Not too long ago, Intel unleashed Nehalem, or Core i7, upon the world. The new Core i7 chips are not just new processors; they also introduce an entirely new platform, and this combination produces some impressive performance figures, according to Ars Technica. “The new performance gap between Nehalem and pretty much everything else of comparable cost is the result of upgrades to both the CPUs core architecture and the platform on which the multicore chip now runs.” Respected in-depth review sites AnandTech and Tom’s Hardware agree with Ars’ findings.
Ars Technica reviewed the 731 million transistors processor, and Ars writer Joel Hruska came to his clearest and shortest conclusion to date. “I had three areas I wanted to explore: [hyper-threading] performance, performance scaling in Nehalem vs. the QX9650, and the performance difference, if any, between 32-bit and 64-bit mode,” Hruska states, “Having done so, I could almost write the shortest conclusion on record: Nehalem is great, Hyper-Threading = generally awesome, and 64-bit > 32-bit mode.”
In more detail, he explains he has yet to find a single weakness (apart form the relatively high prices for the processor itself and the new motherboards and RAM):
Nehalem’s performance is excellent from any angle, from single-threaded, unoptimized ALU/FPU tests to eight-way threading through Maxwell, or Handbrake. The tests I’ve listed here are not the sum total of programs I’ve thrown at Intel’s Core i7, but I’ve yet to find the magic tests that expose Nehalem’s secret weakness.As for Hyper-Threading, it’s an asset here. There will always be certain real-world scenarios that require HT to be turned off if one wishes to achieve maximum performance, but I’ve yet to find them. At worst, Hyper-Threading does no harm. At best, it provides an extra oomph to a chip that scarcely needs it.
The even more detailed Tom’s Hardware review of the Core i7 platform pretty much agrees with Ars, but adds a comparison with AMD’s flagship CPU into the mix.
The performance comparison with long-time rival AMD’s offerings is nothing short of painful. The fastest Core i7, the 965 Extreme, is more than 2.6 times as fast as AMD’s current flagship CPU, the Phenom X4 9950 BE. Across our benchmark suite, the AMD processors never placed better than towards the lower middle of the field, tending instead to fill the lower spots.
AnandTech is just as lyrical about Core i7 as Ars and Tom’s Hardware.
The Core i7’s general purpose performance is solid, you’re looking at a 5 – 10% increase in general application performance at the same clock speeds as Penryn. Where Nehalem really succeeds however is in anything involving video encoding or 3D rendering, the performance gains there are easily in the 20 – 40% range. Part of the performance boost here is due to Hyper Threading, but the on-die memory controller and architectural tweaks are just as responsible for driving Intel’s performance through the roof.
In the entertainment industry, this is what we call “released to raving reviews”.
.. but I will still buy the cheap CPUs from the underdog vendor(tm) when I can. I really hope that Netbook AMD CPUs with decent graphics will appear soon.
I agree. My secret love is AMD and especially Sempron.
in the AVG benchmark! With the fastest i7, you get an unusable system in 1 minute, while the fastest AMD does the same in 1 minute 48 seconds. The AMD gives you an extra 48 seconds to cancel a scan, hit the power button, pull the power plug. That’s a win in my book
I’ve been reading about some of the X58 based motherboards, several them come with SAS controllers. I’m excited about this simply because you used to have either buy a server/workstation board that would run north of $500. Or you bought a discrete RAID controller which was also quite expensive.
Not that these boards will be cheap, just nice to have SAS as an option on consumer level boards.
Well it looks like my next computer will have a i7 CPU. The only thing I’m worried about is heat. I wonder if it will be possible to run one of these without having a computer case filled with so many fans it sounds like jet engine.
I hope the vast increase in speed will also show up when compiling long programs. I’d love to have an i7 compiling FreeBSD ports
Elsewhere (http://www.realworldtech.com/forums/index.cfm?action=detail&id=9417…), Linus Torvalds says he’s been using a Nehalem machine for a while, and really likes the performance he gets compiling on it. The other big deal for him — even bigger than the processor — is the boost from using one of Intel’s new SSDs.
FWIW.
I’m afraid that’s going to strike Intel out in the eyes of many, and people will simply be waiting for the cheaper and overclockable AMD response – even if it has slightly inferior performance.
Trust Intel to undo all the good work and give AMD the leg-up they’ve been giving them for years.
Edited 2008-11-13 15:18 UTC
I agree 100%. This is a mistake on Intel’s part. Oh well, I’ve been an avid AMD fanboi for a decade, and hopefully, they will be able to capitalize on it.
Intel Core 2 processors overclock insanely well (especially the cheap ones) even with stock cooling so that’s a processor to buy for price-sensitive folks.
AMD is pushed further and further away from the low-end market which was lately the only place they could compete. Soon Intel won’t need overclock capability to fight with AMD.
I’m an AMD fanboy (won’t go into extremes though
) and bought black edition processor a year ago (mostly because I’ve already had AM2 motherboard) but I kind of regret that decission now :/
Shanghai looks like it might be the start of something good, Here’s hoping!
Anandtech follows up:
– http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3453&p=2
Of course, it’s possible that cheaper mobos won’t have that setting, but all the Nehalem mobos so far seem to.
TFA quotes benchmarks against AMDs current stock for Nehalem – which according to Business week hasn’t been officially released (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2008/tc20081112_7…).
And yet, AMD has now released a new proc themselves too, which supposedly does better. So where’s the comparison?
AMD Previous Gen to Intel Next gen?
Of course there’ll be no comparison. That’s Apples to Oranges, but all you’ll ever find.
Perhaps it’s because AMD jumped the gun an announced the chips before sending samples to reviewers? It’s understandable, given how much pressure they are currently under and the launch of the Core i7 does nothing to help their position.
edit: See http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/11/07/first-shangh… for some initial Shanghai benchmarks that show it isn’t as good as the current Xeons.
Edited 2008-11-13 19:03 UTC
I would take anything on the Inquirer with a very large grain of salt.
Here are some database benchmarks from Anandtech, which were published today
http://it.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.aspx?i=3456&p=1
“As you’ve seen, AMD is still competitive with Intel’s 3.0 GHz Harpertown in the database workloads that we’ve shown here. We were quite surprised that Shanghai was able to meet and, in some cases, pass Harpertown at various workload levels in some of the benchmarks. Obviously, when it comes to power, AMD is still leading this space by a significant margin. FB-DIMMs obliterate any power efficiency in Intel’s processors, especially when you have eight (or more in some cases) of them present in a server.”
There is also price to consider in the equation. Sure, Intel maybe a faster solution but at what cost?
I was pushing for a quad core at work (on conroes right now), with this I may wait for this summer and ask for a nehalem.
Edited 2008-11-13 18:12 UTC
Have been waiting for Nehalem since this article from April 2008:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/what-you-need-to-know-ab…
The architecture is a masterpiece and benchmarks confirm it.
and how their system-wide use of MultiCore programming extends from the low level up to the userspace.
OS X Apple specific applications being redesigned in Cocoa with GrandCentral and OpenCL will show considerable improvement whether you have a current Core2Duo or Nehalem.
The strength of Linux’s work in this area and then to Qt and GTK+ use of multi-cores will also have to be measured.
The same goes for Windows, OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, et.al.
Yeah I am definitely most interested as well to see how good the next gen OSes handle these architectural improvements.
Just imagine Haiku 1.0 on a Core i7 system…..
Part of the strength of OSX is that it’s lowest supported CPU is a core duo (sse3 capable), and thus everything can make use of the features present in these cpus without worrying.
Other systems tend to run on much older CPUs, and thus can’t use such features without having inefficient cpu detection code and multiple code paths, which is usually only done for a very small sections of code.
Um, no. If by ‘OSX’ you refer only to Intel Macs, the Mac Mini MA205LL/A has an Intel Core Solo T1200. Obviously Mac OS X supports ppc also (Snow Leopard has not been released yet).
I was going to buy a Quad but I might as well wait for the i7. When can we expect prices to be reasonable and quality to be acceptable?
Well I dont think anytime soon. Given Intel’s lesser than expected (I mean their sharedholders) I dont think they will be as enthusiastic in bringing the prices of their products down as quickly as the last time. Also DDR3 is very very stupidly expensive and couple to that fact you have to buy them in triumvirates lol…so 3 sticks instead of two and you should expect to spend a premium. Then also the X58 mobos are quite expensive as well so…
8 months, max.
Early next summer, judging by the Penryn release-vs-availability schedule.
Just a WAG…
Define reasonable. The i7 920 costs basically then same as the Core2quad 9550, which it handily beats in most benchmarks. So as such the i7 seems to be reasonably priced.
Correct, the list price of the i7 920 is pretty reasonable for the performance. The problem is that vendors will be marking these up upon launch due to low supply and high demand. You also have to take into account that they require the X58 platform and DDR3 memory.
$300 + for a i7 920
$300 + for a X58 motherboard
$220 for 3 x 2GB of DDR3 DIMMS (6GB total)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231223
$820 absolute minimum on launch just for the processor, motherboard and memory for those that will reuse all their other components. Now add to that a hard drive, video card, (These motherboards will likely not have onboard graphics for those who don’t game.) chasis, optical drive and decent power supply and you are looking at a small mint just to build a i7 920 system.
The reality is for most folks this is just too much money. Even most gamers are better served by taking that money and investing it into 1 4870 X2 if their mobo does not support Crossfire and 2 if they do. (If your mobo supports SLI, change that to two Geforce 260’s.)
Edited 2008-11-15 17:47 UTC