The Sandy Bridge Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 27, 2010 2:38 PM ESTWindows 7 Gaming Performance
Our Bench suite is getting a little long in the tooth, so I added a few more gaming tests under Windows 7 with a new group of processors. We'll be adding some of these tests to Bench in the future but the number of datapoints is obviously going to be small as we build up the results.
Batman is an Unreal Engine 3 game and a fairly well received one at that. Performance is measured using the built in benchmark at the highest image quality settings without AA enabled.
Gaming performance is competitive, but we don't see any huge improvements under Batman.
Dragon Age Origins is another very well received game. The 3rd person RPG gives our CPUs a different sort of workload to enjoy:
Dragon Age on the other hand shows an 11.6% gain vs. the i5 760 and equal performance to the Core i7 880. Given that the i5 2400 is slated to be cheaper than the i5 760, I can't complain.
World of Warcraft needs no introduction. An absurd number of people play it, so we're here to benchmark it. Our test favors repeatability over real world frame rates, so our results here will be higher than in the real world with lots of server load. But what our results will tell you is what the best CPU is to get for playing WoW:
Performance in our WoW test is top notch. The i5 2400 is now the fastest CPU we've ever run through our WoW benchmark, the Core i7 980X included.
We've been working on putting together Starcraft II performance numbers, so here's a quick teaser:
A 12% advantage over the Core i7 880 and an 18% improvement over the Core i5 760.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
You're correct, I didn't feel a dual vs. quad-core comparison was fair which is why I focused on the 760. I'll clear up the text though :)Take care,
Anand
Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
fixed :)mastrdrver - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
If we go with what Anand has said and use the roadmap to guess pricing I just have one question then:Why in the world would anyone spend ~$300 for the 2500 and ~$500 on the 2600 then use the on chip gpu with no plans on some kind of discrete?
If the difference between a $600 HP is Llano and Sandy Bridge, Llano has a possibly huge advantage since I think its safe to assume that the gpu side will start at 5450 performance.
Its like Intel would be trying to tell you that SD Xbox 360 is better than HD Xbox 360 (Llano). Are you serious? If Llano can hit a pc at that price point and have a full shader count, Sandy Bridge is dead in the consumer market.
I know that's a lot of ifs and time between here and then but Intel doing what it has always done with graphics (suck) is going to haunt it. I think Intel let the door wide open and its head between it and the frame. All AMD has to do is shut it.
DanNeely - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
There are people whose workloads are heavily CPU bound but who don't need a heavy duty GPU. Higher end servers and a lot of workstations fall into this category.Beyond that unless Intel made a GPUless die or deliberately disabled the onboard GPU there's no reason not to include it. While we'll have to wait until Intel shows off labeled die shots I doubt that the GPU is a large enough chunk to justify the engineering effort just to save a little on the manufacturing side.
mastrdrver - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
You are correct but my point was meant to be on "Best Buy" systems and not server or workstations. Sorry if I didn't get that clear.On the server front this will have to go up against Bulldozer which is an entirely different topic.
While it would be foolish for Intel to make a gpuless die since integration with the cpu side is inevitable, Larabee or what ever better be good. Then there is the driver thing. That Dragon Age Origin picture sure doesn't look right. For drivers that still have work to do, that picture looks exactly like the one from when Clarkdale was released. I'd be a little surprised if much driver work is left if those two pictures are actually different.
arh2o - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
How much will these new 1155 motherboard prices be? Will they be in the same price range as the current 1156 motherboards?Rajinder Gill - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
I'd imagine the P67 boards will be priced between $150~$200.odin607 - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
What about temps =(cmdrdredd - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I'm never buying an Intel CPU or Motherboard ever again. This is one area that made them what they are today. The ability to take a mid range part and clock it up is what made the Core 2 series such a success with gamers and other performance enthusiasts. Not all of the success is attributed to overclocking, but a good bit of the popularity came from a $200 CPU being able to clock up to levels that the $700+ cpus hit. Now, if the unlocked parts can hit big overclocks and aren't overpriced then maybe it'll work out. However, it's all to easy for Intel to give us the finger and price a $200 CPU at $600 because it's unlocked and say "tough crap, if you want to overclock then pay up!". I am hopeful it doesn't come to this.Anyway, quads are old news IMO...I'm looking at 6core for my next one.
JumpingJack - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
"but a good bit of the popularity came from a $200 CPU being able to clock up" ...Reading the preview, it looks like the 2500K may fit this description.
From the articles:
"...and the 2500K will replace the i5 760/655K ($205 - $216). ..."
Even the 875K, when it launched, wasn't as you claim... it actually came in 200 bucks cheaper than the 870.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/18988
It would seem to me that Intel has been planning this change for sometime and went out to address this....