AnandTech Article - New Intel CPU's and chipsets coming!

[Sandog]

Very interesting short story here on the new Lynnfield CPU and LGA 1156 socket coming soon. I don't understand the title 'Rumblings of Revenge' but the article leads me to almost want one of these CPU's. I don't know how much better it would be than a Q9650 but I am sure I will find out later. The pro's that I like about Lynnfield are its ability to go to 3.6GHz possibly on single/dual threaded apps and that it uses less power especially at idle. Pretty much it sounds like this CPU will never be running at it's default freq. EIST at idle will be lower than 2.66GHz and 1 to 4 cores running will be higher in turbo. Also Bloomfield seems to offer unneeded bandwidth unless you are running tri/quad video cards. If the P55 adds SATA3 this would be a cool chipset to own. Some cool benchmarks are going to be happening with this new CPU.

AnandTech: The Lynnfield Preview: Rumblings of Revenge

[k0NG0]

It strikes me how many of the benchmarks used in this article will be completely uninteresting very very soon, if they aren't already.

Better drivers for GPUs will for example allow all video encoding/decoding to be done on the GPU where it will basically not tax the CPU (and hardly the GPU either), even if you buy the lower spec cards. All the 3D rendering benchmarks matter only if you're using Maya all the time, which few people do.

I can see how they are useful for comparisons against older architectures, but even then they're really not since a synthetic benchmark scoring 10% higher is barely noticeable for most real-world applications (if the actual visual difference you see is less than 100ms, you won't really notice, you may for longer tasks though).

Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky. It ain't much in terms of journalism, though.

Seems like nice chips, but I fail to see why one would need to upgrade unless the current rig is 2+ years old. (Modulo enthusiasts, of course.)

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by k0NG0

It strikes me how many of the benchmarks used in this article will be completely uninteresting very very soon, if they aren't already.

Better drivers for GPUs will for example allow all video encoding/decoding to be done on the GPU where it will basically not tax the CPU (and hardly the GPU either), even if you buy the lower spec cards. All the 3D rendering benchmarks matter only if you're using Maya all the time, which few people do.

I can see how they are useful for comparisons against older architectures, but even then they're really not since a synthetic benchmark scoring 10% higher is barely noticeable for most real-world applications (if the actual visual difference you see is less than 100ms, you won't really notice, you may for longer tasks though).

Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky. It ain't much in terms of journalism, though.

Seems like nice chips, but I fail to see why one would need to upgrade unless the current rig is 2+ years old. (Modulo enthusiasts, of course.)

You've been here how long?

I agree the GPU is important. It has become larger and as sophisticated as the CPU. Intel probably see's NVidia's powerful GPU's as a threat and are now trying to develop more graphics products. Not everything is graphics intensive. Small devices and embedded systems which use CPU's are everywhere and used to do everything nowadays. Intel will always have a market product. Unless Intel doesn't out swim the lawsuit sharks they should have enough funds and wherewithal to shift with market trends.

On the article I think this will be a popular CPU. It's idle power is astounding. It will be a more affordable quad core when Intel drops to .32nm. The rumor that it will jump 4 speed bins (4x133) in turbo under 1 or 2 thread loads is very appealing. You now get the power of quad core and the speed of single core in one package. The article mentions the chipset which should provide enough bandwidth for single card users but it uses fewer chips, runs much cooler, and cost $100 a mobo. Add SATA3 on the board and you have a pretty good reason to make this your next system.

[johnrr6]

My 920 Nelham video encodes better than ANYTHING I have ever used....

And not by a little-----tasks that took over 20 minutes with a Q6600.....

Now take 7....

AND I can multitask at the same time....

Maybe it's also the 12 Gigs of RAM-----but me likeee!

I can't imagine an even faster jump in video encoding....WOW!

But if they do----and it's a breakthrough----oh heck....

I'll probably get one....

It's what I do.....

[Sandog]

I thought the article was pretty good. Here's a quote from Anand in the comments section.

"The chipset honestly doesn't do much these days. It acts as a PCIe switch and delivers basic standards: USB, SATA, GigE, etc... Long term I think we'll see that AMD makes AMD chipsets and Intel makes Intel chipsets, I don't see much room for someone like NVIDIA there.

Where NV does add value is in graphics, and there's nothing preventing NVIDIA from continuing to deliver graphics to both Intel and AMD platforms. I don't believe we'll see much of a future in 3rd party integrated graphics chipsets on either AMD or Intel platforms, both manufacturers will be bringing graphics on-package.

At this point I view NVIDIA's platform strengths as being predominantly in mobile applications (think MIDs, smartphones, notebooks) and unfulfilled niches like Atom + Ion. On the graphics side, NVIDIA is quite strong, it's just the platform strength that has eroded over time. "

Take care,
Anand

For those who are trying to go to iTX system platform this will be a powerful chipset to use and much easier than trying to fit a X58.

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by johnrr6

My 920 Nelham video encodes better than ANYTHING I have ever used....

And not by a little-----tasks that took over 20 minutes with a Q6600.....

Now take 7....

AND I can multitask at the same time....

Maybe it's also the 12 Gigs of RAM-----but me likeee!

I can't imagine an even faster jump in video encoding....WOW!

But if they do----and it's a breakthrough----oh heck....

I'll probably get one....

It's what I do.....

Hey John,
Speed wise your 920 OC'd would be faster. The benefit from Lynnfield as I see it is power savings and system cost. The idle power beats Penryn and i7 by a good amount and you can have one core on Lynnfield jump to 3.6GHz whereas with Penryn all four cores OC simultaneously. Board power will be a lot less than X58 also. As always with newer tech. the Lynnfield CPU's will run cooler and OC better than previous CPU's. I think these new CPU's will be a big hit and do exactly what Intel wants and that is to pull Nehalem quickly into the mainstream market. To sweeten the deal I believe Intel is bringing SATA 3 chipset support out early. Here is a board here:
Fudzilla - MSI's P55-GD65 poses for the camera
These new P55 chipset will put the nail in Penryn's coffin. Penryn is a great chip but seems boring all of a sudden. I hope to see benchmarks in Q3 on these new Lynnfield chips. Also what would be nice to see is chips based on .32nm with the gen. II high-K gate process. Intel is really holding back clocks already with i7 and Penryn. With the new process Intel can easily multiply cores, add cache, increase freq. I wish Intel would start producing chips in the mid-3-4GHz range.

[johnrr6]

Thanks Sandog----you are always on top of all the Intel stuff and I always look forward to your posts!!! Always very informative!!

I've overclocked my 920 to 3.5 and it is stable as heck....

Chuckbaum gets 3.6 from his 920 with excellent stability...

The 920s are a "good buy" in my book----not so sure about the X58 chipset....

I also have my RAM at Cas 7 and around 1500 DDR----with 12 gigs----I'm getting pretty darn good RAM bandwidth.

I love this i7 rig.....

As much as I loved my old 3.2 Northwood and an 875 board---that would OC like the dickens and ran stable as heck.....

And that system was such a breakthrough that it kept up with "current stuff" for almost three years!!!

[Sandog]

More info on the next chipsets:
Intel H57, P57 and Q57 chipsets for Lynnfield/Havendale - VR-Zone IT & Lifestyle Forum!

Intel is continuing to bring great tech. to the table. My DP45SG board is pretty much perfect and costs less than $115. I kinda wish it had a TPM module on it.

Braidwood is the new onboard memory which I think is not necessary if you buy an SSD. Coral Harbor is some new PAT type of memory data caching tech. I believe.

[Sir Skully]

Another Thanks Sandog, good reads. Hey johnrr6, I run my i7 920 24/7 @ 4.2gig with nary a problem....

[Sandog]

The new Lynnfields will replace the 920/940/950 (all but 965/975 EE chips). They must be some good chips.

[johnrr6]

Originally Posted by Sir Skully

Another Thanks Sandog, good reads. Hey johnrr6, I run my i7 920 24/7 @ 4.2gig with nary a problem....

4.2!!! You on water or Phase????

That's incredible!!!

[Sir Skully]

Originally Posted by johnrr6

4.2!!! You on water or Phase????

That's incredible!!!

Running liquid, I went through 3 i7 920 chips to find a really good oc'er.
Along with this chip, I'm also running 2x120gig OCZ ssd's in RAID-0.
Fastest rig I've ever had, its smokeen.........

[polonyc2]

I wasn't too enthusiastic about Lynnfield before...but now my interest is growing...it's looking much better then I had previously thought...will be looking forward to its release in September...but then again Gulftown looks really amazing and is scheduled to be released only 3 or so months after Lynnfield

the next 6 months look very good for Intel

[Sandog]

Originally Posted by polonyc2

I wasn't too enthusiastic about Lynnfield before...but now my interest is growing...it's looking much better then I had previously thought...will be looking forward to its release in September...but then again Gulftown looks really amazing and is scheduled to be released only 3 or so months after Lynnfield

the next 6 months look very good for Intel

Thing is like kongo said they are all really fast and not noticable unless of course you monitor encoding time or sumthin like that BUT if you value value and don't like runnin a small nuclear plant in your box these chips looks good so far. Besides well, there new! The thing about Gulftown is they will be the new i7's and charge 130W but they will fit in current X58's so that is great news to those X58 owners. I hope the P57 is very similar to my P45 but with the new Turbo memory tech. (which the P45 was suppose to have), SATA3, some kind of bit protection in hardware, and something else I would also like. I see myself getting one of these with a 2.97GHz Lynnfield if it hits 3.6GHz on its own but by then the roadmaps will be clearer and there might be 32nm ones coming out to. Next year will be SSD shopping time and also time to choose a new DX11 video card.

[polonyc2]

apparently these new i5 chips perform better then an i7 920...at least 2 of them do anyway...apparently the lowest end one does not come with Hyperthreading enabled...this looks like a decent step up from my E8400...I was thinking about upgrading to a Q9650 but I'm going to hold off on that...I'd rather move to an i7/i5 when I decide to get a quad or 6 core CPU...plus nothing really takes advantage of 4+ cores at the moment (especially games)

too bad none of these new i5 CPU's will come at 3.0 Ghz or higher (default clock speed)