| Intel Core i5-661 Processor BX80616I5661 |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Processors | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by David Ramsey | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tuesday, 16 February 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Intel Core i5-661 Processor ReviewIntel continues filling out its processor lineup with the introduction of the 2010 Intel Core Processor Family, comprising new versions of Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 processors. The new Core i3 and Core i5 processors use Intel's new "Westmere" architecture, which brings facets of Intel's "Nehalem" design to the lower-end desktop CPUs (code-named "Clarkdale") and mobile CPUs (code-named "Arrandale"). These are Intel's first CPUs to be built on a 32-nanometer process, and some models include another first for Intel: a graphics processing unit (GPU) included on-chip. Built with Intel Hyper-Threading Technology and an improved version of the Turbo Boost feature introduced with the original Nehalem processors, how do these new dual-core CPUs compare with other processors in Intel's line? Benchmark Reviews tests the Intel Core i5-661 CPU, model BX80616I5661, with its integrated GPU to find out.
The Core i5-661 is one of four new Core i5 desktop processors recently introduced: the Core i5-650, Core i5-660, Core i5-661, and Core i5-670. The remaining two Core i5 desktop processors, the Core i5-750 and Core i5-750S, are built on Intel's older 45nm process. Functionally, the main difference between the older Core i5-750 processors and the newly-introduced Clarkdalfe CPUs is that the former are true quad-core designs, while the new processors are all dual-core designs, albeit with the advantage of Hyper-Threading and significantly higher clock speeds. How much of a difference will this make in the relative performance of these CPUs? We'll see in the benchmarks section later. About Intel CorporationIntel Corporation is the world's largest semiconductor company. Founded by semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove, Intel combines advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing capability. Originally known primarily to engineers and technologists, Intel's successful "Intel Inside" advertising campaign of the 1990s made it and its Pentium processor household names. Intel pushes the boundaries of innovation so our work can make people's lives more exciting, fulfilling, and manageable. And our work never stops. We never stop looking for the next leap ahead-in technology, education, culture, manufacturing, and social responsibility. And we never stop striving to deliver solutions with greater benefits for everyone. Intel is making PCs more accessible and affordable through innovative PC purchase programs. Through public and private collaboration, Intel has worked closely with government and industry leaders to develop more than 200 programs in 60 countries. With the onslaught of wireless broadband communication technologies like WiMAX, Wi-Fi, and 3G and wireline ADSL and cable, Intel in collaboration with local governments is connecting more people in more places than ever before-no matter how remote. Intel is committed to improving education on a global scale. With an ongoing focus on students and teachers, we're making an impact with technology solutions that support the development of 21st Century skills, including digital literacy, problem solving, and critical thinking. As citizens use the Internet, the need to create localized content is the key. Intel-sponsored programs provide localized content and services to connect technologies to villages, suburbs, and cities around the world to deliver access to community information, education, and healthcare. Intel 2010 Core i5 Features
BX80616I5661 Specifications
There are a few surprises lurking in the specifications for the COre i5-661 processor. We'll look at these in more detail in the next section. Closer Look: Intel Core i5-661Intel's new processors mark the company's first foray into 32nm manufacturing. Intel CPU development proceeds on what the company calls a "tick-tock" cycle: the "tick" cycle is where an existing processor architecture is refined, which means "Intel delivers new silicon process technology, dramatically increasing transistor density while enhancing performance and energy efficiency within a smaller, more refined version of our existing microarchitecture." The "tock" cycle, on the other hand, is when "Intel delivers entirely new processor microarchitecture to optimize the value of the increased number of transistors and technology updates now available." Thus, the new 2010 Intel Core Processor Family of which the Core i5-661 BX80616I5661 is a member is part of a "tick" cycle. The cache architecture is standard for Core i5 processors: each core gets 32K of data cache, 32K of instruction cache, and 256K of Level 2 cache. 4M of Level 3 cache is shared between the two cores. These are the same specs as the Core i5-750, with the exception that the latter has twice as much shared cache, with 8M available. Of course, the i5-750 has twice as many cores as well, but the shared Level 3 cache isn't apportioned equally between the cores; depending on the load, one or two cores can use most of the cache. Depending upon the processor load and temperature, the i5-661's clock multiplier can be varied between 9 and 25, resulting in clock speeds ranging from a mere 1.2GHz to the processor's rated speed of 3.33GHz. This feature can result in dramatically reduced power consumption when the computer is idle or performing lightweight tasks. Just sitting at the Windows desktop, the processor speed can drop to as low as 1.2GHz.
Like the previous Core i5 processors, the Core i5-661 implements Intel's "Turbo Boost", an automatic overclocking feature that can raise the frequency of one or both cores to provide better performance when the processor is not fully loaded. If only one core is in use, the multiplier can be raised to 27, resulting in a clock speed of 3.6GHz.
However, when both cores are loaded, the multiplier can only be raised to 26. The level of Turbo Boost used in the Core i5-661 is less aggressive than that used in earlier members of the family such as the Core i5-750. The Intel Core i5-661 is one of the first CPUs Intel has produced with an integrated GPU or "iGPU". This is a separate chip, produced on the older 45nm process, that's bonded to the CPU package. In the image below, the iGPU is the lower chip in the package.
Technically known as the "GMA HD", the Core i5-661's GPU comprises an additional 177 million transistors and is an evolution of previous generations of Intels "Graphic Media Accelerator" GPUs, which remain a common feature of existing Intel motherboard chipsets. Based on previous GMA experiences, Benchmark Reviews doesn't expect much of this chip in the way of gaming performance. You cannot use the 661's integrated GPU in combination with another graphics card to run two monitors: plugging a card into your motherboard's PCI-E x16 slot automatically disables the built-in GPU. But you can run two monitors from the iGPU if your motherboard has multiple monitor connectors. The iGPU can be configured to use 32M, 64M, or 128M of your system memory as a frame buffer. With the original Core i5/i7 CPUs, Intel moved the memory controller and PCI Express lanes off the motherboard chipset and onto the processor, resulting in reduced latencies and improved performance. These functions have been moved to the iGPU on the Core i5-661. Two other new features of the Core i5-661 are the ability to use error-correcting memory (ECC) and several new processor instructions designed to accelerate Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) operations. Testing MethodologyThe Intel Core i5-661 represents a testing challenge: we're not only testing the CPU, but the integrated GPU as well; and the mere fact that the iGPU is enabled can actually affect the CPU benchmark scores. Why? Because if the iGPU is enabled, part of your main memory is used for a frame buffer (you can allocate 32M, 64M, or 128M for the frame buffer), and this must be continually accessed simply to generate the video image, even if no "graphics processing" is occurring. While the iGPU is accessing memory, the CPU must wait, so performance will suffer...at least theoretically. In this review I'll break testing into two parts: CPU and memory tests, and graphics tests. For the CPU and memory tests, I'll be comparing the Core i5-661 against the similarly-priced Core i5-750. I'll run tests both with the iGPU enabled, and with a separate graphics card so that the iGPU (and its influence on test results) is disabled. For the graphics tests, I'll be testing the iGPU (with the maximum 128M buffer) against some low-end graphics cards; the i5-750 will not be involved in these tests. Two physical cores and Hyper Threading vs. four physical cores. 3.33GHz vs. 2.67GHz. Integrated graphics vs. no integrated graphics. Which processor might be best for you? In many cases, it's not an obvious decision. The new Core i5 processors should work on most P55 motherboards (with an updated BIOS), but for these tests I used a new ASUS P7H55D-M EVO motherboard; its Intel H55 chipset will also handle the Core i5-750 processor I'll be using as a comparison, and also provides the iGPU support necessary. The purpose of these tests is to see how far Benchmark Reviews can push the new Intel Core i5-661, so we'll concentrate on "pure" CPU and memory benchmarks and overclocking performance, using Lavalys EVEREST for memory and CPU testing. To compare the integrated GPU with some discrete graphics cards, I'll use MAXON CINEBENCH and the Resident Evil 5 Benchmark Demo. I also ran all tests with the i5-661 overclocked to 4.6GHz. Overclocking this processor was an interesting experience that I'll discuss after the tests. Intel H55 Test System
Benchmark Software
Support Hardware
EVEREST CPU BenchmarksEVEREST Ultimate Edition is an industry leading system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for enthusiasts PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. During system optimizations and tweaking it provides essential system and overclock information, advanced hardware monitoring and diagnostics capabilities to check the effects of the applied settings. CPU, FPU and memory benchmarks are available to measure the actual system performance and compare it to previous states or other systems. Furthermore, complete software, operating system and security information makes EVEREST Ultimate Edition a comprehensive system diagnostics tool that offers a total of 100 pages of information about your PC. All of the CPU benchmarks used in our test bed— Queen, Photoworxx, ZLib, and AES— rely on basic x86 instructions, and consume very low system memory while also being aware of HyperThreading, multi-processors, and multi-core processors. Since these tests large isolate the processor and memory subsystem from the rest of the computer, they're ideal for direct processor-to-processor comparisons. To test the effects of the iGPU on performance, I ran the tests with the iGPU providing video as well as with a separate graphics card, whose use automatically disables the iGPU.
You'll note that although I mentioned four tests, this chart only shows three— the AES test is missing. This is because the Core i5-661 scored more than ten times higher on this test than the Core i5-750, and the resulting scaling made the bars for the other tests illegibly small. The numerical AES scores were:
When Intel said they'd introduced instructions in this processor to accelerate AES functions, they weren't kidding! Any applications that use AES should see an enormous performance boost on this processor. Disabling the iGPU by installing a discrete graphics card provides a very minor performance improvement, ranging from 0 to 4 percent. Despites its clock speed disadvantage, the 2.67GHz Core i5-750 processor beats the 3.33GHz i5-661 in the remaining test with scores ranging from 5 percent better in the Queen test to 84 percent better in the Photoworxx test. Hyper-Threading is cool, but it's not match for actual physical processor cores. The tables turn, however, when the scores for the massively overclocked i5-661 are considered, with the newcomer taking wins in the Queen and Zlib tests. EVEREST Memory BenchmarksEVEREST's memory bandwidth benchmarks simply measure how rapidly data can be read from, written to, and copied to a different location in memory. All scores are in megabytes per second.
Although Intel rates both processors at the same memory bandwidth, EVEREST testing reveals that the Core i5-750 has a substantail advantage here, returning a 58% better score on memory reads, a 67% better score on memory writes, and an 82% better score on memory copy operations when compared to the scores of the Core i5-661 with the iGPU engaged. Switching to a discrete graphics card improves the memory scores of the i5-661 between 2% and 4%, and overclocking to 4.6GHz results in dramatic improvements of between 34% and 39%, but it's still not enough to catch up with the Core i5-750. As I mentioned earlier, the memory controller on the Core i5-661 BX80616I5661 has been moved to the iGPU, but how this might interact with the chip as a whole is unclear. The standard frequency for the iGPU is 900MHz, but adjusting this frequency between 133MHz and 1000MHz made no difference in the memory benchmark scores, which would indicate that the memory controller is clocked seperately. CINEBENCH 11.5 BenchmarksCINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more. The CINEBENCH benchmarks tests both CPU performance (with single- and multi-threaded rendering tests) and Open GL graphics performance with an animated car chase scene. Note that CINEBENCH scores are only valid when compared against scores produced by the same version of CINEBENCH. CINEBENCH CPU TestCINEMARK's CPU test renders a photorealistic, if abstract, scene. The test comes in two versions: one that uses all cores and threads possible, and another that's restricted to a single core. The test results are abstract numbers that are only useful for comparison against other systems in CINEBENCH 11.5 tests. In the multi-threaded test, we can see that four physical cores, even at a significantly lower clock frequency, trumps two physical cores with Hyper-Threading, as the Core i5-750 turns in about 30% better performance than the Core i5-661 BX80616I5661. The single core test with each processor at its stock frequency is a wash, with identical scores for each processor. I'd have expected the Core i5-661 to win here due to its significantly higher clock, but perhaps its slower memory subsystem held it back. Overclocking the 661 to 4.6GHz enables it to eke out a narrow win in the multi-threaded test and almost 50% better performance in the single-core test.
CINEBENCH Rendering TestThis procedure uses a complex 3D scene depicting a car chase which measures the performance of a graphics card in OpenGL mode. The performance depends on various factors, such as the GPU processor, but also on the drivers used. The graphics card has to display a huge amount of geometry (nearly 1 million polygons) and textures, as well as a variety of effects, such as environments, bump maps, transparency, lighting and more to evaluate the performance across different disciplines and give a good average overview of the capabilities of your graphics hardware. The result given is measured in frames per second (fps). For this test, the Core i5-750 wasn't included. I tested i5-661 with its integrated GPU at both stock and overclocked frequencies, as well as with two discrete graphics cards, an NVIDIA 9400GT and an NVIDIA GT240 (GDDR3 version).
Intel's previous GMA integrates graphics solutions don't have a great reputation among gamers, and these results are why. A feeble 1.92 frames per second at the stock clock can be stretched to 2.58 frames per second at the overclocked level, even a 2008-vintage 9400GT budget card, currently available for as little as $42, provides more than twice the performance. A GT240 provides about 8 times the frame rate of the overclocked 661. Resident Evil 5 BenchmarksBuilt upon an advanced version of Capcom's proprietary MT Framework game engine to deliver DirectX 10 graphic detail, Resident Evil 5 offers gamers non-stop action similar to Devil May Cry 4, Lost Planet, and Dead Rising. The MT Framework is an exclusive seventh generation game engine built to be used with games developed for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, and PC ports. MT stands for "Multi-Thread", "Meta Tools" and "Multi-Target". Games using the MT Framework are originally developed on the PC and then ported to the other two console platforms. On the PC version of Resident Evil 5, both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 modes are available for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista Operating Systems. Microsoft Windows 7 will play Resident Evil with backwards compatible Direct3D APIs. Resident Evil 5 is branded with the NVIDIA The Way It's Meant to be Played (TWIMTBP) logo, and receives NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision functionality enhancements. NVIDIA and Capcom offer the Resident Evil 5 benchmark demo as a free download from their website, and Benchmark Reviews encourages visitors to compare their own results to ours. Because the Capcom MT Framework game engine is very well optimized and produces high frame rates, this a good test to run on less powerful graphics cards. For this test I used the DirectX 10 version of this benchmark at a resolution of 1280x1024 with medium quality. Since the Core i5-661 BX80616I5661 iGPU does not support anti-aliasing, it's turned off for the discrete card tests. Test scenes from Area #3 and Area #4 require the most graphics processing power, and the results are collected for the chart illustrated below.
Even with these minimal quality settings, the iGPU, even overclocked, can't provide playable frame rates. The difference between the iGPU and the 9400GT is much narrower here than in the CINEBENCH rendering test: the 9400GT turned in twice the frame rate of the iGPU in that test, but here the difference is much less, just a couple of frames per second. The GT240-GDDR3 card produces solidly playable frame rates at these modest settings. Overclocking the Core i5-661While evaluating this processor, I ran all tests both at the processor's stock clock speed of 3.33GHz, and the highest stable overclock I was able to reach, 4.64GHz. Since the BX80616I5661 is not an Intel "Extreme Edition" processor, the only way to overclock it is to raise the base clock (BCLK) from its stock 133MHz. Starting with the base clock, I raised the frequency in increments and used Prime95 to test the stability of the resulting overclock. When Prime95 started reporting errors (or simply crashed), I backed the clock down or raised the processor voltage. SpeedStep and Turbo Boost were disabled for the overclocking attempts. The iGPU proved to be a problem: Intel states that the iGPU runs at 900MHz, but there seems to be some sort of link between it and the CPU. When I selected "Manual" in the ASUS motherboard's "AI Tweaker" section, a new item labelled "BCLK/iGPU Frequency Sync Mode" appeared, but it's not mentioned in the motherboard manual, its on-screen descriptions in the BIOS are contradictory and truncated (as in "ending in the middle of a sentence"), and its effects are less intuitive than its name suggests. I had my best results leaving it set to "Auto" and adjusting the iGPU frequency separately. Once I raised the BCLK past 170MHz, visual artifacts and flickering would appear on the screen, and the screen would go black, then re-appear with a Windows message that the graphics driver had "stopped working and recovered." I'd guess that increasing the base clock frequency increases the iGPU frequency as well, but Intel's mute on the subject, so this is just a guess. I suspect the iGPU speed is linked to the BCLK via a multiplier of some sort. Reducing the specified iGPU speed to 833MHz, I was able to reach a maximum BCLK of 185 at a rather high 1.4 volts. These are the settings I used for all the tests in the previous sections. Given the unresolved nature of the BCLK/iGPU link, though, we don't actually know what frequency the iGPU was running at.
iGPU mysteries aside, this is a pretty decent overclock: going from 3.33GHz to 4.64GHz is a solid 40% improvement, and this is reflected in the higher scores in the CPU and memory throughput tests. As the 32nm Westmere core (hopefully) spreads to other members of the Core family, we'll see overclocks like this becoming common on higher-end processors. Although the processor was stable under stress testing at these settings, attempting to stress the iGPU simultaneously in the power consumption test resulted in display corruption and crashes until I dropped the specified iGPU frequency from 833MHz to 800Mhz. But although this overclock's impressive, it can't fully compensate for the sluggish memory subsystem, as the stock-clocked Core i5-750, even with a much lower clock speed, maintains a solid lead in memory throughput testing and loses only slightly in some of the CPU testing. And bear in mind that this is the i5-750 at its stock clock speeds. Benchmark Reviews tested the Core i5-750 and found that it's a pretty good overclocker in its own right, with a 3.6GHz overclock. Given the scores I recorded with this processor at its stock 2.67GHz, it's a safe bet that an overclocked i5-750 would easily win any performance test against an overclocked i5-661. Power ConsumptionLife is not as affordable as it used to be, and items such as gasoline, natural gas, and electricity all top the list of resources which have exploded in price over the past few years. The Intel Core i5-661 BX80616I5661 with its integrated video has the highest maximum power consumption of any of the new Clarkdale processors, at 87 watts while the other processors in the family max out at 73 watts; possibly this is due to the higher standard speed of 900MHz on the iGPU; other processors in the Clarkdale lineup run their iGPUs at 700MHz. However, even in the case of the i5-661, its iGPU will likely draw much less power than even the lowest-end graphics card. To measure system power consumption, Benchmark Reviews uses the Kill-A-Watt EZ (model P4460) power meter made by P3 International. A baseline test is taken as the system is allowed to boot into Windows and rest idle at the login screen for three minutes before power consumption is recorded. Once the baseline reading has been taken, Lavalys EVEREST Ultimate Edition is loaded and the System Stability Test is run with 100% stress on the CPU and FPU for five minutes; to simultaneously stress the iGPU, I ran a simultaneous instance of Furmark. The purpose of this test is to show the difference in power consumption between idle and loaded processor states. At the standard clock speed, I ran the tests with the SpeedStep, C1E, and C-State Tech features enabled (for maximum efficiency); they were disabled for the overclocking tests. Note that these numbers represent the power draw of the entire test system, and not just the processor.
As you can see, the Core i5-661's impressive overclocking abilities come with equally impressive increases in power consumption; required power virtually doubled with the overclock, although CPU performance only increased about 30%, so performance per watt dropped significantly. Temperatures rose dramatically, too: with the third-party cooler used in these tests and an ambient temperature of 26 degrees Centigrade, CPU temperature under load was 36 degrees Centigrade with the stock clock, power saving on, and 77 degrees Centigrade overclocked, power saving off. That these temperatures were recorded on an open-air test bed with a large third party cooler means that this overclock would not be possible with the stock Intel cooler in a small HTPC case. Intel Clarkdale Final ThoughtsOutperformed by Intel processors for years, AMD has consolidated its CPU lineup in the $200-and-under range, and has some very compelling products (such as the superb Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition) in its lineup. But it's obvious Intel is not content to let this stand, and the new Westmere processors are their first shot across AMD's bow. The Intel 2010 Core Processor Family pioneers the first use of 32nm lithography in a consumer processor, with its attendant power savings. The Core i5-661 BX80616I5661 is a good example of the genre; the relatively high clock speed of its twin cores means that you'll get decent performance in most situations. When overclocked, it even edges slightly ahead of the true quad-core Core i5-750 in CPU benchmark testing, although the power and heat penalties are so severe that you should think carefully before deciding to run your processor this way. The 1.4 volts necessary to achieve a stable overclock is much higher than the processor's default voltage of 1.08 volts and likely would reduce the life of the processor.
Although Intel touts the GMA HD integrated GPU as being able to "play popular game titles", Benchmark Reviews testing reveals that, as expected, it's anything but a gaming chip, easily outperformed by three-year-old low end budget graphics cards. That said, Windows Aero at 1920x1200 pixels was just as smooth and pretty as it is on my gaming system's twin NVIDIA GTX280 cards in SLI, with no lagging, stuttering, or visible performance detriments of any sort. The GMA HD offers native support for Blu-Ray playback, H.264 video, DVD upscaling, and a host of other features of maximize its use in a home theater system. The more I test products like this, the more I realize that unless you're a gamer, transcode a lot of video, or routinely perform other high-demand computing tasks, a processor like this, even with its wimpy integrated video, provides an overall Windows experience that's indistinguishable from that provided by much more expensive setups. Although the 661 can be overclocked dramatically, doing so really doesn't buy you much except higher benchmark scores. Your "Windows experience" won't be any better, and since the iGPU can easily handle full HD video decoding at its stock speeds, there's nothing to be gained there, either. At its stock clock speeds, it's a cool, quiet processor that offers very good overall performance. With H55 motherboards currently selling for $80~$125 the Intel Core i5-661 would make a fine base for a HTPC. There's just one problem: the price. Integrated graphics aside, you'll get much more performance bang for your buck with the Core i5-750 at approximately the same price (actually the i5-661 is slightly more expensive at retail: as of February 2010 Newegg sells the 661 for $209.99 while the Core i5-750 sells for $194.99). With P55 motherboards available for prices similar to H55 motherboards (at the low end; the high end P55 boards are very expensive), one alternative would be to build an i5-750 based system with a Radeon 5450 video card. You'd wind up spending about $50 more but have significantly better video performance for light gaming. If you like the idea of the integrated video support, you could drop down to a much cheaper Core i3-540 processor, give up Turbo Boost, AES New Instructions, and a slight bit of GMA HD and CPU clock speed, and get very similar performance in most cases. Core i5-661 ConclusionEven at its arguably inflated price, the Core i5-661 represents the sweet spot in the Clarkdale Core i5 lineup. The Core i5-670 adds fractionally more speed (3.46GHz vs 3.33GHz) and Trusted Execution Technology, but drops iGPU speed from 900MHz to 733MHz...and costs a whopping $100 more than the i5-661. The overclocking headroom in the 32nm process allowed the i5-661 to match or exceed the i5-750 in pure CPU tests. Although the initial overclocking was a little tricky, with the iGPU producing visual artifacts and crashing, once the iGPU clock speed was lowered, I achieved a solid 1.3GHz overclock, which is quite impressive even if its real-world utility is marginal. If your desire or need for more performance makes overclocking this processor attractive, you'd probably be better served with the Core i5-750. Although the processor we received was an engineering sample, it was completely reliable and stable even when highly over-volted and overclocked. This speaks well of the construction quality of the processor and the inherent advantages of Intel's new 32nm process. The overall performance of the processor was pretty much what you'd expect from a modern Intel design running at 3.33GHz, with the sole problem being the sluggish memory performance. Intel's decision to move the memory controller to the iGPU is understandable given that it must access the system's memory directly in order to generate its video signal, but doing so apparently has hindered the processor's access to memory— and although you can improve graphics performance by plugging a discrete card into your motherboard, disabling the graphics features of the iGPU won't help memory performance at all. Feature-wise, this processor has almost every technology option Intel offers: Turbo Boost, Hyper-Threading, AES New Instructions, and an integrated GPU. Only business-level features like Trusted Execution Technology and Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O aren't implemented, but these won't be missed by home users. At the time of this writing, Newegg offers the Core i5-661 processor at $209.99. Bear in mind that while it will work in P55 motherboards with a BIOS update, you'll probably want to buy a new H55/H57/Q57 motherboard to use the integrated video, which would be the only reason to prefer this processor over the Core i5-750. Pros:
+ Good performance Cons:
- Overpriced for the level of performance provided Ratings:
Final Score: 8.35 out of 10.Questions? Comments? Benchmark Reviews really wants your feedback. We invite you to leave your remarks in our Discussion Forum.
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