EVGA considers the i7 930 to be inferior to the 920

[MJinZ]

So if you're a member of EVGA forums, you've probably seen this "Fiesta Sweepstakes", which has four prizes:

Quote:

Grand Prize EVGA’s amazing dual CPU 4-way SLI motherboard!

2nd Prize 1 each of 2 x Intel Core i7 920 CPU’s

3rd Prize 1 each of 2 x Intel Core i7 930 CPU’s.

4th Prize 1 each of 3 x SNV425-S2/64GB 2nd Generation Kingston SSD Drives.


Hehe, interesting eh?

 

[Arkaign]

Hah, that is confusing. I'd be happy with either, though my lil PhII @ 3.6 is trucking away happily for now.

A funny footnote, remember the Intel marketing about needing faster CPU's for the internet? At the time, we all laughed like maniacs at the insanity of that, but now with h264 streaming, heavy flash, etc, it sucks to use a really slow PC for even moderate internet usage these days.

 

[ViRGE]

I don't get it. How could a 930 possibly be worse than a 920?

 

[alyarb]

bit tech got their 930 to 4.30 GHz with 1.45v. I don't see what the problem is.


jesus, look at this:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/03/01/intel-core-i7-930-cpu-review/7

all the i7's regardless of frequency get the same minimum and average FPS. I would like to see this data in hardocp's time-dependent graph. crazy game.

 

[MJinZ]

bit tech got their 930 to 4.30 GHz with 1.45v. I don't see what the problem is.


jesus, look at this:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2010/03/01/intel-core-i7-930-cpu-review/7

all the i7's regardless of frequency get the same minimum and average FPS. I would like to see this data in hardocp's time-dependent graph. crazy game.

1.45V is horrendous. That's like C0 stepping bad.

My 920 D0 does 3.8ghz with 1.27V (auto VCore detect), 4.2ghz with 1.32V. Memory keeps me from going higher.

 

[alyarb]

surely you realize that your specimen is above average and would be remiss to expect all 930s, which are also D0, to meet your CPU as a standard.

 

[MJinZ]

surely you realize that your specimen is above average and would be remiss to expect all 930s, which are also D0, to meet your CPU as a standard.

I don't think so... do you have an i7 D0? I have a pretty average/poor sample based on what I see in the EVGA forums. Many detect auto VCore between 1.2-1.25V.

It could also be these new batches are getting worse and worse, it seems to be the case lately among 920s.

 

[alyarb]

the batches are improving but the binning is more realistic as there are many more good D0s going into higher-frequency parts and xeons. You can't expect all or even half of the i7 920 population to do 4 GHz with less than 1.3, and I think that is also what you expect of the 930. going around EVGA and extremesystems.org looking at "best of" threads is a poor way to catch a glimpse of the capabilities of the average. Yes, some will do 4+ GHz at 1.2. Most of these are xeons, though, and even that isn't average.

 

[n7]

Are the 920s handpicked good batches? :hmm:

When OCed, i've seen results w/ the 930s to be really no better than the 920s.
It seems good OCing is more batch-dependent than CPU-dependent.