Benchmark Results: Synthetics
PCMark Vantage employs applications built into Windows Vista and 7. As a synthetic metric, its job is to tax the latest trends in programming for parallelism. However, it’s also real-world in that these metrics are based on operating systems already being used today.
It’s interesting to see just how much of an impact two additional cores has on Vantage. The overall suite score jumps far above the Bloomfield-class CPUs, which themselves are little affected by differences in clock rate. The Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition matches pace fairly easily to the pricier Core i7-920 here.
The Memories suite is less influenced by cores, seeming to favor the higher clocks of the Core i7-980X and Core i7-975 versus more affordable models.
On the other hand, TV and Movies and the Productivity test are both bolstered via Intel’s six-core offering. Notable in both metrics is that the Phenom II maintains its near-parity with the entry-level Core i7 and lone Lynnfield-based Core i5 processors.
The overall 3DMark Vantage chart shows a gradual progression up Intel’s Core i5 and Core i7 family, culminating with the new i7-980X. Meanwhile, the Phenom II X4 hands out at the bottom of the pack, next to Intel’s Core i5-750.
Why is this? After all, the GPU score clearly shows four of the five testing platforms performing almost identically. The CPU test tells the tale, as Intel’s hexa-core model cuts through the physics and AI being thrown at it significantly faster than its competition. We can also see that Hyper-Threading has an appreciable effect, as the i7-920 and i5-750, both running at 2.66 GHz, are fairly well-differentiated. The Phenom II X4 brings up the tail end of the pack here.
SiSoftware’s synthetic suite demonstrates the potential gains attributable to a six-core, 12-thread-capable processor by blowing the doors off of Intel’s previous flagship in the Arithmetic and Multi-media tests.
Memory bandwidth actually drops a bit on the Gulftown-based processor, despite using the same motherboard, triple-channel memory kit, and BIOS configuration. Core i7-980X nevertheless maintains a strong lead over Intel’s dual-channel Lynnfield setup and AMD’s dual-channel Phenom II X4. In discussing with Intel, this is more of an artifact of the application itself, which only takes advantage of four cores, yet still ties up resources on the two cores that remain unutilized.
Perhaps the craziest chart is our Cryptography benchmark, demonstrating the theoretical AES bandwidth gain in MB/s attributable to AES-NI support in Gulftown. This hardware-accelerated boost doesn’t manifest itself so dramatically in the real-world tests coming up, but it’s interesting to see anyway.
Impressive chip. I believe we have a new King.
Two things:
I find these graphs cluttered. In my opinion, a graph should give you one piece of information. Including AA results in with every gaming benchmark makes it hard to see what the graph is trying to illustrate. From the looks of things, enabling AA just brings things to a GPU limited situation anyway so why have them in a CPU review in the first place? I think that Tom's graphs need to be simplified. These graphs show a progression or trend across a number of products. One should be able to get this information at a glance and not have to spend 2 minutes rereading the graph heading to see what the data are actually telling us.
Just FYI, thinner oxide thickness will increase leakage current. However, using thinner gate oxides will allow for lower gate voltages to be used which will decrease the amount of leakage current.
Pretty much exactly the performance we expected, impressed by the lower peak power though!
Yes we have a king in terms of productivity but on gamming field woops...
it's not worth that money at all we are back with this old conclusion that most of games are rather gpu heavy and cpus are far from being bootleneck here.If you want to pay 5 times more to get 5-10% boost in games it's your call.
One could ask why tom's hardware isn't using at least pair of 5850 ?
thanks to that we see only gpu bootleneck and graphs without quality information.
I must say Chris Angelini that your articles are a pleasure to read. Knowledgeable, well-written and well aware of the realistic needs of most readers.
I have a Phenom II X4 and its fine for gaming. I7s are way more than I need or can afford. Still an interesting read; its always nice to see how far tech is being pushed these days.
I agree with Fox Montage here, why on earth are TH benchmarking the procs with games at settings that can only give scores that can be accredited to the gpu's capabilities.
I know it is to give some "REAL" world situations, but it is a test of the cpu's capabilities and limitations, not how easy it is held back by a graphics card.
to a certain extent it is fine, because the game graphs are supposed to show just that, that this CPU IS NOT FOR GAMERS
a decent dual core or low cost quad core is more than enough for games, and that's exactly what the game graphs show
All us FSX 'gamers' are dying to know how this performs
this new Intel cpu is awesome but its too much of power that we don't need it in our day life (maybe you need it if u wana make nuke rocket in your home
) ,and to much expensive ...that amd 965 black has almost same results but Intel is better so intel problem is to cost of cpu compared to amd .....(o.O by the way im intel fan boy O.o so don't u intel-guys mad of me .|.)
Interesting read.
Hmm, nice chip..but for games? Like some of the other comments I don't see much point in getting this CPU beyond bragging rights. What also strikes me is just how well that AMD chip keeps up - and at a much lower cost.
So that leaves all the other things you'd want to do with six cores. In the case of video transcoding, is it actually practical to spend this amount of money on a CPU, or is it better to go the GPU route? Perhaps THG could provide a follow-article..
Also looking forward to seeing AMD's new CPU's in the near future
$1000 for speed gains of 8-30 seconds in most areas? No thanks.
Buy yourself an AMD 965, and if gaming is your thing, spend the extra cash you have left on your GPU[s].
Well we all know that for most games out there its the graphics card that makes it and yet we keep seeing these tests repeated on Crysis etc.
Please bring back the fsx tests. The game may be 4 years old but I've yet to see a proceesor that can run it yet.
Today Aria are claiming to have them in stock (though the link to the product page says they're on pre-order), but at £881 I don't think I'll be buying one anytime soon (it more than twice what I'd want to pay for a complete system given I have no heavy processing needs).
Today Aria are claiming to have them in stock (though the link to the product page says they're on pre-order), but at £881 I don't think I'll be buying one anytime soon (it more than twice what I'd want to pay for a complete system given I have no heavy processing needs).
I don't think most of us here would buy it - it's simply not needed and the gains it gives are not worth the price.
To be honest I think AMD are playing it smart here - they're letting Intel do all the legwork, advertising things like this 6-core.
I have been an Intel user since I started using PCs, but I'm switching to AMD on my new build. Their 965 does everything I need and is half the price of the i7.
Intel is far too overpriced right now. Yes they have the newest releases, but is it worth the price?