The Sandy Bridge Review: The New Intel CPUs

[Dave76]

The Sandy Bridge Review: Intel Core i7-2600K, i5-2500K and Core i3-2100 Tested


Intel never quite reached 4GHz with the Pentium 4. Despite being on a dedicated quest for gigahertz the company stopped short and the best we ever got was 3.8GHz. Within a year the clock (no pun intended) was reset and we were all running Core 2 Duos at under 3GHz. With each subsequent generation Intel inched those clock speeds higher, but preferred to gain performance through efficiency rather than frequency.

Today, Intel quietly finishes what it started nearly a decade ago. When running a single threaded application, the Core i7-2600K will power gate three of its four cores and turbo the fourth core as high as 3.8GHz. Even with two cores active, the 32nm chip can run them both up to 3.7GHz. The only thing keeping us from 4GHz is a lack of competition to be honest. Relying on single-click motherboard auto-overclocking alone, the 2600K is easily at 4.4GHz. For those of you who want more, 4.6-4.8GHz is within reason. All on air, without any exotic cooling.

More...

 

[fireberd]

There is a thread on the Sonar forum. It's not as optiomistic about it's real performance.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Pretty good chance I will build one in the next 2 or 3 months.

Most of the sniveling I have seen is from overclockers who resent the difficulties they foresee and who don't want to be forced to a "K" series processor for overclocking purposes.

But overclockers always need something to bitch about. They'd complain if they were hanged with a new rope.

 

[Everlong]

Looks like this is what I'll upgrade to sometime this year.

 

[jfar]

Yes this looks good, it will probably cost an arm and a leg. ignatzatsonic, I like the new rope bit,

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Jfar:

I now have 4 year old Core 2 Duo.

All I will have to replace is motherboard, CPU, and RAM.

The upper midlevel processors should be in the $180 to $240 bracket.

4 gigs of DDR 3 RAM is about 50.

Looks like there will be motherboards from Intel and Gigabyte ranging from 120 or so on up. I"m looking for micro ATX around 150.

So, those 3 pieces will be circa 400 to 450, as I see it.

The processors should be at New Egg Jan 9. I think the NDA will be lifted circa Jan 5?

 

[Dave76]

Seem to remember a lot of complaints and worrrying about not being able to OC the i5 & i7 processors before they came out, guess they we're wrong then.

It's just done a bit differently.


ignatzatsonic, I just ran that same senerio while reading the article, won't be so bad

 

[mickey megabyte]

:drool:

 

[sygnus21]

Not bad at all, though I think I'll stick with my I7-930 for awhile. Anyway It's nice to see them give you a better CPU cooler. Yeah I know it's still an Intel but.....

Now....



Least we forget.....



And yes I know the i7-980X has a fancy fan too, but those in between until now....

Anyway Sandy looks impressive

 

[mickey megabyte]

yeah, i noticed the heatsink/fan too - it looks kick-ass!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Do my eyes deceive me, or have they actually modified the traditional 4 pin heatsink mount?

As I understand it, the traditional 4 pin mount was a joint venture between the Marquis de Sade and Alfred E. Newman. Hard to believe that Intel would give up on such a genius piece of engineering.

 

[sygnus21]

My eyes must be deceiving me because I don't see, or get what you're talking about?

 

[Everlong]

Not bad at all, though I think I'll stick with my I7-930 for awhile.

Well it's like most hardware at the moment - If you have something like an i7 930, then this isn't really worth upgrading too. It's most likely for people on Core 2 stuff still. I'm not sure when I'm going to do a CPU upgrade. All I'd need is a motherboard and CPU as I'm already using DDR3 RAM with my 790i, but :huh:

 

[the jimmy]

Do my eyes deceive me, or have they actually modified the traditional 4 pin heatsink mount?

As I understand it, the traditional 4 pin mount was a joint venture between the Marquis de Sade and Alfred E. Newman. Hard to believe that Intel would give up on such a genius piece of engineering.

Good call, even when I get the thing properly mounted I still have doubts if it's going to stay

 

[QuackPot]

Should be getting my i5-2500k next week.

 

[johnwillyums]

Here's a review from a UK mag and some UK prices. Don't look bad but you would have to get a new mobo.

Intel Sandy Bridge review | Processors | Reviews | PC Pro

 

[JerometheGiraff]

The fan looks nice, but the CPU doesn't. My mega machine probably going to need to lay down plastic on a dual 6-core Xeon with HT (3.3/3.5 gigs) and 14+ gigs of ram Soon, hopefully soon !

 

[pebbly]

Here's a review from a UK mag and some UK prices. Don't look bad but you would have to get a new mobo.

Intel Sandy Bridge review | Processors | Reviews | PC Pro

The price is very good , but I think the inbuilt DRM will put a few people off

 

[jfar]

The price is ok, but having to replace the Motherboard if you wanted one seems a bit much.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

The price is very good , but I think the inbuilt DRM will put a few people off

Does anyone have a decent understanding as to how intrusive the DRM is going to be? What won't I be able to do?

I've heard complaints about DRM for the last 4 or 5 years and it hasn't affected me yet.

Didn't I read that certain upper end models of Sandy Bridge will not have the DRM component?