Core i5-2500k first impressions

[Rich Braun]

I unexpectedly had to buy a new computer just six weeks after the last one,
and can report that the state of 64-bit hardware is much-improved since then. 
In fact I have optimism that Socket-1155-based computers are going to be a
quantum leap ahead of the Socket-775 systems I've endured over the past couple
of years; I've had nothing but flakiness with that generation of hardware. 
Performance is one thing; reliability counts a whole lot more for me.  775 and
the ancillary motherboards, power supplies, etc, have been *junk*!  My
basement's now cluttered with failed experiments.

Intel's marketing lawyers have confused terminology in the marketplace so I'll
start my comments with these clarifications:

* The first-generation Core series chips used Socket 775 motherboards, except
for the Core i7 which used Socket 1366.
* Late in the first generation, Intel came out with embedded graphics,
presumably intended to demolish competitors NVIDIA and AMD/ATI by encouraging
motherboard makers to deny real estate to chips from those companies.
* The second-generation Core series uses the Socket 1155.  To distinguish
these chips from the first generation, they've switched from a 3-digit numeric
suffix (example was Core i5-760) to a 4-digit with a K (example Core i5
2500K).  Alas, I can't clarify any further because I don't carry the gene for
marketeering-speak.

My Q6600 quad-core machine went unstable the last couple of months and finally
decided to quit booting entirely last Thursday, so off I went to buy a Core
i5-2500K-based system.  If you want to buy such a machine at retail here in
the Boston area, I think one store has a complete monopoly on the market: 
Microcenter.  Maybe one of the Woburn places carries them.  You have to DIY
the system build; the likes of Best Buy are months or years behind the times.

I chose a fairly low-end motherboard (ASUS P8H67-M PRO/CSM-R3) priced at $120.
 With 8GB memory and the CPU chip that comes to an even $400 plus tribute to
Deval.  Naturally, once you're in the store (or, technically, on the website
ordering form--I've learned my lesson that if you want to get out of
Microcenter in less than 90 minutes, you have to prep and submit your order
online prior to your visit), you wind up adding a few other items.

On to the tech stuff:  when I first brought up the O/S, which has to be a
2.6.37 kernel with Intel xf86 driver 2.14 or newer, I was pretty impressed
except for the XF86 configuration headaches.

I wound up spending quite a few hours hand-editing files in
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d because both of my monitors report EDID info that doesn't
work correctly with the Linux drivers:  screens show up fuzzy or completely
out of sync.  I found that editing the first parameter of the X and Y modeline
parameters to match what I measure physically on the screen using "ksnapshot"
expedited the process greatly.  (One monitor needs a value of 1598 instead of
1600 pixels width; the other needs 1081 instead of 1080 height.  Go figure.)

The other trick I learned from this blog entry: 
http://lslezak.blogspot.com/2011/04/installing-latest-intel-graphics-driver.html
.  Turns out to be very trivial to install Intel 2.15 display driver, and it's
flawless.

Enjoy!

-rich