New Heatsinks and Motherboards

LGA-1156 processors use a different heatsink than both LGA-1366 and LGA-775 chips.


Lynnfield and its cooler

As the numbers would imply, the LGA-1156 heatsink has a larger footprint than LGA-775 but smaller than LGA-1366.


From Left to Right: Retail LGA-1366 Cooler, Retail LGA-1156 Cooler, Retail 45nm LGA-775 Cooler

The retail LGA-1156 is actually much closer to the 45nm LGA-775 retail cooler than the LGA-1366 retail HSF:

As you'll see later on in the article, the retail cooler isn't very good for heavy overclocking. Power users will want something a little bigger:

The Lynnfield/P55 launch is huge. Virtually every single motherboard manufacturer has a P55 board available. Prices range from ~$110 - $300 depending on the number of bells and whistles.


Gigabyte's ultra high end UD6 (left) and Gigabyte's lower end micro-ATX UD4 (right)


Gigabyte's high end UD6 comes with 6 DIMM slots like its X58 brethren.

Micro-ATX is increasing in popularity and we actually have some good options this time if you're trying to build a smaller Lynnfield system. Combined with Lynnfield's excellent idle power (the lowest of any quad-core we've ever tested), this could make for an unusually potent HTPC.


A closer look at Gigabyte's micro-ATX P55M-UD4

The only thing we're really missing is a good mini-ITX Lynnfield board. But perhaps the manufacturers will wait until we have on-package graphics before going down that route...

One More Time: New H55 Boards Next Year

As I subtley implied at the end of the last section, Intel is bringing on-package graphics to Nehalem starting in Q4 of this year:

The 32nm Nehalem shrink, codenamed Westmere, will be available with a 45nm Intel graphics core on the processor's package. This graphics core is an evolution of what's currently in the G45 chipset and not Larrabee (although eventually that will change). From what I've heard, this is actually going to be Intel's first reasonably good integrated graphics core.

With the graphics on-package, there needs to be an interface from the processor socket to video output located on the motherboard. As you can see from the P55 motherboards that are launching today: none of them have this video out. Granted there aren't any CPUs out to take advantage of it either.


No DVI/HDMI/VGA out...yet

Early next year (or maybe even late this year) we'll see a new breed of LGA-1156 motherboards with video output, designed for use with these Westmere IGP parts. Rumor has it that these motherboards will use Intel's H55 chipset.

Lynnfield early adopters need not worry, 32nm quad-core processors won't be out for at least a year.

The LGA-1156 Socket Homework: How Turbo Mode Works
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  • jnr0077 - Thursday, July 26, 2012 - link

    well i have the better model i5 750 1156 socket gaming score is 5.9 on basic 500 gb hd 7200 with a ssd it hit 7.9 on a gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6 12gb ram. as for the price
    cost was cheep intel (R)quad core (TM) i5 750 @2.66 GHz 2.67GHz cost around £100 mobo cost me £100 i though it is a very cheep upgrade considering price i wood like to here what score any Pehnom II X4 965 hit
  • Milleman - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link

    The article itself is good. But Why on earth compare a standard clocked CPU (AMD) against overclocked ones (Intel). Makes no objective sense att all. I's like having a car test between a standard car and a tuned racecar. Of course the racecar will win in performance. The overclock results shouldn't be there at all. Maybe as a remark that tell what will happen if one would like to overclock. Looks rather unfair and biased.

    So... why??
  • Nich0 - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link

    All I saw in this article is comparison of CPUs in their stock configuration. What's wrong with that?
  • Bozo Galora - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link

    I must say this was a very good logical coherent review with just about all the info one would require

    Good job - I had no intention of getting one of these, but now I may change my mind
  • IntelUser2000 - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - link

    http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-0299...">http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-0299...

    According to Intel...

    Core i7 870:

    5/4/2/2

    Core i7 860:

    5/4/1/1/

    Core i5 750:

    4/4/1/1

    So the i7 870 has higher Turbo mode for 3 and 4 cores than 860 does.
  • Nich0 - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link

    Yeah and that means that the OC numbers for the 750 with Turbo don't make sense. For example 4160 / 160 = 26 which would be a Turbo of 6 BCLK.
    Same thing for the 860 OC 3C/4C Turbo number.

    Am I missing something?
  • IntelUser2000 - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link

    Its likely Anand has ES versions or such which allows multiplier adjustments. But at stock, the linked speeds are the Turbo Boost grades.
  • Nich0 - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link

    Yeah obviously I am not disputing the stock OC with Turbo enabled (that sounds weird: stock OC?), ie 160*20= 3200, but just what it means in terms of Turbo: it 'should' read 3.36 for 3/4C and 3.84 for 1/2C if the 1/1/4/4 Turbo spec is correct.
  • rdkone - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - link

    I don't like the fact that the BCLK directly and synchronously communicates with PCIe buss, thus affecting the videocard negatively (among other PCIe cards)... This is like overclocking years ago whereas the PCI bus would be affected in the same way and causing headaches... This is a major issue I feel for those wanting to push a fairly big overclock on these CPU's... Intel screwed the pooch for us overclockers I feel... Just more justification to limp along with my core 2 quad at 4.1Ghz rock solid... Like others have said, is funny how the articles don't show older CPU overclocks against all this new garb... In the past they used to... But that hurts sales : )
  • SnowleopardPC - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - link

    Ok, so what type of boost do I get over a Q6600 with 8gb of ram and windows 7 64?

    Is it worth upgrading or waiting for that 6 core 32nm to come out next year?

    To upgrade to any of these I will need to replace a motherboard and ram with the processor.

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