Intel I3 Processor.

[Samael88]

As I asked about my sisters computer in the Tech help forum I promised ghan that I would post a review about the Intel I3 processor here, so here it goes

The specs:

Power Supply - Cooler Master Sileo 500, 500W PSU Svart, Fläktar: 1x 120mm Front, 1x 120mm Bak, ljudabsorberande, 500W PSU
CPU - Intel Core™ i3 Dual-core Processor i3-540, 3,06GHz, Socket LGA1156, 4MB, Boxed
Ram - Kingston ValueR. DDR3 1333MHz 2GB, CL9 Non-ECC, 1.5V, 256Meg x 64, 240pin
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H, H55, Socket-1156, 4xDDR3, m-ATX, GbLAN, VGA, HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort, PCI-Ex(2.0)x16
HDD - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-300, 16MB, 7200RPM

I have installed windows XP on it and it works really well with that.

The thing is that it says that the I3 is a dualcore CPU, but when I check in the task manager under performance I see 4 core I am currently under the assumption that it is 2 CPU's and 2 GPU's I see there because of two of them only working hard when there is heavier graphics on.

As far as browsing with firefox goes there is no lag at all, she can have up to 10 pages on at any given moment without any trouble and 5 of them being videos that buffers.

I have not tried any games on it so far except solitiare and I can say that it does not lag^^ I am going to try warcraft 3 on it tomorrow or sunday if I have time for it

Is there anyone here who has tried the I3, I5 or I7?
If you have, please post your experiences with this new wave of Processors I for one am really optimistic about them

 

[Flare]

The thing is that it says that the I3 is a dualcore CPU, but when I check in the task manager under performance I see 4 core

For all I know, I could be spouting complete sh*t here P), but that would be multi-threading capability, if I'm reading this correctly

Multi Threading - When a single processor core can process two threads at once, adding 1 virtual processor per physical core

I've got an i7 920 at the moment, and PCMark indicates that there is 8 logical processors (and, as far as I know, the i7 is Quad Core).
Again, haven't a notion here, although the quoted material makes it sound sensible, to me at least.

As regards experiences with it, can't say I've really done any major investigation into how well it's been performing for me, nor do I intend to So far, everything runs smoothly. Haven't had any issues of slowdown yet (especially considering how much stuff I had running for the first few days to try and get stuff installed and updated)

 

[Samael88]

That sounds good^^ I really like the idea of CPU's now having GPU's incorporated into them It should really make a lot of difference when it comes to heavy graphical games

(especially considering how much stuff I had running for the first few days to try and get stuff installed and updated)

I sure hope that you had time to defrag properly

 

[Flare]

I sure hope that you had time to defrag properly

Hah, I suppose that shows you how good I am with PC's - I would never have thought to do that, nor would I actually do it because I genuinely don't know what the benfits of defragging are...

Ah sure, another time... I'm gonna get stuck into Diablo II some more before anything else

 

[Varine]

I3 isn't quad core, it's a dual core chip with hyperthreading so the OS treats it like a quad core. Basically, each core is treated like 2 functional cores. So the I7 is recognized as having eight, like Flare said, even though it only has 4. Actually you answered it yourself.

Intel Core™ i3 Dual-core Processor

In general, having a quad core won't really affect anything, it's the clockspeed. For most purposes, at least I think, her processor would be more beneficial than having a quad core running at, say, 2.66 GHz unless she's doing things like high level renders in 3DS max or XSI or something. If she's running XP a dual core would be better anyway, since it doesn't handle quad cores very well. For games like Warcraft, the processor won't really be the biggest deal, it will be things like RAM and GPU and even with those, a decent computer now wouldn't have an issue running it. But if you get things like physics, advanced lighting, etc, then the CPU will need to be a bit faster. Although, a 3.06 is pretty much going to run everything I can think of without an issue.


And Flare, defragging basically moves things on your hard drive around so that it's all in one place instead of having to jump around to find. It makes your hard drive perform a little better.

 

[codemonkey]

Have you tried overclocking it yet?

 

[Varine]

He shouldn't need to overclock it.

 

[ElderKingpin]

Hah, I suppose that shows you how good I am with PC's - I would never have thought to do that, nor would I actually do it because I genuinely don't know what the benfits of defragging are...

Ah sure, another time... I'm gonna get stuck into Diablo II some more before anything else

I have yet to see a noticeable difference to my computer after i defrag. I do it because im scared of what might happen if i dont

 

[Varine]

Nothing will happen if you don't, if you wait a really really long time in between it'll start to slow up though.

Hard drives are separated into clusters that are usually like 512 bytes each. So if you have a one byte file, it gets one cluster assigned to it. But say you have a 600 byte file, it has two clusters assigned to it, one of mostly being empty. They aren't necessarily stored next to each on the disk, which is why it's Random Access Storage, it's usually stored randomly. So the files keep track of the clusters and where they are when you open the file. Defragging it just moves them closer to each other.

 

[Samael88]

I have yet to see a noticeable difference to my computer after i defrag. I do it because im scared of what might happen if i dont

I have to defrag for some games to run on mine at all^^ Games like oblivion lags asunder if I don't I think that it is due to my one core slow CPU

The main progress with the I3 Varine is that it has integrated GPU's (Graphic Processing Unit) in the design. This means that instead of having the CPU deal with all the math the GPU part is supposed to handle the graphical calculations and thus lessen the need for much faster clockspeeds on heavy duty games

Say a games like oblivion for example was before was almost impossible to run on multiplayer due to heavy math both graphical and game mechanic related.
With a 1GB Network card and one of these babies it should be no problem at all to do so

 

[sqrage]

What difference would the network card make?

And a standalone GPU is still 500x better than the built in GPU. I wouldn't even bother with the i3 personally unless I was making something on a tight budget or a low profile computer.

 

[Darthfett]

That sounds good^^ I really like the idea of CPU's now having GPU's incorporated into them It should really make a lot of difference when it comes to heavy graphical games

I'm not sure you understand how integrated graphics affects performance, it would have little impact whether the graphics chip is on the MOBO or on the CPU. Dedicated graphics cards are where you will get huge performance gains.

I have to defrag for some games to run on mine at all^^ Games like oblivion lags asunder if I don't I think that it is due to my one core slow CPU

I have a feeling this has very little to do with how fragmented your hard drive is, that should mostly only affect loading speeds, until the game data is put into the memory. It most likely has more to do with background processes running.

The main progress with the I3 Varine is that it has integrated GPU's (Graphic Processing Unit) in the design. This means that instead of having the CPU deal with all the math the GPU part is supposed to handle the graphical calculations and thus lessen the need for much faster clockspeeds on heavy duty games

This means instead of having an integrated graphics chip, you have a CPU with integrated graphics. The CPU isn't doing all "the graphical calculations" in either situation. For a game to run you have to have both a good CPU AND a good GPU, they are BOTH bottlenecks.

Say a games like oblivion for example was before was almost impossible to run on multiplayer due to heavy math both graphical and game mechanic related.
With a 1GB Network card and one of these babies it should be no problem at all to do so

If a game like oblivion couldn't run on an integrated graphics chipset, I bet it would have little impact using a CPU with integrated graphics. You might see a slight performance gain/loss, depending on what chipset you're comparing it to.

sqrage is right, what does a 1Gb network card have to do with anything? That would only increase your transfer speeds between other computers on the network, a regular 10/100mbps would work fine to get the maximum upload/download internet rates.

And a standalone GPU is still 500x better than the built in GPU. I wouldn't even bother with the i3 personally unless I was making something on a tight budget or a low profile computer.

This

I have not tried any games on it so far except solitiare and I can say that it does not lag^^ I am going to try warcraft 3 on it tomorrow or sunday if I have time for it

I can say you'll find that Warcraft 3 runs, but I have no idea what sort of performance you'll get, as compared to my Intel GMA integrated chip. I'm sure you'll get better, but why not try a more graphics-intensive game, such as TF2?

 

[Samael88]

I'm not sure you understand how integrated graphics affects performance, it would have little impact whether the graphics chip is on the MOBO or on the CPU. Dedicated graphics cards are where you will get huge performance gains.

I was not talking about graphics cards anywhere in this thread
I am talking about the I-series having built in GPU core into the design.
It is basically a CPU with built in GPU. Everything that is processed on the graphics card is processed on the CPU as well, and with the built in GPU handling them leaving the CPU part to handle other calculations then the I-series sure have an upper hand when it comes to other CPU's of the same speed.

I have a feeling this has very little to do with how fragmented your hard drive is, that should mostly only affect loading speeds, until the game data is put into the memory. It most likely has more to do with background processes running.

It does lag less if I have it less defraged, and that is not odd with oblivion having loading in the game as you play:nuts:

This means instead of having an integrated graphics chip, you have a CPU with integrated graphics. The CPU isn't doing all "the graphical calculations" in either situation. For a game to run you have to have both a good CPU AND a good GPU, they are BOTH bottlenecks.

Yeah, I know that, but if I get you correct here you are saying that the I-series has a built in graphics managing device that can be compared to an integrated graphics card?
I can tell you that there is a graphics card as well in the comp, an integrated one on the motherboard.

If a game like oblivion couldn't run on an integrated graphics chipset, I bet it would have little impact using a CPU with integrated graphics. You might see a slight performance gain/loss, depending on what chipset you're comparing it to.

Yeah, now I get it, I really think that you have misunderstood it. The I-Series does not have integrated graphics, only a separate GPU to handle graphical calculations that would have the been placed on the CPU alone without it.

sqrage is right, what does a 1Gb network card have to do with anything? That would only increase your transfer speeds between other computers on the network, a regular 10/100mbps would work fine to get the maximum upload/download internet rates.

I am not talking about internet there, I am talking about 1Gb network. But anyhow, oblivion have a lot of calculations going on, if you have ever tried to copy that system you would know what I mean^^
I am doubtful if that would be handled well with a 100Mb card. It would not work on a 10Mb for sure

I can say you'll find that Warcraft 3 runs, but I have no idea what sort of performance you'll get, as compared to my Intel GMA integrated chip. I'm sure you'll get better, but why not try a more graphics-intensive game, such as TF2?

I don't have TF2, that is why I don't try that^^ And I don't want to overload it with something as oblivion
And a custom made map on WC3 would be perfect for testing it. If it can handle the graphic and many units(about100) at the same time without lagging it would sure pass my test because then it will be better than my comp

 

[sqrage]

>>It is basically a CPU with built in GPU. Everything that is processed on the graphics card is processed on the CPU as well, and with the built in GPU handling them leaving the CPU part to handle other calculations then the I-series sure have an upper hand when it comes to other CPU's of the same speed.

CPUs never do graphical processing. That's why they have GPUs in the first place...

 

[Samael88]

.CPUs never do graphical processing. That's why they have GPUs in the first place...

They don't?
What good does it do to have one built into the CPU then?
They are good at handling heavier calculations overall I have read, but I thought it was only graphical. Does it mean that it helps with all calculations then?

 

[Varine]

The CPU having an integrated GPU isn't going to make much of a difference. I'm fairly certain it's more of an offset device, like the Tesla is, rather than an actual GPU.

 

[sqrage]

They don't?
What good does it do to have one built into the CPU then?
They are good at handling heavier calculations overall I have read, but I thought it was only graphical. Does it mean that it helps with all calculations then?

Because I'm guessing it's faster than being part of the motherboard instead. If it's in the motherboard, it has to go through that and communicate to the CPU anyway so it's more efficient to be right in the CPU. And yea, the GPU CAN help with CPU tasks, such as crushing numbers.

An example of this would be "folding@home"

Graphical processing units
On October 2, 2006, the Folding@home Windows GPU client was released to the public as a beta test. After 9 days of processing from the Beta client the Folding@home project had received 31 teraFLOPs of computational performance from just 450 ATI Radeon X1900 GPUs, averaging at over 70x the performance of current CPU submissions, and the GPU clients remain the most powerful clients available in performance per client (as of March 11, 2009, GPU clients accounted for over 60% of the entire project's throughput at an approximate ratio of 9 clients per teraFLOP).[3] On April 10, 2008, the second generation Windows GPU client was released to open beta testing, supporting ATI/AMD's Radeon HD 2000 and HD 3000 series, and also debuting a new core (GROGPU2 - Core 11). Inaccuracies with DirectX were cited as the main reason for the migration to the new version (the original GPU client was officially retired June 6, 2008[24]), which uses AMD/ATI's CAL. On June 17, 2008, a version of the second-generation Windows GPU client for CUDA enabled Nvidia GPUs was also released for public beta testing.[25] The GPU clients proved reliable enough to be promoted out of the beta phase and were officially released August 1, 2008.[26] Newer GPU cores continue to be released for both CAL and CUDA.
While the only officially released GPU v2.0 client is for Windows, this client can be run on Linux under Wine with NVIDIA graphics cards.[27] The client can operate on both 32- and 64-bit Linux platforms, but in either case the 32-bit CUDA toolkit is required. This configuration is not officially supported, though initial results have shown comparable performance to that of the native client and no problems with the scientific results have been found[citation needed]. An unofficial installation guide has been published.[27]
On September 25, 2009, Vijay Pande revealed in his blog that a new third version of the GPU client was in development.[28] GPU3 will use OpenCL (preferred over DirectX 11's Compute Shaders) as the software interface, which may mean that the GPU core will be unified for both ATI and nVidia, and may also mean the addition of support for other platforms with OpenCL support.

Read the overview, that's just the part that refers to GPUs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folding@home

Intel was actually scared of nVidia at one point because of the power of their GPUs and nVidia was considering making a GPU that would completely eliminate the need for a CPU. Though I'm not sure what ever happened to that.

 

[Samael88]

Ah, thank you for clearing that out to me sqrage^^
I sure hope that you are right though It seems like a GPU is a bit more powerful than a CPU anyway

Intel was actually scared of nVidia at one point because of the power of their GPUs and nVidia was considering making a GPU that would completely eliminate the need for a CPU. Though I'm not sure what ever happened to that.

There is probably some nVidia scientist out there somewhere in a dark basement madly laughing about just that right now