Need vs Want i7 from Conroe?

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Megalomaniac

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I am looking at the reviews, and I admit, short of day to day performance boosts that I would get, I am looking for better gaming fps as my primary reason to upgrade.

But for a minimum of $600 bucks, I dont see much gain going to i7 (either 920 or 860) in gaming.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634&p=8
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2009/09/08/intel-core-i5-and-i7-lynnfield-cpu-review/8

These Test results tell me one thing: if you have a Core 2 Duo running at 3+ GHz, you are still largely limited by the GPU. There is definitely a gain here, but not the mind blowing 25% or better that one would expect. (minimum FPS)

From what I have read of all the various reviews these days, the two best upgrades still seem to be an SSD and a new GPU. The cost for both is the same as for a i7 system, but the difference is much more noticeable.


/rant
 
Just throwing this out there... I went from a C2D e6600 clocked at 3.2 with a ati 1950xtx card and 2 gigs ram to a i7920 with an ati 4890 with 6 gigs ram...while this doesnt really meet your comparison criteria i will say the difference between the two from bootup, gaming, day to day tasks, and program load times, is night and day. i knew it would be faster but the difference was astounding...
 
SomeFknGuy said:
Just throwing this out there... I went from a C2D e6600 clocked at 3.2 with a ati 1950xtx card and 2 gigs ram to a i7920 with an ati 4890 with 6 gigs ram...while this doesnt really meet your comparison criteria i will say the difference between the two from bootup, gaming, day to day tasks, and program load times, is night and day. i knew it would be faster but the difference was astounding...
Click to expand...

Did you get a new HD too? My intuition tells me that if bootup/general snappiness improved it's because of a new HD (not to mention Windows install) and possibly extra RAM. But correct me if I'm wrong.
 
HDD is the same, raptor 150 gig. the ram may have well played a part in load speeds, but overall the system is significantly faster
 
I did upgrade from 2GB of ram to 4GB, and that was a great improvement to snappiness.
All of a sudden, I could run my 70+ tab Firefox and torrent, and Alt+Tab from games with little problem. 2GB of ram were giving me problems.

But I still can't do this, and I dont think anyone with an HDD can regardless if they have a C2D, a C2Q, an i7 or i5:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=20
 
That's interesting. I've been itching to upgrade for the last 6 months and go back and forth between AMD and Intel.

Should I upgrade from E630 (Conroe) with 4 gigs of ram (PC6400) to Q9550, and only have to replace the CPU and maybe upgrade ram to PC8500, or just go for an i5 system. I only game.
 
If you have a 64 bit OS, 4GB of RAM for $50 is much better than the Q9550 for $200. (but you will see benefits even with an 32 bit OS)
But that's what i would do and I tend to be frugal with money on upgrades. It is easy to drop $600-$1000 and have new toys, and if that makes you happy, go for it.

While I see that there would be everyday benefits and a lot of encoding and decoding benefits to a i5/i7 platform, i just cant justify spending so much money on it yet. I'm itching to upgrade too, but its an itch im not willing to scratch. I am actually very psyched about SATA III or the 6 Gbps SATA and what it will do for the SSDs. Plus there are DX11 GPUs on the horizon :) thats one itch that might be worth scratching.
 
Megalomaniac said:
I did upgrade from 2GB of ram to 4GB, and that was a great improvement to snappiness.
All of a sudden, I could run my 70+ tab Firefox and torrent, and Alt+Tab from games with little problem. 2GB of ram were giving me problems.

But I still can't do this, and I dont think anyone with an HDD can regardless if they have a C2D, a C2Q, an i7 or i5:
http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631&p=20
Click to expand...

70 tabs? Seriously?
 
I'm kind of unsure whether I want to upgrade yet. E6750 @ 3.2 with 4890. I currently game at 1680x1050 but I might get a 23" 1920x1080 soon. I was fairly excited for i5 and I could buy i5/mobo/4gb for about $430 (mix of MC and egg).

I want a big Want but I don't think I Need. haha.
 
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