The Sandy Bridge Preview
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 27, 2010 2:38 PM ESTA New Socket and New Chipsets
There’s no nice way to put this: Sandy Bridge marks the third new socket Intel will have introduced since 2008. The first was LGA-1366 for the original Nehalem based Core i7. In 2009 we got LGA-1156 for Lynnfield, later updated with support for the dual-core Clarkdale CPUs launched in 2010. Next year, Sandy Bridge will launch with LGA-1155.
The CPU and socket are not compatible with existing motherboards or CPUs. That’s right, if you want to buy Sandy Bridge you’ll need a new motherboard.
As is the case today, there are two lines of chipsets for consumer desktops: H and P series. The H series supports Sandy Bridge’s on-die graphics, while the P series is strictly for discrete graphics.
At launch we’ll have P67 and H67 based motherboards, both of which are in testing right now. A quarter later we’ll see value H61 motherboards added to the mix.
| Chipset Comparison | ||||||
| P67 | H67 | H61 | P55 | H57 | H55 | |
| CPU Support | Sandy Bridge LGA-1155 | Sandy Bridge LGA-1155 | Sandy Bridge LGA-1155 | Lynnfield / Clarkdale LGA-1156 | Lynnfield / Clarkdale LGA-1156 | Lynnfield / Clarkdale LGA-1156 |
| CPU PCIe Config | 1 x 16 or 2 x 8 PCIe 2.0 | 1 x 16 PCIe 2.0 | 1 x 16 PCIe 2.0 | 1 x 16 or 2 x 8 PCIe 2.0 | 1 x 16 PCIe 2.0 | 1 x 16 PCIe 2.0 |
| RAID Support | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Mp |
| USB 2.0 Ports | 14 | 14 | 10 | 14 | 14 | 12 |
| SATA Total (Max Number of 6Gbps Ports) | 6 (2) | 6 (2) | 4 (0) | 6 (0) | 6 (0) | 6 (0) |
| PCIe Lanes | 8 (5GT/s) | 8 (5GT/s) | 6 (5GT/s) | 8 (2.5GT/s) | 8 (2.5GT/s) | 6 (2.5GT/s) |
With P67 you lose integrated graphics but you gain the ability to run two PCIe x8 cards off of the CPU. You also get fully unlocked memory multipliers with P67, whereas H67 is locked to whatever official DDR3 speeds Intel supports with Sandy Bridge (currently DDR3-1333).
Both H67 and P67 support 6Gbps SATA, however only on two ports. The remaining 4 SATA ports are 3Gbps. Motherboard manufacturers will color the 6Gbps ports differently to differentiate.
There’s no native USB 3.0 support on these chipsets, but most motherboard makers are looking to third party solutions to enable USB 3 on Sandy Bridge boards.
The other major (and welcome) change is the move to PCIe 2.0 lanes running at 5GT/s. Currently, Intel chipsets support PCIe 2.0 but they only run at 2.5GT/s, which limits them to a maximum of 250MB/s per direction per lane. This is a problem with high bandwidth USB 3.0 and 6Gbps SATA interfaces connected over PCIe x1 slots. With the move to 5GT/s, Intel is at feature parity with AMD’s chipsets and more importantly the bandwidth limits are a lot higher. A single PCIe x1 slot on a P67 motherboard can support up to 500MB/s of bandwidth in each direction (1GB/s bidirectional bandwidth).
With native 6Gbps SATA support, the faster PCIe interface will be useful for any third party USB 3.0 controllers.
Original Nehalem and Gulftown owners have their own socket replacement to look forward to. In the second half of 2011 Intel will replace LGA-1366 with LGA-2011. LGA-2011 adds support for four DDR3 memory channels and the first 6+ core Sandy Bridge processors.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I don't believe any of these apps have AVX support, they're all too old for that.Take care,
Anand
ESetter - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Thank you for the quick answer. It would be great to include some software with AVX support in the full review, when Sandy Bridge launches. Probably the Intel Math Kernel Library will be updated in time.darckhart - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
1. i'd like to see some temp numbers. along with, does intel stock hsf actually do the job here? (which they have been getting better at really)2. i didnt see anything about accelerated hd video playback using the on die gpu?
3. sure these cpu look great from price point performance gain....until you realize you need a full platform upgrade to go along with it...which if we assume mainstream mobo around the 100$ mark and ram to match since they're taking away the bclk deal... and every 2 yrs is a bit too soon for full platform upgrade imo.
4. hardware virtualization parts? i know the current i3 vs i5/7 chips had some stuff disabled. will these SB chips follow the same profile?
5. mobile versions? we know the mobile ones are usually cut back to fit low tdp profile. will the same cuts apply like the current mobile i3/i5 parts (eg, no real quad core parts)? otoh, what about the quad core mobiles? the current i7 mobile quads are laughable at their performance and heat output (i'm looking at you first gen hp envy). do you think these SB quad mobiles will actually be decent?
DanNeely - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
Wikipedia lists both 2 and 4 core mobile parts. Not definative but they generally do a good job of keeping up with the latest leaks for things like this.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge_(microar...
hamitaltintop22 - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I hope there is a price drop for the i5 750 to around $150 when this comes out or i7 920 to $200 (no microcenter here).DesktopMan - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I'm not sure about this, but I seem to recall having read that aes-ni instructions use the GPU, at least partially. Makes sense as the gpu is excellent at parallel tasks. If this is the case, would the 6 EU part perform differently than the 12 EU part at AES?Any news on when the inevitable Q67 would launch? I guess it's likely that Q67 will use AMT 6.0 as it was a pretty recent upgrade.
With sata III support at launch you'd imagine they'd also support sata III on their gen 3 SSDs. Time will tell I guess.
overclocking101 - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
wow bummer. welcome to the end of intel Bus speed overclocking. I will not be adapting the new sockets unless something happens and intel changes their minds. overclocking is not as easy as switching multiplyers even EE cpu's of nowadays show that. 90% of the high overclocks with EE cpus show that a mixture of multi and bus speed is needed. i sense though that with the higher end socket intel will allow it. if not i think its a very bad move on their part.starfalcon - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I don't think any of the sandy bridge graphics will be able to get to GT 240 levels.This one trades blows with the 5450 as we can see, and just looking at 3DMark06 scores the 5450 scores about 3500 or so, while the GT 240 does maybe 9000 or 10000.
If the more powerful sandy bridge graphics can get up to 4000 or 5000 or so that would be great, that would be beating the 9400 GT and closing in on the 9500 GT, not getting to GT 240 levels though. Wonder what the next integrated graphics after this will be like.
TETRONG - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I take it this means it will soon be the optimum time to purchase current-gen technology at significantly reduced prices?Just wanting to build a no nonsense system at slightly below the current price/performance sweet-spot.
Seems Intel are only interested in toying with consumers.
They've wasted die space that could've been used for a more capable CPU. How many years have we been chained under 4Ghz frequency? 5 years or so?
Nine women can't make a baby in one month! Not every problem is parallelizable - we need greater frequencies/efficiencies.
Now they are locking processors and playing games with the sockets. No USB 3.0!!?
Garbage, No Thanks!!!
Seems you are giving them a free pass Anand. Very convenient timing to steal AMD's thunder, eh!
I love you man - big fan since the beginning, but you should read Scott Wasson over at Tech Report. Those value scatterplots are very helpful to me - these regurgitated press releases, not so much.
Sorry;(
To be so harsh, but we deserve better than these kiddie chips!
Only you can hold them accountable for these failures of imagination.
wyvernknight - Friday, August 27, 2010 - link
I am a bit disappointed. Seems like since intel is wiping the floor with AMD, decided it was OK to screw us all over with this socket thing. I will still buy an intel processor if AMD has no cards to play, but i wont be pleased.