Intel Releases Broadwell Desktop CPUs: Core i7-5775C and i5-5675C

edxwelch writes: Intel has finally released their Broadwell desktop processors. Featuring Iris Pro Graphics 6200, they take the integrated graphics crown from AMD (albeit costing three times as much). However, they are not as fast as current Haswell flagship processors and they will be soon superseded by Skylake, to be released later this year. Tom's Hardware and Anandtech have the first reviews of the Core i7-5775C and i5-5675C.

Comments

What about AMD Godaveri?

[Freedom Bug]

Tom's didn't test against AMD Godaveri, which has a substantially faster GPU than the Kaveri chips Tom's tested against. Godaveri is about 20% faster than than Kaveri, so would be competitive with these chips, as well as being about 1/3rd of the price.

albeit costing three times as much

[nitehawk214]

For the past 5 or 10 years this has been the story of me building new computers. I don't follow tech pages on architectures much any more, just when I go to build a new computer I go and see what the latest offerings from amd/intel/nvidia are.

For pretty much ever it is, "AMD is kill, Intel rules all!" Except the fine print is that in order to rule all, you must pay 2x to 3x as much. So all of my performance/gaming computers for 17 years have been AMD/Nvidia (and VIA chipsets before Nvidia). (I have tried ATI a few times and just never cared for them.) And I get 3+ years out of each computer before it needs to be replaced.

Now, from a heat dissipation and power usage perspective, no amount of price/performance can replace that. And this is why I have not seen an AMD laptop in quite some time.

So why is AMD constantly on the verge of bankruptcy? Is there some Apple effect on Intel that causes people to throw money at them for no better performance increase? Do people simply not care how much they spend on computers? Is the laptop/mobile market cutting into PC/Server that much? Or are they just poorly managed. Over 15 years and I simply don't get it.

Re:albeit costing three times as much

[beelsebob]

The reason is simple - the title in the headline is misleading you about needing to pay 2 to 3 times more. It's comparing the Intel chip to a relatively low end AMD chip that happens to have a GPU, not to the high end AMD chips that it actually competes against.

If you go look at the first review, you'll see that in the CPU speed tests, the i5-5675C turns out to be substantially (about 30%) faster than even the FX-9590 (AMD's fastest desktop chip). That and it has a decently fast GPU built in too.

The i5 costs $276 (list price, so likely higher than what you'll actually get it in the shops), the FX-9590 costs $249 (on newegg today). So that's a 10% markup for a 30% faster CPU with a very usable GPU on board. Most people see that as a pretty good deal.

Re:albeit costing three times as much

[FlyHelicopters]

The result was I paid $200 for an FX-8350, which probably wasn't AMD's fastest chip at the time

That same $200 would have bought you a Core i5, which is faster in most respects to the AMD chip while using less power.

Yes, there are edge cases where the AMD chip is faster. Are you one of those edge cases?

$120 for an ASRock moberboard with onboard raid.

You can get nice Intel boards for about the same money, the $190 boards are overkill.

Of course, I was already planning a large case with a large heatsink/fan combo, so thermal concerns were not part of my calculation. If I wanted a reasonably sized computer, I would almost have to buy Intel.

Thermal may not matter, but how about your power bill?

The Intel chip will use less power, over 3 years of owning it, the power bill difference can easily wipe out any up front price difference.

And the FX-9590 is 220 Watts?? At this point I should be looking at price/W instead of price/$.

Insane, isn't it? These new Intel chips max out at 65w, and use less when the GPU isn't in heavy use.

However much time your computer is actually in use, times 150w of power, times three years, is how much in your power bill?

---

I'll be frank, a few years ago I didn't much consider the power consumption either, until I replaced my HVAC system with something from this century and then replaced all my incandescent bulbs with LED bulbs. I've started to do the math on how much of my monthly power bill is due to electronics, and the percentage is growing.

So I do now consider the typical lifetime power cost of something before I buy it, something I never used to do.

Why Intel generally thumps AMD in business

[sjbe]

So why is AMD constantly on the verge of bankruptcy?

Because AMD has historically made their business model making a product that is compatible with another company's product and that other company (Intel) has a cost advantage in making the product and generally controls the architecture. Intel is actually quite the manufacturing juggernaut in microprocessors whereas AMD has basically no manufacturing of their own. Intel also has a lead in die size as well so AMD is typically playing catch up. Intel basically can make a smaller, faster processor cheaper and sell it for less any time they want to. Hard to compete effectively with that. AMD has to be smarter than Intel and they haven't shown themselves to be capable of doing that on a consistent basis. Even when their designs have been better, Intel has been able to leverage their die size advantage to overcome design deficiencies. Furthermore they've made some pretty bad tactical business errors (the acquisition of ATI hasn't been the smoothest) and Intel has been known to engage in some arguably shady business dealings with their customers.

Basically probably the only reason AMD is still with us is that Intel doesn't want the anti-trust scrutiny that would come with killing them off. Having AMD around gives Intel a "credible" competitor, albeit one that hasn't shown any meaningful ability to compete consistently. AMD has been trying to diversify away from just PC microprocessors for a while now with mixed success.