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I7-965 My Early Thoughts

Robert said:
One thing that I do not agree on: your QX6850 wasn't average.

It's still a top end CPU.

Any how - I'd love to go for a new mobo/8gb/920 but I don't think I'd notice amazing things over my Q6600 - that said I may just dive in @ Christmas.
Click to expand...

when i upgraded from an e6600 to a q9650 it was faster, but not by lots, so the gap would be even less from a q6600.
Atleast its still going in the right direction tho, allthough at aprice.:eek:

superpi.jpg
 
None of the figures I've seen here are very impressive - I bet the QX6850 isn't far off those figures clock for clock. Some people have got way more money than sense ;)
 
I've had a core i7 965 up and running for almost a week now and so far so good. I'm using it on an Asus P6T Deluxe "OC Palm" Mb with 6Gb of Corsair XMS3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz (3x2GB) Triple Channel DDR3 and a BFG 280 GTX OC2. All this is inside an Antec 1200 case. The first few days were spent installing the OS (Vista 64), various applications and Flight Sim X for which the PC was built. I didn't try any overclocking as I was waiting for a Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU cooler with the socket 1366 adapter. Using Core Temp 0.99.3, the idle temperatures were around 40 -45 C with 60 -66 C under load with Prime95 v257. The Thermalright Ultra arrived on Friday so I installed it with Arctic Silver 5. The idle temps dropped to 28 - 30 C and under load they are 45 - 50 C. The Thermalright Ultra is very big and I had to remove the side fan from the Antec 1200 in order for it to fit. I also fitted a 40mm fan to the Asus P6T (optional to cool the chipset) however the Thermalright Ultra obscures one of the screw heads for this which would make it awkward to replace the 40mm fan without removing the Thermalright Ultra as well. I started with some basic overclocking yesterday. According to CPUz 148, the default Vcore was 1.256v. I believe the Intel recommend that you should not go above 1.35v. I left the Vcore as it was in the bios as well as the other settings except the CPU multiplier which I increased from 24 to 27 giving me a CPU clock of 3.6GHz. I ran Prime95 on all cores overnight with no errors so I reckon it's stable. Checking Core Temp log the temperatures never went above 55 C. The real torture test is FSX which I can definately say runs much faster on this PC than my old E8600 OC to 4.33 Ghz. I'll let everything settle for a few days, installing my other games including Farcry 2, Arma Armed Assault and Crysis etc before bumping up the multiplier a bit more. I can't see these games improving much as I was happy with them on the E8600 however I mostly run flight sims which are generally CPU intensive.
 
Re-written with better formatting:

I've had a core i7 965 up and running for almost a week now and so far so good.

Set-up
I'm using it on an
Asus P6T Deluxe "OC Palm" Mb
with 6Gb of Corsair XMS3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz (3x2GB) Triple Channel DDR3 and a BFG 280 GTX OC2.
All this is inside an Antec 1200 case.

The first few days were spent installing the OS (Vista 64), various applications and Flight Sim X for which the PC was built.

I didn't try any overclocking as I was waiting for a Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU cooler with the socket 1366 adapter.

Temperatures
Using Core Temp 0.99.3, the idle temperatures were around 40 -45 C with 60 -66 C under load with Prime95 v257.

Thermalright Ultra
The Thermalright Ultra arrived on Friday so I installed it with Arctic Silver 5. The idle temps dropped to 28 - 30 C and under load they are 45 - 50 C.

The Thermalright Ultra is very big and I had to remove the side fan from the Antec 1200 in order for it to fit.

I also fitted a 40mm fan to the Asus P6T (optional to cool the chipset) however the Thermalright Ultra obscures one of the screw heads for this which would make it awkward to replace the 40mm fan without removing the Thermalright Ultra as well.

Overclocking
I started with some basic overclocking yesterday.
According to CPUz 148, the default Vcore was 1.256v.
I believe the Intel recommend that you should not go above 1.35v.
I left the Vcore as it was in the bios as well as the other settings except the CPU multiplier which I increased from 24 to 27 giving me a CPU clock of 3.6GHz.

I ran Prime95 on all cores overnight with no errors so I reckon it's stable.
Checking Core Temp log the temperatures never went above 55 C.

The real torture test is FSX which I can definately say runs much faster on this PC than my old E8600 OC to 4.33 Ghz.

Summary
I'll let everything settle for a few days, installing my other games including Farcry 2, Arma Armed Assault and Crysis etc before bumping up the multiplier a bit more.

I can't see these games improving much as I was happy with them on the E8600 however I mostly run flight sims which are generally CPU intensive.
 
dirtydog said:
None of the figures I've seen here are very impressive - I bet the QX6850 isn't far off those figures clock for clock. Some people have got way more money than sense ;)
Click to expand...

and i have noticed almost everybody getting a 940 or 965 when the 920 overclocks just as good!

why spend so much when there isnt any need? :confused:
 
FSX only uses one core for the actual flying process and any remaining cores for loading scenery. I would expect similar FPS when using a dual core however the scenery would become blurred as the second core struggled to load the scenery and textures. With the quad, everything remains sharp.
 
Some of the guys I work with are into mountain biking and spend thousands on a frame, others spend their money on modifying their cars. PC's are my hobby and I've been saving up for a major upgrade for quite some time. I got a 965 because the unlocked multiplier makes it easier for me to overclock the CPU without putting stress on the other components. I agree that most 920's or 940's are quite capable of reaching the same clock speeds as a 965 however knowing my luck I'd get a dud.
 
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Helios1234 said:
I'm wondering the same thing...
Click to expand...
Totally different ballgame now its not just about the pure clock speed. QPI is locked on 920 + 940 and both have limits on volts as well as multipliers.

965 has unlocked QPI & overclocking features (dynamic on the fly turbo mode) & overvoltage protection removed which the other 2 do not have so even if they overclock well does not mean the system will be stable for long as it will cut back volts & QPI to save damage. BCLK can be changed only on 965. For the other 2 you need to lower ratio and up the Ram speeds but both are limited in how far they can go before the system will throttle.
 
C2D E8400 @ 3.6 ghz - 1M Super Pi = 15 seconds
CI7 920 @ 3.6 - 1M Super Pi = 12 seconds

25% increase clock for clock

4Ghz out of £250 chip.

my origional c2d was a E6700, then a E8400, next year better 1366 chips will be out for less.
 
TerryS said:
FSX only uses one core for the actual flying process and any remaining cores for loading scenery. I would expect similar FPS when using a dual core however the scenery would become blurred as the second core struggled to load the scenery and textures. With the quad, everything remains sharp.
Click to expand...

Does it support the full 8 threads i7 offers (remember it's HT, so each core can handle 2 threads)? So basically you have 1/2 core doing flying, and 7.5cores doing scenery .. great.
 
WesleyBurns said:
C2D E8400 @ 3.6 ghz - 1M Super Pi = 15 seconds
CI7 920 @ 3.6 - 1M Super Pi = 12 seconds

25% increase clock for clock

4Ghz out of £250 chip.

my origional c2d was a E6700, then a E8400, next year better 1366 chips will be out for less.
Click to expand...

An E8400 @ 4.3 can do it in 10.9s. That's 9% slower with 7.5% higher clock speed. By my maths that means it's about 17% slower clock for clock than the 920. (at SuperPi anyway)
 
TerryS said:
Some of the guys I work with are into mountain biking and spend thousands on a frame, others spend their money on modifying their cars. PC's are my hobby and I've been saving up for a major upgrade for quite some time. I got a 965 because the unlocked multiplier makes it easier for me to overclock the CPU without putting stress on the other components. I agree that most 920's or 940's are quite capable of reaching the same clock speeds as a 965 however knowing my luck I'd get a dud.
Click to expand...

Nice one.
I bet you fit right in!
 
I would be interested for someone with an i7 chip to run the built-in WinRAR benchmark (from the Tools menu). From 3.6 onwards it is optimised for multi-core systems.

On a Q6600 @ 3.1 I got 1,959.

(if someone could run the bench with an i7 at the same clock speed as me, it would be interesting to see the clock for clock performance difference)
 
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