Benchmark Results: Productivity
Our scripted Photoshop CS4 benchmark employs a number of threaded filters, so it’s certainly no surprise to see Gulftown rise to the top. Interestingly, though, there seems to be little benefit attributable to Hyper-Threading, suggested by the Core i7-920 and Core i5-750 performing similarly.
AMD’s Phenom II X4 965 simply doesn’t perform up to par in this one, bested by the i5-750 it had previously beaten in our video encoding tests.
This is perhaps the last time you’ll see AVG in one of our processor reviews. With the move to AVG 9, performance of our quad-core contenders normalized, and it looks like a six-core Core i7-980X doesn’t help things move any faster. We’ve started some testing with Kaspersky’s security suite and are seeing better preliminary scaling, so that’ll likely be our go-to in the future.
Also well-optimized for threading, 3ds Max 2010 favors Gulftown at the same 3.33 GHz clock rate as Core i7-975 Extreme. In turn, the Core i7-975’s lofty frequency gives it a significant advantage over the Core i7-920. Hyper-Threading helps the i7 outperform Intel’s Core i5-750, which also runs at 2.66 GHz. Meanwhile, the 3.4 GHz Phenom II X4 965 trails the i5-750 by one second.
Within the Core i5 and i7 families, there isn’t a ton of variability in WinRAR. Gulftown is a bit faster than Core i7-975. But the once-flagship is most certainly not worth its price premium given the advantage over Core i7-920. The only real stand-out here is AMD’s Phenom II X4, which trails the pack by a more substantial margin.
We recently ditched WinZip after the move to version 14 saw the app still limited to single-threaded compression/decompression. Not only is 7-Zip compatible with the .zip extension, but it’s also freely available, threaded, and optimized to take advantage of Intel’s AES-NI acceleration.
Our 334MB workload, compressed using the .zip format using 256-bit encryption, most definitely goes in favor of Core i7-980X—the only processor with AES-NI support here. The other Intel CPUs fall into place behind Gulftown, scaling predictably based on clock rate and Hyper-Threading support. When it comes right down to it, the Phenom II X4 performs more like the Core i7-920 here than the more similarly-priced Core i5-750.
The speed and rating test helps explain why, exactly, Gulftown is so much faster than its competition within Intel’s own product lineup. It’s simply a stronger CPU in workloads able to exploit its on-chip execution resources.
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?