What CPU? I still can't decide between them all

sastusbulbas

sastusbulbas

sastusbulbas

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As the title states,

I had planned on an AMD Phenom II X4 955 build, but have been wondering about i5 as the prices are similar.

But I then wonder about i7 and the extra cost of either a 920 set up or 860?

Is there any point in overclocking the new i5/i7 socket CPU's when they have turbo boost and hyperthreading?
 
The way I've come to understand it is that i7 beats i5 in performance, but for gaming performance is similar. i7 only beats i5 in tasks that use Hyperthreading, or more cores. 860 uses hyperthreading, but I don't know how it compares to the core i7.

There is a point to overclocking the i5/i7. Turbo boost is only temporary, but if you oc the CPU it will give a permanent performance boost. And I think turboboost can still be used on an overclocked cpu, to further OC it.

Not sure though... someone correct me!
 
if you're thinking of getting the i5, don't...

get the i7 920... it's not much more expensive... and is in everything better than the i5...

It can be overclocked to 4ghz no problem...

If you play games like simulations (FSX for example and others), CPU is more important than the gfx so I would prefer to spend some more now and having the pc last an extra year or two.

Also between i7 860 and i7 920... go for the 920... it uses 1366 socket and triple channel ram unlike the 1156 and dual channel of the 860
 
The thing is I am sure I have seen benchmarks and such on the sites such as Tom's hardware and the like which showed the newer Intel processors outperforming the 920?

The cheapest build is an AMD 955 with i5 a close second but is it worth holding out and spending a couple of hundred more?
 
Best way to decide is to set yourself a budget and see what it gets you, otherwise you will always be contemplating upgrading to the next best thing be it cpu, graphics card, psu or motherboard and thats when you end up spending £300 more than you should have :D
 
The way I've come to understand it is that i7 beats i5 in performance, but for gaming performance is similar. i7 only beats i5 in tasks that use Hyperthreading, or more cores. 860 uses hyperthreading, but I don't know how it compares to the core i7.

There is a point to overclocking the i5/i7. Turbo boost is only temporary, but if you oc the CPU it will give a permanent performance boost. And I think turboboost can still be used on an overclocked cpu, to further OC it.

This^^^^^^
 
Quote,
Farore; What will you be using the PC for? From there, I can help you decide which CPU to go for.
beefybarn; Best way to decide is to set yourself a budget and see what it gets you, otherwise you will always be contemplating upgrading to the next best thing be it cpu, graphics card, psu or motherboard and thats when you end up spending £300 more than you should have.

I will be using the PC for games, music and watching movies on, 22" (24" possibly after Xmas) monitor and possibly a Plasma TV too. All round family use, a lot of open office and multiple web browsing, it will be full of photo's, music, PDF files, etc etc, and used by me, my partner, my kids (6yr old who enjoys C&C RA3 etc 3yr old who likes CBeebies online)
I cannot say I won't overclock, I am already planning on a cheap 775 motherboard to play around with OC'ing my E5200.

Some of the things I would like
Modular PSU around 750w to replace my still working Hiper 580w.
1tb HD maybe with a small OS drive as I guess I can add the bigger storage drive later.
New Sata DVD drive and later a Blue Ray drive.

I had thought all I would need is
Motherboard; Initial budget was £140ish
CPU; Initial budget was £150ish
Ram; Initial budget was £140ish (I am interested in the Dominator GT series with airflow fan)
HD; WD 1TB Black
But I think I may want to add a new PSU sooner rather than later?

Initial budget would have been around £500 but I could maybe stretch it or not be so ambitious. Or I could get some parts now and/or decide on the Mobo/CPU/Ram later.

I have a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 Toxic Edition PCI-Express Graphics Card and was contemplating a second one of these later, if it gave a decent boost in graphics performance?
 
urgh Hiper 580 the PC killer. Why do people buy these?

This was on budget at £499 but ive added a new power supply as you need to grab that Hiper and throw it in the nearest river.


Anway 860 for hyperthreading and it loves games etc in the various benchmarks around and has a higher stock clock than the 920.
860 clocks as well as the 920 eg 4-4.2 ghz

MSI gd65 as its reasonably priced, a nice board and has the "oc genie" feature which means 1 button press on the mobo and it clocks the cpu to a stable 3.3-3.5ghz
Decent brand ram with modest timings

Samsung f3 as its a dual platter 1TB drive with a fast transfer rate

Ocz modular supply 600w, a bit more juice with easy cable management and gets you away from that hiper 580w
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HybridX said:
urgh Hiper 580 the PC killer. Why do people buy these?

MSI gd65 as its reasonably priced, a nice board and has the "oc genie" feature which means 1 button press on the mobo and it clocks the cpu to a stable 3.3-3.5ghz
Click to expand...

When I bought the Hiper is was not well know for blowing up, in fact it replaced a smaller 400 odd watt non modular Hyper. The 580w looked cool in blue with some of teh best modular cables and connections at that time. Both these are still running but the Hiper owners thread has got me concerned ;)

I was looking at the MSI GD65, but was concerned with how much space there would be for a Dominator GT series fan? the memory I am interested in is that type 1600C7 XMP stuff

I would probably start with the stock Intel cooler, upgrading later to a Corsair H50 I guess?
 
the memory is a waste of money theres just as good stuff out there with xmp profiles without a gimick fan to get people to spend more.
 
HybridX said:
the memory is a waste of money theres just as good stuff out there with xmp profiles without a gimick fan to get people to spend more.
Click to expand...

Yes but is it low latency? I know many have been finding 1600Mhz ram to be no better than 1333mhz kits due to them having lower latency, therefor I thought due to the new Lynfield system memory controler being better than AMD that 1600Mhz of low latency had some potential for overclocking and such?

As I am thinking of using a Corsair H50 and large HTPC case so cooling the memory may prove worthwhile no? And besides it is only going to cost around £30 to £40 more than 4gb C7 1333Mhz DDR3?
 
My i7 860 setup is incredible! I can't recommend it enough!

All I need to do is overclock it and I'll be a very HAPPY man! Just waiting for my H50 now so I can make a move on it ASAP!

Can't wait for the GTX300 either!
 
SFFNoob said:
Ah the age old question, have you decided yet?
Click to expand...

Not decided yet, but have been reading that Intel has better memory throughput than the AMD set up?

I feel pretty tempted to go with the 860, maybe buy some this month some next or wait till next months issue of Custom PC? I find it interesting that on many sites the i7 860 outperforms the i7 920 in certain situations.

I am wondering if the 860 will overclock well with the above memory and a Corsair H50? The OC Gene button and XMP profiling interest me too. It's probably more than I need though :D

I am also still wondering if another 4870 in crossfire is worthwhile?
 
Nameless_87 said:
if you're thinking of getting the i5, don't...

get the i7 920... it's not much more expensive... and is in everything better than the i5...

It can be overclocked to 4ghz no problem...

If you play games like simulations (FSX for example and others), CPU is more important than the gfx so I would prefer to spend some more now and having the pc last an extra year or two.

Also between i7 860 and i7 920... go for the 920... it uses 1366 socket and triple channel ram unlike the 1156 and dual channel of the 860
Click to expand...

The i5 is a fair bit cheaper really, and it can overclock to 4GHz easily as well. 4.5 if you're lucky.
 
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