Here

75% to go!Just kidding ;-)Gary

A whole list of reviews can be found here:http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=347482But I'm not too sure what to make of them as far as FSX is concerned. Since hyperthreading does not help with FSX, are tests such as SuperPI an representative reflection of potential FSX scaling? RegardsSimon

These reviews contain lots of comparisons between current-generation Quads and the i7 at stock speeds. It would be more interesting - and more useful - to compare the i7 with current-generation Quads at typical overclocked settings. The three things that stand out for me from this initial crop of reviews are:1. The big stories for i7 were supposed to be (i) potential for more cores, (ii) turning hyper-threading back on again and (iii) faster RAM. As for those: (i) It doesn't look as if we're going to see more than 4 cores per CPU initially. That probably isn't too big a deal for FSX.(ii) Hyper-threading still does not seem to offer much in the way of real-world benefits - and FSX does not use hyper-threading at all. So again, no big deal for us.(iii) But RAM speed is a (quietly) important factor for FSX and in fact it was Nehalem's promise on this front which got Phil Taylor quite excited a while back. At first glance, the charts in these reviews make the i7's results look impressive. The fastest results seem to have been reported here: http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=726776&P=7Latency, read and write speeds are undoubtedly good. But upon analysis it is clear that this comparison is superficial, because the figures show that the comparison has NOT been made with a well-tuned QX9770 system. There is no excuse for current-generation DDR3 RAM to be running as slowly as 62.1ns or giving <10000MB/s read results (I've only been doing this for a couple of months but thanks to the help of others on this forum I've already got mine at 46 or 47ns and about 11000MB/s). Compared with what current-generation kit CAN do when sensibly tuned, the i7's improvements look rather under-whelming. On my figures, the i7's reported latency "advantage" shrinks from 90% to about 20% and its read "advantage" shrinks from 37% also to about 20%: right at the outer margins of usefulness.I wonder whether i7 is really as poor as this, or whether the reviewers just didn't bother to fine-tune the RAM on the i7 systems (as they clearly didn't on the current-generation comparators).2. Uncertain overclocking potential. The images on this page -http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=726776&P=6- look quite promising: >4GHz from the new (non-"extreme edition") 920. But other reviewers seem to have been rather more conservative and it remains to be seen whether the voltages and other settings used to get over 4GHz are sustainable.3. Not really a point about i7 but: I know reviewers always tend to get carried away but some of the over-hype is truly ghastly. Some of them really need to curb their enthusiasm a little and consider who they're actually serving. Look at this for example: "... they're, quick aren't they? Intel's Core i7 processors are multi-threading monsters, and this is an extremely enjoyable processor series. It's a hit, it's a killer." (source: http://www.guru3d.com/article/intel-core-i...-965-review/19) Irresponsible gibberish, IMHO, as well as playing right into Intel's hands without any thought for the consumer who might be misled by this sort of nonsense into thinking that i7 represents a paradigm shift instead of a slight gear change.Overall, it's clearly still far to early to judge. I'll watch with interest for reports of how the i7 actually affects performance in FSX. But I've half suspected for a while that I'll be waiting for Sandy Bridge in late 2010 (and who knows, possibly FS11 by then) before my next major upgrade; and so far, I've not seen anything to persuade me otherwise.Tim

>These reviews contain lots of comparisons between>current-generation Quads and the i7 at stock speeds. It would>be more interesting - and more useful - to compare the i7 with>current-generation Quads at typical overclocked settings. >>>The three things that stand out for me from this initial crop>of reviews are:>>>1. The big stories for i7 were supposed to be (i) potential>for more cores, (ii) turning hyper-threading back on again and>(iii) faster RAM. >>As for those: >>(i) It doesn't look as if we're going to see more than 4 cores>per CPU initially. That probably isn't too big a deal for>FSX.>>(ii) Hyper-threading still does not seem to offer much in the>way of real-world benefits - and FSX does not use>hyper-threading at all. So again, no big deal for us.>>(iii) But RAM speed is a (quietly) important factor for FSX>and in fact it was Nehalem's promise on this front which got>Phil Taylor quite excited a while back. At first glance, the>charts in these reviews make the i7's results look impressive.>The fastest results seem to have been reported here: >>http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=726776&P=7>>Latency, read and write speeds are undoubtedly good. But upon>analysis it is clear that this comparison is superficial,>because the figures show that the comparison has NOT been made>with a well-tuned QX9770 system. There is no excuse for>current-generation DDR3 RAM to be running as slowly as 62.1ns>or giving <10000MB/s read results (I've only been doing this>for a couple of months but thanks to the help of others on>this forum I've already got mine at 46 or 47ns and about>11000MB/s). Compared with what current-generation kit CAN do>when sensibly tuned, the i7's improvements look rather>under-whelming. On my figures, the i7's reported latency>"advantage" shrinks from 90% to about 20% and its read>"advantage" shrinks from 37% also to about 20%: right at the>outer margins of usefulness.>>I wonder whether i7 is really as poor as this, or whether the>reviewers just didn't bother to fine-tune the RAM on the i7>systems (as they clearly didn't on the current-generation>comparators).>>>2. Uncertain overclocking potential. The images on this page>->>http://www.overclockers.com.au/article.php?id=726776&P=6>>- look quite promising: >4GHz from the new (non-"extreme>edition") 920. But other reviewers seem to have been rather>more conservative and it remains to be seen whether the>voltages and other settings used to get over 4GHz are>sustainable.>>>3. Not really a point about i7 but: I know reviewers always>tend to get carried away but some of the over-hype is truly>ghastly. Some of them really need to curb their enthusiasm a>little and consider who they're actually serving. Look at this>for example: "... they're, quick aren't they? Intel's Core i7>processors are multi-threading monsters, and this is an>extremely enjoyable processor series. It's a hit, it's a>killer." (source:>http://www.guru3d.com/article/intel-core-i...-965-review/19)>Irresponsible gibberish, IMHO, as well as playing right into>Intel's hands without any thought for the consumer who might>be misled by this sort of nonsense into thinking that i7>represents a paradigm shift instead of a slight gear change.>>>Overall, it's clearly still far to early to judge. I'll watch>with interest for reports of how the i7 actually affects>performance in FSX. But I've half suspected for a while that>I'll be waiting for Sandy Bridge in late 2010 (and who knows,>possibly FS11 by then) before my next major upgrade; and so>far, I've not seen anything to persuade me otherwise.>>>TimThanks for the good read Tim, I Honestly don't really expect to much of a jump like we would like it to be. but I do look forward to the benchmarks for fsx when the new chips are out.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3379790I predict a minimum 25-35% gain in a properly configued and video card matched FSX system clock-for-clock between a unclocked Extreme series i7 against a unclocked QX9770 as already demonstrated in high AA Crysis with apples-to-apples same video card comparesbut thats just a prediction at 4GHz+ and correctly configured we can expect memory efficiency to be nearly double todays DDR3 and latency in the mid to low 20's however clocking memory will be differentbut thats just a predictionOne must remember that even if you clock out DDR3 at 11K memory read you are only getting 50-60% of that in application where with i7 what you see is just about what you get and as Phil pointed out that is one primary area FSX totally wacks a system into the ground due to its poor design, and, why the clocking I have posted about in the past, works.Of course the initial price tag is not worth the gain even if it manages to clock out 40% better (or a solid 10-15 frame increase) but I think it will come into its time over the next 6 months as prices drop and the learning curve increases and the platform goes through its initial growing pains

Here's a fly in the ointment:http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-...halem,2057.htmlSo much for overclocking if you don't get an extreme. God forbid the suckers (us) that buy this stuff get a little extra value for the money. A small percentage of the market is overclockers and Intel has to squash that just to make a few more dollars. Bogus! What a crock! This is like nVidia taking away all rivatuner support from their cards. :(-jk

Unfortunately it would appear Intel did look at the market and their design does in fact dictate the extreme processor will be the key to using i7 and take full advantage of the platformRead the link from ExtremeSystems above on clocking i7I think the way Intel looks at it is they are giving you the CPU clock we know today in perf without doing anything and if you buy the extreme version you can expand that with a scaling much higher than C2So the clock-per-clock cost compare is about the same price as today. In example, to hit 5GHz today you need extreme cooling and its really not a practical way to run 24/7 but if you have a i7 Extreme hitting 4GHz is like hitting 5+ so you do not have the cost of extreme cooling and can run 24/7.In that, its really not a rip offHowever.. with the current economy which was not seen last year Intel is taking a huge gamble on thatTime will tell in what they do over the next year with further releases. Perhaps they will release some procs with limited multiplier abilityBut one thing is for certain... with AMD falling behind Intel is getting nasty about pricing again

Nasty is the word alright. I don't think it's a rip off, I just think they're taking away something from a small fraction that will be far more of a loss to us than it will be a boost to their bottom line. Do they really think they will make more money by forcing us to buy $1000 cpus if we want overclocking? I know we all got a gift from overclocking the Core2's, I'm just mad now at Intel for asparently taking that away.I predict that Intel loses more money by not selling all those cheaper cpus to overclockers who now can't afford $1000 cpus. They're going to kill one of their markets (a small one, but still). Let's say it takes a few slugs to equal the price of an extreme, the 4-5 tweakers that would have bought the nonextremes probably won't buy anything now because they can't afford it anymore. The only thing that would make up for this for me alone (IMO) would be if I could get my 20-30% better FSX performance just from a slug w/o overclocking. If I could pay the $300 or so for that I would go for it. And that improvement would have to be over my 4GHZ Q9650.Notwithstanding all that, I am looking forward to seeing this chip in action over the next few months.-jk

I didn't realise that with Core2 we only get the benefit of about 50-60% of the reported memory read speed/bandwidth: that sounds like a pretty big factor in the overall equation. (Incidentally, for others reading, I can vouch that Nick_N's RAM tweaks do actually make a difference in FSX, at least they do for me: a subtle one, difficult to pin down with numbers - I suspect it MAY increase the average fps, without improving the peak fps - but mostly noticeable in the overall smoothness and fluidity of the sim: like so much in life, you miss it when you lose it!)If i7 could really bring a consistent 30% improvement EVEN / ESPECIALLY when FSX is under heavy load, then it would become a serious contender in my book (after a while to allow prices and platforms etc to stabilise, of course). Any improvement that could lift my "worst case" frames from about the 15-18fps range to 19-23fps, would justify serious consideration. So: interesting times ahead.Tim

Early benchies. HardOCP ran some FarCry2 benchmark runs today. I have the game and played along. This is a canned benchmark run provided with FC2. The 1st pic is Nehalem at 3.2/19x14. The second is my Q6600 at 3.6/19x10. Clock for clock, the Nehalem runs a ~ 15% advantage. That's tracking pretty well with what we're hearing. And look at those settings. 80+FPS at 19x10 with a 9800. DX10, Bloom, Physics, Shadows, AG full blast, traffic (i.e., bad guys everywhere). I hope aces is watching all this.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/194009.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/194010.jpg

>I predict a minimum 25-35% gain in a properly Minimum?? I predict this is going to be a maximum. As is typical an early hype never pans out.Michael J.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpg

Thanks Sam: the other thing those numbers show is that your Q6600 at 3.6GHz is only 4-10% behind the i7 at 3.2GHz.This suggests that it will take more than nominal overclocking for the i7 to bring worthwhile improvements to FSX.Tim

The other thing I saw was all 4 cores engaged, evenly. They weren't just ramping up for fireballs (or scenery loading) and such. All 4 were evenly sharing the load. The dual in the benchmark-set fell well behind. This is where we are going. So (a buyer contemplates) go for a 20% gain with a dual that will clock 20% faster or a 2X gain by having double the cores? The future is near (here?). For $175, that Q66 is going to be hard to pass up all the way through Nehalem . . . especially since Intel has locked-down Nehalem's O/C potential with hard-wired thermal (declocking) limits.

> hard-wired thermal (declocking) limitsThat's what I thought too: but the plot thickens ...http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overcl...re-i7,2063.htmlThis article - effectively an "erratum" by the editor - claims that the thermal limiter is, after all, just the familiar (to Asus users) TM2 function, which you can disable in BIOS. If that's right, then it is pretty risible that that some of the reviewers - including particularly the Tom's Hardware crowd - were in such a hurry that they didn't even bother to check what could be done through the BIOS. One wonders what qualifies these people to write about technology: they seem to lack curiosity, as well as knowledge.Tim