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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DigitalFreak - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
He's the troll formerly known as snakeoil. Just ignore him and he'll go away.the zorro - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
why, did you ran out of arguments?strikeback03 - Monday, September 21, 2009 - link
No, just following this proverb"Do not argue with a fool, those watching may not know the difference between you and he"
DigitalFreak - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
Arguing with someone who is clearly delusional is pointless. On the other hand, if you're mentally retarded then you have my sympathy.Troll Trolling - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
Ok, let's do your way.In the magic lands of Ecualia, there was a magic blacksmith cyclope, he forged the Core i7 860 such way it would be better than BloomField.
Beat my argument troll.
the zorro - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
the story is even worst than that:somewhere at satan clara's intel's HQ the evil orcs at intel decided that free overclocking was not profitable so they decided to create the turbo crap story, and call it a 'feature' so this way they would use all available overclocking headroom in the cpu and begin charging for it.
so they are killing free overclocking for intel users.
now you have to pay for overclocking because lynnfield turbo overclocking is consuming all the overclocking ability of the cpu
now intel can make this turbo overclocking more aggressive in some cpus and charge more for it.
but there is another problem because intel's orcs betrayed the evil nvidia warlock who sweared revenge and now intel cpus are underperforming when paired with an nvida graphics card.
SpaceRanger - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
We gotta get a "Do Not Feed The Trolls" sign for the end of every page posted here at Anandtech.jordanclock - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
Not really... Just look at the numbers. The i5 750 is outperforming the PII 965 in almost every case. And when the 965 pulls ahead, it's not enough to justify the increase in price and huge increase in power draw.Eeqmcsq - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
> Not really... Just look at the numbers. The i5 750 is outperforming the PII 965 in almost every case... when given room to Turbo. When not given room to Turbo, then the winner is...? Based on the limited number of Turbo off benchmarks available, my theory is that the i5 750 will fall below the 965 with no room to Turbo. I'm not completely convinced yet that the i5 750 is the definitive winner over the 965. CPU comparison's aren't that clearcut anymore with the variableness of Turbo mode.
On a side note, I do agree the price tag of the 965 is certainly too high, even if the 965 is hypothetically better than the 750 under heavy load. Maybe AMD is fighting the 750 with the slightly lower priced PII 955, which anyone can multiplier bump into a 965.
yacoub - Saturday, September 19, 2009 - link
How many of you trolls are there? Turbo is on by default, so the end user is going to have the advantage of it all the time. The only reason benchmarks were run without Turbo is for the three of you out there who are going to turn it off... no wait, you're not even going to buy it in the first place because you're just here to troll.