Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
We also tested the overclocked Core i7-940 with Turbo Boost disabled and found that the feature doesn’t have much value - its speed increase is marginal. You'll often find that the overclocking fraternity disable SpeedStep and Turbo Boost when they are working with Core i7 to assist stability.
LGA1156 vs LGA1366: on top...
With the Core i7-870, we raised the CPU core voltage slightly along with the DMI voltage. With these settings we were only able to raise the base clock from 133MHz to 150MHz which resulted in a pathetic clock speed of 3.3GHz. We ran the overclocked i7-870 with Turbo Boost on and off, and also with HyperThreading disabled to mimic how a Core i5-770 might perform when Intel gets round to inventing it.
Our results clearly show that both HyperThreading and Turbo Boost play their part in increasing performance, and this is especially clear in the ‘All CPUs’ test in Cinebench. In an older benchmark, such as PCMark05, the benefit is minimal.
The Asus P7P55D motherboard uses the regular dynamic voltage setting plus an amount that we choose in the Bios. We selected +0.2V and found that our i7-870 would run most of our benchmark tests at 3.96GHz with Turbo Boost and HT enabled. We got better results by disabling Turbo Boost which makes sense as 3.96GHz is way beyond the realms of the maximum 3.6GHz Turbo Boost speed that applies with this CPU.
In addition, it was clear that the stock Intel CPU cooler was at the limit of its performance.
...and underneath
Finally, a 2.66GHz Core i5-750 was connected to the Asus on the same +0.2V setting. It would overclock to 3.8GHz. The absence of HyperThreading was apparent in Cinebench, but there's no denying this an impressive turn of speed. It also suggests that Lynnfield has the same 1GHz potential for overclocking as the i7-900.
Verdict
We were deeply impressed by the performance and low power requirement of Lynnfield and feel confident that the Core i7-860 - the now-announced slightly slower (2.80-3.46GHz) sibling of the i7-870 we tested - will be the processor of choice through to the end of 2009. ®
Intel Core i7-870
Intel Core i5-750
COMMENTS
Comparisons
Jonathon, in the Lynnfield preview we used the Core 2 QX9650 as a base line as that was the processor that Intel used at IDF and we were trying to stay within the NDA on performance figures. Intel presumably selected the QX9650 as the clock speed was the same.
We also compared the Core i5/Core i7 800 with Core i7 900.
now there's a fair comparison.
Umm, why does everyone compare the new chips to the olde QX9650.
The Q9650 was vastly superior to the QX in everyway. and a fairer comparison as it was in the last "tock" of the family.
Bit like comparing a DX4 100mhz to a pentium 4 isn't it? (purposly exagerated).
Happiness is the moment between when you do something; and when you tell a woman what you did.
860
Find it a bit odd Intel didn't send out the 860 to benchmarkers, the 870 is stupidly over priced for the marginal clock bump over the 860.
That said, the reasonably priced, lowish power 750 is clearly designed to hurt AMD (although the comparatively expensive motherboards prevent the intels matching AMD) and they want to show off the most powerful of the new line. Guess showing off the 860 would just highlight the bizarre 870 asking price.
I've placed an order for a 860 to replace my e6750, should be quite a nice performance boost when coupled with the new ATIs that get shown off tomorrow.
IT infrastructure monitoring strategies
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Top 10 SIEM implementer’s checklist
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Enabling efficient data center monitoring
