15 months in now, with the i7 920

[SanDiegoPC]

It's the rig in my sig. About 15 months in now, and still loving it. It overclocked nicely and I used Win7 64 bit as an OS ... and it's been the most stable and best performing platform I've ever built.

It was put together with a lot of fans in the case, four blowing in & two blowing outward. I just upgraded to the 460GX video couple of weeks ago; it was built originally with my old GTX 8800 card and performed admirably with that. So I'm a happy customer with this one! In recent months clients have had me build several others similar but only one wanted to step up to the plate & pay for the i7. Others were built with an i5 processor and yes there was a performance hit believe it or not. I just shipped one of these i5 based machines yesterday that used a pair of 1TB WD drives in a RAID 0 configuration which stepped up data reads & writes a bit.

But after about a year & a half of building other machines and using client's machines on a daily basis for my job, this i7 920 machine I built for my office still manages to kick butt... and I just thought I'd share a good OC success story

 

[Axon]

I have to agree. My 920 is one of the best systems I've ever had. I've had it since July 2009 and it still crushes any game or application. This is going to be one of those three to four year machines.

 

[CVSiN]

got one too so far love it..
built with a ASUS Sabertooth X58 Corsair H50 water cooling and SLI GTX 460 1 GBs FTWs..

machine shreds.

 

[exar333]

Built mine almost exactly 2 years ago (11/08) on launch date. I can't remember the last time I build a rig and didnt have any upgrade itches outside of the GPU in 2 years. Amazing.

The hexa-cores didn't excite me all that much, because I don't do a lot that even taxes 4 cores, let alone 6.

The 920 is definitely one of the best OCers I ever had, back to PII days.

 

[zokudu]

Not a 920 but my 955 has held up great. Honestly I think stuff like the Core2Quads still run well for todays applications. I'm hoping Bulldozer and SB are as big of home runs for as long.

 

[RaistlinZ]

i7-930 here. Damn fine CPU, damn fine. Makes me feel like the weakest part of my system is my video card. 🙂

 

[nyker96]

this is just evidence that the cpu market hasn't been competitive for a long time now. Amd has only low-mid end stuff on the market all this time. have to wait until BD next year to see some fire in 200+ market. this is pretty sad.

 

[jacktesterson]

this is just evidence that the cpu market hasn't been competitive for a long time now. Amd has only low-mid end stuff on the market all this time. have to wait until BD next year to see some fire in 200+ market. this is pretty sad.

Low end stuff?

Come on!

AMD has the 1090Ts out there for 229.99. They o/c to 4.0GHz easily and on paper lose to the i7 series, but can you ACTUALLY SEE 7-8 FPS difference in games? or how quickly Office Opens?

I'm not a biased person, I almost went the i7 route on my last build rather than the 1090T, but its not like AMD cant compete.

For 85% of people out there, these low end CPU's are actually much better buys with the ATI onboard graphic solutions.

 

[exar333]

Low end stuff?

Come on!

AMD has the 1090Ts out there for 229.99. They o/c to 4.0GHz easily and on paper lose to the i7 series, but can you ACTUALLY SEE 7-8 FPS difference in games? or how quickly Office Opens?

I'm not a biased person, I almost went the i7 route on my last build rather than the 1090T, but its not like AMD cant compete.

For 85% of people out there, these low end CPU's are actually much better buys with the ATI onboard graphic solutions.

The x6 is a great chip, but it certainly hasnt been out for 2 years. It took 50% more cores for AMD to compete, and Intel still smashes them in single-threaded applications and most games.

When was the last time AMD had a consumer CPU priced >$300? I can't remember, it has been a LONG time. As much as people don't want to admit it, today is very much like AMD vs. Intel in 2004-2005 when A64/A64X2 were crushing P4s. Sure a 4ghz P4 was good, but it was nothing against a 4ghz A64 in most applications.

 

[iCyborg]

Got my i7 920 in Dec 2008, had to wait one month after release before stores had 1366 bolt-through kits for TRUE 120 in stock. The only semi-meaningful upgrade would be 970/980X, and both are way more than I'm willing to pay for, and I don't really need 6 cores. It does seem like a slowdown - taking OC into account, the fastest CPU out there is only like 20-30% faster on average than a mid-range CPU 2 years ago. My Radeon 4870 on the other hand is already showing its age...

Glad I waited for Nehalem, I was gonna buy Q9550 in Aug 2008 when they came out with the E0 stepping, but it was MIA until October, and I decided to wait another month to see what Nehalem brings.


@BigStyle
Yes, 1090T competes fine, but it only matches i7 from 2 years ago.

 

[PsiStar]

I OC the heck out of mine. Voltages have been higher than anyone recommended for 10 months & OC-ed to >4.4 GHz running a number cruncher ... daily * for hours even days at a time. It works so well that I could not justify getting the i7 980x.

 

[aigomorla]

920 is still one of the fastest systems out there...

a good oc 920 does around 3.8-4.2 stable with HT ON.

That is wicked fast

 

[Rifter]

i7-930 here. Damn fine CPU, damn fine. Makes me feel like the weakest part of my system is my video card. 🙂

I completely agree with this, and intend to SLI my 460 as soon as my car stops screwing me over(clutch went yesterday, rebuilding transmission cost me $1000)

 

[Absolution75]

It seems like AMD has taken FOREVER to release bulldozer. I swear I was hearing about it almost two years ago. . .

Wasn't the original scheduled release like Q4 2009?



But in reality - do we really need faster processors? How many people actually encode videos all day?

 

[BD231]

this is just evidence that the cpu market hasn't been competitive for a long time now. Amd has only low-mid end stuff on the market all this time. have to wait until BD next year to see some fire in 200+ market. this is pretty sad.

So never mind the fact that there is not a single application AMD's top offering's cannot handle with grace? Or maybe never mind the fact that 99% of users wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between AMD/Intels top end CPU's?

That doesn't sound stagnant at all, that sounds like options.

 

[BD231]

You sound like me back when Intel keept re-branding the original Pentium as their flagship ... What was it, like ten years they sat around on that architecture? lol quit playin epsilon times have been far worse.

 

[Ben90]

So never mind the fact that there is not a single application AMD's top offering's cannot handle with grace? Or maybe never mind the fact that 99% of users wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between AMD/Intels top end CPU's?

That doesn't sound stagnant at all, that sounds like options.

AMD processors can choke kinda hard in Starcraft II custom games. Its not a big deal for the normal game, but once you start having over a thousand units on the map its a world of difference.

 

[exar333]

You sound like me back when Intel keept re-branding the original Pentium as their flagship ... What was it, like ten years they sat around on that architecture? lol quit playin epsilon times have been far worse.

You are greatly eggagerating here. The Pentium launched in 1993 and Pentium II launched in 1997. That's hardly 10 years.

Are you going to bust AMD's chops for having the Athlon/XP and A64 for a long time too?

 

[dank69]

Still lovin my 920 D0 system build last year around this time. OCs to 4.0 rock solid.

HAF32
EVGA 758-A1
Cogage TRUE Spirit
6GB OCZ Platinum
160GB G2
4890
SeaSonic X-750 Gold

 

[Rifter]

It seems like AMD has taken FOREVER to release bulldozer. I swear I was hearing about it almost two years ago. . .

Wasn't the original scheduled release like Q4 2009?



But in reality - do we really need faster processors? How many people actually encode videos all day?

I do, im working on getting all 800+ of my DVD's encoded to H.264

 

[biostud]

it's good for the wallet that the CPU's have such a long lifetime.

(except we just channel the money towards SSD's and new videocards 😛)

 

[Axon]

it's good for the wallet that the CPU's have such a long lifetime.

(except we just channel the money towards SSD's and new videocards 😛)

Indeed sir. I need the new GPU hotness to get my fix...though lately I've just been building SFF systems. WTF is wrong with me?

 

[Yuriman]

I've had my Q6600 for 40 months now (that's about 3 and a half years for those a little weak in math), and I see no reason to buy a new chip. It may be holding its value really well, but that's just a positive spin on stagnation in the cpu market. As things are, I can see myself keeping this chip another 2 years.

 

[samboy]

My rule of thumb upgrade is approximately a 2x speed increase for the CPU

I'm still running the original E6700 Core 2 @ 3.2GHZ I purchased a little over 4 years ago. I looked at the i920 and did some benchmarking on one @ 3.8GHZ and it was around 50% faster than the E6700 for what I do (the most important benchmark for me).

I'll likely do my next upgrade for Sandy Bridge in Jan 2011 which should be close (I expect still a bit short) of my 2x requirement. I'm not holding out for the 2011 socket since Intel has already demonstrated the expected pricing model with their last release and not worth waiting another 12 months to find out it is too expensive!

 

[brencat]

This thread caught my attention so I'll chime in here. Until my IP35-E died several weeks ago, I was fully prepared to skip this generation completely since I was running an E6750 @ 3.6ghz and it played virtually everything I was playing fine (chugged a tad on BFBC2 but still good).

Since I couldn't wait for SB to launch, I built this i5 system. I have to say that the performance difference is stunning. Not only that, it was the easiest overclocking experience ever. And to the guy in one of the posts earlier mentioning he feels like his GPU is the weak link now, I'd have to agree!

I gave a hard look at going the AM3 route with a 955 BE, but in the end, the statistics don't lie. The i-chips outperform across the board, and with the massive overclocking headroom, just crush the AMD alternatives. The thing was too, with the i5-760 @ $170 + tax at Microcenter and my mobo at $105 shipped + $75 AR for the RAM, I would've saved maybe $35 by going AMD (CPU cheaper) for vastly inferior performance.

It's funny reading about some of you having had your i5/i7 systems for 15+ months. I know I'm way late to the party here, but just wanted to agree that this generation of chips is awesome.