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It is interesting to note that in this article we featured three new processors, being the Phenom II X4 965, Core i5 750 and Core i7 860, all of which cost less than $300 US and are able to outperform the Core 2 Quad Q9650. Now when you consider the fact that the Q9650 is a part that never dropped below $300 US, even to this very day, it is exciting to see so many “affordable” powerful quad-core processors. That said, with the Core i7 920 priced at $280 US, we really have no idea why the Q9650 still exists, though clearly it won’t for much longer. The Phenom II X4 965 is AMD’s current flagship desktop processor, and at $240 US it is exceptional value. However at just $200 US the Core i5 750 is even better value, as it is found to be even faster in quite a few tests. For us the Core i5 750 processor has been a sigh of relief, as we were initially quite unimpressed that Intel decided to release yet another entirely different platform, despite being well aware of their plans before the LGA1366 platform was even released. Given that the Intel X58 chipset does very little, we saw no reason why the P55 could not have supported the LGA1366 socket, allowing consumers to choose between the affordable Core i5 series or the full-blown Core i7 series. Now instead, we have two different sockets supporting different processors, and in no way are they cross compatible like the new AM3 processors are with the older AM2/AM2+ sockets. Furthermore, we have two Core i7 series that are almost identical, even in price. This makes the Core i7 800 series in our opinion quite pointless, as the Core i7 860 costs exactly the same amount as the Core i7 920 processor, while the later is faster in the majority of tests. Both the Core i7 920 and 860 are very much the same processor with the key difference being the memory controller, for which the 920 utilizes a triple-channel design opposed to the dual-channel design of the 860. EVEREST reports that the Core i7 920 has around 13% more bandwidth at its disposal, which appears to make up for its 5% clock speed disadvantage. At the end of the day, the Core i7 920 will set you back about $20 - $30 US more in DDR3 memory if you go for a 6GB triple-channel kit over a 4GB dual-channel kit, while a P55 motherboard could be anywhere from $50 - $100 US less. Therefore, a Core i7 860 system stands to save you a little over $100 US by our calculations, which in the big picture is stuff all. After all, you are sacrificing 2GB of memory, the ability to utilize six DIMM slots, and multi-GPU technology should you want to use it, along with a small amount of performance. While the P55 chipset does support SLI and Crossfire, a pair of PCI Express graphics cards will be limited to x8 bandwidth, which can limit performance when compared to the x16 bandwidth you will get with an X58 chipset. That said, we are still very pleased with the new LGA1156 platform simply because the Core i5 750 is such a stellar processor at just $200 US. This new mainstream processor is the perfect step down from the Core i7 920, as it stands to save users around $250 US on their CPU/MB/RAM combo. Users should be able to get their hands on a Core i5 750 combo with 4GB of memory and a P55 motherboard for around $400 US, which is amazing given the power. In short, not everyone needs the incredible power of a Core i7 900 series processor, in fact most of us don’t, especially those that spend much of their spare time gaming. This is what made the AMD Phenom II X4 series such a great alternative, as it was unbelievably cheap while being able to deliver the same exciting gaming experience as the more powerful Core i7 processors due to GPU limitations. The Core i5 750 fills the void nicely, and brings a great deal of competition of the Phenom II X4 range. Although we only had a very short time to play around with the new Core i7 870, 860 and Core i5 750 processors, it was just possible to fit in some brief overclocking. Amazingly we were able to crack the 4.10GHz barrier with these processors. The Core i5 750 using the Prolimatech Megahalems reached an impressive 4.13GHz, while we squeezed 4.16GHz out of the Core i7 870 processor without much trouble.  In fact, these overclocks are some of the most successful we have ever had using air-cooling, and it is very likely that they were the easiest to achieve as well. The ease of these overclocks is likely thanks to the brilliant ASUS P7P55D Deluxe motherboard, which required us to change only the base clock frequency. The voltage was raised, but the P7P55D Deluxe did this automatically without our influence. At its default operating frequency of 2.66GHz the Core i5 750 sucked down around 1.250v, while at 4.13GHz it required 1.550v, which the motherboard adjusted to automatically. Therefore we were able to achieve a massive 36% overclock using air-cooling by simply changing the base clock to 206MHz. Overall we are very pleased with the Core i5 750 processor and the accompanying P55 chipset, which helped to make the ASUS P7P55D Deluxe such a great motherboard. The Core i7 800 series has us a little miffed, as we feel for the money users might as well build a Core i7 system the way it was meant to be, using the LGA1366 platform. For now we look forward to seeing Core i5 750 processors on shelves, along with P55 motherboards. Reviewed By Steven Walton |
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