Core i7

[weirdlookinguy]

Expensive sh!t!

I'm running a 2.8Ghz Socket775 P4 right now. I have a Radeon 4850 card in there right now for gaming, but my friend's AMD64 X2 feels a lot lighter and zippier in games than my old P4 does. I'm sure if we were running the same graphics card, his FPS would be much higher than mine. Obviously not surprising.

I wanna upgrade to a 64 bit, dual/quad core CPU. It has to be intel. That leaves either a cheap C2D, a Core 2 Quad, or an i7. Any of these will whoop the living shit out of my Pentium 4.

Core 2 Duo+good 775 board=very affordable.
Core 2 Quad+good 775 board=affordable.
i7+i7 board=hot damn! Boards start at $250, i7 CPU costs even more than the board.

I don't have that kind of ca$h right now! I think few people do in these hard economic times. And so I ask...

Pick up the best Core 2 Quad I can afford right now, or ride my P4 until i7 prices start approaching current Core 2 prices? You guys think that will happen within the next year or so?

[acstech]

Re: Core i7

Intel mandated X series chipsets with the i7. This also includes triple channel memory. The later mainstream P55 chipsets will only work with the i5, i3, etc. Not the I7. So the board prices probably won't go down much for the i7. Intel has it differentiated to maximize their profits. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem_(microarchitecture)

I honestly think AMD is the way to go right now. That way you're not going to a dead socket (775).

But if it has to be Intel...
Get the i7 920 now. Overclock the s*** out of it. Then upgrade later to core i9. It's the only thing on the intel side that I see that makes sense and allows any sort of an upgrade to something you can't currently get. 775 is a dead end.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Core i7

Yup, I get the feeling that 775 is pretty much dead. I wanna upgrade to something that will satisfy the itch for at least two or three years. I don't want a few months/1 year to go by and have an outdated system again. That brings me right back where I started.

What makes you say prices are gonna stay so high though?

[gg1978]

Re: Core i7

AMD's got a solid midrange, but what they have now can't really touch the i7 in its current form.. Course, as you've observed, i7 starts at $500 plus for the core system (motherboard, CPU, Memory).. I was considering upgrading to a core i7, but after i added it all up, i just picked up a new Q9550 at newegg, luckily my new Q9550 is an E0 stepping, runs at 400 FSB at stock Vcore, prime stable 72 hours plus..

But if you're coming from a P4, i'd just pick up a Phenom II and motherboard, load it up with 8G of DDR2, and pick up windows 7 if you plan on doing "modern" gaming.. The Phenom 900 series is awesome, pick up a 920 or 940 and get a much better video card, rather than an i7.. If you can give us a budget to work inside, it would be helpful.. Nvidia Geforce 275's and ATI 4890's are a lot more affordable now..


Then again, i would almost consider waiting until windows 7 comes out, ATI is supposed to have their 5800 series cards out about that time, but from what i've read, Nvidias GT300 is going to be late, probably Q1 or Q2 of 2010, which means ATI/AMD will be able to charge a premium price for the 5800 series..

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Core i7

Well I just got the 4850 pretty recently. The 4850 is no pushover and is pretty cheap right now, so it fit my needs well. I don't need the latest, I just don't want to sink money into something that will be worthless soon.

[gg1978]

Re: Core i7

Well i guess i would ask what motherboard you're running your P4 on, and if you can reuse it for a Core 2 upgrade or pick up a new motherboard.. 4850's are pretty good, though a bit on the low side for me, though i do like eye candy turned on in my games.. Is this a full ATX box you're considering upgrading, or MicroATX??

I guess since you've already got a halfway decent PCI express card that you don't care much about the onboard video. Also is your existing P4 using DDR or DDR2 ram? I know DDR2 RAM is still stupidly cheap now.. I guess for your purposes you might go with the Athlon II or a Core 2 Duo E7x00 series.. Quad cores do help with some games, but dualcore is more than enough for most..

[acstech]

Re: Core i7

What makes you say prices are gonna stay so high though?

The things that'll make i7 (LGA1366) stay high is that:

1. It uses an X series chipset. This is not a mainstream chipset, it's the extreme version for enthusiasts. This means it costs more.

2. LGA1366 will never be mainstream. They're going to LGA1156 for the mainstream stuff.

They're going to two different sockets on the same microarchitecture to differentiate the product line. That's why the high end, i7, will stay high.

Now if you wait a while, i5, LGA1156, and dual channel boards utilizing P series chipsets will come out and should be more reasonably priced. However, it'll be "new" and thus you'll have to wait longer to purchase that.

So what does that leave us with? AMD. Their AM3 processors are compatible with AM2+ boards. So if you got a relatively inexpensive AM2+ board and 8GB DDR2, you could use any processor from and old dual core AM2 to a quad core AM3. Plus it leaves you an upgrade path.

Just my opinion.

Edit: You need to put a ) on the end of the link I posted above for it to work. I would assume this is a forum formatting issue.

[i4004]

Re: Core i7

>Yup, I get the feeling that 775 is pretty much dead.

lol!

c2d and c2q cpus are too slow for you?
what are you using pc for?

hold on, you now have p4 and you're saying 775 is dead without trying c2d and c2q...huh...

i have 775 mobo and i don't really see myself it being dead in next 10 years....i now have c2d, and i may upgrade to c2q once hey're cheap enough...

so, not dead, but cheap and excellent...screw i7.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Core i7

i4004; No siginficant updates will be coming to S775
Henche it is dead, if you want an upgrade for S775 in two years and have the latest and greatest that is available today you will be disappointed

He was asking for upgrade path...
I agree that AMD AM3 is promising, but it is quite a bit slower than the Intel i7... It's price does make up for it tho depending on what kind of performance you are looking for...
As others already said i5 is soon coming out, which is mainstream variant to the current S775 offerings
Note that i7 is not a replacement for S775, i7 is significantly faster and also more expensive to make up for that... i5 is the replacement for S775

[acstech]

Re: Core i7

hold on, you now have p4 and you're saying 775 is dead without trying c2d and c2q...huh...

Gotcha. IIRC, only the 945 and up support the Intel Core. So if he's got a 915 or something old like that, he's stuck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ore_2_Chipsets

Tell me weirdlookinguy, what chipset do you currently have?

[i4004]

Re: Core i7

>i4004; No siginficant updates will be coming to S775
Henche it is dead, if you want an upgrade for S775 in two years and have the latest and greatest that is available today you will be disappointed

He was asking for upgrade path...

and by mentioning c2d and c2q i was mentioning downgrade path? from his p4?
hehe...

think about economics: if he gets c2d now(and 775 mobo if his current doesn't support it) and c2q in year or two he'll always have a pretty decent system without robbing the bank.

if he gets i7 system now it'll be too expensive, and if he's using p4 by now, i say he doesn't really need i7("serious gamers" probably have faster machines by now), and c2d and c2q improvements will suffice.

and i5 is not out yet, and when it comes it probably won't be as cheap as 775...

now, if you tell me the name od the pc game(of today or in next year or two) that will be too demanding for c2q...well...you got it.....

and if we're talking about waiting...well sure...one can wait forever....that means u're staying on old stuff and suffering...heh....offcourse unless all you do it web and word here and then...in that case p3 will do.

so i would still say c2d and then c2q(when prices drop) is still most bang for the buck.

btw. i think some kind of plateau is reached when it comes to faster and faster madness and prices dropping etc.
things will still be getting faster/cheaper, but not at the rate we had by now...or by some time ago....

i was looking at c2d prices today, and frankly, it's pretty expensive if you ask me.

[NxB]

Re: Core i7

You can get a 3.0ghz X2 phenom II that you *might* unlock for about $105 or you can get a core2 duo E6320 1.8ghz for $105. You can either have a whole system for $250 or just a board. Pretty much why I stayed with AMD.

[bgavin]

Re: Core i7

I love the "dead end" thing.

Socket-A, Socket-462, Socket-478, Socket-939, Socket-775
Show me one that isn't a dead end.
Every one of these is as dead as 8" Shugart floppy drives.

I own a dead end E8400 and a P45 dead end chipset.
It drives a dead end 9600 GT nVidia card and dead end DDR2-800 memory.
For a tenth of the price, my system benchmarks in the top 95% of its class.

BTW, I don't have the chipset driver/hardware compatibility problems that I used to have in the AMD world. When nForce came along, they were SO much better than the shitty VIA chipsets, but still suck compared to the Intel chipsets.

I got so sick and tired of the chronic driver problems in the AMD world, that I finally left and never looked back. A few dollars cheaper has literally no value at all when I have call-backs or other compatibility problems. If I never work another nForce driver issue, that will still be too soon.

I have no doubt the Core i7 is pricey. This is nothing new, and zero deviation from Intel's standard road map. They are a money maker (and AMD is not), and they follow their standard game plan. I'm happy to buy cheap E8400 processors at late stepping levels. Ditto for cheap P45 chipsets at late stepping levels and mature drivers.

[acstech]

Re: Core i7

AMD makes their own chipsets now, you know.

Edit: The only problems I've had with nforce chipsets have been with the nforce 4 and 5xx series. Before or after that they've been generally ok. But I do agree that they did have their moments.

[NxB]

Re: Core i7

Via sucks. I had problems in win98 and a little in 2000. I even had agp problems. Nothing I couldn't figure out. New AMD chipset is a-OK. E8400 is still $$$

[japlytic]

Re: Core i7

I am wondering if Windows 7 will be i7 optimized... hopefully yes.

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Core i7

I've got a i915G based board, so no Core 2.

By dead, I mean that if I wanna upgrade later, my board is pretty much useless.

However, I don't need bleeding edge technology. I just want something that games moderately well. I've already got the graphics card, I just need something faster than my P4. Games aren't choppy on it, but they aren't butter-smooth the way they are on my friend's AMD64 X2. Left 4 Dead is a prime example of this. It runs great, but it just lacks that buttery smooth feeling you get on my friend's machine. He has a Geforce 8600 card, and I have a Radeon 4850, the ATI equivalent of a Geforce 9800, so it's not the graphics holding me back, it's the 1.0a PCIE slot on my board and the Pentium 4.

I think I'll just wait for socket 1156, or grab a 775 in three or four months.

[i4004]

Re: Core i7

>I think I'll just wait for socket 1156, or grab a 775 in three or four months.

like i said, get new 775 mobo and c2d (you said this is "very affordable") and after a certain period go c2q...(if you want...you'll probably have no need for it when u see c2d performance.)
that is the best upgrade path if you ask me.

i can guarantee that any new game will work with c2d(offcoiurse, depending on videocard, but it seems you have good one), let alone c2q, which is and will probably be underused in any game of today or next year or two, because programmers are still struggling with multicore programming and full utilisation of all 4 cores....heck, even full utilisation of "mere" 2 cores!

that's why i dislike word "dead" for these systems.
they're not even fully living today, so why call them dead...

just because there's "latest and greatest".
well, screw that....(can you guess i'm not early adopter? <wink>)

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: Core i7

Fuck it. You guys are right. What do you think of...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121351

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116091

?

Should come out to be around $190. Should complement my 4850 nicely.

[i4004]

Re: Core i7

intel boards overall are pretty damn good, and i see this has all solid caps where they're important, so it seems good.

as for cpu, i have c2d at 2.2ghz, and am pretty pleased(i don't game, but i do video)..so overall this is pretty good.

should easilly beat your friend's amd crap.
<wink>