Starred Reviews

The hex core phenom ii X6  1100T became the highest frequency Phenom ii hex processor, when AMD introduced it recently. The Phenom ii X6 1100T has a clock frequency of 3.30 GHz, up from 3.2 GHz from its predecessor Phenom ii X6 1090T. Its turbo frequency also gets speed bump from 3.6 GHz of 1090T to 3.7 GHz of 1100T. Notice that the Turbo is active only if 3 or less cores are active.

The Phenom ii X6 1100T is competitively priced at $265 ( at the time of writing). By comparision its predecessor 1090T has been priced at $235.

Comparing by price, we find Intel Core i7-860 ( 2.8 GHz, Turbo 3.46 GHz,  4 core, 8 Hyperthreads) to be priced at $285 ( source – http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=41316) – which is slightly higher than AMD’s hex core 1100T. The performance of the  Intel Core i7-860 is marginally better in some application, but, in multi threaded environment, the six cores of AMD’s 1100T gives out an edge. Intel Core i5-760 ( 2.8 GHz, quad core,  turbo 3.30 GHz) could be another competitor, which at $205 seems fairly priced and is only slightly behind 1100T.

You may like to note that the 1100T belongs to the Black Edition, which means that it offically supports overclocking. In lab tests, the 1100T has been found to be stable at 3.89 GHz and can occassionally cross 4 GHz. It will be a delight to the overclockers and gamers who wish to take advantage of it. Overclocking may require increase in the processor core voltage which may overheat the processor.

Phenom ii X6 1100T Benchmark

The Sysmark 2007 Score for Phenom ii 1100T has been reported to be 204. The core i7-860 by comparision has a score of 223 (higher is better).

The Adobe Photoshop CS4 – Retouch Artist Benchmark score is 18.4 as compared to 16.4 for Intel COre i7-860 ( lower is better).

In the x264 HD Encode Test, the Phenom ii 1100T encoded at 89.2 frame per second, supoassing 76 frame per second encoded by core i7-860.

- Source Anandtech

Conclusion

AMD has marched towards another increase bump, bringing itself wins over the Intel’s similarly priced processors in some of the benchmarks. This makes AMD a serious contentder in the high end and gaming computing.

hardware, Uncategorized AMD, benchmark, intel, phenom II

Some initial details of the next generation Intel Ivy Bridge Processor architecture has started surfacing. The Ivy Bridge processor is successor to the Intel Sandy Bridge architecture.

The Ivy Bridge is expected to be based upon 22 nm technology one step forward to the Sandy Bridge’s 32 nm technology. The Ivy Bridge based processors will have twice the number of the shaders as compared to the Sandy Bridge. While Sandy Bridge has 12 shaders, the Ivy Bridge will have 24 shaders.

Doubling of the number of sharders will significantly increase the gaming performance of the Ivy Bridge based processors. The Sandy Bridge processors are already 2x faster than the current Nehalem ( core i5, core i5) based processors.

The Ivy Bridge processor are expected late 2011 or in 2012. There is not official information available about it. For now the focus seems to be getting the Sandy Bridge out. The Sandy bridge processors are expected to be available in notebooks and desktops in the first quarter of 2011.

The drivers and the corresponding software will still take some time. And this is the problem area intel will have to work on.  It will be interesting to see how the Ivy Bridge performs against AMD’s fusion with new bulldozer core.

Uncategorized intel

Intel Pentium E5700 is a fast dual core  3 GHz processor intended for moderate to high performance desktop computing. performance. Unlike the newer core i3 and i5 processors,  E5700 does not support Hyperthreading , leading to slightly low performance (in most cases) .   The Pentium E5700 has L2 cache of 2 MB.

The Pentium E5700 communicates with the chipset using 800 MHz Front Side Bus ( FSB). The E5700 does not has integrated memory controller, which means that the processor will have to first communicate with the front side Bus, which, in turn, will communicate to the memory. This approach increases the memory latency and reduces performance. The larger amount  L2 Cache (2 MB) , helps alleviate this problem partly.

Did you know ?

The Intel dual core i3-530, even with marginally lower 2.93 GHz frequency outperfoms Pentium E5700. Read the Pentium E5700 Vs Core i3-530.

Built with 45 nm technology, the Pentium E5700 has a TDP rating of 65 Watts. The processor is designed for desktops with good heat ventilation system in place.

The Pentium E5700 does not has integrated graphics and it does not has any turbo boost functionality as in the newer core i3 and core i5 processors.

Let us take a look at the quick pros and cons of the Intel Pentium E5700.

Pentium E5700 Pros Fast 3 GHz processor Has two cores Competitively priced

Pentium E5700 Cons - no integrated Memory controller slow fsb heats more

The processor is competitively priced at $64 at the time of writing according to the Intel source.

Some of the desktops and all in one PCs that have Pentium E5700 processor include

- HP All in one 500t
- Acer AZ5600-U2092 23-Inch Full HD All-in-One Desktop
- ZT Element 2141Li Desktop PC available at Walmart

Source : http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=42801

Uncategorized intel, pentium

The intel Atom N455 is a single core processor with nominal clock frequency of 1.66 GHz. Even though it is a single core processor, the hyperthreading is enabled, which means that there could be 2 threads running at a time. This slightly improves the performance in multithreaded environment – for example, the virus scanning can be one thread while the actual application could be running in foreground.

The Atom N455 is intended for professionals on the move where light weight and long battery life takes precedence over the computing power.  Atom N455 is a low power ( TDP rating of just 6.5 Watts) processor which, when clubbed with a small screen can provide you battery life in excess of 8 hours.

The Intel Atom N455 processor has integrated memory controller which reduces memory latency and increases the memory transfer rate. The integrated memory controller also simplifies the overall system design, enabling netbook manufacturers to design systems that are easier to design, manufacture and produce at lower cost.

Intel Atom N455 processor Pros
- Integrated memory controller.
- Low power

Intel Atom N455 processor Cons
- Only single core.
- Lacks processing power for high end computing.

Some of the benchmarking results available show that the Super Pi 1M takes 93 seconds on the average and the super Pi 2M takes 218 seconds on the average. The Windows 7 Processor index give it an average processor rating of 2.3.

 

Built with 45 nm technology Intel Atom N455 has a TDP rating of just 6.5 Watts. The low TDP rating allows notebook manufacturers design low power thin netbooks and small notebooks with high battery life.

 

The Intel Atom N455 does not support the virtualization technologies ( Vt-x and Vt-d).

The Atom N455 is not intended for high computing environments. It is for systems that has basic needs including web surfing, document and picture editing. The systems designed with Atom N455 have high battery life and low weight for good mobility.

Some of the netbooks and notebooks we found, powered by Intel Atom N455 processor include

- Dell Inspiron Mini 1018 Netbook
- ASUS Eee PC 1018p
- ASUS Eee PC 1015PED
- ASUS Eee PC 1016p

Source : http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=49491

Processors intel, intel Atom N455

Intel core i5-560UM has a clock frequency of 1.33 GHz. It is a dual core processor intended for low power notebook and netbook designs. Since core i5-460UM supports Hyperthreading, we could see 4 threads running in parallel.  The core i5-560UM does support  turbo boost which means that the processor can temporarily increase its clock frequency to 2.13 GHz to cater for increase in the demand of processing power.

The L3 cache (  intel calls it smart cache) is 3 MB. The core i5-560UM has integrated DDR3 memory controller. The maximum amount of the memory it supports is 8 GB.

The communication with the chipset is using high speed differential DMI bus. Based upon the Arrandale architecture, the  core i5-560UM is built with 32 nm technology and has integrated intel HD graphics. The graphics section is however, built with 45 nm technology. The base clock frequency of the graphics section is 166 MHz, however, the clock frequency of the graphics processor can rise  temporarily to 500 MHz to cater for sudden increase in demand.

The core i5-560UM is designed for low power applications and its TDP rating is 18 Watts. Intel has shown its budgetary price of $250.00.

The core i5-560UM was a recent launch ( September 2010), and we do not see many notebooks with intel core i5-560UM, though, there are many with core i5-540UM.

Source : http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=49665

Uncategorized core i5, intel