Anyone regret going i7?

[Dudeyourlame]

Still happy with me E6400 @ stock.. SUCKERS!

4870, 4gigs ddr2800, Cheap gigabyte mobo

seriously though any games im playing right now i can play at 1920 by 1200 and maybe have to lose a bit of eye candy but I've recently lost interest in spending tons of money for a few fps

 

[Dan_D]

I haven't upgraded to Core i7 yet because I'm not convinced it would be much of an upgrade over what I am running now. In fact, for my virtual machine performance and multitasking performance in some applications I might lose performance when compared to my current Skulltrail setup.

 

[Delete]

Don't regret it at all.
But then again, I took a pretty big jump from an Athlon X2 4200 939 system. My guess is that you would be in for some slight disappointment if you went from a q9xxx to an i7 without OCing it nor using it for video conversion, photoshop, or modeling.

How much faster did your os/apps feel after you upgraded?

 

[moshpit]

I haven't upgraded to Core i7 yet because I'm not convinced it would be much of an upgrade over what I am running now. In fact, for my virtual machine performance and multitasking performance in some applications I might lose performance when compared to my current Skulltrail setup.

Dual socket Nehalem Xeons are around the corner. Patience, grasshopper

 

[crawlgsx]

@crawlgsx: I'm in the same boat as moshpit and I do a TON of video encoding and run a couple of VMs so it works for me. It didn't do shit for me in my FPS games (except Crysis but I think there's a glitch there somewhere). I upgraded just CPU, Mobo, RAM.

good info, thank you.

 

[Dan_D]

Dual socket Nehalem Xeons are around the corner. Patience, grasshopper

I don't know if I'll go that way either. I am looking forward to the technology though. I can see Core i7 derrived CPUs in the server market having quite an impact in that industry.

 

[Nightrainsrt4]

I was going to upgrade to i7 but realized it wouldn't do much for me, at least for what I do with the rig.

Going from e6300/Nforce5 -> Q6600/P35 was a big jump. I just didn't see the need to go further, other than the upgrade itch that always occured.

I am glad to see that those who did upgrade are glad and aren't regretting it. The multi-gpu performance does look tempting, but at dual 22"s I don't think I would see much increase over a single gtx280, though just that was a jump over my 8800gts 320.

 

[ar09]

i dont regret it at all.
before my i7 i had an e6700 with an incompatible intel motherboard. vista 64bit wouldn't work and final.
now i have vista 64bit installed, and it works flawlessly, i run windows update, i haven't had a single install error.
power to the i7 imo.

 

[firas]

How about if you were running at q9650 @ 4.0-4.5ghz and spent all that money to gain 1-2fps in games? I know I would regret that .

good point, but eventually we are in the usual topic … “why pick the fastest when the fast is already too fast”, I noticed big difference from E6750/8800GT to Q9550/GTX285 but I didn’t think the difference I7 would give me worth’s it at this moment, it might worth it for other people with different needs, I’m sure it’ll be a good choice for me not just now.

btw…. I do a lot of video encoding and I don’t care about what the I7 will offer me even over the e6750, and I’m sure I care about my time more than some who pretend to care about saving those extra 5 minutes.

anyway, if you have the $$ go for anything you like and don’t let anyone stop you, bang/buck only 4 poor

 

[moshpit]

good point, but eventually we are in the usual topic … “why pick the fastest when the fast is already too fast”, I noticed big difference from E6750/8800GT to Q9550/GTX285 but I didn’t think the difference I7 would give me worth’s it at this moment, it might worth it for other people with different needs, I’m sure it’ll be a good choice for me not just now.

btw…. I do a lot of video encoding and I don’t care about what the I7 will offer me even over the e6750, and I’m sure I care about my time more than some who pretend to care about saving those extra 5 minutes.

anyway, if you have the $$ go for anything you like and don’t let anyone stop you, bang/buck only 4 poor

So if you didn't buy an i7, what are you doing in this thread? You cannot answer the question because you choose the lesser route. If there was a thread "Anyone regret NOT going i7?" then you would have a place to post that.

You can justify it however you want, but the fact is that you just bought 2 year old tech that will start showing it's age over the course of this year. Before the year is out, your far more likely to regret getting the lesser chip then we are to regret buying the newer chip.

 

[LEVESQUE]

I do a ton of video editing with gigantic AVCHD files, and often editing over 50-100 pictures at the same time with Photoshop CS4.

So, yes, I don't regret it at all.

 

[Proxy]

Love mine!

 

[crackbone]

It was a very worthwhile upgrade. For gaming, anything that's in the RTS genre gets a massive boost. Heck, I've seen big performance boots in CPU bound MMOs as well. That's not even considering the every day task performance increases. It also clocks extremely well.

I feel as good about the i7 as I did my original e6400(@3.2 ghz). It's a great chip and chipset that is an all around great performer.

 

[schizrade]

Hell to the no.

 

[cford88]

Went from an AthlonXP 3200 to the i7 and this thing is so fast it should be illegal.

 

[S3th13]

...what do you expect everyone to say?

 

[SymptomsReagent]

...what do you expect everyone to say?

That we wasted our money.... i7 is a junk platform and really we should've stuck with the C2D or C2Q processors because the i7's suck in comparison.

 

[moshpit]

That we wasted our money.... i7 is a junk platform and really we should've stuck with the C2D or C2Q processors because the i7's suck in comparison.

I know a few on this forum and others that would LIKE to hear us say that. Too bad. Hope they're not holding their breaths

 

[Deleted member 109755]

Do I regret spending $4,000 not including my monitor on a single computer? Yes. Does the regret keep me from enjoying the shit out of playing every possible game you can imagine on the highest possible settings and not dropping a single frame? No. If you ask how I spent $4,000, look at the system in my sig. It's $4,500 after my monitor, which is an LG W2600H 26". Also, this figure doesn't include the spare Gigabyte X58 motherboard and i7 920 I have just laying around because of some of the trouble I have had initially with this platform. Thankfully this is all fixed.

To quote someone else's signature on this forum:
Cost vs. performance is fine, but this isn't [F]rugal|OCP. Its [H]ard|OCP!

 

[silent hero]

For $4000 I hope to God that you enjoy it every damn day. I know I do and I spent at least $2500 for the full computer with monitor and keyboard/ mouse upgrade. I bought i7 because I knew if I went with a 775 socket Intel, I would regret it. I don't think anyone should regret buying an i7 unless it made them broke.

 

[Deleted member 109755]

Sadly I do not get to play on it as much as I would like... I do get to do a few lans here and there, PLR in Arlington, TX..another one in Greenville, TX and of course QuakeCon... but to stay on topic yeah I regret it but refer to my previous post

 

[matrix563]

still waiting to see how i7 does with seti. thus i7 may be my next build

 

[moshpit]

Sadly I do not get to play on it as much as I would like... I do get to do a few lans here and there, PLR in Arlington, TX..another one in Greenville, TX and of course QuakeCon... but to stay on topic yeah I regret it but refer to my previous post

No, you regret spending 4 grand. The subject is do you regret going i7. You were going to spend 4 grand whether i7 was the CPU choice or not I suspect. You were going to buy whatever was the best you could get. Don't blame i7 for your big expenditure, that money obviously burned a hole in your pocket that you could drive a truck through

 

[Deleted member 109755]

If you consider the fact that the processor, a 940 was $600 when it came out, decent memory was $250-$300, and the motherboard was $300+. That is a little over 1/4 of the cost right there. I agree I was going to get the best I could get anyway but does a decent mid range processor need to cost $600, I don't think so. Motherboard, 300? No. Yeah there are lots of routes I could have gone but ultimately this is the one that made the most sense.

Keeping all of the rest of the same components (video cards and what not) I could have gone with a top of the line 790i Ultra chipset (XFX or the like) an E8400 (which I could OC the SHIT out of mind you) and 4 GB of RAM and spent half that on the core components.

I will agree that this is the price I pay for wanting to be on the bleeding edge w/ the top of the line components...

 

[moshpit]

If you consider the fact that the processor, a 940 was $600 when it came out, decent memory was $250-$300, and the motherboard was $300+. That is a little over 1/4 of the cost right there. I agree I was going to get the best I could get anyway but does a decent mid range processor need to cost $600, I don't think so. Motherboard, 300? No. Yeah there are lots of routes I could have gone but ultimately this is the one that made the most sense.

Keeping all of the rest of the same components (video cards and what not) I could have gone with a top of the line 790i Ultra chipset (XFX or the like) an E8400 (which I could OC the SHIT out of mind you) and 4 GB of RAM and spent half that on the core components.

I will agree that this is the price I pay for wanting to be on the bleeding edge w/ the top of the line components...

The low end 920 is anything but "low end". You bought the top of the line CPU, HELL YEAH it costed you 600 bucks. Keep in mind, i7 940 is the highest end Core i7 non-extreme chip you can get. 600 bucks for the top of the line and your complaining??? There's nothing "mid range" about the 940 in anybodies book. The 965 is an Extreme Edition CPU. For non-extreme edition chips, there is NOTHING IN EXISTENCE to compare to your chip. Maybe you've been looking at it the wrong way?

 

[nightwalker]

i think im goin back to a X48 setup.... for same price as my cpu, mobo, and ram i can get a watercooled setup in a danger den case with video card, i didnt notice the performance difference in games enough to warrant the extra cost tbh.

 

[silent hero]

i think im goin back to a X48 setup.... for same price as my cpu, mobo, and ram i can get a watercooled setup in a danger den case with video card, i didnt notice the performance difference in games enough to warrant the extra cost tbh.

If you are only gaming then there's no point in spending the extra $$ for the i7 platform. There is very little difference between the performance you would get from previous generation Intel quads and the i7 in gaming. Now if you were doing more intensive work like encoding videos, 3d rendering, ect. then the i7 would provide a noticeable difference.

 

[Nenu]

SLI/Crossfire is faster on i7 so there is a good use for it (over C2Quad) if you are a gamer.

 

[bigdogchris]

no, not me.

It won't cost too much more if you really want i7. Now you can get i7 920 (MC, 229)+ X58(UD3R, 175)+6gb ddr3 (45, tigerdirect)=$450. It's comparable to an q9650 system in terms of cost.

Going 920 is a fortune if you already have a q9xxx chip. The performance boost for money you are going to pay is not worth it.

 

[silent hero]

SLI/Crossfire is faster on i7 so there is a good use for it (over C2Quad) if you are a gamer.

I never knew that but I do know that x58 provides both Crossfire and SLI, whereas x48 did not. That's a big bonus for gamers imo.

 

[RadXge]

Going 920 is a fortune if you already have a q9xxx chip. The performance boost for money you are going to pay is not worth it.

I agree and most Q9XXX owners should wait for the 32nm Westmere CPU.

 

[firas]

So if you didn't buy an i7, what are you doing in this thread? You cannot answer the question because you choose the lesser route. If there was a thread "Anyone regret NOT going i7?" then you would have a place to post that.

You can justify it however you want, but the fact is that you just bought 2 year old tech that will start showing it's age over the course of this year. Before the year is out, your far more likely to regret getting the lesser chip then we are to regret buying the newer chip.

you mean before the century is out

for the gamming rig, when most gamz become heavier than Crysis I’ll update it

 

[crackbone]

If you are only gaming then there's no point in spending the extra $$ for the i7 platform. There is very little difference between the performance you would get from previous generation Intel quads and the i7 in gaming. Now if you were doing more intensive work like encoding videos, 3d rendering, ect. then the i7 would provide a noticeable difference.

Again, depends on the game.

My gains in RTS and CPU intensive MMOs have been big. (20%+)

FPS gamers, I'd agree. Those are mostly GPU bound applications anyway.

 

[brom42]

Not at all. I gave up PC gaming long ago and moved to consoles, so I don't give a crap about gaming performance. I care about performance increases in video editing and running multiple VMs; for this the increases over my Q6600 were huge.

I agree and most Q9XXX owners should wait for the 32nm Westmere CPU.

I have to really wonder how much waiting will really pay off for someone wanting to get i7. With the differences in platforms, the i7 will never be a "value priced" platform. With all the other i5 chips running dual channel DDR3, triple channel will probably always maintain a premium. Same with motherboards, the value ones will probably mostly be i5.

Looking at the rumors and Intel's time lines, it looks like the x58 chipset will run well past the launch of Westmere CPUs and support them. All the motherboard that follow or exceed Intel's power design should just need a BIOS update and the Westmere should run without issue. So for all of us that already have i7, it should be a relatively cheap upgrade, while everyone else will have to start from scratch. I have a feeling those sexa-core cpus aren't going to be cheap.

 

[FragMagnet]

If you consider the fact that the processor, a 940 was $600 when it came out, decent memory was $250-$300, and the motherboard was $300+. That is a little over 1/4 of the cost right there. I agree I was going to get the best I could get anyway but does a decent mid range processor need to cost $600, I don't think so. Motherboard, 300? No. Yeah there are lots of routes I could have gone but ultimately this is the one that made the most sense.

Keeping all of the rest of the same components (video cards and what not) I could have gone with a top of the line 790i Ultra chipset (XFX or the like) an E8400 (which I could OC the SHIT out of mind you) and 4 GB of RAM and spent half that on the core components.

I will agree that this is the price I pay for wanting to be on the bleeding edge w/ the top of the line components...

Sure a 1/4 of what you spent was on the core components, but nearly 1/2 of what you spent was on v.cards/PSU ! In nov-dec 2005, when $ was worth more than it is today, an Asus/NV mobo, Opty 175, and generic mem cost the same as what you paid for your core components, and felt outdated when C2Q arrived shortly after. In fact 2x 7800 GTX cost $1500 then as well !! Since I went 920, this build cost me less than my AMD build in 2005, and I feel there will be an upgrade path in the future which there wasn't at that time with S939
edit: (cdn prices)

So I feel prices are moving in the right direction, too slow for some, but.....

 

[alex_law]

I'm still regretting going C2D! My old Athlon64 handled BF2 perfectly well, but I upgraded because I had the spare cash and I expected new games to show up. I can't say anything has been released that really interested me in the past 24 months, though. I dropped in a new CPU/GPU a week or so ago just because the deals came up, but I think I'll wait for a new game release that excites me before I jump to the latest and greatest platform.

 

[SymptomsReagent]

Not at all. I gave up PC gaming long ago and moved to consoles, so I don't give a crap about gaming performance. I care about performance increases in video editing and running multiple VMs; for this the increases over my Q6600 were huge.



I have to really wonder how much waiting will really pay off for someone wanting to get i7. With the differences in platforms, the i7 will never be a "value priced" platform. With all the other i5 chips running dual channel DDR3, triple channel will probably always maintain a premium. Same with motherboards, the value ones will probably mostly be i5.

Looking at the rumors and Intel's time lines, it looks like the x58 chipset will run well past the launch of Westmere CPUs and support them. All the motherboard that follow or exceed Intel's power design should just need a BIOS update and the Westmere should run without issue. So for all of us that already have i7, it should be a relatively cheap upgrade, while everyone else will have to start from scratch. I have a feeling those sexa-core cpus aren't going to be cheap.

I think people's expectations of performance/price ratio's are completely out of whack with what the X58 platform offers. Not only do they scale SLi or Cross-Fire better but compared to the Q6xxx and Q9xxx series, for VM's and Photoshop--- video editing and decoding..... It blows the other chips away. I think the only waiting that people are talking about are the fact that they want their wallets to be heavier after they upgrade to the platform.

Plus the fact that we will probably see 32nm and possibly 20nm chips, I see the X58 lasting quite a while in Intel's business model.

 

[dmens]

hells no. x264 loves i7.

 

[stunning]

Seems to me, if you already have a q9xxx cpu, why bother upgrading to i7...right? Ive built my q9300 rig back in June of 2008, I was going to sell my rig for a possible loss of 200 and and build a new i7 rig.


However since I dont play heavy graphic games and only a single 8800gt 512mb perfectly suits all my needs, I shouldnt upgrade or should I?


Im a power house guy, I run multiple VMs, however I shut them down while gaming. Do you guys really think a guy in my situation would even need the power of the i7s? or should I wait for another year to upgrade or buy my friends q9550 or q9650 off him for $150


Just about every year so far I have parted out my rig, sold it, and build new ones.

My rigs in the last 4 years: AMD 3500+,AMD 4400+ x2, e6700, q6600,q9300.

 

[Kangg]

Again, depends on the game.

My gains in RTS and CPU intensive MMOs have been big. (20%+)

FPS gamers, I'd agree. Those are mostly GPU bound applications anyway.

I'd have to agree with this. My biggest gains have been in games like Command & Conquer series, World in Conflict, Mass Effect and Titan Quest also saw big performance gains with i7. Even WoW which is not supposed to be multi core aware is seeing average higher low framerates if that makes sense. Don't know if WoW "smoothing out" is from i7 or more from the 6 GB of ram my system now has but is is noticable. In areas that typically get low fps those now get no lower than around 75 to 80 fps vs 30 to 40 before in heavily populated areas.