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Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs

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Message 1 of 16
Anonymous
3889 Views, 15 Replies

Intel Core i5 and i7 CPUs

Anyone with thoughts on these beasts? Best pairings with video cards?
Assuming we all agree Win7 64bit is the only way to go of course, Vista64bit
as a stop-gap measure. Optimum RAM? What is just right vs. too much to
really appreciate the difference. Budget +/- US$2k.

Assume usage to be AutoCAD Architecture 2010 for 2D drafting, 3D and
Renderings, 3DMax Design occasionally, touch up with Photoshop for static
images.

--
Dean Saadallah
http://LTisACAD.blogspot.com
--
15 REPLIES 15
Message 2 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Have you seen this?
http://beingcivil.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/08/new-video-understanding-performance-using-civil-3d.html


--
John Mayo, PE

Core i7 920 6GB DDR3
Radeon 4870HD 1 GB
Vista64
Message 3 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

I would go with Win 7, the i7 and I think you would need 12GB of ram with
triple channels. Video cards are big one. I see these $100-$200 Geforce
cards performing similar to a new Quadro FX 1700 ($500) but I would expect
some changes to the CAD cards soon. I would bet if you build it & go with a
Geforce you would come in well under $2k. Specs below were $1400 with Vista
64 upgrade & MSOffice upgrade.

Note I am not doing extensive 3d work.

--
John Mayo, PE

Core i7 920 6GB DDR3
Radeon 4870HD 1 GB
Vista64
Message 4 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

On Tue, 8 Sep 2009 15:05:17 +0000, Dean Saadallah
wrote:

>Anyone with thoughts on these beasts? Best pairings with video cards?
>Assuming we all agree Win7 64bit is the only way to go of course, Vista64bit
>as a stop-gap measure. Optimum RAM? What is just right vs. too much to
>really appreciate the difference. Budget +/- US$2k.
>
>Assume usage to be AutoCAD Architecture 2010 for 2D drafting, 3D and
>Renderings, 3DMax Design occasionally, touch up with Photoshop for static
>images.

Be careful about specifying your Core CPUs. There are now two different versions
under the Core i7 "Nehalem" microarchitecture: the "Bloomfield" and the new
"Lynnfield."

Bloomfield CPUs are of the original 45nm, quad-core Nehalem design with an
onboard triple-channel memory controller, (the return of the son of)
Hypterthreading, Turbo mode (basically, internal automatic overclocking on
demand), a fast QPI interface between the CPU and the North Bridge, and a large
L3 cache. As such it only supports triple-channel DDR3 RAM and requires the
Intel X58 chip set, and as such it is a rather expensive option, mostly because
of the DDR3 RAM.

Also, due to the triple channel RAM controller, to get optimal performance on
the Core i7 you have to install memory in threes while you only needed memory in
pairs for the older Core 2 CPUs. You CAN run an i7 Bloomfield with a dual memory
configuration (e.g., 4x2GB), but performance will not be optimal. Due to this
you will see Bloomfield motherboards offering 6 slots instead of 4, for a
maximum of 24GB (6x4GB).

(Note: For the heavy-duty workstation crowd, the Xeon 35xx series CPU has the
same Nehalem microarchitecture, except that it supports ECC RAM and a dual-CPU
configuration; the Core i7 CPU does not.)

The brand new "Lynnfield" is a slightly lower-rent option. It is still a Nehalem
microarchitecture, but with some tweaks to the design to differentiate it with
its older bigger brother:

- Still a 45nm quad-core design;
- Removed one of the channels in the onboard memory controller, so it supports
DDR3 memory in dual-channel RAM configurations;
- No QPI interface between the CPU and the North Bridge (instead it uses slower
connection called DMI).
- Integrated PCI Express 2.0 on the CPU (not as useful as you may think)
- Hyperthreading enabled on only "some" Lynnfield offerings)
- Better fine-tuning of Turbo Mode overclocking.
- New docket design (the LGA 1156) which requires a new chipset (the Intel P55)

What's bad is that the Lynnfield goes by both the "i5" and "i7" moniker.
Basically, an i5 Lynnfield does not support Hyperthreading, while the i7
Lynnfield does. You have to pay close attention to the CPU number to designate
between the two variants (prices are from Newegg):

Lynnfield:
Core i5-750 (2.66 Ghz) ($ 210)
Core i7-860 (2.8 Ghz) ($ 300)
Core i7-870 (2.93 Ghz) ($ 580)

Bloomfield:
Core i7-920 (2.66 Ghz) ($ 280)
Core i7-940 (2.93 Ghz) ($ n/a) Note: Discontinued
Core i7-950 (3.06 Ghz) ($ 570)
Core i7-975 (3.33 Ghz) ($1,000)

As with all Intel CPUs, once you hit the low 3-Ghz range the price goes through
the roof.

Overall I think they are all great CPUs, but in particular the Core i5-750
Lynnfield is actually a really good value:
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=776&type=expert&pid=15

Even as the runt of the litter, it's still way faster than a Core 2 Quad CPUs
like the Q8400 (also at 2.66Ghz) which is at the same price point.

In rendering, the i7-870 Lynnfield is benchmarking almost as fast as the i-975
but is half the price. I do not have figured on how well the i-950 fits in the
sceme of things, but I bet the differences are close to none.

The Lynnfields are also less power hungry than the Bloomfields.

=====================================================================================

Conclusion:

It seems to me that you can split the decision to two processors, the Lynnfield
i7-870 and the Bloomfield i7-950. The difference is in the software you use.

For what you do, I think a Lynnfield i7 based CPU is really good, using a P55
motherboard with 8GB (4x2GB) DDR3 RAM. I would opt for the i7-870.

For someone who uses Revit, 3ds Max, and Photoshop extensively, RAM is key. In
that case I would opt for a Bloomfield i7-950 CPU. Why? While it's the same or
only slightly faster than the same-priced i7-870, it has a triple-channel RAM
controller, meaning it requires a X58 motherboard with 6 slots, meaning you can
install more RAM than a Lynnfield/P55 board (12GB rather than 8GB for a
mainstream configuration).

Matt
matt@stachoni.com
Message 5 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Hah, just found this:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17545/1

It seems the i7-850 compares EXTREMELY well against - even beating in some cases
- the I7-950. It's really due to the improvements in the Turbo Mode in the
Lynnfield.

And this was testing an i7-850 with only 4GB of RAM against an i7-950 with 6GB
of RAM. That's _really_ impressive. Factor in the less power draw on Lynnfield,
and it's not really a contest.

So, I'd now say unless you reaaalllly needed over 8GB of RAM, the Lynnfield
i7-850 is the one to get, which should really cover about 80% of all mainstream
CAD users.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com
Message 6 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Thank you kind Sir, great details.

--
Dean Saadallah
http://LTisACAD.blogspot.com
--
Message 7 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

Good stuff Matt, Thanks.

--
John Mayo, PE

Core i7 920 6GB DDR3
Radeon 4870HD 1 GB
Vista64
Message 8 of 16
RRBlum
in reply to: Anonymous

Matt:

I'm confused. I can't find reference to a core i7-850 processor. Do you mean i5-750 or i7-870?

It looks like either is impressive, but it seems to me that the i5-750 (with Win 7) is the best value for CAD users. Personlly, I'm waiting to see how the chipset/motherboard market sorts itself out before building a new Win 7 machine.

R. Blum
Message 9 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

On Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:50:46 +0000, RRBlum <> wrote:

>Matt:
>
>I'm confused. I can't find reference to a core i7-850 processor. Do you mean i5-750 or i7-870?

Arg, sorry, the i7-870.

>It looks like either is impressive, but it seems to me that the i5-750 (with Win 7) is the best value for CAD users. Personlly, I'm waiting to see how the chipset/motherboard market sorts itself out before building a new Win 7 machine.

Probably. For most benchmarks it performs about on par with the i7-920 (both are
very similar - 2.66GHz, 8MB cache and the same price). The fact that it doesn't
have hyperthreading is tempered with the fact that it already has 4 cores
anyway, and most software isn't multi-threaded well enough to really take
advantage of it. In single-threaded apps, the 850 performs better due to its
internal TurboBoost advantages. In multithreaded apps the 920 passes it, and in
rendering times by a wide margin.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com
Message 10 of 16
Roobuls
in reply to: Anonymous

I thought the i7 Lynnfield DOES have multithreading ?
> =======================

>

> Probably. For most benchmarks it performs about on par with the i7-920 (both are very similar - 2.66GHz, 8MB cache and the same price). The fact that it doesn't have hyperthreading......

>
Message 11 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

On Sat, 17 Oct 2009 06:52:16 +0000, Roobuls <> wrote:

>I thought the i7 Lynnfield DOES have multithreading ? > =======================

The i7 does; the i5 does not.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com
Message 12 of 16
DCampbellAecom
in reply to: Anonymous

Here at our office we have implemented three high end CAD stations that consist of x58 Chipset, i7-975 cpu, 12Gb RAM, and a 2Gb Geforce 280 ran on a Vista 64. For MEP 2009 it runs great. We have a 30MB 3D model that usually took multiple cuts for a single section view and hours to create on the older stations. Now it can now make a section cut through the entire model and display in just 3-4 minutes. It will use approx 10Gb of the 12 Gb RAM when the cut is processing. The issue we currently have with this configuration is Autocad MEP 2009 will not recongize 2 or more cores when the hyperthread option is set in the BIOS. We only see one core working when hyperthread is enabled. We see four cores working when hyperthread is disabled. The x58 can toggle off or on this feature of hyperthread. So when it hyperthread is enabled, machine has 8 CPU cores. As stated though, MEP and Autocad 2009 will utilize all four cores when the x58 hyperthread feature is turned off, but only a single core when hyperthread is enabled.
I'm do not know if Autocad 2010 and any Autodesk 2010 products can utilize the new x58 hyperthread feature. (Would like to hear from Autodesk on this one). And not sure if Windows 7 will make a difference on this feature as well. If Autocad can not, you might consider using the x55 chipset. Cause the hyperthread is the main difference between the x55 and x58 chipset outside of 3 channels of memory instead of 2. The dollar difference between the two chipsets with processor is about $700 per station.

DJC
Message 13 of 16
Anonymous
in reply to: Anonymous

On Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:53:47 +0000, DCampbellaecom <> wrote:

>As stated though, MEP and Autocad 2009 will utilize all four cores when the x58 hyperthread feature is turned off, but only a single core
>when hyperthread is enabled.

That's....really weird.

I have not heard this from anyone, and I know that Revit will see all cores on
an X58 system with HT enabled.

>I'm do not know if Autocad 2010 and any Autodesk 2010 products can utilize the new x58 hyperthread feature. (Would like to hear from Autodesk on this one). And not sure if Windows 7 will make a difference on this feature as well. If Autocad can not, you might consider using the x55 chipset. Cause the hyperthread is the main difference between the x55 and x58 chipset outside of 3 channels of memory instead of 2. The dollar difference between the two chipsets with processor is about $700 per station.

Hyperthreading has nothing to do with the chipset.

It's the particular CPU - specifically, the i5-750 CPU - which does not have HT.
All other CPUs (whether they be Bloomfield or Lynnfield cores) have HT.

Price difference is similarly not really due to chipsets, although an X58 board
is more expensive than an X55 board. But that's more because the X58 boards,
requiring triple-channel RAM, have 6+ RAM slots on them along with high-end
componentry. And because you need to install RAM in threes, you generally buy
more RAM and the ceiling is much higher. X55 systems top out at 16GB of RAM and
usually have 4 slots.

Past that, the price difference may not be that severe if you are truly
comparing apples to apples. Remember that the i5-750 (Nehalem, no
Hyperthreading, $200) is a 2.67Ghz CPU, and the i7-870 (Lynnfield, with
Hyperthreading, $570) is 2.93GHz, and the i7-975 "Extreme Edition" (Bloomfield,
Hyperthreading, $1,000) is 3.33Ghz. As speed increases so does price.

So, going to the i5 will save you $800 over the i7-975 because it's a slower
CPU. Not $800 slower, obviously; the i7-975 is a ridiculous CPU from any angle.

Matt
matt@stachoni.com
Message 14 of 16
Mojie22
in reply to: Anonymous

Hi,

 

I have been searching for a new PC that would work with all the Autodesk Revit ArchitecturaL design student version. 

Unfortunately,  I am not that computer savvy and I was hoping for some help. I am looking to invest on a new PC and want to confirm my purchase before hand. I have look up the information on system requirements, however, little confused with the graphic requirements.

 

Would you please let me know which three computers I should consider for Autodesk Revit student version. And if you have any suggestions or recommendation beside the 3 listed below I would sincerely appreciate it.

 

1) PC: Core i5 i5-650 3.20 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB HDD - DVD-Writer LightScribe - RAID Support - Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD - Windows 7 Professional

 

2) PC: 1 x Core i3 i3-540 3.06 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 160 GB HDD - DVD-Writer - ATi FirePro V3800 512 MB - Windows 7 Professional

 

3) PC: AMD Athlon II 450 3.2GHz X3 Processor, Asus Radeon 5770, 4GB DDR3 1333, 500GB HDD, 500W PSUWindows 7 Home Premium w/ SP1 32bit GFC-02021 OEM

 

Thank you,

Mojie

Message 15 of 16
OMCUSNR
in reply to: Mojie22

You didn't list any prices for those, but I feel none of those will do Revit any good.  They might run, but it'll be painfull, and I think they'd be a waste of money, in that you'll be looking for a new box in another year at the latest.

 

To run Revit well, you'll need 8gig of ram, a video card w/ AT LEAST one gig ov Vram (not on board video), a good stable HD spinning as fast as you can afford (7200+), and a MotherBoard capable of using Sata 6.0 & USB 3. data transfers.  I think the Veliciraptor from Western Digital is spendy, but worth the money in performance.

 

Look at my sig - Add a DVD burner & a card reader.  I brought that in for just under $1400.  I'd also recommend that you get Win 7 64 Pro (no home editions).

 

Sinc is recommending the new I3-2100 for good value, but you'd need to add a video card & upgrade ram to most of the built systems I've seen advertised.

 

Reid

Homebuilt box: I5-2500k, MSI P67A-GD65, 12gig DDR3 1600 ram, ASUS ENGTX460 Video card, WD Velociraptor WD4500HLHX HD, Win 7 64 pro.
Message 16 of 16
Sinc
in reply to: OMCUSNR

I recommend the i3-2120 for Civil 3D.  It would also work for Revit if you don't do much rendering.  But if you plan on rendering, an i5-2500, i7-2600, or i7-990X would be better.  And preferably more than 8GB of RAM.

 

But that's also for a professional system.  For a student, you should be able to get by with that i5-650, although you'd want to put a 1GB minimum graphics card in there, too, along with preferably 8GB of RAM.

Sinc

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