i7 920 to i7 2600 a real upgrade?

[OBLAMA2009]

id say that is not a worthwhile upgrade. just save your money for ib in march and youll get a real upgrade

 

[pantsaregood]

id say that is not a worthwhile upgrade. just save your money for ib in march and youll get a real upgrade

IB is a die shrink. If SB isn't an upgrade, IB won't be. Maybe it will hit 5.0GHz on air. Or maybe the 22nm process will be prone to degradation.

 

[Grooveriding]

I'm in the same boat as you OP. I only game on my system, sometimes I do some encoding, but not to the point the upgrade will help me. I also run 3 video cards, so I am waiting for 2011.

My plan was to get a SB-E 3930K, but I'm still not sure I will see any improvements with that. I may wait on IB on 22nm and hope for some bigger overclocking headroom.

As far as a highly overclocked 920 to 2600K/2500K, I'm not seeing anything there except for benchmarks. I also don't like the scaled back 1155 chipsets versus what X58 offers.

 

[shaka729]

well maybe i will wait for sandy bridge-e i read already reach 5.0GHz with aircooling

 

[Dadofamunky]

If it was me I would sell my 920 for $150 or so and buy a 970X or 980X. Throw in a lil OC and nothing you'll buy anytime soon will do your tasks better.

I agree with this. From an SB lover, I do think a 920 is still an excellent processor and upgrading your 1366 one last time seems to make more sense to me.

 

[BrightCandle]

I am in the same position and hoping that a worthwhile upgrade comes out with Ivy Bridge. Sandy Bridge isn't really worth it, even if you have a C0 920 as the overclock headroom isn't much more (25&#37 and the IPC is only about 10% better.

Its a waiting game right now for CPUs and GPUs. Partly because we're on the verge of a new process for CPUs (IB) which is the first 3D design that could change the game quite a bit (or not at all). We are also waiting for the new architecture and process for GPUs after a 3 year wait.

Its not like the good old days when in 2 years you got a doubling of clock speed and hence performance along with your doubling of transistors. The 100Mhz to 2 Ghz days were great!

 

[Makaveli]

If it was me I would sell my 920 for $150 or so and buy a 970X or 980X. Throw in a lil OC and nothing you'll buy anytime soon will do your tasks better.

This is what i'm considering as a possible End of year upgrade for myself.

The jump to sb isn't large enough for me do to a whole new build.

So I will probably grab an 980 and wait until ivy or haswell.

 

[Arcanedeath]

This is what i'm considering as a possible End of year upgrade for myself.

The jump to sb isn't large enough for me do to a whole new build.

So I will probably grab an 980 and wait until ivy or haswell.

The Problem is 980 and all the Gulftown / 6 core I7 1366 chips is that they cost waaaaaaaaay to much vs the performance you can get vs 1155 chips or even the supposed low end Skt 2011 stuff it costs 500+ for a decent 6 core chip on socket 1366 even a $300 option would have been nice but sadly if you want 6 cores you have to pay the big bucks and the 4 core I7 2600K will most likely outperform or equal it for 1/2 the price except in some niche apps. the lowend Skt 2011 chip plus a cheap motherboard will cost a similar amount to the 6 core skt 1366 stuff & that just doesn't make sense.

 

[Makaveli]

A $550 980 is still cheaper than a New board, New cooler, New memory as I am using 1.65v modules + 2600k chip as I want a chip with HT.

So it does make sense for me!

Plus I would be able to sell my current 920 for alteast $150 which would bring the cost down to $400 for the 980.

Not worth the 10-15% IPC boost and additional cost.

 

[iCyborg]

Plus I would be able to sell my current 920 for alteast $150 which would bring the cost down to $400 for the 980.

If you went 2600K you could sell not just i7 920, but your MB and RAM as well...

 

[Makaveli]

If you went 2600K you could sell not just i7 920, but your MB and RAM as well...

That's assuming I found a buyer that wanted all 3 components.

Secondly even if I sold all 3 of those components I would still be short.

2600K alone is like $320 Cdn + MB + RAM + HSF

If all of that I could do for around $500-$600 then it would be something to consider.

I've already done the math on this.

Its make more sense for me to sell the 920 alone upgrade to the 980 and hold out until a ivy or haswell when I can do a full new build with PCIe 3.0 etc.

 

[apoppin]

A $550 980 is still cheaper than a New board, New cooler, New memory as I am using 1.65v modules + 2600k chip as I want a chip with HT.

So it does make sense for me!

Plus I would be able to sell my current 920 for alteast $150 which would bring the cost down to $400 for the 980.

Not worth the 10-15% IPC boost and additional cost.

i am not sure what a 980 would bring over your current CPU. What do you do that six cores would do $550 better?

Is i7-920 @ 3.8GHz to i7-980 a real upgrade? Perhaps for encoding video regularly?
:\

i play FPS games so there is no upgrade in 980 for me. Perhaps a an overclocked i7-2700K is in my future since i already have a z68 MB (also).

Or i might consider overclocking my i7-920 from 3.8GHz to over 4.0GHz with better (water) cooling which might be the best bang for buck for me.

 

[Makaveli]

I encode alot as of late so that is the only reason i'm considering it.

I haven't decided on it yet just looking at my options incase I decide to stay on the platform a year or two longer.

The machine is powerful enough that I may be able to just do gpu upgrades to give it some extra legs.

 

[rogerX]

I have an i7 920 that was OC'd to 4-4.2 & I upgraded to a 2600k @ 4.6. I notice a little difference when encoding, decoding & un-rar'n but it's probably best to wait for SB-E. Though, if you are like me & don't plan to upgrade SB-E just yet, the 2600k is a worthy upgrade. Too each their own.

 

[jacktesterson]

Don't waste money


980 is pointless over your current 920 unless your time is worth 100 dollars an hour... same goes for 2600 k

 

[itstsui]

The CPU benchmarks don't make that much of a difference. I would wait for the new CPU's to come out before upgrading

 

[Makaveli]

Don't waste money


980 is pointless over your current 920 unless your time is worth 100 dollars an hour... same goes for 2600 k

Ya i'm kinda riding the fence on it for now.

will see how I feel by December.