Intel Lynnfield Core i5-750 & Core i7-870 Processor Review

System Benchmarks: Photoshop CS4 / Lame Front End

Photoshop CS4

For the image editing portion of this review, we will use Photoshop CS4 in coordination with Driver Heaven’s Photoshop Benchmark V3, which is an excellent test of CPU power and memory bandwidth. This is a scripted benchmark that individually applies 15 different filters to a 109MB JPEG, and uses Photoshop’s built-in timing feature to provide a result at each test stage. Then it’s simply a matter of adding up the 15 results to reach the final figure.


Continuing a trend, the i7-870 trails only the i7-975, while the i5-750 further establishes its dominance over the i7-920. We suspect that the i7-860 would likely rival the i7-950, maybe being a tiny bit slower. Either way, at $284 it will provide undeniable Bang for the Buck compared to the $560+ Bloomfield chip.



Lame Front End

Lame Front End v1.0 is a single-threaded application, which means that it only utilizes a single processor core. This will obviously limit performance but it will allow us to see the benefits of Lynnfield aggressive Turbo Boost with single-threaded loads. We will be encoding a WAV rip of Santana’s Supernatural album and converting it to MP3 using the highest fidelity VBR 0 quality preset.


As a single-threaded app, LFE allows the i7-870 to flex its Turbo Boost might, beating the equally clocked i7-975. The i5-750 falls inline right behind i7-950, is 1 second faster worth the $360+ premium? Certainly not.