YugaTech | PC Labs » CPU

Intel Core i3 and Core i5 Prices

yuga — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:00:18 +0000

Just weeks after the official launch of the new line of Intel Core i3 and i5 processors, they are now listed on major PC shops like Rising Sun Computers and PC Express.

Intel Core i3-530 2.93Ghz 4MB LGA 1156: Php6,150
Intel Core i5-650 3.20Ghz 4MB LGA 1156: Php9,450
Intel Core i5-661 3.33Ghz 4MB LGA 1156: Php10,300
Intel Core i5-750 2.66Ghz 8MB LGA 1156: Php10,200

These processors will all require the new motherboards with socket LGA 1156. Of the lot, the Core i5 661 seems to be the best options so far (mainly because the built-in GPU is rated at 900MHz).

AMD Athlon II X4 620

yuga — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 08:15:26 +0000

AMD is trying to regain some market share by introducing really affordable quad-core processors. One of them is the new Athlon II 620 running at 2.6GHz and dubbed as the cheapest 45nm quad-core processors today.

We got a review chip from AMD to check out (came with a socket AM3 Gigabyte motherboard). And while most quad core processors nowadays are in the price range of Php10,000, the Athlon II 620 has a retail price of just Php5,050 in the Philippines.

The Athlon II 620 supports socket AM3/AM2+ with 4 cores/threads and 4 dedicated 512KB L2 cache (TDP is 95 watts). Globally the suggested retail price is only $99 which makes it the cheapest quad core processor so far.

This model is pretty interesting since we’ve also seen AMD shifting to the Phenom X4 processors. Then, we saw the Athlon X2 which is just the Phenom with 2 cores disabled. Looks like AMD is retaining the familiar Athlon brand with the new 4 cores and positioning them as low-cost but powerful processors.

If you’re looking to upgrade your rig, a quad core Athlon 620 (or the faster Athlon II 630) is something to consider just because of it’s affordability. Good thing it still supports DDR2 RAM so you don’t have to invest in the still expensive DDR3 RAM.

nVidia Ion vs. Pine Trail Platform

yuga — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 05:37:26 +0000

We used the nVidia Ion platform from the HP Mini 311 and the Pine Trail platform from the new MSI Wind U135 we previewed at the Intel office and compared the two using their Windows Experience Index.

It’s not much but it should give us a good idea how the new system performs.

MSI Wind U135 with Atom Pine Trail N450 1.66GHz and GMA 3150

HP Mini 311 with Atom N280 1.66GHz and GeForce 9400M.

Based on the Windows Experience Index, both the nVidia Ion and Pine Trail still get the same sub-score in the CPU (not surprising since both units have an Intel Atom N280 CPU).

However, the nVidia Ion platform wins over the Pine Trail on the GPU category with a sub-score of 4.2 brought by the GeForce 9400M compared to the sub-score of 3.0 on the Intel GMA 3150.

Pine Trail: Intel Atom N450 with GMA 3150

yuga — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 05:45:03 +0000

In global conference call today at the Intel Philippines office, the company officially announced its new Atom processor — the Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz and Intel GMA 3150.

We were shown an engineering unit (an upcoming MSI netbook) running the new Pine Trail CPU with the NM10 Express Chipset. Screenshots of the CPU and GPU are shown below.

Unlike the old architecture, the graphics/display and memory controller is now integrated into the processor. The software cannot fully identify the CPU and GPU so some of the details are still blank in the scans.

New netbooks with the Pine Trail N450 CPU should start coming out by January of 2010. The old N270 and N280 batch should also go down in prices once the N450 replaces them. The Atom Z5xx series will remains the same.

Intel also showed the new Atom N410 Single Core and Atom N510 Dual Core processors for the low-power desktop PC, replacing the old N330 models.

AMD Athlon Neo X2 L335 1.6GHz Benchmark

yuga — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:41:15 +0000

The very first Athlon Neo we saw was with the new MSI Wind12 U210 that’s recently been sold in stores. This dual-core processor is AMD’s equivalent of the Intel Atom although it could also be compared to the CULV version.

Processor Global Performance : 5,300
Memory Global Performance : 2,722
Video Global Performance : 162
Hard Disk Global Performance : 84

For CPU benchmarks, these are the numbers:
Whetstone (x87 – Float.) : 4,298 MFlops
Whetstone (iSSE3 – Float.) : 8,429 MFlops
Dhrystone (iSSE3 – Int.) : 13,283 Mips
Computation of “Mandelbrot” (iSSE3) : 21.76 sec.

Windows Experience Index: 3.0

SuperPI
16K: 0:00
32K: 0:01
64K: 0:02
128K: 0:05
256K: 0:12
512K: 0:27
1M: 0:59
2M: 2:12

Intel Atom Z550 Benchmark Performance

yuga — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:05:29 +0000

After trying out the Atom Z540 on the Vaio X, we got the faster model which was the Intel Atom Z550 running at 2.0GHz. We checked how it turned out in terms of performance.

Average temperature of the system is about 48 degrees on normal use. We also ran the system thru PC Wizard 2008 global benchmarks with the following results:

Processor Global Performance : 965
Memory Global Performance : 2,233
Video Global Performance : 69
Hard Disk Global Performance : 72
PC Wizard Rating : 334

For CPU benchmarks, these are the numbers:
Whetstone (x87 – Float.) : 2,624 MFlops
Whetstone (iSSE3 – Float.) : 4,968 MFlops
Dhrystone (iSSE3 – Int.) : 6,482 Mips
Computation of “Mandelbrot” (iSSE3) : 61.42 sec.

Windows Experience Index: 2.4

SuperPI
16K: 0:01
32K: 0:02
64K: 0:04
128K: 0:08
256K: 0:18
512K: 0:40
1M: 1:25
2M: 3:07

There’s a slight discrepancy between the Windows Experience Index of the Vaio X running the Atom Z550 and the Z540. Apparently, the 2.4 sub-score on the Z550 is attributed to the graphics performance — the same graphics only scored higher at 2.5 on the Z540 model.

Intel Atom Z540 Benchmark Performance

yuga — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:01:23 +0000

The Atom Z540 processors that came with the Sony Vaio X was running at 1.86GHz. We ran it thru several tests and benchmark results are shown below.

Average temperature of the system is about 48 degrees on normal use. We also ran the system thru PC Wizard 2008 global benchmarks with the following results:

Processor Global Performance : 837
Memory Global Performance : 2,059
Video Global Performance : 68
Hard Disk Global Performance : 39
PC Wizard Rating : 300.29

For CPU benchmarks, these are the numbers:
Whetstone (x87 – Float.) : 2,305 MFlops
Whetstone (iSSE3 – Float.) : 4,604 MFlops
Dhrystone (iSSE3 – Int.) : 6,009 Mips
Computation of “Mandelbrot” (iSSE3) : 65.46 sec.

Windows Experience Index: 2.5

SuperPI
16K: 0:02
32K: 0:03
64K: 0:05
128K: 0:10
256K: 0:21
512K: 0:44
1M: 1:36
2M: 3:20

AMD Athlon II X2 245 2.9GHz

yuga — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:11:22 +0000

A new dual core CPU from AMD is out and available in stores. The AMD Athlon II X2 245 runs at 2.9GHz with dual cores.

The X2 245 has 2 x 1MB L2 Cache, Socket AM3, and a 65-watt dual cores. The Athlon II X2 features the next-generation AMD Direct Connect Architecture for a fast, responsive PC. This processor is also optimized to take advantage of the power management features in Windows 7 using AMD PowerNow! 3.0 Technology.

The Athlon II X2 is the new naming convention of the previous Athlon X2 7750 2.7GHz and 7850 2.8GHz.

Suggested retail price: Php3,699

Intel Core i7 960 at 3.2GHz

yuga — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:01:43 +0000

Intel launched a new Core i7 processor without much fanfare with the Core i7 960 running at 3.2GHz. This is different from the previous 3.2GHz Core i7 965 Extreme Edition as it is locked. Expect the price of the CPU to be cheaper (under Php30,000) when it comes out.

Intel Core i7 920 Benchmarks

yuga — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:47:56 +0000

We earlier got a loaner CPU running an Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.63GHz so I took the opportunity to check out how fast it works. Check the figure below for the quick benchmarks.

Our SuperPi computations are shown in the graph below (up to 4M).

That’s 1 min. 16 secs for SuperPi 4M; 2:52 secs for 8M; 6:22 secs for 16M and 13:57 secs for 32M. We also ran PC Vantage suit and got the following figures.

PCMarks: 5972
Memory: 4256
Gaming: 5483
Productivity: 5171