Is Intel’s New Series Giving AMD a Better Image?
February 10th, 2010
Intel has been busy at work with new processors to put the Core 2 Duo/Quad names out and come in with their new line, the Core I series. Fantastic little things really, I plan on picking up an i7 920 D0 for my next build actually. That being said, there are some issues I would like to pick about this series, now don’t let this deter you, from it because really, there’s nothing terribly wrong with these, it’s the naming scheme and sheer blind moves that they’re making with them, the first 6 months of this series was simple and effective, especially from a sellers standpoint.
They were simpler to the consumer so they could pick something according to their needs, now Intel is throwing a ton of numbers at them and going “HERE YOU GO! YOU HAVE OPTIONS! NOW PICK ONE” and leaving customers to either fall back on the salesman to decide according to their needs, which in turn makes the salesman who gives the person an i7 920 setup a bad image for being greedy about commission, even though it was most suitable to their needs. Even up to the “Clarkdale” release it was still pretty straightforward. Unfortunately it’s been diverting from it to what I’ve stated above, something that makes it harder to sell a custom built machine to someone with specific needs for their computer.
The problem isn’t the sales rep, it isn’t the consumer, and it’s not entirely Intel, since their head wasn’t in the right place entirely, but their idea was great, and yes, even though this is a bit of a “hey Intel, good job jerks” sounding article, more or less it’s really just stating what I’ve been noticing, and if anyone from Intel is reading this, please feel free to contact me, either through a comment on this, or even an email directly to me at info@craigbray.com. Either way, this is my observations as both someone who sells these, as well as someone in the market for one soon. Everything I’ve seen points to those dual core i7′s to be desktop CPU’s which is why this article is here.
Let’s go over it together, shall we? Save the comments until the end of the article, for all you quick-to-speak people.
Is Intel’s new product line becoming more confusing to the general layman consumer in the new computer market? Yes and no at the same time and here’s why:
- Intel Core i3 is budget or simple user like your retired parents who don’t know how to use a computer too well and don’t want to spend a bunch of money on it.
- Intel Core i5 is mainstream or regular user like office users, home users that do basic tasks like put music on their mp3 players, download and burn movies, word processing and email.
- Intel Core i7 is enthusiast level for gamers and high end users alike, such as architects, CAD users, people who play the latest and greatest games, or even those that do the rendering for them, as well as audio engineers and video engineers. You name it, if it requires a lot of system resource, an i7 can do it for you.
- Intel Core i3 has 2 models the 540 and 530. The 540 Both are exactly the same, the 530 retails (USD) for about $113.00, and the 540 retails for about $133.oo, they are almost identical except for clock speed, which is the way it should be, and it’s good like that, easy to sell, the 540 is popular amongst most budget people because for 20 bucks you get a bit more for your money. These ones need an h55 board to run the integrated video processor. Then there’s a Mobile series which is straightforward as well
- Intel Core i5 has 6 models, the 650, 660, 661 and 670, which are dual core, and the 750 750S which are quad. The dual core ones have the same everything, except clocking speed. The 661 doesn’t do virtualization, the rest claim to. They have integrated video as well as Hyper-threading, same as the i3′s. Starting to see my point? Yes they’re a bit faster, and yes they have differences, but that series was unnecessary. The quad cores, both 750 and 750S are the same as well, quad cores, no hyper-threading and NO on board video (which is a plus, I’ll explain why later). They are simple and to the point, Quad cores for mainstream users.
- The i7 is where it’s going downhill in my eyes. There are 9, soon to be 10 of these. The Intel core i7 series is going nuts. The previous two series (i3 and i5) were on the 1156 socket, which cannot handle triple channel memory or the speeds of the 1366 socket i7′s the 920, 920 D0, 940, 960 and extreme 965′s and 975′s. There is now a small series which is soon to expand on the 1156 socket, which consists of the 860, 860S and 870. All are hyper-threaded, all are able to do everything the i5 can and then some due to their hyper-threading making them theoretically an 8 core CPU. The 1366 ones can handle triple channel DDR3 memory, which simply put means instead of 2 sticks of 2 (2×2) to make 4gb of dual channel, you get 3 sticks of 2 (3×2) to make 6gb of total memory, or 3 sticks of 1 (3×1) for 3gb if you’re on a 32 bit OS. (why would you do that? some programs are only 32 bit, ad 64 bit hates them) Now, here’s the irritating part, it wouldn’t be so bad if the new i7 was also quad core, but no, it’s following suit with the i3 and i5 series where it s a DUAL core processor that has all the i7 features and is Hyper-threaded to make it theoretically a 4 core processor….sound familiar? Thought so. As if it wasn’t hard enough to convince the guy who was told to buy an i7 for his CAD machine by his tech savvy co-worker, now you need to tell him the dual core i7 will not cut it for him, same for the 860 will not be optimal performance either, which in turn makes the seller look like he’s taking the customer for a ride down high commission street.