What is better i5 or i7?
- Thread starter bwin
- Start date
name='bwin' said:
i5 is really the intel mid range offering to try and make money from all the people who have gone over to AMD due to its competitive pricing. The p55 motherboards are a lot cheaper than the x58 motherboards.
i7 on the p55/x58 are the performance kings, i5 does not support hyperthreading and the p55 chipset only supports dual channel memory and not tri channel memory.
The low down is that i7 on the x58 with tri channel and hyperthreading.
The i7 on p55 has hyperthreading but only supports dual channel memory.
The i5 on p55 only supports dual channel with no hyperthreading.
The performance way fwd is still i7 on x58 chipset!
Lallespasser
New member
The thing is, that there are two different kinds of i7.
Remember back when i7 was launched? That was the i7 Bloomsfield CPU's. Now they've launched the Lynnfield series, which contains both core i7's and i5's. The old Bloomsdale i7's are almost all far inferior to the Lynnfield, whereas the new i7's are better than the new i5's, which are also based on Lynnfield.
So it goes:
Bloomsfield i7's<Lynnfield i5's<Lynnfield i7's
Hooray for Intel's naming scheme
Remember back when i7 was launched? That was the i7 Bloomsfield CPU's. Now they've launched the Lynnfield series, which contains both core i7's and i5's. The old Bloomsdale i7's are almost all far inferior to the Lynnfield, whereas the new i7's are better than the new i5's, which are also based on Lynnfield.
So it goes:
Bloomsfield i7's<Lynnfield i5's<Lynnfield i7's
Hooray for Intel's naming scheme
Rastalovich
New member
Hard question to answer 4 me also as I'd have to ask "in what situation ?".
Some people's 775 setup isn't worth the upgrade to either i5 or 7.
Some people's 775 setup isn't worth the upgrade to either i5 or 7.
Lallespasser
New member
name='Rastalovich' said:
Well, in raw performance the Lynnfield i7's are the fastest, no questions asked. From a price/performance perspective however, the lynnfield i5 are probably best.
To OP, i think, that when your friend said i5's were fastest, he was mistaking i5 for Lynnfield and i7 for Bloomsfield. The reality is, that Lynnfield i7's are the fastest.
Rastalovich
New member
The OP is on about 'better' tho, not a question of which is gonna play minesweeper the fastest on the desktop for me.
Imo, a dual i7 apple lays spankage on all ur pcs. Not necessarily 'better' tho.
All about tools for the job, including cash to spend and what u want.
Imo, a dual i7 apple lays spankage on all ur pcs. Not necessarily 'better' tho.
All about tools for the job, including cash to spend and what u want.
Lallespasser
New member
name='bwin' said:
The i7's all have a three digit number. For example, the Bloomsfield low-end was called i7 920.
If the first digit is 9, as seen above, it's a Bloomsfield i7. If it is 8, it's a lynnfield i7, and if it's a 7, it's a Lynnfield i5.
Also, the whole Lynnfield lineup is on the LGA 1156 socket, as opposed to Bloomsfield's LGA 1366.
Lallespasser
New member
Oh, and in case you're wondering: yes, the faster CPU is the Lynnfield i7 870 with it's clock rate of 2,93 ghz. Yes, the Bloomsfield i7 Extreme 975 has a clock rate of 3,33 ghz, but in this case, that does not make it faster. The keyword here is Turbo Mode.
They both have turbo enabled, but on the Lynnfield, the turbo is far more potent. So much more, that they actually both turbo up to the same speed, being 3,6 ghz.
The Lynnfield however, runs alot colder, which makes it able to utilize turbo much more. This is the final factor, which makes the Lynnfield 870 the (by a small margin) faster CPU.
One limit though: The 1156 platform, which the lynnfield is on, has less PCI-e lanes available, making it inferior in a multi-GPU system.
So ultimately it comes down to this: are you willing to pay about twice as much in order to have more PCI-e lanes available?
They both have turbo enabled, but on the Lynnfield, the turbo is far more potent. So much more, that they actually both turbo up to the same speed, being 3,6 ghz.
The Lynnfield however, runs alot colder, which makes it able to utilize turbo much more. This is the final factor, which makes the Lynnfield 870 the (by a small margin) faster CPU.
One limit though: The 1156 platform, which the lynnfield is on, has less PCI-e lanes available, making it inferior in a multi-GPU system.
So ultimately it comes down to this: are you willing to pay about twice as much in order to have more PCI-e lanes available?
Rastalovich
New member
Outside of artificial benching, irl tripple channel is as much a let down as ddr3 is over quality ddr2.
Lallespasser
New member
name='bwin' said:
I'm pretty sure the D0 stepping is just a new stepping of the Bloomsfield, meaning it overclocks a little better, but isn't revolutionary in any way.
Yes, Lynnfield is only dual-channel, but this has no real impact on performance.
The only downside to Lynnfield, as i said earlier, is that it only has 16 PCI-e lans available, meaning it has to split 8 to each GFX in a dual-GPU system. This impacts performance in some games, but not all.
Lallespasser
New member
name='bwin' said:
Whatever you do, do not buy an i7 920. Any and every Lynnfield is faster than that one, even the i5. And they're cheaper, too. The only Bloomsfields worth buying are the i7 Extreme 9xx, if you really need the dual-gpu.
