I’m here to share my experience with the Core i5 processor. Should you get the Core i5-750? Yes? No? Maybe? I hope this article will help you decide.

Not A Review

The one I have with me is an Engineering Sample so I’ve decided not to call it a REVIEW since it’s not a production unit. Here, have a look at my CPU-Z validation

It doesn’t come with a stock heatsink unit either, so there’s no way for me to tell you how is the temperature like with the stock heatsink. Nevertheless the article should (I hope) hold some information useful to you.

Test Setup

For this article, I’ll be comparing the Core i5-750 against the Xeon 3320.

First up, the Core i5-750 setup.

And the contender, the Xeon 3320 setup.

Benchmarks

Here are the results of the benchmarks I’ve thrown at both processors.

i5-750 is at 2.66ghz
i5-750 OC is as 4.26ghz.
Xeon 3320 is at 2.5ghz
Xeon 3320 OC is at 3ghz.

Super PI 1.5 Mod

The value chosen for Super PI was 1M.

CINEBENCH R10

PCMark Vantage

Fritz Chess Benchmark

SiSoft SANDRA Lite

Operating Temperature

Thermally the processor idles at around 35°C – that also with the Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme cooler and in an air-conditioned environment. On load, the card could go well over 80°C – it’s a hot processor indeed, considering the max TDP for the processor is 95W on stock. Reference.

On overclock, the power consumption for the processor alone goes beyond 100w – that also translates into more heat.

Concluding Thoughts

Core i5-750 vs Xeon 3320 on stock, they felt the same. Sure, you see the numbers are different from the benchmarks but in reality, you can’t feel a thing. The overclocked Xeon 3320 seems to be faster than the i5-750 in almost all of the tests above while the stock Xeon 3320 (it’s 2.5ghz) isn’t far being the i5-750 either.

Cost-wise, a Core i5-750 + cheapest P55 board + 4GB DDR3 RAM still costs a lot more than a Xeon 3320 (or equivalent processor) + cheapest P45 board + 4GB DDR2 RAM. Ok, so the Xeon 3320 would be a little hard to find. Let’s take the Core 2 Quad Q8400 for price comparison sake. it’s 2.66ghz, so it’s faster than Xeon 3320 on stock and would certainly be closer to the i5-750 overall.

The cheapest Core i5-750 combo would be around RM 1450, that’s RM 700 for the processor, ~RM 400 for the motherboard and ~RM 350 for 4GB of DDR3 RAM.
The cheapest Core 2 Quad combo would be only around RM 1100, that’s RM 600 for the processor, ~RM 180 for the motherboard and ~RM 300 for DDR2 RAM.

Should you get the Core i5-750?

Here’s what I think………..

If you already have an existing LGA775 quad-core setup, then jumping to the Core i5 setup would cost you a bomb but the performance gained could be little to even none, depending on what processor you already have. However if you intend to overclock, well I think that’ll make the upgrade worth it.

If you already have an existing LGA775 dual-core setup and thought of going quad-core, there’s 2 ways to go about it. The cost effective way is just to get an LGA775 quad-core (or the even more cost-effective AMD quad-core). The non-cost effective way is of course, to jump to the Core i5.

The Core i5 is based on the LGA1156 socket, it’s basically running on Intel’s new architecture and the LGA1156 would also be able to support LGA1156 Core i7 processors if you need more power.

If you have nothing at the moment and thought of buying a computer with quad-core setup – it’s a no brainer, Core i5 it is! What you get is system using the latest technology. If cost is an issue, then yeah lah you know what to look for already la. LGA775 setup…. or heck, look at the AMD setups instead, they provide more value for $$$ than the Intel LGA775 quad-core setups.

If you have nothing at the moment and thought of buying a computer with no quad-core requirement – get yourself a dual-core setup. AMD or Intel, they’re both good.

If you’re into overclocking – the i5-750 is awesome! Paired with a decent P55 motherboard and you’ll reach 3.6ghz easily.

Did I miss anything? Do share your thoughts about the Intel Core i5 setup.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 15th, 2009 at 12:32 am and is filed under Computing & The Internet, PC Hardware Related. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.