Couple i7 questions...

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M0710NM4N

Weaksauce
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Jun 22, 2011
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So currently I have a Maximus Formula with QX9650 and a friend is going to be sending me a Rampage iii Extreme, but no processor... we originally were looking at the i7 970's because we thought that was what was in her system, but she found the stock fan and its for an i7 960.

So my one question is, is there that much of a difference between the 960 and the 970? And my next question is, if the 970 is worth getting over the 960... will the stock fan from the 960 work with the 970?
 
pick: hmmm, none of them.... instead look for a Xeon X56x0 Series.. that's the best chip you can put in a x58 board specially for the price.. =D..
 
Yes, the fan / heatsink should work just fine.

I do want to point out that there are many X5650 Xeon's for around $75. That's 6 cores, 12 threads.
 
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HarryNutz said:
So my one question is, is there that much of a difference between the 960 and the 970? And my next question is, if the 970 is worth getting over the 960...
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The most noticable difference is that the 970 has 6 cores while the 960 only has 4. How much difference this makes will depend massively on the application, some applications will show a 50% speedup from this, others will show barely any difference at all.

The 970 is made on a smaller process so power-efficiency should be better.

Theres also a few new instructions which can make massive differences in very specific workloads but have no impact on the vast majority of applications.

will the stock fan from the 960 work with the 970?
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It will certainly fit, I expect it will provide enough cooling at least if you are running at stock in a case with good airflow but i'm not positive on that.

HarryNutz said:
pick: hmmm, none of them.... instead look for a Xeon X56x0 Series.. that's the best chip you can put in a x58 board specially for the price.. =D..
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I would disagree about "best". They are basically the same design as the 970 but the affordable models come with lower multipliers (they also have "server" features but those are irrelevent if putting them in an x58 board) so you will have to overclock them to get the same performance as the 970 and for a given speed you will need to use a higher bclk than on the 970, this may limit overclockability (apparently some boards don't like high bclks).

OTOH if you are prepared to take your chances on getting a good overclock they can represent very good value.
 
The Rampage III should have no problem easily pushing a Xeon X5650 to way above the stock performance of a 970, and at a much better price.

High bclk will also be just fine with that motherboard.... and high bclk and QPI is excellent for boosting performance on that platform.

Just get a X5650 off of Ebay and you will be set.

If you want to overclock a lot, get a nice cooler. Even putting the price of those two together, you will end up cheaper than just buying a 970.

There is absolutely no point in going for a 970.
 
Even the higher end 5600-series Xeons are quite inexpensive presently. The X5670 is selling for approx. $100 on eBay and has a 22x multiplier and an all core turbo multiplier of 32x. The Xeons also overclock VERY well, much better than most of the i7s. Even the X5650 that has been mentioned has an all core multiplier of 22x, which is good for 4.4GHz@200MHz bus and are available for ~$75 on eBay. The Xeon has a much better chance of getting there than the i7...;)
 
I honestly don't want to try getting into OCing. I attempted it with my QX9650 and spent weeks tinkering while getting help online and never could get it stable, so I gave up and been running it stock since then. Granted with getting help online... it was hit and miss trying to get a hold of anyone, so that just made me frustrated because I hated sitting around for hours and hours trying to get it stable instead of actually enjoying using the machine.

So with the fact that I don't want to OC... would you still recommend an X5650 or X5670? Or just stick with the 970?

Another question: In the event you say to stick with 970... most of the ones I am finding online that look in good condition are coming out of China, so of course it puts an excessive wait time for shipping. There was only 3 in the U.S.A. and 2 of them looked as though they were kind of worn or maybe they were lapped on the top and one didn't look lapped, but it had no markings at all... which I have never seen a processor without markings... thoughts?

EDIT: Am I seeing correctly on +++++++.com, it showing the X5670 is slightly better in almost all categories without OCing?
 
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plugwash said:
Theres also a few new instructions which can make massive differences in very specific workloads but have no impact on the vast majority of applications.
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Which instructions are you thinking about? As far as I know, the i7-960 is SSE4.2, just like the i7-970.
 
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HarryNutz said:
I honestly don't want to try getting into OCing. I attempted it with my QX9650 and spent weeks tinkering while getting help online and never could get it stable, so I gave up and been running it stock since then. Granted with getting help online... it was hit and miss trying to get a hold of anyone, so that just made me frustrated because I hated sitting around for hours and hours trying to get it stable instead of actually enjoying using the machine.

So with the fact that I don't want to OC... would you still recommend an X5650 or X5670? Or just stick with the 970?

Another question: In the event you say to stick with 970... most of the ones I am finding online that look in good condition are coming out of China, so of course it puts an excessive wait time for shipping. There was only 3 in the U.S.A. and 2 of them looked as though they were kind of worn or maybe they were lapped on the top and one didn't look lapped, but it had no markings at all... which I have never seen a processor without markings... thoughts?

EDIT: Am I seeing correctly on +++++++.com, it showing the X5670 is slightly better in almost all categories without OCing?
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The x5670 is clocked slightly higher than the x5650. That is going to be the only difference.

Either one of those will take about 5 minutes to overclock to 970 speeds or higher.

My wife's machine has a really low clocked XEON, an L5639. Stock speed is 2.13Ghz. It is running at 3.7Ghz, and that is because it is motherboard bclk limited. It still only took me about 20 minutes to get it up there, and it has been running like that for at least 8 months now.
 
Thanks for the info... a few questions:

1. Going with the X5670 do I need a special fan / heatsink or could I use the one I am being sent that's for the 960?

2. Looking at Amazon I'm a little confused why some of the X5670's are listed at 2.66 and others are listed at 2.93. Also one of them someone asked if it was SLBV7 version with B1 stepping? Maybe you can shed some light on this, so I don't getting the wrong one :)

3. Most of the sellers on Amazon I have no clue about who to trust when it's not direct from Amazon... are you keen on any of the 3rd party dealers?

4. Who are where can I look for solid help with getting this processor OC'ed quickly, stable and kept on air?

EDIT: My fault.. my eyes were broke and didn't notice that the 2.66 speeds were actually for the X5650.
 
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If your buying a 1366 cpu today it would be absolutely foolish NOT to get a x5600 series xeon. Get a cheap well made 120mm aftermarket cooler and call it a day. The core i7 970 standard clock is so close to a x5670 that i promise you would have zero regrets one way or the other. put the money saved into a better cooler cause even running stock, which is super unlikely, there very impressive. Even if they were the same price, the xeon is generally considered "higher binned" or a commercial grade.

Just don't spend more than what x5670s are going for on ebay and get the most you can for your dollar. if you need help overclocking, you get all the answers you need here and more.
 
So I gather the 960 heatsink/fan won't work... what about the Thermaltake Ultra 120 I have on my QX9650?

EDIT: NM... if I read correctly, it seems the Rampage iii Extreme has socket 775 mounting holes.
 
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why you would even think of using a stock intel heatsink when you already have a ultra 120 lol:DSame old cooler im using and it works great
 
primetime said:
why you would even think of using a stock intel heatsink when you already have a ultra 120 lol:DSame old cooler im using and it works great
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Because I didn't realize that the Rampage 3 had holes for the 775 heatsink, till I looked it up :D
 
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