Core i7 980X doesn't seem much faster than Core i7 860?

[Maximilian]

P55:

Intel Core i5 750 : $199.99

Top end Asus P55_P7P55D-E Premium : $279.99



X58:

Intel Core i7 920 : $288.99

Top end Asus X58_P6T7 WS Supercomputer : $399.99


Difference: $209; 43.54% more with X58(RAM price not considered)

Only not so smart people shop exclusively at one site.

 

[cbn]

there are also some X58 boards that are so inexpensive you'd be concerned about reliability.

Which ones are you talking about?

 

[Rubycon]

Since when is the enthusiast concerned over price?
Folks that want the fastest - buy it. Sometimes that is not fast enough so they overclock it.
X58 is superior in applications that depend on memory bandwidth and encoding. X58 users have an upgrade path to Gulftown whereas P55 users don't.

Budget conscious users are on X38/X48/P55 or AMD. Simple enough.

 

[alyarb]

Which ones are you talking about?

nevermind, they dont even sell them anymore. i remember $150 3-dimm ECS and jetway X58's back when the average board went for 230.

 

[cbn]

Does anyone else think the extra cache of these 32nm chips will really bring out the potential of the original Nehalem architecture?

Compared to Q9550, Core i7s have less total cache right?

 

[alyarb]

kentsfield was gasping for data because of the bus it ran on, which is why increasing the L2 by 50% was a huge break for yorkfield (and they went beyond 1333). Cache and memory latencies are far, far lower on bloomfield because of the new architecture and going back up to 12MB with westmere quads will be nice, but not as desperately necessary as it was with kentsfield.

Penryn was much more than just a shrink of Conroe, and I can't say with much certainty how much of Penryn's success can be attributed to the larger cache or to the numerous other improvements that were introduced with Penryn.

http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/2008/v12i3/3-paper/2-intro.htm

How good the chip is with cache will always be more important than how big the cache is.

 

[Makaveli]

i'm guessing only a few apps will get a boost from more cache mainly games.

 

[wwswimming]

980X should be about twice as fast as a Q9550.

when it gets down to $500, that will be a tempting upgrade. but Jeez, that'll be about 2 years.

 

[sxr7171]

P55:

Intel Core i5 750 : $199.99

Top end Asus P55_P7P55D-E Premium : $279.99



X58:

Intel Core i7 920 : $288.99

Top end Asus X58_P6T7 WS Supercomputer : $399.99


Difference: $209; 43.54% more with X58(RAM price not considered)

Picked up my 920 at Microcenter for $199 and my EX58-UD4P cost less than that board. Once you get past the $260-280 range in motherboards you are beginning to pay for luxuries and mostly marketing and branding.

If I were building today I would pick from the 2 cheapest boards here with Sata 6Gbps and USB 3.0 (the cheaper one being $209 and lacking nothing but dual LAN):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Value=7968:49719&PropertyCodeValue=8110:50511

 

[andy5174]

Picked up my 920 at Microcenter for $199 and my EX58-UD4P cost less than that board. Once you get past the $260-280 range in motherboards you are beginning to pay for luxuries and mostly marketing and branding.

If I were building today I would pick from the 2 cheapest boards here with Sata 6Gbps and USB 3.0 (the cheaper one being $209 and lacking nothing but dual LAN):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...e=8110%3A50511

i5 was 149.99 at microcenter when 920 was sold at 199.

 

[andy5174]

Only not so smart people shop exclusively at one site.

See above. No matter where you get PC parts, i5 is always much cheaper with only slightly less performance.

 

[andy5174]

Since when is the enthusiast concerned over price?
Folks that want the fastest - buy it. Sometimes that is not fast enough so they overclock it.
X58 is superior in applications that depend on memory bandwidth and encoding. X58 users have an upgrade path to Gulftown whereas P55 users don't.

Budget conscious users are on X38/X48/P55 or AMD. Simple enough.

Why do the majority of LGA1366 board owners get 920 instead of i7-975 EE then?

It is simply because the performance gain does not worth the premium, just as 920 compared to 750.

 

[Rubycon]

Why do the majority of LGA1366 board owners get 920 instead of i7-975 EE then?

It is simply because the performance gain does not worth the premium, just as 920 compared to 750.

X58 has been out over a year and a lot of buyers had no choice to go that route.
I've had plenty of 920,940,975 3520, and 3540 pieces and the best overclockers overall were 3520 pieces. 975 is an enthusiast part and people buy them strictly because of the flexibility of having an unlocked cpu.

 

[andy5174]

X58 has been out over a year and a lot of buyers had no choice to go that route.
I've had plenty of 920,940,975 3520, and 3540 pieces and the best overclockers overall were 3520 pieces. 975 is an enthusiast part and people buy them strictly because of the flexibility of having an unlocked cpu.

I agree with you.

That's why I said "Only not so smart people would get LGA1366 WHEN there's already LGA1156 i7 which beats the 920 in almost every cases." instead of "All LGA1366 buyers are not so smart.".

p.s. I apologize for call peoples not so smart.

 

[lopri]

That's why I said "Only not so smart people would get LGA1366 WHEN there's already LGA1156 i7 which beats the 920 in almost every cases." instead of "All LGA1366 buyers are not so smart.".

You're over-simplifying things, IMO. Yes, from performance (and worse yet performance/watt/price) point of views LGA1366 isn't as attractive as LGA1156, but LGA1366 provides a whole lot more freedom when it comes to connectivity. I don't think it's too far-fetched a scenario for a workstation user to want to use a high-performance RAID card or a network card along with a video card (or two?). LGA1156 loses its appeal very quickly under such scenarios.

 

[alyarb]

bingo. it's a matter of whether or not you are thinking ahead with your build. and 32nm quads.

 

[andy5174]

To two posters above:

There's almost no difference in performance. Even 10% performance less with two cards on LGA1156 means merely 4-5fps less at 1920x1200 or above which is not significant at all.

Yes, you will have 32nm extremely expensive i7-980X upgrade which I believe that 99% of the LGA1366 owners can't afford. In addition, your current LGA1366 board will be extremely outdated by the time LGA1366 32nm drop to affordable price to the majority.

................

 

[alyarb]

P55 is fine for multi GPU. what we are talking about is multiGPU with a high performance RAID card, PCIe SSD, high end NICs, etc.

32nm six cores like the 980X have very few implications for gamers at this time. i'm talking about 32nm quads, essentially the harvested six cores that still have the 12MB L3 cache. There will be be seven xeons in this family probably starting around $310 like the W3520. this means more cache, higher overclocks, and lower power for the people who want it. If you conveniently invested in a i7 920 early on, you can recoup much of the cost of your transition to 32nm.

 

[andy5174]

1. P55 is fine for multi GPU. what we are talking about is multiGPU with a high performance RAID card, PCIe SSD, high end NICs, etc.

32nm six cores like the 980X have very few implications for gamers at this time. i'm talking about 32nm quads, essentially the harvested six cores that still have the 12MB L3 cache. 2. There will be be seven xeons in this family probably starting around $310 like the W3520.

1. Is 8X a huge bottleneck for RAID card, PCIe SSD, high end NICs?!!!! I don't think so as you will be bottlenecked by other parts before you see bottleneck on 8X, just as graphic card in gaming. In addition, most of us can't afford PCIE SSD and its price will not drop in the near future too.

2. It makes more sense to go with LGA1366 if this was the case.

 

[Interitus]

I just ordered all my parts for a 1366 920 system.

I swayed back and forth between 1366 and 1156 for a long time.

In the end, the 1366 setup I went with cost exactly $94 more than the i7 860 setup I looked at.

X58 setup:

i7 920
EVGA e758-A1
6GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer

P55:

i7 860
EVGA P55 SLI
(RAM was where most of the difference came from) 4GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer

Rest of the setups were identical.

 

[Rubycon]

I just ordered all my parts for a 1366 920 system.

I swayed back and forth between 1366 and 1156 for a long time.

In the end, the 1366 setup I went with cost exactly $94 more than the i7 860 setup I looked at.

X58 setup:

i7 920
EVGA e758-A1
6GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer

P55:

i7 860
EVGA P55 SLI
(RAM was where most of the difference came from) 4GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer

Rest of the setups were identical.

While you may or may not have problems, I had 24 sticks of DDR3-1600 Ballstix Tracer and could not get the system stable at ALL in any configuration on an EVGA classified 759. GS Kill and Corsair sticks had no problems, however. The Tracer memory runs extremely hot too.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Does anyone else think the extra cache of these 32nm chips will really bring out the potential of the original Nehalem architecture?

Compared to Q9550, Core i7s have less total cache right?

Alyarb's post below yours have said it right but let me add more.

The memory latency went down and cache latency went up(for L3 compared to L2 on Penryn). That means the impact will be less on Nehalem increasing cache size.

4 core Nehalem's cache isn't really that much smaller than 4 core Penryn. The Yorkfields can't really use whole 12MB cache because the die is seperate and there's no dedicated bus for communication between the two dies.

 

[bob5568]

Since when is the enthusiast concerned over price?
Folks that want the fastest - buy it. Sometimes that is not fast enough so they overclock it.
X58 is superior in applications that depend on memory bandwidth and encoding. X58 users have an upgrade path to Gulftown whereas P55 users don't.

Budget conscious users are on X38/X48/P55 or AMD. Simple enough.

Rubycon, your message is completely confusing. On one hand you claim enthusiasts are not concerned over price. (This I agree with). BUT...then you claim that an "upgrade path" is a worthwhile talking point for i7 920 users. This I highly doubt...these are enthusiasts we're talking about, unconcerned about price, right? How many of these people would hesitate to do an upgrade because it requires a new motherboard? I normally find myself buying a new motherboard for every upgrade, even if I'm not forced to, just because new technology is always coming along. Do you think for some reason that features on future motherboards will simply stop evolving, so that Enthusiasts will remain satisfied by 2009 technology motherboards? I would say (speaking from an enthusiasts standpoint) that, as a p55 owner, I have a better upgrade path than a x58 owner, because I'm not biased to a particular path. Perhaps AMD will do something majestic between now and my next upgrade. For me, since my upgrades will include mobo, I can go AMD with my next upgrade...or if I want a 6 core upgrade...I know how to do that to, I just by a modern x58 board.
Cheers, Bob

 

[Rubycon]

Rubycon, your message is completely confusing. On one hand you claim enthusiasts are not concerned over price. (This I agree with). BUT...then you claim that an "upgrade path" is a worthwhile talking point for i7 920 users. This I highly doubt...these are enthusiasts we're talking about, unconcerned about price, right? How many of these people would hesitate to do an upgrade because it requires a new motherboard? I normally find myself buying a new motherboard for every upgrade, even if I'm not forced to, just because new technology is always coming along. Do you think for some reason that features on future motherboards will simply stop evolving, so that Enthusiasts will remain satisfied by 2009 technology motherboards? Cheers, Bob

Sure if there is a new chipset coming out for Gulftown why not? Unless you want MP (multiple processor/socket) platform the Gulftown is a drop in upgrade all is well. If you really need USB3 there will be PCI-E cards available. I certainly would not replace an excellent board just because I need USB3, however.

 

[DrMrLordX]

If you have the money to go 1366/920 D0 (or Xeon W3520), why would you ever get an 860? Just the voltage necessary to hit 4+ ghz on s1156 chips is enough to put me off.

I would feel much more comfortable running a 920 at such a speed with lower volts over an extended period of time. Of course, I don't have the money for computer upgrades right now, so for me, it's a moot point . . . but if I did, I wouldn't want to push the volts that s1156 chips need for higher clocks.