Crysis

We ran the built-in CPU benchmark at 800x600 with all graphics settings turned to "low". Crysis claims to be multithreaded but in reality we only see one - two threads with CPU utilization maxing out around 13% when HyperThreading is enabled. Nonetheless, the Nehalems put up a show with no parallel.

First Encounter Assault Recon (F.E.A.R.)

F.E.A.R. is not quite the latest game but it still passes for overall CPU performance measurements. F.E.A.R. is uses essentially a single thread but it uses this thread very efficiently.

The only word to describe the Nehalem performance here is ridiculous .. as in ridiculously fast or ridiculously superior. Memory vs System Performance

Memory Frequency vs. System Performance

We replicated most benchmarks running the memory bus at 1066 or 1333 MHz and, quite honestly, there was not much if any performance difference. At least, statistically, we would be hard pressed to see a difference between 337 fps at 1066 MHz (FEAR) and 337 fps at 1333 MHz memory data rate. The overall memory bandwidth to the CPU is more than twice that of the Merom architecture, and even those CPUs are blazing fast and don’t exhibit serious symptoms of memory starvation. Therefore it is not overly surprising to see little incentive to increase the memory bandwidth over the nominal 1066 MHz. With more time, though, we may come across the one or the other application that proves this statement wrong.

Final Thoughts

It is more than just one thought that comes to mind here. First and foremost, congratulations Intel, the Nehalem is a milestone in performance and CPU ingenuity. Second, how in the world did they pull it off to come out with this monster in performance. In which case performance is such that it was increasingly difficult to even measure it, given the described limitations and bottlenecks in I/O performance that ultimately appeared to handicap the processor.

With respect to energy efficiency and power consumption, the Nehalem is in a league of its own as well, quite frankly, we have never seen anything like it and the low power does complement the low voltage restrictions on the memory subsystem along with the frequency cap at 1066 MHz to run DDR3 at the most power-efficient settings as well. the Nehalem is tricky to evaluate. That is, instead of being powered through the 12V auxiliary power rail exclusively like essentially all current microprocessors, a large portion of its power is derived from the 5V and 3.3V rails, which are the sole power sources for the entire Uncore - at least in the reference Intel design. Instead of going into gory detail here, we recommend checking out our dedicated article on this subject in which we have dissected pretty much all buzzwords and "non-standards" to explain how for example a 200 W peak power consumption can be massaged into a 130W TDP.

One huge issue, of course, is the pricing of the i7-920. At US$ 284.- it is going to be hard to pass up on the Baby-Nehalem , even if it requires additional investments in form of the rest of the system infrastructure. Those additional costs are probably the only reason to go with a less expensive solution but the days of the high end Yorkfield CPUs are certainly counted. At the low end, and with the necessary price breaks, there are other possibilities that can be considered, especially if there is still limited availability at launch date sometime late November.

In a nutshell, the Nehalem is a masterpiece and it will be extremely difficult for any other CPU regardless of which brand to measure up to it.