I agree with most of that. The last thing that Intel wants is for AMD to disappear. they merely want to keep them in the high single digits of market share.if they were to run them out of town, it would open up an endless train of 'monopoly' litigation, and the new investors in the middle east know this.
Like you, when people come to me for a new build they usually walk through the door screaming "intel" , and for the same reasons. they have no idea why they want it other than the correct perception that Intel is better. as for the "evangelical determination" of AMD owners, that can be chalked up to the human nature (mostly) of peoples need to defend their decisions. I have been a defender of AMD in recent years for their price to performance ratio in their product line, but with Intels offerings of the last year, its getting very difficult to justify an AMD build.
.....and BTW....what do you mean by "flippant"? you are the one that picked on Brett.

.....and BTW....what do you mean by "flippant"? you are the one that picked on Brett.

Lol ! I was of course referring to my own earlier comment. I did edit but I think we posted at the same time......I shouldn't pick on Brett I suppose as "he's only having fun out there!" (and semi famous in a country that has no organised American Football playing at all)

:haha: ....okay .... now i demand that you tell me the name of your most famous rugby.......or soccer star, so i can ridicule him! :haha:

As Rugby is the national game....Ritchie McCaw (All Black's captain, World Rugby Player of the Year) , or Dan Carter (All Black flyhalf/first five-eighth) who has the status of Tom Brady here (minus the Brazilian model and Bawwwwston faithful)

funny yesterday it was a DDR2 Mobo a deactivated item on Newegg
now lo an behold its been changed to a DDR3 mobo
your not the only site ive called on PRO intel benchmarks

what like 20 to 3 pro Intel mobo reviews
at least be honest your pro Intel

Great review! I just missed one thing. Did you measure the power consumption with ONLY the integrated GPU activated and the gtx 285 removed?

Thanks!

But the average customer would probably buy 661 just because of the integrated GPU, right? And not replace it with an additional graphics card... I don't see the point of buying 661 if that were the case? And therefore it would be nice to know the consumption of the system as it was meant to be configured. With the internal GPU activated and nothing else.

That's what I'm thinking, anyway.

Thanks for the review but I personally believe that GPU on the same die as the CPU is not a good idea, its not flexible, u cant customize it and ur stuck with it even if u dont want it

Thanks for the great review, it's given me enough information to decide that the i5-661 is suitable for my new ITX build.

From what I can see of the review, the test methods were well set up, documented and unbiased. Unfortunately for the AMD fans their offerings didn't quite cut the mustard. This happens from time to time, just like AMDs ATI brand is currently beating the pants off of NVIDIA, but I doubt that will be the case forever.

At the moment intel are very much at the cutting edge and it's working for them, while AMD are playing it relatively safe with incremental advances. The problem with being at the cutting edge is that it has a high level of risk associated with it - remember RAMBUS? AMD will come back with some decent products soon enough and the fanboys can relive the Athlon glory days

As for processor integrated graphics, I think it's a fantastic idea - onboard graphics like those of the i5-661 have reached the point that there really is no point in going for anything better unless you want to play games. Most computers never play anything more demanding than solitaire, so it's not an issue. For the few people who do want to use such a very middle-of-the-road processor like the i5-661 for a gaming rig, the onboard graphics can be disabled without any trouble. For everyone else, it gives decent processor performance with decent graphics capability at a very good price - all intel need to do now is integrate 4gb of RAM and it would be a really decent 'computer on a chip'.

Cheers,
Terry

What kind of cooling system do you use?

According to the article, the "Cogage TRUE Spirit heatsink" was used.

My i5-661 reached an easy 4.0 GHz using the stock intel cooler in a rather cramped case with poor airflow. My voltage settings were not as aggressive as the reviewed system.

For a laugh I built up a system using the i5-661, Gigabyte H55N-USB3 (Mini ITX) motherboard and a Radeon HD5970 in a cardboard chassis. Worked a treat

Cheers,
Terry