Penny Wise and Pound Foolish?

[Jimbo]

I'm looking at getting rid of my 3-year-old Intel D975xBX2 motherboard (no Windows 7 support) and I'm having a hard time deciding on my next step.
That is driven by my desire to move to RAID-0 SSDs (two 60GB OCZ Agility drives) and with that comes Windows 7.

I'm not entirely convinced that I really would feel the difference between an Overclocked Q6600 at 3.0GHz (that I now have) and a new i7-860 with my typical usage patterns.
I'm not a gamer, I don't do any video editing, and I only do video encoding maybe a few times a month.

The cheapest option is to just go out and buy an Intel DP45SG motherboard (I can get one at Fry's for $100), 4GB of DDR3 for $90 and call it a day, as I already bought the SSD drives.
Then I'll check back on the i7 scene in another 18-months, and that way I'll only be out the $100 I spent for the P45 board now.
Doing that saves me about $500 compared to my other option.

The other option is to just throw even more money at my obsolesce problem and grab a i7-860, an Intel DP55KG and the same DDR3 that I would have bought for the P45 board.

Not wanting to spend all of my excess cash, and with Christmas looming, I'm thinking the second option isn't going to get me much more than I would keeping the Q6600.
Am I right on that one?

Has anyone here gone from an overclocked Q6600 to an i7 and said "gee, that doesn't feel that much faster"?

 

[tynopik]

1. the D975xBX2 may work with Win7
- http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-3205
- http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=29&threadid=2343495

2. raid 0 doesn't require win7

3. if you do want official win7 support, there are plenty DDR2 motherboards out there

 

[Jimbo]

Originally posted by: tynopik
1. the D975xBX2 may work with Win7
- http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-3205
- http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=29&threadid=2343495

2. raid 0 doesn't require win7

3. if you do want official win7 support, there are plenty DDR2 motherboards out there

1. Intel's support site for the D975xBX2 states that it will not have Windows 7 Support. Ever.

2. Not a RAID problem but once again a driver support issue.

3. Yes, I'm sure there are. Either way I'm buying a new board, so I'm not expecting that to be an issue.

 

[tynopik]

Originally posted by: Jimbo
1. Intel's support site for the D975xBX2 states that it will not have Windows 7 Support. Ever.

and yet people are running win7 on it

Originally posted by: Jimbo
2. Not a RAID problem but once again a driver support issue.

you can setup raid-0 in windows vista ULTIMATE with dynamic discs, no driver support necessary

Originally posted by: Jimbo
3. Yes, I'm sure there are. Either way I'm buying a new board, so I'm not expecting that to be an issue.

saves $90 buying new ram when you can reuse your current ram

 

[tynopik]

> my desire to move to RAID-0 SSDs (two 60GB OCZ Agility drives)

a better question might be: why?

is the performance of an ssd inadequate?
or are you just trying to combine 2 smaller drives into a single volume?

if it's the latter, i would try to return your 2 60GB drives and get the 120GB agility, it's cheaper . . .

 

[Jimbo]

Once again, thank you for your help tynopik, but my real question isn't any of these things.

I'm more curious, that with my usage pattern, if there would be any realistic performance increase between an overclocked Q6600 and an i7-860.

Did you recently transition from a Q6600 to an i7?

 

[NXIL]

Jimbo,

Intel has Windows 7 drivers for that board here:

http://downloadcenter.intel.co...Desktop+Board+D975XBX2

That board runs Vista fine; Win 7 is Vista SP 3+--in many ways, it's a refinement of Vista.

That board will run Win7 fine.

I'm more curious, that with my usage pattern, if there would be any realistic performance increase between an overclocked Q6600 and an i7-860.

Usage pattern: pretty standard, with some video encoding: of course the new i7 will be faster, but, not by an order of magnitiude; faster hard drives/SSD will help. But, from what you describe, it sounds like your current set up is "good enough".