The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

man i hate the tax here for importing tobacco! i tried to import 1.5KGs of tobacco, (not used for cigarets or illegal sustances, known as shisha, which is fruit falvoured mollasses mixed with tobacco) and i got charged £200 by customs to take it, when i bought it for less than $80.... (!_!)

 

These are sure mighty tempting! They're making me drool LOL!
MEGA ram
I think I would buy 2 kits of the of the double pack though. Why spend 5 dollars more, just to buy a quadruple pack? They ARE the same modules, are they not?

 

I don't drive and get charged a fortune for tax/fuel/insurance/maintenance. I don't drink and get charged a fortune for tax on alcohol. I don't smoke and get charged a fortune for tax on whatever I may smoke.
You wonder how I can afford the hardware I have at 21 - this is how...

Omega: Buying a 4-pack guarantees batch similarity, which can help when clocking all 4 sticks at once. Can't use DDR2 with an i5 though!

 

Sam,
Maybe in Europe, but here in the States there were only 3 motherboards, and the $159 MSI was the cheapest, and those were not on line until after 5AM. I saw the email notification, and opened it right away! The other two were a $189 Asus and a $249 GigaByte, that has 24 power phase regulation! They are still putting in the new stuff at newegg, as we speak! I was only now able to view the GigaByte that Shaff mentioned!

Besides, why should that matter? I used $100 for one of the MB/Memory/CPU sets to begin with, so it's a moot point!

Russ

 

So you pay 5 dollars more for the guarantee. Ehh...I dont see needing more than 8Gb at this point anyway.

 

Russ, I was looking at Newegg. Apologies if I ended up lookng after you, but this was either late night or very early morning today, which in California certainly counts as yesterday. There were as many boards there at the time as in shaff's screenshot. I have to say though, you're let off if you didn't find them, there was a glitch with the site that made it very difficult to find any i5 products for a while, presumably it's not still like it.

Anyway, to cut it short, i5 is an excellent value platform for its performance, and it's going to be the staple of my recommendations for mid-high end systems now. Barestock systems can still get my points for AMDs, but only for sums of less than $400 pre-tax.

 

Sam,
I had looked earlier with the idea of California time too, and there was nothing. That's why when the email notification from newegg popped up I went and opened it right away. It was a little past 5AM pacific time! This is what I got.
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/2511/i5mb.jpg

I tried looking for more at newegg, but nothing was there!

Russ

 

As I say, when I went back there was nothing there, but if you followed the URLs directly, they worked - presumably a site glitch. I think it's safe to say you're excused - apologies about that!

 

Sam,
NP and Thanks.

Russ

 

I got the links to newegg...I get e-mail notification also just as Russ do on sales and new product inventory...

1156 sockets
i5 750
i7 860
i7 870

Motherboards
MSI P55-GD65
ASUS P7P55D
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6
Biostar TPOWER i55

All 1156 socket boards on newegg
27 brand types

sam i did'nt see or found the model P55-UD3 on the Egg or the Gigabyte website Just the P55-UD3R unless there making a Limited
Edition..LOL

Newegg site
Newegg

 

some i5 test for people who cant be arsed to look

(PS i choose ones that we all would actually care about )

Courtesy of Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634

Photoshop


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Encoding

DivX 8.5.3 with Xmpeg 5.0.3

Our DivX test is the same DivX / XMpeg 5.03 test we've run for the past few years now, the 1080p source file is encoded using the unconstrained DivX profile, quality/performance is set balanced at 5 and enhanced multithreading is enabled:



And we're done. DivX, historically a stronghold for AMD's Phenom II processors (at least compared to their price-competitive Penryn counterparts) is faster on the Core i5 750 than on the Phenom II X4 965 BE. What's wrong with that?

The i5 750 costs $199, the 965 BE costs $245. Intel is selling you more transistors for less than AMD is for once.

x264 HD Video Encoding Performance

Graysky's x264 HD test uses the publicly available x264 codec (open source alternative to H.264) to encode a 4Mbps 720p MPEG-2 source. The focus here is on quality rather than speed, thus the benchmark uses a 2-pass encode and reports the average frame rate in each pass.



In the first pass AMD is quite competitive, outpacing the i5 750, but when we get to the actual encode:



It's close, but the cheaper i5 750 is faster than the Phenom II X4 965 BE once again; Hyper Threading keeps the i7 920 ahead.


Windows Media Encoder 9 x64 Advanced Profile

In order to be codec agnostic we've got a Windows Media Encoder benchmark looking at the same sort of thing we've been doing in the DivX and x264 tests, but using WME instead.



AMD is about 6% faster than the i5 750 here, it looks like the Phenom II does have some hope left for it. Let's see how the rest unfolds...

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WinRAR - Archive Creation

Our WinRAR test simply takes 300MB of files and compresses them into a single RAR archive using the application's default settings. We're not doing anything exotic here, just looking at the impact of CPU performance on creating an archive:



Large file compression is very well threaded and thus we see a real difference in performance between the HT enabled i7 920 and the i5 750 without Hyper Threading. The i7 870 however is within 5% of the i7 975, at 56% of the cost.

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Fallout 3 Game Performance

Bethesda’s latest game uses an updated version of the Gamebryo engine (Oblivion). This benchmark takes place immediately outside Vault 101. The character walks away from the vault through the Springvale ruins. The benchmark is measured manually using FRAPS.



The numbers are all very close, but the Core i7 870 edges out the 975 for the lead here. The i5 750 manages to outperform the i7 920 thanks to its more aggressive turbo modes. The Phenom II X4 965 BE is faster than its closest competitor, but it needs a price adjustment in a major way.


Left 4 Dead



Once more we have Lynnfield near the top, the only thing that's faster is the i7 975. In these situations however the difference between first and fourth place is neglible.

FarCry 2 Multithreaded Game Performance

FarCry 2 ships with the most impressive benchmark tool we’ve ever seen in a PC game. Part of this is due to the fact that Ubisoft actually tapped a number of hardware sites (AnandTech included) from around the world to aid in the planning for the benchmark.

For our purposes we ran the CPU benchmark included in the latest patch:



Even when four cores are stressed, the i5 750 can pull ahead of the i7 920.

Crysis Warhead



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Power Consumption

If you'll remember back to last year's Nehalem coverage I made a point to mention that the Nehalem architecture, thanks to its PCU and power gate transistors, was the most power efficient of the high end options. The lower the TDP, the more important power efficiency is and thus it's no surprise to see Lynnfield truly impress when it comes to power consumption:



At idle the Core i5 and Core i7 870 use less power than any other processor we've ever tested. Note that these idle power figures include an idling GeForce GTX 280. With a lower power graphics card, you could easily get to idle power consumption around 60W. Once we start seeing on-package GPUs, total system power consumption should drop even further.



Under load the Core i5 and Core i7 870 continue to impress. They both draw less power than a Q6600 or a Q9650, all the while outperforming the two. Power consumption is also noticeably lower than Bloomfield.

These things are fast and smart with power. Just wait until Nehalem goes below 65W...

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Overclocking

As for Overclocking, with the basic intel board they got the 750 to just under 4GHz and the 860 to 4.2 (on air)

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Overclocking Lynnfield at Stock Voltage: We're PCIe Limited

Remember the on-die PCIe controller? Yep. It's to blame.

Lynnfield is Intel's first attempt at an on-die PCIe controller and it actually works surprisingly well. There are no performance or compatibility issues.



The on-die PCIe controller needs more voltage as you overclock Lynnfield, limiting Lynnfield's stock vt overclocking potential.

Unfortunately the PCIe controller on Lynnfield is tied to the BCLK. Increase the BCLK to overclock your CPU and you're also increasing the PCIe controller frequency. This doesn't play well with most PCIe cards, so the first rule of thumb is to try and stay at 133MHz multiples when increasing your BCLK.

The second issue is the bigger one. As you increase the BCLK you increase the frequency of the transistors that communicate to the GPU(s) on the PCIe bus. Those transistors have to send data very far (relatively speaking) and very quickly. When you overclock, you're asking even more of them.

We know that Bloomfield can easily hit higher frequencies without increasing the core voltage, so there's no reason to assume that Lynnfield's core cannot (in fact, we know it can). The issue is the PCIe controller; at higher frequencies those "outside facing" transistors need more juice to operate. Unfortunately on Lynnfield rev 1 there doesn't appear to be a way to selectively give the PCIe transistors more voltage, instead you have to up the voltage to the entire processor.

Intel knows the solution to Lynnfield's voltage requirement for overclocking, unfortunately it's not something that can be applied retroactively. Intel could decouple the PCIe controller from BCLK by introducing more PLLs into the chip or, alternatively, tweak the transistors used for the PCIe interface. Either way we can expect this to change in some later rev of the processor. Whether that means we'll see it in the 45nm generation or we'll have to wait until 32nm remains to be seen.

The good news is that Lynnfield can still overclock well. The bad news is that unlike Bloomfield (and Phenom II) you can't just leave the Vcore untouched to get serious increases in frequency.

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Final Words

I'll start this conclusion with what AMD must do in response to Lynnfield. The Core i5 750 is a great processor at $196, in fact, it's the best quad-core CPU you can buy at that price today. In nearly every case it's faster than AMD's Phenom II X4 965 BE, despite the AMD processor costing almost another $50. Granted you can probably save some money on an integrated 785G motherboard, but if you're comparing ~$120 motherboards the AMD CPU is simply overpriced.



Lynnfield (top) vs. Phenom II (bottom)

Luckily, the solution isn't that difficult. AMD needs to lower prices. The problem is that AMD has too many products below $200 already. The Phenom II X3 and X4 series both exist below $200 and rumor has it that AMD is also going to introduce a quad-core Athlon II somewhere down there. Lynnfield's arrival causes a lot of price compression on AMD's side. The most AMD should sell the 965 BE for is $199, but if it is to remain competitive the chip needs to be priced much lower. That doesn't leave much room for other AMD CPUs. On the bright side, this could force AMD to simplify its product lines again (similar to what it has quietly been doing already).

The next thing that the Core i5 750 does is it finally ends the life of LGA-775. Just as was the case with AMD, the Core 2 Quad Q9650 is easily destroyed by the Core i5 750 and at a lower price. With significantly lower motherboard costs than the LGA-1366 chips, the Core i5 750 can actually compete in the high end LGA-775 space. It's only a matter of time before the sub-$200 LGA-775 parts are made obsolete as well.

Lynnfield power consumption is just excellent, these are the most power efficient quad-core CPUs we've ever tested. They use less power at idle than similarly clocked dual-core processors and under load they deliver better performance per watt than any of their closest competitors. Later this year we'll see 32nm dual-core Westmere start to ship for notebooks. I don't have performance data but I'd expect that early next year will be the perfect time to buy a new notebook.

Can you tell that I like the Core i5 750? Again, at $196 you can't find a better processor. Intel did its homework very well and managed to deliver something that kept AMD in check without completely upsetting the balancing of things. There's no technical reason that Intel couldn't have enabled Hyper Threading on the Core i5, it's purely a competitive move. A Core i5 750 with HT would not only defeat the purpose of most of the i7s, but it would also widen the performance gap with AMD. Intel doesn't need to maintain a huge performance advantage, just one that's good enough. While I'd love to have a 750 with HT, I'd still recommend one without it.

The Core i7 870 gets close enough to the Core i7 975 that I'm having a hard time justifying the LGA-1366 platform at all. As I see it, LGA-1366 has a few advantages:

1) High-end multi-GPU Performance

2) Stock Voltage Overclocking

3) Future support for 6-core Gulftown CPUs

If that list doesn't make you flinch, then Lynnfield is perfect. You'll save a bunch on a motherboard and the CPUs start at $196 instead of $284. We didn't have enough time with our Core i7 860 to include performance results here but my instincts tell me that at $284 that'll be the Lynnfield sweetspot. You get excellent turbo modes and Hyper Threading, without breaking $300.

Speaking of turbo, I'd say that Intel is definitely on to something here. The performance impact was small with Bloomfield, but turbo on Lynnfield is huge. My tests showed up to a 17% increase in performance depending on the workload, with most CPU-influenced scenarios seeing at least 9 or 10%. The turbo mode transitions happen fast enough to accelerate even simple actions like opening a new window. OS and application responsiveness is significantly improved as a result and it's something that you can actually feel when using a Lynnfield machine. It all works so seamlessly, you just always get the best performance you need. It's like Intel crammed the best single, dual and quad-core processors all into one package.

Perhaps that's what kept me from falling in love with Bloomfield right away. It was fast but in the same way that its predecessors were fast. If you didn't have a well threaded application, Bloomfield wasn't any better than a similarly clocked Penryn. Lynnfield's turbo modes change the game. Say goodbye to tradeoffs, the Core i5 and Core i7 are now fast regardless of thread count. It speed that is useful, it speed that you can feel, it's what truly makes Lynnfield the best desktop microprocessor of 2009. It's not just faster, it's smarter, it's better. It's why today's title borrows from Daft Punk and not Star Wars; it's not more of the same, it's something futuristic and new.

Lynnfield shows us the beginning of how all microprocessors are going to be made in the future. Even AMD is embracing turbo, we'll see it with Fusion in 2011. Extend turbo to its logical conclusion and you end up with something very exciting. Imagine a processor made up of many different cores, large and small, CPU and GPU. Each one turning on/off depending on the type of workload, and each running as fast as possible without dissipating more heat than your system can handle.

My only two complaints with Lynnfield are that the chips do require additional voltage (above stock) to overclock and of course the lack of Hyper Threading on the Core i5. It doesn't ruin the processor, but it gives us something to wish for.

Our work is never over.

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for gaming there is no need IMO to upgrade from a high clocked c2d/c2q, hell even for other things, itd be better getting a c2Q for the price, from a dual instead of upgrading everything (ie RAM mobo). but for new builds, esp from people with P4/athalon x2s its a very good prospect. otherwise sam, you dont need it, save money and add more SSD/s DX11 GPUs to yuor set up

 

Will: P55-UD3 may not be in US yet, it's certainly available in the UK, and very cheap at that, about £10-£15 less than the UD3R I think.
Shaff: If you're going to quote an article almost verbatim you should really credit it - I know from the graphs styling where that came from, but even so, they could do you for copyright on that.
As for an unnecessary upgrade, it's all relative, I would get more from an i5 I think than I would from say, grabbing a QX9650 or 9770 off ebay. This said, the CPU bottleneck for 2 GPUs may be different to that for 4, so I will want to see how DX11 pans out first - even if I bought an i5 as soon as I could afford one, the first tests for DX11 should be out by then anyway.

 

Will,
I just got off the phone with Newegg, and the reason some things don't show even though a direct url will work, is that they are adding new stuff in batches. It isn't until they are done with a batch that they are linked to the menus. The urls are all live and in place, but until a whole batch is finished they can't be linked to the menus. I also asked about the time zone thing, and they said that it goes by the time zone, because their most western time zone covered from here is 5 hours earlier. When it turns midnight there it's 5AM here! Their license dictates that since they cannot separate or exclude areas within the 5 hour time difference, they are obliged to wait until 5AM Pacific time!

Just imagine the damage that could cause Intel! ROFL!! Just more legaleze BS, and don't forget to dot those I's and cross those T's. That's the sort of nonsense that happens when Lawyers make the rules!

Russ

 

Sam I thought you aways prefer X style platforms motherboards?...i think i'm my eyes is on that i5 cpu as well knowning that my local micro center gonna have the lowest prices in town out beating the egg
in cost...

 

sorry, i have credited

but really, a 3.6GHz c2Q is nothing to laugh at. do you need the upgrade? what are you currently limited on?

 

Glad you clear that up Russ that in part...I'm wondering where the server or servers are at East Coast or West Coast side they may have them on both sides sense you know..I'm 3 hours ahead of you in the time line at 9:33pm wondering that updating there site takes time with new inventory

 

Again those benches concrete my stance that i5/i7 is not for gamers. Yes they are fast but offer seemingly little benefit at all in games for the average user. Crossfire or SLI might show a bigger gap, but even then my Crossfire setup is running just dandy. Never had a noticeable CPU bottleneck.

And as previously stated, I would DEFINITELY buy it if I were building a new system. It's just that I have zero issues with games so far and that's the most intensive thing I do. For me it wouldn't have a purpose.

 

Sam,
Is this what you are talking about?
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3164

This is on their US web site, and it wasn't there 30 seconds ago. It's probably taking a lot of time to get everything updated at Newegg!

Russ

 

exactly my stance aswell

 

a friend from another site got really thinking to step up and get my boards Big Brother I55 Maybe at the beginning of the year after few more batch numbers come out and more results are posted of tests

and this stable it can be proved guys!!!
Batch#L927B275

here's his testing Grounds


Enjoy Building
Ya'll