Final Words
Perhaps this is a bit anticlimactic, but the Core i7 860 performs exactly where you'd expect it to. It's faster than a Core i5 750, faster than a Core i7 920 and slower than a Core i7 870. As I noted in The Lynnfield Follow Up, overclocking is much easier on Bloomfield (LGA-1366) thanks to the absence of an on-die PCIe controller. It's not impossible on Lynnfield, it's just effortless on Bloomfield.
My recommendations from the initial Lynnfield review still stand, you'll want to opt for Bloomfield processor if you care about:
1) High-end multi-GPU performance (or other uses of high bandwidth PCIe)
2) Stock Voltage Overclocking
3) Future support for 6-core Gulftown CPUs
In terms of cost effectiveness however - the Core i7 860 is the way to go. With cheaper motherboards and higher operating frequencies than a Core i7 920, for the majority of users the 860 will be the better pick. Here's where the discussion gets interesting however.
A year ago, $284 for a Core i7 920 didn't seem like a lot for what you were getting. But with AMD shipping $99 quad core CPUs, and the Phenom II line being very competitive in the $130 - $200 space - is Lynnfield too expensive?
Our sources are telling us that Lynnfield isn't selling as well as expected, it's not a flop, but definitely selling under expectations. The reason? Price. Apparently the vendors (and their customers) were hoping for a sub-$200 Core i5 750. Remember that the majority of quad-core sales happen under the $200 mark. Fortunately for AMD, there aren't any cheaper quad-core Lynnfields on the roadmaps for Intel through Q3 of next year; the Core i5 750 will be the cheapest quad-core Nehalem for the foreseeable future.
Instead, Intel will compete with 32nm Clarkdale CPUs in the sub-$200 space. These are dual core parts with Hyper Threading; it remains to be seen how well they'll stack up to AMD's quad-core CPUs in that space, since it doesn't look like we'll see Lynnfield down there anytime soon.
Assuming that Clarkdale isn't overly competitive, Phenom II could dominate the ~$150 quad-core price point throughout much of 2010. The biggest threat to Phenom II appears to be the Core i5 650. We'll see how that plays out early next year.
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has407 - Sunday, September 20, 2009 - link
No, there's nothing "wrong" except maybe your assumptions or math?22x 133MHz = 2.93GHz. That's exactly what an 860 should be at with 4 cores active under full load.
An 870 would idle at 2.93GHz; with 4 cores active and under full load you should see 24x 133MHz = 3.20GHz.
yacoub - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
Go learn about TDP.hulu - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
" According to the Turbo charts, the slowest Turbo speed is higher than the stock speed. Why is that? "It's not only how many cores you use but also what instructions are being executed that contributes to whether turbo is used.
TemjinGold - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
I'm guessing it's because if you turn turbo OFF, it would be 2.66.I'm wondering though, if you need 2 cores on the 860, does it shut off 2 cores and use 2 physical ones or does it shut off 3 cores and use 1 physical plus 1 HT core?
TA152H - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
Despite your love affair for this chip, it's a solution in search of a problem.It's clearly inferior to the Bloomfield. Despite running at higher clock speeds, sometimes a lot, it actually loses to the i7 920. Overclock them, and there's just no comparison. The i7 920 is better. No one with any knowledge of computers would buy the i7 860. They'd get the real deal, the i7 920. This pertains even moreso for the i7 870. Basically, the Lynnfield is an idiot's procesesor, except for the i5 750.
If you can't afford a Bloomfield, that's really your best choice. Except, like I mentioned in a previous post, this is a Celeron, without the platform. If they coupled this with an IGP, you'd have something that would sell. The i5 750 is still not without appeal with a discrete card, but, then, most of the market likes IGPs. And if you know something, and have some money, you're not going to get the brain-damaged Lynnfield. You'll get the Bloomfield.
It's not a mystery, really. The mystery is why it would even sell marginally well. I think once they couple it with a decent IGP, it will really take off though. Until then, I think they'll be lucky to settle for mediocrity.
The Athlon stole the show. No one needs a brain-damaged version of a better chip, unless it breaks into a new market with price. Arguably the i5 750 did, kind of. Clearly the Athlon did. I think that's going to generate more real excitement, if less motherboard pictorals.
KoolAidMan1 - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
Incorrect, there are already benchmarks out there where the i5 720, i7 870, and i7 920 are all underclocked to 2.66ghz (the speed of the i7 920) and overclocked to 3.2ghz (a very attainable turbo speed by the i7 870 and i5 720). The difference in nearly all gaming benchmarks, using settings that takes the GPU out of the mix as a bottleneck, all at the same clock speeds, are within a very very tight percentage range, at the very most a 10% spread (with Crysis and Far Cry 2 it is closer to a 1% spread).http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/09/07/intel_ly...">http://www.hardocp.com/article/2009/09/...ntel_lyn...
I think the lower price of motherboards makes the LGA 1156 CPUs very very attractive. I don't see any reason to get an LGA 1366 board unless you really want to futureproof yourself for six and eight core CPUs. That said, I don't see a point; most games still use single, maybe dual cores, and upgrading CPUs within a motherboard cycle almost never happens for me. By the time it is time to put together a new PC (average every two years for me) there is an entirely new ecosystem of CPUs, motherboards, and RAM that I need to get into and I end up keeping almost nothing from the old rig.
So yeah, I don't really agree with you.
chrnochime - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
Wouldn't it serve you better by creating your own website, instead of attacking Anand's articles and playing second fiddle here? You seem to think you know better than Anand does, so why don't you enlighten the rest of us with your better/correct knowledge at your own site? Or has that been done already?Just saying...
jordanclock - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
I'm currently in the process of putting together a new system and the choice between the i5 750 and the i7 860 is very hard. The 920 isn't even an option for me; The 860 outperforms the 920 in most scenarios, and when the 920 comes ahead, it's less than the margin of error.Are you looking at the same graphs I am? The ones that show the 860 performing better, or at worst identically, to the 920 over and over? For the same CPU price and lower motherboard price? This isn't a Celeron. This isn't something you pair up with an IGP. This is the current generations upper-end bang-for-the-buck champion.
Add in the 750, and I see no reason to get a 920. Two-thirds the price, with most of the benchmarks showing performance parity, sometimes a little less. Again, with a lower motherboard cost as well.
If anything, the 920 is the solution searching for a problem. The 860 just took over the job of the 920, except for a few cases. The 750 offers almost the same performance, but at an even lower cost.
These chips aren't brain-damaged; They just took out the cancerous tumors. Lower cost, lower power, and equal performance. The 860 stole the 920's thunder, and the 750 gives us a very complete mid-range.
the zorro - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
if you go to newegg you can see that lynnfield is not selling, because is crippled, expensive and phenom 2 wipes and mops the floor with core i5 750.KoolAidMan1 - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
You are either deluded or trolling. The i5 720 both costs less and outperforms the Phenom II X4 965 BE in pretty much every chart.