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Intel to release energy-efficient Core i5 CPUs
- Thread starter Vir
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Soldato
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They will be but the P55 boards are not due out until the middle of the year at the earliest, by which time th X58 boards will also be much cheaper.
What the X58 needs is some competition, it's about time Nvidia or AMD pulled their finger out and got a cheaper chipset for them i7
What the X58 needs is some competition, it's about time Nvidia or AMD pulled their finger out and got a cheaper chipset for them i7
Well, unlike the core i7, the core i5 uses no southbridge, just the P55 chipset which is connected to the CPU via the DMI(digital media interface), the PCI-E lane is actually on the CPU. Now while that is great in theory, im just wondering if the bclk will be used on the motherboards like the i7, if that is the case, wont overclocking be a near impossibility as the PCI-E bus will be controlled by the bclk. If it isnt the case, then these CPUs should be excellent, and bring back the dual channel memory market for DDR3. What im surprised about, is that these wont launch in 2010 on 32nm, the i7 is going 32nm at the same time.
Associate
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I agree, I find this quite strange. In fact according to current timescales Westmere may be out in Q4 2009... ie before these are released. (Although it should be noted that Wikipedia's Nehalem article puts Westmere coming out after Lynnfield, which was supposed to be out Q3-Q4 2009).
I also find it strange that Intel has decided to use two different (and incompatible) socket types for the mainstream and enthusiast chipsets. They used the 775 socket for both the Core and Penryn architectures, and yet, they're using two sockets for one architecture here.
Not particularly strange... if people will pay for ultimate performance, why not make them pay lots? MAking them buy into a particular brand is also a great way of making them feel better about the exclusive hardware, and for keeping them on the cocaine-expensive habit, rather than just downgrading the CPU.
Genius, if you ask me.
Associate
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A couple of people who claim to have used early i5 engineering samples have said there is no external bus clock on the socket 1156 platform. The i5 has onboard PLLs for clock generation, making overclocking at the very least a lot more difficult. I suppose it's not impossible Intel would provide some way of reconfiguring the PLLs in software, but I seriously doubt they'd do that given how badly it would hurt i7 sales.
PLLs or DPLLs? In any case that is an annoying move by Intel. In that case, until we see the design it will be difficult to say how overclocking will take place as the voltage of the PLLs will have to be taken into consideration. I guess this is one of the drawbacks of putting everything onto the CPU.
Also, Core i5 will use DDR3, as AMD are going DDR3 as well, it should lower the price by summer.
Soldato
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Nice, sounds better than i7
Soldato
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DDR3 because
a) By then it will be the standard being that no DDR2 chipsets will be launched in the future
b) They're going for power efficiency, and DDR3 is more power efficient than DDR2
Caporegime
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lower voltage doesn't necessarily mean more power efficient. DDR2 was more power efficient because it IS double date rate of ddr1 and was a radical change, ddr3 is evolution and a little lower voltage. lower voltage and higher amps doesn't mean lower power, unless the ampage gain isn't that big. DDR4, and gddr4 especially has been skipped as it tended to use more power than ddr3 with tangible performance increase. gddr5 is again doubling the data rate. THe power saving comes from the efficiency of the performance rather than anything else.
But also, there are no ddr2 chipsets, the mem controller is onboard. AMD are going with dual controllers, the entire industry is expecting the high end to die during the recession, high end sales have completely dried up meaning Intel don't care about I7 sales, as they are terrible already and will never sell well. The chipsets for i7 aren't expensive, the extra mem slots and extra channel creates a much thicker PCB and more traces it will ALWAYS be more expensive to build a 6 layer board than a 4 layer, and a 12 layer than a 6 layer, and a 564 layer than a 500 layer board. Competition will do smeg all to drop the price. THe cheapest Gigabyte i7 boards have dropped 2 slots, and removed a lot of traces but limits the usage, basically useless boards to buy.
i5 will most likely get a heck of a lot more attention than Intel planned, their mainstream has always outsold enthusiast stuff 10 to 1, in the recession that will increase to 30 to 1. They'll make it as competitive as possible and anything done to date to cripple its overclocking will be turned around asap tbh. but you'd expect a dual channel i5 setup to not be able to stretch its lead over phenom nearly as much as i7 can. In most of the area's i7 stretches its legs i5 will find itself limited by bandwidth, encoding and the like, in others it will be just as fast, for the average home user there won't be a difference. Boards will be far cheaper though, remember not only are thinner boards cheaper to make, 19 out of 20 manufacturing plants are set up to make the same layered dual channel boards already, so theres no cost involved in changing the production line to build tripple channel thicker boards.
You do wonder if Intel will work on a dual channel mem controller though, ddr3 memory prices aren't expected to come close to current ddr2 prices till mid 2010. Again recession hurting Intel's plans, memory companys have ramped down production to decreasing sales, excess stock of memory and don't want to spend lots of money to ramp up production of ddr3 as fast anymore.
Recession could well play into AMD's hands, when they've got 2/2.2Ghz quad core P2's, that can work in am3 or am2 boards, for far cheaper, use ddr2, out way before i5 and will be a lot closer on performance to i5 than i7. THen with companies looking to save costs on parts, like Dell, AMD can offer an entire platform now and offer deals on buying all the parts from them.
There has been no confirmation whether AM3 is DDR3 only, or DDR2 and DDR3
Or atleast I don't remember reading about any.
Yes, but as the manufaturing tecnique improves so the prices should drop surely.
Yes, but Intel are still at the disadvantage of having 2 (3 if you count servers) sockets compared to AMD only having 1. The smarter move would have been to release i5 and i3 on the 1366 socket, and allow for there to be a wider range of 1366 boards, from low end cheap stuff similar to the future i5 boards, to high end current i7 style boards.
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Caporegime
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no, not really, manufacturing techniques don't improve frankly, this isn't rocket science, printed pcb's are very very basic technology, but every extra layer costs money, increases the time taken to make and a largely important part is how long it takes to design more complex boards. Mobo making is essentially, pee easy, fast, simple and everything else, but thicker boards with more traces cost more, will always cost more and will never cost less than a less complex board, thats simply how it is, with less boards being made as this generation 98% of mobo sales will continue to be dual channel, the plants that make these boards almost none will switch over to make more complex boards, especially with the costs involved in new equipment in a time when Intel have dropped 29% of sales, with the figure likely to get lower and the high end selling worse than ever before. it simply won't happen.
AS for having 2 sockets, its a very useful thing without question. Otherwise its this simple, they wouldn't have anything cheap to compete with. pin out costs, even the socket costs a lot more money, a lot more pins to break, even if its a few pence, the socket costs more. Mobo makers don't want to use the same design for all the boards, they want to be able to design cheap boards as that equates to 90% of their sales, always has and always will.
The simple fact is i5 is basically the successor to core 2 duo, the i7 is rich boys toys, they stuck an extra memory controller on, brought out a limited amount of boards for them and people with more sense than money, or those who can make money of the increase in production. Without the mainstream viable low cost setup Intel would lose this round massively despite the performance.
AS for having 2 sockets, its a very useful thing without question. Otherwise its this simple, they wouldn't have anything cheap to compete with. pin out costs, even the socket costs a lot more money, a lot more pins to break, even if its a few pence, the socket costs more. Mobo makers don't want to use the same design for all the boards, they want to be able to design cheap boards as that equates to 90% of their sales, always has and always will.
The simple fact is i5 is basically the successor to core 2 duo, the i7 is rich boys toys, they stuck an extra memory controller on, brought out a limited amount of boards for them and people with more sense than money, or those who can make money of the increase in production. Without the mainstream viable low cost setup Intel would lose this round massively despite the performance.
If it's that easy, then any increase in price should not be that large (and they dont even need an NB now)
They managed just fine with 775 being for both low end and top end stuff
Associate
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I like the idea of using less power.
But it looks like it will be some time before the i7 will be in our shops.
Buy now and dont worry about the future.
People here seem to be upgrading every few months anyway. I know i just sold my intel9650 chip and i only had it for 4months.
But it looks like it will be some time before the i7 will be in our shops.
Buy now and dont worry about the future.
People here seem to be upgrading every few months anyway. I know i just sold my intel9650 chip and i only had it for 4months.