i7 920 retail or oem?

formatuk · 24 Mar 2009 at 13:34

I've heard the OEM's are not as good? This true?

Also, When is the D0 steppings released and will they be OEM or retail or both?

Thanks people, Will be building beggining of may so

Sash · 24 Mar 2009 at 13:38

If I remember retail has a better warranty? Plus you get the heatsink with them.
When the D0 steppings are released they will most likely be both.

FaceplantSi · 24 Mar 2009 at 13:42

If you're getting an i7 then you'd be crazy not to OC it. Get the OEM chip and spend the extra on a decent HSF, the Noctua is a very popular choice, it's pricey but comes with two of the best fans around for a push/pull setup.

formatuk · 24 Mar 2009 at 14:10

Yes, i am getting an OEM, but just heard somewhere that Retail boxes seem to be getting better OC's? Dont know if its true. I'm doing a build in beginning of may which i posted in general hardware but was wondering about the CPU. This is what i have, think im pretty much there and ill just monitor the progress of stuff as it comes along in the next 5 weeks

Lian-Li PC-V1110B Aluminum Super Mid-Tower Case
Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) (OEM)
Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU Cooler
Gigabyte EX58-UD5 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard
OCZ Reaper 6GB (3 X 2GB) DDR3 PC3-15000 (1866MHz)
Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI
LG GGW-H20L Blu-Ray Rewriter & HD-DVD ROM Serial ATA Drive
Corsair TX 850W ATX SLI Compliant Power Supply
2x OCZ Vertex Series 30GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive

I do believe i have a sweet setup there with being able add another 4870 X2 when needed.

Thanks for the input on the CPU though guys

reflux · 24 Mar 2009 at 14:13

Yeah I heard the same formatuk. I have no idea if it's true or not. I bought the OEM cos it was £30 cheaper at the time.

FaceplantSi · 24 Mar 2009 at 14:13

Yeah that looks like the rig I dreamt about the other night! Should be a scorcher, I'm sure you'll have loads of fun with it!

I'm waiting on a couple of Vertex SSD's to arrive today... hopefully get quite a boost with loading etc.

formatuk · 24 Mar 2009 at 14:43

Have to let me know how they do, Really interested. £240 is a lot for 60GB but 400mb/s read & 320mb/s write seems to be a little premium for the performance. And 60GB for OS HDD is plenty enough in anyones books.

area512003 · 24 Mar 2009 at 14:48

I think I have done well with my OEM i7 920???

It clocks to 4.0GHz stable on my Biostar T-Power Mobo with temps around 38-40c idle with the Noctua 1366 HSF.

Even had 4.2GHz stable but gets a bit toasty!! :cool:

Sash · 24 Mar 2009 at 15:08

area512003 said:
I think I have done well with my OEM i7 920???

It clocks to 4.0GHz stable on my Biostar T-Power Mobo with temps around 38-40c idle with the Noctua 1366 HSF.

Even had 4.2GHz stable but gets a bit toasty!!

Any benchmarks for games on the difference you get from stock?

djay · 24 Mar 2009 at 15:40

I have just got myself a oem i7 920 from here and currently running it at 3.8ghz. I'm only using the Akasa Aero cooler though not the Noctua unfortunately. I have not tried any quicker as that is fast enough for me at the moment.

area512003 · 24 Mar 2009 at 15:52

Sash said:
Any benchmarks for games on the difference you get from stock?

P17314 3D Mark Vantage: i7 920 & GTX295 at stock.
P25345 3D Mark Vantage: i7 920 OC'd to 4Ghz & GTX295@ 665/1400/2350

formatuk · 24 Mar 2009 at 15:54

Thats an impressive increase, These 920's are pretty special things

Nick1881 · 24 Mar 2009 at 16:07

area - what vcore are you running for 4Ghz and what was needed for 4.2?

I'm running 20 x 200 with 1.39v (cpu-z) think bios is 1.42750v

also out of interest how do you rate your i7 system against the dual E8600 system in your sig?

Sash · 24 Mar 2009 at 16:27

area512003 said:
P17314 3D Mark Vantage: i7 920 & GTX295 at stock.
P25345 3D Mark Vantage: i7 920 OC'd to 4Ghz & GTX295@ 665/1400/2350

So whats the 4gig at stock GTX 295? You changed two so I dunno what made the biggest change lol. Still impressive though!

area512003 · 24 Mar 2009 at 16:27

mr_x_plosion said:
area - what vcore are you running for 4Ghz and what was needed for 4.2?

I'm running 20 x 200 with 1.39v (cpu-z) think bios is 1.42750v

also out of interest how do you rate your i7 system against the dual E8600 system in your sig?

Core i7 920 running 21 x 191 = 4.011GHz @ 1.3875V (cpuz) cant remember bios as at work at mo.4.2 GHz needs 1.395v but gets very toasty when pushed (temps in early 80's in Prime95) :eek:

[email protected] with single GTX 280 OC'd gets 14643 3D Mark Vantage.

area512003 · 24 Mar 2009 at 16:40

Sash said:
So whats the 4gig at stock GTX 295? You changed two so I dunno what made the biggest change lol. Still impressive though!

Dunno exactly, got 19148 @ 3.8GHz with stock GTX295.

Sash · 24 Mar 2009 at 16:48

area512003 said:
Dunno exactly, got 19148 @ 3.8GHz with stock GTX295.

Thats not too bad then 2k of points.
Have you seen much real world gaming performance increases?

area512003 · 24 Mar 2009 at 16:55

Sash said:
Thats not too bad then 2k of points.
Have you seen much real world gaming performance increases?

I can now play every game on max with AA @ 1920 x 1200 (my 26" TFT)

Whereas with the GTX280 (with the 4.4GHz E8600) it would struggle sometimes in Crysis and Cryostasis @ the above resolution with AA on but play like a dream @ 1680 x 1050 AA off.

ifihaditall · 24 Mar 2009 at 23:10

FaceplantSi said:
If you're getting an i7 then you'd be crazy not to OC it. Get the OEM chip and spend the extra on a decent HSF, the Noctua is a very popular choice, it's pricey but comes with two of the best fans around for a push/pull setup.

Why would one be crazy not to overclock it? I'm getting an i7 920 next week with a gtx 295 and I have decided not to bother over clocking it. Overclocked it won't make much difference in games and it's already a damn fast machine so for general purposes I assumed it's more than adequate... I don't do video editing or encoding etc.

hernaldo · 25 Mar 2009 at 00:11

ifihaditall said:
Why would one be crazy not to overclock it? I'm getting an i7 920 next week with a gtx 295 and I have decided not to bother over clocking it. Overclocked it won't make much difference in games and it's already a damn fast machine so for general purposes I assumed it's more than adequate... I don't do video editing or encoding etc.

It's crazy because an i7 setup costs a lot. You might as well go for a P35\Q6600 setup and save a few hundred £. You'd be getting similar performanc. However an i7 at 3.8-4Ghz will urinate all over a Q6600 when overclocked to it's typical maximum of 3.4Ghz.

Most i7 920s do at least 3.8Ghz with a good air cooler.

If an i7 at stock is fast enough for you, then an overclocked Q6600 will also be fast enough for you and a lot cheaper.