Intel Entry Pentuim G620/G850 Builds Sandy Bridge ITX Platform

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Jan 2011, Intel launched new structure LGA 1155 socket Sandy Bridge platform.
In the first stage, Intel focus on mid to high Core i5 and Core i7.
The chipset is P67 and H67 which are also positioning at mid end.
For the entry product, Intel launched H61 and Core i3 in March.

In the market, Core i3 2100 or 2120 price is still high for entry CPU segment.
For the users, lower than 100USD Sandy Bridge CPU is more suitable for office or worksheet users.
LGA 1156 has Pentium G6950 which is cheaper and enough performance.
However, in Taiwan, G6950 is the only model for 1156 platform.
Sandy Bridge launched 3 Pentium CPU, G620/G840/G850, in May.
It’s better structure and richer options for Intel platform CPU.

First of all, let’s check Intel Pentium Processor G620, the clock is 2.6GHz.
Physical 2 Cores don’t support Hyper-Threading. It can support 2 threads which called 2C/2T.
32nm and Max TDP is 65W. L3 Cache is 3MB. It’s most entry 2 Cores CPU in LGA 1155.

Lower-Left is G620 back.
Upper-Right is bottom of original cooler for 2 Cores CPU. Intel uses non0-sooper design.

Another more high end G series, Intel Pentium Processor G850, clock is 2.9GHz.
The other specs are same as G620.
The main difference of G850 and i3 -2100 are Hyper-Threading and Intel GPU version.
For advanced technology, i3 can support more. You can find the detail in official spec documents.

G850 back is same as G620.
Besides the clock, G850 DDR3 also support to 1333.
It owns Embedded Options Available. These are key difference between G620 and G850.

MB is H67 chipset, GIGABYTE H67N-USB3-B3. The price is not high as ITX and H67.
Also the components and features are good quality. C/P is acceptable.

CPU is 4+1 phases PWM. 2 DIMM DDR3 support max 16GB.
It built-in 2 SATA3 and 1 PCI-E X16 which is quite good spec for ITX

IO
1 X S/PDIF fiber and coaxial output
1 X D-SUB/2 X HDMI
4 X USB 2.0(Black)
2 X USB 3.0(Vlue)
1 X RJ-45 LAN
1 X eSATA(Yellow)

USB 3.0 chip uses NEC D720200AF1, made in Japan.
If GIGABYTE can add Bluetooth and mSATA wireless slot will be more practical for HTPC.

AMD normally has more advantage in ITX MB. Some brands have many product lines but not easy to find in Taiwan.
Since Intel IGP performance is much improved, H55 and H67/H61 all have many ITX MB.
The price is cheaper than AMD ITX MB. Users can have more options within budget.

H67N-USB3-B3 price is higher than entry H61 boards. Normally, USB 3.0 H61/H67 is around 10~15 USD higher.
If you don’t need RAID or higher spec, you can choose H61 to have better C/P.

 

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Boot Screen with some feature logos.

BIOS Main Page

MB Intelligent Tweaker, called M.I.T.

Clock Setup Page
CPUFSB/Ratio, DDR3 Clock, Integrated Graphics clock…

CPU Related Items
You can adjust CPU cores and C1E is power saving feature.

DDR3 Clock Setup

Advanced DDR3 Parameters Setup

Voltage Page
CPU Vcore 0.750~1.795V
QPI/Vtt Voltage 0.900~1.500V
Graphics Core 0.850~+1.705V
PCH Core 0.900~1.500V
DRAM 1.100~2.400V

PC Health Status

H67 is setting as IGP chipset, so it cannot OC as 2500K/2600K.
GIGABYE H67N-USB3-B3 BIOS provides rich features for end users to adjust.
For non-K i3, i5 or Pentium CPU, you can fine tune system by CPU voltage, DRAM parameters and GPU clock OC.

Test Configuration
CPU: Intel Pentium Processor G620/G850
MB: GIGABYTE H67N-USB3-B3
DRAM: CORSAIR CMX8GX3M2A1600C9
VGA: Integrated Graphics
HD: CORSAIR CSSD-F40GB2 Raid0
POWER: Thermaltake TR2 450W
Cooler: Intel Cooler
OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit

 

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Performance Test
G620
CPU 99.8 X 26 => 2594.1MHz
DDR3 1064.2 CL5 6-5-18 1T
GPU 1100 OC 1350MHz

G850
CPU 99.8 X 29 => 2893.4MHz
DDR3 1330.4 CL6 7-6-18 1T
GPU 1100 OC 1433MHz

Below is using same benchmark software. The first is G620 and second is G850.
Hyper PI 32M X 2 => 13m 31.794s
CPUMARK 99 => 400

Hyper PI 32M X 2 => 12m 07.461s
CPUMARK 99 => 446

CPUMARK is simple benchmark for testing CPU single core performance.
Hyper PI can test system stability and multi-core software. Currently, Intel structure is faster.
G620/G850 clock difference is 300MHz, so the performance is 10% gap.

Nuclearus Multi Core => 9059
Fritz Chess Benchmark => 8.08/3876

Nuclearus Multi Core => 10055
Fritz Chess Benchmark => 9.01/4324

You can see the performance under Fritz Chess Benchmark is around 10%.

CrystalMark 2004R3 => 148458

CrystalMark 2004R3 => 162889

CINEBENCH R11.5
CPU => 2.01 pts
CPU(Single Core) => 1.04 pts

CINEBENCH R11.5
CPU => 2.25 pts
CPU(Single Core) => 1.15 pts

PCMark Vantage => 8598

PCMark Vantage => 10325

It’s the H67 platform and I use CORSAIR F40 SSD to set RAID0. You can see the advantage.
Comparing to last generation Intel Pentium Dual Core G6950, both are 32nm, G series performance is improved.
Even though CPU performance is not big improved, there are many parity price H61/H67 MB in the market.
For new generation office PC, C/P is better. Also, Sandy Bridge has more features.

 

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Windows Experience Index - CPU 6.4

Windows Experience Index - CPU 6.7

Windows Experience Index is simple and fast benchmark software. User can understand system performance easily.
G620 and G850 are both 2 Cores CPU, but get good score. I hope this software can revise to be more detail test.
As my experience, i3 3.3GHz is 7.1分, i5 2.8GHz s 7.4, i5 3.3GHz is 7.7 and i5 4.8GHz is 7.7
I think the full score should be 7.9. If the hardware performance is good enough the index over 7 is difficult to make a distinction.

DDR3 Test
G620 DDR3 1064.2 CL5 6-5-18 1T
ADIA64 Memory Read - 13035 MB/s
Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 13849 MB/s
MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 14196 MB/s

G850 DDR3 1330.4 CL6 7-6-18 1T
ADIA64 Memory Read - 15553 MB/s
Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 17250 MB/s
MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 16723 MB/s

LGA 1156 CPU, built-in GPU, causes low DDR3 performance.
LGA 1155 Sandy Bridge platform has corrected this issue. The bandwidth is higher 10~20% than previous platform.
BIOS setup is AUTO. G620 is DDR3 1066 and G850 is DDR3 1333, which are the official spec.
Actually, if you use high end chipset, the DDR3 clock can be even higher.

G620 DDR3 1872.2 CL9 9-8-24 1T
ADIA64 Memory Read - 16638 MB/s
Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 21978 MB/s
MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 16605 MB/s

P67/Z68 OC series chipset, if your DDR3 quality is good enough, you can set as 1866 or 2133.
Due to G series is entry model for higher C/P or office PC, most users won’t consider to use P67/Z68.
I just would like to show entry CPU has higher DDR3 performance, so changing to Z68 here to share G620 high DDR3 bandwidth.

Temperature
G620 Enter to Desktop - 31~32(Air condition 27℃)

G850 Enter to Desktop - 42(Room temperature 33℃)

G620 Full Speed - 49~52(Air condition 27℃)
Intel Burn Test v2.4，Stress Level Maximum

G850 Full Speed - 53~56(Room temperature 33℃)
Intel Burn Test v2.4，Stress Level Maximum

As these 2 CPUs clock are similar, so I make different environment to share the temperature test.
In hot summer, the highest temperature in open case is 56 and G850 in chassis is around 60.
If you change to air conditioning room, G850 full speed is 50~52 which is higher 2~3 than G620.
The temperature is key advantage for 32nm CPU.

Power Consumption
G620 Enter to Desktop - 30W

 

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G850 Enter to Desktop - 30W

G620 OCCT POWER SUPPLY Mode - 64W

G850 OCCT POWER SUPPLY Mode - 75W

Comparing previous H55 plus G6950 platform, it’s 32nm CPU structure as well,
however, G620/G850 Enter to Desktop is lower 8W and Full Speed is lower 30W.
Sandy Bridge platform show it’s advantage in power consumption.
These 2 CPU is testing under OC GPU, so the power consumption is higher than standard.

Intel HD Graphics Performance Test
3DMark Vantage => P1292

3DMark Vantage => P1455

StreetFighter IV Benchmark
1280 X 720 => 30.98 FPS

StreetFighter IV Benchmark
1280 X 720 => 34.22 FPS

FINAL FANTASY XIV
1280 X 720 => 427

FINAL FANTASY XIV
1280 X 720 => 479

You can know Sandy Bridge built-in GPUs are HD Graphics 2000 and HD Graphics 3000.
Pentium G series GPU named HD Graphics and follow 2000/3000.
However, the clock is same, 850/1100, so 3D performance is same as HD2000.
For GPU OC, G850 clock can be higher to achieve 1433MHz and pass 3D tset.
Comparing to previous LGA 1156 GPU, 3D performance is much higher. This is the other new platform strength.


Intel launched 3 Pentium CPU this time and price is lower than Core i3-2100.
MB you also can have Micro ATX H61 or H67. It’s good small PC or office PC.
ITX boards are getting more and more in the market. Mainly, the chipset is H61 or H67.
Usually, HTPC hardware price is higher. More and more makers sell ITX MB in these 2 years.
HTPC users can lower the HTPC budget to normal ATX or Micro ATX PC.

H67N-USB3-B3 features and expansion are quite good.
The rich BIOS features can OC GPU, fine tune DDR3 parameters, also can lower CPU voltage to make system be good performance and green.
I also saw some H61N-USB3 news in website. I think the C/P value will be even higher.

The article is sharing Intel latest entry level CPU mainly.
You can see the some improvement of CPU performance and power consumption.
However, the DDR3 bandwidth and 3D performance improvement is bigger.
Recently, H61 price is lower and many MB makers start to kill price.
No matter ITX or Micro ATX platform, you can take it as your reference.
I wish everyone can use lower budget to build higher performance next generation PC.

This article is also in my blog.
WIND3C
Welcome your visit.

 

[V_R]

Tiny motherboard. So cute! lol