i7 notebooks, anyone got them?

[kensuguro]

curious how much of a boost you'd get. The architecture is definitely faster, but it's the usual question... how does it perform in practice?

[darkrezin]

Never used them but a quad-core i7 should be at least 2x faster than my Core2Quad (Q6600), which IMHO is very fast indeed. Are i7-based notebooks now available?

[siriusbliss]

not yet. Have one on my shopping list to run Xite-1.
Probably will get one in a couple months.

Greg

[valis]

"real" i7's (nehelem core, socket 1366) are actually available in 'top tier' notebooks but forget that unless you want a 17" luggable 'desktop replacement' that will cook eggs and suck the wall-wart PSU's dry.

"True" mobile i7 is starting with Clarksfield, I posted this review/preview a month or so ago in the Lynnfield/socket 1156 thread in the tech section (since Clarksfield essentially *is* Lynnfield with a different packaging for mobile format) but there's been a lot of coverage since. It's certainly not double the performance of Core2 Duo (dual core) cpu's clock for clock, but offers enough performance increase across the board to look interesting.

[kensuguro]

ah, just the info I was trying to get to. I was wondering why the difference between top tier 17" models, and the recently released smaller i7 notebooks. I guess I need to take a closer look.

[siriusbliss]

ADK has 'em.
http://www.adkproaudio.com/

Eurocom has 'em.
http://www.eurocom.com/

Alienware and others are starting to carry them.

Yes, the so-called 'workstation' laptops tend to be hungry and heavy...and can get pricey.

Greg

[valis]

The top Tier i7's (like the one offered by ADK) will still be the best performing. The i920 (socket 1366 'Nehelem' i7) seems to define the LOWER end on ADK's 17" i7 notebook (they offer 2 chips *above* the 920 as well for even more performance). The drawback of course I mentioned above, heat & battery life.

On the desktop the newer "Lynnfield" i870 can give the i920 a serious run for its money in benchmarks, but the
i870 is only technically still branded i7 as it is based the newer Lynnfield core & socket 1156 (and uses the same chipset as the 'lesser' i5's.) It's worth noting (as ADK shows above) that i920 isn't the ceiling for the 'big' Nehelem based i7's (socket 1366) as there are speed tiers above it, whereas i860 & i870 form the ceiling for Lynnfield.

Clarksfield is Lynnfield tuned for mobile performance (even more extreme speedstepping) and performance overall is tuned for battery savings so my guess is that overall the 920 would certainly perform better than one of the newer Clarksfield chips. But honestly I haven't seen many Clarksfield laptops from audio-specific makers yet (ADK, Rain etc), only from the larger OEM's (Dell, HP etc.) HP's 15" Envy certainly uses the newer Clarksfield chips, and has the 'Beats Limited Edition' which debuted with a bit of fanfare on some audio forums as it is supposedly an 'limited edition designed for audio professionals' or some such.

I was HOPING that Apple would use Clarksfield as well in their new laptops as performance compared to their 18 month old (spring 2008 models) isn't changed that much and they've *removed* some functionality that makes me almost prefer a used 2008 model to the new ones. But they just gave their MBP's a minor tuneup for fall and are still pushing mobile Core2 so scratch that one for now.

Overall I'd say that Intel seems to be holding back the mobile performance sector due to the fact that AMD still doesn't have much to compete in this area (in terms of mobile cpu's.) Why move Clarksfield in volume when you can still push Core2 parts and reap profits from tooling & R&D that has been paid for? It was initially planned for a Spring launch, but since certain other foundries are rumored to be having issues scaling to 40nm & below atm and AMD has only JUST announced their next-gen architecture, the Intel market is moving slowly. Intel also recently moved to a 2 year process shrink cycle, breaking the 18 month cycle that has been in place for so long, imo this is supporting evidence for how well they believe they're doing on their process tech compared to the competition (plus they might be trying to let AMD close the gap during any potential antitrust litigation that seems to be coming.)

If given the choice between Core2 mobile & Clarksfield, I would choose the latter once it's available but given the choice NOW between Core2 mobile & i7 desktop chips in a 17" laptop, I would actually opt for the latter myself if I had the wallet for it. I just don't recommend it first to others since most people don't fit my usage patterns & needs...and most would find it uncomfortably short on 'mobile' use (untethered by cords.)

[pollux]

I bought recently a Hewlett Packard Pavilion dv8-1090, with a Core i7 720QM 1.6GHz.
AFAIK this is a Clarksfield chip.

I don't use this notebook for audio (yet .. soon ) , but it performs very well for graphical applications (photoshop, blender and alikes).

Runs faster than my "old" desktop QX6800 (but the VelociRaptors inside compensate it very well)

[valis]

Yep that's a Clarksfield.

[siriusbliss]

...

Overall I'd say that Intel seems to be holding back the mobile performance sector due to the fact that AMD still doesn't have much to compete in this area (in terms of mobile cpu's.) Why move Clarksfield in volume when you can still push Core2 parts and reap profits from tooling & R&D that has been paid for? It was initially planned for a Spring launch, but since certain other foundries are rumored to be having issues scaling to 40nm & below atm and AMD has only JUST announced their next-gen architecture, the Intel market is moving slowly. Intel also recently moved to a 2 year process shrink cycle, breaking the 18 month cycle that has been in place for so long, imo this is supporting evidence for how well they believe they're doing on their process tech compared to the competition (plus they might be trying to let AMD close the gap during any potential antitrust litigation that seems to be coming.)

Intel has slowed down development cycles also due to economic climate, and yes, to continue to rebundle and repackage existing inventory.
They're also consolidating foundries, and getting ready for new rampups come first quarter next year.
Plus, 40nm is gnarly stuff, so they could use all the time they can get.

My bet is on Apple's next cycle kicking in next year as well, with new MBP's in a year. (They're also somewhat covertly setting up an in-house wireless chip team, so they're up to something)

A year from now the game will be on again.

FWIW Xilinx and Analog Devices are on similar trend.

Greg

[valis]

Well it isn't *just* economic climate. 32nm should have been here already based on previous roadmaps (before the revising) and lynnfield didn't come out late because they were having problems with their current 45nm process. Based on manufacturing costs an i5/i7 Lynnfield chip costs about 20 cents...the rest goes to Intel's R&D, QA, sales, marketing and Bottom Line (which is obviously plenty healthy imo.) They might not be able to innovate in other areas (wireless etc) but they've got things mapped out until 2018...

Btw the foundry having issues with 40nm is TSMC. Although they keep denying it AMD/ATI and Nvidia are all being held up, and AMD's recent losses and trimming of the fat have left them in a very uncompetitive position outside of their core focuses (server cores that can be slimmed down to fit the lower tier desktops, and GPU's.) Thankfully AMD did recently announce their 2011 roadmap so it looks like they're on the way to getting back in the game, but a competitive mobile part isn't coming next year and they seem to be focusing more on the Atom/netbook market than performance mobile (17" notebook) sector unfortunately (which means Intel can still move at their own pace there.)

Ah well, the good news I suppose is that there's little reason to get anything past a 2008 Macbook Pro since the newer models dropped the Expresscard slot and don't offer enough additional performance to warrant the price premium. I need to sell some vinyl and upgrade soon...

[siriusbliss]

yup, I've heard about TSMC's 'situation'.

Anyways, gotta have that express-slot to run Xite

Greg