Intel Westmere 32nm & Clarkdale Core i5-661 Review @ [H]

bigdogchris said:
Have you guys though about including Dragon Age into your gaming benchmarks? I only ask because it's one of the most heavily threaded games I've ever seen. Some sites are showing quads being 100% pegged across 4 cores with this title.
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Please give me the links on using a Dragon Age benchmark and I will look into it. I have no experience with it.
 
butterfliesrpretty said:
I don't remember people complaining that much about using high resolution testing at all, but every single time it's not included there's TONS of complaining. I myself am included in that.....just saying. If you do both the complaining stops.

The reason for this is again different graphics settings affect different cpu's differently. I've seen one where sometimes the core 2's pull ahead of even the i7's on certain benchmarks when fsaa and af is enabled. It's very hard to find these benches for some reason and this is why we moan about it.

Yet another reason why I don't understand why people that only care about gaming are moving from the core 2 duo/quad platform to i7/i5's. Yes they are faster in most areas but until you have 3 video cards the difference isn't really noticeable at all. Rendering/video editing is a different story though.
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Your thoughts are noted.
 
Does this mean the Celeron is finally dead??

I don't see this as a good HTPC option. More like a low end mainstream product
for use in consumer pc's and corporate desktops.

I'd probably go for the 750 for an HTPC and no lower.

:)
 
good review, i'm looking more forward to the i3 review because it looks like it would indeed be a HTPC gem as well as being good enough for a home file server.

This chip doesn't seem to serve any real purpose which makes me wonder why they produced it since the i5 750 is a better buy at the same price point

they should have lowered the price instead of having it compete with the 750
 
∞Velocitymaster∞;1035143304 said:
guru3d has better review. More processors and includes the popular 920 so it gives you an idea where it all stands. They also benchmark the 4.2ghz oc as well. http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-650-660-661-review-test/2
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I read their conclusion and they seem to not even know who their audience is. Mainstream? That is funny.

Still I have to point out that I think we give a more solid conclusion than that site by a long shot in terms of the enthusiast.
 
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Been fun reading reviews here for yrs, mainly graphic card reviews, couse they usually are quite good.

But cpu reiews , well they make me smile, at least when it comes to gaming. No offense, but does thoose low settings that u use tell anything at all abaut how well a cpu performs with graphic cards like 5850, 5870 and 5970.

Accoring to tests not from just hardcops, but all sites , this should tell us that in real gaming a cpu like the phenom II x4 965 really sucks, right ?, and that the i7-920 /940 and i5-750 are way supperior in gaming.

As far as i know 4 sites done a test with sevral cpu's with theese top card

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=384&Itemid=63&limit=1&limitstart=7 Benchmark reviews with 5850, and i5-750 vs phii 965, on gamer settings the phii 965 wins all.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/phenom-ii-x4-965-be-revision-c3-review-test/Guru 3d with 5870 and i7 940 vs phii 965, and on gamer settings on what is standard resultion 1920x1xxx, the phii wins 2, loses 1, ties one.

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=869&p=23 and Legion Hardware with 5970 and i7-920 vs phii 965, and both clocked at 4 ghz, still the phii 965 takes 5 of 9 games, ties in one, looses 3.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5870-cpu-scaling.html Xbit with a long article, here the phii looses all against i5-750 and i7-920, but well its paired up on a am2+ motherbored with 8x8 pci lanes and 2 gb of ddr2 ram.




So what does really this low settings where the grapic card is elliminated tell us ??? , becouse accoriding to them the phii sucks big time, but at gamere settings it usually wins or, is it just bull what the other sites write.

Well since hardocp has the best graphic card reviews (real word gaming), i actually would love to see a review from kyle. Would be fun to read.

Edit:
Must have refered to at least 100 peoples to the video eyefinetyreview that kyle did, was a top review, actually made me wanna become a gamer again, and sure will :), and well it is really that any that buys cards like 5870/5970 would want.

And edidiet wrong link
 
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Great article, though I expected proper temperature testing to be done.
It seems Intel is slowing down somewhat, not actually introducing anything really interesting with 32nm tech, especially for those that already got their bloomfield. The upcoming gulftown is expected to be only as EE so I'm not counting that. And I certainly don't want that GMA on the chip, even if I'm in need of a new HTPC. Lynnfield wasn't either really anything spectacular, though we got proper 4 core cpus and maybe a better platform.. but the performance per core hasn't actually changed that much from the original Conroes. Though every small thing and upgrade is counting on top of that. Hopefullu Sandy Bridge will bring us some real improvements. :p
 
Thanks for the great review Kyle. I'm excited about these new 32nm procs. Especially the i3's for an upcoming HTPC build I'm planning (I have two popcorn hour A-110's I bought for $215 each and it looks like since they're sold out they're still selling for that now on ebay a year later). And I'm excited to see what other 32nm procs fall in their i7 line because I'm also ready to build a new main desktop rig to last 3-5 years and will probably go all out on it. Seems I'll be waiting to later this year for each of these builds though. The i5-750 seems like a good value but I'd like some HT.

Hoping that the cost of the MB's for the i3's are low.
 
Whats the difference in the 661 and 660 besides 14 watts? From the intel slide they seem identical otherwise...
 
I don't understand the conclusion with the 661 being a hard sell. It makes 4.5ghz on watercooling and is "rock stable". This is a higher OC than the i7-750...and you don't need to use the on-die gpu. Also, it has HT so unless you're doing way hardcore multi-threading and need 4 solid cores and 4 virtual cores thus making 8. So, it OCs higher, "and they don't see much difference in workstation loads from an i7 and this i5" then how is this a hard sell??
 
Problem is, it costs the same as an i7-750... No one's gonna forsake two actual cores for a lil' extra overclocking headroom unless they use their system exclusively for gaming (and we've seen some well-threaded games over the last year as well) At the end of the day OC potential is still a lottery, if anything you might as well go w/an i3 540 and save some cash in the process.
 
Impulse said:
Problem is, it costs the same as an i7-750... No one's gonna forsake two actual cores for a lil' extra overclocking headroom unless they use their system exclusively for gaming (and we've seen some well-threaded games over the last year as well) At the end of the day OC potential is still a lottery, if anything you might as well go w/an i3 540 and save some cash in the process.
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You're thinking like an enthusiast and these simply aren't enthusiant parts unless were talking HTPCs and the crazy small form factors you can get with these chips.
 
Impulse said:
Problem is, it costs the same as an i7-750... No one's gonna forsake two actual cores for a lil' extra overclocking headroom unless they use their system exclusively for gaming (and we've seen some well-threaded games over the last year as well) At the end of the day OC potential is still a lottery, if anything you might as well go w/an i3 540 and save some cash in the process.
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Exactly! And that's precisely why i5 750 prices at MC and elsewhere have gone back to $190-$200
 
ah yes, i forgot that the i7-750 has 4 legit cores. damn. my bad. And the i7-750 is faster...crap, I'll sit down now.
 
heatlesssun said:
You're thinking like an enthusiast and these simply aren't enthusiant parts unless were talking HTPCs and the crazy small form factors you can get with these chips.
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How am I thinking like an enthusiast when I say that whatever extra OC headroom these have isn't worth much? (as giga suggested) You must've mis-read my post. It's not a comment on the entire line, just on the pricing of that one part vs the 750. :p

I'm not saying there isn't a place for Clarkdale, at the low end there's clearly plenty of uses for it... The i3 parts costing $110-120 are great for mainstream rigs. The 661 is kind of a lame duck no matter what tho. Most mainstream users buy laptops anyway, not tiny HTPCs or what have you, and it's not like there wasn't plenty of overlap in Intel's lineup already anyway (w/$200 920s + cheap X58 mobos), so clearly they don't care about that regardless.
 
Impulse said:
How am I thinking like an enthusiast when I say that whatever extra OC headroom these have isn't worth much? (as giga suggested) You must've mis-read my post. It's not a comment on the entire line, just on the pricing of that one part vs the 750. :p

I'm not saying there isn't a place for Clarkdale, at the low end there's clearly plenty of uses for it... The i3 parts costing $110-120 are great for mainstream rigs. The 661 is kind of a lame duck no matter what tho. Most mainstream users buy laptops anyway, not tiny HTPCs or what have you, and it's not like there wasn't plenty of overlap in Intel's lineup already anyway (w/$200 920s + cheap X58 mobos), so clearly they don't care about that regardless.
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My point is that for small form factor, cool and quiet HTPC machines, the 661 is an intresting part. I think that tiny HTPCs are going to become compelling for a couple of reasons this year, the main one being CableCard FINALLY becoming common.

Put a 661, CableCard tuner and BD drive in something the size of one those Atom desktops and you have like an Apple TV/ Mac-mini on steriods. Its a device for the big screen which really isn't a laptops space. There is a market for kind of device and form factor.
 
That's fine if Intel is your only option, but AMD already had compelling IGPs on their mobos and several cheap/decent multi-core processors to go along w/them. If you're on a budget they're probably still your best bet, since H55/57 mobos might not be as cheap (relatively) off the bat.
 
Very informative review! Been following this chip on here and a few other forums, Seeing the result over at xtreme of clarkbar hitting 7.0ghz on extreme cooling makes me want to get a 1156 combo together and get it running to mess around with.
 
Seeing the result over at xtreme of clarkbar hitting 7.0ghz on extreme cooling
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I am not enthused at that because they are running the chip at nearly double its stock cpu voltage. This might make a nice system for a few days/months but in no way will this last long.
 
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Eh, not too thrilled about the memory controller being local to the GPU, it's somewhat
understandable though, as the GPU has no dedicated memory of it's own. On the
other hand, AMD 780G, for example, accesses memory at the CPU over a HT link,
and that works just fine. Hard to believe that clarkdale GPU could not have worked
in a similar manner over QPI, and still have the memory controller on the CPU.

Technical reason, or market segmentation?

It's possible that local memory was the only way to attain reasonable GPU
perrformance, but what does that say when there are competing products that
actually work better, without any local memory at all?

Just be aware that the QPI 6.4 GT/s link between memory controller and cores will
effectively cap your memory bandwidth at 12.8 GB/s in each direction. Looks like
you'd be wasting your money if you buy expensive overclockers DDR3 for this CPU.

Other than that, there is only one other issue and that is regarding the segmentation
of the chipsets. The motherboard you buy for clarkdale might not be the perfect
choice if you want to upgrade to for example i7-750 later.

The bottom line is that Intel still doesn't have a viable CPU on Nehalem architecture
to fit the low to medium price ranges that anyone except OEMs will want to use.
Looks like it's still AM3 for a modern low-end solution. :)
 
drescherjm said:
I am not enthused at that because they are running the chip at nearly double its stock cpu voltage. This might make a nice system for a few days/months but in no way will this last long.
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I should of said it better, but what I meant was from a perspective of extreme overclockers who try to get the max overclocks out of chips, This chip has alot of potential and makes me want to get the test bench going to see how well they do in every cooling situation available.
 
With gulftown being a extreme part, does that mean there simply won't be a quad core 32nm part made before sandy bridge? And that in turn limits most of us budgeted enthusiasts no option but a i5-750 for the rest of the year?
 
pevo said:
With gulftown being a extreme part, does that mean there simply won't be a quad core 32nm part made before sandy bridge? And that in turn limits most of us budgeted enthusiasts no option but a i5-750 for the rest of the year?
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Sad. But it sure seems like it. I guess if you dont need it you can always wait another year :p
 
Kaldskryke said:
No, the 640x480 charts don't give you an idea of what kind of numbers you're going to get out of your processor when playing at your typical 1920x1200.
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Which is a shame, because that are numbers that matter. Just like 1680x1050 matters, simply because those are the two most populair screen resolutions at this moment.

Instead they try to show you the relative performance of these processors when chewing through typical game code, with physics, AI, etc. It lets you see how much of a penalty hit you take for only having two cores and whether or not overclocking to the gills makes up for it.
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No, this is a invalid conclusion. What you see is a relative performancehit; a performancehit that doesn't occur in "real life", simply because nobody play their games at these ridiculous resolutions like 640x480 and 800x600. Those are resolutions from the stone age.

You can see quickly that a 4.3GHz 661 is slightly better than a stock 750 is most games, despite having half the cores, which is nice to know.
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So? That doesn't proof anything, beside the fact that overclocked dualcore can outperform lower clocked quad cores. Nothing new here, just like it isn; t new that quadcores always perform better in some games, good multi-threaded games.

Doing these benchmarks at 1920x1200 would make the relative differences a lot harder to see... although seeing exactly how badly GPU-limited things get would be nice too.
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I agree to disagree. It just comes down to picking the best games for this purpose (there are enough games that favors cpu power over gpu) and/or 3D/ game settings.

It would help us alot when we can tell that a cpu "bottleneck", at resolutions that matter most.
640x480 and 800x600 resluts only produce a colored picture, misleading people that that cpu "sucks" while it bottlenecks, where the proof for their assumption are based on invalid benchmark conditions. You and i know that the scores even out with increased resolution and game settings, where the GPU matter most. You on the other hand won't show it, for reasons that; aldo i understand them, simply are based on a invalid theory of the past.
 
Anandtech posted some pretty weirds numbers comparing "gaming" performance of Clarkdale and G45/ 790GX/ 9400M. It stated that on most games Intel achieves FPS on par with the previous IGPs from AMD/NVIDIA.

I take these numbers with 2 grains of salt, Intel has cheated before, the IGPs didn't render all the polygons and textures, and image quality was WAYYYYYY worst than other IGPs.

I would love to see a graphic quality, minimum gaming settings review of Clarkdale, 790GX, 9400M, Geforce 210 and another integrated or sub $50 graphical soluitions.
 
Of all the reviews, the X-bit one was closest to what I was looking for. Specifically, this is a comparison of the architectures showing the difference between Westmere, Wolfdale, and Lynnfield.

I'd like to see a side-by-side, clock-for-clock benchmark comparison with 2 cores and 2 threads between Wolfdale-2M, Wolfdale-3M, Wolfdale-6M, Lynnfield, and Westmere (~3.5M and ~4.5M). Something so that I know whether the upgrade from a Wolfdale (of various cache flavors) to Clarkdale is worth it. And then some analysis on HT to justify i3/i5 versus the G6950.

Background: I upgraded from a e6300 (Conroe-2M) to a e5200 to enjoy the 45nm architecture and specifically didn't splurge on e7/e8 since the extra cache wasn't worth the price difference to me. But now, it might be worth getting 32nm if the whole mobo, CPU, RAM change is worth it for a socket whose role is akin to the old 754.
 
This only proofs that Intel's nowhere near 24 month tick tock roadmap when it comes to 32nm transition. They still cant mass produce some huge sexa-core i9 that has 250mm2 die area. But it's good enough for yet another Athlon disruption scheme cause this sluggish bastard i5 with 4MB of slow L3 cache will be more than enough to compromise dirty cheap Athlon II X4 market and even getting back huge cap for Intel while furbishing up their 32nm node.

Whole i5/i3 hybrid c-r-a-p is little bit larger than Regors and gave a customer false belief that they're buying and GPU with it. So what more Intel can offer that this astonishing deal, while otoh AMD seems that even doesnt consider test their 32nm production line with even cheaper AII X4 that could easily outpace their usual 3.8-4.0GHz that they have @45nm node. And presumably even adding to them 1MB per core L2 cache so that they could fight with some 120mm2 or less chip with this intel inbred. And, yep they could do that with 3 month behind this intels softnode release cause they're just good enough to produce sub 130mm2 chip just as intel did with their 32nm introduction

I'm waiting to see what's gonna happen with Q1 2010 i9 9XX release they promised a way back.
 
Darksword said:
Meh, still waiting for Gulftown.

The i3-530 could be an interesting "Celeron 300A-ish" CPU for overclocking, especially if someone makes a dual CPU board to support them.
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LOL, and how can someone do that when Intel is THE ONLY chipset provider for these cpus? No more ViA or SiS in that market, you guys were so familiar to trash. But in fact ViA produced best chipsets for last P6 uP, and SiS make them better than Intel until 865P/875X came out.


gigatexal said:
It makes 4.5ghz on watercooling and is "rock stable". This is a higher OC than the i7-750...and you don't need to use the on-die gpu. Also, it has HT so unless you're doing way hardcore multi-threading and need 4 solid cores and 4 virtual cores thus making 8.
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Four virtual cores doesn't cut by themselves but extra high OC and architectural advances (IMC, better IPC, "better speaking" newer SSE) is something that make huge advance over four real cores of Core2Quad like Q8000 and Q9000 series (not Q9x50) and make this small monster worthy opponent in that quasi-enthusiastic segment from two years behind. IMNSHO it would be a way better if they stop selling hybrid crap (to make their old 45 fabs running) and integrate that IMC and PCIe lane onto the same sub 120mm2 die if they're capable of doing so, and sell only sub 110$ i5 @32nm that would be more than capable of superseeding various e8000/e6000(pentium) series at fair price. Cause that news that i9 980 will be EE ONLY (it's news to me) makes me wondering how advanced they're really are at 32nm infact?!



OMG The sades thing for people (like me) that might misinterpret Intels good will is that this c-r-a-p will also need their own chipset if you want IGP to work ... and whats all that mumble-jumble aboout i5 660/661 now supports 2xHDMi ..... it supports ZILCH HDMi if you dont pair it with H55 chipset mobo that's once again 20-25% pricier than pure P55 when intel resale them in 1K batches. All i can i say it's unbelievable ripoff ... well not that's unexpected when it comes from intel magic factory.

I still stand that 32nm i5 without that IGP c-r-a-p would be a much better deal, at least it would came with P55 chipset and at decent sub 110$ prices it could be a good counterpart in performance for Athlon II X4 cause as it seems TDP when this c-r-a-p is OCed 25% (from 3.3GHz to 4.2GHz) rises to some 155% from original one according to guru3d.
 
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I find it a joke that the Core i5 670 is more expensive than the i7 860, WTF? So what if it has integrated graphics and its on 32nm.
 
John Vuong said:
I find it a joke that the Core i5 670 is more expensive than the i7 860, WTF? So what if it has integrated graphics and its on 32nm.
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They have the same 1k unit price. But to its credit, it does have a lower TDP, 600MHz higher stock clock, an integrated GPU, and it's on a fresh process.
 
Yay for the new "Celeron" processors from Intel.

Maybe "fast enough" for some people now.. but in a couple years when they can't run what they need to on them, they will start to wish they had spent the extra hundred or so dollars for a much better processor.

Dual core.... seriously???? I can barely stand to even use a decent speed C2D anymore.... Even stock clocked C2 Quads make me think I am wasting my time waiting.

First they gimp the memory bus down to dual channel and now they gimp the processors from Quad to Dual core. No LGA1156 for me EVER. I'll keep my much faster LGA1366 system thank you very much.
 
cyclone3d said:
Yay for the new "Celeron" processors from Intel.

Maybe "fast enough" for some people now.. but in a couple years when they can't run what they need to on them, they will start to wish they had spent the extra hundred or so dollars for a much better processor.

Dual core.... seriously???? I can barely stand to even use a decent speed C2D anymore.... Even stock clocked C2 Quads make me think I am wasting my time waiting.

First they gimp the memory bus down to dual channel and now they gimp the processors from Quad to Dual core. No LGA1156 for me EVER. I'll keep my much faster LGA1366 system thank you very much.
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you're just being ridiculous, you can barely use the core 2 quad that beats the i7 in some benchmarks when clocked at the same mhz? Yeah right...

Although I agree 1366 is the way to go.
 
I don't see what it has to do with LGA1366 or LGA1156 (besides the memory channels), there's sill plenty of affordable quad-core LGA1156 parts... And dual channel vs triple channel doesn't make that big a difference, simply moving from a Core 2 anything to an i7 will have a far bigger impact. /shrug Obviously if you've already got an LGA1366 system (or can spare the extra $50-80 it'd cost) there's no reason even look at LGA1156 tho, but the platform is hardly crippled.
 
Impulse said:
I don't see what it has to do with LGA1366 or LGA1156 (besides the memory channels), there's sill plenty of affordable quad-core LGA1156 parts... And dual channel vs triple channel doesn't make that big a difference, simply moving from a Core 2 anything to an i7 will have a far bigger impact. /shrug Obviously if you've already got an LGA1366 system (or can spare the extra $50-80 it'd cost) there's no reason even look at LGA1156 tho, but the platform is hardly crippled.
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my whole problem with the platform was the doubt of it having much of a future and the i5 isn't really much better than a core 2 quad if at all in most cases.

Core 2 duo/quad or i7 is the way to go
 
I think current Clarkdale especially Core i3 and Pentium G6950 range focus is pretty well defined for HTPC and generic home/business desktop.

The pondering point is what will you get out of it as tech-able/focus/optimize type of users that want to maximize their return. The following comment is specific to the scenario.

The first counter-argument is usually cheap enough Quad Core challenge from Athlon II X4 and the C2Q 8xxx, especially those with existing DDR2 setup. The only clear positive for Clarkdale for new setup, rising DDR2 price means DDR2-based Core2 setup has no pricing advantage so some may decide to roll with new platform.

I suggest they meet all conditions

1. People with absolute focus on price and performance
2. People with absolute understanding of their software usage pattern
3. People who will overclock clarkdale to 4GHz and beyond

I would think it looks very much like E8400 praising group. You can read posts from determined gamers taunting E8xxx use. They also probably want a better display card for their needs.

The problem with my view is E8xxx prospered in time where memory chip makers were selling DDR2 below cost, cheap mb oc the processor easily, general economic condition pressured market to lower all component prices to survive, ATI 4xxx cut nVidia's margin, so users generally not objecitng to paying slight premium for the fame processors.

With the advance of cheap QuadCore, rising ram prices, expensive H55/H57 motherboards, more aggressive software trends to multi-process/multi-threading model, suddenly this sharp-dual-core combination does not look so convincing anymore when compared to the i5-750 setup or the Athlon II X4 setup, and especially the core-unlocked crowd.

If Clarkdale entire setup cost is reduced 20-30%, I think maybe the specific type of users will return en mass.

Just a reminder comment is not meant for Clarkdale generic scenarios. For generic usage, I think Clarkdale is pretty good already.
 
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