Sandy Bridge Performance Review- Relatively Affordable, Absolutely Fast (For Now, at Least)

By Bhisma Sidarto and Gatot Tri Yuwono

This article is meant as the continuation from our previous article, “The Sandy Bridge Review– Architecture, Technology, and Features”. It might be a good idea to read that article to learn about the differences between Sandy Bridge CPUs and their predecessors. The discussions in this article mainly revolve around the performance of these brand new processors from Intel in their standard (non-overclocked) conditions. As for the processors themselves, we received three different samples: the Intel Core i5 2500, Intel Core i5 2500K, and Intel Core i7 2600K. How would they stack up against the competition? Let’s start by taking a look at their technical specifications!

Specification

CPU-Z Screenshot

Photo Gallery

These are the four Sandy Bridge samples, one of them is a retail-version Core i7 2600K.

Intel DP67BG (Burrage) motherboard based on the Intel P67 chipset.

Intel DH67BL (Bearup Lake) motherboard based on the Intel H67 chipset.

Installed on the motherboard and cooled by a tower heatsink from Intel, the Sandy Bridges are ready for some benchmarking actions.