Welcome to Lynnfield: Core i for the Mainstream

For those who haven’t noticed, we posted an article late last night that takes a hard look at Intel’s brand-new Lynnfield processors, the Core i7-870 and also the Core i5-750. The wait for these puppies has been long, but it’s been well worth it, because both deliver just what we’re looking for: performance, efficiency and also the right price. With the i5-750 coming in at $199, the performance to dollar value is very high.

Due to time, we weren’t able to include overclocking information in our launch article, but that will be coming along soon. The CPU cooler we received with our Lynnfield kit comes from Thermalright, who are well-known (and deservedly so) for producing top-quality products. But with the model we were sent, the MUX120, a thinner version of the Ultra-120, there was just one issue. Rather than include a mount that works, the company decided to opt for the push-style bracket that we see on Intel stock coolers. But unlike the Intel stock cooler, this mount simply didn’t agree with me at all, and it’s in such rough shape at this point, that it’s useless.

Here’s my plea to Thermalright that they revert to the old mounts… these new ones take far too much effort to use. At least with the Intel cooler, you have lots of room to work. But with the Thermalright, it’s tall, and leaves little room for your hands to maneuver. The old mount wasn’t perfect either, but at least it didn’t take 20 minutes to install or cause you to break out in a sweat! Despite the troubles though, the cooler did perform beautifully, both with regards to temperatures and the max overclocks we were able to achieve (as you will soon see).

If you’re in the position to be building a new PC, Intel’s new Lynnfield chips are well worth looking out for. The pricing is right, the performance is excellent (the i5-750 outperformed our entire Core 2 Quad collection in most tests) and the power consumption amazing. Just in time for the NFL kickoff, Intel has certainly scored a touchdown with Lynnfield.

With the introduction of the Core i5-750, we finally have a ~$200 option. We’re avoiding ultra-expensive motherboards this time around also, as companies such as ASUS and Gigabyte are prepping to release boards that range anywhere from $140 – $300. And because Lynnfield drops us back to a dual-channel memory controller, memory kits are plentiful, and affordable.