Intel Sandy Bridge CPU benchmarks are up.

uberpixie

http://hardocp.com/news/2011/01/03/intel_sandy_bridge_desktop_review_roundup
{list of reviews from hardocp}

http://hardocp.com/article/2011/01/03/msi_p67agd65_lga1155_chipset_motherboard_review
{hardocp review of a new P67 MSI motherboard.}

I think my poor Q6600s days are numbered finally.....

EDIT: Looks like the i5-2500K is the gaming sweet spot CPU for around €200 or so. For that you get a four core chip well capable of reaching 4Ghz +

Leman

EDIT: Looks like the i5-2500K is the gaming sweet spot CPU for around €200 or so. For that you get a four core chip well capable of reaching 4Ghz +

My i5-750 has been doing that for ages. :pac:

Still, new shiny things are new and shiny. Expect them to be outdated in a month or two! :cool:

roast

I'm a serious tech enthusiast, and even these chips can't bring me to part with my Core i7 920. At 8 threads and 4Ghz, I think I'll wait for a more radical change in technology before I pick up a new CPU.

Saadyst

I'm curious, how much of an actual upgrade would this be from a IP35 based motherboard with a Q6600?

cherryghost

Strange, my i7 860 at the same oc speed as that i7 is faster. Shouldn't be the case. Oh well.

As for the Q6600 difference, in gaming you could expect as much as 40-50% in performance increase in recent games (as long as you dont have a low powered GPU). In terms of encoding/decoding it's miles faster. I know myself since I upgraded from the Q6600 this time last year. It's easily twice as fast as the Q6600, even when it was overclocked

cian1500ww

I think I'll wait another while before upgrading so, I was going to get the i7-950 but these results would suggest that I'd get better bang for buck with the i7-2600k.
Anyone know when pricing becomes available for this side of the water??

tman

That i5 should make a nice upgrade from an ip35 motherboard with an E6750 anyway!

I have a feeling my credit card limit is going to be breached quite early this year!!!

Unregistered.

roast wrote: »

I'm a serious tech enthusiast, and even these chips can't bring me to part with my Core i7 920. At 8 threads and 4Ghz, I think I'll wait for a more radical change in technology before I pick up a new CPU.

EVEN THOUGH the i7-2600K runs stable at 8 threads and >4GHz, it along with the other chips released this week replace Lynnfield (LGA 1156). Your chip's day of reckoning comes in 10 months.

cian1500ww

I've seen some people running it stable at over 5Ghz.

Praetorian

I'm planning my first cpu / mobo / ram upgrade in 3 years.

Sold my Q6600, mobo and ram for €350. What a legendary chip that was. Amazing value for money, and still very little slowed it down. I expect a 2600k or 2500k will last me just as long.

Lots of places apparently have stock of sandybridge, but they can't sell for a few days yet. Rumours circulating now that intel may allow sales of the new cpus tomorrow.

To me sandybridge looks remarkable. Intel have been on a great roll since the first c2d. I still hope AMD can at least compete if not retake the speed crown this year.

Now, where to buy my mobo / cpu / ram...

cian1500ww

I see overclockers.co.uk have the categories added for the new mobos but no sign of any products yet. Anyone see anywhere that had the retail prices for some of the new mobos??

massy086

dont see the hype new mobo and cpu not going to be cheap. i upgraded to the 875k overclocked to 4.2 on air not a bother ht enabled really happy .also dont you need to buy the k-series in these new chips for them to overclock well

Solitaire

AFAIK you need to get a K-series CPU AND the more upmarket P67-based mobos to OC at all :eek: You have to use the unlocked multiplier, you can't OC via mobo bus speed as Intel tied the PCIe and SATA controllers directly to the single clockgen (which is now on the CPU die itself!). A 5% increase in bus speed will cause the SATA controller to royally s*** itself

Also, the non-Extreme Edition LGA1155 chips are useless on LN2 as they max out at 5.7GHz

massy086

Solitaire wrote: »

AFAIK you need to get a K-series CPU AND the more upmarket P67-based mobos to OC at all :eek: You have to use the unlocked multiplier, you can't OC via mobo bus speed as Intel tied the PCIe and SATA controllers directly to the single clockgen (which is now on the CPU die itself!). A 5% increase in bus speed will cause the SATA controller to royally s*** itself

Also, the non-Extreme Edition LGA1155 chips are useless on LN2 as they max out at 5.7GHz

is that a dig at my 875k sol the cheek:D:D

Unregistered.

Solitaire wrote: »

AFAIK you need to get a K-series CPU AND the more upmarket P67-based mobos to OC at all :eek:

There will be a Z68 chipset released in a couple of months. It's basically a H67 and P67 hybrid.

Solitaire wrote: »

Also, the non-Extreme Edition LGA1155 chips are useless on LN2 as they max out at 5.7GHz

5.98GHz if you're lucky

I have a curious question which, oddly, I haven't seen mentioned in any reviews. What if you can boot from a PCIe SSD? See where this is going? . . .

cian1500ww

For those of us still on socket 775 it's an ideal upgrade, best bang for buck at the moment in the Intel range. It would be pointless to upgrade from an i7 processor to Sandy Bridge, best to wait until the 1366 replacements come out later in the year.

cian1500ww

Unregistered. wrote: »

I have a curious question which, oddly, I haven't seen mentioned in any reviews. What if you can boot from a PCIe SSD? See where this is going? . . .

An outrageously high credit card bill...

Solitaire

massy086 wrote: »

is that a dig at my 875k sol the cheek:D:D

Um... no

Unregistered. wrote: »

I have a curious question which, oddly, I haven't seen mentioned in any reviews. What if you can boot from a PCIe SSD? See where this is going? . . .

You could raise Bclk to the dizzy heights of 110MHz? :pac:

You're forgetting - CPU, memory, SATA and PCIe all use the same clockgen on LGA1155

Unregistered.

Solitaire wrote: »

Um... no



You could raise Bclk to the dizzy heights of 110MHz? :pac:

You're forgetting - CPU, memory, SATA and PCIe all use the same clockgen on LGA1155

Doesn't the PCIe/uncore still have it's own multiplier/divider? It worked with Lynnfield.

Solitaire

AFAIK all the buses still used discrete clockgen(s) on Lynnfield, including PCIe.

Only "divider" on Sandy (aside from memory of course!) is the 1/3 divider for PCI

Unregistered.

Oh yes! That's right, in BIOS there was a separate clock for PCIe. My point was that overclocking the PCIe seemed to be more robust in terms of how far you could go before data corruption. The SATA bus is the weak link for sandy bridge. If we don't use it, we remove the weak link.

massy086

posted on fb
MemoryC.com
Coming soon - G.Skill Ripjaw X Series for Sandy Bridge based motherboards. Watch this space!
Expected into stock on Friday this week.

whats this all about dont tell me it needs special ram too

Unregistered.

massy086 wrote: »

whats this all about dont tell me it needs special ram too

It doesn't. Same spec as Lynnfield.

Solitaire

Yup. <1.66V, up to DDR3-1333. Why the heck didn't they finally add DDR3-1600 support?!? Now unless you get a K chip your RAM is eternally locked at 1333MHz

cian1500ww

massy086 wrote: »

posted on fb
MemoryC.com
Coming soon - G.Skill Ripjaw X Series for Sandy Bridge based motherboards. Watch this space!
Expected into stock on Friday this week.

whats this all about dont tell me it needs special ram too

There'll probably be plenty of manufacturers marketing ram aimed at the new boards but you're fine with any dual channel ddr3 kit.

deceit

Just wondering do any of you know if sandybridge will support triple channel ram on some boards? Just wondering as have a spare 6gb so could be tempted to upgrade my htpc if could use it all.

cian1500ww

Found some prices for the socket 1155 mobos: http://geizhals.at/eu/?cat=mbp4_1155&sort=p&xf=#xf_top
Don't know how accurate that is but it looks about right.

Also on hardwareversand.de: http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articlesearch.jsp?agid=1600&search.reset=1&search.sKey=

I like the look of the Asus Sabertooth P67 and the price

Solitaire

AFAIK only the LGA1366 replacement will do triple-channel.

Skerries

i have just ordered an i7-950 should i have held off or is there much of a difference?

Leman

Skerries wrote: »

i have just ordered an i7-950 should i have held off or is there much of a difference?

Don't worry. It's fine. If you MUST HAVE THE SHINY NEW THING OMG!1111!!!!!!!:pac::pac::pac::pac::pac:!!!!!!!!!!!! send it back and buy one.

cherryghost

What a sexy board

Does want