Core i5 AES encryption is 'the man'

IF YOU WANT a critical look at AES-NI encryption performance in Intel’s 32nm processors look no further than Tom’s Hardware. Being an “enterprise” feature, encryption is usually sidelined by consumers looking for the smallish framerate edge (let’s face it, framerate is still king), yet on the new Clarkdale Core i5s, it’s a highly-redeeming feature on a relatively mainstream CPU.

Facing off with a Core i7 870, the i5 661 – so long as it wasn’t too dependent on ALU performance – simply crushed its more expensive and higher-clocked brother. Of course, the “enterprise” is where the i5 661 was supposed to find its home.

Hardspell/Inpai has another round of benchmarks with the Pentium G6950, the cheapest of the Clarkdale CPUs out there. This time it’s facing off with its E6600/6300/7400/8300 brethren. Overall the G6950 conquers all its brothers but the Core 2 Duo E8300, who barely clings on to the lead.

One of the biggest things to happen in 2010 is the release of a third generation of SSD controllers, paired up with SATA III and cheaper, faster NAND Flash. Not that it will break into the “mainstream”, but it will go a long way in delivering blistering performance (for those who can afford it) and lower prices on the previous generation kit (for those who can’t afford the prior). Both Benchmark Reviews and Tweak Town take a look at some serious SATA III action in the form of the Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB, erm, SSD.

Overclockers Club has some brand shiny new Mushkin kit on display. The Blackline 996782 PC3 12800 (aka DDR3-1600) 2x2GB kit targets both Intel’s P55/H55 and AMD’s AM3 chipsets with tight latencies and low voltages. Granted, not as low as some, but still, 7-9-7-24 latencies @ 1.65V are nothing to sneeze at.

Bjorn 3D has a go at a serious gaming rodent, the Razer Imperator which, as the name suggests, intends on providing top range performance, even though you can pick one up for just 80 bucks. It’s for right-handers only, unfortunately, says Raymond.

Until something really really new (my money’s on March 19^th) comes out of Nvidia’s workshops, we’ll have to make do with the 40nm shrinks on some older silicon. The ECS GeForce GT 240 512MB GDDR5 HDMI offers a budget price for a very non-reference mainstream card.

Anandtech has come up with a nice little guide on picking your new H55/57 motherboard. From overclocking to power consumption, you get to see what you should really expect (and be looking for) from boards powered by this chipset.

Okay, okay, so we’ve all heard how hot Evga’s “FTW” motherboards are, at least we’ve read the marketing hype. Xbit Labs has received Evga’s P55 FTW mobo and tried it on for size. It seems that the board hides a lot of its potential in undocumented features, which is a shame as Xbit really liked it. µ