upgrade to 45nm quad c2d, or to i7?

[Monkey Puzzle]

Sorry - I'm sure it's been asked a million times before.. Is there any worth in getting a 45nm c2d quad over an 920 i7 set-up?

What's the difference likely to be in terms of overclocking say a q9550 on a good x48 board compared to an i7 920? Not sure if the extra cost of i7 is going to be worth it for me (gaming - some encoding, general pc use, fun overclocking well under water)...

 

[cmndr_andi]

I wouldn't suggest going for a Q9550 these days, they cost more than an i5 750 and perform/overclock worse.

The i7 is a beast of a chip, but for everything you do (except encoding) the i5 will give you almost the same performance as an i7.

However, for overclocking you will find an i7 900 series easier than an i5 due to the X58 chipset used by the bloomfield i7 900 series chips. Under water I would aim for 4.0-4.2 GHz for both i7 and i5.

 

[setter]

On an x48 board your looking at about 450 fsb with a q9550, p45 boards will generally run the 45nm quad cpu's a bit better, on i7 4ghz is fairly easily achieved.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Sorry - I'm sure it's been asked a million times before..

It has! . . . but as your so cool we don't mind!

Don't but a *new* 45mn quad . . . . . hold off for a few weeks and then grab one for cheap on the MM

 

[JTrickle]

Unless you absolutely want the option of 2x 16 lanes, then I dont see why you would buy an IX48 board and q9550 over an I5. Both the I5 and I7 are at least 10% quicker clock for clock.

Even with a p45 cheaper board, the price of a q9550 setup is still only slightly cheaper than I5 (memory costs). If you already own an IX38/48/p45 board and 4gb DDR2, then it might be better to buy the q9550 (or q6600) if you need a quad now, then consider a new mainboard when PCIE3 comes out. Other people can correct me here, but I'd heard Intel wouldnt be releasing a PCIE3 chipset this year, even if the standard does get ratified in the next 3 months.

Depends what AMD get up too, but the consensus is that I5 is worth going for if you are buying cpu/mobo and ram. Only people insisting on future proofing could argue for an p45 board and I7 costs (you are as likely to need 6 cores next year, as much as you needed a 4 core q6600 in 2008 imho). If you know you are not likely to need 2 gfx cards (ie most of us), then I dont see why you would go I7.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Sorry - I'm sure it's been asked a million times before.. Is there any worth in getting a 45nm c2d quad over an 920 i7 set-up?

What's the difference likely to be in terms of overclocking say a q9550 on a good x48 board compared to an i7 920? Not sure if the extra cost of i7 is going to be worth it for me (gaming - some encoding, general pc use, fun overclocking well under water)...

The question would be, what do you have now, and where does it have trouble.

If you have a very old c2d, an X2, a 754 system, an upgrade might be worth it, if you have a 3.5Ghz +capable dual core, unless you play some VERY specific games, you'll gain next to nothing from an upgrade right now.

If you want some overclocking a quad, and want it for gaming, a Ath 2 X4 at 3.5Ghz does some serious power for honestly, stupid cheapness, then theres always the option of trying your luck with one of the unlockable cpu's, a x2/x3 and seeing if you can get an X4, value wise if you get the extra core(s) you can't lose.

Intel side, theres the i5 750, almost every single chip below is realistically has a better AMD option. I'll be honest and say I'm not entirely sure how i5 750 + mobo + mem works out against a similar AMD rig, you'd get more power out of the i5, but for gaming it will be exactly no faster at all.

But again depending on your current setup, a gpu upgrade is likely to yield a far bigger performance boost than a cpu upgrade.