Any noticible difference going from E8500 to Core i7 920?

[asdftt123]

I'm currently running my system with an E8500 + P5Q Pro + 4GB DDR2 1066 + HD 4870 1GB. Would there be any benefit in upgrading to an i7 920 with an X58 mobo (P6T Deluxe or equivalent) and DDR3? My system is mostly for gaming and everyday tasks. Thanks.

 

[Arkaign]

No, not really as of yet. Overclocking your 8500 a bit will stretch it out.

 

[nerp]

You have a solid year before worrying and an easy two years if you just throw in a GPU when games slow down. For "everyday tasks," absolutley not. Unless your "everyday tasks" consists of engineering apps, rendering, and complex scientific calculations. If you ask me, $1000 for a platform change is hard to justify to reduce an encoding job from 8 minutes to 5.

 

[brencat]

Agreed. Get that E8500 clocked up to 4.0+ghz and you won't be worrying about an upgrade for a while.

Nice system btw :thumbsup:

 

[daveybrat]

I definitely would not consider upgrading yet with what you currently have. Your system should last for a while. You'll likely just spend a lot of money for very little 'noticable' returns.

 

[JPB]

Only upgrade to Core i7 if you want the latest and greatest.

DO NOT upgrade if your only doing it for performance increase. You will probably not even notice a difference in gaming and everyday tasks.

So yea, everyone else hit the nail on the head :thumbsup:

I agree though, you have a KICKASS system right now. KEEP IT !

 

[Tempered81]

definitely keep what you've got and overclock.

 

[jjmIII]

Apple Cinema 20" S-IPS

Guys.....he has plenty of money to burn .

Get the i7 :evil:.

 

[Philippart]

Here's the perfect chart for you (sorry it's in german) Spiele means Games:
http://www.computerbase.de/art...nitt_performancerating

It's shown in percentage compared to older CPUs, it's the result of individual tests of Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Company of Heroes, Crysis, Lost Planet: Colonies, Race Driver Grid, Sacred 2, World in Conflict

 

[Tempered81]

Originally posted by: Philippart
Here's the perfect chart for you (sorry it's in german) Spiele means Games:
http://www.computerbase.de/art...nitt_performancerating

It's shown in percentage compared to older CPUs, it's the result of individual tests of Assassin's Creed, Bioshock, Company of Heroes, Crysis, Lost Planet: Colonies, Race Driver Grid, Sacred 2, World in Conflict

If you actually look at the games, and not the overall score (which includes synthetic benchmarks) the i7 920 loses to Penryn in:

wic:
http://www.computerbase.de/art...65_extreme_edition/24/

sacred2:
http://www.computerbase.de/art...65_extreme_edition/23/

race driver grid:
http://www.computerbase.de/art...65_extreme_edition/22/

crysis:
http://www.computerbase.de/art...65_extreme_edition/21/

company of heroes:
http://www.computerbase.de/art...65_extreme_edition/20/

bioshock:
http://www.computerbase.de/art...65_extreme_edition/19/


...well, just about every game actually.

 

[GundamF91]

Wow...why would Nehalem lose to the Penryn in games? I thought there's some gain even in single thread. Maybe the reduced cache. Penryn have 12mb L2, while Nehalem have 3 levels of cache and are still less than Penryn's L2.

 

[Phynaz]

Originally posted by: GundamF91
Wow...why would Nehalem lose to the Penryn in games? I thought there's some gain even in single thread. Maybe the reduced cache. Penryn have 12mb L2, while Nehalem have 3 levels of cache and are still less than Penryn's L2.

Bad testing, they were GPU limited.

 

[Tempered81]

slower than penryn here:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/...wyLCxoZW50aGlzdWFzdA==

and here too:
http://www.tomshardware.com/re...i7-gaming,2061-11.html

(single cards)

 

[Idontcare]

Originally posted by: GundamF91
Wow...why would Nehalem lose to the Penryn in games? I thought there's some gain even in single thread. Maybe the reduced cache. Penryn have 12mb L2, while Nehalem have 3 levels of cache and are still less than Penryn's L2.

It is going to be a new SAT question:

For gaming, Vista is to XP as Nehalem is to:

(A) Penryn
(B) Willamette
(C) YourMotha
(D) Failnom
(E) None of the above

 

[Keysplayr]

I just looked up what it would cost me to upgrade to the lowest i7 platform. Almost had a heart attack.

i7 920 retail: 304.99
ASUS P6T Deluxe: 338.99 (I trust ASUS more than MSI,Gigabyte, etc. always have used ASUS)
6GB kit (3x2GB) G.Skill DDR3 1600: 279.99

Total: 923.97.

So the most noticable difference you will perceive, OP, is a much lighter wallet/bank account. IMHO.
Holy Schnikees.

I remember upgrading to C2D e6420 and 2GB ram with ASUS P5N-E SLI cost me about 550.00.
I hope i7 prices come down a peg or three and the motherboards that support them, very soon. Not to mention the still insane prices of DDR3. So, while I would want to upgrade to the latest platform, looking at my current system: Q6600, 790i, 2GB DDR3, I don't think I'll have any trouble waiting for these prices to come down. The only thing I could see myself doing is getting another 2x1GB kit of DDR3 for it. I could use 3 of the 4 sticks for i7 so I could at least have 3GB in TRI for it.

All I'm saying is, I hope AMD lays a hurting on Intel with Deneb/Shanghai pricing. It should force Intel prices down, I would hope.
Sorry for the rant, but my god it's getting expensive to own a new intel platform. Even the lowest end offered at the moment.

 

[exar333]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
slower than penryn here:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/...wyLCxoZW50aGlzdWFzdA==

and here too:
http://www.tomshardware.com/re...i7-gaming,2061-11.html

(single cards)

If gaming is your main focus, don't get i7 without running 2 or more GPUs. I don't have the link handy, but 3DGuru has done quite a bit of work showing how the scaling of 2 or more GPUs really displays how the gaming side of i7 shines.

If you are spending $1000+ on a new rig for gaming, why not spend the extra $200 and get significantly better performance with 2 GPUs?

 

[Tempered81]

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=583975

Bench Boards : GIGABYTE GA-EX58-EXTREME -- Asus P6T Deluxe X58 -- EVGA 780i FTW
CPU : i7 940 -- Q9650 ES -- E8500 E0
RAM : Kingston HyperX DDR2-1066 D9's, Ballistix DDR3 1600's
GPU's : GTX 280 SLI

conclusion:
As can be seen from these results the i7-940 setup had no improvement on gaming benchmarks, so all in all it seems that only synthetic benchmarks, encoding and other CPU intensive applications will benefit from the Nehalem platforn thus far. If you want to game, do everyday stuff with your PC, stay with LGA 775 daulies and quads.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So Nehalem is not a win in games, huh?

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Phynaz

Originally posted by: GundamF91
Wow...why would Nehalem lose to the Penryn in games? I thought there's some gain even in single thread. Maybe the reduced cache. Penryn have 12mb L2, while Nehalem have 3 levels of cache and are still less than Penryn's L2.

Bad testing, they were GPU limited.

no, it is the cache.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
I just looked up what it would cost me to upgrade to the lowest i7 platform. Almost had a heart attack.

i7 920 retail: 304.99
ASUS P6T Deluxe: 338.99 (I trust ASUS more than MSI,Gigabyte, etc. always have used ASUS)
6GB kit (3x2GB) G.Skill DDR3 1600: 279.99

Total: 923.97.

So the most noticable difference you will perceive, OP, is a much lighter wallet/bank account. IMHO.
Holy Schnikees.

I remember upgrading to C2D e6420 and 2GB ram with ASUS P5N-E SLI cost me about 550.00.
I hope i7 prices come down a peg or three and the motherboards that support them, very soon. Not to mention the still insane prices of DDR3. So, while I would want to upgrade to the latest platform, looking at my current system: Q6600, 790i, 2GB DDR3, I don't think I'll have any trouble waiting for these prices to come down. The only thing I could see myself doing is getting another 2x1GB kit of DDR3 for it. I could use 3 of the 4 sticks for i7 so I could at least have 3GB in TRI for it.

All I'm saying is, I hope AMD lays a hurting on Intel with Deneb/Shanghai pricing. It should force Intel prices down, I would hope.
Sorry for the rant, but my god it's getting expensive to own a new intel platform. Even the lowest end offered at the moment.

actually, you could use all 4 sticks of the ddr 3 in a potential future i7 upgrade. the first 3gb would run in tri-channel mode while the 4th (hopefully only rarely used) would run in single channel.

 

[MarchTheMonth]

I upgraded from a AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+ (original CPU was a 3500+ single core), 7800 GS (the last of the AGP cards, it replaced a 9800Pro about 2 years ago), and 2GB of OCZ DDR ram on a MSI K8N Neo2 Plat mobo.

To say I noticed a difference going to a i7 920, 6GB of Memory, ATI HD Rad 4850 is an understatement. [My intent in mentioning my setup is not to brag about it, since it is likely a very common setup for anand'ers, but instead to show how big of a change I did, I waited 2 years because I was not going to get stuck on a dead-end socket like I did with the socket 939, but to be fair s939 didn't dead end like s734 (am i remembering that # correctly?) did.]

 

[MarcVenice]

March, 2gb vs 6gb is a big difference. 7800gs vs hd4850 is a big difference, and the CPU is of course a big difference too. But then again, a e8500 vs a x2 4600+, 2gb ddr vs 4gb ddr2 is also a big difference. You're bound to notice a difference if you wait that long. All in all, I don't think it's worth upgrading to i7 for gamers.

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: MarchTheMonth
I upgraded from a AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+ (original CPU was a 3500+ single core), 7800 GS (the last of the AGP cards, it replaced a 9800Pro about 2 years ago), and 2GB of OCZ DDR ram on a MSI K8N Neo2 Plat mobo.

To say I noticed a difference going to a i7 920, 6GB of Memory, ATI HD Rad 4850 is an understatement. [My intent in mentioning my setup is not to brag about it, since it is likely a very common setup for anand'ers, but instead to show how big of a change I did, I waited 2 years because I was not going to get stuck on a dead-end socket like I did with the socket 939, but to be fair s939 didn't dead end like s734 (am i remembering that # correctly?) did.]

You have a nice system, for sure. I do think that if you went with an E8400 and the same video card with 4GB DDR2 you'd feel the same way about your new system. You do have a nice situation now though so I wouldn't feel too bad about it.

 

[StinkyPinky]

The i7 is dissapointing and with a crappy name as well. Sorry but it is just underwhelming for all the hype it got. Hopefully AMD can push Intel a bit.

 

[tim924]

Originally posted by: StinkyPinky
The i7 is dissapointing and with a crappy name as well. Sorry but it is just underwhelming for all the hype it got. Hopefully AMD can push Intel a bit.

It's dissapointing because you dont have it i guess,dont put down a platform while it's shown improvements over the current generation,it may not satisfy gamers but it's not like the computer market revolves around gaming only,so those dont see the benefits are usually ones see gaming as their life,and neglect the fact that computer itself didnt exist just for gaming,for that you may as well end up with a $299-399 PS3/Xbox which is more bang for the bucks for you.