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Go fast, go long—Intel releases the Lynnfield platform

Posted by Robert Dow and Jon Peddie on September 22nd 2009 | Discuss
Categories: Hardware Review
Tags: nvidia intel cpu ram processor nehalem core

Lynnfield is Intel’s first mainstream Nehalem, and is being marketed as Core i5. It’s built in 45nm, has 4 cores, and Hyper Threading, 8MB of shared L3 memory, and Turbo Boost Technology for dynamic frequency scaling.

The Core i5, again like the i7, has an integrated 1333 MHz DDR3 memory controller, but the Lynnfield’s is dual channel instead of triple channel. Unlike Core i7, Lynnfield communicates directly with PCI-e 2.0 graphics, though at a maximum of x16 lanes, which requires splitting them x8/x8 in multiple AIB setups.

Since the CPU can interface directly to memory and graphics, no northbridge is needed in the Ibex Peak platform that the Lynnfield sits on. The CPU uses an LGA 1156 socket and is connected to a P55 chipset, which essentially provides southbridge functions. It also offers 6 SATA 3Gb/s Ports with Intel Matrix storage technology providing RAID 0/1/5/10, and 14 USB 2.0 Ports with integrated USB 2.0.

Lynnfield and Ibex Peak won’t include the Quick Path Interconnect found on Core i7. The 2 GB/s Direct Media Interface, currently used to connect north and south bridges on the X-58 and Core 2 Series 4 platforms, is used instead. The processor will sell for $199 (1ku).

We got our hands on a Lynnfield Core i5 870 2.93 GHz with 4 GB DD3 1333MHz, a 160 GB Intel SSD, and an Nvidia GTX285, and ran some tests. We then compared the Core i5 to the Bloomfield Core i7 CPU W3570 3.20 GHz with 4 GB DDR3, and a 256 GB Samsung SSD we had, also equipped with an Nvidia GTX 285. We used 3Dmark Vantage and PCBench.

We first tested the two systems with Futuremark’s 3Dmark Vantage for graphics and then for CPU performance, and the results are shown in Figure 2.

The results show little difference in graphics.

This was pretty much to be expected and is a favorable comment about the graphics test of Vantage as it pretty much nulls out the CPU effect.

We also looked at the CPU test of Vantage and got the results in Figure 3.

We next ran Passmark CPU tests with physics on and off and got a noticeable difference.

In this benchmark the CPU is used for the physics test and the effect of physics on and off can clearly be seen.

And to be fair, we also looked at physics on and off using Futuremark’s Vantage CPU tests. Surprisingly, the loser clocked Core i5 beat the bigger faster Core i7 on physics tests and came very close on integer and floating point tests.

The Futuremark tests showed similar results in physics and a close comparison between the two CPUs.

What do we think?

In terms of value for money and power consumption, the core i5 in the Lynnfield platform is a winner!

The main difference between the two is that the Core i7 that was released in late 2008 has three DDR3 slots with 8.5 Gb/s bandwidth while the core i5 just released has two DDR slots but with 10.6 Gb/s bandwidth, so with less memory it squeezes out more
performance.

The QPI interface between the CPU and chip is dramatically different, with the Core i7 to X58 chipset capable of 25.6 GB/s, while the core i5 to P55 chipset is only 2 GB/s.

Both processors are built in 45 nm with the Core i5 being a tiny bit larger (263 vs. 293 mm2 for the Lynnfield)—the larger die being due to an on-die PCIe controller, so the sockets are different, LGA 1366 for Bloomfiled and LGA 1156 for Lynnfield.

The Bloomfield sells for ~ $999, while the Lynnfield (which comes in three frequencies) sells for between ~ $196 to $562.

The core i5 is clearly the most cost effective processor to come along in a long time, offering great performance and at competitive prices. It also has some over-clocking capabilities that will let the DIY’ers get even more bank for the buck out of it.