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 ESTZ68
In developing its 6-series chipsets Intel wanted to minimize as much risk as possible, so much of the underlying chipset architecture is borrowed from Lynnfield’s 5-series platform. The conservative chipset development for Sandy Bridge left a hole in the lineup. The P67 chipset lets you overclock CPU and memory but it lacks the flexible display interface necessary to support SNB’s HD Graphics. The H67 chipset has an FDI so you can use the on-die GPU, however it doesn’t support CPU or memory overclocking. What about those users who don’t need a discrete GPU but still want to overclock their CPUs? With the chipsets that Intel is launching today, you’re effectively forced to buy a discrete GPU if you want to overclock your CPU. This is great for AMD/NVIDIA, but not so great for consumers who don’t need a discrete GPU and not the most sensible decision on Intel’s part.
There is a third member of the 6-series family that will begin shipping in Q2: Z68. Take P67, add processor graphics support and you’ve got Z68. It’s as simple as that. Z68 is also slated to support something called SSD Caching, which Intel hasn’t said anything to us about yet. With version 10.5 of Intel’s Rapid Storage Technology drivers, Z68 will support SSD caching. This sounds like the holy grail of SSD/HDD setups, where you have a single drive letter and the driver manages what goes on your SSD vs. HDD. Whether SSD Caching is indeed a DIY hybrid hard drive technology remains to be seen. It’s also unclear whether or not P67/H67 will get SSD Caching once 10.5 ships.
LGA-2011 Coming in Q4
One side effect of Intel’s tick-tock cadence is a staggered release update schedule for various market segments. For example, Nehalem’s release in Q4 2008 took care of the high-end desktop market, however it didn’t see an update until the beginning of 2010 with Gulftown. Similarly, while Lynnfield debuted in Q3 2009 it was left out of the 32nm refresh in early 2010. Sandy Bridge is essentially that 32nm update to Lynnfield.
So where does that leave Nehalem and Gulftown owners? For the most part, the X58 platform is a dead end. While there are some niche benefits (more PCIe lanes, more memory bandwidth, 6-core support), the majority of users would be better served by Sandy Bridge on LGA-1155.
For the users who need those benefits however, there is a version of Sandy Bridge for you. It’s codenamed Sandy Bridge-E and it’ll debut in Q4 2011. The chips will be available in both 4 and 6 core versions with a large L3 cache (Intel isn’t being specific at this point).
SNB-E will get the ring bus, on-die PCIe and all of the other features of the LGA-1155 Sandy Bridge processors, but it won’t have an integrated GPU. While current SNB parts top out at 95W TDP, SNB-E will run all the way up to 130W—similar to existing LGA-1366 parts.
The new high-end platform will require a new socket and motherboard (LGA-2011). Expect CPU prices to start off at around the $294 level of the new i7-2600 and run all the way up to $999.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
283 Comments
View All Comments
CreativeStandard - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
PC mag reports these new i7's only support up to 1333 DDR3 but you are running faster, is PC mag wrong, what is the maximum supported memory speeds?Akv - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Is it true that it has embedded DRM ?DanNeely - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Only to the extent that like all intel Core2 and later systems it supports a TPM module to allow locking down servers in the enterprise market and that the system *could* be used to implement consumer DRM at some hypothetical point in the future; but since consumer systems aren't sold with TPM modules it would have no impact on systems bought without.shabby - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Drm is only on the h67 chipset, and its basically just for watching movies on demand and nothing more.Akv - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Mmmhh... ok...Nevertheless the intel HD + H67 was already modest, if it has DRM in addition then it becomes not particularly seducing.
marraco - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Thanks for adding Visual Studio compilation benchmark. (Although you omitted the 920).It seems that not even SSD, nor can better processors do much for that annoying time waster. It does not matter how much money you throw at it.
I wish to see also SLI/3-way SLI/crossfire performance, since the better cards frequently are CPU bottlenecked. How much better it does relative to i7 920? And with good cooler at 5Ghz?
Note: you mention 3 video cards on test setup, but what one is on the benchmarks?
Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
You're welcome on the VS compile benchmark. I'm going to keep playing with the test to see if I can use it in our SSD reviews going forward :)I want to do more GPU investigations but they'll have to wait until after CES.
I've also updated the gaming performance page indicating what GPU was used in each game, as well as the settings for each game. Sorry, I just ran out of time last night and had to catch a flight early this morning for CES.
Take care,
Anand
c0d1f1ed - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
I wonder how this CPU scores with SwiftShader. The CPU part actually has more computing power than the GPU part. All that's lacking to really make it efficient at graphics is support for gather/scatter instructions. We could then have CPUs with more generic cores instead.aapocketz - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
I have read that CPU overclock is only available on P67 motherboards, and H67 motherboards cannot overclock the CPU, so you can either use the onboard graphics OR get overclocking? Is this true?"K-series SKUs get Intel’s HD Graphics 3000, while the non-K series SKUs are left with the lower HD Graphics 2000 GPU."
whats the point of improving the graphics on K series, if pretty much everyone who gets one will have a P67 motherboard which cannot even access the GPU?
Let me know if I am totally not reading this right...
MrCromulent - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Great review as always, but on the HTPC page I would have wished for a comparison of the deinterlacing quality of SD (480i/576i) and HD (1080i) material. Ati's onboard chips don't offer vector adaptive deinterlacing for 1080i material - can Intel do better?My HD5770 does a pretty fine job, but I want to lose the dedicated video card in my next HTPC.