# intel core i5



## amitash (Dec 15, 2008)

Well here it is and some benchmarks...Due to arrive at the *earliest* at april or may..mostly june-july though


> 5? i5! Core i5 would be the brand name Intel's mainstream desktop derivatives of the Nehalem architecture based on the Lynnfield core would carry. It is similar to its big brother, the Core i7 for the most of the part except for a few differences:
> A current generation Direct Media Interface (DMI) Interconnect as chipset interface
> A 128-bit wide DDR3 memory interface (Dual Channel) instead of triple-channel
> Some more machinery from the northbridge migrated to the CPU, such as the PCI-Express root complex
> The newer LGA 1160 socket



see benchmarks here *www.techpowerup.com/78383/Preliminary_Tests_on_Intel_Core_i5_Conducted.html

Keep in mind its still a sample.

Will this be the main competetitor in the budget section along with P55?
The super pi score at 2.1Ghz seems faster than than the 3.4Ghz deneb engineering sample....


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## Cool G5 (Dec 15, 2008)

So is this the stripped down budget version of i7?


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## amitash (Dec 15, 2008)

^I guess it is...But there are many rumors going around that it cant be OC'd much...well thats obvious otherwise the i5s would match the higher end i7s...The i7s at 133 BCLK can be Ocd do around 180-200BCLK max...this particular i5 HAS a 133 BCLK and if it can go to 190 with a multiplier of 16x then you will see a clock speed of 3Ghz...So you should xpect those OC's from the i5's


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## Cool G5 (Dec 15, 2008)

Hmmm... great move indeed

Let's wait for them to come out and then reviews will speak.


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## IronManForever (Dec 15, 2008)

Not a real great move IMO. A socket diffent from that of Nehalem, thats whats they did wrong. I would like a more mainstream Nehalem than the current i7-920. This aint close enough. And the slightly different architecture, a new socket are bound to create more confusion.


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## forever (Dec 16, 2008)

IronManForever said:


> Not a real great move IMO. A socket diffent from that of Nehalem, thats whats they did wrong. I would like a more mainstream Nehalem than the current i7-920. This aint close enough. And the slightly different architecture, a new socket are bound to create more confusion.



The only difference between i5 & i7 lies in the uncore part. the pci-ex controller moves from the chipset to the die and the the processor talks directly to the I/O HUB. i5 was targeted only for the midrange mainstream user who doesnt bother too much about overclocking. i feel its going to do pretty well in the notebook market.


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## amitash (Dec 16, 2008)

^If they are faster then the denebs (they probably are) and at the same price or just a tad more xpensive it would seem like a great buy........Another difference in the i5 is that it has a dual channel memory controller so you will probably see 4 RAM slots instead of 6.


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## fabler (Dec 16, 2008)

wow.. thanks for the info dude.. hope it will be cheaper than i7..


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## forever (Dec 16, 2008)

amitash said:


> ^If they are faster then the denebs (they probably are) and at the same price or just a tad more xpensive it would seem like a great buy........Another difference in the i5 is that it has a dual channel memory controller so you will probably see 4 RAM slots instead of 6.



Aye. That and it has support for only a single x16 or 2x8 pci-ex lanes. May not go down well with the enthusiast gamer but we can just as well get used to that. 

*images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/intel/nehalem/part3/lynnfield.png

An interesting read on lynnfield - *www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3461&p=2


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## comp@ddict (Dec 16, 2008)

Wish they hurry up with P55 and Corei5. 
It's reported that Corei5 2.133GHz beats 3.2GHz C2D E6400.


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## adithyagenius (Dec 16, 2008)

I am looking for improvements over wolfdale in gaming. Small L2 cache is very bad for gaming. Extra cores are no use. DDR3 costs lot more than ddr2 and provides insignificant performance increase. That money would be much better spent on gfx card. HT was bad for gaming in p4 era. I hope that doesn't start processing other threads when games are running.


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## fabler (Dec 16, 2008)

adithyagenius said:


> I am looking for improvements over wolfdale in gaming. Small L2 cache is very bad for gaming. Extra cores are no use. DDR3 costs lot more than ddr2 and provides insignificant performance increase. That money would be much better spent on gfx card. HT was bad for gaming in p4 era. I hope that doesn't start processing other threads when games are running.



hum.. right.. gamers should spend more money on GFX card rather than CPU..


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## amitash (Dec 16, 2008)

> Aye. That and it has support for only a single x16 or 2x8 pci-ex lanes. May not go down well with the enthusiast gamer but we can just as well get used to that.



"enthusiast" gamers will get the i7...Its got support for tri-SLI and TRI-cfx


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## IronManForever (Dec 16, 2008)

amitash said:
			
		

> "enthusiast" gamers will get the i7...Its got support for tri-SLI and TRI-cfx


AFAIK, support for tri-SLI/tri-CFx is dependant on the chipset, not processor.



			
				forever said:
			
		

> The only difference between i5 & i7 lies in the uncore part. the pci-ex controller moves from the chipset to the die and the the processor talks directly to the I/O HUB. i5 was targeted only for the midrange mainstream user who doesnt bother too much about overclocking. i feel its going to do pretty well in the notebook market.


My only concern was the difference in socket from Nehalem's LGA 1366. 
For those midrangers, we already have a fleet of excellent LGA 775 Core2's and pretty good chipsets to go with it, and they wont be obsolete anytime soon.
And I do NOT think this is gonna go well with notebook market, I doubt its power usage, TDP to be favourable for Notebook scenario.


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## amitash (Dec 16, 2008)

> AFAIK, support for tri-SLI/tri-CFx is dependant on the chipset, not processor.



Thats true but since the i5 will not have x58 there will be no support for three card configs


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## 4T7 (Dec 16, 2008)

AMD will launch Athlon X4 to counter this I guess


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## fabler (Dec 16, 2008)

hum... may be..


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## IronManForever (Dec 16, 2008)

> AMD will launch Athlon X4 to counter this I guess


Sorry, when was the last time AMD countered anything done by Intel? 

Ahem, I aint any Intel Fanboi. Just Joking..


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## 4T7 (Dec 16, 2008)

IronManForever said:


> Sorry, when was the last time AMD countered anything done by Intel?
> Ahem, I aint any Intel Fanboi. Just Joking..


It would be a Deneb without L3 cache and we've seen already that Deneb is a decent performer


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## amitash (Dec 17, 2008)

The core i5 has 8mb L3 cache


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## comp@ddict (Dec 17, 2008)

4T7 said:


> AMD will launch Athlon X4 to counter this I guess


Yeah, propous.
Here's some info on PROPOUS:
*www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10961&Itemid=1


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## keith_j_snyder2 (Dec 23, 2008)

IronManForever said:


> Sorry, when was the last time AMD countered anything done by Intel?


The time AMD released Dual Cores(X2 Athlon) & Intel was barely breathing, just before C2Duo!


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## JojoTheDragon (Dec 23, 2008)

Hope its cheaper than i7. BTW thanks for the info


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## keith_j_snyder2 (Dec 23, 2008)

It will be cheaper than i7!


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## amitash (Dec 24, 2008)

^thats obvious as this is the budget processor....will not work on x58 though


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## IronManForever (Dec 24, 2008)

> The time AMD released Dual Cores(X2 Athlon) & Intel was barely breathing, just before C2Duo!


Well, I KNOW that! But isnt it obvious they (read Intel) already had Core2 up their sleeves? Core had already been out in laptops. (Laptop's Market is all Intel's.. AMD is nowhere close).


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## MetalheadGautham (Dec 24, 2008)

The Core i5 would be highly intresting IMO.
It has *CHEAP* written all over it.

Firstly, it has onboard PCIe 2.0 lanes, and supports ONLY 16x or 8x+8x configurations for GPUs.
It has 8 more lanes for other expansion cards.

This would make its mobo very cheap to manufacture, since it would lack QuickPath interface, and would propably only support CrossFire, again to keep costs down. This makes it *CHEAP*.

It would support only Dual Channel RAM, but considering the fact that a vast majority of applications can't make any use of Triple Channel, this shouldn't be an issue, but again, it cuts costs down - thus it becomes *CHEAP* again.

Mobos would thus have 2 or 4 memory slots, again cutting costs, making it *CHEAP*.

There is a BIG rumour doing rounds that Core i5 would be non-overclockable. It would atleast have SOME kind of restrictions on OCing. This effectively means that it would definitely be a non-enthusiast platform. For guys who like things *CHEAP*.

The OC-lock could also mean that the Core i5 needn't have a good amount of OC headroom the way CPUs like E2160 had. Meaning it may be manufactured using lower grade sillicon. It means *CHEAP* all over again.

Core i5 is said to be using only 95 watts of power at 2.13Ghz per core. This is indeed a great achievement. Low power once again means *CHEAP*.



At the end of the day, I seriously doubt Core i5, code named Lynnfield, is intended to replace Core i7 in most people's desktops.

I suspect the Havendale series, which are dual-core nehalems with an optional on-die GPU, would be Core i3, and the Nehalem version of Celeron would be Core i1, with a version number increased for the 32nm shrinks.


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## keith_j_snyder2 (Dec 24, 2008)

MetalheadGautham said:


> There is a BIG rumour doing rounds that Core i5 would be non-overclockable. It would atleast have SOME kind of restrictions on OCing. This effectively means that it would definitely be a non-enthusiast platform. For guys who like things *CHEAP*.



That certainly called CHEAP but not VFM! If this will remain the scenario, i m sure AMD will still take a lead & becomes everyone's favorite. This "non-oc" thing might make low end or office/business category happy but absolutely not "US".



MetalheadGautham said:


> Core i5 is said to be using only 95 watts of power at 2.13Ghz per core. This is indeed a great achievement. Low power once again means *CHEAP*.



The older Conroe & Penryn core requires 65W TDP & AMD's EE processors were under 45W TDP.They were supposed to move upward technologically which means more Energy Efficient processors & since they are non-overclockable, it makes Intel more offensive.  This isn't what atleast i was expecting from Intel.


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## SunnyChahal (Dec 24, 2008)

MetalheadGautham said:


> The Core i5 would be highly intresting IMO.
> It has *CHEAP* written all over it.
> 
> Firstly, it has onboard PCIe 2.0 lanes, and supports ONLY 16x or 8x+8x configurations for GPUs.
> ...


CHEAPO!

[Offtopic]I wanna build a new gaming rig. Shall I wait for i5 or grab i7?[/Offtopic]


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## keith_j_snyder2 (Dec 25, 2008)

Sunny1211993 said:


> CHEAPO!
> 
> [Offtopic]I wanna build a new gaming rig. Shall I wait for i5 or grab i7?[/Offtopic]


Nothing can compare i7. If u have budget, then go for i7


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## MetalheadGautham (Dec 25, 2008)

keith_j_snyder2 said:


> The older Conroe & Penryn core requires 65W TDP & AMD's EE processors were under 45W TDP.They were supposed to move upward technologically which means more Energy Efficient processors & since they are non-overclockable, it makes Intel more offensive.  This isn't what atleast i was expecting from Intel.


Duh... I am refering to Quad Core.
Only Phenom X4 9(1,3)50 have 65W TDP.
Rest are all 125W. Even Q8200.
But this 2.13GHz Nehalem has superb multimedia performance and great multithreading capability. Perfect for HTPCs which hate overclocking.


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## Vishal Patil (Dec 29, 2008)

nice a cheap Nehalem, good strategy for home users.


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## MetalheadGautham (Dec 29, 2008)

Talking about TDP, it seems AMD is waaay ahead of Intel atleast when the CPUs are NOT overclocked.

AMD's XXXXe series of CPUs have amazingly low TDP. A 65W 2.0GHz Phenom Quad Core and a 45W 2.5GHz Athlon 64 dual core can't be matched by Intel, whose desktop dual core CPUs in the Pentium Dual Core range start at 65W.

*but we be damned - they are NOT available in the only country where electricity consumption matters - INDIA *


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## comp@ddict (Dec 29, 2008)

^^^But Intel is doing it's own to counter that.
They are launching three Core 2 Quads, one mainstream, one middie, and one high end(not price, but performance and specs like L2 cache) and they all will have 65W TDP, and they are 45nm whereas the Phenoms are 65nm.
The Intel proccs will have speeds as high as 2.66GHz +


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## MetalheadGautham (Dec 29, 2008)

45nm or 65nm does not matter in AMD vs Intel wars as far as power consumption is concerned. AMD was always behind Intel since Athlon X2 Era, but power consumption is strangely similar to Intel.


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