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Intel i970/980x can I get one and should I

GazzaMataz

GazzaMataz

GazzaMataz

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I have an ASUS P6X58D-E mobo with a water-cooled i950 chip running at 3ghz, it was over-clocked to 4ghz but was causing problems.

Now I do a lot of 3D so rendering times are important and I was always wanting a 6-core cpu. I have scoured around and seen a few i970s and i980s for sale but I am wondering should I just get a newer mobo, ram and a newer cpu. I mean if I spend £400 on a second hand i970/i980 it might be better to spend the extra and get a newer spec.

Anyone know where I could get a 970/980 other than *** No competitors ** BTW?
 
3D rendering scales almost linearly with number of cores, so I wouldn't under-estimate the performance of the 970/980 but I agree that £300 to £400 is too much.
I really think you should try & shoot for a 3930k if you can afford it CPU + MB cost a pretty penny but they can't be beaten for rendering performance & they all clock well.
Otherwise it's tough, I'm not sure 3820/3770 is enough of a boost to justify the outlay.
 
paradigm said:
You have to remember that a 3820 will clock it's balls off compared to a 980.

Mine sat at 5.1GHz will annhialate a 980.
Click to expand...

True, 3D rendering also scales almost linearly with clock speed :-) But you must admit, 5Ghz + is outside of the norm for 3770s & especially multi-locked 3820 chips.
It's a tough call, the problem is what he already has is maybe a bit too good & the next really big performance jump is maybe a bit too expensive.
 
paradigm said:
You have to remember that a 3820 will clock it's balls off compared to a 980.

Mine sat at 5.1GHz will annhialate a 980.
Click to expand...

Rubbish.... an overclocked Gulftown is still faster than quad core SB/SB-E chips under full utilization.

Most 3820's won't hit 5.1ghz, either.
 
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paradigm said:
You have to remember that a 3820 will clock it's balls off compared to a 980.

Mine sat at 5.1GHz will annhialate a 980.
Click to expand...

Annihilate a stock 980 or an oced one? Stock isn't a fair comparison since yours is oced. What about my 990x, essentially the same thing on something like cinebench on a pathetic 4.5ghz to your 5.1?

On a separate note. Even though I have a 990x, I certainly wouldn't buy one now unless I could get it, 970/80/90 for around 250 max. It's a cracking chip but there is no disputing it's an older one too.
 
paradigm said:
You have to remember that a 3820 will clock it's balls off compared to a 980.

Mine sat at 5.1GHz will annhialate a 980.
Click to expand...

Don't think so, my 980x is a very good overclocker, it will do 4.6 with a crappy old H70 cooler on it and can go higher but the cooler is not up to it.

On the physics test in 3dmark11 it wipes the floor with modern quad cores.

Its also stable @well over 2300mhz on the memory with tight timings. (I ran it with some corsair dominator platinums to test it.) Thats better than I see on a lot of 3820s
 
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Sweet! Thanks for all the replies guys useful stuff. Looks lime if I bought a newer CPU (six core), board and memory I would need to spend £700-800 quid, if I got my mits on a 980 it would be half that amount...

My existing 950 was overclocked by Overclockers to 4ghz and ran lovely for about a year but then started crshing Cinema 4D all the time doing renders. I turned overclocking off and it behaved. So I am a little anti overclocking and I am convinced it will wear components out quicker since I had a few problems with my mobo when upgrading RAM recently.

Maybe just keep the system as backup and buy a complete new one :-)
 
GazzaMataz said:
Sweet! Thanks for all the replies guys useful stuff. Looks lime if I bought a newer CPU (six core), board and memory I would need to spend £700-800 quid, if I got my mits on a 980 it would be half that amount...

My existing 950 was overclocked by Overclockers to 4ghz and ran lovely for about a year but then started crshing Cinema 4D all the time doing renders. I turned overclocking off and it behaved. So I am a little anti overclocking and I am convinced it will wear components out quicker since I had a few problems with my mobo when upgrading RAM recently.

Maybe just keep the system as backup and buy a complete new one :-)
Click to expand...

My old and broken 920 was overclocked for 4 years between 3,6(due to motherboard limitation) and 4ghz on air(old motherboard died new one much better OC) before it gave in. The 9xx series is still very capable and shouldnt be underestimated.
 
I've been ruinning on a i7 920 at 4Ghz for the last few years, anything due in the next 18months to make an update truely worth while given i'll have to do proc, motherboard and ram?
 
GazzaMataz said:
I have an ASUS P6X58D-E mobo with a water-cooled i950 chip running at 3ghz, it was over-clocked to 4ghz but was causing problems.

Now I do a lot of 3D so rendering times are important and I was always wanting a 6-core cpu. I have scoured around and seen a few i970s and i980s for sale but I am wondering should I just get a newer mobo, ram and a newer cpu. I mean if I spend £400 on a second hand i970/i980 it might be better to spend the extra and get a newer spec.

Anyone know where I could get a 970/980 other than **** BTW?
Click to expand...

If you can source a 970/980 at a reasonable price then yes it makes some sense.
However they generally do not sell cheap.

Rendering and Encoding software is moving on and if not allready will soon be using AVX instructions.
The newer chips support AVX the old 9xx chips do not.

Even a very well clocked 970 would not keep up wth a 3820 if the software is using AVX, a 39xx chip would be in a different league.
 
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