Pin config for Core i7 and future 32nm Core i7 CPUs

[Mars999]

I was wondering, does anyone know if the 32nm version of Core i7, going to be pin compatible? What about X58 boards? Will the 32nm version work with the new X58 boards coming out?

Reason I ask is, I bought a 975x MB a few years ago, and got screwed when intel went to 45nm, as 975x would work with them. So I am concerned that the X58 MBs will not work with the 32nm CPU for whatever reason....

Thanks

 

[RussianSensation]

Knowing Intel, it's almost a guarantee that Rev. 1 X58 boards will not work with 32nm refresh chips. Intel loves it when you buy their "new" P965, P35, P45 chipsets hehe. In any case, just like right now upgrading from Q6600 3.4ghz-3.5ghz to a 3.7-3.8ghz 45nm Penryn is hardly worthwhile (unless the cost of the upgrade is low), I don't think this should be a concern for you when purchasing a new X58 mobo. The greatest setbacks are that X58 is a premium chipset and DDR3 ram is uber expensive. So does it make sense to upgrade to i7 this year in the first place?

 

[Mars999]

As of now I am desktopless, I just sold my 975x MB with a E6600, and 6Gb DDR2800 RAM, with a GF 8800gts 640mb card. So is waiting for i7 going to be worth it? How much faster over say a Q9550 is the i7 2.66 or 2.93 model going to be? Or would I be better off getting a p35 board now, with DDR800 and a Q9550 or E8500 chip use that till 32nm chips are out with X68 or whatever its called?

 

[z1ggy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...em_(microarchitecture)

If you see.. the 32 nm chips are socket 1366 so I don't think it'll work. There is going to be a 45nm and a 32nm 1366 but You will only be able to use them on the triple chanell ddr3 memory controller boards. A quad core 2.66Ghz cpu will run you about $280 with a 1x4.8 GT/s QP. Seems in Q3 of next year they are coming out with another socket type that is a sub 100w cpu that comes with gpu for the mobile chips.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Mars999
As of now I am desktopless, I just sold my 975x MB with a E6600, and 6Gb DDR2800 RAM, with a GF 8800gts 640mb card. So is waiting for i7 going to be worth it? How much faster over say a Q9550 is the i7 2.66 or 2.93 model going to be? Or would I be better off getting a p35 board now, with DDR800 and a Q9550 or E8500 chip use that till 32nm chips are out with X68 or whatever its called?

A 2.66 i7 is going to be roughly 25-30% faster than 2.66 C2Q in some apps. In some less so and in others that can leverage Hyper-Threading, more so. But you'll be probably paying $100 more for the motherboard and $100 more for DDR3 ram. Also it's only August, so unless you want to wait until sometime in Q4, I wouldn't wait.

 

[harpoon84]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Knowing Intel, it's almost a guarantee that Rev. 1 X58 boards will not work with 32nm refresh chips. Intel loves it when you buy their "new" P965, P35, P45 chipsets hehe. In any case, just like right now upgrading from Q6600 3.4ghz-3.5ghz to a 3.7-3.8ghz 45nm Penryn is hardly worthwhile (unless the cost of the upgrade is low), I don't think this should be a concern for you when purchasing a new X58 mobo. The greatest setbacks are that X58 is a premium chipset and DDR3 ram is uber expensive. So does it make sense to upgrade to i7 this year in the first place?

My 2 year old P5B Deluxe (P965) supports 45nm Core 2s... go figure.

X58 mobos will indeed be expensive, but DDR3 is not 'uber' expensive anymore, prices have been steadily dropping the past few months. It'll be even cheaper by the time Nehalem launches.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

My 2 year old P5B Deluxe (P965) supports 45nm Core 2s... go figure.

Was that a Revision 1.0 board though? If it does I have to hand off my hats to Asus because from what I recall reading at AT most P965 board released to coincide with the launch of C2D in July of 2006 had to undergo a revision for voltage regulation, etc. For example, my Gigabyte P965-DS3 Rev 1.0 that I bought in 2006 for C2D E6400 doesn't support 45nm chips. I'll retract my statement to say that it's almost a guarantee that the rev 1 boards won't support it. But I'll still say it's a toss up.

X58 mobos will indeed be expensive, but DDR3 is not 'uber' expensive anymore, prices have been steadily dropping the past few months. It'll be even cheaper by the time Nehalem launches.

Yes, it will get cheaper but right now it'll still most likely carry a premium over DDR2.

DDR2 800 2x2GB - $52
vs.
DDR3 1066 2x2GB - $143

The cheapest DDR3 1333 right now on the Egg is $160!

Now consider you can get a decent P35 mobo for $100-125. You can bet those X58 boards will be at near $190-200.

If OP had a computer and we knew the exact availability and launch date for i7, then I wouldn't hesitate to recommend waiting. Don't get me wrong I have had C2D since July of 2006 and I am myself looking forward to i7 when it gets released.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: harpoon84

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Knowing Intel, it's almost a guarantee that Rev. 1 X58 boards will not work with 32nm refresh chips. Intel loves it when you buy their "new" P965, P35, P45 chipsets hehe. In any case, just like right now upgrading from Q6600 3.4ghz-3.5ghz to a 3.7-3.8ghz 45nm Penryn is hardly worthwhile (unless the cost of the upgrade is low), I don't think this should be a concern for you when purchasing a new X58 mobo. The greatest setbacks are that X58 is a premium chipset and DDR3 ram is uber expensive. So does it make sense to upgrade to i7 this year in the first place?

My 2 year old P5B Deluxe (P965) supports 45nm Core 2s... go figure.

X58 mobos will indeed be expensive, but DDR3 is not 'uber' expensive anymore, prices have been steadily dropping the past few months. It'll be even cheaper by the time Nehalem launches.

My P5B did NOT like my E8400. Even after updating to the newest bios, it kept saying something like "upgrade bios to unleash the full power of your cpu". And it woulnd't OC for crap. So I got the P5Q, and now its happy @ 4.07 or more.

Do you have a 45nm chip on your P5B ? or just reading the BIOS and support stuff ?

 

[harpoon84]

No, I don't have a 45nm chip atm. I'm just looking at the BIOS support list. Did you have the P5B vanilla or P5B Deluxe? I've seen some insane FSB overclocks on 45nm C2Ds with the P5B Deluxe, but apparently it doesn't overclock 45nm C2Qs very well though.

RussianSensation, I have a rev 1.03 board, but I assume the BIOS support is all encompassing.

RE: DDR3 prices, we've been blessed lately with dirt cheap DDR2 prices, which makes DDR3 look ridiculously expensive in comparison even though in historical terms it really isn't. IIRC I paid over $100 for 2GB of DDR2-667 when I built my rig.

 

[z1ggy]

I hear the i7 will be released in Oct of this year.. so if you can wait 2 months and save up the money you would be spending on new parts now and more money in the next two months, you might be able to afford it.

 

[Mars999]

THanks all for the helpful insights. What also concerns me is, bugs, there will be bugs as I have been building my own PCs for 14 years, and have pulled my fair share of hair out. The X58 not being future proof really irks me to. I am thinking that those X58 MBs are going to be $300-350 not $200, as a X48 is $250, reason, because the manufacturing of the board will require more layers to be stable, so they are saying 25-50% more in costs....

See, I have never kept any Pc for more than 18 months and what was the one I just sold!! So really buying a cheap CD2 system now with a P35MB, E8500, DDR2 800, for about $350 and using that for 18 months and then getting on the 32nm bandwagon seems like a good idea right? Then all the bugs will have been worked out, and maybe a new rev E0? like will be out? Plus DX11 will be out by then, so really getting a badass GPU right now seems kind of wasteful with Dx11 on the horizon. What do you guys think?

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: harpoon84
No, I don't have a 45nm chip atm. I'm just looking at the BIOS support list. Did you have the P5B vanilla or P5B Deluxe? I've seen some insane FSB overclocks on 45nm C2Ds with the P5B Deluxe, but apparently it doesn't overclock 45nm C2Qs very well though.

RussianSensation, I have a rev 1.03 board, but I assume the BIOS support is all encompassing.

RE: DDR3 prices, we've been blessed lately with dirt cheap DDR2 prices, which makes DDR3 look ridiculously expensive in comparison even though in historical terms it really isn't. IIRC I paid over $100 for 2GB of DDR2-667 when I built my rig.

P5B Vanilla. And any quad is tough to OC on a cheap board. (<$130) You need at least 8 phase power from my experience, for a max stable OC, especially for the 45nm ones.

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Mars999

What do you guys think?

I personally think as follows:

1) You should upgrade if the incremental upgrade cost relative to the performance you are getting makes sense to you relative to your income (or alternatively, for example, you sell your old parts as you have done before they fully depreciated)

2) You should upgrade when the programs/games you are running are not running fast enough (i.e. time taken to complete a task or frames in games, etc.)

3) You shouldn't upgrade for the sake of "future-proofing" since technology evolves so fast, it makes sense to buy the "best bang for the buck" at the time -- save the difference towards a faster upgrade later (unless that next best thing is within weeks of release);

4) If you can afford to wait (i.e. the system performance doesn't bother you that much) it makes sense to wait as long as possible since parts get cheaper indefinately and performance improves indefinately. So upgrading for the sake of upgrading is just a waste of $.

So taking all of the above into account, since you have sold your parts and you have no system, waiting for i7 makes little sense unless you want to pay premium pricing and have no computer for months.

My personal preference is to upgrade during "generational jumps", so P4 -> C2D/Q Kentsfield -> i7 Nehalem --> Sandy Bridge --> Haswell. Alternatively one can upgrade at refreshes: 45nm C2D Penryn --> 32nm Westmere --> 22 nm Ivy Bridge. Either approach nets you decent gains and consistent increases over time. As long as it's a logical upgrading strategy, it really doesn't matter what your "1st" system in the chain is - Intel Roadmap

But for example with my approach if I end up getting i7 this fall (after having C2D for 2 years) and AMD releases a 20% faster cpu in the spring, since it's the same generation, I wouldn't upgrade since that's not "material" increase for me.

 

[Joeydubbs]

Originally posted by: Mars999
THanks all for the helpful insights. What also concerns me is, bugs, there will be bugs as I have been building my own PCs for 14 years, and have pulled my fair share of hair out. The X58 not being future proof really irks me to. I am thinking that those X58 MBs are going to be $300-350 not $200, as a X48 is $250, reason, because the manufacturing of the board will require more layers to be stable, so they are saying 25-50% more in costs....

See, I have never kept any Pc for more than 18 months and what was the one I just sold!! So really buying a cheap CD2 system now with a P35MB, E8500, DDR2 800, for about $350 and using that for 18 months and then getting on the 32nm bandwagon seems like a good idea right? Then all the bugs will have been worked out, and maybe a new rev E0? like will be out? Plus DX11 will be out by then, so really getting a badass GPU right now seems kind of wasteful with Dx11 on the horizon. What do you guys think?

If you are only looking for 18 months of longevity, I would go with Core 2 generation now and go Nehalem in 18 months. There appears to be a lot of value out there now price/performance wise. Heck, if 18 months is your window I would go for a core2duo over quad since many app's aren't optimized for so many threads. As for GPU, again, if I knew I was "building" again in 18 months, I'd probably just get a 4850 for now...

Personally I was gonna wait for Nehalem but I'm afraid that it will be too costly at launch and if the new Mobo isn't gonna except the 32nm revision it really puts a damper on the so called "future proof" rig. Thinking it may by next summer before things will be affordable...my system is on its last legs, dunno if I can wait...

 

[z1ggy]

Yeah prices are def. going to soar for a while...I really only think people who are really wanting top of the line stuff will be the ones buying the stuff right away. By next summer prices will be down.

"Plus DX11 will be out by then, so really getting a badass GPU right now seems kind of wasteful with Dx11 on the horizon. What do you guys think?"

This prob. sounds newb-ish..But what is DX11..? By the name is sounds like a chipset name.. but would somebody explain?

 

[Mars999]

DX11 is MS direct x 11 for games... New GFx cards will be out in a year or so for it.

 

[RussianSensation]

IMO DX11 is irrelvant for the next 2+ years for gamers.

It takes 2nd or 3rd generation of graphics card for each respective DX to truly be able to take advantage of those features (i.e. 9800 series for DX8.1 which was supported by Radeon 8500 --> X1900 series for DX9 games while DX9 was supported all the way on 9700 series --> GF11 to actually be able to play DX10 games while DX10 was supported on GF8). DX10 today kills most graphics cards, nevermind DX10.1 which isn't even widely adopted yet. Graphics card firms must implement DX11 for that technology to take hold but to buy a card solely based on DX11 is pointless since by the time DX11 games appear, 1st generation DX11 cards will too slow for any of them in the same way 8800GTS/GTX are today compared to GTX 280 and DX10 games.

 

[z1ggy]

Interesting...Thanks for clearing that up. And.. thanks for the intel road map that was sweet. How are the 22nm chips going to compare to the 32nm chips coming soon? And are we still going to stay in the dual/quad/octo core range or are the far away ivy bridge family cpus going to have more cores?