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i7: worth it for a gamer?

TJM

TJM

TJM

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Joined
10 Jun 2007
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2,378
I'll be putting together a new base unit in June/July and I'm working out what I want to put inside it.

Building an i7 system carries a hefty premium for the CPU, motherboard and RAM, but I can't see what real performance benefits it would bring me. Benchmarks on Techreport show that the 965 barely outpaces the E8600 in many games.

The only disadvantage to buying a C2 that I can see is that it's a dead socket. But I tend to replace my entire unit every two years instead of making upgrades, so I don't mind much if a computer can't be upgraded as long as it's a high performer when bought. Is there even any guarantee that the current i7 mobos will be compatible with Westmere processors or is the upcoming 975 the end of their life cycle?

So, is there any good reason for me to get an i7? Are games about to go quad core mad, and, if so, can the i7 do anything the C2 Quad can't?

Cheers
 
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My first reaction is, no, i7 is not worth it just for gaming.

My second is, still no :D

On the subject of quads, only 1 current game I know of (Supreme Commander) uses all 4 cores. Alan Wake has been rumoured to fully support and use 4 cores, coming this year supposedly. That's all I know of.

i7 was designed to speed up boring office applications and CAD, not games :)
 
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Orangey said:
My first reaction is, no, i7 is not worth it just for gaming.

My second is, still no :D

On the subject of quads, only 1 current game I know of (Supreme Commander) uses all 4 cores. Alan Wake has been rumoured to fully support and use 4 cores, coming this year supposedly. That's all I know of.

i7 was designed to speed up boring office applications and CAD, not games :)
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+1 My sentiments exactly
 
That's the impression I'm getting from other forums. The more I think about it, the more that I realise it would be dumb as hell to replace an E6750 @ 3.2Ghz for gaming right now. Next year it is then.
 
i was under the impression that all the i7 processors was the fastest at playing games i am on the verge like at the end of the month at buying a i7 i currently use a E8500 at stock speed you definitely have given me something to thing about.
 
right so i was gonna get phenom II quad cores at 3.0 ghz to just send my gaming extreme and be able to other stuff and then i wont have to upgrade again for ages but are u saying its pointless?
 
TJM said:
Building an i7 system carries a hefty premium for the CPU, motherboard and RAM
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the only part of an i7 that carries a hefty premium is the mobo's, the ram & cpu are down around C2Q territory now.

if all your gonna do with it is just game then nope, it aint worth it.
if you don't plan on changing your pc again for the next couple of years then do it.
if you want to treat yourself just for the hell of it then do it.
or if you can find a way to do it for nothing then do it.
simple really ;)
 
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I decided to get a E8600 based system late last year, with the money saved from not going the i7 route I was able to get a 4870X2 and a 24" lcd instead of a 4870 and 20".

If going with a core i7 based system forces you to sacrifice gpu power and other parts of the system don't do it.
 
One thing you do do get with I7 is the triple channel memory capacity and the future upgradeability. Remember, LGA775 is basically at the end of it's lifespan. I7 will guarantee future compatability with anything you can throw at it.
 
Mojo said:
One thing you do do get with I7 is the triple channel memory capacity and the future upgradeability. Remember, LGA775 is basically at the end of it's lifespan. I7 will guarantee future compatability with anything you can throw at it.
Click to expand...

I've read that the next intel chips will be a different socket again. I hope I'm wrong.
 
Orangey said:
i7 was designed to speed up boring office applications and CAD, not games :)
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Most boring office applications bearly manage to stretch the feed of a 1.6Ghz laptop. i7 appears to be designed for high performance multimedia work, rendering and raytracing (rather than straight oldschool cad), and lightweight multithreaded server applications.

i7 is also designed to fill in a few of the weaknesses of Core 2, for example Core2 doesnt support its clever instruction combining when running in 64bit mode. i7 does.

Its true that the majority of games still dont support quad core, but multicore isnt going away anytime soon, and eventually it will become more normal to see games making use of all the available processing power.

Its true that i5 will use a different socket, but the LGA 1366 will be getting 6 core, and 8 core cpus, the i5 will remain quad for some time, and i5 doesnt support QPi, it only has 16 lanes of PCIe v2.0 via built in controller.
 
I went from a E6600 core 2 duo to i7 mainly because i was getting less FPS in games where i know i should be getting more, even games like Counterstrike Source which isnt particularly demanding i was strugling to maintain 50 FPS on average size maps. Now on i7 with everything on max on 1680x1050 i never get less than 100 FPS. I also get much smoother gameplay on on COD4, while it is a premium for the setup, i was an early adopter for C2D, so i had it for 2 years.
 
Mojo said:
One thing you do do get with I7 is the triple channel memory capacity and the future upgradeability. Remember, LGA775 is basically at the end of it's lifespan. I7 will guarantee future compatability with anything you can throw at it.
Click to expand...

+1

Also the newer i5 is actually a step down from i7, its gonna be aimed at the mainstream market where as i7 is high end
 
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