Intel’s Sandy Bridge processor architecture has had a first real test by AnandTech. Their tests show Intel living up to claims of much faster integrated graphics. A quad-core 3.1GHz Core i5 2400 successfully outran AMD’s Radeon HD 5450 dedicated video card in a series of AnandTech gaming benchmarks. The is huge achievement for Intel, whose current video is notorious for trailing well behind not just dedicated video but often AMD and NVIDIA integrated video as well.
The mid-range i5 2400 was also much faster than its existing equivalents- 15 to 20 percent faster than an existing 2.8GHz Core i5 and in many tests comes second only to the six-core i7 980X, which not only has the extra parallel processing but a higher 3.33GHz clock speed.
Intel is due to push out the first Sandy Bridge-based desktop processors towards the end of the year and will focus mostly on the middle and upper-middle range. Notebook equivalents aren’t due until early 2011 as they’re waiting on Intel’s Huron River platform.
