Intel's Core i7 870 & i5 750, Lynnfield: Harder, Better, Faster Stronger
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 8, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The Best Gaming CPU?
When I first previewed Lynnfield I theorized that its aggressive turbo modes would make it the best gaming CPU on the market. Most games these days use between two and four threads, not enough for Hyper Threading to be truly beneficial. As a result, Nehalem never really did all that well in games. It was generally faster than the competition, but not much and not on a performance-per-dollar basis.
I ran a few new game tests under Windows 7 to accompany our usual game benchmarks. The competitors here are limited to Lynnfield (of course), Bloomfield, Penryn and AMD's Phenom II.
Dawn of War II doesn't actually shatter any expectations. While turbo clearly benefits Lynnfield, it isn't enough to dethrone Bloomfield. The Core i7 920 is marginally faster than the new i5 750. Here's where things get interesting though: look at minimum frame rates. In both Lynnfield platforms, the minimum frame rates are higher than the competing Bloomfield system. That appears to be Lynnfield's aggressive turbo modes at work. While they're not constantly pushing Lynnfield to a higher clock speed, they do apparently help out when it matters the most.
The other thing to notice is the lowest Lynnfield is a faster gaming CPU than Intel's fastest dual-core: the E8600.
Sacred 2 is an example of performance standings in a more normal manner. Lynnfield can't seem to outperform Bloomfield, and the Core i5 750 actually falls slightly behind AMD's Phenom II X4 965 BE.
With World of Warcraft we're back to turbo mode having a very positive impact. The Core i7 870 is nearly as fast as the i7 975, while the i5 750 is a bit slower than the i7 920. Both are faster than the Phenom II X4 965 BE, which is in turn faster than the Q9650.
These three benchmarks seem to outline the three most realistic options for Lynnfield's gaming performance. In situations where its turbo modes can work, Lynnfield can be equal to if not faster than Bloomfield. In those situations where it doesn't kick in, Lynnfield is at least competitive with Phenom II and Bloomfield. In all situations the old Core 2 Quad Q9650 is at the bottom of the charts.
I'll throw in one more option just to complicate things. Have a look at this:
Not exactly the norm, but here we have the Phenom II X4 965 BE faster than everything - including the Core i7 975. Unfortunately there's no one benchmark that will sum up how these things perform, but overall it looks like Lynnfield is going to be one capable gaming CPU.
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Ben90 - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link
Was reading it pretty casually thinking it was just a preview because i didnt think the NDA lifted yet.... then i saw a next page... looked at the tab and it has like 20 pages OMGOMGOMGOMG!!! ITS OUT LOL....Im gonna try really really hard to read the article before i go to the gaming performance though...prolly wont make itLashek - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link
you compare it to the Q6600 a lot in the text, but no comparison with an overclocked Q6600 is made in the benches...If you have figures of an overclocked Q6600, could you add them? all over the web these question are asked but business leaders who own these web sites dont want to challenge a overclocked core 2 duo,and quads,or is it politics?
coldpower27 - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - link
You will have to compare an overclocked I750 or i860 to the Q6600 as that would only be fair, no sense doing a stock vs overclocked comparison.It is well known you can equal todays stock performance by overclocking to some degree, but if your going to compare overclock then you need to overclock both processors.
Q6600 will be destroyed by i750 and i860 if you compare perf/watt however.
Joshaze - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link
Anand,When testing World of Warcraft what processAffinityMask value where you using?
The default value for this variable does not take advantage of all cores on the Core i7 processors.
Here is the article discussing the CVAR: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi...">http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi...
The value should be 255 for 8 cores and 15 for 4 cores.
If not, any chance you could retest using the above values and report back on any changes?
Googer - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link
The lack of PS2 is a real deal killer for me, I have a beloved IBM Clicky Model M keyboard (1391401) and I will not give it up for anything. I know PS2-usb keyboard adapter exist but they just don't work very well.I am not alone, there are tens of thousands of vintage keyboard lovers out there and the IBM Model 1391401 is one of the more popular ones among keyboard aficionados.
Kind of sad that a 20-30 year old keyboard still works as well as they day it was made, new cheaper keyboards are less acuurate, uncomfortable, very flimsy and are poorly made. You would be lucky to get 5-6 years out of 'some' of these newer $90+ keyboards.
Save PS2, keep it alive. PS/2 has less lag than any USB keyboard I have tried. There are a lot of great keyboards still in use. There is no shortage of real estate on the back IO shields, so there should be no reason not to include a PS/2 port..
MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - link
Seconding this. USB is incapable of providing n-key rollover for keyboards. PS2 can. Not everyone needs that, but I won't do without it.Zoomer - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link
I saw at least one PS2 port on these motherboards. What are you talking about again? Yes, they seem to be shared with the PS2 port for mice, but mice work the same on USB anyway.Taft12 - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link
This is probably the most off-topic post I've seen on this site. Fortunately for all of us, your rant is invalid and you never have to say anything about this ever again:http://www.syba.com/index.php?controller=Product&a...">http://www.syba.com/index.php?controller=Product&a...
boogerlad - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link
where't ta152h now? That idiot is finally done trolling.snakeoil - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link
all the results of this review are biased because they were made with turbo enabled, that's at least 600 mhz overclocking.to be fair you must compare this results against a phenom 2 overclockded at least 600 mhz
people is not stupid.