Socket 1366 or 1160?

[Dadofamunky]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Well, the best "bang for buck", right now, is NOT the Core i7. Usually, to save money or get the most return for your money, you would choose the best "bang for buck" platform at the particular time that you were going to purchase. Right now, that platform is S775. There's no app that I am aware of, that will cause the Q9550 to be unusable, while the Core i7 remains usable. There just isn't enough of a difference between them. (That is, except the price.)

I agree with this.

And just for the record, "you must be from the suburbs" is divisive and unnecessary. And quite potentially wrong.

 

[Jephph]

Wow. I hate that this thread has turned into a C2D vs. i7 debate.

Ok, yeah, I'm on a (relatively) small budget (1k), but I was asking about upgradeability, not best bang for the buck right now. I'm not a person who "needs" the best I can get when I make a big purchase. For this particular case, what I want is a decent machine that will last and will be upgradeable down the road.

And remember, this build isn't being put together until at least February. Hopefully prices will be a bit lower on DDR3 and i7 based Mobos (prices on certain i7 Mobos have gone down a good bit already.)

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Jephph
Wow. I hate that this thread has turned into a C2D vs. i7 debate.

Ok, yeah, I'm on a (relatively) small budget (1k), but I was asking about upgradeability, not best bang for the buck right now. I'm not a person who "needs" the best I can get when I make a big purchase. For this particular case, what I want is a decent machine that will last and will be upgradeable down the road.

And remember, this build isn't being put together until at least February. Hopefully prices will be a bit lower on DDR3 and i7 based Mobos (prices on certain i7 Mobos have gone down a good bit already.

for upgrading...nobody knows! Look at past history up until LGA775, new CPU = new socket = new motherboard. How do you know the i7 will use socket "x" and the next one will also use socket "x" and not scket "y" instead?

You don't, we don't, maybe you'll have no upgrade option.

Never plan for an upgrade down the road, plan for now. That's all you can do because down the road you can't see the turn until you're there.

 

[walk2k]

No platform is going to be upgradeable for 5 years.

None.

You can buy a i7 (1366 or 1160, whatever) now, but there isn't a chance in hell they will make processors you can stick in those sockets 5 years from now. None, zero.

3, 3-1/2 years, tops.

My advice, for $1K buy a X48 board, C2Q, and some DDR3.

Or, for $600-700 buy a P45, C2D, and DDR2. That's what I did.

I always figure, spend $90-120 on a decent quality mainboard, and if it lasts 2 to 2-1/2 years, well you got your money's worth. When it comes time to upgrade, buy a new motherboard with whatever socket is in vogue at the time, for about $90-120 and don't worry about throwing your old one out. I mean, I spent less than $300 on the mainboard and cpu, when i7 is more affordable I'll spend another $300 - what's the difference between that and spending $600 now and hoping (praying) that it will be upgradeable?

 

[Jephph]

Originally posted by: walk2k
No platform is going to be upgradeable for 5 years.

None.

You can buy a i7 (1366 or 1150, whatever) now, but there isn't a chance in hell they will make processors you can stick in those sockets 5 years from now. None, zero.

3, 3-1/2 years, tops.

My advice, for $1K buy a X48 board, C2Q, and some DDR3.

Or, for $600-700 buy a P45, C2D, and DDR2. That's what I did.

I always figure, spend $90-120 on a decent quality mainboard, and if it lasts 2 to 2-1/2 years, well you got your money's worth. When it comes time to upgrade, buy a new motherboard with whatever socket is in vogue at the time, for about $90-120 and don't worry about throwing your old one out.

Have you heard of LGA775? If I'm correct, they were introduced mid-2004. It is now almost 2009 and there are a ton of LGA775 compatible CPUs.

Are you saying that something like LGA775 will NEVER happen again, or have you just not heard of it?

 

[iCyborg]

Someone above already mentioned that the first lga775 MBs won't work with even the first C2Ds, not to mention Penryns. So, not exactly a point in your favour

 

[Jephph]

Originally posted by: iCyborg
Someone above already mentioned that the first lga775 MBs won't work with even the first C2Ds, not to mention Penryns. So, not exactly a point in your favour

And someone just slightly below them, ExarKun333 mentioned that

Many of the motherboards that supported the Pentium-D (a "P4" if you weren't aware)when it was launched later supported the C2D cpus.

 

[Jephph]

 

[Seggybop]

Many of them don't, you'd have to be lucky and it's not something you can count on.

As has been said, nothing will be legitimately upgradeable for 5 years and it's pointless to plan for that. However, the fact that you've been able to tolerate 5 year old technology up to now indicates that anything remotely modern will make a huge improvement for you. It's also well-known that tech a generation behind, while usually not hugely slower, is far cheaper. I think if you spent around $500 or less on an E7200/P45 system (or even something less than that) you'd have such a tremendous improvement that you'd be satisfied for a long time. Spending more than that will only give incremental benefits for most applications. Then, later, if you feel you need to upgrade, you can get something like a Q9650 for super cheap.

 

[the unknown]

Originally posted by: Jephph
Hey hey. A while back, like 5-6 years ago, I purchased my first computer. I made the mistake of buying a Socket A platform with an AGP interface for video cards. You can probably see where I'm going with this. I've pretty much maxed it out since I bought it. I've replaced the 9200se that came with the computer with a 7800GS that I got for Christmas 2 years ago. I've also replaced the power supply with a OCZ GameXStream 600W. And I've added a couple of GB of RAM for a total of 3GB. There's not much I could do with the CPU.

Now, it's time for an upgrade. This time, I want to make sure my computer has pretty decent potential for upgradeability. So I want to get a mobo with a couple of PCIe 2.0 slots so that I can upgrade the vid card down the road, and also add another card if I need to. I also want a mobo that supports DDR3 RAM so that I can upgrade that later on too.


Thanks.

What's this comp for? Gaming and all purpose use? or just media? If it's gaming, definitely your best bang for the buck is going "old school" with LGA775 and a nice q9450 or e8400. If you look at the numbers, i7 just plain doesn't have an improvement atm for games. And such a slight difference even if it were that pouring money into a cpu would mean nothing. GPU is where it's at for games once you have a decent proc. Don't let the newness of the i7 fool you; you won't notice any kind of difference in day to day and games for the long term (3 years I'd give it).

If it's just media, or some kind of high intensive encoding process where you really need raw CPU power, then you should look into i7. And even then i7 is really specialized atm. It's getting to the point that since apps just aren't being written to be multithreaded yet, all that extra "power" is completely not utilized. Meaning you couldn't tell the difference at all from a 1160 proc or a 1366 or even a 775.

If money is tight it just DOESN'T make sense to spend money on i7 anyways. This is purely for high enthusiast and high end server. You're just not in their pricing or market. I think the "budget" i7s come out Q2 of 09 or later. But since you prolly don't wanna wait that long, just build a 775.

 

[MarcVenice]

This thread has lost all it's merit. He has his eyes set on i7, no matter how dead wrong he is, and what arguments we throw at him, we're all from the suburbs and stupid.

Go with i7, spend your hard and well earned money. It doesn't effect us in the slightest. But don't ask for advice either, and say money is a concern, when it is obviously not.

 

[ch33zw1z]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
This thread has lost all it's merit. He has his eyes set on i7, no matter how dead wrong he is, and what arguments we throw at him, we're all from the suburbs and stupid.

Go with i7, spend your hard and well earned money. It doesn't effect us in the slightest. But don't ask for advice either, and say money is a concern, when it is obviously not.

Nailed it right there. My E8400 rocks, i7 will be worth in '09 or '10 and that's only if AMD doesn't provide the better price/performance when it's time for the next platform change. For now, 775 supplies more than enough power for the vast majority of users, and it's much cheaper. Can't go wrong with it for now..

 

[Jephph]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
This thread has lost all it's merit. He has his eyes set on i7, no matter how dead wrong he is, and what arguments we throw at him, we're all from the suburbs and stupid.

Go with i7, spend your hard and well earned money. It doesn't effect us in the slightest. But don't ask for advice either, and say money is a concern, when it is obviously not.

Exactly. If you read the title, this thread was never about choosing between LGA775 and i7 formats, it was about which will have better staying power, LGA1366 or LGA1160?

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Originally posted by: ExarKun333
You are wrong.

Many of the motherboards that supported the Pentium-D (a "P4" if you weren't aware)when it was launched later supported the C2D cpus. LGA775 boards have lasted almost three years now, thats pretty impressive.

I don't think any of the early s775 chipsets support Core 2 (released 3-4 years ago) -

910 series
915 series
925 series
945 series (bar the 945 GC)
955 series

at least not officially. Mainly because the introduction of core 2 required vrm 11 spec.

It also depends how you define modern -
Want to run an E6700? Yup you could do that on a 975X series board which would just about be 3 years old. However these have been EOL for a while so certainly aren't "current".

Want to run an E6750? Can't officially do that on a board that is older than about 18 months.

Want to run a current 45nm chip? Depends on the chipset and the motherboard maker updating the drivers...

So even if s1366 or s1156 are about in 3-5 years there is no guarantee that the early X58 and P55 based boards will be compatible with late model Westmeres or early Sandy Bridges come 2010.

This also applies to Jephph...

 

[Jephph]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
I'm sorry, but even s775 back then don't support the 45nm chips, hell, I doubt a chipset you bought back then would have supported a quadcore. That's how computertech works.

Btw, I'm a student, I don't make money, I pay people like you money. And you know what I did? I just upgraded from s939 to s775, x48 mobo with a e7300 that I'm overclocking. The thing is, there's not much difference between i7 and core 2 duo. i7 is catered towards the server market, and even though it's decent for consumers, the extra price you pay for the whole package ( x58 mobo/ddr3 memory/920 ) isn't worth the minimal performance gains you will see in day to day usage.

So unless you work a lot with applications that are multithreaded, like video-encoding for example, s775 is still a very viable platform. With pci-e 2.0 slots they will support new videocards for a long long time. They also have not stopped producing s775 cpu's, in fact, new ones are coming very soon. Really, think about it like this. x58 mobo = $300, i920 = $300, 3x1gb of ddr3 = $100. You could buy a similar performing s775 setup for $350 less. That setup, p45 mobo, 4gb ddr2 and e8400 is still lightning fast ( e8400 will beat the 920 in most games ) and will still suffice in a years to 18 months time for pretty much anything.

What I'm trying to say is, you pay a price-premium for new tech, yet it doesn't give you any extra added performance. ESPECIALLY when you are on a budget, you should not pay a price-premium, and try to future proof instead. I suppose if you wait for lga1160 you might not pay as huge a price-premium as you do now for lga1366, but then again, you could be enjoying a new s775 rig right now. In the end, at least wait for lga1160 and do not buy a x58 mobo with a 920 and ddr3 ram.

"People like you," huh? Smooth. If you're a high school student, you pay nothing, your parents do. If you're a college student, you pay your college, not me.

 

[walk2k]

Even if LGA775 is 5 years old, guess what they don't take i7, which is the current tech. Sure you could still consider Core 2 fairly "current", and certainly an upgrade from a P4 (?) or whatever you have, but as others have said, early 775 boards likely won't be compatible with current Core 2s.

Point is, 5 years is a long time to expect a board to be upgradeable to current CPUs, and why bother anyway? Spending $100ish on a new mainboard every 2.5-3 years doesn't seem like the exclusive domain of the wealthy...

Anyway, it's pretty hard to guess what Intel's plans for s1160 are, they aren't even out yet. Maybe someone who knows will risk breaking an NDA or something and comment, otherwise... sorry if we wasted your time

 

[CrimsonWolf]

Originally posted by: Jephph

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
This thread has lost all it's merit. He has his eyes set on i7, no matter how dead wrong he is, and what arguments we throw at him, we're all from the suburbs and stupid.

Go with i7, spend your hard and well earned money. It doesn't effect us in the slightest. But don't ask for advice either, and say money is a concern, when it is obviously not.

Exactly. If you read the title, this thread was never about choosing between LGA775 and i7 formats, it was about which will have better staying power, LGA1366 or LGA1160?

No one knows. It's all speculation. For a variety of reasons, a lot of boards that came out when LGA775 launched will not take a current CPU as an upgrade (PlasmaBomb's post is a good example). And even if we draw up a list of boards released then that could take a current processor, how would we have know these were the most upgradeable boards 4 years ago, out of all the boards produced?

Maybe some relevant info will come out between now and when you build, but for know we're stuck with uncertainty. There's nothing we can do about it.

If you're not in a rush, just wait until LGA1160 comes out and build whatever has the best bang for the buck of the two platforms.

 

[drakore]

I am curious why you are looking at building a system now when you are buying in Feb. Things change a lot in 2 months. You could look for a sale on a core i7 stuff on black friday buy it will be tough to get if they are even on sale. Rumor has it Tiger Direct is going to have one. Anyways, if you have no money not don't bother looking now. Start looking when you have the money.

I highly doubt you can put together a "full system" for 1k. Even in February.

LGA 775 is not the norm, unlikely there will be a 5 year life out of LGA 1366.

Don't insult people when they are trying to help you and stop calling people "suburb kids". It is quite offensive. Not everyone who lives in a suburb has money.

 

[zerogear]

Just go with whatever you can afford. And leave it at that.

 

[Kraeoss]

lol... is this guy serious... he asks for advice 2-3 mths before the actual buy and insults the guys who's trying to give him a good answer... kinda baffling to me.

i7 is currently not the best bargain out now my opinion is that you go C2Q and that should last u about 2-3 yrs (ddr3 path) and by then the i7 dust will have settled and u can then carry on with your life.


$1000 spent on new system in feb
supposing system lasts 3 yrs @ saving $400 a yr towards new system

3 x 400 = 1200

and i'm sure that in the future $1200 will get u a system that can do most futuristic tasks (i.e. if AMD is still around )


thus ends my $0.02c

 

[broosewain]

Asus P5Q Pro + Intel E8400 $230 shipped (after MIR), 4GB DDR2 (Crucial brand) $20 shipped (after MIR). There, $250 and that'll last you for 3 years. The only thing you may need to upgrade is your video card. Sell your current card on ebay for ~$100 and then buy a GTX 260 for $170 or so, or a 4850 for $120, or a 9800 GTX+ for $111, or 9800GT for $70. That'll last you for at least a year or 2.

Total would be like $350 for cpu/mobo/ram/vid card, possibly less and will last you 2-3 years, then $350 again for another 2-3 years. Or spend $1000 and be barely scraping by in 3 years with less money in your pocket right now.

 

[Jephph]

Originally posted by: drakore
I am curious why you are looking at building a system now when you are buying in Feb. Things change a lot in 2 months. You could look for a sale on a core i7 stuff on black friday buy it will be tough to get if they are even on sale. Rumor has it Tiger Direct is going to have one. Anyways, if you have no money not don't bother looking now. Start looking when you have the money.

I highly doubt you can put together a "full system" for 1k. Even in February.

LGA 775 is not the norm, unlikely there will be a 5 year life out of LGA 1366.

Don't insult people when they are trying to help you and stop calling people "suburb kids". It is quite offensive. Not everyone who lives in a suburb has money.

Newegg:
Sunbeam Transformer Full ATX Case- $60
MSI X58 Platinum LGA 1366- $220
Core i7 920- $300
OCZ Gold 2GB (2x1GB) DDR3 1333- $47
OCZ GameXStream 700W- $50
WD 160GB HD- $42
ASUS HD4870 1GB- $245

Total- $964

Sure, there's no monitor, but I don't plan on getting a new one. Even if I went C2D, I wouldn't have gotten a new one anyway. Throw in a few fans and a DVD drive and we're pretty close to $1k.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Jephph

Originally posted by: drakore
I am curious why you are looking at building a system now when you are buying in Feb. Things change a lot in 2 months. You could look for a sale on a core i7 stuff on black friday buy it will be tough to get if they are even on sale. Rumor has it Tiger Direct is going to have one. Anyways, if you have no money not don't bother looking now. Start looking when you have the money.

I highly doubt you can put together a "full system" for 1k. Even in February.

LGA 775 is not the norm, unlikely there will be a 5 year life out of LGA 1366.

Don't insult people when they are trying to help you and stop calling people "suburb kids". It is quite offensive. Not everyone who lives in a suburb has money.

Newegg:
Sunbeam Transformer Full ATX Case- $60
MSI X58 Platinum LGA 1366- $220
Core i7 920- $300
OCZ Gold 2GB (2x1GB) DDR3 1333- $47
OCZ GameXStream 700W- $50
WD 160GB HD- $42
ASUS HD4870 1GB- $245

Total- $964

Sure, there's no monitor, but I don't plan on getting a new one. Even if I went C2D, I wouldn't have gotten a new one anyway. Throw in a few fans and a DVD drive and we're pretty close to $1k.

Why would you only buy a dual channel kit when the mobo supports triple channel?

Per the information here http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch...owdoc.aspx?i=3382&p=11

It says "The first incarnation of Nehalem will ship with a triple-channel DDR3 memory controller, meaning that DDR3 DIMMs will have to be installed in sets of three in order to get peak bandwidth."

Now I know you can do dual channel but this review shows the differences. Tripple channel 1066Mhz beats dual channel 1600Mhz http://www.tweaktown.com/artic...nnel_cut_it/index.html

 

[Jephph]

Because it's cheaper...

Why would you have 4GB when your mobo supports 8GB?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Jephph
Because it's cheaper...

Why would you have 4GB when your mobo supports 8GB?

That's not the same. Going from 4GB to 8GB on dual channel doesn't gain performance. The only reason to do that is if you use more than 4GB.

Going from Dual channel to triple channel is a big gain. even just at 1066Mhz. i7 was designed for triple channel. You're limiting potential performance. If you want it to last into the future, as the OP seems to care about, then you have to go all the way.