Well, Intel’s gone and done it again. After the immense performance gains it made with the Merom-class Core 2 processor, and the Nehalem Core i3, i5 and i7 chips that followed, I honestly didn’t think there was much more architectural oomph to be found. Sure, there’s always the option of adding more cores, but in terms of per-core performance, I thought Intel was pretty much on the limit.
Turns out I was completely wrong. The new Sandy Bridge architecture as found in the latest Core i3, i5 and i7 2000 series processors is at least as big a step forward in performance as the previous two generations. But it’s even more important than those chips thanks to a couple of industry-first innovations.
If that makes Sandy Bridge sound like a winner, I’m afraid there’s a very large ‘but’ ambling in the direction of this ode to all things Intel. The problem, funnily enough, has nothing to do with the capabilities of the new processors and everything to do with the business decisions Intel has taken in bringing them to market.
One or two of those decisions, including Intel’s ludicrous branding and multi-socket strategy, I’ve touched on before. Now that details of the full Sandy Bridge launch line-up have been revealed, however, some new nasties have appeared. From the top, my litany of Sandy Bridge woes goes something like this.
With Sandy Bridge, Intel has introduced the new LGA 1155 socket. The means you can’t drop the new chips into any existing motherboard, and you can’t put your old chip in one of the new motherboards. New sockets are a necessary evil from time to time, but the existing LGA 1156 socket is less than 18 months old. Moreover, the pin count has dropped by just one in a move that looks suspiciously like a cynical attempt to force overall platform rather than mere CPU upgrades.
My next beef involves the new integrated graphics core. By the standards of integrated graphics, it’s absolutely superb. At least, the fastest version with 12 execution units, known as HD Graphics 3000, is superb. Unfortunately, the 3000 is only available with two of the 14 launch models. The other 12 make do with the six-unit HD Graphics 2000.
Making this even more infuriating is the absolute certainty that many, if not all, Sandy Bridge processors actually contain the full 12-unit graphics processors. For marketing reasons, Intel has chosen to disable half the graphics units for most desktop models.
Then there’s the fact that Intel has locked down CPU overclocking with Sandy Bridge. To cut a long story short, from Sandy Bridge onwards, Intel CPUs can only be overclocked via the multiplier, not the baseclock. For all but a handful of premium chips, the multiplier is locked down within a very narrow range.
If I’m really honest, I don’t much like Turbo Boost either. The latest 2.0 version is particularly ludicrous. According to my testing, the new Core i7 2600K runs at 3.8GHz under load, no matter how many cores are active. The whole ‘3.4GHz standard and 3.8GHz with Turbo’ spiel is nonsense. It’s a 3.8GHz chip.
Of course, it’s churlish to whine about an advanced quad-core PC processor that runs at 3.8GHz. Not long ago, Intel was struggling to get a single core chip with a much longer pipeline to hit 3.8GHz. Now it has multi-core processors with shallow pipelines that will do 4.5GHz-plus with simple air-cooling when overclocked.
But that really sums up my frustration with Sandy Bridge. The hardware is fabulous. A quad-core processor for around £200 that gives Intel’s fastest £700 six-core processors a fright is wonderful value for money. I also think the new Quick Sync Video transcode engine could be a killer feature.
For years, the likes of Nvidia have been touting a breakthrough in encoding performance courtesy of their graphics cards. Now you can have similar encode throughput from a cheap dual-core CPU and no need for a pricey high-end GPU. Even the new integrated core finally lives up to promises of proper gaming prowess – though only on some models. And don’t forget, Sandy Bridge is the first true ‘fusion’ processor with a modern CPU and GPU in a single silicon die.
For me, however, it’s the quad-core Sandy Bridge processors such as the Core i5 2500 and Core i7 2600 that really deliver. With these chips Intel has brought cutting-edge computing to the £200-odd price point. For that it should be congratulated. But Intel needs to put some leashes on its marketing men. They’re out of control and they might just spoil everything.