My QX9650, How fast compared to i7 range?

[Antx777]

Hello, happy boxn' day

Got an Extreme Quad QX9650, currently clocked at 3.5 (all air; on Tuniq tower And "Stepping"). Was just wondering, with all the i7 Hype et al, how my CPU ranks amongst the new breeds?. Seen some benchmarks, not many though. For example, is a i7 920 faster (in apps as a whole) than my CPU - with both of them at stock settings?.

Rest of spec is SLI GTX8800 (18,400 in 06, 12,250 in vantage, with 3.5 GHZ, but "Cards @stock" Got This Samsung 26" @1920x1200. Was just curious really, with all these new I7's leapfrogging over my "old" CPU

TIA


~Ant

 

[Antx777]

Thanks. Yes, these MOBO's aren't cheap - and then there's the ram to add to the price of the CPU.

Also, from what I've heard, the Core i7 is easier to overclock.

Well, I read on one Forum, (not sure which now) that the opposite was true, and (I quote) "that the I7's get very hot, with very little 3rd party support for coolers.

~Ant

 

[Antx777]

Well,

Looking at some reviews, I get the idea now i think, that the I7 series are much faster for encoding/studio etc etc, BUT NOT for gaming. Looking at reviews, there was little if any difference in performance at high resollusions. And let's face it, who's going to be playing FarCry2 with minimum details @ 800x600?.

Talking of Far cry2 - well, it doesn't like the i7 chips at all according to these tests here on Bit-Tech:





Quote from site:

"""""Our Far Cry 2 numbers offer surprising results to say the least. We checked and double checked these numbers and even upgraded to using the latest Nvidia 180.43 drivers (which are the results shown above) but it made no differenceIt seems that the Far Cry 2 engine just doesn't like the Core i7 architecture as much as it likes the previous generation Penryns, as they are a lot faster. Even the significantly cheaper Q6700, E8500 and AMD hardware outperform the Core i7s that all sit at the bottom of the table.""""" unquote


Was just wondering if there may be a similar trend in future games that do - or don't like i7 architechture? - acting like a "CPU version" of SLI/X-FIRE.....




~Ant