Perhaps I should have spent $85 more?

[GTaudiophile]

I ordered parts for a new PC the other day. They have not yet arrived.

Here are some of the parts I bought:

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz
G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
Total: $459.97

But perhaps I am wondering now if I should have spent $85 more:

MSI X58M LGA 1366 Intel X58 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz
G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Total: $544.97

I suppose it is not too late in that I could return the above items for the ones below.

But would they be the trouble and the extra $85?

I am not a hardcore gamer by any means...

 

[California Roll]

Personally, if the difference was only $85, I would have done it. I do lots of video encoding tho for work and this is something the i7's excel at and are worth the premium. For everything else tho, including gaming, you're not missing out.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: California Roll
Personally, if the difference was only $85, I would have done it. I do lots of video encoding tho for work and this is something the i7's excel at and are worth the premium. For everything else tho, including gaming, you're not missing out.

I do PhotoShop but nothing with video.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Personally I would of went with i7 for 85 more. I can see your side though money is hard to come by nowadays and $85 is not chump change.

 

[Denithor]

AT comparison: Photoshop CS4 on various CPUs

i7 920 handily beats the Q9650 in the test.

Probably depends how much heavy use your system gets - if you do a lot of heavy work the i7 would probably be justified. But the Q9550 will also provide pretty good performance and will be fine if you aren't a heavy user.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: OILFIELDTRASH
Personally I would of went with i7 for 85 more. I can see your side though money is hard to come by nowadays and $85 is not chump change.

Yeah, I managed to keep the entire build under $1K (closer to $930) and the extra $85 would have put it all over the psychological $1,000 barrier.

But I guess I am now having second thoughts.

It would probably take at least a week to send the CPU, RAM, and Mobo back to newegg for replacement.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Also by the time you send back parts and pay to ship i7 there is way more than $85 difference. That Q9550 paired with a ud3p board is kick ass shiznit btw.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: OILFIELDTRASH
Also by the time you send back parts and pay to ship i7 there is way more than $85 difference. That Q9550 paired with a ud3p board is kick ass shiznit btw.

True dat.

Oh well, I will most likely stick with what I got.

I looked over the benches and the differences were neglible IMO, especially in terms of gaming.

What I got will be a nice upgrade from my AMD Opteron 170 system that is over 3 years old.

 

[Eureka]

Is a whopping extra 5 frames per second worth $85?

 

[somethingsketchy]

Personally I would save that $85 for more HDDs or towards a better case with damn good airflow 🙂 A Q9550 is nothing to sneeze at, when compared to what you could have brought a year ago (for the same amount).