Intel’s Sandy Bridge i7-2820QM: Upheaval in the Mobile Landscape
by Jarred Walton on January 3, 2011 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Intel
- Sandy Bridge
- Compal
Intel’s Sandy Bridge: Upheaval in the Mobile Landscape
You’re probably sick of me talking about Sandy Bridge in our notebook reviews, particularly since up to now I’ve been unable to provide any numbers for actual performance. Today, Intel takes the wraps off of Mobile Sandy Bridge and I can finally talk specifics. Notebooks have always been substantially slower than desktops, and prices for a set level of performance have been higher; that’s not going to change with the SNB launch, but the gap just got a lot narrower for a lot of users. The key ingredients consist of higher core clocks with substantially higher Turbo modes, an integrated graphics chip that more than doubles the previous generation (also with aggressive Turbo modes), and some additional architectural sauce to liven things up.
If you haven’t already done so, you’ll probably want to begin by reading Anand’s Sandy Bridge Architectural Overview, as well as our Desktop Sandy Bridge coverage. I’m not going to retread ground that he’s already covered, so the focus for this article is going to be solidly on the mobility aspects of Sandy Bridge. With notebooks now outselling desktops by almost two to one, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that a greater emphasis is being placed on the new mobile offerings. For starters, most of the mobile SNB chips are getting the full 12EU graphics core, rather than a trimmed down 6EU variant. Toss in all of the improved power management features and what we end up with is a fast-when-needed, power-friendly, and efficient chip. We’ll get to the benchmarks in a moment, but let’s start with a recap of the mobile Sandy Bridge lineup.
| Intel Mobile Sandy Bridge (Retail) | ||||||
| Model | i7-2920XM | i7-2820QM | i7-2720QM | i7-2620M | i5-2540M | i5-2520M |
| Cores/Threads | 4/8 | 4/8 | 4/8 | 2/4 | 2/4 | 2/4 |
| Base Frequency | 2.5GHz | 2.3GHz | 2.2GHz | 2.7GHz | 2.6GHz | 2.5GHz |
| Max SC Turbo | 3.5GHz | 3.4GHz | 3.3GHz | 3.4GHz | 3.3GHz | 3.2GHz |
| Max DC Turbo | 3.4GHz | 3.3GHz | 3.2GHz | 3.2GHz | 3.1GHz | 3.0GHz |
| Max QC Turbo | 3.2GHz | 3.1GHz | 3.0GHz | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Memory Speed | DDR3-1600 | DDR3-1600 | DDR3-1600 | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1333 |
| L3 Cache | 8MB | 8MB | 6MB | 4MB | 3MB | 3MB |
| Graphics Cores | 12EUs | 12EUs | 12EUs | 12EUs | 12EUs | 12EUs |
| Base GFX Freq. | 650MHz | 650MHz | 650MHz | 650MHz | 650MHz | 650MHz |
| Max GFX Freq. | 1300MHz | 1300MHz | 1300MHz | 1300MHz | 1300MHz | 1300MHz |
| Hyper-Threading | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TDP | 55W | 45W | 45W | 35W | 35W | 35W |
| Package | rPGA/BGA | rPGA/BGA-1244 | rPGA/BGA-1244 | rPGA/BGA | rPGA/BGA | rPGA/BGA |
| Estimated Price | $1096 | $568 | $378 | $346 | $266 | $225 |
Up first, we have the retail SKUs for the quad-core and dual-core parts. Worth noting is that availability of the quad-core processors should start this week, but the dual-core and LV/ULV parts won’t show up for a few more weeks. The quad-core parts will also use a different BGA package than the dual-core parts. The above will be the most readily available Sandy Bridge parts, as well as the fastest offerings, but there are additional OEM and LV/ULV products as well.
| Intel Mobile Sandy Bridge (OEM) | ||||
| Model | i7-2635QM | i7-2630QM | i5-2410M | i3-2310M |
| Cores/Threads | 4/8 | 4/8 | 2/4 | 2/4 |
| Base Frequency | 2.0GHz | 2.0GHz | 2.3GHz | 2.1GHz |
| Max SC Turbo | 2.9GHz | 2.9GHz | 2.9GHz | N/A |
| Max DC Turbo | 2.8GHz | 2.8GHz | 2.6GHz | N/A |
| Max QC Turbo | 2.6GHz | 2.6GHz | N/A | N/A |
| Memory Speed | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1333 |
| L3 Cache | 6MB | 6MB | 3MB | 3MB |
| Graphics Cores | 12EUs | 12EUs | 12EUs | 12EUs |
| Base GFX Freq. | 650MHz | 650MHz | 650MHz | 650MHz |
| Max GFX Freq. | 1200MHz | 1100MHz | 1200MHz | 1100MHz |
| Hyper-Threading | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TDP | 45W | 45W | 35W | 35W |
| Package | BGA | rPGA | rPGA/BGA | rPGA/BGA |
We might get some of the above in OEM systems sent for review, and if so it will be interesting to see how much of an impact the trimmed clock speeds have on overall performance. The only mobile chip without support for Turbo Boost is the i3-2310M, so it will be interesting to see how that compares with current-generation i3 processors. Sandy Bridge should still be faster clock-for-clock than Arrandale/Clarksfield, and pricing on OEM parts might get these down into some very affordable notebooks and laptops. We’ll have to wait and see.
| Intel Mobile Sandy Bridge (LV/ULV) | |||||
| Model | i7-2649M | i7-2629M | i7-2657M | i7-2617M | i5-2537M |
| Cores/Threads | 2/4 | 2/4 | 2/4 | 2/4 | 2/4 |
| Base Frequency | 2.3GHz | 2.1GHz | 1.6GHz | 1.5GHz | 1.4GHz |
| Max SC Turbo | 3.2GHz | 3.0GHz | 2.7GHz | 2.6GHz | 2.3GHz |
| Max DC Turbo | 2.9GHz | 2.7GHz | 2.4GHz | 2.3GHz | 2.0GHz |
| Memory Speed | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1333 | DDR3-1333 |
| L3 Cache | 4MB | 4MB | 4MB | 4MB | 3MB |
| Graphics Cores | 12EUs | 12EUs | 12EUs | 12EUs | 12EUs |
| Base GFX Freq. | 500MHz | 500MHz | 350MHz | 350MHz | 350MHz |
| Max GFX Freq. | 1100MHz | 1100MHz | 1000MHz | 950MHz | 900MHz |
| Hyper-Threading | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TDP | 25W | 25W | 17W | 17W | 17W |
| Package | BGA-1023 | BGA-1023 | BGA-1023 | BGA-1023 | BGA-1023 |
| Estimated Price | $346 | $311 | $317 | $289 | $250 |
What’s interesting to note about the ULV parts is that even the slowest i5-2537M (yeah, those code names are going to be easy to remember!) comes clocked higher than the outgoing i7-640UM, with more aggressive Turbo modes and a 1W lower TDP. Perhaps we’ll see an M11x R3 with 400M (or 500M?) graphics and one of these ULV chips?
But enough about other products; let’s take a look at the preview system we received and see how this thing stacks up to the current generation notebooks. As this isn’t final hardware, we won’t be focusing all that much on the laptop design and features but will instead concentrate on performance. So, come meet our mobile Sandy Bridge test notebook.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
66 Comments
View All Comments
seamusmc - Friday, January 7, 2011 - link
I'm a notebook noob, up till now I've avoided them as much as I could. I have evaluated them over the years and have a pretty good dell precision 4500 at work, however, I had to build a desktop because the laptop, as provided, just doesn't cut it. With a SSD and 8 GB of ram it would probably suffice but I run a lot of Virtual Machines for testing.Anyhoo, enough of my background: I am very interested in the Sandy Bridge line specifically the retail chips, 2720 and 2820.
However all I'm seeing announced from the OEM's are 2630 based solutions. Are the OEM's going to have an option to upgrade to the retail chips? Are the 2720 and 2820 going to be available any time soon or is it just the 2630 that will have broad availability?
Who will have the retail chips available?
GullLars - Saturday, January 8, 2011 - link
This review unit came with an Intel SSD, which probably made a huge impact on general usage, but can we expect SSD boot drives for most Sandy Bridge laptops?If i were Intel, i'd make a branding program where Sandy + Intel SSD (310, G2, or newer) gave a fancy sticker for marketers to drool over, guaranteeing smooth and snappy operation without hiccups from spinning platter IOs.
IntoGraphics - Monday, January 17, 2011 - link
"We might get some of the above in OEM systems sent for review, and if so it will be interesting to see how much of an impact the trimmed clock speeds have on overall performance."Looking forward for this to happen. Very important to know for me. Because I will be using Adobe Illustrator CS4, Cinema 4D R12 Prime, and Unity 3D.
I hope that the performance impact between an i7-2720QM and a i7-2820QM, is as minimal as it was between the i7-740QM and i7-840QM.
It's going to be a toss up between the SB Dell XPS 17 and the SB HP Envy 17 for me, combined with a Dell or HP 30" monitor. Just too bad that both notebooks will not offer 1920x1200 resolution.
psiboy - Wednesday, January 19, 2011 - link
Your gaming benchmark is a joke! Anyone who has a radeon 5650m in there laptop isn't going to set game setting to "Ultra Low" a good mid range setting would have been more realistic and probably playable... but the Intel HD graphics on Sandy Bridge would not have looked so good then.... "Lies, damned lies and statistics!" all manipulated so the uneducated are taken in to think they can game on Intel IGP's....BTW: Dirt 2 looks like crap on Ultra Low...
katleo123 - Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - link
It works on new motherboards based on Intel’s forthcoming 6-series chipsetsVisit http://www.techreign.com/2010/12/intels-sandy-brid...
welcomesorrow - Friday, June 10, 2011 - link
Hi,I would mostly appreciate your suggestions regarding the bottleneck of overclocked QSV.
I have Core i5-2400s on Intel's DH67BL (H67) mother and have been using Media Espresso 6.5 to transcode ts files (MPEG-2) into H.264 by QSV. DH67BL allows me to overclock the graphics core from its default 1.1GHz to 2GHz. I observe linear shortening of transcoding time from 43 seconds/GB (1.1GHz) to 35 seconds/GB (1.6GHz), but beyond that there is no further improvement. Thus, it is expected to be transcoding in 30 seconds/GB at 2GHz but in reality it takes 35 seconds/GB.
QSV encoding in Media Espresso 6.5 is already ultrafast, and first I thought it might be hitting the I/O bandwidth of HDD, but it was not the case because SSD or even RAMDISK did not improve the situation.
Any idea about what is becoming the bottleneck of overclocked QSV? My guess is that it has something to do with either Sandy Bridge's internal hardware (such as data transfer) or Media Espresso's logic or both.