Intel Core i7 Synthetic Benchmarks @ [H]

Impressive chip. But honestly nothing to make me want to replace my Q9450 at this time.
 
Well no one suggested that everyone run out and buy Core i7's to replace your Core 2's. There are some obvious advantages but really I see this as being a much more exciting product at the server level than it is on the desktop side. This may change when more and more software gets coded to take advantage of Nehalem in general but the server applications for this processor line is obvious.
 
Initially you'll have to deal with fairly expensive motherboards compared to X48 and P45 boards. This will change in time but However once Core i7 processors start showing up in retail you'll see price drops on Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors and their motherboards.


Your right the mobos are going to be expensive compared to the mobo of current gen quad cores. But with having a newer i7 mobo I can upgrade to a new cpu an year from now if I wanted to..while buying core 2 duo quad mobos leave me no upgrade path an year from now...
 
Your right the mobos are going to be expensive compared to the mobo of current gen quad cores. But with having a newer i7 mobo I can upgrade to a new cpu an year from now if I wanted to..while buying core 2 duo quad mobos leave me no upgrade path an year from now...

That is true. So if you are looking to do a new build then waiting for availability on a Core i7 920 and a motherboard you like is probably the way to go.
 
ok am I the only one that got hellokittyrolled? :p

...sorry, just wanted to refresh my memory with a tech overview before I jump into the deeper stuff. Nice one Steve ;) Too bad we missed HK's birthday.
 
Well no one suggested that everyone run out and buy Core i7's to replace your Core 2's. There are some obvious advantages but really I see this as being a much more exciting product at the server level than it is on the desktop side. This may change when more and more software gets coded to take advantage of Nehalem in general but the server applications for this processor line is obvious.

Also keep in mind there a some people (like me) out there who still have some older hardware. I still have an old socket 939 with DDR1, so regardless of what I upgrade to (core 2, core i7, or even phenom) I will need a new mobo/ram/cpu/etc. I might as well get the chipset/ram/etc that will have the best longevity and performance.

Unfortunately I can't afford a whole system rebuild right now, but I definitely plan on going the Nehalem/i7 route when I do in the next 6 months or so (hopefully the SSD drives will be a bit cheaper by that time too *drools* :))
 
Your right the mobos are going to be expensive compared to the mobo of current gen quad cores. But with having a newer i7 mobo I can upgrade to a new cpu an year from now if I wanted to..while buying core 2 duo quad mobos leave me no upgrade path an year from now...

Be warned that intel might change the socket in the short term. AFAIK a dual channel DDR2 is coming soon and a rumored dual channel DDR3 both of which will have different sockets.
 
Well no one suggested that everyone run out and buy Core i7's to replace your Core 2's. There are some obvious advantages but really I see this as being a much more exciting product at the server level than it is on the desktop side. This may change when more and more software gets coded to take advantage of Nehalem in general but the server applications for this processor line is obvious.

Ironic how including the MCH inside the CPU vs. on the mobo makes the mobo more expensive ;)

As market shifts I'm hoping for 3-channel RAM kits and lower price (but still high quality) mobos to become available, but I wouldn't expect much until after Xmass. For games, I'm waiting for cheap SSD for load times and die shrinks from nvidia anyway, as I'm nowhere near CPU-bound on my OC'd C2D nor do I want the complexity of host RAID. So for me anyway, the only thing that would move me to i7 for my main desktop app/gaming rig would be a new hobby and associated application that requires a sick amount of CPU and/or memory bandwidth - meanwhile, X38/X48 will net random reads at 50-odd nanoseconds, and I've seen about 11GB/s stable with some careful tweaking. That's pretty good for a desktop.

And agreed Dan, for the server i7 is teh roxx :D
 
Ironic how including the MCH inside the CPU vs. on the mobo makes the mobo more expensive ;)

Just what I was thinking. That they could lower the prices of mobo's a bit, but they won't. They'll increase them. That's okay though, I don't need i7 just yet and will continue to max out Yut.
 
Ironic how including the MCH inside the CPU vs. on the mobo makes the mobo more expensive ;)

As market shifts I'm hoping for 3-channel RAM kits and lower price (but still high quality) mobos to become available, but I wouldn't expect much until after Xmass. For games, I'm waiting for cheap SSD for load times and die shrinks from nvidia anyway, as I'm nowhere near CPU-bound on my OC'd C2D nor do I want the complexity of host RAID. So for me anyway, the only thing that would move me to i7 for my main desktop app/gaming rig would be a new hobby and associated application that requires a sick amount of CPU and/or memory bandwidth - meanwhile, X38/X48 will net random reads at 50-odd nanoseconds, and I've seen about 11GB/s stable with some careful tweaking. That's pretty good for a desktop.

And agreed Dan, for the server i7 is teh roxx :D

Boards like the ASUS P6T are going to cost around $300 which is what a high end DDR3 LGA775 board costs today anyway. So really the prices aren't really changing. Yes there are boards like the ASUS Rampage II Extreme which will in fact cost considerably more but there are also a lot of features on them that are designed for a niche market.
 
I was curious about heat production... does including the MCH in the CPU increase temps there, but decrease NB temps?
i.e. Larger CPU HS/fans and smaller NB heatsinks necessary?
 
I was curious about heat production... does including the MCH in the CPU increase temps there, but decrease NB temps?
i.e. Larger CPU HS/fans and smaller NB heatsinks necessary?

Well the TDP of the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition is 130 watts. The TDP of the Core 2 Extreme Edition QX9770 is 130 watts as well. Though the TDP of the QX9775 which is the same CPU, but uses the LGA771 socket has a TDP of 150 watts.

The chipset does run cooler, but regardless, having integrated MCH into the CPU hasn't really seemed to hurt temperatures. At 3.875GHz the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition ran at about 45c idle and about 56c under load using a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme. That temperature isn't totally accurate as it was taken using ASUS PC Probe II and not Core Temp or Real Temp or anything like that. Regardless the CPU ran like a top the entire time. I encountered no throttling, crashes or hard locks at that speed.
 
Makes sense I guess.
More efficient Cores= less temperature +MCH= little heat change.
 
Even as a hardcore gamer, I don't need this much power. I just want them to hit the market so prices on other processors drop!
 
Boards like the ASUS P6T are going to cost around $300 which is what a high end DDR3 LGA775 board costs today anyway. So really the prices aren't really changing. Yes there are boards like the ASUS Rampage II Extreme which will in fact cost considerably more but there are also a lot of features on them that are designed for a niche market.

Can you recommend an i7 board for desktop gaming use that will allow the possibility of SLI (2 properly placed x16 slots) along with having an x8 (or available, accessible x16) pcie slot for a raid controller? I haven't yet seen anything that fits this.

As it is I have an SLI mobo with one of the x16 slots in use by the raid card, and am looking to upgrade finally to one that will give the option to do SLI and have the room to use it. Currently running an amd 4400+ x2, so I will be upgrading ram/heatsink along with mobo/cpu.

are the current crop of i7 boards/cpu's more meant for server market? Should I just wait till next summer for something more desktop oriented?
 
Can you recommend an i7 board for desktop gaming use that will allow the possibility of SLI (2 properly placed x16 slots) along with having an x8 (or available, accessible x16) pcie slot for a raid controller? I haven't yet seen anything that fits this.

As it is I have an SLI mobo with one of the x16 slots in use by the raid card, and am looking to upgrade finally to one that will give the option to do SLI and have the room to use it. Currently running an amd 4400+ x2, so I will be upgrading ram/heatsink along with mobo/cpu.

are the current crop of i7 boards/cpu's more meant for server market? Should I just wait till next summer for something more desktop oriented?

Right now I only know anything about two X58 chipset based motherboards. The ASUS Rampage II Extreme and the ASUS P6T Deluxe. The Rampage II Extreme is the only one I can recommend right now to you given your requirements. I can't recommend the ASUS P6T Deluxe as the expansion slot configuration won't serve your needs. The problem is that the Rampage II Extreme is going to set you back at least $400 if you could even find one. Add to that the fact that the Rampage II Extreme also has a lot of features you may not use such as TweakIt and the Probelt and it doesn't make much sense to spend the money on it.

I'd keep a look out for information on the EVGA X58 motherboard as well as offerings from MSI and Gigabyte.

As for the current crop of motherboards I'd say they are all geared toward the desktop market. These are all obviously enthusiast class boards but none of these are geared for server/workstation use. Though obviously you could use them for that but I think you'd be better served by a real workstation board when they become available.
 
Thanks Dan. I will wait till more offerings are available such as the EVGA you mentioned.
 
Wondering if anyone has benchmarked raid - 0 performance on the X58? Is the chipset the ICH10R? How is USB performance compared to previous designs?

Curious mind...

Thanks.
 
Wondering if anyone has benchmarked raid - 0 performance on the X58? Is the chipset the ICH10R? How is USB performance compared to previous designs?

Curious mind...

Thanks.

It's the same thing. No better, no worse. ICH10R didn't change just by being paired up with the X58 north bridge. ICH10R is really the same as ICH9R as far as performance goes. USB, RAID, all of it performs the same.
 
An EVGA, non-nvidia board? Interesting...

It does use the NF200 chip for full-bandwidth 3-way SLI though. nVidia isn't producing a chipset for i7 for the moment, so eVGA had to go with Intel in order to actually produce an i7-supporting SLI mobo.
 

Some definite possibilities in there. was looking for 3 x16 slots, 2 PCI slots, and 1 pcie x1 or x2 slot.

Trying to find a home for:
2 cards in sli pcie x16
1 raid card pcie x8
x-fi PCI
killernic PCI
Physx card pcie x1

The x-fi could be left off if the board has X-Fi onboard sound. and killer nic is optional as well but be nice to use. But i'm not a fan of onboard audio usually.

That MSI Eclipse looks like it has alot of slots.
 
goodboy i'm in the same boat, a 4870x2 slot, a slot for a x600 etc for a third monitor :D, raid card pci-e, and a pci audigy 2zs, and pci-e wireless n card. i feel ya :). luckily my x48 is gonna fit the build :D
 
Yeah the ASUS P6T Deluxe looks good too. There's also a foxconn with alot of x16 slots, 1 pci which might work if I leave off the killernic. I need to find more data on those single pci slot boards, maybe one will have excellent onboard audio.
 
Yeah the ASUS P6T Deluxe looks good too. There's also a foxconn with alot of x16 slots, 1 pci which might work if I leave off the killernic. I need to find more data on those single pci slot boards, maybe one will have excellent onboard audio.

The Rampage II Extreme does, though again its' outside the realm of reasonable costs for most people.
 
So I'm just really curious if anyone has run core damage and how well it works? Works great on Core2 but because the pipeline designs are different it might choke up and won't work as well.
 
So I'm just really curious if anyone has run core damage and how well it works? Works great on Core2 but because the pipeline designs are different it might choke up and won't work as well.

You can run IntelBurnTest instead to stress the CPU to its maximum. That will definitely work on the new CPUs.
 
Ive got a test suggestion
If the boards are now allowing mem multi adjustment, test some with that.
i7 920 or 965, test triple 1066, dual 1333, triple 1333, and dual/triple 1600. Maybe with a couple timing changes, 6/7 on 1066, 6/7/8/9 on 1333, and 8/9 on the 1600.

See how big a difference memory makes.
 
So I'm just really curious if anyone has run core damage and how well it works? Works great on Core2 but because the pipeline designs are different it might choke up and won't work as well.

I used it today and it generated no different of a load than multiple instances of Orthos. Nice though since it was a one button application. I will use it some more.

You can run IntelBurnTest instead to stress the CPU to its maximum. That will definitely work on the new CPUs.

Burn test is not as static on the i7, I found it unusable. That said, I just used it once and moved on. That was yesterday.

Ive got a test suggestion
If the boards are now allowing mem multi adjustment, test some with that.
i7 920 or 965, test triple 1066, dual 1333, triple 1333, and dual/triple 1600. Maybe with a couple timing changes, 6/7 on 1066, 6/7/8/9 on 1333, and 8/9 on the 1600.

See how big a difference memory makes.

I think the bigger question is finding the application that will leverage it. Find me that which is measurable and we will give it a once over.
 
vantage, warhead, maybe one of the render tests. Take your pick. The point wouldnt be to find how much difference as much as *IF* theres a difference with memory.

Though I concede this would take a while to run.

Sorry, I don't have time for maybes and guesses in regards to this. Looking for needles in haystacks does not pay the editors around here when payday comes.
 
firgured, but worth a shot.

My gut feeling is there are not going to be any desktop applications that truely utilize the huge bandwidth we are seeing. I think the amount we are seeing, up to 12GB, that is stable at 1600MHz is more impressive than anything. I think users will be able to reach into the amount more so than leverage the actual bandwidth beyond 15GB/s.
 
Ive got a test suggestion
If the boards are now allowing mem multi adjustment, test some with that.
i7 920 or 965, test triple 1066, dual 1333, triple 1333, and dual/triple 1600. Maybe with a couple timing changes, 6/7 on 1066, 6/7/8/9 on 1333, and 8/9 on the 1600.

See how big a difference memory makes.

Extremetech did a series of pretty good reviews a few weeks ago. They found that AMOUNT of memory made a MUCH larger difference than speed/frequency:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2333466,00.asp
 
Extremetech did a series of pretty good reviews a few weeks ago. They found that AMOUNT of memory made a MUCH larger difference than speed/frequency:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2333466,00.asp
Amount shouldnt make much of a difference at all, unless the app/system is using enough to cause page file usage. And at 4GB+ Id turn the PF off anyway. (My XPS has been page-file-less since the 4GB/x64 upgrade)

Also, +1 for page 3.
 
I am a little confused why the 920 was used with 3 channel 1066Mhz memory, or more accurately why the memory was clocked at 1066. Does it support higher frequency memory?
 
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