man i keep seeing i7's all over the place, it seems like the IT market is moving super fast (prob just me being slow) so the i7's are quad core yeah? what is the idea behind the naming and how much better are they to the last lot of cpu's that intel put out... whatever they are!
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losing track of cpu's!
- Thread starter _Jimlad_
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The i7 is the new Nehalem range of Intel processors. I'm no expert but in basic terms the main differences are that they are true quad cores where the previous Core2Quads were really just two dual-cores stuck on the same die (this has some benefits regarding cache memory etc). The i7 also supports hyperthreading thus allowing each core to run two threads, so in theory the i7 is capable of running 8 threads (if you can find a use for that at the mo...). They also use triple channel DDR3 ram and a new socket (skt1366) so need the x58 range of mobos.
All in all it's a major upgrade for someone like myself who has a fairly high end skt775 system and at the moment the only real performance increase is likely to be seen in Video encoding type work or some equally CPU intensive task. Games are typically showing around the same performance as is currently being achieved by high end Core2 and Core2Quad platforms - UNLESS you happen to own some hugely powerful GPU setup (SLI'd nVidia GTX295's for example) when the additional CPU power of the i7 will help remove the CPU bottleneck suffered by skt775 systems at the ultra high end.
I am sure others will add / change some of what I've said - there's plenty of threads in these forums for reading on this subject if you've got the time!
All in all it's a major upgrade for someone like myself who has a fairly high end skt775 system and at the moment the only real performance increase is likely to be seen in Video encoding type work or some equally CPU intensive task. Games are typically showing around the same performance as is currently being achieved by high end Core2 and Core2Quad platforms - UNLESS you happen to own some hugely powerful GPU setup (SLI'd nVidia GTX295's for example) when the additional CPU power of the i7 will help remove the CPU bottleneck suffered by skt775 systems at the ultra high end.
I am sure others will add / change some of what I've said - there's plenty of threads in these forums for reading on this subject if you've got the time!
Caporegime
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Excellent summary FaceplantSi.