Originally posted by: latch
Originally posted by: DisgruntledVirus
I'd rather stick with the i7 over the i5 generation chips unless there is a specific reason the i5>i7. Unless Intel has decided it's cool to do lower #'s are better performing, I don't see why the i5 would be the way to go for me personally. Price/performance might be better on the i5, sure. Performance is more important to me though, and price is a secondary concern.
Some of the early prices we've seen put the i5 750 at roughly 2/3 the price of an i7 860. The reason the i5 might be better for you is that spending the saved $100 on a better video card is likely to give much more noticeable results in games. Or spending that money towards an SSD is likely to get you _much_ better application performance. In other words, looking at performance or value from a single-component point of view isn't likely to yield you the best (in terms of value and performance) system.
Talk is that the i5 draws less power (because it doesn't have HT), and thus might OC better.
The addition of the integrated PCIx card could *possibly* make an i5 750 outperform an i7 920 (which doesn't have it) in a single video-card setup (although in such a case an i7 860 would beat both).
As you can see, there are a lot of unknowns. Some have commented that the i5 does in-fact seem to compete against the i7. And since, as I understand it, games aren't currently CPU or thread limited, its entirely possible that spending $100 on a better video card _could_ result in better performance than spending $300 on a better CPU.
I'm not planning on OC'ing (and if I do, I won't be OC'ing to the limits) so that isn't a big deal to me. The HT aspect would be more beneficial to me, even though it's not a huge deal. The i7 920 can be had for $199 new at Microcenter. The i5 750 is
$205 at Fry's. They have the same clock, they have the same cache, etc so the main difference is the PCIx stuff and the socket/chipset. Right now, without seeing production reviews of both procs, I'd go with the 920 between the two of them with a D0 stepping if I decided to OC it. Also, the motherboards are more mature on the x58 platform since it's been out for a bit.
Now, the i7 860 is an interesting proc. It's the i7 line which means HT, and the 860 is faster clocked from Intel. The 860 will also go higher in "Turbo Mode". Now, the downside is it's only dual channel memory instead of tri-channel. While the performance differences to me aren't a big deal, the side effect is. With dual channel I'd imagine most motherboards will go with 4 slots instead of 6. That means could go up to 8 gb of mem instead of the 12 with the tri channel, which IS an important difference to me. Oh, and the i7 860 is going to be more expensive ($275 range IIRC). That would also apply to the i5 750.
Originally posted by: Idontcare
Originally posted by: drizek
No. Sandy Bridge is just an evolutionary change, it won't be like the change between penryn and nehalem. It will only be a real upgrade at 22nm, which is going to be more than two years from now.
Sandy Bridge is 32nm, expected to debut around
Nov 2010. It will be the Tock of 32nm, meaning new architecture. Just as the Penryn -> Nehalem transition.
If you are thinking 22nm then you are thinking of Ivy Bridge (the Tick), which is the shrink of Sandy Bridge. Ivy is expected
Nov 2011. Ivy is to Sandy as Westmere is to Nehalem and as Penryn was to Conroe.
The Tock for 22nm is called Haswell, it too will be a new architecture and is expected around Nov 2012.
Yeah, I misunderstood previously. Opps... I really should keep more up to date on this stuff haha
Originally posted by: faxon
Originally posted by: Shmee
while I wouldn't say i7 necessarily, I would say sooner rather than later. i5 might be good for you too, in a few weeks, as mentioned. Also, you could get a 5870 when they come out to top off the system.
Alternatively, get an i7 now, and that will be a much better platform for your 8800GT's in SLI. Upgrade to the 5870 if wanted later.
this in a nutshell. to answer your questions about i7 vs i5, i think what we should be talking about is not this, but S1156 vs S1366 platforms. if you wait, you can still buy an "i7" cpu, it will just have less pci-e lanes and it will probably be faster per $ spent at stock, and possibly overclock higher as well. the same is true for the i5s. since they draw less power and dont have HT, they will run cooler, and thus may overclock higher than the i7 860s may even (unless you disable HT, but you might as well just buy an i5 then). the only major difference will be on die PCIe vs dual x16 pcie, which in your case is a non issue, since the 8800GT runs fine on an 8x pcie slot, so you could use those both for now with a p55 board without lane splitting chips, and in a month or 2 from when you buy your mobo cpu and ram, you could get a sweet high end gpu which needs a single 16x slot, but would be 2-4x faster than your current setup, and you would still get the benefit of on die PCI-e
Yeah, the on chip PCIe stuff I don't think would make that big of a difference in a single card setup which is what I'd be going with. The 5870 or something in that generation and just single card. The OCing, if done, would be on air and not to the "limit". Instead it would be maybe bump it up to mid 3 ghz range (IIRC the D0 maxes at like 4.4 ghz on air) at most, and most likely just stick to 3 ghz even.
The i5 vs i7 are the same price effectively. So, the real difference will come into play with the chipsets and mobos. I'd prefer to stick with the 1366 socket though, because it's their "high end" socket with their fastest chips (if I decide to upgrade the CPU later).
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