One feature that would be welcome (at least for me) with the Lynnfield/P55 is the option to run unbuffered ECC memory. With memory sizes pushing 16GB using DDR3 memory with smaller memory cells, lower voltages, higher operating frequencies, I expect (sooner or later) memory parity errors will eventually become a emergent problem with desktop systems.
Memory parity errors arise from memory cells loosing their charges from alpha particle interactions from radioactive decay of uranium or thorium impurities within the silicon, or energetic cosmic ray interactions. This lost bit causes data corruption that ECC can detect and fix.
I remember seeing a white paper from the Corsair Website a few years ago that claimed a 256MB stick of DDR memory experienced about ~3 memory parity error events per month. At that rate, 16GB would be equivalent to 19 parity error events each month. If you really need that amount of memory for a 64-bit system for running applications, then the probablity is greater for fatal errors which cause BSD's, or even worse, non-fatal errors that corrupt data.
I would not be surprised ECC memory soon becoming popular with desktop systems.
Since these CPUs and motherboards have been out for retail sale in Taiwan for over a week now and in AU for a few days, does anyone have any benchmark links? Too bad AT and other sites signed up with Intels NDA and then got screwed by them with their mass release of the i5 and i7 LGA1156 CPUs. I can only find a few links in ATs forums and other forums.
That hasn't been an issue since about a month or two after SLI debuted. You can create an SLI profile for just about any game, and most of the time receive a large performance boost if you were GPU limited with one card. I don't know why you were under the impression that games have to be added to the driver to be "properly supported," as you put it.
PCIE 2 8x is fast enough for GTX 285 and 4890 but does limit 4870x2 and 295 a little. Going forward this limit will be more important with 300 and 5000 series cards. So it might not matter much today but in a few months this will be a bigger concern.
SLI works on my P6T with the slots 16,16,4. The statement that Nvidia doesn't allow SLI with mismatched PCIE speeds is not correct. I think it's more the slow connection to the P55 chipset through the 4x slot that they're worried about and therefore not allowing SLI on these configurations. If customers buy a second card for SLI and get little increase then they might not try it again. AMD looks to follow suit according to the article.
the crippled intel lynfield offers nothing new its just a crippled core i7 at the same price.
annandtech anaunces this fantastic progress but this is a farce, intel reducing costs and the intel user getting less at the same price.
I agree. It's a Celeron in drag. I'm OK with Celerons if they are cheap enough, but show me someone that pays $350 for a Lynnfield/Celeron motherboard, and I'll show you an idiot. You're just better off with the real deal.
My main problem with this Celeron is when it oversteps what it is, and ends up in the arena of the real i7. If it's cheap, it's a great deal, on a fine processor. But when they start making $350 motherboards for this Celeron, then you have to scratch your head and wonder what the point is. With x58 motherboards now available for less than $200, why would anyone pay so much for an x55?
I think this processor will settle into it's proper market segment over time, but, for now, I'm just confused by the amount of attention it's getting, and how expensive some of the parts are. Really, $350 for a x55 motherboard? Why?
"I agree. It's a Celeron in drag. I'm OK with Celerons if they are cheap enough, but show me someone that pays $350 for a Lynnfield/Celeron motherboard, and I'll show you an idiot. You're just better off with the real deal."
@TA152H
You just convinced me you are either an idiot or a fool. Real idiots are too mentally degraded to write. I see you can write. Since most of your posts have been mostly obnoxious, priggish, based on fashionable contrarianism, I suspect the latter. One would hope your eating habits are more refined than you post habits -- that you would smell it first before you take a bite. So I will endeavor, with patience, to perhaps correct your foolishness, your proud studied stupidity.
The Lynnfield i5/i7 do not qualify as Celerons. Not by a longshot. Not for a longtime. Celerons are sub-$100 processors made from degraded cores that have been around for a year. They often have reduced L2 caches and FSB frequencies. Lynnfields start at $200, have not been released yet, have the same L2/L3 cache, operate at the same frequencies, have the same architecture, and have nearly the same performance of the Bloomfield i7. These are brand new, fully featured, state of the art processors that pack a real performance wallop.
Calling the Lynnfield i5/i7 a Celeron is not defensible. In fact, its patiently silly and irresponsable. Only a willful fool would make such an assertion. A fool who clearly does not know what he is talking about.
The Lynnfield i5/i7 is an adaptation of the Bloomfield i7 for mainstream/high performance desktop computing needs. Not for your imagined needs TA152H. The goal of this adaptation is affordable aquisition and operating costs while offering excellent performance of the Nahelem architecture.
The i7 Bloomfield was designed as a server processor to compete with the Opterons. What is changed in Lynnfield is the third memory channel and special high speed CPU/chipset/memory interconnect has been removed. This high speed interconnect is mainly useful for server/workstation applications which have extremely high bandwidth requirements that do not exist for desktop computing. The loss of the third channel and high-speed interconnect has been demonstrated to not be noticable in a desktop mainstream/high performance desktop computing environment.
I hope you like the taste of crow TA152H. Because, from Mr Shimpi's May article, the Lynnfield i5/i7 with the P55 chipset is reasonably certain to have perfomance comparable to today's Bloomfield/X58 at a fraction of the cost and power consumption.
This is the smarter choice for my money.
Lastly, do not call reasonable people idiots because they don't think like you do. Or they don't entertain the same expectations of their hardware as you do. Or are subjected to very real constraints (like money and personal responsability) than you. If you want to be effective in this forum, stop calling people idiots. It would really be great if you were more responsable with your posts
Let's not get too hasty with quotes such as "at a fraction of the cost and power consumption." Generally when "At a fraction of" is used, it means a small fraction. So far Lynnfield is looking like it will be 60-80% of the cost of an X58/920 system. We'll have to wait for final performance numbers and prices, but when the difference in price can be made up by skipping going out to the movies for a few months it isn't a life-altering event.
As far as the power consumption thing goes, we'll definitely have to wait for retail silicon to see. Considering that Intel already sells the Nehalem Xeons with 95W TDPs, I wouldn't be too surprised if the current consumer i7s are less power hungry as the process matures and voltages can be dropped. The majority of the difference between 1156 and 1366 might end up being in the chipset and extra RAM.
I think the cost for a P55/Quad i5 will be 70% the cost of a X58/920 system. That is what I had in mind when I called it a fraction of the cost.
I consider a 1156 i5/i7 at 95W is pretty good compared to the 1366 i7 at 130W.
I too believe lower power i5/i7's will become available when voltages are dropped. I think 65W i5/i7's eventually will become available just as the Penrym 95W Quad Cores had 65W models.
Why don't you two get a room and get it all of your chest together. You both have latched onto this $350 pricing as if this is Intel's fault. You should be blaming EVGA and others for these types of boards, and stick to reality, which is that there will be very good boards at about $120 once prices cool down.
Again, blame the AIB's that think they can sucker people to buy these high end boards, and i think EVGA is at the forefront of this crap.
Sure, i don't like Intel's general strategy with i5 over i7 much here either, but i like you two less.
Oh, come on. Why don't you just say something like "I believe that overly expensive motherboards don't make sense, given the intended product positioning". If that's all you want to say, then just say it, instead of throwing terms like 'crippled' and 'celeron in drag' around when referring to the processors themselves.
Both snake and TA have been beating there scewed view of lynnfield into the ground since the first specs came out. Then to drive their point home they try to focus on the absolute highest priced mobos, or numbers reported from locked down engineering samples. Theres always going to be companies like evga that make decked out versions of mother boards no matter what cpu they are for. The fact of the matter is, none of us knows what the true performance numbers of these new CPUs are except for places like anandtech that are lucky enough to have their hands on them. Until intel removes the gag order on performance specs we can only speculate. But based on the excitement coming from most major tech outlets I am willing to bet that guys like snake and TA will be eating their words very soon. Lets not forget that these "crippled" cpus as they like to refer to them are only missing things that are generally excepted as overkill for mainstream computing and gaming, and the things that really effect performance for the average person such as hyper threading and high clock speeds are all present and accounted for. I have a feeling when real numbers for the lynnfield i7s start showing up, alot of people who bought i7 920s are going to be wishing they waited a few more months. But only time will tell.
I am really looking forward to the Lynnfield/P55 launch next month. The P55 motherboard product line looks really good, The vendors have put a lot of work into these boards and it shows. For $130, a user can get a really nice P55 motherboard. And this time Nvidia/Intel are not mucking around with licensing for those who have a crying need for SLI.
This launch is really directed toward advanced mainstream users who are willing to invest $600-$700 in a CPU/Mobo/Memory/Graphics Card upgrade. Four slots of 8-16GB of DDR3-1600 memory is more than adequate for mainstream usage.
If everything holds true with Lynnfield/P55, then i7/X58 performance is available for about 70% the cost.
What are you basing this on? A dream you had last night?
The processors are slower, and the prices are kind of high. I don't know where this quality shows for the motherboards, since you've probably never seen one, and probably wouldn't know how to judge the quality anyway (I wouldn't either, so don't take it the wrong way).
For crying out loud, stop the 1156 bashing. Sure the naming scheme is stupid, but beyond that there's nothing wrong with 1156.
#1: Not everyone wants a space heater for a PC. Just because you want triple SLI and a high TDP processor, don't assume everyone does. Some people value efficiency, eco-friendliness, and cost of ownership. A 95w TDP quad core fits nicely here. A system running cool and quiet is a realistic demand for many people.
#2: The $350 board they're speaking about is more than likely the EVGA FTW board. The "Classified" of P55. It's absurdly expensive and not aimed at anyone but the extremists, yet still $100 cheaper than its 1366 counterpart. So your argument for the $350 board being ridiculous is pointless in terms of 1366 vs. 1156 reference. P55 will still be cheaper than X58, and I'm sure the "budget" versions of both chipsets will see a difference margin of around $100. For a single component, that's significant.
#3: All new parts are inflated in price when they hit the shelves for the first time. 1366 was absolutely stupid expensive when it came out. Look at the current prices for 1366 CPU's. There's one for ~$200 and then it goes through the roof after that. And it's been a long time since release. Of course p55 is going to be overpriced at launch, and all the manufacturers know people hate waiting and will throw down extra cash because of it. That aside there's always people that want to play with new products.
#4: The mainstream user doesn't care if there's another CPU out there that offers a tad better performance for the same price if it means they have to double their board cost. The performance of the 1156 platform is close enough to 1366 (sans SLI) that it's negligible in real-world situations. Really, the only reason I could see going to 1366 other than SLI is for future i9 support, but as always there's no guarantees there either. Triple channel RAM for most people isn't worth it right now.
#5: The quality he's referring to in the boards is plainly visible in the pictorial reviews here on AT. Look at them yourself. Sounds to me like you're the one who hasn't ever seen them. I can tell you right now I paid $200 for my P35 board, and it doesn't have half the luxuries that some of these P55 boards do. It's not a hardware generation gap causing the difference either. For $125 you're probably going to get a very full featured board with good cooling and tons of peripheral options. Not rocket science here. Sure we don't know how good they perform, but quality applies to more than how a board performs. I'd take a 5% less benchmark score any day if it meant upgraded cooling, extra I/O and better layout for a similar price.
Pretty much every 1366 mongering argument you have here can be negated by just whispering these words to yourself a few thousand times...
I couldn't agree with you more with your excellent 5 point rebuttal.
The Lynnfield/P55 release is going to almost as great as the Conroe/P965 release 3 years ago. I can hardly wait to see how these new products perform. Barring a major BIOS snaffu with the new P55 boards, I strongly suspect we are not going to be disappointed with this release.
Intel wants to compete with AMD in the mainstream segment. A blind man can see Intel developed Lynnfield/P55 because truly understood the Bloomfield/X58 is ridiculously expensive for the mainstream user -- like me -- on a restricted budget.
In addition to aquisition costs, I also care about operating expenses and the 95W TDP has great appeal to me. At 130W, the Bloomfield i7 is the same sort of spaceheater the Pentium-D was once ridiculed. I want a quiet thermal solution for my rig and I also want to use my existing 500W power supply. I can do better with Lynnfield where I get the same performance at 95W.
Mr Shimpi's early test and assessment of Lynnfield/P55 contained in the competent article "The Lynnfield Preview: Rumblings of Revenge" has convinced me the Lynnfield/P55 is the way to go. Most of my applications are single threaded and the more aggressive turbo mode will be most useful. The $200 2.66 Ghz Quad i5 is all I really need for my computing.
I plan on buying my Lynnfield/P55/DDR3-1600 upgrade in July/August 2010 when prices are their lowest, and Intel has likely released revised steppings to fix the errata.
1. Then you get a Penryn, which is more power efficient, and much smaller. Especially the S models. For the cost of the Lynnfield, you can get a very nice Penryn system.
2. You're obviously not bright enough to realize no extremist should get a x55. What an absurd statement. The people that need real performance will get the x58. Do you really not understand that? So why the $350 x55 motherboard?
3. Again, another really stupid remark. You pay a lot for new parts when they are BETTER than is out there. The x58 qualifies for that. The x55 doesn't. When the new part performs worse than what is out there, you run into the problem where you get the same cost in many platforms, and worse performance. That's where my problem is with this platform. It's a Celeron, but the price isn't where it should be.
4. When this product is priced as a mainstream part, I'd agree. Mainstream users could get a i7 920, and under $200 motherboard and be better off. They have a stronger platform, and better options in the future. If the Lynnfield were significantly cheaper, I'd say it's in a different segment, but the problem is, it's really not different enough. Also, with the degraded performance, you're running into the Penryn for some gaming benchmarks. That's a lot cheaper, and with the money spent on a video card, could easily be the better platform. Again, my problem is this crippled processor is just not priced right to make a lot of sense.
5. If you think you can tell the quality of a motherboard by looking at pictures, you're clearly an idiot. There's no way to tell how reliable they are from that. Do Supermicro pictures look so different from other manufacturers? Of all your remarks, that's clearly the dumbest, and that's saying something.
Your pro x55 arguments could be negated by just whispering the words "I'm really stupid, and don't understand a lot besides I want something new", to yourself.
Also, I have said I think the platform will settle down to make sense, but the initial costs are crazy, and the market segment it is trying to get are disconnected from the price.
Especially for gamers, I think it makes no sense at the current costs. A Penryn with a better video card should be better for most games, for the mainstream buyer, and the real i7 is for the people that have too much money to know what to do with it. When the costs come down, the argument favoring the Penryn will go away, but, the costs do have to come down.
1. How bout I get an i5 which in some cases beats your beloved 1366 i7 at less power draw and TDP instead?
2. You're obviously not bright enough to realize that the FTW boards are made for sub-zero temperatures. Or you're not bright enough to realize that even enthusiasts overclock Celerons to the extreme just for giggles or to see what they can do. By your logic, nobody should bother to OC an AMD because it's slower than an i7.
3. You are the reason motherboard manufacturers laugh all day. Again, try to squeeze into your little head the simple fact that i5 can keep up with an i7 920. Just try to imagine what an 1156 i7 would do? Mind boggling. I know.
4. Again, it's high right now because it just came out. It will drop just like the 920 did, just like the 950 eventually will, and just like every 1366 board has to some extent.
5. Quality isn't just about performance. Sure it's a big part, but it's not all of it. Features, board layout, cooling: all components that determine quality in a board that you can see without ever firing it up. I never said that the pictures were the end-all determinant of a board's quality. But it's not hard to tell when time, innovation, and effort have been put into a design when you're staring at it.
I'm not saying X58 sucks. That's more what you're doing. Saying how bad P55 sucks, and you're just flat out wrong. It doesn't suck, it isn't a waste of money, and it's damn close if not edging over your X58 in performance without SLI for a hell of a lot cheaper even with inflated prices.
You can sit here and argue all day that I'm some idiot, it won't bother me. I'm sure 90% of the people here know what I'm saying. Maybe I am kinda dumb for even bothering to type this. Obviously you've made up your mind already, and I don't care if you hate P55. Just don't make it out to be garbage for people who come to this site for information when it's clearly not.
By the way, check Newegg. The E8600 is still $269. Just short of an i7. Will people still buy them knowing this? Yes. Why? Because $269 is less than the $280+$280 it would cost just for an i7 and a compatible board. That's not even including RAM. Same goes for i5 only it's even more attractive because an i5 is just as fast as that $280 i7 920. You've got around $350 for a board and i5 CPU, or $450 for a board and i7 920 CPU. That's $100 difference. Both perform about the same. If you don't plan to SLI, why bother with 1366 in that situation?
1. Sure you could buy a penryn if you cared about power draw and nothing else. But nehalem has higher performance per watt and better upgrade possibilities. Why go with a dead architecture.
2. The P55 chipset straight from Intel costs less than the X58, P55 boards will be cheaper than x58 boards on average. Nobody is forcing you to buy a $350 P55 board just like no one is forcing you to buy a $450 x58 board.
3-4. The 920 is ~$280, a similarly clocked i5 will retail for ~200. You can get a decent x58 board for $200 or a P55 board for $140. $480 vs $340, seems pretty substantial to me, especially for similar performance.
You can keep thinking that the 1156 procs are celerons and keep posting it whenever you see a blurb on Anandtech that mentions anything related to Intel, but that won't make you right.
Bottom line, 1156: processors are cheaper, chipsets are cheaper, on average the boards are cheaper, performance is slightly worse. It fits.
You're typical of moving the numbers slightly, and thereby losing the value.
The low end p55 ATX motherboards are around $130. Low end ATX x58 motherboards are $170. $40 isn't worth it. Do we really know the price of the processors yet? Speculation isn't fact.
Really, this is a perfect example of a Celeron, in a classic sense. Damaged cache, and/or memory speeds are how Intel would marginalize them. What's different with this?
$130 is 76% of $170, so even if the processor costs the same and you ignore the differences in RAM cost and performance, there are plenty of people who will be happy to get close to the performance of the 1366 platform for that discount. The preview showed a ~5% difference, we'll see what the retail processors show but I don't doubt there will be plenty of people happy to go P55 if they can get 95% of the performance for 76% the price of the i7/1366. Don't mention gaming, most of these quad-core processors are not as good a value as a fast dual-core today anyway.
Plus, remember, people have bought and overclocked Celerons before.
Well in the article Anand mentions that the cheapest P55 would be just under $100, I figured the midrange would be $130 or so, with midrange x58 boards being around $200.
If you want to nitpick about speculation vs facts, then even the performance of these is speculation, considering all previews/reviews have been with engineering silicon and beta bioses.
Celerons were/are crippled, less cache, slower clock speeds, slower fsb, fewer supported instruction sets. All around, greatly reduced performance.
Lynnfield is not crippled. It may not have the third memory channel or QPI, but neither of those dramatically affect performance, especially in the majority of apps. In trade for these Lynnfield gains higher turbo modes, lower tdp, smaller package, and an on-die PCIe controller. In several ways it is more advanced than the 1366 processors.
It seems to me that most seem to be forgetting the advantage the i5 will have with the much higher turbo overclocks. Most of the time, this will make the i5 quite a bit faster than it's comparable base speed i7. Yes, the platform is surprisingly expensive for a "cut down" version of the i7, but I suspect within a few months, it will find it's place in the market and be an very desirable combination for those wanting better performance than Penryn or Phenom II, but without the higher cost of the i7.
I am looking forward to the Lynnfield/P55 launch next month. The P P55 motherboard product line looks really good. For $130, a user can get a really nice motherboard
This launch is really directed toward advanced mainstream users who are willing to invest $600-$700 in a CPU/Mobo/Memory/Graphics Card upgrade. Four DDR3 slots for 8GB of memory is more than adequate for mainstream usage.
If everything holds true with Lynnfield/P55, i7/X58 performance is available for about 70% the cost.
Come on, even Dell's X58 systems have 6 dimm's. Memory is still cheap, there's no reason for these high-end boards to skimp on dimm slots. Most of us were paying $200 for 2GB kits just a few years ago, and you can get 12GB for less than that now.
The Lynnfield platform is dual-channel, so six slots means you need to support three DIMMs per channel. That introduces latency and signaling issues, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a restriction on what sort of modules you can use (i.e. you may only be able to use one double-sided DIMM with two single-sided DIMMs in each channel if you want to populate all six slots).
So...in Europe at least motherboards are already showing up in stock. The cheapest are almost as cheap as X58. What is the point of getting 1156 & I5 when 1366 & I7 cost the same?
So it's time to revisit PCIe 2.0 bandwidth limitations right before launch please... if I throw a pair of 4890's on 2 8x 2.0 slots v.s. 2 16x 2.0 slots is there a difference. How about if I'm using 295 GTX's?
Sure? Don't forget that the Lucid Hydra 100 is ONLY 32 lanes down and 16 up.. All of them PCiE 1.1.... So to get benefit to a 5870x2 quadfire setup, you first have to pass all information through 16 lanes PCiE 1.1 ... I'll bet that really swamp and maybe bottleneck the bandwidth..
Then a quadfire with 4x5870 would be 8 lanes a card, and not enough imo. And all of the cards still connecting to the system with 16xPCiE 1.1.
And don't forget the Hydra doen't support different manufacturers.. You got to choose either nVidia or ATi.
The way I would use such a motherboard would be for a dual GPU setup. I reckon that 16 lanes feeding a crossbar switch should be sufficient for this purpose, even if only 1.1, although moving to latest gen would be preferable.
Also, I would be using a balanced setup, whether that be from nVidia, AMD/ATI or indeed Intel. So if wouldn't bother me if I were restricted to a single driver set. It wouldn't be any worse than using CF or SLI in that respect anyway.
You're right. The market segmentation of this processor seems crazy.
I think it's a processor for idiots, at least initially. They'll call it an i7, and the masses won't know the difference between it and the real deal, and so they'll think they're getting the good one, and end up with the degraded processor.
Over time, maybe it will settle down to make sense, but, really, the prices seem high for where this product belongs.
I'm glad other people are seeing it. Did the $350 motherboard hit you like a brick? Why would anyone want this?
So Intel's future lineup consists of low end Atom, high end P55 and the ultra-high end X58. I guess they haven't heard the global economy is in a sort of recession...lol
At least for now there's the underdog to pickup the mid-range segment.
Simply because people feel they must or because they have the money to burn. Whichever way it goes, I doubt the very presence of high price P55 boards is going to detract from the $130 market or even sub $130 market.I think some people see the high dollar boards and think that the budget segment is going to disappear as a result. The $200+ boards really are for those who just buy stuff on a whim or those that have specialized needs from a platform - like chasing max scores on a paticular processor model class for points in competitions such as Hwbot (you get HW based points - so even though i7 1366 is or may be faster, there are openings to score on an 870 CPU). Might sound stupid, but there's an industry for this stuff..
I can't believe the fanfare hardware sites are attempting to create with this joker. Why is Intel making such a big deal about a slower, later to the market platform that is comparably priced to their high performance chipset?
This is not news, and hardware sites look like shills for manufacturers with multiple articles trumpeting slower, later, yet nearly matching in price products. This P55 deserves no more attention than Celeron updates received in the past.
You're correct that "over 13" is a horrible use of that marketing schema. When the numbers are that low, you don't use "over" because it sounds lame. Or it could be "over a dozen", which keeps it vague enough that it sounds better.
I wasn't impressed with Physx in UT3 or Mirrors Edge. It made for some occasional eye candy in Mirrors Edge when glass was shattering and the flags were getting torn up, but the game also crashed on occasion with Physx turned on, and was completely stable with it disabled.
I haven't noticed that behavior in UT3, but in UT3 you can't even tell the difference with it enabled.
It's pretty cool, but hell, the Source engine already has an amazing, low CPU overhead Physics engine, it seems just unneccessary to dedicate GPU power to such a task when everything has a dual core 2+GHz cpu these days.
CUDA is promissing, I just wish they'd actually do something cool with it like make a torrent client or a video transcoder (that works)
Source wasn't the first physics implementation in a game engine. It was just the most publicized. You can go back to Unreal and see some too. Or how about the terrible Jurassic Park: Trespasser? :)
Phsyx is the new Glide. Thankfully it should die with DX11 Compute Shaders.
It makes allowances for games that support PhysX that they haven't listed because they may not know about it. The alternative would be "14 or more" but they couldn't say "more than 14" without a possibility it'd be a lie.
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strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 25, 2009 - link
What does uATX have to do with sexy desktops?araczynski - Tuesday, August 25, 2009 - link
...i immediately thought of an impotent old man yelling "I can almost get it up!"ClagMaster - Sunday, August 23, 2009 - link
One feature that would be welcome (at least for me) with the Lynnfield/P55 is the option to run unbuffered ECC memory. With memory sizes pushing 16GB using DDR3 memory with smaller memory cells, lower voltages, higher operating frequencies, I expect (sooner or later) memory parity errors will eventually become a emergent problem with desktop systems.Memory parity errors arise from memory cells loosing their charges from alpha particle interactions from radioactive decay of uranium or thorium impurities within the silicon, or energetic cosmic ray interactions. This lost bit causes data corruption that ECC can detect and fix.
I remember seeing a white paper from the Corsair Website a few years ago that claimed a 256MB stick of DDR memory experienced about ~3 memory parity error events per month. At that rate, 16GB would be equivalent to 19 parity error events each month. If you really need that amount of memory for a 64-bit system for running applications, then the probablity is greater for fatal errors which cause BSD's, or even worse, non-fatal errors that corrupt data.
I would not be surprised ECC memory soon becoming popular with desktop systems.
tajmahal - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Since these CPUs and motherboards have been out for retail sale in Taiwan for over a week now and in AU for a few days, does anyone have any benchmark links? Too bad AT and other sites signed up with Intels NDA and then got screwed by them with their mass release of the i5 and i7 LGA1156 CPUs. I can only find a few links in ATs forums and other forums.ComputerGuy2006 - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 looks interesting... 10 sata ports (4 of them 6GB) along with (apaprently) 2 eSata ports.papapapapapapapababy - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
call me when there is a game that uses 5% of all this power.(EFFICIENTLY) i dont mean super h res console crap.
where the hell is the next cryteck?
iwodo - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
Do games still need to be specially written in Driver to get it properly supported?jordanclock - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
That hasn't been an issue since about a month or two after SLI debuted. You can create an SLI profile for just about any game, and most of the time receive a large performance boost if you were GPU limited with one card. I don't know why you were under the impression that games have to be added to the driver to be "properly supported," as you put it.davekozy - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
PCIE 2 8x is fast enough for GTX 285 and 4890 but does limit 4870x2 and 295 a little. Going forward this limit will be more important with 300 and 5000 series cards. So it might not matter much today but in a few months this will be a bigger concern.SLI works on my P6T with the slots 16,16,4. The statement that Nvidia doesn't allow SLI with mismatched PCIE speeds is not correct. I think it's more the slow connection to the P55 chipset through the 4x slot that they're worried about and therefore not allowing SLI on these configurations. If customers buy a second card for SLI and get little increase then they might not try it again. AMD looks to follow suit according to the article.
snakeoil - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
the crippled intel lynfield offers nothing new its just a crippled core i7 at the same price.annandtech anaunces this fantastic progress but this is a farce, intel reducing costs and the intel user getting less at the same price.
TA152H - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
I agree. It's a Celeron in drag. I'm OK with Celerons if they are cheap enough, but show me someone that pays $350 for a Lynnfield/Celeron motherboard, and I'll show you an idiot. You're just better off with the real deal.My main problem with this Celeron is when it oversteps what it is, and ends up in the arena of the real i7. If it's cheap, it's a great deal, on a fine processor. But when they start making $350 motherboards for this Celeron, then you have to scratch your head and wonder what the point is. With x58 motherboards now available for less than $200, why would anyone pay so much for an x55?
I think this processor will settle into it's proper market segment over time, but, for now, I'm just confused by the amount of attention it's getting, and how expensive some of the parts are. Really, $350 for a x55 motherboard? Why?
ClagMaster - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
"I agree. It's a Celeron in drag. I'm OK with Celerons if they are cheap enough, but show me someone that pays $350 for a Lynnfield/Celeron motherboard, and I'll show you an idiot. You're just better off with the real deal."@TA152H
You just convinced me you are either an idiot or a fool. Real idiots are too mentally degraded to write. I see you can write. Since most of your posts have been mostly obnoxious, priggish, based on fashionable contrarianism, I suspect the latter. One would hope your eating habits are more refined than you post habits -- that you would smell it first before you take a bite. So I will endeavor, with patience, to perhaps correct your foolishness, your proud studied stupidity.
The Lynnfield i5/i7 do not qualify as Celerons. Not by a longshot. Not for a longtime. Celerons are sub-$100 processors made from degraded cores that have been around for a year. They often have reduced L2 caches and FSB frequencies. Lynnfields start at $200, have not been released yet, have the same L2/L3 cache, operate at the same frequencies, have the same architecture, and have nearly the same performance of the Bloomfield i7. These are brand new, fully featured, state of the art processors that pack a real performance wallop.
Calling the Lynnfield i5/i7 a Celeron is not defensible. In fact, its patiently silly and irresponsable. Only a willful fool would make such an assertion. A fool who clearly does not know what he is talking about.
The Lynnfield i5/i7 is an adaptation of the Bloomfield i7 for mainstream/high performance desktop computing needs. Not for your imagined needs TA152H. The goal of this adaptation is affordable aquisition and operating costs while offering excellent performance of the Nahelem architecture.
The i7 Bloomfield was designed as a server processor to compete with the Opterons. What is changed in Lynnfield is the third memory channel and special high speed CPU/chipset/memory interconnect has been removed. This high speed interconnect is mainly useful for server/workstation applications which have extremely high bandwidth requirements that do not exist for desktop computing. The loss of the third channel and high-speed interconnect has been demonstrated to not be noticable in a desktop mainstream/high performance desktop computing environment.
I hope you like the taste of crow TA152H. Because, from Mr Shimpi's May article, the Lynnfield i5/i7 with the P55 chipset is reasonably certain to have perfomance comparable to today's Bloomfield/X58 at a fraction of the cost and power consumption.
This is the smarter choice for my money.
Lastly, do not call reasonable people idiots because they don't think like you do. Or they don't entertain the same expectations of their hardware as you do. Or are subjected to very real constraints (like money and personal responsability) than you. If you want to be effective in this forum, stop calling people idiots. It would really be great if you were more responsable with your posts
strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 25, 2009 - link
Let's not get too hasty with quotes such as "at a fraction of the cost and power consumption." Generally when "At a fraction of" is used, it means a small fraction. So far Lynnfield is looking like it will be 60-80% of the cost of an X58/920 system. We'll have to wait for final performance numbers and prices, but when the difference in price can be made up by skipping going out to the movies for a few months it isn't a life-altering event.As far as the power consumption thing goes, we'll definitely have to wait for retail silicon to see. Considering that Intel already sells the Nehalem Xeons with 95W TDPs, I wouldn't be too surprised if the current consumer i7s are less power hungry as the process matures and voltages can be dropped. The majority of the difference between 1156 and 1366 might end up being in the chipset and extra RAM.
ClagMaster - Wednesday, August 26, 2009 - link
I agree.I think the cost for a P55/Quad i5 will be 70% the cost of a X58/920 system. That is what I had in mind when I called it a fraction of the cost.
I consider a 1156 i5/i7 at 95W is pretty good compared to the 1366 i7 at 130W.
I too believe lower power i5/i7's will become available when voltages are dropped. I think 65W i5/i7's eventually will become available just as the Penrym 95W Quad Cores had 65W models.
james jwb - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Why don't you two get a room and get it all of your chest together. You both have latched onto this $350 pricing as if this is Intel's fault. You should be blaming EVGA and others for these types of boards, and stick to reality, which is that there will be very good boards at about $120 once prices cool down.Again, blame the AIB's that think they can sucker people to buy these high end boards, and i think EVGA is at the forefront of this crap.
Sure, i don't like Intel's general strategy with i5 over i7 much here either, but i like you two less.
TA152H - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Clearly, you're an idiot.I didn't blame Intel, or even mention Intel. I mentioned the platform.
I have also said the platform should be viable when the prices fall down. I have a big problem with the cost. It's too much for what it is.
Buy a book on reading comprehension, if you can understand this sentence.
JustPassing - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Oh, come on. Why don't you just say something like "I believe that overly expensive motherboards don't make sense, given the intended product positioning". If that's all you want to say, then just say it, instead of throwing terms like 'crippled' and 'celeron in drag' around when referring to the processors themselves.mesiah - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
James, don't feed the trolls :PBoth snake and TA have been beating there scewed view of lynnfield into the ground since the first specs came out. Then to drive their point home they try to focus on the absolute highest priced mobos, or numbers reported from locked down engineering samples. Theres always going to be companies like evga that make decked out versions of mother boards no matter what cpu they are for. The fact of the matter is, none of us knows what the true performance numbers of these new CPUs are except for places like anandtech that are lucky enough to have their hands on them. Until intel removes the gag order on performance specs we can only speculate. But based on the excitement coming from most major tech outlets I am willing to bet that guys like snake and TA will be eating their words very soon. Lets not forget that these "crippled" cpus as they like to refer to them are only missing things that are generally excepted as overkill for mainstream computing and gaming, and the things that really effect performance for the average person such as hyper threading and high clock speeds are all present and accounted for. I have a feeling when real numbers for the lynnfield i7s start showing up, alot of people who bought i7 920s are going to be wishing they waited a few more months. But only time will tell.
Interitus - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Thank you.Here I thought I might be the only person completely irritated by the 1366 fanboys here.
ClagMaster - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
I am really looking forward to the Lynnfield/P55 launch next month. The P55 motherboard product line looks really good, The vendors have put a lot of work into these boards and it shows. For $130, a user can get a really nice P55 motherboard. And this time Nvidia/Intel are not mucking around with licensing for those who have a crying need for SLI.This launch is really directed toward advanced mainstream users who are willing to invest $600-$700 in a CPU/Mobo/Memory/Graphics Card upgrade. Four slots of 8-16GB of DDR3-1600 memory is more than adequate for mainstream usage.
If everything holds true with Lynnfield/P55, then i7/X58 performance is available for about 70% the cost.
TA152H - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
What are you basing this on? A dream you had last night?The processors are slower, and the prices are kind of high. I don't know where this quality shows for the motherboards, since you've probably never seen one, and probably wouldn't know how to judge the quality anyway (I wouldn't either, so don't take it the wrong way).
Interitus - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
For crying out loud, stop the 1156 bashing. Sure the naming scheme is stupid, but beyond that there's nothing wrong with 1156.#1: Not everyone wants a space heater for a PC. Just because you want triple SLI and a high TDP processor, don't assume everyone does. Some people value efficiency, eco-friendliness, and cost of ownership. A 95w TDP quad core fits nicely here. A system running cool and quiet is a realistic demand for many people.
#2: The $350 board they're speaking about is more than likely the EVGA FTW board. The "Classified" of P55. It's absurdly expensive and not aimed at anyone but the extremists, yet still $100 cheaper than its 1366 counterpart. So your argument for the $350 board being ridiculous is pointless in terms of 1366 vs. 1156 reference. P55 will still be cheaper than X58, and I'm sure the "budget" versions of both chipsets will see a difference margin of around $100. For a single component, that's significant.
#3: All new parts are inflated in price when they hit the shelves for the first time. 1366 was absolutely stupid expensive when it came out. Look at the current prices for 1366 CPU's. There's one for ~$200 and then it goes through the roof after that. And it's been a long time since release. Of course p55 is going to be overpriced at launch, and all the manufacturers know people hate waiting and will throw down extra cash because of it. That aside there's always people that want to play with new products.
#4: The mainstream user doesn't care if there's another CPU out there that offers a tad better performance for the same price if it means they have to double their board cost. The performance of the 1156 platform is close enough to 1366 (sans SLI) that it's negligible in real-world situations. Really, the only reason I could see going to 1366 other than SLI is for future i9 support, but as always there's no guarantees there either. Triple channel RAM for most people isn't worth it right now.
#5: The quality he's referring to in the boards is plainly visible in the pictorial reviews here on AT. Look at them yourself. Sounds to me like you're the one who hasn't ever seen them. I can tell you right now I paid $200 for my P35 board, and it doesn't have half the luxuries that some of these P55 boards do. It's not a hardware generation gap causing the difference either. For $125 you're probably going to get a very full featured board with good cooling and tons of peripheral options. Not rocket science here. Sure we don't know how good they perform, but quality applies to more than how a board performs. I'd take a 5% less benchmark score any day if it meant upgraded cooling, extra I/O and better layout for a similar price.
Pretty much every 1366 mongering argument you have here can be negated by just whispering these words to yourself a few thousand times...
"The hardware world doesn't revolve around me"
JustPassing - Saturday, August 22, 2009 - link
1156 platform also supports SLI (sorry, I posted this later in the thread, whereas I should have posted here)ClagMaster - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
To InteritusThank you
I couldn't agree with you more with your excellent 5 point rebuttal.
The Lynnfield/P55 release is going to almost as great as the Conroe/P965 release 3 years ago. I can hardly wait to see how these new products perform. Barring a major BIOS snaffu with the new P55 boards, I strongly suspect we are not going to be disappointed with this release.
Intel wants to compete with AMD in the mainstream segment. A blind man can see Intel developed Lynnfield/P55 because truly understood the Bloomfield/X58 is ridiculously expensive for the mainstream user -- like me -- on a restricted budget.
In addition to aquisition costs, I also care about operating expenses and the 95W TDP has great appeal to me. At 130W, the Bloomfield i7 is the same sort of spaceheater the Pentium-D was once ridiculed. I want a quiet thermal solution for my rig and I also want to use my existing 500W power supply. I can do better with Lynnfield where I get the same performance at 95W.
Mr Shimpi's early test and assessment of Lynnfield/P55 contained in the competent article "The Lynnfield Preview: Rumblings of Revenge" has convinced me the Lynnfield/P55 is the way to go. Most of my applications are single threaded and the more aggressive turbo mode will be most useful. The $200 2.66 Ghz Quad i5 is all I really need for my computing.
I plan on buying my Lynnfield/P55/DDR3-1600 upgrade in July/August 2010 when prices are their lowest, and Intel has likely released revised steppings to fix the errata.
Again, thanks. I really appreciate your comments.
TA152H - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
1. Then you get a Penryn, which is more power efficient, and much smaller. Especially the S models. For the cost of the Lynnfield, you can get a very nice Penryn system.2. You're obviously not bright enough to realize no extremist should get a x55. What an absurd statement. The people that need real performance will get the x58. Do you really not understand that? So why the $350 x55 motherboard?
3. Again, another really stupid remark. You pay a lot for new parts when they are BETTER than is out there. The x58 qualifies for that. The x55 doesn't. When the new part performs worse than what is out there, you run into the problem where you get the same cost in many platforms, and worse performance. That's where my problem is with this platform. It's a Celeron, but the price isn't where it should be.
4. When this product is priced as a mainstream part, I'd agree. Mainstream users could get a i7 920, and under $200 motherboard and be better off. They have a stronger platform, and better options in the future. If the Lynnfield were significantly cheaper, I'd say it's in a different segment, but the problem is, it's really not different enough. Also, with the degraded performance, you're running into the Penryn for some gaming benchmarks. That's a lot cheaper, and with the money spent on a video card, could easily be the better platform. Again, my problem is this crippled processor is just not priced right to make a lot of sense.
5. If you think you can tell the quality of a motherboard by looking at pictures, you're clearly an idiot. There's no way to tell how reliable they are from that. Do Supermicro pictures look so different from other manufacturers? Of all your remarks, that's clearly the dumbest, and that's saying something.
Your pro x55 arguments could be negated by just whispering the words "I'm really stupid, and don't understand a lot besides I want something new", to yourself.
Also, I have said I think the platform will settle down to make sense, but the initial costs are crazy, and the market segment it is trying to get are disconnected from the price.
Especially for gamers, I think it makes no sense at the current costs. A Penryn with a better video card should be better for most games, for the mainstream buyer, and the real i7 is for the people that have too much money to know what to do with it. When the costs come down, the argument favoring the Penryn will go away, but, the costs do have to come down.
Interitus - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Wow.1. How bout I get an i5 which in some cases beats your beloved 1366 i7 at less power draw and TDP instead?
2. You're obviously not bright enough to realize that the FTW boards are made for sub-zero temperatures. Or you're not bright enough to realize that even enthusiasts overclock Celerons to the extreme just for giggles or to see what they can do. By your logic, nobody should bother to OC an AMD because it's slower than an i7.
3. You are the reason motherboard manufacturers laugh all day. Again, try to squeeze into your little head the simple fact that i5 can keep up with an i7 920. Just try to imagine what an 1156 i7 would do? Mind boggling. I know.
4. Again, it's high right now because it just came out. It will drop just like the 920 did, just like the 950 eventually will, and just like every 1366 board has to some extent.
5. Quality isn't just about performance. Sure it's a big part, but it's not all of it. Features, board layout, cooling: all components that determine quality in a board that you can see without ever firing it up. I never said that the pictures were the end-all determinant of a board's quality. But it's not hard to tell when time, innovation, and effort have been put into a design when you're staring at it.
I'm not saying X58 sucks. That's more what you're doing. Saying how bad P55 sucks, and you're just flat out wrong. It doesn't suck, it isn't a waste of money, and it's damn close if not edging over your X58 in performance without SLI for a hell of a lot cheaper even with inflated prices.
You can sit here and argue all day that I'm some idiot, it won't bother me. I'm sure 90% of the people here know what I'm saying. Maybe I am kinda dumb for even bothering to type this. Obviously you've made up your mind already, and I don't care if you hate P55. Just don't make it out to be garbage for people who come to this site for information when it's clearly not.
By the way, check Newegg. The E8600 is still $269. Just short of an i7. Will people still buy them knowing this? Yes. Why? Because $269 is less than the $280+$280 it would cost just for an i7 and a compatible board. That's not even including RAM. Same goes for i5 only it's even more attractive because an i5 is just as fast as that $280 i7 920. You've got around $350 for a board and i5 CPU, or $450 for a board and i7 920 CPU. That's $100 difference. Both perform about the same. If you don't plan to SLI, why bother with 1366 in that situation?
JustPassing - Saturday, August 22, 2009 - link
1156 platform also supports SLI.Interitus - Saturday, August 22, 2009 - link
Meant Tri-SLI, sorry.Natfly - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
1. Sure you could buy a penryn if you cared about power draw and nothing else. But nehalem has higher performance per watt and better upgrade possibilities. Why go with a dead architecture.2. The P55 chipset straight from Intel costs less than the X58, P55 boards will be cheaper than x58 boards on average. Nobody is forcing you to buy a $350 P55 board just like no one is forcing you to buy a $450 x58 board.
3-4. The 920 is ~$280, a similarly clocked i5 will retail for ~200. You can get a decent x58 board for $200 or a P55 board for $140. $480 vs $340, seems pretty substantial to me, especially for similar performance.
You can keep thinking that the 1156 procs are celerons and keep posting it whenever you see a blurb on Anandtech that mentions anything related to Intel, but that won't make you right.
Bottom line, 1156: processors are cheaper, chipsets are cheaper, on average the boards are cheaper, performance is slightly worse. It fits.
TA152H - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
You're typical of moving the numbers slightly, and thereby losing the value.The low end p55 ATX motherboards are around $130. Low end ATX x58 motherboards are $170. $40 isn't worth it. Do we really know the price of the processors yet? Speculation isn't fact.
Really, this is a perfect example of a Celeron, in a classic sense. Damaged cache, and/or memory speeds are how Intel would marginalize them. What's different with this?
strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 25, 2009 - link
$130 is 76% of $170, so even if the processor costs the same and you ignore the differences in RAM cost and performance, there are plenty of people who will be happy to get close to the performance of the 1366 platform for that discount. The preview showed a ~5% difference, we'll see what the retail processors show but I don't doubt there will be plenty of people happy to go P55 if they can get 95% of the performance for 76% the price of the i7/1366. Don't mention gaming, most of these quad-core processors are not as good a value as a fast dual-core today anyway.Plus, remember, people have bought and overclocked Celerons before.
Natfly - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Well in the article Anand mentions that the cheapest P55 would be just under $100, I figured the midrange would be $130 or so, with midrange x58 boards being around $200.As for the prices of the Lynnfield lineup, multiple sites have confirmed the price points. Fry's even accidentally listed one of the processors: http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15040/35/">http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15040/35/
If you want to nitpick about speculation vs facts, then even the performance of these is speculation, considering all previews/reviews have been with engineering silicon and beta bioses.
Celerons were/are crippled, less cache, slower clock speeds, slower fsb, fewer supported instruction sets. All around, greatly reduced performance.
Lynnfield is not crippled. It may not have the third memory channel or QPI, but neither of those dramatically affect performance, especially in the majority of apps. In trade for these Lynnfield gains higher turbo modes, lower tdp, smaller package, and an on-die PCIe controller. In several ways it is more advanced than the 1366 processors.
JustPassing - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
I hope that it is intentional that you incorrectly refer to P55 as x55. If not, you make yourself look like even more of an idiot, if possible. :Pdtgoodwin - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
It seems to me that most seem to be forgetting the advantage the i5 will have with the much higher turbo overclocks. Most of the time, this will make the i5 quite a bit faster than it's comparable base speed i7. Yes, the platform is surprisingly expensive for a "cut down" version of the i7, but I suspect within a few months, it will find it's place in the market and be an very desirable combination for those wanting better performance than Penryn or Phenom II, but without the higher cost of the i7.TA152H - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
You're assuming the i7 won't be changed. It's HIGHLY unlikely Intel would make the boost higher on the lower end chip. They're not that stupid.ClagMaster - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
I am looking forward to the Lynnfield/P55 launch next month. The P P55 motherboard product line looks really good. For $130, a user can get a really nice motherboardThis launch is really directed toward advanced mainstream users who are willing to invest $600-$700 in a CPU/Mobo/Memory/Graphics Card upgrade. Four DDR3 slots for 8GB of memory is more than adequate for mainstream usage.
If everything holds true with Lynnfield/P55, i7/X58 performance is available for about 70% the cost.
bamacre - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
Come on, even Dell's X58 systems have 6 dimm's. Memory is still cheap, there's no reason for these high-end boards to skimp on dimm slots. Most of us were paying $200 for 2GB kits just a few years ago, and you can get 12GB for less than that now.JarredWalton - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
The Lynnfield platform is dual-channel, so six slots means you need to support three DIMMs per channel. That introduces latency and signaling issues, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a restriction on what sort of modules you can use (i.e. you may only be able to use one double-sided DIMM with two single-sided DIMMs in each channel if you want to populate all six slots).nuttie43 - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
So...in Europe at least motherboards are already showing up in stock. The cheapest are almost as cheap as X58. What is the point of getting 1156 & I5 when 1366 & I7 cost the same?TA152H - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
Have you ruled out stupidity?bh192012 - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
So it's time to revisit PCIe 2.0 bandwidth limitations right before launch please... if I throw a pair of 4890's on 2 8x 2.0 slots v.s. 2 16x 2.0 slots is there a difference. How about if I'm using 295 GTX's?shabby - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
Totally agree.shabby - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
Seriously wtf, the prices for this platform are nearing the x58 and offer no advantages whatsoever.JustPassing - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Just under $100 sounds quite nice though, doesn't it? If I'm going to spend over $200 then I want one with the Lucid chip working as promised :PDudler - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Sure? Don't forget that the Lucid Hydra 100 is ONLY 32 lanes down and 16 up.. All of them PCiE 1.1.... So to get benefit to a 5870x2 quadfire setup, you first have to pass all information through 16 lanes PCiE 1.1 ... I'll bet that really swamp and maybe bottleneck the bandwidth..Then a quadfire with 4x5870 would be 8 lanes a card, and not enough imo. And all of the cards still connecting to the system with 16xPCiE 1.1.
And don't forget the Hydra doen't support different manufacturers.. You got to choose either nVidia or ATi.
JustPassing - Saturday, August 22, 2009 - link
The way I would use such a motherboard would be for a dual GPU setup. I reckon that 16 lanes feeding a crossbar switch should be sufficient for this purpose, even if only 1.1, although moving to latest gen would be preferable.Also, I would be using a balanced setup, whether that be from nVidia, AMD/ATI or indeed Intel. So if wouldn't bother me if I were restricted to a single driver set. It wouldn't be any worse than using CF or SLI in that respect anyway.
mostlyprudent - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
I bet Intel raises the prices of X58 and i7 after the P55 and i5 release.TA152H - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
You're right. The market segmentation of this processor seems crazy.I think it's a processor for idiots, at least initially. They'll call it an i7, and the masses won't know the difference between it and the real deal, and so they'll think they're getting the good one, and end up with the degraded processor.
Over time, maybe it will settle down to make sense, but, really, the prices seem high for where this product belongs.
I'm glad other people are seeing it. Did the $350 motherboard hit you like a brick? Why would anyone want this?
Samus - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
So Intel's future lineup consists of low end Atom, high end P55 and the ultra-high end X58. I guess they haven't heard the global economy is in a sort of recession...lolAt least for now there's the underdog to pickup the mid-range segment.
IlllI - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
you forgot about the i3. eventually you'll see an i3 processor tooRajinder Gill - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
'Why would anyone want this?'Simply because people feel they must or because they have the money to burn. Whichever way it goes, I doubt the very presence of high price P55 boards is going to detract from the $130 market or even sub $130 market.I think some people see the high dollar boards and think that the budget segment is going to disappear as a result. The $200+ boards really are for those who just buy stuff on a whim or those that have specialized needs from a platform - like chasing max scores on a paticular processor model class for points in competitions such as Hwbot (you get HW based points - so even though i7 1366 is or may be faster, there are openings to score on an 870 CPU). Might sound stupid, but there's an industry for this stuff..
Marc B - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
I can't believe the fanfare hardware sites are attempting to create with this joker. Why is Intel making such a big deal about a slower, later to the market platform that is comparably priced to their high performance chipset?This is not news, and hardware sites look like shills for manufacturers with multiple articles trumpeting slower, later, yet nearly matching in price products. This P55 deserves no more attention than Celeron updates received in the past.
nubie - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
What about the on-die pci-e? Maybe that will pay off in reduced latency?I am not spending over $130 for one though, even if I win the lotto. (unless it is mini-ITX or something)
TemjinGold - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
"Over 13 games now support Phsyx..." So... 14 games now support it (according to the pic)? Somehow, "over 13" doesn't sound too impressive...elivebuy - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - link
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yacoub - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
You're correct that "over 13" is a horrible use of that marketing schema. When the numbers are that low, you don't use "over" because it sounds lame. Or it could be "over a dozen", which keeps it vague enough that it sounds better.Samus - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
I wasn't impressed with Physx in UT3 or Mirrors Edge. It made for some occasional eye candy in Mirrors Edge when glass was shattering and the flags were getting torn up, but the game also crashed on occasion with Physx turned on, and was completely stable with it disabled.I haven't noticed that behavior in UT3, but in UT3 you can't even tell the difference with it enabled.
It's pretty cool, but hell, the Source engine already has an amazing, low CPU overhead Physics engine, it seems just unneccessary to dedicate GPU power to such a task when everything has a dual core 2+GHz cpu these days.
CUDA is promissing, I just wish they'd actually do something cool with it like make a torrent client or a video transcoder (that works)
swaaye - Friday, August 21, 2009 - link
Source wasn't the first physics implementation in a game engine. It was just the most publicized. You can go back to Unreal and see some too. Or how about the terrible Jurassic Park: Trespasser? :)Phsyx is the new Glide. Thankfully it should die with DX11 Compute Shaders.
PseudoKnight - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
It makes allowances for games that support PhysX that they haven't listed because they may not know about it. The alternative would be "14 or more" but they couldn't say "more than 14" without a possibility it'd be a lie.