i5 or i7?

liam_abrown · 7 Feb 2010 at 23:18

I need to capture in HD and render HD and I am told the i5 750 over clocked will be more than enough so not to bother with i7.

Right or wrong?

arknor · 7 Feb 2010 at 23:21

not much of a difference between the two http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=47&p2=109

bJN · 7 Feb 2010 at 23:32

For rendering purposes the i7 comes into its own league, it is simply amazing at rendering and encoding processes and the like.
However don't get me wrong the i5 is still a brilliant CPU but if the main use is for encoding etc then the i7 would be the best choice.

liam_abrown · 7 Feb 2010 at 23:44

bJN said:
For rendering purposes the i7 comes into its own league, it is simply amazing at rendering and encoding processes and the like.
However don't get me wrong the i5 is still a brilliant CPU but if the main use is for encoding etc then the i7 would be the best choice.

Which of the i7 would you recommend then taking into account I was going to get the i5 750 and clock it to 4GHz

liam_abrown · 8 Feb 2010 at 00:01

arknor said:
not much of a difference between the two http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=47&p2=109

Thanks for that, after comparing your right, there is not a great deal of difference so why is the i7 920 £50 more than the i5 750?

Meaker · 8 Feb 2010 at 00:07

i7 920 is part of the 1366 platform and has HT (which helps in many non gaming tasks).

bJN · 8 Feb 2010 at 00:21

liam_abrown said:
Thanks for that, after comparing your right, there is not a great deal of difference so why is the i7 920 £50 more than the i5 750?

As Meaker said, most i7s run on the 1366 chipset which is likely going to be used for newer tech whereas the i5 (1156) chipset won't be. The 1366 i7s also use Hyper-threading technology which essentially gives you double the amount of cores (so in quad-cores it should give eight) which is why they perform very well in CPU-intensive tasks.

I do believe there was a thread on here somewhere comparing the i7 920 and i5 750 in many different tasks. When it came to encoding I think the i5 was around 70% slower in some cases... Of course this doesn't mean that it is slow in any sense of the word, merely when comparing to the i7 in that scenario it was deemed "slow".

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 8 Feb 2010 at 00:28

The Core i7 860 has HT too and is a socket 1156 processor.

bJN · 8 Feb 2010 at 00:30

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
The Core i7 860 has HT too and is a socket 1156 processor.

It does, but it's on the 1156 socket - i.e. end of line.

liam_abrown · 8 Feb 2010 at 00:59

Ok I will tell the system I had in mind and if you think I can change the parts for a reasonable price please let me know. £450 for processor, mobo, ram, and psu.

£120 - ASUS P7P55D = http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-360-AS

£160 - i5 750 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-299-IN

£90 - OCZ 4GB 1600MHZ dual channel - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-180-OC

£80 - Corsair TX650W - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-008-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 8 Feb 2010 at 01:08

I assume the OP is also going to invest in a fast hard disk or an SSD as this could be a bottleneck in the system too.

liam_abrown · 8 Feb 2010 at 01:21

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
I assume the OP is also going to invest in a fast hard disk or an SSD as this could be a bottleneck in the system too.

OP = PC user right?

Yes I will set-up Raid 0 but I won't need that until I need to record uncompressed. I already have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 - 500GB but it is 16MB cache so I will get another 2 at 32MB cache as I read more cache is better for writing and that is why I am building this system.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 8 Feb 2010 at 01:48

liam_abrown said:
OP = PC user right?

Yes I will set-up Raid 0 but I won't need that until I need to record uncompressed. I already have a Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 - 500GB but it is 16MB cache so I will get another 2 at 32MB cache as I read more cache is better for writing and that is why I am building this system.

OP can either mean opening thread or this case opening poster.

I would also look at the Samsung F3 and Western Digital Caviar Black ranges too.
Cache is important but also the speed and number of platters is also important to look at too!!

The Samsung F3 1TB is a very fast hard disk:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/storage/2009/10/06/samsung-spinpoint-f3-1tb-review/1

cupofchow · 8 Feb 2010 at 01:53

Id go with i7 and the F3 hard drives

Or maybe get a cheap Intel or kingston 40Gb SSD as they are excellent value for money.

arknor · 8 Feb 2010 at 08:16

bJN said:
When it came to encoding I think the i5 was around 70% slower in some cases... Of course this doesn't mean that it is slow in any sense of the word, merely when comparing to the i7 in that scenario it was deemed "slow".

dont be daft in extreme cases hyperthreading offers upto 20% more performance compared to no hyperthreading.

i7 920 is not 70% faster at anything compared to an i5 750 its not even possible when the chips are so similar

liam_abrown · 8 Feb 2010 at 13:51

arknor said:
dont be daft in extreme cases hyperthreading offers upto 20% more performance compared to no hyperthreading.

i7 920 is not 70% faster at anything compared to an i5 750 its not even possible when the chips are so similar

This is so confusing as I am getting so many mixed reviews LOL!

Is it worth not going for the i5 750 socket 1156 and stepping up to an i7 with socket 1366?

Phage · 8 Feb 2010 at 13:59

Given that the OP is all about rendering then Hyperthreading will provide a significant performance boost.
You should be looking at either the i7-860 or the i7-920 as these both offer the performance benefit of HT where the i5 range does not.
IMHO the i7 860 would be the sweet spot. Teamed up with a Samsung F3 HDD as Cat said above.

PhoenixUK · 8 Feb 2010 at 15:24

As much as i7 920 will certainly help in that, the main question is:
"Do I really need to do it so fast? "

Whats your current setup, how fast does it deal with task and how much faster you'd like it to do it?

How often do you do that as well?

I mean, you don't really need i7 or even i5 if it's once a week odd render or something ...

liam_abrown · 8 Feb 2010 at 15:36

PhoenixUK said:
As much as i7 920 will certainly help in that, the main question is:
"Do I really need to do it so fast? "

Whats your current setup, how fast does it deal with task and how much faster you'd like it to do it?

How often do you do that as well?

I mean, you don't really need i7 or even i5 if it's once a week odd render or something ...

I always settle for what I need at the time and regret it so this time I want to go for the best I can get within a decent price range.

I am going to record and render everyday pretty much.

My current set up is:
*Gigabyte Technology M61PME-S2P motherboard
*AMD Athlon II x2 dual core 245 - 2.9ghz - 2mb L2 cache processor
*Kingston hyper X 4gb (2 x 2gb) DDR2 800mhz dual channel ram
*ATI Radeon 4850 GDDR3 PCI express - 512mb graphics card
*Seagate barracuda 7200.12 - 500gb - 7200rpm - 16mb cache - average 8.5 seconds seek time
*Corsair VX450W power supply

My plan from the advice of these guys is to get a new CPU, mobo, psu and perhaps grab a couple of samsung spinspoint HDD in raid 0.

As far as I am aware the ATI 4850 should be fine!?!?

Phage · 8 Feb 2010 at 15:40

Per your other thread. i7 860. The 4850 will be more than adequate.