Being offered a Core i7 950

[stipalgl]

I met someone who's willing to sell me only his i7 950 CPU for $380. It doesn't come with the heatsink or fans.

Should I take the deal?

Thanks in advance.

 

[aigomorla]

...

and do what? target practice?

Key Chain?

You stated no objective.. no reason.. just that your getting one, and were suposed to tell you if its a smart purchase or not?

Well from my standpoint its not good, because im pesonally greedy, and im only looking at gulftown.

But i have no knowledge of you so i cant tell you if its a good buy unless u want to tell us what you intend to do with it.

 

[stipalgl]

I suppose I'll be using it for gaming mainly, in addition to multitasking between running programs and the occasional conversion of media (ie. video).

Aside from that, I can't really claim I'll be doing any heavy encoding or whatnot (tasks the i7 truly shines in).

I should also mention that I currently own an E8500 but it doesn't overclock well at all and although I'm aware most games don't incorporate quads yet for me to go purchase one, I've played enough GTA IV to wish I had.

Thanks again.

 

[aigomorla]

the 950 will do 4ghz in its sleep.

D0, with all the glory the 920 has.

The problem with these guys compared to your 8500 is HEAT.
And a lot of it.

the 950 will probably be your last upgrade for a while, unless your really tech hungry.
Also at 380 its a great price, however if u have the intensions of overclocking, id honestly recomend a W3520.. slightly more expensive then a 920, but showing to be slightly better overclockers.

If your not the type who likes to push the chips too hard, get a standard 920, use the budget offset, 200 vs 380 = 180 <-- add this to a better board and cooling OR upgraded GPU.
And you'd be pretty much set.

 

[stipalgl]

Yeah heat would be a concern I imagine, especially compared to the E8500 as you mentioned. I'm also the type of person who leaves his computer on 24/7, so I imagine the power usage would be substantially higher as well.

 

[aigomorla]

I think you wont notice an major difference unless you grab dual video cards.

Usually in a modern system the video cards will draw more power then your cpu will.

 

[stipalgl]

Thanks for all your quick replies aigo.

 

[CurseTheSky]

My only concern would be WHY they're selling it so cheap. Perhaps this processor saw a lot of abuse (voltage) or they tired to lap it and did a bad job. If you trust the person I wouldn't worry, but if it's a stranger I'd suggest grabbing an i7 920 from Microcenter for $200. If you don't have a local Microcenter, you can sometimes find someone in FS / FT willing to buy one for you and sell it for a slight markup (usually $220-240ish).

Chances are, your E8500 can handle everything you throw at it for now. However, a quad core (especially with HT) is never a bad thing to have if you want a bit more future proofing. I upgraded from an E8400 and I plan to keep my current system for at least 2 years.

 

[sgrinavi]

I would go with a 920 (or W3520) and use the extra cash for an SSD

 

[Ben90]

I would rather get a 920 for new and cheaper, and overclock it to the exact same speed a 950/975 would reach

 

[stipalgl]

I ended up getting the 950 for $310. I'm confident that was a good deal, despite being a used processor.

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
the 950 will do 4ghz in its sleep.

As long as one disabled EIST and speed step.

Originally posted by: stipalgl
I ended up getting the 950 for $310. I'm confident that was a good deal, despite being a used processor.

Probably a terrible overclocker. :laugh:

 

[yours truly]

Originally posted by: Ben90
I would rather get a 920 for new and cheaper, and overclock it to the exact same speed a 950/975 would reach

Can the 920 overclock to 3ghz with the stock cooler?

 

[Dadofamunky]

Good price for the chip in and of itself, but still, it's no bargain compared to a 920, which performs almost exactly the same in the real world and OCs the same. You're paying for an extra couple hundred MHz of default clock speed (paying double for it, I might add) and I just don't think that's a good enough deal. I think your buddy realizes he overpaid. If you're gonna make the change, get a new 920 and spend the extra on other addons.

 

[Narynan]

I would get a brand new 920 for that price, you could even buy a 5770 or new video card or 2 wd 640 blacks or some other goodie insteam of worrying about everything that did or did not happen to that cpu