Intel’s Core i7-975 & 950: Preparing for Lynnfield
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 3, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Performance
To measure performance under Photoshop CS4 we turn to the Retouch Artists’ Speed Test. The test does basic photo editing; there are a couple of color space conversions, many layer creations, color curve adjustment, image and canvas size adjustment, unsharp mask, and finally a gaussian blur performed on the entire image.
The whole process is timed and thanks to the use of Intel's X25-M SSD as our test bed hard drive, performance is far more predictable than back when we used to test on mechanical disks.
Time is reported in seconds and the lower numbers mean better performance. The test is multithreaded and can hit all four cores in a quad-core machine.
Whoever said there's no room for CPU performance improvements anymore would be very wrong. While the Pentium E5300 is more than sufficient for most tasks, there's nearly a 60% difference between its performance and the class leading Core i7-975. Even the Phenom II X4 955 takes 55% longer to complete this test.
The performance advantage is there, but it's one that you definitely pay for. The i7-975 is around 4x the price of the Phenom II X4 955.
DivX 8.5.3 with Xmpeg 5.0.3
Our DivX test is the same DivX / XMpeg 5.03 test we've run for the past few years now, the 1080p source file is encoded using the unconstrained DivX profile, quality/performance is set balanced at 5 and enhanced multithreading is enabled:
x264 HD Video Encoding Performance
Graysky's x264 HD test uses the publicly available x264 codec (open source alternative to H.264) to encode a 4Mbps 720p MPEG-2 source. The focus here is on quality rather than speed, thus the benchmark uses a 2-pass encode and reports the average frame rate in each pass.
The i7-975 is over 70% faster than AMD's fastest in our x264 encode test, and 3.85x the speed of the old Pentium EE 955. Even compared to the Core i7-920, the 975 is ~24% faster.
Windows Media Encoder 9 x64 Advanced Profile
In order to be codec agnostic we've got a Windows Media Encoder benchmark looking at the same sort of thing we've been doing in the DivX and x264 tests, but using WME instead.
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RadnorHarkonnen - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
I7 is already on a notebook.My DT PSU is a 750W psu.
Most laptops carry a 65w AC. People start complaining when they have to carry 6kg plus the 130w (or bigger) power brick. Computers are like cars, if you want performance, it will consume loads of juice.
Lappy owner wants, batery life, portability and low weight. They hate when lappys got too hot. So you got everything agaisnt performance. Its like asking a Smart/1.4 HDI engines to compete with my 309 GTI or Delta HF Turbo. And keeping the low mpg. Some DT CPUs have a 140W heat dissipation packadge. Most of them are about 65W - 90W. This is just HEAT that the CPU dissiaptes, the value it consumes is higher. Most lappies AC Adap are in the 65W range...
Most consumers that buy a lappy are ill informed or just don't know what they are buying. Most of them doesn't need that portability, and consider the computer slow soon after they buy it, when they start finding out what it "can't" do. Most time is branding in action or a bad sales monkey.
Netbooks were the way of the future, until they started getting a 30% of return rate. Netbooks are only good as a seconday computers.
I am not a hard core gamer. I don't need workstation performance. I do like a decent performance and i do heavy multi-tasking. You can say Microsoft Office is light (for example), and any laptop can do it, but my Ms for various reasons, when some tasks come, she just drops her lappy and come to my DT. Sometimes to apply a filter. that is just one example.
Laptops/Desktops/Netbooks will never disapear, because they do diferent jobs. You know a laptop/netbook can't handle for very long a intensive (10+ hours daily) tasks. You can't carry a desktop. Well you can, but not everyday.
Honestly ? I think the normal Laptop will disapear and it will be replaced by the netbook in one tier, and slim CULV/ULV cpus in a higher tier. If you need "some" performance and reliability for that matter, the Desktop is there for you.
SDSUMarcus01 - Friday, June 5, 2009 - link
Yeah, I got a desktop $2000 "replacement" laptop about 3 years ago and it has been a nightmare. In the beginning, it overheated and shut down all the time. Sometimes I couldn't even turn the damn thing on, it'd overheat while LOADING windows.Now I get it to work pretty well but that's after a cooling pad, arctic silver 5, coppermodding the gpu, undervolting AND underclocking (even undervolted, the higher multipliers get too hot).
Not to mention it's not that portable either, it's damn big and heavy.
I look forward to returning to the US in about a month and using a desktop again. If I ever buy a laptop again, it WILL be a secondary computer for travel purposes.
aeternitas - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
"Its like asking a Smart/1.4 HDI engines to compete with my 309 GTI or Delta HF Turbo. And keeping the low mpg."I think keeping low mpg isnt much of a problem ;)
RadnorHarkonnen - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
Sure, My Lancia does 0-240 Km/h in less than 40 secs.The Peugeot takes a bit more time and only reaches the 220 Km/H.
Get a SMART/1.4HDI engine doing that, and keeping the 4L per 100Kms.
That is what hes asking. The Smart could only reach that in a free-fall.
nubie - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
Dumbest analogy I have ever heard.http://www.smartuki.com/">http://www.smartuki.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEdmmWb9DhQ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEdmmWb9DhQ
I assume there is some reason that the Nehalem processors can't be targeted to more vigorous sleep states and attempt to run on 1-2 processors more of the time?
There is no reason that they can't be in laptops, they are no more power hungry than the P4 notebooks. And they are much much better performing.
strikeback03 - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
Can you do anything interesting with it? All the tool driving appears to be interested in is blowing doughnuts.And that Ferrari driver sucks, dunno if that is the best the Smart can do, but the F430 can certainly top a 13.4 second quarter mile with a competent driver.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
You'll see both dual and quad-core Nehalem (Core i7 derivatives) on the notebook in the second half of this year. The quad-core options will appear first then the dual-core at the very end of 2009 and into 2010.I wrote about this a little while ago:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc...
Hope that helps :)
Anand
Hrel - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
yeah, I also remember reading that we were going to see performance comparisons between different notebook GPU's and CPU's; and I quote, "soon". Where's that?? I'm with the guy above, notebooks are the future, barely anyone should care about desktops anymore... granted we need a standardized GPU slot on notebooks and dedicated GPU to integrated GPU switching NEEDS to become standard. Also LED and OLED screens, battery life is SO important. Intel thinks lighter laptops will make people take them outside more... still pointless if we need to carry a stupid ac adapter with us.nitromullet - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
That's my first question when I read this... Is Intel planning to phase out the 920 and replace that segment with Lynnfield?TA152H - Wednesday, June 3, 2009 - link
Why would you want a dog like Lynnfield if you can get a i7 920 for around the same price?The issues with Lynnfield can't be fixed, you can overclock an i7 920 and resolve what makes it slow (relatively speaking, of course). How are you going to fix the brain-damaged memory controller on the Lynnfield?
Lynnfield is the Celeron of the Nehalem world. It's fine for mainstream America, who actually can get by with AMD parts. But, for someone who knows how to overclock, why be saddled with a crippled processor when you get pay a little more and get a more capable platform? You're better off getting slower/cheaper memory, and getting an i7, than getting fast memory with the crippled Lynnfield memory controller.
Of course, I'm basing this on the performance given here on the previous review, which has me stunned. Maybe it's just pre-release hardware that caused the big drop in performance and the released version will be better. But still, I really hope they leave the i7 920 or something like it just in case the Lynnfield releases with the performance we saw in the pre-release version. If that's the case, forget it, and get the i7 920. It's got much more potential.