Saturday, May 30th 2009
Intel to Cannibalize Core i7 920 / 940
Prepare to bid farewell to the $400 Core i7 upgrade dream. Chip major Intel is reportedly planning to discontinue some of the relatively affordable Core i7 processors, including the most commercially successful model, the 920. Cannibalizing the Core i7 920 and 940, will create market headroom for the company's upcoming Core i5 "Lynnfield" processors. Internal analysis reportedly show that the high-end Lynnfield processors perform too close to the lower models of Core i7, and that could potentially affect sales of those high-end Core i5 chips. Perhaps Intel is trying to oil the segment to make the most profits. Sources at motherboard manufacturers tell that the companies are already working on adjusting their X58 product lines to cater to the future lines of Core i7 processors, which, may start with the $649 Core i7 950 and beyond. What's more, 950 is expected to get the axe later down the line. It may have certainly been a good couple of quarters for you, saving for triple channel memory, true dual PCI-E x16 motherboards, and the elusive Core i7 920. You may want to execute your plans now, or change them.
Source:
bit-tech.net
175 Comments on Intel to Cannibalize Core i7 920 / 940
My bet is that any Core 2 o.c. > 4Ghz is better. Maybe I'm wrong...
Regardless, we'll see when the Skulltrail board/processors come out. Ditto for the two-way Xeons.
I have my E8500 @3.8 GHz close enough to 4GHz and happy with its performance. I did build an I7 920 based rig for my dad and it feels a snappier machine but not by much.
Nice review of Lynnfield i5 on Anantech. Link is above.
Notice that clock-for-clock the i5 is *just as good* as the i7-920. Occasionally, it is slower but by not more than 5% and there is an argument that the ES tested is underperforming the release version of i5 that will have an impressive Turbo feature.
The anandtech benchmarks go to show that DDR3 dual channel and dropping QPI but putting 16 PCIe lanes onboard is more than sufficient bandwidth even for Nehalem.
It is becoming evidently clear that i7 architecture (QPI, tripple channel DDR3) is overkill for the i7-920 with *just* 4 cores+HTT. This bandwidth probably DOES make sense for the 6 core edition to be released in 2010, and for the multi-socket Xeon Nehalems with 2 or more CPUs. But for the one chip retail i7 something simpler is more than enough.
There is also an argument that as a gaming rig, i5 is better, due to the 16x on-CPU-die PCIe lanes. Latency will be lower compared to being routed through a northbridge... and we all know that the GPU is the bottleneck with gaming... so every bit helps.
However ... I will be watching those stock-levels of i7 920's very closely. If they start to drop rapidly I might just grab one. Then, once they're all out of stock, I can always sell a nice Intel Core i7 920 D0 retail-boxed processor on eBay for a small profit. :toast:
i7 will not improve my game framerates.
i7 and i5 are waste of upgrade money. Will only be worth upgrading when 8 cores come out.
If you ask me why in same cases, sometime Phenom II is faster, then here are the answers:
-Vista/XP think 8 thread = 8 cores. So, if your game support 2 threads, that's mean it will run only on 1 core, or even worse 2 "not real" cores. But Windows 7 will fix this.
-The slowest Phenom II has higher frequency than the slowest Core i7 (disregard the prices, we're talking about performance here).
-Everyone knows this, put on a faster cpu when your CPU is already fast won't give you significant boost.
-Games don't run on 8 threads, or the needs for super high memory bandwidth (triple channels).
Core i5 is built for casual users and gamers (not workstation), take away things that not needed for games from an Core i7 and it will become and i5. And that's why there is no (or lil) different between them in benchmarks.
I'm really glad that I bought this Core i7 920, probably will last me until Intel/AMD release the 8 cores 22nm (2-3 years more), and I will have option to go CrossFire later in case AMD release something surprising.
So what are they going to do, cut they lowest i7 and jack up the price on the i5 that gives you almost same performance as the 920
IMO I would get the 920 before they sell out
QPI is no longer available to the "external" chipset to provide full-speed-full-bandwidth-low latency PCIe lanes, additional processors, accelerators or memory controllers. On x58, external QPI allowed vendors to build systems with multiple PCIe x16 lanes. On x55 this isnt possible. Only one set of x16 lanes is available directly off the CPU; if a vendor wanted more, they would have to put them on the DMI bus. But that would be slow and there would be latency issues. Therefore QUADFIRE/SLI is out, and crossfire/SLI is limited to 2x x8 lanes.
any prices on the i5 line up?
i think the most expensive i5 will barley compete with 920