i5-750 vs i7-860 for web developer/programmer

[pctwo]

I'm a web dev/programmer. Mostly use my machine for work, which means various IDEs and dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc. Play some FPS on downtime, but not a real gamer. Encode/edit videos a few times a year.

since I don't have time to do a build, I'll just get a dell refurb. My choices are
i7-860 or i5-750. worth it to get the i7? if yes, how much more should I pay?

 

[Kenmitch]

I'd say as long as you don't get hosed on the price go for the i7 860....But as far as the price premium I'd say based on current pricing and an identical config machine $75 at the most.

 

[Absolution75]

I'd say at most $60 even.


BTW, if tend to compile programs, I noticed a huge increase in performance going from my old E7200 to my i7 860. Full rebuilds in visual studio would take just over 2 full minutes while they now take just over 30 seconds.

 

[pctwo]

the cheapest i5-750 refurb is $639+tax (almost 10% in CA), i7-860 is $819+tax. both same XPS 8000 model number so I assume same chassis etc. the i7 has a 1TB vs 750GB HD and gt220 vs 4350 video (not a huge diff), so they're gouging me a bit on the i7. hmmmmmm.

 

[nyker96]

just get the i5, don't think i7s/i8s will give to much of a boost. compilers are not super threaded. The HT will only benefit you if you have a ton of threads to work on.

 

[Jovec]

You don't say what you are currently using. Likely either one will be a nice upgrade for you. And if the saved money can be used towards better video, larger/dual monitor, more ram, or an SSD than that is the way to go.

Anyways, faster compiling just lowers your coding skills

 

[soccerballtux]

You don't say what you are currently using. Likely either one will be a nice upgrade for you. And if the saved money can be used towards better video, larger/dual monitor, more ram, or an SSD than that is the way to go.

Anyways, faster compiling just lowers your coding skills

lol

 

[Skott]

I'm no expert on web design and programming but I would think either CPU could do the job fine. I would tend to think amount of ram would be the more important thing in this particular case wouldn't it? Not counting video and drive memory that is.

 

[Absolution75]

uh, compiling programs is highly parallel


ram isn't really that important for compiling



get the i5

 

[cyclo]

For programming/web development either i5 or i7 will be more than adequate. You need as much RAM as you can cram into those motherboards though if ever you decide to run Virtual Machines for testing, etc. I decided to go with an i7 as I also do video editing... hyperthreading does provide a boost when rendering/transcoding videos.

 

[pctwo]

both machines have 8G ram so that should be fine.

In truth I could probably live with my x2 3800+ moderately o/c to 2.4ghz for a while longer, maybe even a lot longer. I'm just getting that 4 yr itch

 

[jonsu]

I am also searching for I7(notebook) for sometime.... but I haven't found good one available in smaller screen size... Most of them is 15" ++

What sort of web apps you're involve with ? if you are using multi threaded framework/platform than go with what processor could provide you with most thread.

Otherwise like I find out when deploying war, building your source etc to web server it really depends on how fast is your hard drive & processor clock speed....

My gut feeling if you involve with lots of AJAX, SOAP call that will at least require a query to database or maybe other type of data in your back-end, then I think more threading availability will definitely helps you.

my 2c.