// Home / Reviews / Components / Processors

Intel Sandy Bridge review

in Processors

1 of 3

Gallery

Verdict

Phenomenal performance and great value - Intel's latest CPUs are a class act

Review Date: 3 Jan 2011

Reviewed By: Darien Graham-Smith

Price when reviewed: £145 (£170 inc VAT)

Overall Rating

Features & Design
6 stars out of 6

Value for Money
6 stars out of 6

Performance
6 stars out of 6

PCPRO A-List

PCPRO Recommended

It’s worth remembering that these scores come from regular applications that are now a few years old, none of which were written to take advantage of AVX. Once developers update their code you can expect to see even more dramatic performance improvements.

The cherry on top is power consumption. Our Core i5-2500K system never topped 90W, even in the thick of our multitasking and 3D tests, with all four cores running at more than 4GHz. With no discrete graphics card, it was whisper-quiet too.

Core i7 performance

In light of these amazing results, we expected miracles from the top-of-the-range Core i7-2600K; but in fact the new i7 is little different to the Core i5-2500K. It uses the same socket and chipset, and simply runs 100MHz faster, with a larger on-chip cache and support for Hyper-Threading. Nice improvements, but not enough to magically transform performance.

Indeed, in our tests it offered only a small boost over the i5, scoring 2.65 at stock speeds and 3.16 with Turbo Boost overclocked to 4.5GHz. These are the highest scores we’ve ever seen, but they look like poor value when the Core i5-2500K gets so close for so much less.

The Core i7-2600K uses the same HD Graphics 3000 GPU as the Core i5 — a change from the previous generation, when i7 chips didn’t have any onboard graphics at all. The GPU is clocked faster than the i5 too, which lifted performance in our Low quality Crysis test to 46fps.

The future

Sandy Bridge is a very palpable hit. We haven’t yet been able to test every chip in the line-up, but if you don’t mind tweaking a few BIOS settings, the Core i5-2500K is the obvious star of the range.

If overclocking doesn’t appeal, any one of the new processors will still knock the socks off a comparable chip from the last generation. The regular i5-2500 is a solid 40% faster than our old favourite, the i5-750, and the lesser models won’t be far behind. In fact, after this launch it’s hard to see any future for the older LGA 1156 and 1366 platforms.

Currently, Sandy Bridge has no presence at the lightweight end of the market, with even the cheapest Core i3 approaching £100. And you can bet that AMD will rejig its prices so Intel’s mid-range chips find themselves head-to-head with older Phenom II X4 and X6 parts.

Towards the upper end of the range, however, there’s no technology on the market that can match the performance of the new Core i5 and i7 chips – in light of which they’re embarrassingly affordable. In short, Sandy Bridge destroys the old bang-per-buck curve, and redefines what we can expect from a mainstream desktop, or, we fully expect, a laptop. Intel has done it once again.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith

1 2

Subscribe to PC Pro magazine. We'll give you 3 issues for £1 plus a free gift - click here

From around the web

Comments

User comments

I5 2500k...

Been waiting months for this chip, now where can I find one????

By David1981 on 3 Jan 2011

which VAT rate?

is that with the old 17.5% or the new 20% ?

By Henry_B on 3 Jan 2011

not another new socket!

I bought a 1156 mainboard on the assumption that it would last for a long time like lga 775 did, learning that they have changed to a new platform that is still exactly the same physical shape is just annoying!

By Henry_B on 3 Jan 2011

VAT and stuff..

The extra 2.5% will make about a fivers worth of difference on the i7 price.. so unless you plan to buy a couple of hundred it's not going to matter.

Your 1156 mainboard will still last a long time, unless of course you are sucked into the whole tech race thing and absolutely MUST have the latest thing.

By pinero50 on 3 Jan 2011

It's strongly rumoured that these have built-in DRM. Rather takes the shine off I think.

By nutalpa on 3 Jan 2011

Definitely come with DRM say Reuters

Link
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7020FG201101
03

By nutalpa on 3 Jan 2011

DRM & TDP

If it actually works, and the distributors and studios get behind it, it could open up the online sales of films.

It is one of the reasons that the Android is struggling to get video content at the moment, compared to the iPhone and other platforms which have dedicated encryption / DRM hardware built-in.

If they can really get the content creators behind them, it might bring a change in attitude from the studios, who currently block content even from their own streaming portals to PCs (a recent test, here in Germany, showed that the average Movie service delivered about 16 of the top 20 films to their devices, but PCs running the services streaming software would get between 2 and 8 of those films).

One thing I missed was the TDP ratings for the new chips. There was a brief mention of 90W for the i5-2500K, but otherwise no mention. Given that today, even the bottom end processor is probably more than enough for the average user, in terms of performance, the TDP - and thus running costs - make up a much more important part of the buying equation.

(For me especially, as prices per unit have just gone up 75% :-O)

By big_D on 4 Jan 2011

As I understand an integrated video chip was a requirement for hardware DRM? If it's so, it makes sense about the new motherboard. However, wouldn't that create segmentation in the online video streaming? Like, you can only watch the movie if you have this new cpu?

By Lomskij on 4 Jan 2011

@Lomskij

It would. But the hardware industry is always looking at ways to make people make unnecessary upgrades.

I can't see the DRM requiring the inbuilt graphics chip, unless the chip also handles the DRM decoding. It would exclude gamers, enthusiasts and professionals, if the streaming had to run over the integrated graphics.

That said, I don't see the need for discrete graphics, for the majority of users, these days. My old C2D Tecra A10 had the first generation of Intel HD graphics and they were more than fast enough for Aero or HD video playback.

By big_D on 4 Jan 2011

Overclocking on a H67 board?

Darien,

I have read that it is impossible to overclock the new processors on a H67 motherboard. How did you overclock using the Intel DH67BL motherboard?

By dplatten on 5 Jan 2011

Overclocking and on-baord graphics?

dplatten got there first, but I was going to ask the same thing - as I understand from other write-ups, it is only possible to overclock sandy bridge CPUs on motherboards based on the P67 chipset. But these don't allow the on-board graphics to work.

This appears to contradict the review "...with all four cores running at more than 4GHz. With no discrete graphics card, it was whisper-quiet too"

Has pcpro discovered options to overclock and have on-board graphics that nobody else knows about?

By timtap on 5 Jan 2011

Hi chaps - thanks for the questions about overclocking. I'm out of the office today but will check my notes tomorrow and get back to you with an answer.

By DarienGS on 6 Jan 2011

You chaps are right - the 2D benchmarks (including overclocked benchmarks) were indeed carried out on a P67 system, while the graphical ones used the H67 board as described. Thanks for catching that: I've corrected the text of the review.

By DarienGS on 7 Jan 2011

Exactly the attitude

RE: VAT and stuff. pinero50

"The extra 2.5% will make about a fivers worth of difference on the i7 price.. so unless you plan to buy a couple of hundred it's not going to matter."

It's exactly this attitude that allowed tax cheat George Osborne to put up VAT to 20%, he know people wouldn't be that bothered, it's only a couple of quid here and there. Moron. Ironically the second part of your post is critical of a similar attitude, the one where by people are conditioned from an early age into buying the latest piece of 'tech' because it's 'cool' or on the gadget show.

By dodge1963 on 8 Jan 2011

When?

When will the new Sandy Bridge chips in PCs on sale in the UK?

By jedi_kite1 on 11 Jan 2011

jedi_kite - Scan have them at the moment. I've just looked myself.

On the tax situation, it is only a 2.5% increase but yes, it would have been better for the state to have shrunk by 5% and allowed for a much overdue tax cut. Too much is stolen from us as it is. Join the TPA and fight back.

By bubbles16 on 11 Jan 2011

Triple Channel Memory

Be grateful if someone could clarify what's needed to support triple channel memory. Do some classes of cpu support triple channel memory or mobo or mobo and cpu

By simontompkins on 12 Feb 2011

Hi Simon: triple-channel memory is only used by Intel's enterprise-class Core i7-900 series chips. All other Core i3, i5 and i7 processors (including all Sandy Bridge and older Westmere parts) use dual-channel RAM. Hope this helps!

By DarienGS on 15 Feb 2011