Intel Westmere 32nm Launch & Clarkdale Core i5-661 CPU Review

Conclusion

After hearing AMD talk for years about the Fusion CPU + GPU concept being the future of computing, it's a bit surprising that Intel is the first one out of the gate with a product to market. However, we will take it any way we can get it.

Mind you, it was easy to be cynical about Clarkdale before even getting our hands on it, since a dual-core/four-thread processor design had never been attempted before and Intel is not exactly known for their top-notch IGPs. However, what we have here is a superbly executed product. Yes, the IGP is not particularly better than the contemporary low end stand alone solutions from AMD or NVIDIA, but it does work very well. It is more than capable for casual gaming purposes, and it has excellent high definition video decoding and ouput capabilities. What's more, Intel have promised to unveil some GPGPU capabilities for this IGP, which should greatly speed up video transcoding as well.

CPU wise, Intel have a real gem on their hands. Throughout our benchmarking session, we had to remind ourselves that this was not in fact a quad-core processor, but a mere four-thread capable dual-core chip. The high core clocks speed, Turbo Boost, and Hyper-Threading really combine to create a processor that performs exceedingly well across the board. Only in the most multi-threaded workloads did our Core i5-661 begin to stumble against the native quad-core chips.

Since we like the performance that we saw, the solid multimedia capabilities of the GMA HD Graphics IGP, and the very impressive energy efficiency of the platform, we wouldn't hesitate to recommend Clarkdale for a business computer, a Home Theater PC (HTPC), or even a casual gaming system. However, we aren't too fond of the price points for the i5-600 series models, especially since the i5-660 and i5-661 overlap with the i5-750, an overall faster quad-core chip. Therefore, it's the i3-500 series models that get our most vigorous recommendation. The omission of Turbo Boost and a slightly slower IGP are not elements that will compromise overall performance in the workloads that this type of system is likely to see. Likewise, casual overclockers would be well advised to look at the i3-500 series as well, particularly the i3-540 with its 23X multiplier. Our overclocking endeavours might not have started off great, but Intel's 32nm process has opened up a lot of overclocking potential.

What will be particularly interesting to see is how well motherboard manufacturers embrace Intel's new pricing philosophy and filter it down to their products. If pricing is too high (trust us, some of the boards we have seen carry scary-high prices for this market segment), many customers will write off the platform as a whole and just go with an entry-level P55 or AMD solution with a lower end dedicated GPU. However, when taken at face value, the H57, H55 and Q57 series have a ton of potential and can elevate the platform in many ways. We have a number of products from the various manufacturers in our labs and so far, things are looking good from almost every angle. Customers now have a clear upgrade path with LGA 1156 processors where they can buy an i3 now and bring things to the next level sometime in the future without having to make the jump to the high-end 1366 platform.

With Clarkdale, Intel have given us a glimpse at what the future of processor design will be like. i5-600 series aside, these are well priced products and they compete very well with anything the competition has to offer. Now we can't wait to see what AMD can do with their Fusion design....whenever it is released.