Intel Core i7 and Gaming @ [H]

crackbone said:
I absolutely agree with this sentiment. Additionally, I'd almost guarantee you that recently released games such as Empire Total War, etc, will also show similar gains. I've been fighting this battle for the last 3 weeks with people, "Core i7 doesn't help in gaming," and to that I say, nonsense.

I've yet to find a game that hasn't seen a significant FPS increase since putting this rig together.
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I've seen several games that don't seem to benefit from Core i7 over my old Core 2 Quad [email protected]. The Ci7 and the C2Q are both at exact same clock speeds, which really helps eliminate any variables. FPS games mostly don't benefit that much. A few do though. Mostly, it's RTS and flight sim games that really stand to show the most benefit.

I have to question the general attitude most hardware web site's seem to have gotten into about FPS gaming = ALL gaming. It's quite irritating coming from people who should know better. It's plainly a rut they're stuck in and need to break out of quickly. It's making me loose faith in ALL hardware website's gaming opinions. How can you trust in a site that makes bold proclamations about general performance from a single app and/or a single genre being tested?

It almost feels intentional when site's that pioneer new testing methods like the [H] fall into the same rut as everybody else. This site went out of it's way to provide a much more reliable method of testing hardware that shows real world usage. But then they limit the tests themselves to all of one catagory and everything else is ignored. That's not a complete picture.
 
This is why we have tons of websites with reviews. So we can read a few, add our own persuasions and needs, and draw our own conclusions. No site is going to pump out perfectly balanced, all-perspective reviews, every time. I do try to avoid sites with an obvious agenda though. But you're going to get a little bit of that anywhere.
 
xorbe said:
This is why we have tons of websites with reviews. So we can read a few, add our own persuasions and needs, and draw our own conclusions. No site is going to pump out perfectly balanced, all-perspective reviews, every time. I do try to avoid sites with an obvious agenda though. But you're going to get a little bit of that anywhere.
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The problem I'm stating though, is the fact that ALL of the major site's are stuck in this same rut. Whether they're doing "apples to apples" or [H] style reviews, they all get stuck in the "FPS games are all there is" mentality that is almost insulting. Many site's will throw 3 or 4 FPS games out there and call that "gaming performance". For the Core i7 and Gaming article here on [H], we didn't even get that. A single game. Farcry 2 is not representative of many other very popular games out there that run completely differently.
 
If it helps any, Zen of Sudoku runs really well on my i7 system. :D
 
So far, what I have reinstalled since the upgrade. I notice that WoW just seems a bit smoother. All of my source games seem faster, War Online seems smoother and Titan Quest runs like a new game.
On my Q6600 with a GTX 280 and 4 GB of ram Titan Quest would get to chugging and rubberbanding intermittently and more so the longer I played. With my Ci7 920 that has gone away totally.
 
Kangg said:
So far, what I have reinstalled since the upgrade. I notice that WoW just seems a bit smoother. All of my source games seem faster, War Online seems smoother and Titan Quest runs like a new game.
On my Q6600 with a GTX 280 and 4 GB of ram Titan Quest would get to chugging and rubberbanding intermittently and more so the longer I played. With my Ci7 920 that has gone away totally.
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I didn't notice any issues at all with my 2.4GHz Opteron 165 with an 8800GT. I was running at 1920x1200 maxed too. Your issues probably had nothing to do with speed.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
I didn't notice any issues at all with my 2.4GHz Opteron 165 with an 8800GT. I was running at 1920x1200 maxed too. Your issues probably had nothing to do with speed.
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Yeah, fresh OS load on it's own can make those kind of differences as well.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
I didn't notice any issues at all with my 2.4GHz Opteron 165 with an 8800GT. I was running at 1920x1200 maxed too. Your issues probably had nothing to do with speed.
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My OS loads usually only make it a few months before I RFRL. A Q6600 @ 3.6 is NOT a speed problem or a GTX 280 with 4 GB of ram. I was just giving my observations at overall how much faster my i7 is at gaming than my 6600 was. You can put into it whatever you want , but I know what I experience.

i7 is better at RTS type games period. Everyone I've run so far has seen vast improvements. The "rubberbanding" in Titan Quest is a known issue, look it up..... anyway.....
 
Exactly which games have you run, at exactly what resolutions and with what options enabled, and what do you consider "vast improvements"?
 
Justifire said:
At that resolution you'd better get 3 gtx 285 instead of 2 gtx 295, memory is what counts !
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I have 3 BFG Technologies Geforce GTX 280 OC cards in 3-Way SLI. The setup is working very well for me and frankly the Geforce GTX 285's and GTX 295's didn't have enough to offer to justify an "upgrade."

WabeWalker said:
That resolution is overkill though.

Have you got a huge monitor? Maybe you're attempting to compensate for something... no, I'm kidding.
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Why is it overkill? Technically you can get by with 1024x768 or even less. We don't "need" anything. 2560x1600 monitors aren't cheap, but if you can afford the monitors and the hardware to play games on them, why not?
 
Can anybody find a good review of the core i7's performance with Empire: Total War?
I've searched google and the same crappy benchmark with "14 CPU's" keeps popping up with no regard to the Test System specifications or game settings.

Core i7 is advertised on the games start-up, so I'm assuming there are benefits..
 
a Core 2 Quad will run any game just as good or better then a i7.. so much people forget it is the GPU that is most needed to run a game good, yes if you have a slow CPU it will bottleneck but, right now any C2Q at 3GHz or higher will do the job even in SLI at max res.. I was going to go with the i7 but I would rather not buy a new mobo and ram for no reason, Im going to pick up a Q9550 in a few weeks.. I really dont need to as my C2D @ 3GHz is running everything fine.. I just want a bit more power on the side for multitasking and in most newer games you will see a difference from a C2D to a C2Q or i7..

A C2Q is pretty much a i7 with out HT.. and in most games even newer ones HT slows it down.. C2Q is still best for gaming.. but the i7 is a nice CPU for video encoding, and photoshop.. but the C2Q will still be right aside it.. if you have a C2Q there really is no reason to upgrade to a i7.. best to wait it out another year.. that is if you dont care to much about the size of youe e-peen.. I know alot of friends went to the i7 and they are kinda mad about it due to the fact, they cant tell a difference coming from there C2Q... I mean my C2D @ 3GHz is playing everything just as good as my friends i7's.. that is why I am still kind of wondering if I should even go for the C2Q.. but I think about it and for 200 bucks, I think it would be worth it just for better multitasking and in some games a bit more fps..

I agree that building new PC's is a fun hobbie and that is why most people need the newest stuff even if it really is not better.. I mean I would love to have a QX9650 but I just cannot find a reason to get that reather then a Q9550 and OC it to 3.4Ghz.. cept, the multi is .5 higher so I could go for a 3.6 oc with my current ram.. but since everything is running speedie at 3ghz I think a quad at 3.4 will be just fine..
 
Battl3fr0nt said:
a Core 2 Quad will run any game just as good or better then a i7.. so much people forget it is the GPU that is most needed to run a game good, yes if you have a slow CPU it will bottleneck but, right now any C2Q at 3GHz or higher will do the job even in SLI at max res.. I was going to go with the i7 but I would rather not buy a new mobo and ram for no reason, Im going to pick up a Q9550 in a few weeks.. I really dont need to as my C2D @ 3GHz is running everything fine.. I just want a bit more power on the side for multitasking and in most newer games you will see a difference from a C2D to a C2Q or i7..

A C2Q is pretty much a i7 with out HT.. and in most games even newer ones HT slows it down.. C2Q is still best for gaming.. but the i7 is a nice CPU for video encoding, and photoshop.. but the C2Q will still be right aside it.. if you have a C2Q there really is no reason to upgrade to a i7.. best to wait it out another year.. that is if you dont care to much about the size of youe e-peen.. I know alot of friends went to the i7 and they are kinda mad about it due to the fact, they cant tell a difference coming from there C2Q... I mean my C2D @ 3GHz is playing everything just as good as my friends i7's.. that is why I am still kind of wondering if I should even go for the C2Q.. but I think about it and for 200 bucks, I think it would be worth it just for better multitasking and in some games a bit more fps..

I agree that building new PC's is a fun hobbie and that is why most people need the newest stuff even if it really is not better.. I mean I would love to have a QX9650 but I just cannot find a reason to get that reather then a Q9550 and OC it to 3.4Ghz.. cept, the multi is .5 higher so I could go for a 3.6 oc with my current ram.. but since everything is running speedie at 3ghz I think a quad at 3.4 will be just fine..
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LMAO. go and look on the arma 2 benchmarks. a i7 destroys any core 2 cpu in that game
 
My q66 is limiting the hell out of Arma 2 for me, especially near the coast. Picked up an i7 just for this. :)
 
I upgraded from a Core2duo conroe @ 2.67ghz to the 920 i7 and boy did my computer feel different :D. Even the inaccurate "Windows base index score" gives my CPU a 5.9 rating LOL
 
Even if the lastest Multi GPU setup could benefit from a faster CPU now, it will become the bottleneck again when newer games come out.
 
gpus have gotten pretty far recently.
i bet in 2010 when all the next gen sli/xfire and hi res 120hz monitor setups are out we will be complaining about cpu bottleneck.
 
Still too much $$ to upgrade from a 9450 @ 3.2 to an I7. I hope that the I9 will push the used I7 prices down a bit more. No way I will spend more than $400 for mobo/gpu/ram. I mean, I got my 9450, 4gb ram and mobo for $300 six months ago.
 
thetruth said:
Still too much $$ to upgrade from a 9450 @ 3.2 to an I7. I hope that the I9 will push the used I7 prices down a bit more. No way I will spend more than $400 for mobo/gpu/ram. I mean, I got my 9450, 4gb ram and mobo for $300 six months ago.
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If you sold your 9450, ram and motherboard you could probably upgrade to i7 for around $300 if you shop around.
 
I just purchased the i7-920 @ Micro Center too! :D Guess I'll have to wait to see if it's got the DO stepping or not. Can't seem to tell by info on the website. I'ver read somewhere that the -920 will go up in price after the i5s come out. Even if it ain't so, that price is golden compared to elsewhere I've seen it. I saved a minimum of $80.00. Now to pick a mobo, GPU, and the rest of the system. It's my first build in over three years (nervous). Since it's primarily for gaming (especially for some future games) I figure I should go with Vista Home Premium/64bit. No big hurry.
Flyby out
 
Q: What difference would it be to get an i7 965 vs an i7 920?? I'm planning on using a 3-way GTX 285 2GB SLI setup for a 26" 19200x1200 Samsung down the road if things work out and want to be optimized without being too overkilling.
 
I don't know whether very many places sell the 965 any more. If you mean the 975EE (same MSRP as the 965 but 133MHz faster, and D0 stepping), it's about 670MHz and $700. Depending on the chip, if you overclock it, the 975 may/may not increase the frequency lead over the 920, but the $700 that you save by getting the 920 is pretty hard to argue against.
 
I haven't seen a Core i7 965 Extreme Edition in quite some time. I've seen plenty of Core i7 975 Extreme Edition CPUs, but I've seen very few Core i7 940 or 950 CPUs. Places like Microcenter mostly seem to have either the Core i7 920 or the Core i7 975 Extreme Edition CPUs in stock.
 
Well, I think I outsmarted myself. It seems that for my narrow gaming purposes I should have waited and bought the i7-8xx series of processors for the socket 1156. I'd have saved a few bucks in the long run. Some dumb-ass opened the -920 box so I can't return the damned thing. :mad: So I'll have to press on. I cudda had a nice system that drew less power. :( Might as well press forward now. X58-ville it is! :p
T
 
I'm just on the point of getting one of the OC i920 bundles (3.8GHz).
At present I'm running a [email protected] with an XFX GTX 260 Black Edition (original version)
Does anyone have any experience of how the 260 would run on the i7? I don't want to upgrade my card for a while and can't afford to anyway.
Would I notice any improvement or would it be pretty much the same?

Thanks, John:)
 
I don't understand what you mean by "OC i920 bundles (3.8ghz)" Did you buy a complete system? Anyway, I don't think you'll have a problem running your 260 on an i7 system. Ought to work like a gem. Nothing special about an i7 system in that regard as far as I've read. If anything, you might pick up a bit of performance from the new processor over the q6600. This seems especially so for apps, but also for gaming too (at the same clock).
T
 
With equal cores a c2q and i7 clock-for-clock are roughly equal in *most* games.

I am planning on using my OC'ed q6600 until Sandy Bridge. Considering the games I am playing (Mass Effect, Fallout 3, Bioshock, Oblivion, WoW [obviously]), all run at maximum settings on my 260/216 just fine.

I am hoping by Sandy Bridge (well..at least until the q6600/920 equivalent), that a 128GB SSD is reasonably priced for a good boot drive, and 2TB drives are at $100.
 
All I know is I have seen a massive boost in gaming performance with my 2 gtx 260c216 cards after going i7 920 @ 3.8 with megahalems cooling. All this stable at 2.16vcore. This is coming from the same two cards in sli with a q6600 before. Everything about my gaming experience is better, from load times to big battle number crunching fps finales. Yeah it's true that supcom and wic saw the best gains but you're shitting me if you say there's no difference in fps games!
 
pcgamer420 said:
All I know is I have seen a massive boost in gaming performance with my 2 gtx 260c216 cards after going i7 920 @ 3.8 with megahalems cooling. All this stable at 2.16vcore. This is coming from the same two cards in sli with a q6600 before. Everything about my gaming experience is better, from load times to big battle number crunching fps finales. Yeah it's true that supcom and wic saw the best gains but you're shitting me if you say there's no difference in fps games!
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Glad to read that your system fits the bill. Are any of those games you play considered to be CPU-intensive, by chance?
thanks!
T
 
Kangg said:
Screen Shot or Shens Unless you are on LN2 that's a great way to fry your CPU. :rolleyes:
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Even on LN2 that'd kill his CPU pretty quick. He's mistaking it for some other voltage but I can't figure out which voltage. The CPU PLL is the highest voltage I've seen for the i7 and that's default 1.8V, maximum around 1.88V.
 
The 980x looks awesome, too bad I will never afford one till it goes lower than $1000. Hopefully AMDs 6 core will be cheap as their flagship processor.

I can't believe we already have 6 cores, I would like to see how many cores processors have 20 years from now.
 
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