4p

[Big.Wayne]

Not so much that you have to compare like for like, it's just if you compare wildly different things you don't get any useful conclusions

Hiya Jon.

I notice you have a tendency to use exaggerated rhetoric! . . . really I don't see the two chips as "wildly different things" in the least . . . the only thing that is "wildly different" is the price . . .

Yes, the i7 is faster. Yes, the amd is cheaper. That was established in the first post and [some of us] haven't made any progress beyond this

Indeed, I suspect [some of us] don't want to make any progression beyond the first post . . .

because no non-trivial comparison can be drawn between the [perceived] high end and the [perceived] mid range. I still don't follow what you hoped this thread would unvei

I was hoping that any genuine *old school* overclockers and non Fanboys® could help me with some analysis of why the i7 920 is still selling at such a high premium? . . . and why even though [most of us] decided this was a *Pro* Workstation/Benchmarker item only it's slowly crept into the forum mainstream where [some of us] are wanting one? . . . they don't really know why they want one but they spoke to some guru called Jon who convinced them it was a good purchase!

It's old 2008 tech, it's over-priced, why are we celebrating/promoting it? . . . do some of us have shares in Intel®? . . . do we enjoy seeing people buying something that they won't get good value for money from when they could get an AMD® Athlon™ II X4 620 for a lot less? . . . I'm sorry from my own viewpoint I'm seeing a classic case of the Emperor's New Clothes, you familiar with that story?

Anyway if I can get to the bottom of this *mountain* of data I am hoping to make people aware that the Nehalem™ premium is simple not worth paying when the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 620 will get the job done for almost 50% less budget or allow you to almost build two *amazing* workstations for the price of one i7. . . The Nehalem™ is seriously not a desirable item anymore and the sooner people realise this and stop buying it the sooner it gets price slashed . . . . We overclockers/technical influencers/I.T managers need to work on making the AMD® Athlon™ II series a more desirable item in peoples perception because it is desirable, it offers so much power for such a reasonable price that it should be celebrated and promoted as such . . . Intel® are being too greedy and have been for a while . . . Do you think it was for "technical reasons" they have released three separate platforms? . . . don't they understand what hardware interoperability means? . . . seriously? . . . it's time they realise who's in charge . . . People power!

Price slash #1 coming up . . . . just for starters!!!!

To partake in reductio ad absurdum briefly

No let’s not mate! . . . you continue to exaggerate the performance difference between the two products, I've not seen nearly enough data yet to draw that conclusion? . . . I'm not quite sure why you are doing this? . . they are both quad cores, very fast quad cores! . . the Emperor is naked can't you see that!

 

[PhoenixUK]

They seem good for the cash, would still rather spend the extra £50 to get an i5 750 based system though.

I still think I've had the two best bang for buck CPUs ever though, an e6300 for nowt followd by a Q6600 for £5

Well why didn't you spend extra 50 and get the e6750 and then spend another extra 50 and get q9xxx instead of q6600 ?

Let me guess, because the Q6600 was good enough so why spend more ?

See the point ? Why spend more on CPU that you don't need if the cheaper one is good enough or more than you need anyways? : )

Same reason why companies don't buy i5/i7s for office word/email machines, if you don't need it then why spend more ? Ofc they could say "ah ye but maybe Microsoft Word 2015 will be in 3d and I'll get 60fps in it instead of 40 from athlon so it's better ".

Also, 600 rig and then 400 upgrade will last a lot longer than 1 1000gbp rig. Especially now when you get new GPU/CPU every 6-8months that seems to beat the crap outta previous one.


And let's face it, having one PC for 3-4yrs nowadays and watch it aging and becoming slower and more useless everyday is boring.

I'd rather buy a cheaper build and upgrade/change it with minimal cost every year or so. Not only it is more efficient when you look at the performance you're getting over time but it's more fun as you get more toys to play around with and you stay with new tech up to date all the time.

You never know maybe in 2yrs the new 49.99 6core cpu will beat the crap out of your i7 920 that you bought for 250quid and hoped for it to last 5yrs.

It's just impossible to be future proof anymore, the only future proof parts now are monitors/cases/PSUs. Even HDD market is changing too fast, the storage is doubling every year and new faster technology comes out every few months.

Look at GPUs, yet few months ago people buying 295GTX for over 800 pounds and now, hardly 3months passed and it's already outdated and in a year it will probably get outperformed by 120gbp mark card

Even just before 5xxx release 2months ago everyone was buying the 4890 - top end newest tech card for future proofing to last 3yrs ? It's not even half year and it's getting compared to low end 5770 and within next half year it will be outdated long time and take place of a cheap 50quid budget card.


So the conclusion is - buy what you need now, not what you might need in few years.

 

[Raikiri]

Well why didn't you spend extra 50 and get the e6750 and then spend another extra 50 and get q9xxx instead of q6600 ?

Let me guess, because the Q6600 was good enough so why spend more ?

Because the Q6600 was £5 (someone obviously didn't know what it was worth), as I had previously stated.

The cheapest Q9xxx was 3900% more expensive, hardly a cost effective upgrade Whereas the i5 system costs about 20% more and offers, in general at least a 20% boost in applications.

Oh, and who says it's more than I need? Why is what I need even relevant? I could process 1000+ 18mb RAW files very slowly on a Celeron, I don't need any more power but I want more.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Off Topic:

Stay on topic and stick to the facts please. Also, attack the arguments and not the person

Please!

 

[Raikiri]

Thought this was on topic, fairly (I'll be honest, only read the first and last page).

Either way if you can't stretch the extra the 620 is a fantastic CPU, for most people it's plenty quick enough and clocks quite nicely.

P.S: good to see you back Raikiri . . . "I don't need any more power but I want more"

Cheers. It is Overclockers, after all

 

[Big.Wayne]

Either way if you can't stretch the extra

I don't think we need to stretch, if mohammed will not go to the mountain then . . . .

"the 620 is a fantastic CPU, for most people it's plenty quick enough and clocks quite nicely"

Some subjective non biased truth there!

Cheers. It is Overclockers, after all

IMHO the original basis for the whole overclocking scene was a rebellion against "The man"

Off Topic:

I'll be honest, only read the first and last page

Have a read when you got a spare week, get in the mindset of an attack against the deathstar and watch the fanboys® scramble to action to divert the thread, insults, flames, off topic misdirection, spamming, people who don't know that much posting "facts" without any supporting "evidence" (ok a few cherry picked screens?) . . . you will love it!

 

[stulid]

Can someone sum up this 15page thread for me. Using 40words or less?

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hello stulid,

I'm sorry this thread has become bloated & almost unreadable, it could have been 1/3 the size but it's been swollen by a huge amount of off topic gobbledygook! . . . I am trying to build a case that Intel® Corporation is charging a huge premium for a product that is not actually that good or useful to the people that are buying it, they have lobbed an *obscene* amount of money into a brainwashing campaign and it appears to be working rather well!

I absolutely love hardware and overclocking and I always did this because I enjoyed the extra performance without paying a big pricetag and sticking it to Intel® . . . however now they have wised up big time and turned the game around . . .

What do you think about the Intel® Core™ i7 ? . . . Have you heard of the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 620 ?

 

[stulid]

Ah.....

I think i7 is overpriced rubbish, 3 channel memory kits take the p**s

I believe amd offer 90% of the performance for 2\3rds of the cost.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Is that your genuine feelings or did I slip you a £5.00 note

 

[stulid]

I personally at home use a 955, msi G65, 4gb corsair ddr3, gtx260.

Why buy i7, when intels own i5 offers similar performance for less cost.

I also like how AM3 is getting hex core chips, intel have changed sockets to much for my tastes.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Cheers, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

 

[JonJ678]

I suspect the Nehalem chips are rarely worth their premium cost. However there remains the issue that a lot of people just don't care very much about £100, and that Intel have priced them where they wish rather than where they would sell the highest number of 920s. Would it really be a good thing if they dropped the price to that of the amd 620, and the intel 750 lower still, or would this just run amd out of the market?

I'm on X58 because my P5Q board killed itself and my processor, and the retailer I bought from was good enough to replace them with an X58 UD5 and a 920. The upgrade cost me the price of ddr3 - second hand value of ddr2. As such I don't feel it's reasonable to describe me as too stupid to notice I'm naked based on me using x58 rather than am3, but I'm amused by the analogy with the Emperor rather than offended.

I'm finding it fairly difficult to find comparisons of the two systems online, would you be willing to submit benchmarks done on your hardware if I do the same? It would have to wait a week or so for Gigabyte to get my board back to me, but it seems a fairly easy way of comparing the systems under whatever circumstances we wish. I believe you have the three core version of the amd chip in the OP, and my board will let me turn off one of the cores in my chip so we can have a reasonable attempt at comparing like for like. Not sure what to do about dual channel vs triple channel ram, but you get the idea.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hey Jon!

there remains the issue that [one or two people] just don't care very much about £100

I struggle to believe that! . . . at least not the bulk of the people I know on this forum, we all love a bargain!

Would it really be a good thing if they dropped the price to that of the amd 620, and the intel 750 lower still, or would this just run amd out of the market?

I like you Jon, you ask good questions!

In truth I didn't think that far ahead! . . . but as you ask I am thinking that INTEL® are gonna have a serious problem as they have left no space/gaps in their price structure, if they are forced to drop the price on the i7 they will have to kill one of their own products to make space, I guess LGA775 will be given away free or something!

By this stage hopefully AMD® are perceived to be the better product so their prices won't change to much . . .

I'm on X58 because my P5Q board killed itself and my processor, and the retailer I bought from was good enough to replace them with an X58 UD5 and a 920

Oh my god how does a motherboard kill itself? . . .watercooled or? . . . kudos for the blag though, I may have to convince some of my hardware to "kill itself" then!

I'm amused by the analogy with the Emperor rather than offended

hehe, I never want to offend, glad it tickled you!

I'm finding it fairly difficult to find comparisons of the two systems online

Thanks, now you know how I feel! . . you try and do that with a bunch of fanboys baying for your blood at the same time!

It would have to wait a week or so for Gigabyte to get my board back to me, but it seems a fairly easy way of comparing the systems under whatever circumstances we wish

Jon, forgive me for pointing something out, is hardware safe in your presence, do you like fava beans and a nice chianti!

Off Topic:

I believe you have the three core version of the amd chip in the OP, and my board will let me turn off one of the cores in my chip so we can have a reasonable attempt at comparing like for like. Not sure what to do about dual channel vs triple channel ram, but you get the idea.

I'd love to do a straight a/b comparison between the two systems in the O.P, I don't like the idea of crippling the i7 920 down as the results wouldn't be comparible with very much else, the AMD® Athlon™ II X4 620 brings an extra core and the O.P spec has DDR3 . . . By all means please compare with my system in the AMD® Athlon™ II Overclocking thread

 

[JonJ678]

The issue with that hope, i.e. Intel lowering prices significantly and Amd charging the same, is that the price advantage to going with Amd is gone and all that's left is Intel being higher performance. Better performance at same cost will lead to people only buying from Intel, who I think have already been sued over anti-competitive behaviour. I'm not sure lowing the price of the 920 helps anyone in the medium or long term. After all, there are popular chips like the 750 which compete on a more level footing with the amd 620 already. Oh wait, can't mention that one can I

To this day I don't know what went wrong with that motherboard. The board was never watercooled, and the processor was on air when it happened. Board refused to post so I stripped it down to bare components and tried again, nasty smell and no post. What confuses me is that the ram survived yet the processor didn't, there was a patch of circuitry near the ram sticks that was clearly scorched but no signs of harm near the processor. PSU is running fine still. All very odd. The (also air cooled) Gigabyte has lost its lan ports, boring but irritating enough that it's worth the rma. I do have more hardware die on me than the average according to [thread="18107875"]this[/thread] poll, sadly.

The issue with comparing with that thread is the lack of benchmarks within, it seems to be highest stable overclock more than anything else. This is all well and good, but comparison with other architecture on a clock for clock basis doesn't make very much sense. For example, my best result to date is this one

Which is a stable screenshot at 4.4ghz, despite using 12gb of ram. I believe posting it in the amd athlon overclocking thread would qualify as trolling.

 

[Big.Wayne]

The issue with that hope, i.e. Intel lowering prices significantly and Amd charging the same, is that the price advantage to going with Amd is gone and all that's left is Intel being higher performance

Nah the Core i7 can be price slash loads and the AMD® Athlon II™ X4 620 doesn't have to budge one iota . . . and thats just the processors . . . there is also the more expensive X58 motherboards, there is also the more expensive tri-channel memory, there is also the fact that most games show no gain, there is also the fact people are becoming aware of the socket scam, there is also the fact people have less disposible income, and last but not least there is also the fact people are slowly waking up to AMD® and decide that for the way they use their PC they simple do not need anything more than a Propus . . .

AMD® Athlon II™ X4 620

£77.98 inc VAT - This Week Only Offer

To this day I don't know what went wrong with that motherboard. The board was never watercooled, and the processor was on air when it happened. Board refused to post so I stripped it down to bare components and tried again, nasty smell and no post. What confuses me is that the ram survived yet the processor didn't, there was a patch of circuitry near the ram sticks that was clearly scorched but no signs of harm near the processor

Ouch! . . . can't believe a Intel® Core™ i7 920 ate itself? . . . overclocked? . . .reasonable temps on air? . . . which stepping Core™ i7 920? . . how can you kill that which cannot be killed? . . .unlucky man sounds rough!

I believe posting it in the amd athlon overclocking thread would qualify as trolling.

Hehe I wasn't suggesting you post in the tread I was just saying the resuts are there. If your system isn't gonna be up fo a week or two that gives me time to keep digging away at the hard to find *comparisons* and also someone with Propus quad core . . . btw what graphics card do you have?

 

[JonJ678]

There are certainly strong arguments to the effect that the normal home user will be unable to see the difference between a cheap dual core and the expensive intel option, but it's often difficult to convince someone what faster is not always better. As I feel this thread demonstrates

It was a P5Q premium with a C0 (C1? the worse one anyway) Q9550 actually, running at stock under a TRUE when it failed. I was reorganising my watercooling with an eye to finally pushing large voltages through the chip (4ghz was elusive) but hadn't got to that point yet. My private belief is that something failed in the circuitry which feeds the cpu and briefly fed the quad core 12V, but I lack the knowledge to verify this. Was quite a saga, thread's [thread="18022961"]here[/thread] if you've got a few minutes spare. Credit to Plec for keeping me sane.

Under testing Gigabyte have found no fault. This has confused me immensely, as the most sensible conclusion is that it was never broken and I was just too thick to notice I'd set it up wrong. I'm so sure I tested everything else it could be though. Fingers crossed that I was a fool I suppose.

I don't suppose your chip unlocks into the appropriate quad core does it? Presumably not, since I imagine you'd like a free core. I'm sure we'll find someone using one. I still think (handicapped) tri core i7 vs tri core equivalent to the 620 is a reasonable comparison, as they're then both quads with a core turned off. Not ideal though. I'm using an evga 8800gt at fairly aggressive clock speeds, using the bios from an fx3700 to take advantage of quadro driver optimization. Hopefully I'll have two of these in sli, having some trouble with a waterblock for the second (a bfg factory overclock model). A bit unusual I know

 

[LEUVEN]

How come the 620 was paired up with dual channel RAM and the i7 with tri channel RAM?
The i7 runs just as well on dual channel and therefore would'nt have been twice the price of the 620 in the original post (£33.98 cheaper)
(obviously I've answered my own question here)
Which would make it 85% more expensive (instead of 100%) for the excellent i7 920.

Genuine question>
What's the fastest AMD CPU/Mobo for games only as I wouldn't actually mind getting one if there was a better performing one than an i7 or i5,

 

[Ricardox1]

not bad

 

[Fire Wizard]

In truth I didn't think that far ahead! . . . but as you ask I am thinking that INTEL® are gonna have a serious problem as they have left no space/gaps in their price structure, if they are forced to drop the price on the i7 they will have to kill one of their own products to make space, I guess LGA775 will be given away free or something!

Why would Intel need to drop the price of their Intel Core i7 920 processor? It faces absolutely no competition from AMD at this current point in time.

The problem with comparing the Intel Core i7 920 to the AMD Athlon II X4 620 and simply saying the Intel Core i7 920 is over priced is you have magnified the issue, an issue which isn't really there. However, if you compare a high end Intel system to a high end AMD system, you get a much, much better perspective on things.

Intel Core i7:

AMD Phenom II X4:

The cost difference between the Intel Core i7 920 system and the AMD Phenom II X4 system is roughly £125. If you then factor in the performance of both systems whereby the Intel Core i7 920 is overall the better processor ( Anadtech Bench Tool ), an Intel Core i7 920 system doesn't seem quite as overpriced as in your comparison which I feel you may have deliberately done to make Intel look like the bad guys. In my opinion, you have given a lot of people the wrong idea in that an Intel Core i7 920 system is vastly over priced due to your comparison methods.

Please don't respond to my post saying it is off-topic because it certainly isn't. I haven't directly answered your question below because I disagree with your comparison methods. You're trying to magnify your argument of an Intel Core i7 920 based system being overpriced.

What are you thought's about this? . . . do you think the Intel® Core™ i7 is worth a 100% price premium?

Big.Wayne's original post

If you make a comparison in the way I have done above, which is a lot fairer, you get a much better perspective. If you then feel an Intel Core i7 920 system is over priced then that's absolutely fine.