Legit Mobile Reviews

Intel Core i7-2820QM - Sandy Bridge For Notebook PCs

Manufacturer: Intel
Product: Intel Core i7-2820QM CPU w/ Compal Notebook
Date: Mon, Jan 03, 2011 - 12:00 AM
Written By: Nathan Kirsch -
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Turbo Mode w/ CPU-Z & Windows Index Score

CPU-Z 1.56 shows that the Intel Core i7 2820QM Sandy Bridge processor has 256K L2 cache per core and 8MB shared L3 cache. It also shows that the processor has the AES-NI and AVX instruction set.

Intel Core i7 2820QM Sandy Bridge Processor Idle State

The Intel Core i7 2820QM processor has a 23x multiplier with a 100MHz reference clock, but features low power states and turbo mode. This means than the core clock frequency and base clock will raise up and down so much depending on the workload all by itself. Sandy Bridge is said to be the most dynamic processor to date for Intel and this is the key to its low power consumption at idle. The screen shot above shows the Core i7 2820QM at a complete idle state. You can see the multiplier dropped down to 8x and the core speed or overall clock frequency is just 800MHz.

Intel Core i7 2820QM Sandy Bridge Processor Idle State

With the processor under a light workload (1 thread) the multiplier has the ability to jump all the way up to 34x and that is enough for the processor to reach 3.4GHz. We weren't able to get a screen capture of this as every time we ran 1-3 threads at load we got 3.3GHz with a 33x multiplier. This is an amazing frequency to hit for this 45W TDP processor and should be enough horse power for this processor to tear it up in the benchmarks. It also has Hyper Threading, so between Hyper Threading and Turbo Mode it should perform really well.

Intel Core i7 2820QM Sandy Bridge Processor Idle State

With the processor under 4+ thread heavy workload the multiplier jumps up to 31x and that means the processor is running at 3.1GHz.

Windows 7 Index Score

The Windows 7 Experience Index scored the system at a base score of 6.3, with the Intel HD Graphics being the weakest point in the system as shown above. Microsoft Windows 7 is rated on a scale from 1.0 up to 7.9, so this is a very solid score. Intel's integrated graphics now appear to be on par with competitive IGP solutions from NVIDIA and AMD and even some of their lower end entry level video cards!

Next Page - SiSoftware Sandra 2011c


Review Index
Page 1 - Intel Sandy Bridge Comes to Laptops!
Page 2 - Intel HD Graphics 3000 Overview
Page 3 - Test Setup
Page 4 - Turbo Mode w/ CPU-Z & Windows Index Score
Page 5 - SiSoftware Sandra 2011c
Page 6 - wPrime v2.04
Page 7 - x264 HD Encoding
Page 8 - Cyberlink MediaEspresso 6
Page 9 - Cinebench R10
Page 10 - Cinebench R11.5
Page 11 - PCMark Vantage
Page 12 - 3DMark Vantage
Page 13 - Resident Evil 5
Page 14 - H.A.W.X. 2 Benchmark
Page 15 - S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
Page 16 - Blu-ray Video Playback
Page 17 - Power Consumption
Page 18 - Battery Life Benchmark
Page 19 - Final Thoughts and Conclusions