The Sandy Bridge Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 27, 2010 2:38 PM ESTFinal Words
If Intel's roadmap and pricing hold true, then the Core i5 2400 should give you an average of 23% better performance than the Core i5 760 at a potentially lower point. If we compare shipping configurations, the Core i5 2400 should actually perform like a Core i7 880 despite not having Hyper Threading enabled. Clock for clock however, Sandy Bridge seems to offer a 10% increase in performance. Keep in mind that this analysis was done without a functional turbo mode, so the shipping Sandy Bridge CPUs should be even quicker. I'd estimate you can add another 3 - 7% to these numbers for the final chips. That's not bad at all for what amounts to a free upgrade compared to what you'd buy today. Power consumption will also see an improvement. Not only will Sandy Bridge be noticeably quicker than Lynnfield, it'll draw less power.
While Nehalem was an easy sell if you had highly threaded workloads, Sandy Bridge looks to improve performance across the board regardless of thread count. It's a key differentiator that should make Sandy Bridge an attractive upgrade to more people.
The overclocking prevention Intel is putting into Sandy Bridge sounds pretty bad at first. However if the roadmap and pricing stay their course, it looks like overclockers looking to spend as much as they did on Core i5 750/760s won't be limited at all thanks to the K SKUs in the mix. The real question is what happens at the low end. While I don't get the impression that the Core i3 2000 series will be completely locked, it's unclear how much rope Intel will give us.
Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics is good. It's fast enough to put all previous attempts at integrated graphics to shame and compete with entry level discrete GPUs. The fact that you can get Radeon HD 5450 performance for free with a Core i5 2400 is just awesome. As I mentioned before, you won't want to throw away your GTX 460, but if you were planning on spending $50 on a GPU - you may not need to with Sandy Bridge.
Assuming mobile Sandy Bridge performs at least as well as the desktop parts, we may finally be at the point where what you get with a mainstream notebook is good enough to actually play some games. I'm really curious to see how well the higher spec integrated graphics parts do once Sandy Bridge makes it a little closer to final (Update: it looks like we may have had a 12 EU part from the start). I should add that despite the GPU performance improvement - don't believe this is enough. I would like to see another doubling in integrated GPU performance before I'm really happy, but now it's very clear that Intel is taking integrated graphics seriously.
Architecturally, I'm very curious to see what Intel has done with Sandy Bridge. Given the improvements in FP performance and what I've heard about general purpose performance, I'm thinking there's a lot more than we've seen here today. Then there are the features that we were unable to test: Sandy Bridge's improved turbo and its alleged on-die video transcode engine. If the latter is as capable as I've heard, you may be able to have better transcoding performance on your notebook than you do on your desktop today. Update: Check out our Sandy Bridge Architecture article for full details on the CPU's architecture.
With Sandy Bridge next year you'll get higher clock speeds, more performance per clock and reasonable integrated graphics at presumably the same prices we're paying today. What's even more exciting is the fact that what we're looking at is just mainstream performance. The high end Sandy Bridge parts don't arrive until the second half of 2011 which add more cores and more memory bandwidth.
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Touche - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
And the naming...OMG!There will be i7 processors that require three (3 !!!) different sockets! Maybe even 4 when 2011 comes. Intel can't get their naming right for quite some time now, but they've outdone themselves this time.
ereavis - Monday, August 30, 2010 - link
Processor names really should mean something, even if AMD and Intel don't agree. It's annoying that I have to wikipedia a processor (or memorize a thousand processors) to know what it is. We are still getting quotes for three year old Opterons and Xeons (that we're using as desktops no less), those only add to the annoyance.What ends up happening - good for Intel bad for technology advancement - is non IT type people buying computers are buying DDR2-667 based three-year old desktop processors.
BSMonitor - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Ummm, but Bulldozer comes with AM3-r2... Just a sketchier way of saying new MB needed.At least this new Intel isn't trying to BS you. Significant revisions to the architecture require different pin layouts/counts... It is inevitable with processor evolution.
Touche - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Actually, it should be AM3 compatible:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bulldozer-bobc...
Even if it's not, AM2/AM3 lasted quite some time.
"At least this new Intel isn't trying to BS you. Significant revisions to the architecture require different pin layouts/counts... It is inevitable with processor evolution."
They know in advance what they need and could design a socket to support multiple processors. And i7/i5/i3 definitely don't need different ones.
BSMonitor - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
"Even if it's not, AM2/AM3 lasted quite some time."Not all AM2 processors were compatible with AM2+ MB or vice versa, not all AM3 processors compatible on AM2+ MB.
It's still 3 different sockets.
Marketing buddy, marketing.
By the time 1366 is replaced, it will have been on the market for 4 years.
stmok - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
Eh, no its not. Bulldozer does NOT work with non-AM3+ mobosAMD engineers made a decision not to make it backward compatible for three reasons.
(1) No one but enthusiasts upgrade their CPUs. People in the real world upgrade their whole computer.
(2) Bulldozer introduces new features that won't work with existing Socket AM3 mobos. (Isn't it bloody obvious when they have to introduce a new socket specification?)
(3) It would cost more money and delays if they were to make a backward compatible version of Bulldozer.
As a result, they made a compromise:
You can take your existing AM3 CPU to AM3+ mobos, while you wait for Bulldozer to arrive. BUT, you can NOT upgrade your existing AM3 based system to Bulldozer.
Simply put...
AM3+ CPU and AM3+ mobo = OK
AM3 CPU and AM3+ mobo = OK
AM3+ CPU and AM3 mobo = Sorry. No.
So it doesn't matter if AMD "Bulldozer" or Intel "Sandy Bridge". You will need a new mobo.
Ard - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
AMD seriously has their work cut out for them with Bulldozer. The lowest end Sandy Bridge processor absolutely trounced the competition. It's insane what Intel is pulling off here, especially in the integrated graphics arena. Really makes me hope Larrabee comes back as a discrete product in the next few years.dgz - Saturday, August 28, 2010 - link
poor kid, you don't realize 2400 is not nearly lowest end.Finally - Sunday, August 29, 2010 - link
Doesn't that make him a "(filthy) rich kid"?Quodlibet - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
- based on the shown roadmap, the replacement for the i5 760 is actually the i5 2500(K).- i7 will have even better performance with 8 MB L3 Cache and higher graphics turbo. So there is even more performance potential in the SandyBridge die that Intel could unlock for lower SKUs if needed.