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Intel Sandy Bridge Desktop and Mobile CPUs
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."
What benchmarks is the poster reading exactly ? On the Mac side, the SB IGP barely beat out the current nVidia 320M in shipping MacBooks, at low settings (a CPU bound task) and couldn't match the performance at medium settings meaning the SB IGP is slower than nVidia's offering from 2009!
There's nothing impressive, this is standard Intel IGP fare.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
HotHardware Mobile: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-Core-i72820QM-Mobile-Sandy-Bridge-Processor-Review/
HH Desktop: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Intel-Core-i72600K-and-i52500K-Processors-Debut/
Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i5-2600k-i5-2500k-and-core-i3-2100-tested
Tech Report: http://techreport.com/articles.x/20188
Legit Reviews: http://legitreviews.com/article/1506/1/ (mobile)
Legit: http://legitreviews.com/article/1501/1/ (desktop)
CmdrTaco, you duped the links, which appears to be an accident.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Summary is a bit light on sources... pcper.com is good, but you should be looking at multiple reviews to get a well rounded perspective.
Here's a few:
http://www.overclockers.com/intel-i7-2600k-sandy-bridge-review
http://legitreviews.com/article/1501/1/
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3754/intel_core_i7_2600k_and_core_i5_2500k_sandy_bridge_cpus/index.html
http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews/processors/7689-intel-core-i5-2500k-processor-review
Overclockers
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 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.
Personally I'm more looking forward to the octi-core units which are scheduled for in Q3 2011.
Combined with a decent dedicated GFX card they'll make a good basis for a new 3D workstation.
So the rumors are true: according to the article all Sandy Bridge CPUs are Socket LGA 1155, replacing the 18 month old LGA 1366 and 17 month old LGA 1156.
I'm all for bigger and better but it's a pain to throw away a $500 motherboard every 18 months because Intel decided they want to change the socket.
On the other hand the latest 6-core processors from AMD still support 3+ yr old AM2+ motherboards. It's nice to see someone still looking out for the budget shopper.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
nobody cares since the people buying these won't care about playing Black Ops at the highest settings. i sat out the Steam sale this year because almost every game is available for the X-Box 360 and PS3. I just want a laptop to play Civ 4 once in a while and store all my photos and music. and Sandy Bridge seems to spank Apple's laptops in a lot of areas now
intel also needs more PCI-E lanes as just X16 for video is not ok with Light peak , USB 3 , cable card tuners and more on the way that needs more then just a pci-e x1 slot should have 20 so you can have x16 video and x4 for a add in card.
That would had been more of an issue if the competition had better chips.
They don't.
So regardless if you feel Intel is holding their chips back or not what are you going to do about it?
Anyone know whether or not Dell's M6xxx mobile workstation line will start offering Sandy Bridge processors on/around the official Sandy Bridge launch date?
I've read that Dell will roll out a new product (M6600) with Sandy Bridge, but I don't know if it's happening this week, or something later.
nobody cares since the people buying these won't care about playing Black Ops at the highest settings. i sat out the Steam sale this year because almost every game is available for the X-Box 360 and PS3. I just want a laptop to play Civ 4 once in a while and store all my photos and music. and Sandy Bridge seems to spank Apple's laptops in a lot of areas now
The problem is that the integrated graphics just barely keeps up with the MacBook graphics at lowest resolution because of the advanced CPU, but once the resolution is increased, Sandy Bridge integrated graphics gets slaughtered by the lowly NVidia 320 in the MacBook.
It's good enough for most general purpose laptops. However if you wanted discrete graphics in your new laptop, you are going to have to take Intel's offerings no matter what. Just like the current generation of Core i mobile chipsets, the built-in graphics are merely disabled when you add your own separate graphics. I think Apple is the only manufacturer that has worked to get both to work by switching them on depending on load.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And we still have no decent quality low cost mobile computer. Don't try to tell me the Atom is decent or low cost!
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
I prefer my CPU to be running in a low power mode most of my session. TurboBoost also serves to keep power consumption and thermals within a good range while allowing single threaded tasks to run a bit faster than they would normally.
Also interestingly, the most expensive desktop part will start at $317, putting the screws to AMD yet again.
When has Intel ever lowered prices without needing to?
It's more likely that instead of putting the screws to AMD, Intel is worried about Bobcat and Bulldozer coming out pretty soon and factoring that into their prices (to gain market share before AMD chips get out). On merit Bobcat CPUs should dominate the low-end laptop/netbook market with low power use and real integrated graphics. Bulldozer should do well in the high-end server market again with low-power and more cores... basically where intel CPUs have hyperthreading, Bulldozer has another actual core (for integer instructions).
So Ubuntu puts out a bugfix and everything works dandy again. Graphics drivers improve under Linux in a month or so. What a shocker.
It's not like Charlie hasn't shown himself to be a complete and total ass before, as Intel pointed out at the end of the article. Demerijan is a whiny tosser who has been a spouter of bullshit for quite some time now.
No, Turbo Boost does not dumb down your processor. It turns an SMP system into an asymmetric multiprocessor system on demand. If you are running a single CPU-bound thread (a pretty common workload), then it overclocks one core and underclocks the others so that you get better single-thread performance but don't overstep the CPU's thermal dissipation limit.
Ideally, you'd never use Turbo Boost, because all of your applications would be written to use n threads (where n is variable depending on the number of cores available) and to perfectly evenly distribute work among them. Back in the real world, it provides a performance boost because CPU-bound tasks tend not to be perfectly evenly distributed among concurrent threads or processes.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
There's one benchmark here that could reasonably be compiled on a processor specific basis, to show what the processor really can do (as opposed to all the other benchmarks, which are based on proprietary least-common-denominator executables: Euler3D.
And there are processor specific enhancements that could have great influence (150%?) on this code's performance... As it happens, this benchmark the one of greatest professional interest to me, anyway :-)
I'd really like to know how its performance would compare with Gulftown, if the benchmark were compiled for SandyBridge, with the latest (SandyBridge-supporting) edition of ifort.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
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 (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......
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
That's 16 lanes coming directly out of the CPU; the chipset also provides an additional 8 lanes.
This means that in order to get data from a discrete GPU to a PCIe lightpeak card will require a journey from the GPU, through the CPU PCIe lanes, through the CPU, down whatever they're calling the Frontside Bus this week, into the Chipset's PCIe controller, down those lanes and into the lightpeak card. I don't know if that will affect performance much.
Of course, I doubt we'll see GPU support for Lightpeak monitor connections OR Lightpeak monitors for at least a year after Lightpeak itself comes out, so its unlikely to see use this CPU generation.
Semiaccurate.. hmm. Seems a fitting name for such idiocy.
Sandy bridge does not have USB3. That motherboard may have a USB3 chip onboard, but it has nothing to do with Sandy Bridge other than the lame fact the SB chipsets don't have USB3 yet.
Sandy Bridge implements treacherous computing.
FreeSpeech.org
Ideally, there's no such thing as tasks which can't scale to multiple threads?
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
How do I turn it off? I'm blinded by the SPEED! Is Intel stealing 15 year old marketing shtick from Gateway?
Apparently plus an embedded DRM according to this article from The Inquirer. Previous generation is looking better and better.
Nobody with any sense gives a shit - if you don't like the DRM features, don't use programs that require them.
or use a Voodoo 2 like Loopback Cable to get the video on the light peek bus.
but apple is pushing open CL and weaker video does not help.
and who cares? Remember PIII?
you mean like rather just announced and released hardware risks to break compatibility with what - 18+ months old platform? Shocking!
" a new Turbo Boost mode that increases clock speeds dynamically "
Dynamically? I want my Turbo Boost button back. 66 megahertz or bust!
Also interestingly, the most expensive desktop part will start at $317, putting the screws to AMD yet again
I don't see any screws. The business analysts at Intel determined the "correct" price based on the performance of the chip. AMD's most expensive desktop CPU is $265. About 17% less than the i7-2600K. The graphs I'm looking at on Anandtech right now show this to be about in line with the performance delta between these 2 CPUs.
Intel has almost always had an idiotically-priced Extreme Edition CPU at $999 (or $500, or some other price that will ensure worldwide sales can be measured in dozens). They didn't do that in this round, but they didn't price these chips at a level that makes AMD not worthy of consideration. Bring on Bulldozer!
From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc
That's when the crippling bug surfaced. It seems the USB3 ports on the Intel DH67BL don't want to work.
This is hardly surprising. The board's only certified to comply with the USB2 specification.
http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-026528.htm