 10 miles of Intel’s HQ, is now automatically supported. Intrigued? You should be. Intel’s Core i7 is the most radical new design the company has taken in decades.

An Inside Job

One of Core i7’s most significant changes is the inclusion of an integrated memory controller. Instead of memory accesses going from the CPU across a relatively slow front-side bus to the motherboard chipset and finally to the RAM, an IMC will eliminate the need for a front-side bus and external memory controller. The result is dramatically lower latency than was found in the Core 2 and Pentium 4 CPUs.

Why can’t the memory controller on the motherboard simply be pushed to higher speeds to match an IMC? Remember, when you’re talking about a memory controller residing directly in the core, the signals have to travel mere millimeters across silicon that’s running at several gigahertz. With an external design, the signals have to travel out of the CPU to a memory controller in the chipset an inch or so away. It’s not just distance, either—the data is traveling across a PCB at far, far slower speeds than it would if it were within the CPU. In essence, it’s like having to go from an interstate to an unpaved, bumpy road.

Of course, if you’re an AMD loyalist, you’re probably bristling at the thought of Intel calling an IMC an innovation. After all, AMD did it first. So doesn’t that make AMD the pioneer? We asked Intel the same question. The company’s response: One: An IMC isn’t an AMD invention and, in fact, Intel had both an IMC and graphics core planned for its never-released Timna CPU years before the Athlon 64. Two: If AMD’s IMC design is so great, why does the Core 2 so thoroughly trash it with an external controller design? In short, Intel’s message to the AMD fanboys is nyah, nyah!

Naturally, you’re probably wondering why Intel thinks it needs an IMC now. Intel says the more efficient, faster execution engine of the Core i7 chip benefits from the internal controller more than previous designs. The new design demands boatloads of bandwidth and low latency to keep it from starving as it waits for data.

Memory a Trois

The Core i7 CPU is designed to be a very wide chip capable of executing instructions with far more parallelism than previous designs. But keeping the chip fed requires tons of bandwidth. To achieve that goal, the top-end Core i7 CPUs will feature an integrated tri-channel DDR3 controller. Just as you had to populate both independent channels in a dual-channel motherboard, you’ll have to run three sticks of memory to give the chip the most bandwidth possible. This does present some problems for board vendors though, as standard consumer mobos have limited real estate.

Most performance boards will feature six memory slots jammed onto the PCB, but some will feature only four. On these four-slot boards, you’ll plug in three sticks of RAM and use the fourth only if you absolutely have to, as populating the last slot will actually reduce the bandwidth of the system. Intel, in fact, recommends the fourth slot only for people who need more RAM than bandwidth. With three 2GB DIMMs, though, most enthusiast systems will feature 6GB of RAM as standard.

Although it may change, Core i7 will support DDR3/1066, with higher unofficial speeds supported through overclocking. Folks hoping to reuse DDR2 RAM with Intel’s budget chips next year can forget about it. Intel has no plans to support DDR2 with a Core i7 chip at this point, and with DDR3 prices getting far friendlier to the wallet, we don’t expect the company to change its mind.

Hyper-Threading Revisited

A CPU core can execute only one instruction thread at a time. Since that thread will touch on only some portions of the CPU, resources that are not used sit idle. To address that, Intel introduced consumers to Hyper-Threading with its 3.06GHz Pentium 4 chip. Hyper-Threading, more commonly called simultaneous multi-threading, partitioned the CPU’s resources so that multiple threads could be executed simultaneously. In essence, a single-core Pentium 4 appeared as two CPUs to the OS. Because it was actually just one core dividing its resources, you didn’t get the same performance boost you would receive from adding a second core, but Hyper-Threading did generally smooth out multitasking, and in applications that were optimized for multi-threading, you would see a modest performance advantage.

The 45nm-based Core i7 will pack all four cores on a single die. The cores will communicate via a high-speed crossbar switch. An integrated memory controller and Quick Path Interconnect links to other CPUs also make the Core i7 very AMD-like.

The problem was that very few applications were coded for Hyper-Threading when it was released and performance could actually be hindered. Hyper-Threading went away with the Core 2 series of CPUs, but Intel has dusted off the concept for the new Core i7 series because the transistor cost is minimal and the performance benefits stand to be far better than what the Pentium 4 could ever achieve.

Intel toyed with the idea of redubbing the feature Hyper-Threading 2 but decided against it, as the essential technology is unchanged. So why should we expect Hyper-Threading to be more successful this go around? Intel says it’s due to Core i7’s huge advantage over the Pentium 4 in bandwidth, parallelism, cache sizes, and performance. Depending on the application, the company says you can expect from 10 to 30 percent more performance with Hyper-Threading enabled. Still, Intel doesn’t force it down your throat because it knows many people still have mixed feelings about the feature. The company recommends that you give it a spin with your apps. If you don’t like it, you can just switch it off in the BIOS. Intel’s pretty confident, however, that you’ll leave it on.

Tomorrow’s Performance Today

You can’t recompile the world. That’s the lesson Intel learned with the Pentium 4, which kicked ass with optimized code but ran like a Yugo with legacy apps. And even with Intel’s nearly limitless resources, it couldn’t get every developer to update software for the P4.

Intel took those lessons to heart with the stellar Core 2 and continues in that vein with Core i7, which is designed to run even existing code faster. That’s largely due to the Hyper-Threading, massive bandwidth, and low latency in the new chip, but other touches also help.

Loop conditions are common programming techniques that repeat the same task in a CPU. With Core i7, an improved loop detector routine will save power and boost performance by detecting larger loops and caching what the program asks for. Intel also polished its branch prediction algorithms. Branch predictions are those yes/no questions a CPU faces. If the CPU guesses wrong on what the program wants, the assembly-line-like pipeline inside the CPU must be cleared and the process started anew. New SSE4.2 instructions also make their way into Core i7, but they will be of little benefit to desktop users. Since Intel is designing the chip for server use as well, the new instructions are mainly to help speed up supercomputing and server-oriented workloads.

The main takeaway is that while some of the changes are radical, Intel is being pragmatic with its chip design—you won’t have to go out and buy new software to experience the CPU’s performance potential.

Making Better Connections

With a Hyper-Threaded quad core, even enthusiasts are unlikely to see the need for a multi-processor machine; nevertheless, one of the new features in Core i7 directly addresses a weakness in Intel’s current lineup when it comes to multi-CPU machines. As you know, Intel currently uses a front-side-bus technology to tie its multiprocessor machines together. As you might imagine, problems arise when a single front-side bus is sharing two quad-core CPUs.

With so many cores churning so much data, the front-side bus can become gridlocked. Intel “fixed” this issue by building chipsets with two front-side buses. But what happens when you have a machine with four or eight CPUs? Since Intel couldn’t keep adding front-side buses, it took another page from AMD’s playbook by building in direct point-to-point connections over what it calls a Quick Path Interconnect. Server versions of Core i7 feature two QPI connections (desktop versions get just one), which can each talk at about 25GB/s, or double what a 1,600MHz front-side bus can achieve. AMD fans, of course, will point out that the fastest iteration of AMD’s chip-to-chip conduit, dubbed HyperTransport 3.1, is twice as fast as the current QPI.

QPI combined with the on-die memory controller will also make an Intel server or workstation a NUMA, or non-uniform memory access, design. Since each CPU has a direct link to its own individual memory DIMM, what happens if CPU 1 needs to access something that’s stored in the RAM being controlled by CPU 2? In this case, it must use the QPI link to access the second CPU’s memory controller to the RAM to get the data. This will slow things down a bit, but Intel says its tests indicate that even given this scenario, the memory access is still faster than what is possible with the current front-side-bus multiprocessor design.

The Power Within

It’s a known fact that overclocking can decrease the life of your CPU; thus, Intel has always discouraged end-users from overclocking its CPUs. With Core i7, Intel reverses its stance and actually overclocks the CPU for you! Of course, Intel would not describe its Turbo mode as overclocking, and, technically, it isn’t. While pushing your 2.66GHz Core 2 Quad to 3.2GHz would likely strain its thermal and voltage specs, the new Core i7 CPUs feature an internal power control unit that closely monitors the power and thermals of the individual cores.

This wouldn’t help by itself, though. Intel designed the Core i7 to be very aggressive in power management. With the previous Core 2, power to the CPU could be lowered only so far before the chip would crash. That’s because while you can cut power to large sections of the execution core, the cache can tolerate only so much decrease in power before blowing up. With Core i7, Intel separates the power circuit, so the cache can be run independently. This lets Intel cut power consumption and thermal output even further than before. Furthermore, while the Core 2 CPUs required that all the cores were idle to reduce voltage, with Core i7, individual cores can be turned off if they’re not in use.

Turbo mode exploits the power savings by letting an individual core run at increased frequencies if needed. This again follows Intel’s mantra of improving performance on today’s applications. Since a majority of today’s applications are not threaded to take full advantage of a quad core with Hyper-Threading, Turbo mode’s “overclocking” will make these applications run faster. For more information on how you’ll set up Turbo mode, read our sidebar below.

Intel’s Turbo Mode Technology

Turbo mode might sound like a feature left over from the TV series Knight Rider, but it’s more neat than cheesy. You already know that Core i7 CPUs closely monitor the power and thermals of the chip and use any leftover headroom to overclock the individual cores as needed. But just how does it work?

From what we’ve surmised by examining an early BIOS, you will be able to set each type of core scenario based on how far you want to overclock, given the load. For example, with applications that push one thread, you could set the BIOS to overclock, or rather, turbo that single core by perhaps three multipliers over stock. You would do the same for two-, three-, and four-core scenarios.

The good news is that you’ll get fine-grain control over the Turbo mode in the upcoming Core i7 CPUs.

The BIOS will also take into account the thermal rating, or TDP, of the cooling system you’re using. If you’re using, say, a heatsink rated for 150 TDP, the BIOS will overclock to higher levels than it would with a 130 TDP unit. You would manually set the heatsink’s rating in the BIOS, as there’s no way for the heatsink to communicate with the motherboard directly.

New Socket on the Block

So all this CPU goodness and performance will drop right into that $450 LGA775 board you just bought, right? Of course not. Ung’s Law dictates that the minute you buy expensive hardware, something better will arrive that makes what you just bought obsolete.

Intel isn’t doing this just to piss people off (although a history of such behavior has had that result). Since Core i7 moves the memory controller directly into the CPU, Intel added a load of pins that go directly to the memory modules. The new standard bearer for performance boxes is the LGA1366 socket. It looks functionally similar to the LGA775, with the obvious addition of more pins. More pins also means a bigger socket, which means your fancy heatsink is also likely headed to the recycle bin. LGA1366 boards space the heatsink mounts just a tad bit wider, just enough to make your current heatsink incompatible. There’s a chance that some third-party heatsink makers will offer updated mounts to make your current heatsink work, but that’s not known yet.

What will be interesting to heatsink aficionados is Intel’s encouragement that vendors rate the heatsinks using a unified thermal rating that will be tied to the Turbo mode settings. For more information, see the Turbo mode sidebar below.

The Second Coming

Intel is adopting more than just AMD’s integrated memory controller with its new Core i7 chips; it’s also adopting AMD’s abandoned Socket 940/754 two-socket philosophy. For the high end, the LGA1366 socket will offer tri-channel RAM and a high-performance QPI interface. For mainstream users, Intel will offer a dual-channel DDR3 design built around a new LGA1066 socket late next year. LGA1066 isn’t just about shedding one channel of DDR3 though; LGA1066-based CPUs will also bring direct-attach PCI Express to the table.

Instead of PCI Express running through the chipset, as it does with existing Core 2 and the new performance Core i7, PCI-E will reside on the die of LGA1066 CPUs. With the PCI-E in the CPU itself, Intel will reuse its fairly slow DMI interface to connect the CPU to a single-chip south bridge. The two chips Intel will introduce are the quad-core Lynnfield and the dual-core Havendale. Havendale CPUs will actually feature a newly designed graphics core inside the heat spreader that will talk to the CPU core via a high-speed QPI interface. Both chips will feature Hyper-Threading on all cores.

Many AMD users got a royal screwing when the company abandoned both Socket 940 and Socket 754 for a unified Socket 939; could Intel do something similar? We asked Intel point blank whether LGA1366 would eventually be abandoned for LGA1066; the company told us it fully intends to support both platforms.

The Core i7 Family

	Core i7-965 Extreme Edition	Core i7-940	Core i7-920
Clock Speed	3.2GHz	2.93GHz	2.66GHz
L2 Cache	1MB	1MB	1MB
L3 Cache	8MB	8MB	8MB
Process	45nm	45nm	45nm
Transistors	731 million	731 million	731 million
QPI Speed	6.4GT/s	4.8GT/s	4.8GT/s
Multiplier Lock	No	Yes	Yes
Default Multiplier	24	22	20
Volume Pricing	$999	$562	$284

Core i7 Versus the World

To test the Core i7’s mettle, we threw it in the ring with the two quad-core class leaders available today: AMD’s 2.6GHz Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition and Intel’s 3.2GHz Core 2 Extreme QX9770. We paired each with its respective top-end chipset: a 790FX board for the Phenom X4 and an X48 for the Core 2, while the Core i7 partnered with an Intel DX58SO board using the new X58 chipset. All three systems were outfitted with an Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX card, the same graphics driver, a Western Digital 150GB Raptor 10K hard drive, and the 64-bit edition of Windows Vista Home Premium.

For RAM, we couldn’t use the same components in all three systems; the Phenom uses DDR2 while both Intel CPUs use DDR3; the Core i7’s triple-channel DDR3 requires three DIMMs for maximum bandwidth while the Core 2 needs just two. Our solution favored the Phenom and Core 2: We populated the Phenom X4 with 4GB of Patriot DDR2/800 and the Core 2 with 4GB of Corsair DDR3/1333, each receiving a pair of 2GB modules. The Core i7 made do with three 1GB DDR3/1066 DIMMs from Qimonda. The Core i7 officially supports DDR3 at 1066 at this point, so we stuck with stock speeds, although motherboard vendors tell us they’re able to hit far higher DDR3 speeds.

We selected a combination of tests that stress memory performance, computational abilities, and real-world performance. The vast majority of the application tests are multithreaded. The gaming tests, beyond 3DMark Vantage, reflect performance optimized for dual-core CPUs, at best. For our real-world gaming tests, we turned down graphics and resolutions to the minimum to remove the GPU as a bottleneck.

The Upshot

If we had to describe the Core i7 in one word, it would be monster. The CPU is to benchmarks as Godzilla is to downtown Tokyo.

Take, for example, the Core i7 Extreme 965 versus the Phenom X4 9950 Black Edition. It’s no surprise that the Core i7 throws the Phenom X4 through a couple of concrete walls and right into a telephone pole. We witnessed performance differences of 87 percent, 95 percent, and even 133 percent over the fastest Phenom X4 part. AMD’s best and brightest part was utterly crushed by Intel’s new baby. Naturally, some folks will argue that it’s unfair to put a $1,000 chip against one that sells for $174, but we don’t feel that way. The Phenom X4 9950BE is AMD’s fastest CPU. If AMD doesn’t feel comfortable selling it at higher clocks, that’s AMD’s problem. Sure, we could overclock the Phenom part to 3GHz, but we could also overclock the Core i7. In the interest of a more competitive landscape, let’s just hope AMD’s 45nm CPU—due out soon—puts some pep back in the company’s step because the situation is getting beyond ugly.

A more closely matched fight was expected between the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition and Intel’s own Core 2 Extreme QX9770, both of which churn along at 3.2GHz. Nevertheless, the Core i7 managed to maul its sibling in several benchmarks. In our MainConcept H.264 encoding test, the Core i7 was 55 percent faster. In ProShow Producer, the Core i7 completed its runs about 25 percent faster. Using WinRAR to compress a folder of digital RAW files, the Core i7 was 43 percent faster. In other tests, especially gaming, the QX9770 closed the spread down to single digits, but for the most part, the Core i7 was from 14 to 20 percent faster than its Penryn counterpart.

Not everything came up roses for the Core i7, however. We saw the Core i7 cough up a hair ball in FEAR with an odd 51fps compared with the QX9770’s 122fps and a shocking 239fps from the Phenom. Intel says this is the result of a USB bug, as a duplicate system in its lab performed as expected. A more believable result was in World in Conflict: The Core i7 reached 250fps versus the QX9770’s 220 and the Phenom’s 136.

Even an Arthur Andersen accountant would have to declare the Core i7 the new champion after peeping our benchmark table. From encoding performance to 3D rendering to gaming, the Core i7’s more efficient core, boatloads of memory bandwidth, and low RAM latency make it a shockingly fast CPU.

Benchmarks

	Core i7-965 Extreme	Phenom X4 9950 BE	Core 2 Extreme QX9770
MainConcept (min:sec) 3	15:58	31.37	24.49
MainConcept Pro (min:sec)	10:08	18:44	14:49
ProShow Producer 3.1 (min:sec)	10:19	20:10	12:52
Premiere Pro CS3 (min:sec)	10:17	16:27	11:26
Photoshop CS3 (min:sec)	1:50	2:48	1:55
Cinebench 10 32-bit	15,398	8,179	12,175
Cinebench 10 64-bit	18,963	10,431	13,849
Valve Map Compilation (min:sec)	2:05	2:47	1:56
ScienceMark Overall	2,091.22	1,608.74	1,920.2
ScienceMark Membench (MB/s)	13,312	7,279	8,559.5
PCMark Vantage x64 Overall	7,510	5,724	6,423
PCMark Vantage Overall	6,705	5,299	5,961
Sisoft Sandra RAM Bandwidth (GB/s)	18.15GB/s	9.73GB/s	7.4GB/s
Sisoft Sandra RAM Latency (ns)	77	95	79
Everest Ultimate MEM Read (MB/s)	15,167	6,701	8,252
Everest Ultimate MEM Write (MB/s)	12,041	4,856	8,490
Everest Ultimate MEM Copy (MB/s)	15,583	7,760	8,426
Everest Ultimate MEM Latency (ns)	39.2	64.7	66.7
WinRAR 3.80 (min:sec)	9:44	18:11	13:57
POV-Ray 3.7 (min:sec)	6:48	11:52	8:08
3DMark06 overall	12,859	11,639	12,906
3DMark06 CPU	5,638	3,532	4,717
3DMark Vantage	7,516	7,301	7,588
3DMark Vantage CPU	39,725	26,709	32,446
3DMark Vantage GPU	5,917	5877	6,044
FEAR (FPS)	51	239	122
Quake 4 (FPS)	228.0	152.3	206.6
Valve Particle Test (FPS)	161	69	111
Crysis 1.2 10x7 very low CPU1(FPS)	164	112	153
World In Conflict (FPS)	250	136	220

NOTES: How we tested. We used matched GeForce 8800GTX cards for all three platforms, matched Western Digital 150GB Raptors, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit and the same graphics drivers. The Core 2 Quad had 4GB of DDR3/1333, the Phenom X4 BE 9950 had 4GB of DDR2/800 and the Core i7 had 3GB of DDR3/1066.

Top End Showdown

As you know, all Core i7 are pretty much the same chip. There’s no cache size difference, no disabled Hyper-Threading. The only differences between the chips are clock speeds and the QPI interface speed and the “Overspeed protection.” Overspeed protection is simply the multiplier lock. Non extreme Core i7’s will not let you change your multiplier ratio wily nily that the Extreme will. The second is the QPI speed. The 965 Extreme runs at a 6.4GT/s while the 920 and 940 communicate with the chipset at 4.8GT/s.

The performance upshot is that the Extreme is the fastest. No surprise there Sherlock. What does surprise us though is the difference in speed in some benchmarks. In our Main Concept test, for example, we saw the 965 encode our high def video about 24 percent faster than the 940. What’s odd is that the 965 offers just 9 percent more clocks than the 940. We saw a similar results in the Cinebench 10 test where the 965 was about 14 percent faster than the 940.

In other tests we saw standard clock speed splits. In PC Mark Vantage, for example, the 965’s 9 percent clock spread gave it about an 11 performance spread. POV-Ray saw the 965 with its 20 percent clock advantage over the 920 turn a score about 22 percent faster. Other tests saw fairly minimal advances for the 965. For example, our ProShow Producer was virtually a tie between the 2.93GHz part and the 3.2GHz chip which leads us to believe we have a bottleneck in our configuration or coding issues going on.

Benchmarks

	2.66GHz Core i7-920 $284	2.93GHz Core i7-940 $562	3.2GHz Core i7-965 Extreme $999
MainConcept (min:sec) 3	21.40	19:50	15:58
MainConcept Pro (min:sec)	12:21	11:19	10:08
ProShow Producer 3.1 (min:sec)	11:10	10:16	10:19
Premiere Pro CS3 (min:sec)	12:39	11:41	10:17
Photoshop CS3 (min:sec)	2:05	2:03	1:50
Cinebench 10 32-bit	12,632	13,793	15,398
Cinebench 10 64-bit	15,217	16,651	18,963
Valve Map Compilation (min:sec)	2:32	2:21	1:50
ScienceMark Overall	1,710.1	1884.69	2,091.22
ScienceMark Membench (MB/s)	12,737	13,028	13,312
PCMark Vantage x64 Overall	6,616	6,767	7,510
PCMark Vantage Overall	5,347	6,043	6705
Sisoft Sandra RAM Bandwidth (GB/s)	18.07GB/s	18.09GB/s	18.15GB/s
Sisoft Sandra RAM Latency (ns)	79ns	78ns	77ns
Everest Ultimate MEM Read (MB/s)	14,449	14,841	15,167
Everest Ultimate MEM Write (MB/s)	11,627	14,788	12,041
Everest Ultimate MEM Copy (MB/s)	15,039	15,011	15,583
Everest Ultimate MEM Latency (ns)	38.7	37.0	39.2
WinRAR 3.80 (min:sec)	10:52	10:45	9:44
POV-Ray 3.7 (min:sec)	8:18	7:42	6:48
3DMark06 overall	12,407	12,559	12,859
3DMark06 CPU	4,620	5,035	5,638
3DMark Vantage	7,450	7,453	7,516
3DMark Vantage CPU	34,909	35,548	39,725
3DMark Vantage GPU	5,902	5868	5,917
FEAR (FPS)	132	235	51*
Quake 4 (FPS)	144.6	156.2	228.0
Valve Particle Test (FPS)	131	143	161
World In Conflict (FPS)	223	232	250
QPI	4.8 GT/s	4.8GT/s	6.4GT/s

NOTES: How we tested. We used a single GeForce 8800GTX, a 150GB Western Digital Raptor, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition and 3GB of DDR3/1066 for all of our tests. *We had issues running FEAR on the Core i7 Extreme part.

Budget Processor Showdown: Core 2 Quad vs. Core i7

It is no longer politically correct to call your thrift-minded friends by any of the many offensive low-cost names people have used over the years, but you can forward your cheap-skate geek friends this link and tell them that even they can participate in the latest technology trends without feeling like they’re getting a great deal. That’s because Intel’s new 2.66GHz Core i7-920 is a great deal.

To find out how well the 920 would do, we put the $284 chip against the $316 2.83GHz Core 2 Quad Q9550. The upshot is in almost every benchmark, the 920 was faster. In some tests, the slightly clock speed advantage of the Q9550 put it ahead, but not by much. Oddly, we did see the 920 lose in Quake 4. Quake 4 is only optimized for quad core but we didn’t expect to win here. Clearly there’s something going on the gaming side that we’ll have to continue to investigate. We must also point out that our decision to limit the Core i7 to its stock DDR3/1066 speeds may also be hobbling the chip.

Our recommendation is that you go with the path of the Core i7 chip if you’re concerned about future upgrades. With Core i7 here, Intel is likely to rapidly push the Core 2 platform aside so you’ll never see a CPU faster than the 3.2GHz Core 2 Extreme QX9770. The Core i7,l however, will continue to climb in clock speeds for the next few years. Where the Core 2 platform plays better is in the ultra budget shoppers. With Core 2 boards priced from $50 on up and CPUs in the sub $100 arena, you can actually start at far lower prices than Core i7. But if you are concerned about upgrades, the Core i7 is the way to go.

Benchmarks

	2.8GHz Core 2 Quad Q9550 ($316)	2.66GHz Core i7-920 ($284)
MainConcept (min:sec) 3	27:40	21:40
MainConcept Pro (min:sec)	16.28	12.21
ProShow Producer 3.1 (min:sec)	15:18	11:10
Premiere Pro CS3 (min:sec)	12:51	12:39
Photoshop CS3 (min:sec)	2:04	2:05
Cinebench 10 32-bit	10,837	12,632
Cinebench 10 64-bit	12,288	15,217
Valve Map Compilation (min:sec)	2:10	2:32
ScienceMark Overall	1,715.67	1,710.1
ScienceMark Membench (MB/s)	7,105	12,737
PCMark Vantage x64 Overall	5:945	6,616
PCMark Vantage Overall	5,460	5,347
Sisoft Sandra RAM Bandwidth (GB/s)	6.9GB/s	18.07GB/s
Sisoft Sandra RAM Latency (ns)	81ns	79ns
Everest Ultimate MEM Read (MB/s)	8,006	14,449
Everest Ultimate MEM Write (MB/s)	7,075	11,627
Everest Ultimate MEM Copy (MB/s)	7,334	15,039
Everest Ultimate MEM Latency (ns)	66.4	38.7
WinRAR 3.80 (min:sec)	14:48	10:52
POV-Ray 3.7 (min:sec)	9:08	8:18
3DMark06 overall	12,583	12,407
3DMark06 CPU	4,276	4,620
3DMark Vantage	7,459	7,450
3DMark Vantage CPU	30,615	34,909
3DMark Vantage GPU	6,034	5,902
FEAR (FPS)	114	132
Quake 4 (FPS)	180.3	144.6
Valve Particle Test (FPS)	100	131
World In Conflict (FPS)	188	151

NOTES: How we tested. We used matched GeForce 8800GTX cards for both platforms, matched Western Digital 150GB Raptors, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit and the same graphics drivers. The Core 2 Quad had 4GB of DDR3/1333 and the Core i7 had 3GB of DDR3/1066.

Core i7 Features Dissected

The Core i7 CPU sports some unique features—we test their merits

Hyperthreading: The Next Generation

Hyper-Threading got a bad rap under Pentium 4 for being more a hindrance than a help to performance. Our tests then showed that HT generally helped, but the lack of threaded applications made the feature pretty near worthless. Intel has reintroduced Hyper-Threading with the Core i7 and says it’s worth another look. We ran a handful of our multithreaded applications with HT both on and off and determined that this time around, it’s good stuff. We generally saw a healthy double-digit boost in performance with HT enabled. Using the latest version of ProShow Producer, we actually took a 26 percent hit by turning off Hyper-Threading. MainConcept’s encoder experienced a drop of 17 percent without Hyper-Threading. So, if you ask us, you oughta leave it on.

Benchmarks

HyperThreading	HT On	HT Off
Main Concept	15:58	19:13
ProShow Producer 3.5	10:42	14:28
Cinebench 10 32-bit	15398	13451
Cinebench 64-bit	18963	16613
PO V-Ray	6:48	6:56
3DMark Vantage CPU	39725	35623

NOTES: Best Scores in Bold

Tinkering with Turbo Mode

Intel’s Turbo Mode gives the user fine-grain control over individual cores. By shutting down individual cores that aren’t used during, say, a single-threaded game, you can pick up what is essentially free performance by overclocking, or rather, Turboing, from 3.2GHz to 3.8GHz. We dialed up the allowable, um, Turbos from the stock 24 to 27 to see if the feature works. Indeed it does. In our mostly single-threaded Photoshop CS3 test and World in Conflict, we saw the scaling you’d expect from a 10 percent overclock. Since we didn’t choose to overclock for two threads, we didn’t see much of a change in Quake 4. Our verdict is that it’s a worthwhile proposition, the caveat being that you will need liquid cooling or a big, fat heatsink to truly exploit its potential.

Benchmarks

Turbo Mode	Off	On
Photoshop CS3	1:50	1:42
Quake 4	228 FPS	228 FPS
World in Conflict	250 FPS	272 FPS

NOTES: Best Scores in Bold

Tri-Channel Memory Tested

Core i7’s tri-channel DDR3 memory controller presents a radical alternative to the standard dual-channel configurations. Since the controller lets you run single, dual, or tri mode, we decided to take a look at the actual bandwidth offered by each scenario and the resulting real-world impact. Using three Qimonda 1GB DDR3/1066 DIMMs and a single Corsair 2GB DDR3/1600 DIMM (set at DDR3/1066), we ran two RAM benchmarks and Quake 4. The upshot is that for the best performance, you should populate three channels.

Benchmarks

Tri-Channel	3 DIMM 3GB DDR3	2 DIMM 2GB DDR3	1 DIMM 2GB DDR3	1 DIMM 1GB DDR3
SiSoft Sandra RAM Bandwidth	18.15	12.7	7.1	6.75
Everest Ultimate MEM Read	15167	14388	8317	8236
Everest Ultimate MEM Write	12041	13590	8285	8187
Everest Ultimate MEM Copy	15583	14848	9062	7798
Quake 4	228.0	172.4	213	167

The Dream Machine Revealed--Part Three of Three!

David Murphy — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:10:00 -0500

The Dream Machine 2008 Part One

The Dream Machine 2008 Part Two

And thus, the grand conclusion of the Dream Machine 2008 unveiling comes to its final edition. And do we have a reveal for you! We're going to show you the ultra-secret case that encloses the mighty guts of our speedy Skulltrail machine. We're also giving you a first-look at the not-quite-as-secret videocards powering the graphics of this hefty rig. Before it catches ablaze, we'll also show you the cooling setup, and what we used to rock out whilst checking the cooler for leaks.

That's right. Today, you're getting the case, the graphics, the cooling and the sound--an epic conclusion to the most powerful rig we've ever built. If you're just joining us, you'll want to check out the first two editions of the Dream Machine saga, where we officially showed off this machine's spankin'-fast processors.

Without further ado, we'll begin with the craziest and most expensive part of the dream machine...

The Case

Before:

After:

We challenged readers to guess what case we were planning on using in the last edition of the Dream Machine Reveal series, and only one of you got it right. And we were pretty amazed at that. So congratulations bholstege. You correctly pinned it down. For this year's Dream Machine, we're using the case of the HP Blackbird 002.

Before all the naysayers start blasting the comment thread, here's why we made this decision. For starters, we like to use cases in the Dream Machine that have never been featured previously. So while all the top case manufacturers do indeed make awesome EATX cases (a necessity for our Skulltrail motherboard), a scant few had cases in the works that would have been able to house our rig in the necessary timeframe.

The HP Blackbird 002 case isn't without its faults. Modifying the case in any fashion is extremely difficult, given that every little nuance has been crafted and locked to HP's proprietary design. But we didn't see this as a hindrance so much as a challenge. We joked in its review that the HP Blackbird 002 was a mediocre machine trapped inside an awesome chassis. How appropriate, then, for us to rip out the boring guts of the Blackbird and rebuild a Kick Ass machine inside of its heavy black frame.

But that's not to say that we didn't make subtle modifications to the case as a whole. And by subtle, we mean outlandish. Because it's not enough for the Dream Machine to have a sweet case: it has to have an amazing customized case. We've done painting. That's old-and-busted compared to our mega-tweak this year: chroming the entire case.

The Videocard(s)

Due to Nvidia's decision to not suppot SLI on Skulltrail platforms, we turned to AMD to power the graphics of the Dream Machine 2008. But with four GPUs spread across two cards, we think we made the right decision. As it stands, two dual-GPU Radeon HD 4870 X2 cards stomp on one of Nvidia's top-of-the-line Geforce GTX 280 cards. The performance is nearly doubled in our 3DMark Vantage graphical test, and that's just using engineering samples of these AMD powerhouses. Look for a full review of these cards as soon as we can get our hands on final versions!

The Cooling

We've assembled a custom water cooling kit using parts from a number of top manufacturers for this year's Dream Machine. The internal constraints of the HP Blackbird 002 case forced us to go with a smaller two-fan reservoir than we would have preferred to use. Using Danger Den's Black Ice Pro2 Xflow radiator allowed us to connect our half-inch Tygon tubing to at opposing ends of the radiator, giving us a better chance to improve the case's inner aesthetics. We're using the same reservoir as last year's Dream Machine, Danger Den's single-bay variant.

Our pump also remains the same as last year's. Seeing that the Danger Den DD12V-D5 is one of the fastest, beefiest, quietest pumps we've seen, we see no need to switch out our top-of-the-line water pusher. As for the CPU blocks, we've opted for two of D-TEK's FuZion v2s. Not only is their performance impeccable, but we absolutely love the blocks' quick-lock Intel mounting mechanism. We didn't have to remove the motherboard at all to install this year's cooling setup, and that alone makes us thrilled to bits.

The Soundcard

The latest X-Fi card out of Creative's Lab (tee-hee) is packed into a smaller form-factor than its predecessors. And once again, as if we couldn't stress the issue enough, Creative has slapped support for front-panel connections onto this new card, the X-Fi Titanium. Since we aren't opting for a triple-videocard setup, this gives us plenty of room to stash the Titanium in one of the Dream Machine's empty PCI Express slots. A pair of optical SPDIFs and included Dolby Digital encoding round out the mix of this awesome upgrade in soundcards.

Coming Next Week:

And there you have it! But we're not done with the Dream Machine 2008 just yet. Check back next Monday for an exclusive look at the all the behind-the-scenes construction for this year's rig, including all the heartaches, drills, and coolant leaks. And we haven't forgotten about those two mysterious hard drives from the first Dream Machine Unveiled article. We'll have the full details of those come July 21--see you then!

The Dream Machine Revealed--Part Two of Three!

David Murphy — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:45:48 -0500

Dream Machine 2008 Revealed! For Part One of Three, Click Here

Here we go again! It's time for our second look at what's going into the Maximum PC Dream Machine 2008! If you're just joining us, here's the skinny: once a year, the Maximum PC staff descends to its underground lair. After a number of bizarre and dark technological rituals (we sacrifice an iMac), the team emerges with a gift blessed by the Gods of Technology themselves: the Dream Machine. It is, hands-down, the single-greatest computer you could ever hope to assemble based on the year's best (and sometimes unreleased) products!

This is an epic three-part series, and you're on step number two. If you want to start from the beginning, check out our unveiling of the rig's keyboard, mouse, display and hard drive(s). If you're ready for more Dream Machine action, we're taking a look at the system's CPU(s), motherboard, optical drive, and memory this time around.

The CPU(s)

We're gluttons for speed, so we've opted to slap two of Intel's high-end Core 2 Extreme QX9775 processors in our system. You read that correctly. Two. That's 3.2 GHz of processing power split over eight cores, or at least, it would be. Did we mention we're gluttons for speed? Thanks to an awesome custom water-cooling setup (to be unveiled in the third edition of this article), we've kicked this pair of processors up to 4.0 GHz apiece.

And where will we use this power? Well, there aren't that many applications optimized for eight-cores. But there are plenty of applications that could make full use of our setup. We'd just have to run them at the same time: gaming, video encoding, disk defragmenting, a Folding@home session, a Photoshop script. The sky is the proverbial limit for what our souped-up rig will be able to handle.

The Motherboard

Astute PC enthusiasts will be able to guess this one just by the processors we used. Since we're rocking two quad-cores, it only makes sense for us to slap these on an Intel Skulltrail motherboard. Our winner in this category is Intel's D5400XS. It gives us a ton of overclocking options which we liberally sprinkled across our two steaming processors. But more than that, it's the only motherboard we've found that will run both Nvidia SLI and AMD Crossfire setups. It's an awesome way to future-proof a rig, but more than that, it allowed us to choose our video card configuration based on speeds alone.

The motherboard also comes with the typical accouterments we've come to expect and love: support for 7.1 audio, Gigabit LAN, six external USB ports, two eSATA ports, and four PCI Express 1.1 x16 slots--a perfect fit for the video cards we'll might use...

The RAM

We've opted for 8GB of Corsair FB-DIMM memory for our mighty Dream Machine. At four sticks of 2GB apiece, these 800 MHz speed-demons are primarily geared for workstation environments. Their key difference from normal DDR2 or DDR3 RAM lies in their advanced memory buffer. This gives us a serial interface between the memory controller and the memory module, allowing the RAM to use fewer wires and more memory channels than a typical parallel architecture. This, and the fact that FB-DIMM memory processes read and write requests concurrently, allows us to tap into unmatched speeds for our memory. The downside? These little sticks are more prone to latency and heat. We solve the latter by attaching a Dominator fan accessory to the hot little sticks.

The Optical Drive

HD-DVD is dead. Done. Buried. We have eschewed the combo drive route for this very fact, opting instead for the fastest possible Blu-ray burner we can get our hands on. LG's GBW-H20L allows you to read and burn your Blu-ray discs at a speedy 6x, burn your DVD titles at 16x, and burn your standard CDs at 40x. No matter your optical media of choice, you'll be in speedy hands with this awesome SATA-based optical drive.

Check back next Monday for the final unveiling of the 2008 Dream Machine's guts!

No BS Podcast #51: The Live Without a Net Edition

Tom Edwards — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:30:07 -0600

This week, we present an all-listener-mail edition of the podcast! Join Tom, Dave, Will, Gordon, and Jeremy as we tackle a load of tough tech questions. Of course, we'll bring you Gordon's rant of the week as well.

To learn more about Intel-sponsored LAN parties, mosey on over here.

Do you have a tech question? A comment? Just have something you want to get off your chest? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337, operators are standing by. Also, get your game on with the editors of Maximum PC by joining our Steam group or Facebook Page.

Modders and modding aficionados, check out Mod Shop: submit and vote on the coolest mods around—and win prizes!

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