The Sandy Bridge Review: Intel Core i7-2600K, i5-2500K and Core i3-2100 Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 3, 2011 12:01 AM ESTUEFI Support: 3TB Drives & Mouse Support Pre-Boot
Remember the mountain of issues I had trying to get Seagate’s 3TB HDD to work as a boot drive in my X58 system? A couple of weeks ago Intel released version 10.1 of its storage drivers, which added software support for drives larger than 2.2TB. That’s one piece of the puzzle. With Sandy Bridge, many motherboard manufacturers are moving to UEFI instead of traditional 32-bit PC BIOSes. Combine that with a GPT partition and your new Sandy Bridge system should have no problems booting to and accessing 3TB drives made of a single partition.
ASUS' entire SNB lineup is UEFI enabled
ASUS sent over a couple of its 6-series motherboards which boast a custom skinned UEFI implementation. You get all of the functionality of a traditional BIOS but with a GUI, and yes, there’s full mouse support.
You’re either going to love or hate the new UEFI GUIs. They do take a little time to get used to but pretty much everything is where you’d expect it to be. Navigating with the mouse can be quicker than the keyboardin some situations and slower in others. Thankfully the interface, at least ASUS’, is pretty quick. There’s scroll wheel support although no draggable scroll bars, which makes quickly scrolling a little frustrating.
Unlike P55, you can set your SATA controller to compatible/legacy IDE mode. This is something you could do on X58 but not on P55. It’s useful for running HDDERASE to secure erase your SSD for example. If you do want to use HDDERASE on a 6-series motherboard you’ll need to first run HDDERASE4 to disable the UEFI initiated security on your drive and then run HDDERASE3 to secure erase it.
The biggest improvement to me honestly is POST time. Below is a quick comparison of time from power on to the Starting Windows screen. I’m using the exact same hardware in all three cases, just varying motherboard/CPU:
| Intel P67 | Intel P55 | Intel X58 | |
| Time from Power on to Boot Loader | 22.4 seconds | 29.4 seconds | 29.3 seconds |
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
283 Comments
View All Comments
Exodite - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
I'm of two minds about that really.I had really set my mind on the 2500K as it offers unparalleled bang-for-buck and real-world testing have shown that Hyper-threading makes little difference in games.
With the compile tests it's clear there's a distinct benefit to going with the 2600K for me though, which means this'll end up more expensive than I had planned! :)
Lazlo Panaflex - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
FYI, the 1100T is missing from several of the gaming benchmarks.....Melted Rabbit - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
It wouldn't surprise me if that was intentional. I would hope that Anandtech reviewers were not letting companies dictate how their products were to be reviewed lest AT be denied future prerelease hardware. I can't tell from where I sit and there appears to be no denial that stating there is no such interference.In addition, real world benchmarks aside from games looks to be absent. Seriously, I don't use my computer for offline 3D rendering and I suspect that very few other readers do to any significant degree.
Also, isn't SYSMark 2007 a broken, misleading benchmark? It was compiled on Intel's compiler, you know the broken one that degrades performance on AMD and VIA processors unnecessarily. Also there is this bit that Intel has to include with its comparisons that use BAPco(Intel) benchmarks that include Intel's processors with comparisons to AMD or VIA processors:
Software and workloads used in performance tests may have been optimized for performance only on Intel microprocessors. Performance tests, such as SYSmark and MobileMark, are measured using specific computer systems, components, software, operations and functions. Any change to any of those factors may cause the results to vary. You should consult other information and performance tests to assist you in fully evaluating your contemplated purchase, including the performance of that product when combined with other products.
It isn't perfect, but that is what the FTC and Intel agreed to, and until new benchmarks are released by BAPco that do not inflict poor performance on non-Intel processors, the results are not reliable. I don't see any problem if the graph did not contain AMD processors, but that isn't what we have here. If you are curious, for better or for worse, BAPco is a non-profit organization controlled by Intel.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Hardware vendors have no input into how we test, nor do they stipulate that we must test a certain way in order to receive future pre-release hardware. I should also add that should a vendor "cut us off" (it has happened in the past), we have many ways around getting supplied by them directly. In many cases, we'd actually be able to bring you content sooner as we wouldn't be held by NDAs but it just makes things messier overall.Either way, see my response above for why the 1100T is absent from some tests. It's the same reason that the Core i7 950 is absent from some tests, maintaining Bench and adding a bunch of new benchmarks meant that not every test is fully populated with every configuration.
As far as your request for more real world benchmarks, we include a lot of video encoding, file compression/decompression, 3D rendering and even now a compiler test. But I'm always looking for more, if there's a test out there you'd like included let me know! Users kept on asking for compiler benchmarks which is how the VS2008 test got in there, the same applies to other types of tests.
Take care,
Anand
Melted Rabbit - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
Thanks for replying to my comment. I was understand why the review was missing some benchmarks for processors like the 1100T. I was also a bit hasty in my accusations with respect to interference from manufacturers, which I apologize for.I still have trouble with including benchmarks compiled on the Intel compiler without a warning or explanation of what they mean. It really isn't a benchmark with meaningful results if the 1100T is used x87 code and the Core i7-2600K used SSE2/SSE3 code. I would have no problem with reporting results for benchmarks compiled with Intel's defective compiler, like SYSmark 2007 and Cinebench R10 assuming they did not include results for AMD or VIA processors along with an explanation of why they were not applicable to AMD and VIA processors. However, not giving context to such results I find problematic.
DanNeely - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Sysmark2k7 is like the various 3dmark benches. Mostly useless but with a large enough fanbase that running it is less hassle than dealing with all the whining fanboi's/Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
There are a few holes in the data we produce for Bench, I hope to fill them after I get back from CES next week :) You'll notice there are some cases where there's some Intel hardware missing from benchmarks as well (e.g. Civ V).Take care,
Anand
Lazlo Panaflex - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Thanks Anand :-)MeSh1 - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Seems Intel did everything right for these to fit snuggly into next gen macs. Everthing nicely integrated into one chip and the encode/trascode speed boost is icing on the cake (If supported of course) being that Apple is content focused. Nice addition if youre a mac user.Doormat - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Except for the whole thing about not knowing if the GPU is going to support OpenCL. I've heard Intel is writing OpenCL drivers for possibly a GPU/CPU hybrid, or utilizing the new AVX instructions for CPU-only OpenCL.Other than that, the AT mobile SNB review included a last-gen Apple MBP 13" and the HD3000 graphics could keep up with the Nvidia 320M - it was equal to or ahead in low-detail settings and equal or slightly behind in medium detail settings. Considering Nvidia isn't going to rev the 320M again, Apple may as well switch over to the HD3000 now and then when Ivy Bridge hits next year, hopefully Intel can deliver a 50% perf gain in hardware alone from going to 18 EUs (and maybe their driver team can kick in some performance there too).