Hexcore or wait ?

gothic_hobbit

gothic_hobbit

gothic_hobbit

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Hi guys.

I'm stuck on a stone age Pentium 4 and have been looking to upgrade for a while. I have my heart set on getting an i7 hexcore. However, I have heard that Intel are bringing out a whole new processor in 2011. Will this be the most often talked about octacore ?

I was wondering if it's worth waiting until next year, or taking a plunge with the current cutting edge technology that is available right now.

Yours thoughts and suggestions please :)
 
if what you currently do runs on a P4D, then any current quad core CPU will be a MASSIVE upgrade... I would just get a reasonable Quad without going over the top, unless your needs are also going to change?
 
700quid totally not worth it if your on a p4 for so long you definetly dont need a hexcore.

get a i7 950 or something they are more than enough for any game out so far
 
When it comes to the latest components I go "bat ****-Crazy" I always want the latest and greatest thing out. I bought a i7 920 around 2 years ago now. I went from a dual core and overclocked up to 4Ghz. The processor itself is still amazingly fast I still go mad for upgrading my graphics cards but so far I haven't thought about upgrading my CPU. if you do decided to take the £800 plunge on the hexcore I dont think you will regret it, but I gotta say there are plenty of new i7's and i5's out there which could save you about £600 that could be put to better use i.e. new GPU/GPU's.

=]
 
Spend your cash on an i7 950.
There isn't a game released (or due to be released) that would stretch an i7 950. The bottleneck will be your graphics card so get something decent.
 
Skeng said:
When it comes to the latest components I go "bat ****-Crazy" I always want the latest and greatest thing out. I bought a i7 920 around 2 years ago now. I went from a dual core and overclocked up to 4Ghz. The processor itself is still amazingly fast I still go mad for upgrading my graphics cards but so far I haven't thought about upgrading my CPU. if you do decided to take the £800 plunge on the hexcore I dont think you will regret it, but I gotta say there are plenty of new i7's and i5's out there which could save you about £600 that could be put to better use i.e. new GPU/GPU's.

=]
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yea im sure he wont regret it... what can actually use 6 cores?

700 quid 400 of it will be sat idle the other 300 will be at 50% load
 
The hexcore route is one you really dont need by the sounds of things mate.
Nor Octacore.

If you NEED to upgrade now, then an I5 will be plenty good enough for gaming. If you do a lot of cpu intensive things then I7.

If you can hold out for another ~6 months ish then it may be worth while to see what the new sandybridge brings about with it, you may be able to pick up a decent quadcore on that architecture for good money, and if not it will probably force down the I5 / I7 prices anyway.

It all depends on what you use your PC for really! It will help everyone to advise you better if you state what your main uses are.
 
just get an i7 950 massive upgrade from what you have and it will still last along time most games shouldnt use much more than 2 cores
 
If you're gaming, 2011's Sandy Bridge doesn't offer a massive upgrade- the really exciting thing is the integrated graphics, which will rival the £30-£50 dedicated card market. Assuming you have enough money for an i7, you really wouldn't want to scupper your system with a cheap graphics system like that, so don't worry about that market.

If you are concerned about having the latest and greatest technology, or being able to boast about your CPU in terms of cores, then by all means wait for SB. If your primary concern is being able to get a top-notch gaming PC, get an i5-760 and put the best graphics solution you can afford in instead- you'll be surprised what you can get for the same money as a basic i7 system. There is NO reason at this time to get an i7 for your needs.
 
So, you're using a Pentium 4 for so long and you want to jump to a £800 cpu? I don't know if this is a joke or you have too much money to spend, if it's the latter then send me some.

If you can do your things with a pentium 4 then a £800 i7 is a waste, get a Intel i3, a AMD athlon 640,a Phenom 955,1055t, an i5, 1090t or an i7. All of those will do the job more then enough and will be a massive upgrade from a pentium 4, choose it in order of how much money you want to spend.

By the way if you want a hexacore that bad, the phenom 1055t is only £160.
 
Dont bother. i5 7xx quad core is all you need for gaming. If you do a lot of heavy multithreaded encoding/number crunching, an i7 shows some benefits over i5 but at a big price hike for what those benefits are.

By the time anyone needs a hex-core, they will be available as a mainstream part cheaper than and outperforming the i7 hex-core. The i7 hex core will remain a stupid price until it disappears.
 
Liampope said:
Dont bother. i5 7xx quad core is all you need for gaming. If you do a lot of heavy multithreaded encoding/number crunching, an i7 shows some benefits over i5 but at a big price hike for what those benefits are.

By the time anyone needs a hex-core, they will be available as a mainstream part cheaper than and outperforming the i7 hex-core. The i7 hex core will remain a stupid price until it disappears.
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Awesome ! Just the advice I was looking for. Clear and concise and with no sarcasm. Thanks :)
 
Happy to help :)

Here's a handy comparison site that lets you play around comparing different CPUs and GPUs...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/CPU/2

Of interest have a look at i5 7xx vs i7 quad at the same clock speed for fairness...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/109?vs=47

Pay attention to where higher is better or lower is better. Note for gaming the i5 actually has a slight lead (but that's mostly due to more aggressive turbo boost than a real advantage), but you can see in encoding apps the i7's hyperthreading comes into play to varying effectiveness depending on the app, but never more than a 25% gain.

i7 quad vs i7 hex, again same clock speeds...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/45?vs=157

You can really see those apps where the extra cores are used and the hex ploughs ahead! Also note how few those apps are, and how similar performance is to the quad where the extra cores obviously aren't used much.

And just for lols :)...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/191?vs=92
 
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Skeng said:
When it comes to the latest components I go "bat ****-Crazy" I always want the latest and greatest thing out. I bought a i7 920 around 2 years ago now. I went from a dual core and overclocked up to 4Ghz. The processor itself is still amazingly fast I still go mad for upgrading my graphics cards but so far I haven't thought about upgrading my CPU. if you do decided to take the £800 plunge on the hexcore I dont think you will regret it, but I gotta say there are plenty of new i7's and i5's out there which could save you about £600 that could be put to better use i.e. new GPU/GPU's.

=]
Click to expand...

Thats probably how much my whole system is worth and it plays every game very well.
I think you would be mad to spend that much!
 
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