Intel's 32nm Clarkdale - Nehalem for Everyone

[Rob Williams]

To help kick 2010 off right, Intel has filled out the rest of its current-gen processor line-up with the help of Westmere. We're taking a look at the desktop variant here, which brings a lot to the table compared to the previous generation. For those who've been holding out for that next affordable PC upgrade, the wait has been worth it.

You can read our exhaustive look at Clarkdale here and discuss it here!

[Doomsday]

very Very good article Rob!

it was a bit confusing at first with all the '-dales' and '-fields'....lol! but this is really cool!

my E8400 still a wee bit better in gaming, wohoo!
BUT the power efficiency is amazing! and thats with the power hungry HD4870 too!

[snakyjake]

Fantastic article. A few questions regarding Intel's HD IGP:

Where can I get more information regarding "acceleration for DVD upscaling with the help of the IGP"? It is said Intel doesn't offer this, but perhaps ATI's 57XX does, maybe NVIDIA GX300 will in the future?

What about DX11 support?

In terms of power consumption, video performance, DX10/DX11, how does Intel HD IGP compare to ATI 57XX series?

For my desktop, I'm trying to figure out if I want to go with i7-860 or i5-670 (video encoding vs. power consumption are important to me).

For my media center, trying to figure out if I want Intel's HD IGP, or discreet (DVD upscaling sounds good to me, but concerned about temperature and power consumption).

Thanks,

Jake

you guys are doing the same thing as other sites
using the GA-MA790GP-DS4H - DDR2 memory and ATI Radeon HD 3300 (Deactivated Item on newegg BTW)
while using DDR3 on the intel chipset
funny how intel apears better then AMD

Originally Posted by Unregistered

you guys are doing the same thing as other sites
using the GA-MA790GP-DS4H - DDR2 memory and ATI Radeon HD 3300 (Deactivated Item on newegg BTW)
while using DDR3 on the intel chipset
funny how intel apears better then AMD

Errrr Appears

Originally Posted by Unregistered

you guys are doing the same thing as other sites
using the GA-MA790GP-DS4H - DDR2 memory and ATI Radeon HD 3300 (Deactivated Item on newegg BTW)
while using DDR3 on the intel chipset
funny how intel apears better then AMD

Continuing the domination trend, the Core i5-661 proves superior compared to its lower competition where both cache bandwidth and latencies are concerned. For Nehalem-based processors, there's no competition in this regard.
difference of DDR3 to DDR2 , of course AMD slower
try using a ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AM3 AMD 785G for AMD
maby these benchmarks would be more trust worthy
just my 2 cents

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Doomsday

BUT the power efficiency is amazing! and thats with the power hungry HD4870 too!

Be sure that you are looking at the result with the GPU for the fairest comparison. Either way, these CPUs continue to become more power efficient with each new release, and it's great to see.

Originally Posted by snakyjake

Where can I get more information regarding "acceleration for DVD upscaling with the help of the IGP"? It is said Intel doesn't offer this, but perhaps ATI's 57XX does, maybe NVIDIA GX300 will in the future?

At current time, Intel pushes the latest version of Windows Media Player for upscaling DVDs, although I didn't have time during testing to take a deep look at it. None of the popular high-end players on the market, such as PowerDVD support the upscaling on the IGP at this time. I did happen to ask CyberLink, and they said they're always looking to add new technologies like that, but didn't state whether or not we'd actually see it. All of the upscaling done up to this point, regardless of program, is done on the CPU, not GPU, at least where Clarkdale is concerned.

Originally Posted by snakyjake

What about DX11 support?

There is none... I wouldn't expect DX11 support on Intel's GPUs for quite a while.

Originally Posted by snakyjake

In terms of power consumption, video performance, DX10/DX11, how does Intel HD IGP compare to ATI 57XX series?

Unfortunately, I didn't think to single out the IGP in our power consumption tests. You can see in our power consumption page, though, the differences between both the IGP and HD 4870 at idle. I wish I could tell you how much difference the HD 57xx would make at idle... I wish I had tested this out. I'm out of town until next week for CES, but I can test this out when I return if you are still interested.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

using the GA-MA790GP-DS4H - DDR2 memory and ATI Radeon HD 3300

The reason is because we use what AMD sends us at the time, and for the most part, it's just not feasible to re-test components all of the time, and we can't just test each new CPU on a new motherboard because that's going to inevitably skew our results. I am planning on revamping our CPU test suite in the next few weeks, which will involve re-benchmarking all of today's relevant processors. We'll make sure that a DDR3 AMD board will be our base for that platform.

For what it's worth... memory bandwidth is not that important as far as I'm concerned. 10K is going to be plenty for most people, unless you have really specific needs.

[snakyjake]

Originally Posted by Rob Williams

I wouldn't expect DX11 support on Intel's GPUs for quite a while.

Why no DX11 support, or will it be upgradeable in the near future? Maybe I've been drinking the Kool-Aid, but I remember DX10 being a big deal, and assuming DX11 will also have higher performance/efficiency. I've been hoping more applications will do GPGPU for media trans/encoding. It seems strange to me that Intel is releasing something that doesn't fully support the current Windows 7 technology. Or perhaps DX11 is all about gaming?

Your article helped me choose my next HTCP build. I'm still trying to figure out my non-gaming desktop build. Trying to figure out if I want Core i7 860 with discrete low power GPU (and DX11 bonus), or just go with a Core i5 661.

Most of the needed desktop MHz is for video encoding (Handbrake), and I leave my machine on 24x7, so power consumption and the utility bill is important. I'm trying to figure out the balance between encoding speed and power consumption.

For video encoding test, I would prefer a measurement of the time it takes to complete, not a score.

Again, that's for a great article.

Jake

thank you , honesty works best
other sites i called on the DDR thing seem to think cheating is better then the truth
while AMD still isnt as fast as intel on DDR3
it be nice to at least give AMD a fair shake

[snakyjake]

Here's another reason to test the ATI 5700 series with Intel IPG for the TMPGEnc test (and hoping for the Handbrake time test):

"ATI Stream technology to allow parallel processing shared between the CPU and GPU for faster video transcodes and media encoding tasks."