Core i7 Reviews

[HexiumVII]

Very interesting. The new motherboards look ridiculous. They keep finding more and more bling to put on them, i mean Asus boards have spoilers on the heatsinks! Overall it seems anandtech was right about the i7 not helping much in games right now. I'm boycotting SLi/Xfire, let alone triple SLi/Xfire. I don't see octocore really helping many people other than encoders and maybe running lots of virtual machines. I just might get an i7 for xmas as i do run lots of VMs and playing with Hyper V a lot. A little off topic, for those looking to pair i7 with Win7, its not really need, Win7 prebeta blazes like no ones business. Its twice as fast as Vistasp1/Server08 and even faster than nlite install of XP. I'm absolutely amazed, i have it install on a turion 1.6GHz 1GB, 100GB 4200rpm which is dog slow on any other OS. Even installing CS4 suite took half the time for some reason.

 

[sunnn]

Originally posted by: dmens

Originally posted by: sunnn
clearly, comparing to c2q's size and power consumption (and prolly oclocakability), and cost to migrate to new platform, i7 has underachieve. clearly the chip is not for gamers, except prolly the hardcorest (if there's even a word) of the hardcores.

if deneb can come up to 90-95pct of penryn with significant low power consumption compared to old phenom, with the right pricing, i think it has a fair chance.

clearly you didn't look at the power numbers... at default stock voltage the nehalems draw less power at load and stress than equivalently clocked penryns. dumbass.

sorry if i misread anything, i looked at the system consumption and i have seen neahalem with higher consumption. can you exactly where it is? there werent many reviews then. also, when you were young and you made mistake and being called such and such, chances are youre going to adapt the same attitude towards others when you get older

 

[Ichigo]

Originally posted by: HexiumVII
Very interesting. The new motherboards look ridiculous. They keep finding more and more bling to put on them, i mean Asus boards have spoilers on the heatsinks! Overall it seems anandtech was right about the i7 not helping much in games right now. I'm boycotting SLi/Xfire, let alone triple SLi/Xfire. I don't see octocore really helping many people other than encoders and maybe running lots of virtual machines. I just might get an i7 for xmas as i do run lots of VMs and playing with Hyper V a lot. A little off topic, for those looking to pair i7 with Win7, its not really need, Win7 prebeta blazes like no ones business. Its twice as fast as Vistasp1/Server08 and even faster than nlite install of XP. I'm absolutely amazed, i have it install on a turion 1.6GHz 1GB, 100GB 4200rpm which is dog slow on any other OS. Even installing CS4 suite took half the time for some reason.

So... you're forcing yourself to be GPU-bound and then complain that i7 gets you no performance gains? Granted, I know what you're saying, but it seems pretty clear that if you can force a new game at high resolutions to become CPU-bound, i7 simply performs far better.

 

[Borealis7]

are there any reviews with tests with SMT on and off?
"8 core" vs quad penryn, 4 core vs quad penryn and "8 core" vs 4 core.

 

[Tempered81]

Damn. i7/X58 makes a huge difference in X-fire & Sli.

 

[sunnn]

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
Sunn: Read Guru3D's multiGPU tests. They provide results between the 965 and E8400 at all different resolutions and different video cards.

After reading the Legionhardware and Guru3D reviews, I must say I am impressed right now with Core i7's raw performance, and its performance for future video cards and gaming. I think Guru3D nailed the analysis by saying that games today are limited by software and 3D hardware. There is just no way Core i7 was going to deliver significant performance improvement when it is paired with any single video card, because even today's Core 2 processors are able to let a video card like an HD4870 or GTX280 deliver maximum performance at the most commonly played resolutions. Those multi-GPU results did blow my mind, and I hope everyone has a chance to look at them and read Guru3D's article.

In short: It's not Core i7's fault that it can't improve performance in today's games at today's commonly used resolutions using today's popular video card setups.

Now, off to read some more reviews!

Edit: To those worrying about overclocking: Reviews seem to show that a Core i7 @ 3.2 is plenty fast for even the 3-way SLI GTX 280s, so I imagine many people will be able to take an i7 920 up to 3.2 GHz and have a pretty damn fast system for not as costly as some of you are making it out to be, since a 3.2 GHz i7 does provide a noticeable performance improvement over a Core 2 Duo. I do wish, though, that Guru3D threw in a Q9650 for good measure.

re guru3d review: i don't know, they compared a ~$1000 monolithic-quadcore-with-imc-hypertrading-and-qpi-2nd-gen-45nm-process-with-triple-channel-memory-cpu to a ~$200-old-gen-and-dualcore-cpu and we can call it impressive? hah.

 

[faxon]

for anyone who hasnt noticed yet, AT has multiple reviews up on the front page now

my comment to the article is as such:

toms hardware published an article detailing that there would be a cap on how high you are allowed to clock your part before it would downclock it back to stock. since this is an integrated par of the core, you can only turn it off/up/down if they unlock it. the limit was supposedly a 130watt thermal dissipation mark. what effect did this have in your tests on overclocking the 920?

 

[MarcVenice]

Since when did quadcores started scaling so well in all those games? Is it because of the multi threading? I wish gurud3 had included a qx9770. Weird to see such flat lines on the e8400 at 3.0ghz though. I also wonder if sli-ed gtx280's aren't bandwith starved on a 680i mobo ?

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: faxon
for anyone who hasnt noticed yet, AT has multiple reviews up on the front page now

my comment to the article is as such:

toms hardware published an article detailing that there would be a cap on how high you are allowed to clock your part before it would downclock it back to stock. since this is an integrated par of the core, you can only turn it off/up/down if they unlock it. the limit was supposedly a 130watt thermal dissipation mark. what effect did this have in your tests on overclocking the 920?

That specific cap is for the turbo mode, as I understand it. I think i7 still follows TM2/TjMax like Penryn does when it comes to absolute "don't melt down" throttling. You'll notice for example that turbo mode wouldn't work once they put their setup in a case.

 

[faxon]

ahh i see. TH made it out to be a hardcap on the unwarrantied overclocking potential of the chips, based on how warm they were running. i almost cried (literally) when i read you wouldnt be able to OC them passed a certain point

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: faxon
ahh i see. TH made it out to be a hardcap on the unwarrantied overclocking potential of the chips, based on how warm they were running. i almost cried (literally) when i read you wouldnt be able to OC them passed a certain point

Technically you can't overclock it if you heat it up to deep-fryer levels, but then again that's true for the C2 series too.

 

[faxon]

lol yea that would be true of any processor. i think my P4 northwood actually came with a little card that said "would you like frys with that?"

 

[sunnn]

Originally posted by: Ichigo

Originally posted by: HexiumVII
Very interesting. The new motherboards look ridiculous. They keep finding more and more bling to put on them, i mean Asus boards have spoilers on the heatsinks! Overall it seems anandtech was right about the i7 not helping much in games right now. I'm boycotting SLi/Xfire, let alone triple SLi/Xfire. I don't see octocore really helping many people other than encoders and maybe running lots of virtual machines. I just might get an i7 for xmas as i do run lots of VMs and playing with Hyper V a lot. A little off topic, for those looking to pair i7 with Win7, its not really need, Win7 prebeta blazes like no ones business. Its twice as fast as Vistasp1/Server08 and even faster than nlite install of XP. I'm absolutely amazed, i have it install on a turion 1.6GHz 1GB, 100GB 4200rpm which is dog slow on any other OS. Even installing CS4 suite took half the time for some reason.

So... you're forcing yourself to be GPU-bound and then complain that i7 gets you no performance gains? Granted, I know what you're saying, but it seems pretty clear that if you can force a new game at high resolutions to become CPU-bound, i7 simply performs far better.

the point is that, playing games at very high resolutions, top of the line cpu's hardly make a difference, much less an 8-thread, tri-channel cpu. that's why upgrading from previous extreme to next gen extreme cpu is pointless for gaming.
now to determine whether nehalem improves on previous, low res is used, preferably 1024x768.
however, site after site, we are bombarded with game test results done at different high res, used different cards, different setups. some test at low res but used very old games, others across multiple resolutions but compare to 1 old cpu. one can hardly make a comparison. and theres no continuity, meaning the ability to compare the result to previous result. its more confusion than conclusion.
after reading the reviews you have more questions than answers.
if nehalem truly is an improvement from the previous gen, why hide it.
maybe improvement on superpi and tdp

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: sunnn
the point is that, playing games at very high resolutions, top of the line cpu's hardly make a difference, much less an 8-thread, tri-channel cpu. that's why upgrading from previous extreme to next gen extreme cpu is pointless for gaming.
now to determine whether nehalem improves on previous, low res is used, preferably 1024x768.
however, site after site, we are bombarded with game test results done at different high res, used different cards, different setups. some test at low res but used very old games, others across multiple resolutions but compare to 1 old cpu. one can hardly make a comparison. and theres no continuity, meaning the ability to compare the result to previous result. its more confusion than conclusion.
after reading the reviews you have more questions than answers.
if nehalem truly is an improvement from the previous gen, why hide it.
maybe improvement on superpi and tdp

What you don't seem to understand is that CPUs were already less important to gaming performance than GPUs. This is not something new with Nehalem. Any person who uses a PC almost exclusively for gaming.. and still expects a CPU upgrade alone to turn an unplayably slow game into a playable one is a fool.

If, however, you're someone who uses a PC for something other than gaming, like video editing and content creation.. for a fifth, a quarter, or more of the time.. you would see significant benefits in those areas without giving anything up on the gaming side. Core i7 is, therefore, an excellent choice for anyone who isn't exclusively a gamer. Pure gamers should be putting their money into GPUs, not CPUs.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: sunnn

Originally posted by: Ichigo

Originally posted by: HexiumVII
Very interesting. The new motherboards look ridiculous. They keep finding more and more bling to put on them, i mean Asus boards have spoilers on the heatsinks! Overall it seems anandtech was right about the i7 not helping much in games right now. I'm boycotting SLi/Xfire, let alone triple SLi/Xfire. I don't see octocore really helping many people other than encoders and maybe running lots of virtual machines. I just might get an i7 for xmas as i do run lots of VMs and playing with Hyper V a lot. A little off topic, for those looking to pair i7 with Win7, its not really need, Win7 prebeta blazes like no ones business. Its twice as fast as Vistasp1/Server08 and even faster than nlite install of XP. I'm absolutely amazed, i have it install on a turion 1.6GHz 1GB, 100GB 4200rpm which is dog slow on any other OS. Even installing CS4 suite took half the time for some reason.

So... you're forcing yourself to be GPU-bound and then complain that i7 gets you no performance gains? Granted, I know what you're saying, but it seems pretty clear that if you can force a new game at high resolutions to become CPU-bound, i7 simply performs far better.

the point is that, playing games at very high resolutions, top of the line cpu's hardly make a difference, much less an 8-thread, tri-channel cpu. that's why upgrading from previous extreme to next gen extreme cpu is pointless for gaming.
now to determine whether nehalem improves on previous, low res is used, preferably 1024x768.
however, site after site, we are bombarded with game test results done at different high res, used different cards, different setups. some test at low res but used very old games, others across multiple resolutions but compare to 1 old cpu. one can hardly make a comparison. and theres no continuity, meaning the ability to compare the result to previous result. its more confusion than conclusion.
after reading the reviews you have more questions than answers.
if nehalem truly is an improvement from the previous gen, why hide it.
maybe improvement on superpi and tdp

There is more to PC's than just gaming. Nehalem may be worth the expense for the productivity improvementsto some people will see who actually do more with their computers than just game.

If you're doing nothing but gaming on your PC (frown) than Core2Duo is just fine.

 

[sunnn]

Originally posted by: zsdersw

Originally posted by: sunnn
the point is that, playing games at very high resolutions, top of the line cpu's hardly make a difference, much less an 8-thread, tri-channel cpu. that's why upgrading from previous extreme to next gen extreme cpu is pointless for gaming.
now to determine whether nehalem improves on previous, low res is used, preferably 1024x768.
however, site after site, we are bombarded with game test results done at different high res, used different cards, different setups. some test at low res but used very old games, others across multiple resolutions but compare to 1 old cpu. one can hardly make a comparison. and theres no continuity, meaning the ability to compare the result to previous result. its more confusion than conclusion.
after reading the reviews you have more questions than answers.
if nehalem truly is an improvement from the previous gen, why hide it.
maybe improvement on superpi and tdp

What you don't seem to understand is that CPUs were already less important to gaming performance than GPUs. This is not something new with Nehalem. Any person who uses a PC almost exclusively for gaming.. and still expects a CPU upgrade alone to turn an unplayably slow game into a playable one is a fool.

If, however, you're someone who uses a PC for something other than gaming, like video editing and content creation.. for a fifth, a quarter, or more of the time.. you would see significant benefits in those areas without giving anything up on the gaming side. Core i7 is, therefore, an excellent choice for anyone who isn't exclusively a gamer. Pure gamers should be putting their money into GPUs, not CPUs.

the point is that, playing games at very high resolutions, top of the line cpu's hardly make a difference, much less an 8-thread, tri-channel cpu. that's why upgrading from previous extreme to next gen extreme cpu is pointless for gaming.

CPUs were already less important to gaming performance than GPUs. This is not something new with Nehalem.

this is exactly what i said dont you think. unless you use 3xsli/ 4xcrossfire, extreme cpu hardly make a difference.
i never said about anything other than gaming.
now video encoding, 3d rendering that's another story.
maybe we could see gpgpu/cuda vs. nehalem/deneb benchmark soon? that would be very interesting.

 

[Nemesis 1]

Some really good reviews . Some not so good. But 20% is pretty good on brand new tech. It will improve.

Really impressive gaming benhmarks. We don't see it much with todays cards.But when tri sli shows those kinds of gains over an equel penryn @ 3.2 I say thats special .

Next generation cards should really show this in new released games . Very good.

Looks pretty futureproof. While Puting penryn in its place as a Middle to lowend product.

Tick tock kicks ass.

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Borealis7
are there any reviews with tests with SMT on and off?
"8 core" vs quad penryn, 4 core vs quad penryn and "8 core" vs 4 core.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com..._CPUs_reviewed/?page=4

 

[nyker96]

locaking out OC for Intel isn't a smart move. Since the OC community is about 1% of total sales yet drives much of the enthusiasm of the products they sell, this isn't smart move. Now if AMD can come up with something that gets closer and leave open the OC possibilities open, they might just steal some thunder for their future products, not to mention my dollars.

 

[zsdersw]

Originally posted by: sunnn
this is exactly what i said dont you think. unless you use 3xsli/ 4xcrossfire, extreme cpu hardly make a difference.
i never said about anything other than gaming.
now video encoding, 3d rendering that's another story.
maybe we could see gpgpu/cuda vs. nehalem/deneb benchmark soon? that would be very interesting.

It's not so much what you said as it is the tone behind the words. When you look at a new CPU from purely a gamers perspective, you're missing the boat entirely.. and that's what you've been doing.

 

[Denithor]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
If you're doing nothing but gaming on your PC (frown) than Core2Duo is just fine.

I do a little more than just gaming on my PC but I think for the moment I'm going to stick with my e8400 + e3110 rigs. I will probably wait for Westmere next year and that will be my first quad-core chip.

I just don't see anything compelling enough to justify a jump from 65W TDP on my duals to a 130W Nehalem. Perhaps by next year more games & general applications will have better multicore optimization.

One question: does Intel have any plans for a dual core version of this architecture or will all processors from here out be quad core (or more)?

 

[Nemesis 1]

Read this article . It gives a better Image of the power the IC7 truely has in gaming.

As more new games come out and next generation GPUs from NV/ ATI/ Intel appear. Its a clear hugh step above this generation of cpu.s As this article clearly shows

The M/Bs that come out in the 1st qt. 09 with the hydra chip should really show the true power of this beast. http://www.guru3d.com/article/...me-performance-review/

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Nemesis 1
The M/Bs that come out in the 1st qt. 09 with the hydra chip should really show the true power of this beast. http://www.guru3d.com/article/...me-performance-review/

Read this page in the AT review. I think the 680i is the culprit at Guru3d.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...owdoc.aspx?i=3448&p=12

 

[solofly]

Can`t wait to get mine...

 

[Nemesis 1]

I read it along time ago . I read all the reviews befor I seen the whole picture. I also said . I was also surprized by ATs choice of games in the page you linked. It was OK but other sites showed other game results that clearly show IC7 brute gaming power.

The thing that bothered me about AT.s choice was they used Crysis in several examples and than when it came to a game thats almost unplayable because of gpu power. They didn't show the hugh gains in crysis with tri sli. GOD I hate saying that . But its a FACT TRI SLI WITH X58* KICKS ASS.