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***Intel Core i5 / i7 (1156) Reviews and Discussion Thread***

Ricardox1 said:
Both I5's on the site have Dual Channel DDR3 Controller where as the I7 has triple controller, What does this actually mean?
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It means it has less memory bandwidth. Whether this is a big deal depends on your application. If you're a gamer, you're probably not going to notice much difference. If you do lots of encoding work, for example, you'll notice more.

ac1d1ty said:
Sorry for not knowing the answer, but can I put a 1156 chip in my 1366 motherboard?
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Nope - different physical socket and different chipset design.
 
In short, yes, very good.

How much value they represent to you though, will be determined by what you do with it, what you are already using and how much you have to spend.
 
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hmm so the 870 is clocked higher than the 920 and faster?
I see the turbo mode frequency is also higher on those new chips.
 
Moeks said:
In short, yes, very good.

How much value they represent to you though, will be determined by what you do with it, what you are already using and how much you have to spend.
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Oh I see. There's mixed opinions here though.


How is it for gaming? Compared to the likes of AMD Phenom II? Is it worth paying £160? What about the likes of CPU dependant programs such as rendering and encoding? Any good?
 
Well I think it's very good for gaming, but in all honesty I can't really tell the difference between this and the Phenom II X4 940 BE (I am using an 8800GT though, so I'm more gpu limited if anything) I just swapped from.

In other reas I can tell though, it's a better number cruncher than the Phenom II, it's certainly better at x264 encoding, rendering seems to be slightly in the I5's favour ...when comparing it to the Phenom II 965 ...it is faster than my 940 for sure, but really it's quite dependant on the program you use too, some are better with AMD some are better with Intels.

It is a faster cpu than the Phenom II, period, but weather you notice this or not is a matter of debate. If you are gaming, you won’t really.

I didn't upgrade because I needed to, I just felt like it, I wanted to try the new platform, I've been looking forward to it, I had no practical reason in the world to change my 790FX/P II 940 BE setup, it was very fast ...but the I5 is definitely faster.

The smallest differances come when all 4 cores are loaded and the biggest when only 1 or 2 are as the Turbo mode of the I5 means it punches over the PII clock speed, and it's quite a bit faster clock for clock, let alone when it's running at a faster clock speed.

The Phenom II 955 is just short of £150 right now, that makes it about the same price as the the I5 really, £10 is nothing, and with that in mind, yes it is worth the minute differance. The memory is the same price, the motherboards are on the whole more expensive, but I bought the £87 Gigabyte mATX one, and that board is 'only' about £20 more than the bulk of the AMD 785G boards, this in my opinion places them close enough together to make the Phenom II over priced now, and the I5 the best quad core cpu you can get for under £200.

If/when AMD cut their prices a bit, then things will be less clear cut I think.

For gaming and general daily use, you won't notice the differance, but the I5 is faster than the Phenom II. For encoding and rendering you probably will if you do a lot of it, but if you are heavily into that, I suggest you buy a I7 Bloomfield to be honest :p
 
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Moeks said:
Well I think it's very good for gaming, but in all honesty I can't really tell the difference between this and the Phenom II X4 940 BE (I am using an 8800GT though, so I'm more gpu limited if anything) I just swapped from.

In other reas I can tell though, it's a better number cruncher than the Phenom II, it's certainly better at x264 encoding, rendering seems to be slightly in the I5's favour ...when comparing it to the Phenom II 965 ...it is faster than my 940 for sure, but really it's quite dependant on the program you use too, some are better with AMD some are better with Intels.

It is a faster cpu than the Phenom II, period, but weather you notice this or not is a matter of debate. If you are gaming, you won’t really.

I didn't upgrade because I needed to, I just felt like it, I wanted to try the new platform, I've been looking forward to it, I had no practical reason in the world to change my 790FX/P II 940 BE setup, it was very fast ...but the I5 is definitely faster.

The smallest differances come when all 4 cores are loaded and the biggest when only 1 or 2 are as the Turbo mode of the I5 means it punches over the PII clock speed, and it's quite a bit faster clock for clock, let alone when it's running at a faster clock speed.

The Phenom II 955 is just short of £150 right now, that makes it about the same price as the the I5 really, £10 is nothing, and with that in mind, yes it is worth the minute differance. The memory is the same price, the motherboards are on the whole more expensive, but I bought the £87 Gigabyte mATX one, and that board is 'only' about £20 more than the bulk of the AMD 785G boards, this in my opinion places them close enough together to make the Phenom II over priced now, and the I5 the best quad core cpu you can get for under £200.

If/when AMD cut their prices a bit, then things will be less clear cut I think.

For gaming and general daily use, you won't notice the differance, but the I5 is faster than the Phenom II. For encoding and rendering you probably will if you do a lot of it, but if you are heavily into that, I suggest you buy a I7 Bloodfield to be honest :p
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Moeks, thank you for explaining these things clearly to me, you have improved my knowledge dramatically. If i have any doubts or questions i will find you friend, since i'm a total newbie to computing. On the whole, I will probably enforce my decision when the new graphic cards come out as it will strengthen my rig as a whole. Hopefully, some good reviews come out by the time I purchase my new rig. :D
 
I was firmly in the AMD phenomII camp, had a 955BE + 790X nainboard in the basket for a few weeks. Its cost/ performance ratio was unmatched by Intel and would have been more the capable in high end gaming etc. When the Lynnfield platform came along yesterday, at first I thought the cost was to high and I would be sticking AMD. However, when the MSi 55% promo showed up I was lucky enough to lift a GD65 for £63, this has turned things on their head cos now my i5 build will end up being cheaper than my planned Phenom II with the added advantage of being slightly more powerful.
 
thebandit said:
I was firmly in the AMD phenomII camp, had a 955BE + 790X nainboard in the basket for a few weeks. Its cost/ performance ratio was unmatched by Intel and would have been more the capable in high end gaming etc. When the Lynnfield platform came along yesterday, at first I thought the cost was to high and I would be sticking AMD. However, when the MSi 55% promo showed up I was lucky enough to lift a GD65 for £63, this has turned things on their head cos now my i5 build will end up being cheaper than my planned Phenom II with the added advantage of being slightly more powerful.
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Would be nice to tell me how it goes for you with your i5 system :)
 
thebandit said:
I was firmly in the AMD phenomII camp, had a 955BE + 790X nainboard in the basket for a few weeks. Its cost/ performance ratio was unmatched by Intel and would have been more the capable in high end gaming etc. When the Lynnfield platform came along yesterday, at first I thought the cost was to high and I would be sticking AMD. However, when the MSi 55% promo showed up I was lucky enough to lift a GD65 for £63, this has turned things on their head cos now my i5 build will end up being cheaper than my planned Phenom II with the added advantage of being slightly more powerful.
Click to expand...

I've been doing exactly the same thing; had the Phenom 955 sat in my basket, all ready to buy (was waiting for news of AMDs new cards, and some i5 benchies before doing so). Now I've got my hands on a GD80 and can go i5 for the same money :D

Yay Intel :D
 
Hey all.

I got my i5 bits today. Mobo is asus p7p55d and some g.skill ram.

I am stuck in a rut though :mad: I did a swap out from my AMD bits to the shiny new Intel without a fresh install of my xp pro and cpu-z, coretemp and realtemp 3.3 are all reading the values wrong.

Can any one advise if its due to needing a fresh install or not? I have Win 7 on preorder and im going to order my case later today.

Also does anyone have an ASUS board yet? I ould do with some advice on what software from the disc to use. (first intel set up since the first celeron 166mhz:D)

Thanks,
Brackish.
 
Thought you would say that :(

I cant even find my xp disc now.

Oh well time to order the Raven 02 case,
Vista 32bit with the 7 upgrade voucher
and a creative xtreme gamer x-fi sound card.

this week is clocking £750 already :D

At least i get to run vista for a month lol
 
Just get windows 7 on already, you can get the enterprise trial which is free for 90 days. I mean seriously using XP with a next gen 64bit quad?!
 
yes using xp still.

Didnt have the resources to even try vista, and how big is the download for the win 7 trial?

Got a link? (yes im being lazy:D)
 
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