i7 920/965 question....

[Soldier786]

Hi,
Recently a lot of people have been going towards the i7's. The 920 is like £500 cheaper than the 965 and performs about the same once overclocked.
What i don't get is that if the 920 can clock to about the same as the 965 then why did they make it?!? Does the 965 last longer? i heard that when you overclock the life of the hardware, it decreases

I mean I've also read that the 920 sometimes is not compatible with certain stuff (ram..etc) once overclocked....
You see when I'm going to buy one of these i want the chips to last for a long time and perform about the same... is that possible?

So basically would any of you go for the 965 if you had the choice (money) or would you stick with the 920?

I hope you get what I'm saying!

Thanks

 

[Eye seven]

Stick with the 920. With these chips you will want to upgrade to whatever is new long before they give out due to lifespan and an aggresive overclock.

 

[cmndr_andi]

I'm pretty sure that all i7s are made in a very similar (if not the same) way. The chips that are determined to be better from initial tests are put in a different pile (bin) from the others. So the majority will be 920s and the best performing ones will be the 965s. This is done so the 965s can be easily clocked to 3.2GHz while using the (awful) stock heatsink. At stock settings, the chips will likely last over 10 years.

If you start to overclock them, the lifetime of both chips will decrease, but because its better silicon the 965 will likely last longer at the same overclock(ie 4GHz). Heat also has a lot to do with chip life, so if you have a well cooled overclocked chip, it will last longer than a stock cooled one. But both chips, even when heavily overclocked, are likely to last much longer than they will be ever need to due to evolving technology.

As for incompatibility when overclocking the 920, you need a decent motherboard to overclock. Luckily for us, all of the x58 boards are very overclocking friendly, and I don't think there is an x58 board out that can't get the 920 up to atleast 3.66Ghz (1Ghz Overclock). As for RAM, even with the slowest triple channel memory, you can change the memory divider so that it stays within spec when overclocked - so no problem at all.

So, to answer your main question. If I had enough money to buy either chip, I would buy the 920. The price difference is massive, but with no performance difference when overclocked. Also, you can get the 920 in the d0 stepping now, this chip overclocks at lower volts, so it will likely last longer than a 965 when overclocked.

If you plan to only run the chip at stock settings, the 965 has the performance advantage, but for the massive cost premiums, i'm certain it isn't worth it.

Spend the money saved on some nice cooling (TRUE or water), a lovely graphics card (like the 4890) and a solid motherboard (like the gigabyte UD5).

 

[Soldier786]

I'm pretty sure that all i7s are made in a very similar (if not the same) way. The chips that are determined to be better from initial tests are put in a different pile (bin) from the others. So the majority will be 920s and the best performing ones will be the 965s. This is done so the 965s can be easily clocked to 3.2GHz while using the (awful) stock heatsink. At stock settings, the chips will likely last over 10 years.

If you start to overclock them, the lifetime of both chips will decrease, but because its better silicon the 965 will likely last longer at the same overclock(ie 4GHz). Heat also has a lot to do with chip life, so if you have a well cooled overclocked chip, it will last longer than a stock cooled one. But both chips, even when heavily overclocked, are likely to last much longer than they will be ever need to due to evolving technology.

As for incompatibility when overclocking the 920, you need a decent motherboard to overclock. Luckily for us, all of the x58 boards are very overclocking friendly, and I don't think there is an x58 board out that can't get the 920 up to atleast 3.66Ghz (1Ghz Overclock). As for RAM, even with the slowest triple channel memory, you can change the memory divider so that it stays within spec when overclocked - so no problem at all.

So, to answer your main question. If I had enough money to buy either chip, I would buy the 920. The price difference is massive, but with no performance difference when overclocked. Also, you can get the 920 in the d0 stepping now, this chip overclocks at lower volts, so it will likely last longer than a 965 when overclocked.

If you plan to only run the chip at stock settings, the 965 has the performance advantage, but for the massive cost premiums, i'm certain it isn't worth it.

Spend the money saved on some nice cooling (TRUE or water), a lovely graphics card (like the 4890) and a solid motherboard (like the gigabyte UD5).

WOW Thanks a lot man! That was *exactly* what i was looking for!

 

[rjk]

my D0 920 outperforms every 965 i have seen to date

if you have the cash for a 965 - wait for a 975

but to be honest unless you are on water i cant see you running a 24/7 clock higher than 4.2 whichever chip you decide on due to heat output [that and you need good memory/board]

 

[Chaapa'ai]

By the time your CPU would be ailing from the OC'ing you will have long moved on to the next processor.

 

[JeffyB]

As ever with these things a little bit of know how can save a lot of money and actually be some fun. Its becomming much much easier to achieve decent overclocks and 4ghz from a d0 920 really doesnt take much effort at all. Save the money buy the 920 d0 and a decent air cooler, read as much as you can, don't be too silly with volts and above all enjoy tinkering.

 

[FaceplantSi]

As ever with these things a little bit of know how can save a lot of money and actually be some fun. Its becomming much much easier to achieve decent overclocks and 4ghz from a d0 920 really doesnt take much effort at all. Save the money buy the 920 d0 and a decent air cooler, read as much as you can, don't be too silly with volts and above all enjoy tinkering.

I second this! The 920 D0 chips are beasts when it comes to giving huge OC's without needing many volts. And as has been said the current crop of X58 mobo's are very user friendly. There's plenty of good knowledge here about i7 OC'ing so it's pretty easy to get up to 4GHz. Get one - you wont be disappointed!

 

[Meaker]

For the extra few hundred Mhz that the latest EE editions might give you? Certainly not worth the huge extra price investment.

 

[croggy]

wait until the 975's come out and see how far other folk get them up to similar cooling that your gonna have.