Doesn't it seem odd...

Solitaire

... that no-one's mentioned the word "Clarksfield" yet here :eek:

And does anyone have a review analysing HT performance in games? Toms claims that all gamers in the world need HT now. But we all know its a very bad idea. Has HT actually become useful overnight or is Toms simply taking the dirty money again? In which case are the i3 and the "real" i5 (as opposed to a quad-core Pentium G, yes, we saw what u did thar Intel!) really crap after all?

Oh, I have a good one for you. If you use a Lynnfield in the new H5x mobos, you have CrossFire. Use a Clarksfield in a P55, you have CrossFire. Use a Clarksfield in a H5x? No CrossFire. Yes, very funny Intel, now stop mucking around please... :rolleyes:

Jock Strap

They where released a while ago weren't they.... mobile platform IIRC hence no crosfire

EDIT: Why were you reading TH? You must be smoking something...

Anti

I agree, toms is run by a bunch of french capatilist geebags who are only interested in one thing, money!

leninbenjamin

Solitaire wrote: »

Has HT actually become useful overnight...

Or it could be the case that HT is getting better perhaps? It's an old technology that Intel practically abandoned at one stage, could be the other implementations in the 920 and that were more primitive?

EL_Loco

uh oh, well are their benchmarks accurate? I'd use that site for comparison quite a lot. Don't really read the articles so much, is that where they're "swaying" on accuracy?

cian1500ww

EL_Loco wrote: »

uh oh, well are their benchmarks accurate? I'd use that site for comparison quite a lot. Don't really read the articles so much, is that where they're "swaying" on accuracy?

It's always a posiblility, look at other sites and compare the results, never trust just the one in case.

EL_Loco

cian1500ww wrote: »

It's always a posiblility, look at other sites and compare the results, never trust just the one in case.

Good advice i general I suppose cheers. anyone care to share sites they like to use?

jonny72

I think the 650's will only really be used by the overclocking crowd, who don't actually play games, but just want the highest numbers..

The i3's don't look too bad actually, unfortunately their price range puts them within reach of the quads.. and everyone wants a quad these days

Effluo

I really like xbitlabs reviews
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/clarkdale-review.html

It certainly seems as though the new proc's are a very good option...
When i heard dual core i was thinking, "automatic phail" but the results are really great. Never mind the overclocks you'd get too!

Could it be that hypert'ing works well with games + dualies cause it only breaks them into 4 threads rather than the lynnfields 8? Slam me quick if that's impossible

Woahhh hold on, just checked their prices.
Really just fit into reasonable price range for what they do, nothing spectacular. Prob why no-ones mentioned it here, although i was wondering too
It's late and i've been studying for test tomorrow

Komplett-Tech: Ryan

The xbitlabs, xtremesystems and hard[o]cp are about the only ones i trust, as they dont seem to take the "brown envelope" under the table for reviews.

Deano12345

Just noticed the new Pentium Dual core there,for 1156.That is a great idea from Intel.Gets people into a new socket for very little money (€90).

I doubt I'll go 32nm myself for a good while.Looks good and all that but my PC is capable of anything I need it to do at the moment

Effluo

Deano12345 wrote: »

Just noticed the new Pentium Dual core there,for 1156.That is a great idea from Intel.Gets people into a new socket for very little money (€90).

Yeah but have you seen it's performance? Really really poor

Deano12345

Effluo wrote: »

Yeah but have you seen it's performance? Really really poor

TBH,though, I can see people buying it over a socket 775 chip purely because of the newer socket

Also,can I get a link where you got the performance info please

Effluo

It's from my earlier post

Only as good as the old pentium

Jock Strap

Oohhhhhhhhhhhh, ClarkDALE. Now I get ya. :rolleyes:

Blazer

Tom's a joke and has been for the past 3-4 years...
Like Ryan said there's only a few sites you can trust such as those mentioned/ Anandtech etc

Komplett-Tech: Ryan

Oh i forgot about anandtech, they are very good too.

leninbenjamin

Komplett-Tech (Ryan) wrote: »

The xbitlabs, xtremesystems and hard[o]cp are about the only ones i trust, as they dont seem to take the "brown envelope" under the table for reviews.

hard[o]cp's can be way off the mark, they seem to have some very lazy reviewers. I know when I was building my rig in the summer some of their charts were, well, wrong.

I generally find there is no one reliable source though, you just gotta branch out as much as you can. And compare reviews against each other, that can make testing anomalies you see in certain reviews apparent.

Solitaire

Dear oh dear... three steps forward and two steps back. The focus on clock speed, the reliance on dubious virtual threading techniques, the ballooning TDP... I feel like I've been here before. Oddly enough my fear of Nehalem heralding the return of the Pentium 4 years may not be as ludicrous as I hoped.

The memory controller business is real Darwin Awards stuff. Intel have managed to re-create the old northbridge inside the CPU itself! And have thus thrown away many of Nehalem's subtle advantages. Its back to LGA775-level performance after all, and while the CPU cores are incredibly efficient (they are 32nm!) the horrid power consumption of the 45nm integrated northbridge helps explain the nasty TDP figures in a suitably terrifying way And said northbridge also pushes up the cost of the CPU, while the LGA1156 mobos that were supposed to drop the slack back into the mix through their simplified design instead continue to overprice themselves and hurt the platform costs! Intel really need to talk to their board partners :rolleyes:

So the only desirable non-enterprise-level Intel chips are the i3-530, the (old!) i5-750 and... that's it, really. None of the other sub-i7 chips are at all compelling at those inflated prices. The i5-650 might be nice for those who prefer to run their chips at stock speeds, but the cheaper i3-530s lack of Turbo is actually an advantage to someone who buys an i3 with the intent of OCing the arse off it, which could well be the coming trend at this rate. The Pentium G's lack of HyperThreading removes it from contention; there's very little to remove it from the old E6300 series, which is waay cheaper. Ooops The other CPUs are darned impressive - HT is finally coming into its own (wonder if the continuing research into Larrabee and parallel computing has finally paid off) and makes the new chips darn powerful, but for the most part they're darn pricey to boot!

That said and done, given the direction HT is now going in the i3-530 has just pipped the more expensive i5-750 on my Wanted list

Effluo

lol

Did you just find some reviews half way through or something?

Solitaire

Nah, just looked up the reviews everyone else linked to :P

Launch prices actually seem to have dropped a bit below Intel's recommendations... Impressed with the i3-530... much more attractive option than an X4-630. Now all I need is an mITX LGA1156 mobo and its an early Christmas for moi...

astrofool

Until they bring the GPU on die and at <= 32nm, there is going to be drawbacks. This is the first step (and 10 years late with timna ), TDP will only get better.

Also, remember that the TDP includes the GPU as well.

Solitaire

The problem isn't the GPU; we can all pretty much ignore its existance The issue is the 45nm Northbridge that's wrapped around it. Not so much a step backwards as a step sideways - into a landfill Certainly not a step forward - all the integrated on-die stuff is now back to being stuck seperately on its own chipset connected to the CPU by the FSB. The new off-die memory controller is no better than the one on any LGA775 mobo (well, a hair faster but with horrid latency issues). Not that it cripples the chip but its still not a very friendly move. Same issue with the PCIe controller, and to add insult to injury it automatically locks off some of its functionality if you put these non-enterprise-class CPUs on a bog-standard non-high-end mobo - that's a distinctly disturbing move that needs to be watched. Hilariously the regular mobos are no cheaper than the premium P55 jobbies... :rolleyes:

[/rant]

More interestingly: Anyone know what titles give the new and improved HyperThreading a bad case of indigestion? The only bench that showed big issues with HT was Far Cry 2 for some reason. DiRT2 actually seems to prefer virtual cores over real ones!