Intel Sandy Bridge Desktop and Mobile CPUs 116
Vigile writes "The new Intel Sandy Bridge architecture is being launched at CES this week but the reviews and benchmarks are out today. PC Perspective took a look at both the desktop and mobile variants, the former of which turns out to be quite an impressive processor for both highly threaded and single threaded applications. With some tweaks to the execution unit, a new Turbo Boost mode that increases clock speeds dynamically and a vastly improved integrated graphics implementation, the Core i7-2600K improves in every aspect. Also interestingly, the most expensive desktop part will start at $317, putting the screws to AMD yet again. On the mobile side of things, PC Perspective tested the quad-core Core i7-2820QM and the benchmark results are equally impressive; especially when looking at the gaming performance using integrated graphics. Sandy Bridge will no doubt put quite a dent in the discrete notebook graphics market for NVIDIA and AMD."
Additional Story Resources (Score:5, Informative)
HotHardware Mobile: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-Core-i72820QM-Mobile-Sandy-Bridge-Processor-Review/ [hothardware.com]
HH Desktop: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-Core-i72600K-and-i52500K-Processors-Debut/ [hothardware.com]
Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i5-2600k-i5-2500k-and-core-i3-2100-tested [anandtech.com]
Tech Report: http://techreport.com/articles.x/20188 [techreport.com]
Legit Reviews: http://legitreviews.com/article/1506/1/ [legitreviews.com] (mobile)
Legit: http://legitreviews.com/article/1501/1/ [legitreviews.com] (desktop)
Impressive? (Score:0, Informative)
They reviewed the best intel can offer, and it's significantly weaker than the $30, several generations old, bargain basement 3D cards they compared it to. It's a step up from the previous generation of intel graphics, but it's still very weak indeed - and I just know it'll be in everything because it's dirt cheap and laptop vendors manage to make it sound good (enough). Not impressed.
More Reviews... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a few:
http://www.overclockers.com/intel-i7-2600k-sandy-bridge-review [overclockers.com]
http://legitreviews.com/article/1501/1/ [legitreviews.com]
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3754/intel_core_i7_2600k_and_core_i5_2500k_sandy_bridge_cpus/index.html [tweaktown.com]
http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/processors/7689-intel-core-i5-2500k-processor-review [hitechlegion.com]
Is this the Tock? (Score:3, Informative)
The Sandy Bridge architecture, aside from the die shrink and subsequent increase in clock rate which that entails, in my opinion, is not that much of an improvement over the previous i7 Lynnfield architecture (i7 860, 870, 875k, 880). Here is an article that benchmarks [inpai.com.cn] a Sandy Bridge CPU vs an i875k where the frequency of both processors set to 3.4 GHZ... not that big of an improvement.
Funny thing is many of the articles today are praising the chip as a big improvement over Lynnfield not making it clear that this is most likely due to the clock rate increase.
Re:Additional Story Resources (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is this the Tock? (Score:2, Informative)
All if they don't like you they can disable the processor from afar. All that at no extra cost! That will be a boon for stopping the computers spreading to countries they don't like.
http://www.techspot.com/news/41643-intels-sandy-bridge-processors-have-a-remote-kill-switch.html [techspot.com]
Re:Additional Story Resources (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed! The more people read about these products the better informed. A couple more:
bit-tech: http://bit-tech.net/hardware/2011/01/03/intel-sandy-bridge-review/1 [bit-tech.net]
Neoseeker: http://neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/Intel_i7_2600K_Intel_i5_2500K [neoseeker.com]
Re:Impressive graphics ? (Score:5, Informative)
The 320M is not a discrete graphics option, it's an integrated graphics option, same as this SB GPU. So you disagree out of ignorance more than disagreement. This is again a really poor showing on Intel's part.
Re:Beware if you want to install Linux! (Score:4, Informative)
Uh... so you install a several months old version of Linux on a brand new architecture and it doesn't work, therefore the architecture is "broken"????? There are fully 100% open source drivers available for Sandy Bridge RIGHT NOW. Phoronix [phoronix.com] (usually the purveyor of sensationalism but a voice of reason in this case) goes out of its way to detail exactly what you need to run Sandy Bridge with 100% open source code. Now... is it 100% released yet? No, but at the same time, you have to remember that SB isn't even officially for sale yet. It WILL be fully released in the next round of distro updates, and you can get all the stuff to run it right now if you are truly as l33t as you think you are. I'm just sitting back and waiting for the AMD fanboys to scream about how AMD is so wonderful and all AMD graphics work perfectly in Linux when someone gets GLX gears running on a 6000 series part in 6 months......
Re:Impressive graphics ? (Score:5, Informative)
The 320M used in Macs shares memory with main system memory. That used the be the definition of an integrated graphics part. Dedicated/discrete GPUs have their own memory, hence the dedicated/discrete part of the name. I've been following graphics cards/benchmarks/terminology since the mid-90s and 3Dfx's rise to fame.
The 320M I'm talking about and that Anand used is integrated in the chipset, same as all the Intel graphics before it, so it shares its die with a memory controller, a SATA controller, a PCI interface and a USB controller. It is the very definition of an integrated graphics part. Intel only decided to move the part from the chipset and integrate more on the CPU die itself. That doesn't make their showing any more impressive.