Been out of the game for awhile... is the i7 the way to go?

[heyheybooboo]

Phenom 720BE / Asus 790FX combo: $308

Xigmatek HDT-S1283 120mm CPU Cooler: $30

Patriot Viper 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600: $95 ($55 AR)

XFX Radeon HD 4870 1GB: $150

Antec 650w Power Supply: $80


That's around $625 ARs - lotta room for future moves


Edit: I'd wait on the SSDs to drop in price

(and for the JMicron controllers get up to speed)

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: taltamir
i would wait a little until the i5 comes out, it seems to be right around the corner. i am already seening benchmarks of ES units and P55 motherboards...
Even if you choose to go with a core 2 or a phenom2 system, you will get better prices.

I thought they were phasing out the i7 because it would be too much of a competitor for the i5?

Also, if I do get the Intel X25M SSD (80GB) would the onboard SATA ports be enough to get maximum read speeds?

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: yh125d
unless you have a 30" monitor no need to buy a GTX295. 4870x2 is a better choice anyways

I was also wondering if the video card might be overkill.... I could leave myself some headroom and upgrade it again in a year or two.

Any particular 4870x2?

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: yh125d
unless you have a 30" monitor no need to buy a GTX295. 4870x2 is a better choice anyways

I was also wondering if the video card might be overkill.... I could leave myself some headroom and upgrade it again in a year or two.

Any particular 4870x2?

2 hd4870s in crossfire >>> a single hd4870x2

(and cheaper, too)

 

[mozartrules]

Originally posted by: taltamir
i would wait a little until the i5 comes out, it seems to be right around the corner. i am already seening benchmarks of ES units and P55 motherboards...
Even if you choose to go with a core 2 or a phenom2 system, you will get better prices.

Prices will always be better if you wait, that is just the thing with computers!

i7 is reasonably futureproof and while you will pay a little extra for the X58 motherboard it may be a while before we get really affordable P55 boards. I would consider an i5 at the end of the year, but it sounds like the OP wants to move sooner than that.

A single 4870 is fine. In the unlikely case (using 1680x1050) that you find it slow simply buy another one and crossfire.

An X58 board should be more than adequate to run an X25M on the onboard SATA.

They are phasing out the "low end" i7 920, probably to create separation between the i5 and i7 series. There will be higher end i7 models if you need to upgrade, depending on BIOS support you may also be able to use server CPUs.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: taltamir
i would wait a little until the i5 comes out, it seems to be right around the corner. i am already seening benchmarks of ES units and P55 motherboards...
Even if you choose to go with a core 2 or a phenom2 system, you will get better prices.

And after that? P55, P57, H55, H57..

Coincidently (yet conveniently) spaced 3-month launch cycles.. I could already see my 2 month upgrade cycles.. or NOT this time. I will probably let everything play it out then make my decision when there are truly mature products are available.

 

[2March]

Anything to look out for? I've read something about C0 vs D0... does that still matter?

You'd get more speed from a D0 compared to a C0 but I wouldn't fix myself too much on that. My C0 runs at 3.8 GHz with 1.24 Vc. There are D0's that would not be ashamed for that. It's always the luck of the draw with OC'ability. But when having the choice there is no doubt the D0 is the one to go for.

The lowend i7's are phased out because of the i5 but the reason is probably that they are in eachothers way. The i5 can perform identical to the i7 but it is not cheaper really so when they are still out there the i7 won't hurt even if in your scenario it would perform the same. Who knows what things will be llike two years from now. You may then benefit from triplechannel RAM and 32 PCI lanes.

Single thread performance is only lower because the single core turbo runs slower on the I7 compared to the I5 but that advantage goes out the door when you OC. Hyperthreading may also impair single thread performance but you can switch it of and the i5 will suffer the same.

And even if you're carefull with energy the power options of the i7 allow you to run lean when you want to and have full performance when you need it.

The AMD option is a good one IMO but I would take one when I would be sure it would be used for primarily gaming. You can spend the money you save on MOBO and Proc on a second vid for X-fire. But fire up 3Dmax and the PhenomII is no competition for the i7.

 

[Markstar]

I hope we can all agree that any kind of PC that is on a budget involved a compromise. All that has to be determined then is what the PC is used for and then the choices should be pretty clear:
If you need FPS-bragging rights with your friends, then the focus is a high-end graphic card like the 4870 X2 or better yet a Geforce 280 (or more).

However, imo any person on a budget who has serious work in mind as well (and a budget like Trevelyan) has to include a SSD in their plans, since it is clearly one of the greatest single speed improvements of the recent decade (concerning desktop computing not concerning games or rendering/encoding).
Next is the CPU - a dual-core is a very good improvement over a single core (and the benefit is, again imho, almost as great as the switch to SSD). Yes, 4 cores are nice and they will be used more and more in the future, but right now a dual-core is more than enough for most applications.
Spending more than $160 for a graphic card for gaming on a 1680*1050 monitor is just nonsense imo. You can get a 4870 for $142 + S/H, but even a 4850 should be enough.
2GB is already pretty good, but since RAM is so cheap some extra GB won't hurt.

What am I trying to say? If your motherboard can be upgraded with a dual-core CPU and has a PCIe port, I would seriously consider buying such a CPU (dirt cheap), a nice SSD (anybody visiting this site should know which ones these are) and a 4770/4850/4870 graphic card. You only spend a fraction of what a complete upgrade will cost you, while still being able to play Crysis fluently and have a much, much improved experience working with your other applications.

I have a 2.5GHz X2 with 4GB RAM and only a 512MB Radeon HD4870 - and I have a lot of fun playing Crysis at 1920*1200 at high details.

My recommendation: Upgrade if possible, if not - at least include the SSD.

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: Markstar
I hope we can all agree that any kind of PC that is on a budget involved a compromise. All that has to be determined then is what the PC is used for and then the choices should be pretty clear:
If you need FPS-bragging rights with your friends, then the focus is a high-end graphic card like the 4870 X2 or better yet a Geforce 280 (or more).

However, imo any person on a budget who has serious work in mind as well (and a budget like Trevelyan) has to include a SSD in their plans, since it is clearly one of the greatest single speed improvements of the recent decade (concerning desktop computing not concerning games or rendering/encoding).
Next is the CPU - a dual-core is a very good improvement over a single core (and the benefit is, again imho, almost as great as the switch to SSD). Yes, 4 cores are nice and they will be used more and more in the future, but right now a dual-core is more than enough for most applications.
Spending more than $160 for a graphic card for gaming on a 1680*1050 monitor is just nonsense imo. You can get a 4870 for $142 + S/H, but even a 4850 should be enough.
2GB is already pretty good, but since RAM is so cheap some extra GB won't hurt.

What am I trying to say? If your motherboard can be upgraded with a dual-core CPU and has a PCIe port, I would seriously consider buying such a CPU (dirt cheap), a nice SSD (anybody visiting this site should know which ones these are) and a 4770/4850/4870 graphic card. You only spend a fraction of what a complete upgrade will cost you, while still being able to play Crysis fluently and have a much, much improved experience working with your other applications.

I have a 2.5GHz X2 with 4GB RAM and only a 512MB Radeon HD4870 - and I have a lot of fun playing Crysis at 1920*1200 at high details.

My recommendation: Upgrade if possible, if not - at least include the SSD.

Okay, so I'm thinking as of now:

CPU:
Intel i7 920 - $280

CPU Cooler:
XIGMATEK Dark Knight-S1283V - $40

Motherboard:
GA-EX58-UD3R-SLI - $210

Video Card
XFX HD 4870 1GB - $150

Memory
OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1600 - $90

Hard Drive
Intel X25-M 80GB SSD - $315

Power Supply
CORSAIR CMPSU-620HX 620W - $130

Total: $1215

So this should do it for my upgrade. My reasoning with the video card was to use it and if it is too slow, add another one and run it in Crossfire down the road.

What do you guys think? Any better options? I'm over my budget by a bit, but I really don't want to have to get a new motherboard/cpu/psu for a few years. Other parts I don't mind upgrading...

Does anything here look like a stupid idea? I'm definitely sold on the SSD and from what I can tell the X25-M is the one to get less than ~$300...

 

[Trevelyan]

Anyone?

 

[Markstar]

Sounds good - if I had the money I'd get something very similar to that.

Edit: Oh, and let us know how it turns out.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan
Anyone?

LOL

You've blown your budget by 20% (doubled my $625 budget) because of simple 'peer pressure' ??

There are a lot of players in the SSD market - over the next year the price will drop like a rock.


Follow closely the single card numbers here.

 

[Cogman]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan
Anyone?

Ok, look, SSD is all hype. You get minimally faster speeds, far lower capacity, and a much lighter wallet. I would recommend dumping it and getting a terabyte hard drive. You loose the fast random access, but gain 920GB... Trust me, 80GB isn't enough anymore.

 

[evolucion8]

Why we all agree that SSD is the future, is far from ideal yet. It's expensive, limited capacity, questionable performance when doing many write/read requests, questionable longevity, it has issues when is not aligned (Specially under Windows XP 63 sector offset).

Better of buying 2 hard drives and make a RAID 0 configuration which will have a consistent speed no matter which circumstances. While Dual Core may be enough, Quad is the future and 50% of the current consumer applications benefits from a Quad Core, and they're cheap. Your PSU choice may be enough for now, but if you want to play safe for the future specially when moving to Crossfire or once you overclock your processor, a 700W or better should do. http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16817341002 << Got great reviews over the net and is cheaper.

 

[z1ggy]

Agreed. Save money..No SSD. Use that saved moned to get a better psu, or pocket it if you upgrade your monitor for crossfire. You wont really need it at your res. now, so you could just save it for a better single card solution 6 months or a year from now.

 

[aigomorla]

new question because no one asked ya.. instead i see fanboism raging all though this thread.

Overclocker = i7 PERIOD i7 will spank any phII 955 overclocked upside silly left and right.

Not a overclocker = go AMD. They tend to run near = under stock conditions sometimes beating the intel in stock conditions. (keyword STOCK CONDITIONS)

But overclocking an i7 is easy as pie. And once u moderately step that beast to around 3.6 which isnt very difficult at all, bye bye AMD it was nice knowing ya.

The 920's all average at around 3.6-4.0 for an old C0/C1

Grab a new D0 with a good aftermarket sink, they all do 4ghz @ 1.2-1.3Vcore..

@ 4ghz i7 = smoke in your rear view mirror against a AMD.

Your PSU is lacking op.

750W class, the I7 overclocked, which seems like you are gonna do, can put a load of around 180-200W. That leaves a tiny margin of about 450W to your cards.

You will run out of wattage once u SLI or Xfire on your current PSU.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/

That site is run by our power supply section moderator. Read his reviews, he's a legend when it comes to PSU's. Pick a PSU where he gives a performance raiting of at least 9 and you'll be in heaven.

 

[evolucion8]

The Phenom II X4 recommendation is only good if the OP only cares about gaming, since it can go toe to toe against the faster Core i7 models, but if the user wants to do more stuff with it like media encoding, etc, the Core i7 is the way to go.

 

[aigomorla]

Or Overclocking.

You have a larger overclocking window on a i7 then a PHII.

 

[lopri]

A fanboy with chest pounding is an entertaining scene, isn't it?

To OP: I like your selection very much. If I were to build a system for $1K budget now it'd be very close to yours.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: taltamir
i would wait a little until the i5 comes out, it seems to be right around the corner. i am already seening benchmarks of ES units and P55 motherboards...
Even if you choose to go with a core 2 or a phenom2 system, you will get better prices.

I thought they were phasing out the i7 because it would be too much of a competitor for the i5?

Also, if I do get the Intel X25M SSD (80GB) would the onboard SATA ports be enough to get maximum read speeds?

what? they are released two new slightly faster i7s to ensure it holds the high end, and two i5s... they are phasing out the two slowest i7s because they are NOT any competition to the i5 (according to engineering samples reviews) and nobody in their right mind will pay a significantly higher price for an i7 that does not perform any faster than an i5 half its price.

 

[yh125d]

aigo, since when is 450w a "tiny margin for video cards"? Surely I hope you're joking. 450w to the cards is enough for, oh, I dont know, 295 quadfire? :

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
new question because no one asked ya.. instead i see fanboism raging all though this thread.

Overclocker = i7 PERIOD i7 will spank any phII 955 overclocked upside silly left and right.

Not a overclocker = go AMD. They tend to run near = under stock conditions sometimes beating the intel in stock conditions. (keyword STOCK CONDITIONS)

But overclocking an i7 is easy as pie. And once u moderately step that beast to around 3.6 which isnt very difficult at all, bye bye AMD it was nice knowing ya.

The 920's all average at around 3.6-4.0 for an old C0/C1

Grab a new D0 with a good aftermarket sink, they all do 4ghz @ 1.2-1.3Vcore..

@ 4ghz i7 = smoke in your rear view mirror against a AMD.

Your PSU is lacking op.

750W class, the I7 overclocked, which seems like you are gonna do, can put a load of around 180-200W. That leaves a tiny margin of about 450W to your cards.

You will run out of wattage once u SLI or Xfire on your current PSU.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/

That site is run by our power supply section moderator. Read his reviews, he's a legend when it comes to PSU's. Pick a PSU where he gives a performance raiting of at least 9 and you'll be in heaven.

Okay, so you recommend to get at least a 750Watt PSU? Well that site just reviewed a modular Corsair rated for that, so I'm leaning towards that one.

And I think I would prefer the i7 over the AMD phII, since while I do game a couple hours at night, I do multi-tasking and business applications all day.

Do you have a cpu cooler you recommend for quiet operation yet good overclocking ability?

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Originally posted by: Trevelyan

Originally posted by: taltamir
i would wait a little until the i5 comes out, it seems to be right around the corner. i am already seening benchmarks of ES units and P55 motherboards...
Even if you choose to go with a core 2 or a phenom2 system, you will get better prices.

I thought they were phasing out the i7 because it would be too much of a competitor for the i5?

Also, if I do get the Intel X25M SSD (80GB) would the onboard SATA ports be enough to get maximum read speeds?

what? they are released two new slightly faster i7s to ensure it holds the high end, and two i5s... they are phasing out the two slowest i7s because they are NOT any competition to the i5 (according to engineering samples reviews) and nobody in their right mind will pay a significantly higher price for an i7 that does not perform any faster than an i5 half its price.

Can you point me to some article to verify what you are saying? I keep hearing contradictory claims made about the i5 vs the i7...

And so many of you are saying ditch the SSD. I guess it seems promising, but I can imagine it dropping in price significantly in a year or so... maybe then would be a better time to pick one up.

I planned to use it only for Windows, Apps and Games. I have a 1TB Western Digital for storage.


Anyone else? I really appreciate the back and forth... it seems there are many opinions out there...

 

[Trevelyan]

Originally posted by: lopri
A fanboy with chest pounding is an entertaining scene, isn't it?

To OP: I like your selection very much. If I were to build a system for $1K budget now it'd be very close to yours.

Thank you

I think I may have offended some readers with my interest in SSD

 

[mozartrules]

Get the SSD if you don't mind the price and the fact that it will be much cheaper next year. There are issues with SSD (Trim command), but they also have big advantages and the Intel seems to have fewer issues than most. My understanding is that Win7 is better at using SSDs. You could consider a compromise and use a Velociraptor as your bootdrive.

Other than that I think you have a good setup. You are looking for something that will keep you going for a while and that is what you will get. Overclock if you feel like it, leave it standard if you don't. Both will perform well.