What CPU should I get Q9400, Q9550 or i7 860

[DrZoidberg]

I have a 4-5 year old computer AMD athlon x64 3200 with a eVGA 7900GT graphics card. Its currently very slow in WOW (especially the new city) and looking to buy a new computer.

I know the i860 just came out but its AUD$140 more than the Intel Q9400. I haven't been following the CPU scene recently so hope I haven't asked a common question.

Should I buy a new computer with i7 860, 4 gig ram
or Core2 Q9400 with 4 gig ram
or Core2 Q9550 with 4 gig ram??

I'm a bit budget minded but i definitely want a Quad core as I normally dont do a full upgrade until 4 years later so need to be more future proof.

A white box system with i7 860 in Australia is $222 more expensive than a Q9400.
I'm from Australia so my computer hardware vendor choices are more limited. Theres no cool store like newegg here.

What CPU should I get out of the 3 and is PC1333 DDRIII a large difference in performance over PC1066 DDRIII? Thanks

 

[MyLeftNut]

How much more would the i5 750 cost you over a C2Q? You might want to look into that instead. With all the cheap motherboards available for lga 1156, the price between it and lga 775 boards shouldn't be much more.

 

[Denithor]

Seconded. i5 750 on a good P55 motherboard with 4GB DDR3 should fill your requirements very well and not cost too much.

 

[exar333]

i5/i7. Get the i5 750 if you want to save a little coin, otherwise the i7 860 is a awesome chip for the price.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Cool, I never considered the i5 750 originally as I thought it was a low end part with no hyperthreading but then i see it beats Q8400 in many benchmarks. I might buy the i5 750 or 860 and hang on to my 7900GT to save money and buy a 5870 card next year when it comes out.

 

[lopri]

750/860 gets my nod as well. No reason to purchase C2Q for a new build, really. Sucks that Intel had to disable HT on 750 but it's still a very good value. Just make sure you don't get robbed on motherboard front.

 

[RussianSensation]

Go for DDR3-1333 (unless the price difference between 1600 and 1333 is only like $10) and Core i5 750. With $50-60 price difference between 45nm penryns and 1156, it's worth it to migrate to the new socket and get DDR3 ram.

 

[Infrnl]

Since its been a while, I would say 750/860 for sure. Me personally; I would go 860 because of HT as I run my computers on World Community Grid (distributed computing). If this is not a concern, I would just go for the 750 if its quite a bit cheaper where you live.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Following advice, I went ahead and bought a Core i7 860 instead of a Core Duo Quad.

Core i7 860
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3P MB
4 Gig Kingston DDR1333
Samsung 1TB SATAII Spinpoint
Antec Sonata III with EarthWatts 500W (wanted a branded PS without paying too much and PS comes with case)

Went home fairly excited and tried to install Windows XP. Installing XP instead of buying Vista to save money. Setup was ok, copying files then reached detect devices and BSOD.
Error was IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, tried again same error. Starting to stress as OS cant install.

Read on internet from a review on newegg who had same issue.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16813128401
Recommended to disable other 3 cores in BIOS and try again. BSOD again

Ran memtest for 1 hour, thought it was faulty ram, no errors for 1 hour. Didnt want to wait 7 hours for it to finish as only laptop to use.

Kept researching and then found article saying if I slipstream SP3 with my Windows XP CD the BSOD during OS install will disapear. Did that and OS installed finally. :roll:

 

[elconejito]

so, it was an XP issue?

Not surprising since XP came out so long ago and wouldn't have any idea what to do with the new chipsets, CPUs, etc.

 

[n7]

Just so you are aware for next time, i do believe you should be able to install XP if you change SATA to IDE mode (instead of AHCI/RAID).

It's just XP doesn't have the right drivers built in for AHCI/RAID mode operation.

Glad to hear you figured out the slipstreaming though.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: n7
Just so you are aware for next time, i do believe you should be able to install XP if you change SATA to IDE mode (instead of AHCI/RAID).

It's just XP doesn't have the right drivers built in for AHCI/RAID mode operation.

Glad to hear you figured out the slipstreaming though.

Chances are he had a pre-SP2 XP install CD, which barfs on systems with PCI-E 2.0.

 

[aigomorla]

if ur looking at the 860..

i would eat a little more budget and grab a 920 instead.

The 860 is not that WOWish compared to a 920 D0.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

He already bought it...

The only reason I see to go with the 920 is if he wants to overclock, and he never expressed any interest in doing so.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: cusideabelincoln
He already bought it...

The only reason I see to go with the 920 is if he wants to overclock, and he never expressed any interest in doing so.

true...

But im also reading a lot of people complain in my threads how after market sinks are causing problems for people and ram.

 

[BadOmen]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

true...

But im also reading a lot of people complain in my threads how after market sinks are causing problems for people and ram.

That's news, and quite interesting. Please elaborate, aigomorla. Do you mean that aftermarket heatsinks are said to have compatibility problems with the 860? Or is the problem on P55?

Also: I read here that Bloomfield would be better than a 860/i5 for multi-gpu. What about single-GPU but with heavy video and graphic processing, like extreme Premiere/Photoshop usage? Would the Bloomfield ones still be better than a 860 in such situation?

 

[Pneumothorax]

Please upgrade to Win7 asap when it comes out. You're wasting that cpu with an ancient OS. Not to mention you're also wasting power as Win7 will do much better at consolidating threads to try to keep turbo mode running. It will also save you on electricity as win7 will allow other cores to idle more when you're not doing much.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: BadOmen

Originally posted by: aigomorla

true...

But im also reading a lot of people complain in my threads how after market sinks are causing problems for people and ram.

That's news, and quite interesting. Please elaborate, aigomorla. Do you mean that aftermarket heatsinks are said to have compatibility problems with the 860? Or is the problem on P55?

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2338049&enterthread=y

 

[DrZoidberg]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry

Chances are he had a pre-SP2 XP install CD, which barfs on systems with PCI-E 2.0.

I did have a SP1 XP install CD, I never had problems with it on an AMD socket 939 system with PCI-E though that was 1.0. Anyway slipstream saves me downloading SP3 after OS install.

I would upgrade OS to Win7 when it comes out and is on sale. I dont like Vista, I've heard some poor feedback on Vista, plus if I install Vista now, I'll probably have to format and do clean install of Win7 when it comes out next year. I generally dislike OS upgrade from past experience and prefer clean install.

 

[BadOmen]

Originally posted by: DrZoidberg
Following advice, I went ahead and bought a Core i7 860 instead of a Core Duo Quad.

Core i7 860
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3P MB
4 Gig Kingston DDR1333
Samsung 1TB SATAII Spinpoint
Antec Sonata III with EarthWatts 500W (wanted a branded PS without paying too much and PS comes with case)

DrZoidberg, I know this is not the case and cooling forums, but could you please tell me your opinion about the Antec Sonata III? Does it really do a good job in muffling noise, as Antec says it does? Thanks

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: BadOmen

Originally posted by: DrZoidberg
Following advice, I went ahead and bought a Core i7 860 instead of a Core Duo Quad.

Core i7 860
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3P MB
4 Gig Kingston DDR1333
Samsung 1TB SATAII Spinpoint
Antec Sonata III with EarthWatts 500W (wanted a branded PS without paying too much and PS comes with case)

DrZoidberg, I know this is not the case and cooling forums, but could you please tell me your opinion about the Antec Sonata III? Does it really do a good job in muffling noise, as Antec says it does? Thanks

It is quiet.

However it sucks next to nothing when it comes to keeping your internals cool.

Its a great case IF you dont overclock.

If you want a quiet case, id recomend u look at the P180 series.

 

[BadOmen]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

If you want a quiet case, id recomend u look at the P180 series.

Thanks, they look great. I really want a quiet case, although I was getting infatuated with the nine/twelve hundred ones already. Those are not quiet at all, are they?

 

[Pneumothorax]

Nope the ninehundred and twelvehundred series are all designed for max airflow. Not for quietness. They aren't too bad if you run quiet fans. However, hard drives and noisy vid cards will be loud as they can be lol

 

[MacAttack]

I just bought the i7 860. I chose that route since I will never go to a multi-GPU setup. The savings allowed me to get the Intel G2 SSD. I went with the 860 because people told me the HT will help with video encoding for HD home movies and weddings that I have been asked to tape for friends.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Originally posted by: BadOmen

Originally posted by: DrZoidberg
Following advice, I went ahead and bought a Core i7 860 instead of a Core Duo Quad.

Core i7 860
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3P MB
4 Gig Kingston DDR1333
Samsung 1TB SATAII Spinpoint
Antec Sonata III with EarthWatts 500W (wanted a branded PS without paying too much and PS comes with case)

DrZoidberg, I know this is not the case and cooling forums, but could you please tell me your opinion about the Antec Sonata III? Does it really do a good job in muffling noise, as Antec says it does? Thanks

The Sonata III is quieter than my old Thermaltake case but I can still hear the fan. Its probably the PS fan and not the case fan. It doesn't have much cooling options, it comes with one 120mm fan and it does have an optional fan mount for hdd but u have to buy it and it will block a large graphics card if installed. I bought it cause when bundled with PS its fairly cheap and the PS has two 12V rails at 22A.