Nehalem i7 920 to Kaby Lake... upgrade or wait?

[daxzy]

Lets do a real comparison, in the year 2000 the best intel CPU was the 1.5Ghz single core P4, for around $300. 8 years later we get Nehalem 4 cores for around $300, which is well over 10 times faster.

From 2008 Nehalem release untill now we get skylake for around the same price but with only a 50% increase in performance is pathetic.

And the difference from 1992 to 2000 was even more dramatic. The best CPU in 1992 was the 80486 DX2/66MHz. But realistically, for $300, you could only buy the 80486 DX/25 MHz. A 1.4 GHz Willamette (or AMD Thunderbird 1.2 GHz) is literally 50x faster.

Between 2004 and 2007, we ramped from 1-4 cores. Yet, we're still stuck with 4 cores in the consumer desktop line. The why is simply because software is 'good enough'. There simply isn't enough incentive to develop processors at the same pace because software can't keep up in the consumer space. So instead, there are other areas of advancement - more performance/watt*, lower over all power, connectivity (native USB 3.1/TB), platform improvements, etc.

* Certain people like to rail on AMD for being power inefficient (which they are slightly) when comparing Polaris to Pascal, but somehow have no problems with Skylake to Nehalem? Stock i7-6700K vs Stock i7-920, at idle, the i7-920 uses 3x more power (150W vs 50W), and at CPU load, it uses almost 2x more power (250W vs 130W). And this is all for about half the processing power.

 

[Rifter]

Yeah, to deviate that far from a roadmap would likely have serious ripples for their investors.

Thats true only zen succeeds, but if it fails it would be really easy to sell investors on staying with 4 cores spending less on new designs/arch and making even more money doing it. Investors are in it to make money, they dont care how it happens most of the time, they just want big payouts. And if zen flops, intel needs to literally do nothing and will still make a killing due to them being the only option. When you have 100% of the market spending money on R&D is a hard sell.

 

[jackstar7]

Thats true only zen succeeds, but if it fails it would be really easy to sell investors on staying with 4 cores spending less on new designs/arch and making even more money doing it. Investors are in it to make money, they dont care how it happens most of the time, they just want big payouts. And if zen flops, intel needs to literally do nothing and will still make a killing due to them being the only option. When you have 100% of the market spending money on R&D is a hard sell.

I'd disagree, but it's all just speculation and conjecture, so carry on.

 

[TemjinGold]

Thats true only zen succeeds, but if it fails it would be really easy to sell investors on staying with 4 cores spending less on new designs/arch and making even more money doing it. Investors are in it to make money, they dont care how it happens most of the time, they just want big payouts. And if zen flops, intel needs to literally do nothing and will still make a killing due to them being the only option. When you have 100% of the market spending money on R&D is a hard sell.

Except R&D isn't overnight. By the time it's known that Zen failed, most of the R&D on the 6-core is already spent. Are you suggesting Intel spend all that money and THEN tell their investors they will not release the chip? You do realize the decision to spend that money happens BEFORE knowing whether Zen would fail, right?

 

[laamanaator]

* Certain people like to rail on AMD for being power inefficient (which they are slightly) when comparing Polaris to Pascal, but somehow have no problems with Skylake to Nehalem? Stock i7-6700K vs Stock i7-920, at idle, the i7-920 uses 3x more power (150W vs 50W), and at CPU load, it uses almost 2x more power (250W vs 130W). And this is all for about half the processing power.

Did you pull those numbers out of your a-hole or what? The TDP of i7 920 is 130 W, and it doesn't consume 150 W at idle. In a power virus test it can consume 150W, but not in idle. And the same is true fo i7 6700K, it consumes way less than 50 W at idle, and max at Prime95 is probably way under 100 W.

 

[dead_smiley]

I recently went from i7-950 to X5660. Running at 4.0 GHz with 1.392 Vcore I topped out at 80c IBT. I usually see around 60c while gaming.

I got the Gigabyte GA'X58A-UD7 Ver. 1 motherboard for $78.88 shipped. YES, I bought this old Tech for my desktop. I have around $220 in the motherboard, CPU and RAM.

Paired this with a $150 GTX 690 and I get over 11k in Firestrike. I run Mechwarrior Online at max settings 1080p.
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/10654404

I am pretty happy with it.

 

[Rifter]

And the difference from 1992 to 2000 was even more dramatic. The best CPU in 1992 was the 80486 DX2/66MHz. But realistically, for $300, you could only buy the 80486 DX/25 MHz. A 1.4 GHz Willamette (or AMD Thunderbird 1.2 GHz) is literally 50x faster.

Between 2004 and 2007, we ramped from 1-4 cores. Yet, we're still stuck with 4 cores in the consumer desktop line. The why is simply because software is 'good enough'. There simply isn't enough incentive to develop processors at the same pace because software can't keep up in the consumer space. So instead, there are other areas of advancement - more performance/watt*, lower over all power, connectivity (native USB 3.1/TB), platform improvements, etc.

* Certain people like to rail on AMD for being power inefficient (which they are slightly) when comparing Polaris to Pascal, but somehow have no problems with Skylake to Nehalem? Stock i7-6700K vs Stock i7-920, at idle, the i7-920 uses 3x more power (150W vs 50W), and at CPU load, it uses almost 2x more power (250W vs 130W). And this is all for about half the processing power.

Your numbers are way off, even my OC'ed 920 is barely pushing 150w at full load with prime95.

 

[dead_smiley]

Your numbers are way off, even my OC'ed 920 is barely pushing 150w at full load with prime95.

I agree. My X5660 was pulling 127w with IBT. I did not test the i7-950 with IBT.

 

[daxzy]

Sorry, I thought I cited the sources in the original post. I'm taking these numbers from TechReport review of the i7-9xx and the i7-6700K.

i7-920:
http://techreport.com/review/15818/intel-core-i7-processors/14
Cinebench peak system power consumption = 254W
Idle system power = 159.3W


i7-6700K:
http://techreport.com/review/28751/intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake-processor-reviewed/5
x264 peak system power consumption (not sure why they didn't stick with Cinebench) = 133W
Idle system power = 49W

 

[Markfw]

BTW, I have both systems, but both are not configured the same, but based on my guesses from the different systems, I believe the daxzy's numbers he is quoting.

As an example, I have a 950 @stock using a 980TI video card both CPU and GPU running 100%, and it draws like 500 watts. My 6700k with DUAL 1080's runs 424 watts.

 

[TemjinGold]

Sorry, I thought I cited the sources in the original post. I'm taking these numbers from TechReport review of the i7-9xx and the i7-6700K.

i7-920:
http://techreport.com/review/15818/intel-core-i7-processors/14
Cinebench peak system power consumption = 254W
Idle system power = 159.3W


i7-6700K:
http://techreport.com/review/28751/intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake-processor-reviewed/5
x264 peak system power consumption (not sure why they didn't stick with Cinebench) = 133W
Idle system power = 49W

That's for the whole system, not just the cpu.

 

[bigboxes]

Lots of FUD ITT. The i7 920 does indeed have hyperthreading. To say that there have been little advances in CPU technology is disingenuous. IPC has doubled since Nehalem, not to mention improvements in thermals (TDP), increased extensions/features, improved memory controller and double the bus speed.

Now, the OP said that their experience was good. An SSD will do that. If all you are doing is surfing the internet and checking your email you certainly don't need to upgrade. As others have said, the OP could just drop in a Xeon processor to add cores and improve performance for little cost.

However, if you really use your computer to do CPU intensive tasks then an upgrade to a newer platform makes a lot of sense. You'll not only gain in time saved doing projects, but also get the added features of newer chipsets. Overclocking a Nehalem will not overcome that.

I own an i7 920. It's doing duty today in my HTPC. To bring it up to speed I decided to add a SATA 6Gbps controller card and a USB3.0 PCIe card. I used to o/c my 920. Today, I just run it at stock. Paired with a GTX 950 it mows down whatever I throw at it.

 

[daxzy]

That's for the whole system, not just the cpu.

That's the whole point I was making earlier. It's less about the CPU and more about the platform. Also, in Haswell, VRM's moved to the CPU, so its also disingenuous to directly compare the two.

 

[daxzy]

BTW, I have both systems, but both are not configured the same, but based on my guesses from the different systems, I believe the daxzy's numbers he is quoting.

As an example, I have a 950 @stock using a 980TI video card both CPU and GPU running 100%, and it draws like 500 watts. My 6700k with DUAL 1080's runs 424 watts.

Your picture is even less rosy than the comparison linked on TechReport.

Using the reference GTX 1080 as a guide (AIB's typically use more power):
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080/24.html

i7-6700K with 2x GTX 1080's @ 424W
424 - 2 * 180W (2x GTX 1080) = 64W system power

i7-950 with 1x GTX 980 TI @ 500W
500W - 240W (GTX 980 Ti) = 260W? system power

Even if you shaved off about 100W from the i7-950 system for whatever reasons, that's still triple the platform power consumption during gaming (I assume).

 

[Markfw]

Its been a while, I could be off on the power on the 950. But I think 2 980's and the same cpu was 580 ?

What I am sure ofL the 10xx series is way more power efficient than the 9xx series, and the current CPU's are more power efficient than even the socket 1366 ones. ( 2 series back ??)

 

[nenforcer]

While there are definite CPU IPC improvements compared to the Nehalem of 8 years ago the real improvements are in the I/O such as SATA ]I[, USB3 / 3.1 and now PCI-E 3.0. If you have waited this long I would definitely wait until the near year after AMD Zen Summit Ridge and Intel Kaby Lake Z270 has been released. Skylake is over a year old now so you might as well wait once again a little bit longer. Intel looks to have some competition for the first time in a decade.

 

[Jackie60]

I went from 920 4ghz to 4770k at 4.6 and the difference was huge in Arma 3. On x99 now but for demanding open world games you will notice the difference immediately if you upgrade, Skylake is vastly better so I would do it but I guess waiting for Zen to arrive creating competition might be wise if you've waited this long already.