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I need a break down on CPU's

DEL 707

DEL 707

DEL 707

Soldato
Joined
20 Mar 2004
Posts
4,619
Something has gone drastically with my old Athlon 64 X2 4400 system which has now forced me to borrow my brothers Mac...

I currently planing on building a new machine, but I'm a bit lost on the core part, which CPU to get?
I built my last machine at the beginning of 2006 and sadly since then I havn't kept up to date on PC hardware.

Just looking OCUK website I gazed over the £150-£200 price range and saw

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz
Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield)

Both going for the same price (though I've just noticed the i5 is out of stock :o)

I use my PC for mainly gaming and I do like to mess around with overclocking.
I really need to get off the ground and pick a CPU, can any1 give me a recommendation?
 
The 965 is a very good chip, and extremely fast at stock. However, the i5 is even faster at stock and overclocks even better.

The only downside about the i5 is that the motherboards are a bit more expensive and not all of the pre-existing CPU coolers are yet compatible with the i5.

Personally, i'd recommend this Motherboard. If you don't plan on much overclocking, this CPU cooler is good. If you want to take it to the max, this one is worth a look (but you will have to either wait or email Corsair for an i5 compatible mount). This RAM is good stuff.
 
Silly question while I'm at it.

Just noticed this weeks deal for £200

Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem)

While they're both running at the same speed, what is the difference between the i5 and i7. Is the i7 worth the extra cash?
 
The i7 920 has Hyperthreading (so it runs 8 threads instead of 4) and supports triple channel memory. Also, the i7 900 series makes use of X58 motherboards instead of P55 (like the i5/ i7 lynnfield), the main difference betweeen these is that the X58 runs triple channel memory (p55 uses dual), the X58 has more PCIE lanes so it can run x16x16 (p55 can only run x8x8) and the X58 boards are generally a lot more expensive than the P55 ones. Also, you will want to run 6GB of triple channel DDR3 in an X58 board, which obviously costs more.

Anyway, in games the performance difference between i7 920 and i5 750 is tiny. The main reason for going i7 920 is for CPU intensive applications (video editing, CAD, photoshop etc.) and running multi-GPU gaming setups.
 
Thanks for the reply, I was looking at the i7 setup, but the price was starting to go way past my budget. The i5 looks like the smart choice :)

Sorry Andi, just noticed ur earlier reply, thanks a bunch for those recommendations!
Would like to try a water cooled system, but you say that setup doesn't have the right plates?
 
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