Core i3/i5 review @ anandtech

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tokie

tokie

Golden Member
Jun 1, 2006
1,491
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Not very impressive. The Arrandale review was rather bad, so hopefully the Mobility Radeon 5 Series makes up for the disappointment brought forth by Intel so at least some light will be there for laptops.
 
Nemesis 1

Nemesis 1

Lifer
Dec 30, 2006
11,366
2
0
Well to each his own . I think they are great at 5ghz, The IGP is rather good also . But as I said to each his own . Whay kind of performance were you exspecting . Put a 5870 in run at 5 ghz. and let the chips fall were they will . We have a thread here on the 8700 thats on way and many seem to want . I personally am going to wait for the next stepping. Of i5 670 because of higher multi . Till than the one I have is just fine . I preferr it to the 4 core intels . But thats just me . We have those also.
 
N

nosfe

Senior member
Aug 8, 2007
424
0
0
I was looking forward to the Photoshop performance and battery life of Arrandale so it's a major disappointment for me
 
P

Piano Man

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2000
3,370
0
76
Woah on Anand's OC on that i5. Can't wait to see what other people are getting with the lower cost version of them. If 4.5GHz+ is common, then maybe these won't be so bad after all.
 
edplayer

edplayer

Platinum Member
Sep 13, 2002
2,186
0
0
I want to see reviews on it running overclocked (at least 4GHz). Lots of benchmarks though...
 
toyota

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
Computer Bottleneck, I think you need to give up now. lol. the conclusion is that the i5 750 is the better cpu for gamers/enthusiasts just like most of us were telling you. quad is certainly the way to go for a new build.

"The fact of the matter though is that Clarkdale processors are being built for people that have very narrow computing needs (which is most mainstream users) and certainly not for those in the enthusiast hardware or gaming realm."

"For us enthusiasts, it all comes down to value. With the i5-661 and 660 being around $200, the i5-750 is simply a better deal…if you don’t need the graphics core, and I am assuming that most of you do not, unless it is a specific build for an HTPC type device"

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/01/03/intel_westmere_32nm_clarkdale_core_i5661_review/7


"Because of its more conservative Turbo Modes and smaller L3 cache, Clarkdale won’t be the performance competitor to Lynnfield that many were hoping for, but as you saw in the benchmarks"

"Unless you absolutely must have Clarkdale’s integrated graphics, Core i5-750 is easily the better buy."

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/intel_core_i5-661_clarkdale_performance/page11.asp



btw here is a list of reviews http://vr-zone.com/forums/532547/intel-i5-6xx-and-i3-5xx-reviews.html
 
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toyota

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
Piano Man said:
Woah on Anand's OC on that i5. Can't wait to see what other people are getting with the lower cost version of them. If 4.5GHz+ is common, then maybe these won't be so bad after all.
Click to expand...
yeah if you oc the shit out of it will catch up and some cases beat the stock i5 750. to me the i750 is the way to go but sure wish they had some 32nm quads.
 
edplayer

edplayer

Platinum Member
Sep 13, 2002
2,186
0
0
toyota said:
to me the i750 is the way to go but sure wish they had some 32nm quads.
Click to expand...


that will happen but I guess you are talking about S1156?

I hope that happens but if it were to, it would likely be along with Sandy Bridge being pushed back. That would be nice for people who already own the platform but it will also mean a delay in native SATA 6Gbps and USB 3 (at least for Intel).
 
cbn

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
221
106
toyota said:
Computer Bottleneck, I think you need to give up now. lol. the conclusion is that the i5 750 is the better cpu for gamers/enthusiasts just like most of us were telling you. quad is certainly the way to go for a new build.

"The fact of the matter though is that Clarkdale processors are being built for people that have very narrow computing needs (which is most mainstream users) and certainly not for those in the enthusiast hardware or gaming realm."

"For us enthusiasts, it all comes down to value. With the i5-661 and 660 being around $200, the i5-750 is simply a better deal…if you don’t need the graphics core, and I am assuming that most of you do not, unless it is a specific build for an HTPC type device"

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2010/01/03/intel_westmere_32nm_clarkdale_core_i5661_review/7


"Because of its more conservative Turbo Modes and smaller L3 cache, Clarkdale won’t be the performance competitor to Lynnfield that many were hoping for, but as you saw in the benchmarks"

"Unless you absolutely must have Clarkdale’s integrated graphics, Core i5-750 is easily the better buy."

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/intel_core_i5-661_clarkdale_performance/page11.asp
Click to expand...

You are making comparisons at the $200 level.

But what about the lower price points? I dpn't see much competition from quad cores when it comes to games in that department.
 
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G

grimpr

Golden Member
Aug 21, 2007
1,095
7
81
Nice mainstream nehadualies from Intel just as it was expected, but Anand hits the nail...ridiculous prices on the i5 line. There's no way in hell they can beat a quadcore like the i5 750 or even the 965 from AMD even with their clocks on. With Turbo Mode on the 750 you have the 661 in a snap of a finger and two more REAL CORES that await at your command. Clearly targeted for those nostalgic dualcore crowd that fights cores with clocks, they will be for a shock though when AMD furnishes those old greyhound cores in 6packs and in 2 models, capturing as hostage the i5 750 in multithreaded apps and lets not forget the DX11 support for multithreaded rendering on the CPU with near linear scaling on future games.
 
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cbn

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
221
106
grimpr said:
There's no way in hell they can beat a quadcore like the i5 750 or even the 965 from AMD even with their clocks on.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about the photoshop/encoding benchmarks?

P.S. I am referring to the Phenom II with that question.
 
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StrangerGuy

StrangerGuy

Diamond Member
May 9, 2004
8,443
124
106
The best of AMD quads is slower than the slowest i3 in WoW....Seriously that's embarrassing.
 
G

grimpr

Golden Member
Aug 21, 2007
1,095
7
81
Definitely, if you're running WoW as your main operating system, AMD sucks for sure.
 
cbn

cbn

Lifer
Mar 27, 2009
12,968
221
106
This is a great Review.

Now we need to find a gaming comparison using Core i3 and Phenom II x4 both overclocked using the same Tower cooler. Comparing the noise levels of both chips should be interesting.
 
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DrMrLordX

DrMrLordX

Lifer
Apr 27, 2000
22,714
12,680
136
Clarksdale's kludge of a memory controller makes me feel odd. I guess if you just want clockspeed and are willing to cool the hell out of your i3, you can stick some craptacular memory in there and run up the clocks knowing full well that your memory bandwidth and latency are going to be lousy anyway. Granted, DDR3-1600 5-5-5-18 isn't "craptacular", or even possible on most DIMMs, but I think you know what I mean; the benefit of shooting for that kind of memory speed will probably be lost on Clarksdale since it does much better than I thought it would given the gimped memory controller.

In the end, it's just another Intel chip that relies on solid cache architecture to overcome poor system memory performance just like the Core 2 Duos/Quads of old.

So, I can't say whether I would want an i3 530 over an Athlon II X4 620. The 620 has cheap board options, runs cheaper than any Clarksdale, and is known-good for about a 3.4 ghz overclock on the stock cooler. You can dump some extra cash on memory and exploit the IMC to try and make up for the weak/non-existent cache on the 620 as well.

Or you can spend more for the chip + mobo on an i3 (just what board do you want an i3 + discreet graphics with anyway? P55 or H57?), get cheap-ish RAM and then lap the hell out of the i3 and put a huge cooler on there and shoot for 4.5-4.8 ghz.

Also, it would be nice if Anandtech had OCed an i3 530 instead of the i5 that is so expensive that nobody in their right mind would buy it.
 
exar333

exar333

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2004
8,518
8
91
DrMrLordX said:
Clarksdale's kludge of a memory controller makes me feel odd. I guess if you just want clockspeed and are willing to cool the hell out of your i3, you can stick some craptacular memory in there and run up the clocks knowing full well that your memory bandwidth and latency are going to be lousy anyway. Granted, DDR3-1600 5-5-5-18 isn't "craptacular", or even possible on most DIMMs, but I think you know what I mean; the benefit of shooting for that kind of memory speed will probably be lost on Clarksdale since it does much better than I thought it would given the gimped memory controller.

In the end, it's just another Intel chip that relies on solid cache architecture to overcome poor system memory performance just like the Core 2 Duos/Quads of old.

So, I can't say whether I would want an i3 530 over an Athlon II X4 620. The 620 has cheap board options, runs cheaper than any Clarksdale, and is known-good for about a 3.4 ghz overclock on the stock cooler. You can dump some extra cash on memory and exploit the IMC to try and make up for the weak/non-existent cache on the 620 as well.

Or you can spend more for the chip + mobo on an i3 (just what board do you want an i3 + discreet graphics with anyway? P55 or H57?), get cheap-ish RAM and then lap the hell out of the i3 and put a huge cooler on there and shoot for 4.5-4.8 ghz.

Also, it would be nice if Anandtech had OCed an i3 530 instead of the i5 that is so expensive that nobody in their right mind would buy it.
Click to expand...

The memory performance may not be Nehalem-class, but according to Anand's review it is as good or better than Phenom II. I think it's pretty impressive that the memory controller performance is such when it is not even on the same die (same package though).

I admit it's not quite the performer of Nehalem, but it appears to get the job done. Your argument doesn't apepar to hold much water here.
 
L

Lonyo

Lifer
Aug 10, 2002
21,938
6
81
Xbitlabs has the Pentium G9650 in their review: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/clarkdale-review.html

Absolutely pathetic.
Doesn't beat the 775 E6500 which costs $95 from Newegg, and tray pricing for the G9650 is $87, so it will probably be the same total cost.
The only advantage it has is higher overclocking potential (probably), assuming you are buying one to overclock.
Even power consumption is barely improved. Nothing in it at idle, and up to 10w under load.
 
n7

n7

Elite Member
Jan 4, 2004
21,281
4
81
Fail chips overall IMO.

Either go i5 750, AMD, or i3 w/ horrible memory performance...
 
VirtualLarry

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,572
10,208
126
The Clarkdale lineup is honestly made up of CPUs that are too expensive. The Core i5 670, 661/660 and 650 are all priced above $170 and aren’t worth the money.
Click to expand...

I see that Anand agrees with me. Way too expensive for dual-cores.
 
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