Date:
Tuesday , August 25, 2009
Author:
Kyle Bennett
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Intel Core i5 Performance Preview

We take our retail purchased Intel Core i5-750 out for a spin and pit it against Intel's Core i7-965, We tweak the i5-750 to run at the same processor and memory speeds. i5 at 3.2GHz/1600MHz vs. i7 at 3.2GHz/1600MHz.

continued...

Conclusions

Isolationisms

The first thing I have to say is, as I go to write the conclusion of this article, I felt as though I left out a set of data. I should have run a set of 4GB vs. 4GB numbers, which I will try to do immediately. There are a few benchmarks where I would like to further isolate HyperThreading performance and therefore we could fully see how much impact the Core i7 processor's third channel of DDR3 memory is having on our benchmarks as well. So yes I will be getting on that and posting another preview article this week. I did not run them up front because quite honestly I was "sure" when I started that the third DDR3 channel would not make any difference in what we would see here today. However, I am second guessing myself a bit now and think I need proof in my corner. So keep your eyes out for that.

Stratifications

A couple months ago when you could buy Core i7-920 processors for $199.99 things were looking very good for the enthusiast. That paired with a $200 X58 chipset motherboard that would be somewhat feature limited and you had the beginnings of a killer performance box. Today, the cheap i7-920 has vanished and you will be paying between $250 and $280 from reputable e-tailers. I paid $205 for my Core i5-750.

The MSI P55-GD80 and ASUS P7P55D EVO series motherboards for LGA 1156 we have seen so far are to my understanding supposed to be sold at around the $200 mark. These motherboards have in no way been "feature limited." In fact, The GD-80 and P7P55D Deluxe have both been great motherboards to work with. The MSI GD-80 was giving us 3.5GHz overclocks by simply touching the one button OCGenie. More often than not you will be paying $230 to $280 for your X58 motherboard that has the feature set you want if not more.

All that said, I think the mainstream Core i5 is going to be a great offering to computer hardware enthusiasts that are looking to get more bang for their buck. I had initially thought that the product stack was going to be somewhat mucked up, but for the gamer, I think the best value is very likely to lie in the Intel Core i5 platform. That considered, I don’t think those looking to Core i7 for its true merits will be considering Core i5 machines. If they do, they likely did not need a Core i7 to begin with, and those users are truly few and far between.

Gaming & Applications Performance

It is clear from the graphs shown that the Core i7 at 3.2GHz is faster than the Core i5 at 3.2GHz. It is also very clear that the i7 is not a whole hell of a lot faster than the i5. I'm not even sure "faster" should be used in describing the performance difference. To be honest, I was stunned that clock for clock the i5 was as fast as it was, but then when you think about it, it should be. Nehalem vs. Nehalem. HyperThreading vs. No HT. Triple Channel vs. Dual Channel; and we have yet to see there be a big difference in any "normal" desktop applications in terms of new age memory bandwidth where 20GB/second is no longer impressive. What is there to give the i7 a huge advantage over the i5? Apparently, not a damn thing.

The Bottom Line

From what we have seen here and from what we saw in our most recent Real World Gameplay CPU Scaling article, HyperThreading needs in real gaming situations are minimal. For the most part, CPU frequency is still the most important factor way out in front of HyperThreading or memory bandwidth. Albeit, a dual core base level of computing is becoming the norm in gaming now. In most respects we are GPU limited way before CPU bottlenecks crop up.

The Intel Core i5-750 in our preview looks to be a tremendously worthy enthusiast part even if Intel is labeling it "mainstream." You guys know as well as I do that the true enthusiast parts always have been the mainstream or low-end dwellers anyway. Some upcoming Core i5 models are said to be featuring HyperThreading, but given the pricing structure and performance shown by the i5-750, I have to think that a lot of my overclocking brothers will be migrating to the i5-750.

MSI and ASUS look to have very promising motherboards in the GD-80 and P7P55D that are worth putting on your short list of LGA 1156 boards already. Both companies' motherboards have done great in our testing, and believe it or not, MSI has produced the best LGA 1156 motherboard we have seen yet.

Yes, actual metrics to come next week.

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