Thorough Review of Intel Core i5-750

[MODEL3]

http://en.expreview.com/2009/0...intel-core-i5-750.html

 

[happy medium]

So in short a i5 system is generally 10% slower then i7 and 5% slower with games. I5 consumes 50watts less power runs cooler and is more power efficient. With all this its also cheaper and overclocks well. Sound like a winner.

 

[Idontcare]

Sounds like PhII sans the power-consumption numbers.

 

[ilkhan]

IDC: pretty much.
Looks like the onboard PCI-E is helping a little (the game benchmarks aren't down as much as the productivity benchmarks), but it doesn't help as much as some member here were hoping. Id like to have seen the i7-860 included in the test (i5-750/i7-860/i7-920 being the major choices for most people) but this is a great first look.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Originally posted by: happy medium
So in short a i5 system is generally 10% slower then i7 and 5% slower with games. I5 consumes 50watts less power runs cooler and is more power efficient. With all this its also cheaper and overclocks well. Sound like a winner.

The gaming difference isn't even 5%. The only game that has that advantage is Far Cry 2, which is a pretty well multithreaded game. GTA4 and COD show no difference, and L4D shows a very small difference.

 

[n7]

Considering that pricing on the i5-750 is much lower than than the i7-920, this is really nice.

i7-860 is the real competitor to the i7-920 as it has 4 cores/8 threads, & is priced the same.

I suspect it's going to win a bunch of stuff, especially due to turbo mode.

 

[IntelUser2000]

http://www.tomshardware.com/re...erformance,2373-9.html

Looks like according to the Tomshardware review the high clock Turbo won't really matter. Not even dual core Turbo will be taken advantage of in most of the cases, let alone single core.

So the biggest thing is the quad core Turbo which isn't big of an advantage compared to Bloomfield.

As for the PCI-Express controller, the theory was based off numerous websites(including AT) that it might have an advantage. Initially, tests with Bloomfield have shown that performance were slightly slower with more GPU-bound setups. According to one site, the theory was that ATI would fare better off in comparison to Nvidia for i7, as it uses the similar combination of memory controller on-die/PCI Express on Northbridge and AMD/ATI has been optimizing for years to work better with that config.

One would wonder if that might have changed since then, as multiple game patches and motherboard revisions passed by, higher res settings might be equal on the i7 now.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Deleted for second post(Damnit!!).

 

[ilkhan]

Originally posted by: n7
Considering that pricing on the i5-750 is much lower than than the i7-920, this is really nice.

Unless you live near a microcenter and/or want to use a premium motherboard, in which case the price difference is negligible.
While the 860 is the same MSRP, its quite easy to find a 920 at a significant discount.

 

[n7]

Most of the world doesn't live near a Microcenter

Other than for triple channel (good for benchmarking) & CF/SLI (benchmarking/enthusiast gamers), X58 is going to be a very unneeded platform in the near future IMHO.

Obviously, time till tell.

 

[ilkhan]

nor do I. Thus the word "unless".

 

[phillyman36]

I am going to upgrade my q9450 rig. I was going to go for a newer 1156 i5/i7 for the turbo and power consumption. I'm starting to wonder if i should just hit Microcenter near me and get a i7 920 and stick with that until Sandy Bridge.

 

[Ben90]

Why are we getting excited over this processor? Looks like the exact same as the Core 2 Quads... We had ~10% of this performance in 2006

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Uh, these processors are doing what C2Qs did but doing so at a lower frequency and better power consumption? Thus meaning, if one overclocks, it should scale much better, and if one doesn't overclock then Turbo mode will provide a little to a lot of boost.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
Uh, these processors are doing what C2Qs did but doing so at a lower frequency and better power consumption? Thus meaning, if one overclocks, it should scale much better, and if one doesn't overclock then Turbo mode will provide a little to a lot of boost.

This "new" Turbo isn't gonna do much better than the Core i7 due to the fact that even games are at least 3 threaded meaning majority of the time the CPU will run at mere 266MHz higher, but other than that you have a good point. Did I mention the 750 will only do +133MHz just like the Bloomfields with quad core mode??

 

[happy medium]

I wonder if these cpu's also shine with sli/crossfire like the i7? Mabe thats where they lack in ability vs i7?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: happy medium
I wonder if these cpu's also shine with sli/crossfire like the i7? Mabe thats where they lack in ability vs i7?

P55 mobo is limited to 8x + 8x PCIe lanes
- UNLESS they employ a bridge chip like MSI does [for a premium price] .. and it still does not increase the *total 16x* PCIe bandwidth from the CPU to the GPU.