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My next upgrade... i7 or PII 940??

DavyBoy

DavyBoy

DavyBoy

Soldato
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OK, I am going to be upgrading my PC in the next month or 2, but I am unsure as to what processor that I should use..

I have like 3 different setups in mind, but I am unsure as to which one would be the best for me..

I use my PC mostly for playing games, but I also enjoy watching movies on it from time to time, and I convert a lot of audio and video to for use on my DVD system to, and it gets used for web browsing, and file sharing as well..

The 3 CPU's and motherboards that I was looking at to use in my next build was going to be the Intel i7 920 on a Gigabyte EX58-UD5 with 6GB of OCZ triple channel 1600MHz RAM, an AMD PII 940, Asus Crosshair II Formula and 4GB DDR2 1066MHz RAM, and finally the Intel C2Q 9550, Asus Maximus II Formula and 4GB DDR2 1066MHz RAM, and then I would just use my current PSU (Hiper Type-M 630w), Case, GFX Card (GTX280), hard drives and optical drives etc etc to complete the build..

I have done lots of reading up online and in magazines to see if I can find out which system would be the best for me, and also which one would see me well into the future, but I am finding it hard to decide what to go for...

Money really isn't a problem here, I just wanted to create a thread to see what some other peoples opinions are before I go ahead and purchase the parts...

So far I am leaning towards the i7 920 and gigabyte board because it seems to be the most futureproof out of these processors, but I wont be upgrading for another month anyway, so I just wanted to hear what people have to say first...

Any opinions are welcome, thanks in advance...


::edit::

One last thing, if I were to go with the i7 system, would the CPU cooler I have ATM (Zalman CNPS9700 NT) be good enough for cooling the 920, as I see there is a bracket available so that it can be strapped to a X58 board, but I asked some people on another forum and was told that my cooler was "hopeless for quad cores", even though it can keep my current AMD X2 idling at 22C and doesn't let it get any hotter than 45C even after 13 hours of Orthos stress testing!!
 
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I have just gone for the i7 920 as they OC so well plus the X58 platform supports tri-channel and is a brand new socket so wont be going anyware anytime soon.

Plus i believe the I7 920 will out do any of the current phenoms and thats without an overclock.

HTH
 
the 920 hands down. given how they overclock they other two choices cant touch them.
 
If money is no object the i7 920 no question, overclock it to 3.6-3.8 and no current Phenom can compete with that.

The i7 is in a league of its own for audio/video encoding also.
 
Looks like my choice was the right one then, I was fairly confident that I wouldn't be let down if I were to choose an i7 setup...

I am quite curious about Edleake's comment though, surely PII's aren't any better than i7's for gaming, or am I wrong here???

Maybe he is just saying that because he owns a PII rig, I would like to see some evidence as to why he would say this, because I have been reading up about all three processors for a while now, and everything I have read has the i7 beating the PII in pretty much everything, and also the higher spec C2Q's even beating the PII in the majority of tests to...

The only reason I was thinking about a PII was for the costs, but like I said at the end of the day, money isn't a problem here, I just want the best performing system that is going to see me well into the future...

Anyway, thanks for the comments people, it is much appreciated.. I would still like to hear other peoples views as well though...
 
I already read that article, but thanks for posting anyway...

I don't know if I will go SLI or not, I might consider it at some point, but for now a single GTX280 is running every game I have, even with my crappy AMD X2 processor!
 
Ultim8 said:
What do you mean? Do you think the PII's are btter for gaming? Can you justify how please?
Click to expand...

There was one review on Aandtech, where they compared an i7, a Q9550, and a PII, and out of 7 games, there was a problem with 1 of them, that cause performance issues on both the Q9550 and i7. All the other games showed the i7 to be the better processor, and the Q9550 managed to beat the PII sometimes too.

But because there was a problem with the 1 game, a bunch of people start crying out that Phenom II is the best gaming chip.

i7 is the best x86-x64 processor currently available assuming money no object. The Phenom II and Core2 Quads are better value for money, and still offer a good performance, but the i7 is faster. If you have a Crossfire or Tri-SLI rig you can make use of i7 performance today, but as faster graphics cards come along the i7 will continue to provide all the power necessary, while the Core2 and PhenomII's will not scale as well.
 
If you were a gamer it would be needless to go i7 rather than P2, so you'd have spare cash for another GTX280, but you're not so absolutely go for i7. I would have done anyday if I'd had the money!
 
I7 has minimal advantages in gaming unless you have a 30" monitor and 2 2x4870 or 2 295. Any graphics config under that, really doesnt need that much CPU power.

If you have money to burn and want the ultimite gaming experiance then go for it.

Whats your budget btw?
 
DavyBoy said:
I don't know if I will go SLI or not, I might consider it at some point, but for now a single GTX280 is running every game I have, even with my crappy AMD X2 processor!
Click to expand...

Well even if you don't plan multi-GPU now the i7 will be more future-proof for gaming as it will scale better with the next generation of graphics cards.

As you can see here an heavily overclocked Phenom 2 struggles to even beat slower clocked C2Q's and stock i7's at low resolutions where the GPU isn't a bottleneck.

So in a nutshell whilst C2Q/PII are currently sufficient for high resolution gaming, i7's will be much more future proof and maintain higher frame-rates as GPU's improve.

In terms of everything else (apps/encoding etc) where GPU isn't restrictive i7 is in a different league to PII.
 
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mmj_uk said:
Well even if you don't plan multi-GPU now the i7 will be more future-proof for gaming as it will scale better with the next generation of graphics cards.

As you can see here an heavily overclocked Phenom 2 struggles to even beat slower clocked C2Q's and stock i7's at low resolutions where the GPU isn't a bottleneck.

So in a nutshell whilst C2Q/PII are currently sufficient for high resolution gaming, i7's will be much more future proof and maintain higher frame-rates as GPU's improve.

In terms of everything else (apps/encoding etc) where GPU isn't restrictive i7 is in a different league to PII.
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The I7 is no more future proof than an AM3 setup.
I would not base the performance on any one review, but a great many of them as there is a great discrepancy between reviews & between reviews & what users experience.

Also taking into account the config of the set-up which no one knows how it was really setup with bios setting Gen2 or P2P, ExpressGate on or off as most mobos have it set to off by default, but we simply don't know which mobo has which set.
The review you pointed at only has a NB speed of 2.1 which is not making the most of the Main CPU OC.

I myself have out done some users on a phenom at 3.5Ghz with my 3.04Ghz Phenom on some benches because i had better mem timings & NB speeds so there is allot to take into account on the phenom range.

As far as which is the best then it is the I7 with out question but if you want value then its Phenom2 AM3 CPU.
 
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shinester184 said:
If you were a gamer it would be needless to go i7 rather than P2, so you'd have spare cash for another GTX280, but you're not so absolutely go for i7. I would have done anyday if I'd had the money!
Click to expand...

Only to find out that the dual card setup is bottlenecked by the pII when this wouldn't be the case for a core i7.
 
Helios1234 said:
Only to find out that the dual card setup is bottlenecked by the pII when this wouldn't be the case for a core i7.
Click to expand...

There is no such thing as no bottle neck on any system & it only matters when it matters.

500fps on the I7 v 350fps PII= does not matter as they both overboard any.

60fps on the I7 v 40fps PII= it does matter depending on the game.

High numbers for the sake of it only matters to benchers & record breakers which it self can be fun at times but i would not spend a penny to get better bench results.
 
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