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Displaying items by tag: Core i7

img_03Ivy Bridge has not been the best launch for Intel in terms of enthusiasts. Since the release of the Core microarchitecture many overclocker’s, gamers and plain PC nuts have loved the performance and overclockability of Intel’s CPUs. However, with Ivy Bridge despite the performance improvements there are some that are not happy. We have seen countless articles talking about the difficulty of overclocking Ivy Bridge even in our labs our best non-stable OC has been to 5GHz (CPUz only) we have not hit anything above 4.8GHz with any type of stability.

Published in News
Monday, 23 April 2012 13:00

Intel DZ77GA-70K Desktop Motherboard Review

introAlthough the Intel Z77 Express chipset has been available for a while now we chose to wait until the official launch of Ivy Bridge to begin our reviews. After all the Z77 with Panther Point was designed to get the best performance when tied with Ivy Bridge so why not show that off first. To kick off our coverage of the Z77 we deiced to try out Intel’s reference design in the DZ77GA-70K. This performance desktop board from Intel is a great starting point and will give us the feel of how Intel meant things to work. So let’s get to it shall we?

Published in Consumer Motherboards

board06Earlier this year when we visited Gigabyte during CES they reiterated something that they said about three years ago. They are committed to providing a much better performing product and are gearing themselves more and more toward the enthusiast and gamer’s market. We have watched them make this shift since we first started working with them back in early 2005. Now 6+ years later we can say they have made this transition well. Their lineup has become much more diversified with a good separation of products. We have already shown you some of the top end boards like the G1.Assassin2 and the X79-UD5 and have goe though the design and features of the X79-UD3 so now we can tell you how this board really performs. Let’s take a look.

ETIOnly a few weeks after we showed you the performance of the MAINGEAR Epic180 we have another product from MAINGEAR in the labs. This is their DIY thermal interface material called the MAINGEAR EPIC T1000 (yes it is a terminator reference). The EPIC T1000 is a phase change alloy that changes from a solid to a liquid when exposed to heat. This creates and flow that is capable of filling in any and all pores and lines in both the CPU heat spreader and the head of your cooler (whether it is water cooling, air or other). This, technically can beat even the smoothest thermal paste on the market in terms of fill and also should be able to outperform them in terms of thermal transfer as the head of your cooler and the CPU are almost soldered together for an even and continuous surface contact. So let’s take a look at what you get with this new DIY kit from MAINGEAR and also see if it really can improve performance.

Published in Enthusiast Peripherals
Tuesday, 27 December 2011 07:13

Asus' P9X79 Deluxe stops by for a Photo Shoot

board07As 2011 comes to a close the big name in desktop CPUs is Intel. AMD’s Bulldozer failed to impress the market and while it is not a terrible product it does not have what it takes to grab the CPU performance crown from Intel. The top product for Intel is its new Sandy Bridge E CPUs and the X79 chipset. We have taken a look at Intel’s X79 Desktop board and Gigabyte’s G1.Assassin2. Both of these products let the Sandy Bridge E stretch its legs and run. Now we have our third X79 board in the lab. This one is from Asus and is the upper end of their consumer line. The board in question is the Asus P9X79 Deluxe. This board features the standard Intel LAN (you get dual LAN but only one is Intel in this case) as well as Asus’ BTGO (Bluetooth Go) 3.0. This is a continuation of the Bluetooth that Asus has been putting on their boards since the beginning of the year (we saw this at CES 2011). Now they are also dropping in Wireless (just like most other X79 boards), but wireless and Bluetooth are not all that Asus has packed into this board. So let’s take a look at exactly what you get with the Asus P9X79 Deluxe.

Friday, 02 December 2011 23:35

Gigabyte G1.Assassin2 Design and Feature Review

box04Intel is enjoying some of the most successful quarters of their life. They have launched what is arguably the fastest desktop CPU that you can buy and have coupled it with a chipset that is clearly set to perform. We have already shown you what the CPU is capable of on a reference design motherboard and are now ready to dive into what the, more creative, companies have in stock for the X79 and Core i7 3960 combo. Today we are going to dive into the features of the Gigabyte G1.Assassin2. This X79 based board is the follow up to the very popular G1.Assassin (hence the “2” at the end) It features quite a few intriguing new features as well as what you would expect from a G1.Killer motherboard. These include an onboard KillerNIC and also a full CreativeLabs Audio card built right onto the board. Other features include a new “3D” bios improved power management and Bluetooth 4.0. Will these combine to bring about the same level of gaming platform we saw in the G1.Assassin? Or will the youngest member of the G1 family be a disappointment and not get invited to holiday dinner? Let’s find out…

Wednesday, 24 August 2011 00:00

Will Buldozer have the memory performance it needs?

4Some specs on AMD’s next generation CPU Called Bulldozer have found their way on to the Internet. In what appears to be a conglomeration of leaked slides and other info from around the web. We took a look at some of this and compared it to what we know about AMD’s existing CPU architecture as well as what Intel has to offer with their Core line up.

First let’s talk about the existing AMD CPUs and why they tend to be so far behind Intel in some performance tests. The biggest issue that we have found is in the memory controller. Where the average Intel CPU shows 18-21GB/s worth of bandwidth even AMD’s top of the line Phenom II X6 tops out at between 14-16GB/s. This is a serious issue when you are dealing with multiple CPU cores and applications that are getting more and more bloated.  But why is this an issue? One of the reasons is AMD’s caching structure. Back in the days when AMD was on top their memory and cache performance was a key component of this success. Part of this was also due to the extremely low latency of DDR (I can remember buying CAS 1 DDR modules which just flew).  Then when the AM2 CPUs came out with reduced cache sizes and their DDR2 controllers (which were little more than the original IMCs improved to support DDR2) the much higher latency had a huge impact on AMD’s performance especially with the smaller cache available to the CPU cores. So while we knew the CPU was improved, the actual performance was negligible.

Moving  forward into the Phenom and Phenom II AMD had even more problems with memory performance on these CPUs this was despite them trying to add in more cache (and associations). The issue still revolved around the fact that the IMC for these processors had still not changed much in terms of core design. Nor had the caching structure; sure it had gotten larger but its overall performance had not improved much.

Now for comparison let’s talk about the technology behind each IMC. AMD’s Phenom II has a 144-bit DDR3 controller under the hood which according to AMD should be able to get you up to 21GB/s of memory bandwidth. The fact that we have never seen that is due to the cache structure each CPU core has two 64KB L1 cache blocks (Data and Instruction) 512KB (16-way associative) to work with while the total L3 shared Cache is limited to 6MB (64-way Associative).

Compared to Intel’s Core IMC (dual channel only) the CPU has two 64-bit Memory controllers, which allows their very different caching structure to operate a little more efficiently. Intel’s Core i7 has two levels of L1 cache per core (again Data and Instruction) each are 32KB while the L2 cache is at 256KB per core (only 8-way associative) and the L3 cache is bumped up to 8MB (16-way associative).  Now that 8MB is also shared with the IGP that is on the Core i7 and is also stretched by the extra thread per CPU, but the core design allows it to operate in a way that AMD’s just cannot (at this time). There is also a lot to be said for the streamlined instruction in the new Core CPUs as well as the smaller process size.

Bulldozer, on the other hand, shows up with two 72-bit wide DDR3 memory controllers (which still add up to 144-bits) this serves four Bulldozer modules (each has two Cores)   . The Caching structure is also different you get L1 at 128KB (still broken into two 64 KB blocks), 8MB of L2 Cache (2MB per Bulldozer Module) and 8MB of L3 Cache. Both the L2 and L3 are 16-way associative.  The last is interesting as it moves away from the massive 64-way Association that Phenom II had.

Of course we are still only seeing 1MB of L3 per real core, but we might have hope for AMD yet. That is IF these changes to the caching and memory will amount to something. Time will tell on this one as we all know and we all are certainly waiting to see just how this new CPU (the first real new CPU in a long time) from AMD will do. I would love to see this new CPU show that AMD can still produce great products, after all it will only push Intel in making improvements of their own and at that point… the consumer wins.

Image and source ComputerBase.de

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Published in Editorials

09After a look into the design and features of the Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H we are now diving into how well it performs. Unlike the MSI Z68A-GD80 we do not have any indications that we will run out of PCIe lanes, however we are still a little concerned about how well the Z68X will perform when we drop in the HD5870. We are also more than a little curious to see how the touchBIOS will work on the real world. So, let’s dive in and get to testing the Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H.

Published in Consumer Motherboards

Overclockers Push Sandy Bridge to New Levels of Performance

Futuremark® Announces Winners of Palit Overclocking Contest

HELSINKI, FINLAND – AUGUST 8, 2011 – In June Futuremark® ran a worldwide overclocking competition to push the limits of performance for PCs using Sandy Bridge chipsets. Today, Futuremark congratulates the winners of the contest that saw thousands of entries from more than 60 countries.

 

SANDY BRIDGE Z68 INTEGRATED GRAPHICS OC CONTEST

This contest segment was restricted to PCs with Intel's new Sandy Bridge Z68 chipset with integrated Intel HD Graphics.

Alva "Lucky_n00b" Jonathan smashed through the P4000 limit to set a new world record of P4419 using 3DMark Vantage's performance preset. His set-up consisted of an Intel Core i7-2600K with MSI Z68A-GD80 motherboard. To better appreciate Alva's skills, with factory settings his set up would score around P2200.

 

SANDY BRIDGE PLUS PALIT DISCRETE GRAPHICS OC CONTEST

The second contest segment was open to any PC using a Sandy Bridge-based CPU together with a single card, single GPU Palit brand discrete graphics card.

 

Giorgioprimo took the honors, and collected the $1000 cash top prize, with a score of P10734 using 3DMark 11 performance preset. His set up included an Intel Core i7-2600K processor paired with a Palit GeForce GTX 580 graphics card. At factory settings, this set up would score P6600.

 

TOP SCORES, TOP PRIZES

Palit Overclocking with Sandy Bridge is one of a number of overclocking competitions Futuremark holds each year. For details of upcoming contests please visit http://www.3dmark.com/competitions/ or follow Futuremark on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Futuremark

 

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About Futuremark® Corporation

Futuremark® Corporation creates the world's most popular benchmarks and PC performance tests. Futuremark's free 3DMark®, PCMark® and Peacekeeper™ tests have helped millions of people measure and improve their PCs' performance for games, media, applications and web. Futuremark Games Studio creates original games with new and entertaining gameplay such as Hungribles™, a skill shot puzzle game for iPhone® and iPad® and Shattered Horizon, a zero gravity FPS for PC. The studio is currently developing Unstoppable Gorg for PC, Xbox LIVE® Arcade and iPad® and has one further unannounced title in development. Futuremark has offices in Saratoga, California and Helsinki, Finland. http://www.futuremark.com/

 

About Palit® Microsystems Ltd.

Established in 1988, Palit Microsystems Ltd is well-known for manufacturing stable, excellent, and innovative graphics accelerators. As one of the top PC components manufacturers, Palit continues to provide industry-leading graphics cards with reliable and excellent quality. With branch offices in America, Europe, and Asia, Palit has developed a worldwide sales network which cooperates closely with our customers.

 

© 2011 Futuremark® Corporation. Futuremark® and 3DMark® trademarks and logos, character names and distinctive likenesses, are the exclusive property of Futuremark Corporation. The names of other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Published in Press Releases
Thursday, 07 July 2011 00:09

MSI Big Bang Marshal Performance Review

01So we have taken a look into how well the MSI Big Bang marshal was put together and now we are ready to put this board through its paces. We will be taking a look at this product from as many angles as we can to see if it is worth your money. Will all of the components that MSI threw together work well under stress? Well read on to find out.

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