i7 860 (4gb RAM) OR i7 920 (6GB RAM)

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

R.O.S.S.I

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Right i've been tasked of building a rig up for £800 (thanks to those who helped in the other thread) and i've come to a bit of a hurdle when choosing between an i7 860 or an i7 920.

Now the machine will be a purely music/audio editing machine using many VST's and plenty of audio rendering etc.

Now i've specced up 2 machines and the i7 920 rig comes in just about on budget at £800 (6GB RAM & X58 Mobo). However the i7 860 comes in nearly £75 cheaper at £725 (4GB RAM & P55 Mobo).

I've read the performance is negligble at best between both the 860 and the 920 and that there isnt much performance difference having 4GB of Dual Channel compared to 6gb of Triple Channel memory. Some benchies have also said the 860 is an allround better chip due to it running cooler and using less power.

Now a £75 saving is quite a lot (it's for a Charity organisation) and I'd just like some people's opinions off here as to what you think I should do, if I should stump up an extra £75 and go the 920 route with 6GB RAM, or save the £75 and have an 860 with 4GB RAM (especially if i'm not going to notice much (if any) performance increase spending the extra money.

Hope i've made sense, any help is massively appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Tbh I'd go for the 860 because it has better turbo boost than the 920 does so should be faster overall.
 
CDj-Rossi said:
What about in Windows 7 will there be much difference only having 4gb, compared to 6gb?
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This is something I've been considering lately actually, for a work machine. Whilst it's good to have as much RAM as you can, W7 only seems to fill as much as it needs...thus the RAM usage on my desktop with 6GB is higher than on my laptop with 4GB. I guess you have to ask whether the applications the PC is being used for will need the extra memory?
 
To the best of my knowledge audio applications such as Sony Acid Pro and Ableton Live tend to be more CPU intensive, but the VST's etc are quite powerful and are more RAM relient. 4GB has always seemed enough when I was using it, just thought the overhead of the extra 2GB might have been worth the extra cost. Hmmm, decisions.
 
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4GB is more than enough for any desktop system. 6GB is preferable on the LGA1366 platform because the next step down is 3GB as they require modules of 3 for triple channel memory to function. Again 3Gb is more than adequate but if you've already been running 4gb, then going downwards makes little sense.

In a nutshell, you'll notice little difference in the two. i would only go for the 920 if you are considering high volumes of video encoding etc.. As a gaming platform the 860 will be fine :)
 
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The machine isn't 'just' a desktop system. It'll be used for audio encoding, rendering and sequencing, along with an extensive use of VST's and plug-in effects.

It won't be a gaming platform it's more an encoding/rendering box, which is very CPU and RAM hungry.

I'm beginning to think that the 920 with 6GB will be bang on, and offer some overhead for the future.
 
I use sony acid/vegas on my LGA1156 i5 with 4Gb of RAM, and it's more than enough for anything I throw at it, 1080p is no problem whatsoever. So im sure that adding hyperthreading should be a pretty substantial futureproof for the system. I'd either save the £75 or use it somewhere else, maybe a cheap graphics card? :p
 
Do you use a multitude of VST's and external plug ins on this also?

I run a Q6600 at home with 4GB of RAM and even on that with a shed load of different VST's open it can sometimes slow down.
 
Put some quick 6GB stuff in it! You can't go wrong really and the i7 loves fast RAM! I have the Dominator 6GB 1866 kit in mine and clocked to advertised specs its superb! Its real exepensive now though I paid just under £150 sometime November last year!

Any decent 6GB kit should do the job mind! :D
 
CDj-Rossi said:
The machine isn't 'just' a desktop system. It'll be used for audio encoding, rendering and sequencing, along with an extensive use of VST's and plug-in effects.

It won't be a gaming platform it's more an encoding/rendering box, which is very CPU and RAM hungry.

I'm beginning to think that the 920 with 6GB will be bang on, and offer some overhead for the future.
Click to expand...

then yes, you have answered your own question. :)
 
Shilz said:
Put some quick 6GB stuff in it! You can't go wrong really and the i7 loves fast RAM! I have the Dominator 6GB 1866 kit in mine and clocked to advertised specs its superb! Its real exepensive now though I paid just under £150 sometime November last year!

Any decent 6GB kit should do the job mind! :D
Click to expand...

Just gonna get some Corsair 12800 in :)

Settled then, will put forward the i7 920 rig with 6gb of RAM. Lets see how quickly we can get the funding through for it then!
 
just to put forward another sugestion go with the i7 860 and with the extra £75 + a tenner buy another 4GB of ram to give you 8GB and the i7 860
 
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