My Thoughts on Core i7
Posted 01-05-09 at 12:25 AM by max302
Everybody knows that we, members of OCN, have a serious problem. Look at it from an average Joe perspective: we spend thousands on high end computers, and at every single occasion we go out and browse Newegg on a quest to find an upgrade for our systems, which according to us are quickly becoming obsolete. We then proceed to sell our memory, processors, graphic cards and all our other barely used gear, things which are sometimes only a couple of weeks old, in order to purchase the latest and greatest. While the common mortals still call a Pentium 4 HT/P965/7900GX2 system a top gaming machine, we constantly crave for more, more performance, more 3dMarks, smaller SuperPI times, and bigger e-peens. And after spending 50$ on Crysis:Warhead in order to be able to run the benchmark tool, we sit our asses on the chairs and play CS:S at framerates exceeding by 6 times our monitor's refresh rates. We are hardware junkies, hung on PCB like a druggy is on PCP.
Call me a hater, a lamer, what ever you will, but I really do think that the new Intel Core i7 processors are but a very expensive (and very temporary) fix for all the hardware junkies of this world. In my opinion Intel could and should have milked some more greens out of the Core 2 family, for three simple reasons:
And between you and me, does the increase in performance justify the performance? Let's weigh the arguments:
I can hear you all preparing your excuses for your premature upgrades: "But Max, a bigger graphics card doesn't decrease my render time in Cinebench." My question to you: how many times per week does the average power-user render some 3D? As a matter of fact, how many times a week does a power-user max out his CPU usage, if you excluding benchmark runs? Probably less times than you would think.
i7 is what I like to call a post-beta pre-release product. It's a great introduction for the newer socket and technologies with plenty of potential, but there's a reason it's only available in SUPER EXTREME OVERCLOCKER ***BBQ+ edition: it's a quick dose of silicone dope for hardware junkies, but it's not yet ready for the general public. It's just irresponsible mass market a 45nm processor with a 130 watt TDP, when you can get a Kentsfield processor with only 90W of thermal design that gives you about 80% of the real-world performance that i7 offers.
I am confident that the months to come will be filled with quality updates for Intel's new platform, but for now, the only thing migrating to i7 will do is increase you're e-peens size by a couple of nanometers.
Call me a hater, a lamer, what ever you will, but I really do think that the new Intel Core i7 processors are but a very expensive (and very temporary) fix for all the hardware junkies of this world. In my opinion Intel could and should have milked some more greens out of the Core 2 family, for three simple reasons:
- They still kick the crap out of AMD performance-wise.
- Wether you're selling cars, toys, wood pulp, high performance dish-washing machines or processors, it never really is a very good idea to launch a product while your biggest market is in an economical crisis.
- It's easy money!!!111!122131!!
And between you and me, does the increase in performance justify the performance? Let's weigh the arguments:
- Hyper-Threading, according to what has been seen in the late Pentium 4s, and what ARM has to say about processors, is a total waste of time, silicon, and electrons. It has been said inefficient, and performance gains only exist on very specific operations (correct me if I'm wrong). In my head, it pretty much equates to useless.
- QPI, I must admit, is a great step ahead in front of traditional FSB based systems. Faster connections between cores and uncores obviously means better latencies, greater overall performance, but I am still skeptical on whether higher FSBs could have done the job.
- Triple Channel DDR3 too is great, but then again, could very well have been done with traditional FSB based motherboards too.
- Turbo-Boost in itself is a good effort to make processors more energy efficient, but putting this technology on 130W TDP processors is kind of funny. 130W/4 or 130W/1 or 130W/2 is equal to the same wattage, so I don't see where the power savings/performance gains are. That, and just as parallel processing is getting bigger and bigger, and as more and more apps support it, Intel is telling us that you can now run single-threaded apps faster by "shutting down" a couple of cores and diverting power to a single core, as long as all the electrical specs are respected. Why the fight for support of multi-core processors in more apps then? Can you say conflict of interest?
- Last but not least, SSE4.2 also seems totally useless to my eyes, considering the efforts that ATI and Nvidia are deploying to create more efficient ways of accelerating calculations that these new SIMD instructions are trying to compensate for. And if I am wrong and if it were really that useful, implementation in a C2Q would have probably been trivial.
I can hear you all preparing your excuses for your premature upgrades: "But Max, a bigger graphics card doesn't decrease my render time in Cinebench." My question to you: how many times per week does the average power-user render some 3D? As a matter of fact, how many times a week does a power-user max out his CPU usage, if you excluding benchmark runs? Probably less times than you would think.
i7 is what I like to call a post-beta pre-release product. It's a great introduction for the newer socket and technologies with plenty of potential, but there's a reason it's only available in SUPER EXTREME OVERCLOCKER ***BBQ+ edition: it's a quick dose of silicone dope for hardware junkies, but it's not yet ready for the general public. It's just irresponsible mass market a 45nm processor with a 130 watt TDP, when you can get a Kentsfield processor with only 90W of thermal design that gives you about 80% of the real-world performance that i7 offers.
I am confident that the months to come will be filled with quality updates for Intel's new platform, but for now, the only thing migrating to i7 will do is increase you're e-peens size by a couple of nanometers.
Total Comments 4
Comments
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*chuckles
I have to say I love this piece. If nothing else, it makes me feel a little better about myself.
Why?
"I'm not just a co-founder of the S939 Appreciation Club on OCN, but I'm also an owner (of a S939 machine)!"
I agree with you so much, and even though I do have still just S939 rigs, I still do have been an upgrade maniac. From video cards to sound cards, to speakers and keyboards, I've been bitten and bitten hard by the upgrade bug.
To be completely honest, though, much of my purchases were motivated partly (if not largely) by a curiosity to see if the reviewers' opinions held any water. This is not true so much for the video cards, but for most every other piece of hardware there really is an immense element of curiosity about something else (if not something better) than what I've already got.
As always, a great piece.
Posted 01-05-09 at 02:50 AM by txtmstrjoe
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Sure, Intel could have done without all of the newer tech such as QPI, and sure, a faster FSB might have sufficed.
But isn't technology about advancing? The minute anyone in the hardware producing industry begins thinking we're "far enough", we'll never be able to advance again.
Also, i don't understand what you mean by "it's only available in extreme overclocker edition", because there's always the i7 920 that you can go pick up at fry's for much less than a Q9550 ($219 recently [for the i7]). Sure the mobo might be a little expensive (~$200), but it's not like almost everyone on OCN wouldn't have one if DDR3 and those mobos come don't in price. They're astoundingly cheap for the performance you get.Posted 01-07-09 at 06:22 PM by AchunderG
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What I meant is that it is obviously market for enthusiasts right now. You can't sell a 100W+ TDP CPU to somebody who wants a prebuilt box. Most end users don't want XF or SLI compatibility (x series chipsets by Intel has always been the enthousiast variants), and can't afford DDR3. What made Core's success is it's scalability: the same architecture managed to push out superb "extreme" chips for people like us, but it also managed to make it's way into consumer-level machines.
If you buy i7, you HAVE to buy DDR3, a matching motherboard which to my knowledge doesn't come in plain-Jane versions (think P5K of x58), a fairly powerful PSU (depending on your graphics setup), and those things generally don't come cheap. Also, as of now, socket 1366 has 2 processors on it's lineup. The platform needs more flexibility in order to gain in popularity: mATX / low profile variants, motherboards with integrated graphics, less power hungry chips.
Do you see lots of people running i7 with the stock cooler? Not yet. That mean's it's not ready to be mass marketed.Posted 01-07-09 at 06:54 PM by max302
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I agree with you 100%, but to some people computer is just a hobby! People spend thousands on jewellery, cards, and like to spend $4000 on a single YuGiOh trading card, easily ripable into 50 little pieces.
But I'm in a simular boat- my rig is valued at about $1000 and I'm constantly hating my e8400 because I'm a heavy multitasker and I have having only 2 cores, but if I spend $320 on a q9550/.. I think about all the other things I could get with that money.
I could buy new shoes, lots of clothes, and food to feed my family. I could donate it for a good cause. I could save it!Posted 01-09-09 at 03:57 PM by xwinx
