I don't understand the current intel cpu line up! Please help.

[gizmo1990]

I need to upgrade my pc setup and am faced with buying a new motherboard/cpu combo. However since I last upgraded Core 2 duo, quads etc, there seems to be a bewildering array of cpu and board variants! There's i5's and i5 (1155) and low power ones too, Clarkdale, Sandybridge, Lynnfield, it's bonkers!

I'm looking to get a h67 chipset board which is sandybridge and it'll be a b3 so it's been fixed after the big recall intel had to do. The thing is I haven't a clue which cpu to get and why some apparenty similar cpu families don't work with the same motherboard??

Can anyone explain in simple terms what's the difference between the current intel cpu line up or point me in the direction of a website that can?

Any advice much appreciated!

[abigsmurf]

The current best Intel CPU line is the Sandy Bridge Core i's . The sandy bridge CPUs have different model numbers from the older core i's (and are probably in different section in most stores. Non-Sandy Bridge Core i CPUs need a different Chipset to regular core i's and need different motherboards as a result.

The Sandy Bridge CPUs offer a 20% performance boost over the regular Core i equivalents.

Intel didn't issue a recall in the end which really sucks (although it's understandable to some extent, a recall would've cost them billions). The issue is that there's a fault with the SATAII controller that means performance degrades over time.

In real terms this means that any drives (HDD or DVD) that are in any ports other than the two lowest will slow down over time. If you put a HDD and disk drive in the two lowest ports, the bug won't affect you, if you have 3 devices and a buggy motherboard, the third device will slow down over time.

[NW2013]

An easy way to differentiate the Sandy Bridge CPUs from the others is the model number, e.g.:

i7-2600k (Sandy Bridge)
i7-650 (previous gen chip).

With regards to the Sandy Bridge chips the higher number is better although it is confusing as some of the laptop chips have higher numbers than the top desktop chip (the 2600), like the i7-2720QM in the new Mac Book Pros.

There's a table in this article that has more of the differences: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge. Further confusion on the new i5s is that some are dual-core and some quad, at least on the desktop side.

About your question above i5 (1155) will be Sandy Bridge.

[gizmo1990]

Thanks for the replies guys. Ok I understand a little better now.

So Sandybridge cpus require sandybridge mobos. Do sandybridge mobos run older non sandybridge i cpus tho??

[NW2013]

No, they're on a different socket, 1156 or 1366 for the previous generation i-series chips and Core 2's were on LGA775.