Overview
Last week i had the opportunity to play with some of the latest hardware in the PC Industry. I was given an engineering sample of Intel Core i5 665K ES cpu and a Nvidia 465GTX graphic card to play with. Due to my busy schedule, i was unable to provide full-length review on both the cpu and graphic card. So i decided to run some simple benchmarks targeted to OverClockers. As always, let the pictures to the talking.

UPDATE 17-07-2010
After looking at the benchmark scores i obtain were kinda slow, i sent a feedback to MSI Malaysia. And after discussing with their engineer in Taiwan, i was told that the official BIOS v1.1 used does not fully utilize Intel K-Model processors. Therefore i decided to use the Beta Bios for another round of re-bench. For this round of re-bench session, i tried out Super Pi 32M first on Windows XP SP3 environment followed by Everest Ultimate Cache and Memory Benchmak, 3DMark 06 and finally 3DMark Vantage on Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit environment.

Intel Core i5-665K Introduction
Recently Intel just released the K model processors with unlocked multiplier. Currently there are two LGA1156 models, Core i5-655K and Core i7-875K. No doubt that these K model processors are now the main interest in the OverClocking Community. OverClockers now do not need to spend large sum of money to purchase the Extreme Series processors to enjoy the fun of OverClocking an unlocked multiplier processor.



Intel i5-655K Main Features
Clock Speed: 3.2GHz
Lithography: 32nm
Microarchitecture: Clarkdale
# of Cores: 2
# of Threads: 4
Cache: 4MB
Multiplier: 9 - unlimited
Max TDP: 73 W
Integrated Graphics: Yes
ISA: MMX, EMT64, AES, SSE-SSE4.2, VT-x

Nvidia 465GTX Graphic Card Introduction
Nvidia 465GTX Graphic Card is the third Nvidia card based on the 3+ billion-transistor GF100 GPU. Currently it is the lowest-end GeForce 400 Series card available in the market.



Nvidia 465GTX Graphic Card Main Features
CUDA Cores: 352
Graphics Clock: 607 MHz
Processor Clock: 1215 MHz
Memory Clock: 1603 MHz
Memory Configuration: 1024MB GDDR5
Memory Interface Width: 256-bit
Microsoft DirectX: 11
Maximum Digital Resolution: 2560x1600
Maximum VGA Resolution: 2048x1536
Standard Display Connectors: Mini HDMI, 2 x Dual Link DVI
Height: 111 mm
Length: 241 mm
Width: Dual PCI-E Slots
Supplementary Power Connectors: 2 x 6-pin

This post has been edited by Sanko: Jul 17 2010, 04:17 AM

Testbed

Processor: Intel Core i5-665K ES
Mainboard: MSI Bing Bang Fuzion
Memory: Corsair XMS3 TR3X6G1600C7 (2GB x 2)
Graphic Card: MSI N465GTX Twin Frozr II
HDD: Western Digital 80GB Black Caviar
Power Supply: Antec CP-1000
Heatsink: Scythe Grand Kama Cross
Operation System: Windows 7 Professional 64bit

Intel Core i5-655K
i5-655K is relatively easy to OverClock. With the unlimited multiplier option, BLCK is no longer an issue to higher cpu clockspeed. As for this test, my intention is just to hit 5.0GHz clockspeed and it was done within minutes. As my main priority is not on the memory, the ram is kept at the rated speed for all of the benchmarks done.



This post has been edited by Sanko: Jul 17 2010, 04:10 AM

MSI N465GTX Twin Frozr II
Since this is a OverClocking Test, i carried out the testing in a very simple methodology, stock-speed vs oc-speed. With the MSI Burner tool, i could adjust the Core Voltage. Therefore, i set a core voltage limit to obtain the highest core and memory speed of the card. The core voltage was set to 1075mV while CPU is set to 4.0GHz clockspeed.



This post has been edited by Sanko: Jul 17 2010, 04:13 AM

Conclusion
Intel i5-655K: It's yearning for Extreme OverClocking.
Nvidia N465GTX: Price is very close to ATI 5850 but the performance is not.

Special mention to MSI, Corsair, Antec and Intel

This post has been edited by Sanko: Jun 24 2010, 11:58 PM

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sup3rfly: all normal rams, haih... none can do 2000mhz 7-7-7.

shinjite: it's kinda normal if you look around reviews on the net. most of the 655K proc is able to do that on air, 1.45v - 1.5v.

BigSaver: hrmm... as i'm only doing CPU Validation, i don't really care about the cpu temp if you are asking me. i only focus on the voltage needed for 5.0ghz. but according to bios H/W Monitor, it's around 40 degree, 1.47v with the Scythe Grand Kama Cross + 800 rpm fan. lol, this reminds me the only time i look at the temp is while doing stress test which was years ago. and which benching LN2 with coolice. my job is to 'LOOK AT THE THERMOMETER" and pouring the LN2.

This post has been edited by Sanko: Jun 24 2010, 11:51 PM

BigSaver: unfortunately nope. there's only one GPU chip which is able to flash to 470GTX.

sup3rfly: none is mine. lol.

OC4/3: ya, i did alot of testing on the VGA actually. i was wondering how come the score is so low. i checked reference in hwbot and couldn't come close to them even though the core and memory is almost the same. here is my findings.

1. PhysX is disabled.
2. Dual Core CPU.

But i have to admit that my FPS is really low compared to others. and to be honest i'm still looking for the answer. for CPU my test took me 1-2 hours only. while the vga took me 2-3 days.

I'm not quite sure is it the OS is giving me the problem. I reinstalled 3 times with the same thing. my Super Pi result is even worst. it hang 1 sec before the last loop. i'm going to test this rig again with XP environment and a new bios which will be released soon enough.

OC4/3: thanks for your insight. PhysX is enable for your score?

i'll re-run the 3ds tonight. during my test although cpu-z is detecting the speed as 4.0GHz, but futuremark 3dmark06 is detecting it as 3.8Ghz if you see the ss. in 3dmark06, higher cpu frequency will result in higher SM2.0 and SM3.0 score.

my testing also shows that 3dmark06 couldn't read multi beyond 24. while comparing your result to mine, both using 2 dual core but mine is around 3.8GHz while yours is 4.2Ghz. however if judging from the comparison between the 2 cards, 465GTX should be the winner in quite a margin. so the physx and cpu definitely won't be the main issue here.

PS: lol, used my housemate ID. using P1 package only allows 1 user. sigh.....

This post has been edited by Sanko: Jun 26 2010, 03:37 PM

cstkl1: thanks for your info. but i remember clearly the turbo mode is disabled. managed to use 25 multi because of the unlocked feature of the cpu. will check later. had issue with the monitor, sigh....

Zibel: looking at the results, i'll carry out another session of testing with the new BIOS slated around beginning of next month. according to MSI, the current bios is not optimized for K series cpu yet.

As promised, re-bench using beta bios which gave 'acceptable' results. and finally i managed to run my favorite benchmarks, Super Pi 32M. using previous BIOS, even running 1M the final loop will hang for a while.

IIRC some old driver does gave some boost to 3DMark06 through pyhsx. but now it rarely does.

OC4/3: Thanks.
Zibel: I believe Clarkdale is quite a distance it.
owikh84: CPU Config? you mean the CPU Performance through Windows Task Manager?

hrmm... maybe you can specify what you want to know. it's my pleasure to share anything.

This post has been edited by Sanko: Jul 21 2010, 12:17 AM

Vtec(Rock): nice to hear that. in anyway i could help i would like to. hehe...

Vtec: it's quite easy to clock 655K. the only problem for me is mainly the BIOS. but eventually it's ok now.