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Dumb to buy i7?

D

davewolfs

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 7, 2006
Messages
338
I've been waiting for quite sometime for the i7, but given the overall cost and gains in performance I'm not sure if the price premium is worth it.

My uses will be for Photo Editing, Occasional Games and Software Development. So with that said, I probably have no real use for an i7 other then the fact that it is a nice to have.

Basically I'm looking at the following systems.

Q9450 (Overclocked) $320
4GB Ram DDR2 $50
P45 Mobo $130

Total: $500

Core i940 $565
X58 Mobo $350
Tri DDR 6GB Kit $220

Total: $1135

Obviously these systems aren't an apples to apples comparison, but for the types of apps I will be running the performance difference is 10-20% at best so with that said, would it be ridiculous to spend the extra $635 on the i7? Looking for some options.

Thanks,

Dave
 
The i7 does not give you more performance for $600 more. So...

The P45 mb is somewhat basic and does not have all the bell and whistle that you will find on a X58 mb. For me it does not make much sens to pay $200 for a mb when the additional features will not be used.
I think that the i7 would be much more interesting for you if the low cost P55 was available.
The DDR3 additional cost is also hard to justify.
IMO, you would be better of with a video card upgrade...
 
I am in the same boat as you, but considering future upgrade I say yes. Originally I planned on upgrade to i7 next summer, but this acient cpu of mine is really making me suffer in games and general computering. I am planning to getting a i7 920, X58, 6 or 4 gigs of DDR3. IMO mobo is a little bit overpriced.
 
If you make money with this system and you have extra work available that you ae currently turning down because of a lack of time then get the fastest system you can reasonably buy.
If this is a hobby or you don't have the extra work then get the system with the best price/performance.
 
exe163 said:
I am in the same boat as you, but considering future upgrade I say yes. Originally I planned on upgrade to i7 next summer, but this acient cpu of mine is really making me suffer in games and general computering. I am planning to getting a i7 920, X58, 6 or 4 gigs of DDR3. IMO mobo is a little bit overpriced.
Click to expand...

i7 costs way too much money for me to justify getting it so I can play games and web surf.

I am going from a 64x2 5000+ to a E8400 I hope my performace gain will justify my $500 I will be spending on this new build
 
Just to clarify, I have multiple laptops all of which are used for business purposes. This is truly a home PC that I would be building from scratch for personal use...so not really an upgrade but more of a new systems :)
 
For photo editing there is no reason to spend the cache on i7 IMO. Go Core 2 Quad and put 4GB of RAM in it.
 
DDR2 and LGA775 are dead products, and that's also the reason they are cheap. in a year or two you will just jump on to the DDR3 nehalem bandwagon, adding up the price it will be around the price of i7 build. Of course buying product at launch will never gives the best price/performance ratio, but I learned my lesson from last generation S939 and stuck with a dead platform unless a major upgrade to be done, which in this case the new i7.
 
most likely they're going to drop the price on the i7 before christmas just to improve sales
 
Whats up with Toms Hardware saying that these CPU's will throttle themselves down once they reach 130W? You can OC all night, but once 130W is being outputted these CPU's will slow themselves down. It's like having a limiter on a turbo charged engine.
 
If that's possible I think I will hold on a bit longer, planning to build a i7 rig ~new year.
 
RadXge said:
The i7 does not give you more performance for $600 more. So...

The P45 mb is somewhat basic and does not have all the bell and whistle that you will find on a X58 mb. For me it does not make much sens to pay $200 for a mb when the additional features will not be used.
I think that the i7 would be much more interesting for you if the low cost P55 was available.
The DDR3 additional cost is also hard to justify.
IMO, you would be better of with a video card upgrade...
Click to expand...

I don't know, you might want to see the 50-100% improvements in multi-gpu gaming seen over at guru3d.
The performance gains in games is ridiculous - and multimedia stuff will be fast too.

It'll be expensive, but tri-SLI and quadfire are quite tempting with an i7.

For the OP, 500 bucks is plenty for what he needs... but if he plans to expand...!
 
once i can i will buy an i7 most likely in january, to help stimulate the economy and be a good american citizen ;) but hey it might not be worth in price vs performance for most computer users, but it is a good imo if you are looking to not have to upgrade for awhile 1-2+ years most likely
 
exe163 said:
DDR2 and LGA775 are dead products, and that's also the reason they are cheap. in a year or two you will just jump on to the DDR3 nehalem bandwagon, adding up the price it will be around the price of i7 build. Of course buying product at launch will never gives the best price/performance ratio, but I learned my lesson from last generation S939 and stuck with a dead platform unless a major upgrade to be done, which in this case the new i7.
Click to expand...

Talking about future(even in a year or two) about IT products is stupid
 
I second that, especially when you can get a Q6600, 4GB DDR2 and motherboard for $350.
 
davewolfs said:
Whats up with Toms Hardware saying that these CPU's will throttle themselves down once they reach 130W? You can OC all night, but once 130W is being outputted these CPU's will slow themselves down. It's like having a limiter on a turbo charged engine.
Click to expand...

Disable throttling in the BIOS.
Its to stop noobs killing things.

If you dont need the extra power, theres no need to upgrade.
 
jonneymendoza said:
get the i7 920. its the same price has a q9450 lol
Click to expand...

Considering that there is now a better consensus about the overclocking abilities of the 920 and the ability to disable this child safety setting, 920 seems like an ideal choice.
 
I call this more of a wait and see. If you have a decent gpu now and a quad core then stick with what you have for now.
 
The killer in your build is the mobo.
If you can find a cheaper mobo , why not ?

It's a bit like asking , should I buy the latest Porsche 911 ? If you can afford it , why not ?
 
Wait on the i7.

Wait for the prices to drop.
Wait for the price of memory to drop.
Wait for the price of the mobos to drop.
Wait until all the bugs are worked out on the new architecture.

Remember another iteration of the i7 (another socket) will be coming out soon. Who knows if intel will be sticking with the current i7 socket, support both or drop one. While I could probably benefit from an i7 (I do mostly video encoding), the current state of affairs I mentioned above keep me from buying. I figure when Windows 7 gets released I may upgrade--but it would have to be near the current price of DDR2/Core2Quad/x48 mobos for me to do it.
 
Burner27 said:
Wait on the i7.

Wait for the prices to drop.
Wait for the price of memory to drop.
Wait for the price of the mobos to drop.
Wait until all the bugs are worked out on the new architecture.

Remember another iteration of the i7 (another socket) will be coming out soon. Who knows if intel will be sticking with the current i7 socket, support both or drop one. While I could probably benefit from an i7 (I do mostly video encoding), the current state of affairs I mentioned above keep me from buying. I figure when Windows 7 gets released I may upgrade--but it would have to be near the current price of DDR2/Core2Quad/x48 mobos for me to do it.
Click to expand...

The socket LGA1336 will not go away soon, the new socket LGA 1156 is for for dual-bus(not tri-bus) aimed at lower segments, so you a fearing based on lack of knowlegde...
 
What has me interested in i7 is the increase in multi video card efficiency. There seems to be a really good gain in SLI with the i7 over nvidia chipsets. Although guru did us a 680i which is pretty dated right now. Can't wait for the evga x58's to launch. Now if only evga made memory....
 
Atech said:
The socket LGA1336 will not go away soon, the new socket LGA 1156 is for for dual-bus(not tri-bus) aimed at lower segments, so you a fearing based on lack of knowlegde...
Click to expand...

Before you start waving the "I know more than you flag" there, chief, do you work for Intel? Do you know their master plan or are you just regurgitating what they have said they're going to do?

I know what they have "said" they're going to do--doesn't mean they are going to stick with it....... (i.e.--socket 423 purchasers were slightly pissed off when socket 478 quickly replaced it)
 
Just curious about the 965 extreme edition - I have no plans on buying one mind you - its Quickpath interface runs quite a bit faster and it's specced for faster memory. How much of a difference is that gonna make?

Or will the other i7 CPUs match it when overclocked?
 
All I know is I built my C2D new system this weekend for a good price and will get good life out of it without paying the premium and being the guinea pig like so many others will be with the i7. Keeping a large E-penis no longer matters to me anymore
 
Burner27 said:
Before you start waving the "I know more than you flag" there, chief, do you work for Intel? Do you know their master plan or are you just regurgitating what they have said they're going to do?

I know what they have "said" they're going to do--doesn't mean they are going to stick with it....... (i.e.--socket 423 purchasers were slightly pissed off when socket 478 quickly replaced it)
Click to expand...

Making a lower segment socket(dual channel) later to run alongside the high segment (tripple channel) is not the same as launching a new "core", revising the "core" and making a better socket for that.
(actually they made a process shrink from "willamette"(180nm) to "northwood"(130nm), they ran into issues at higher speed with the socket 423 (voltage instabilites >2.0Ghz) added more chache (from 256KB to 512KB) so there Intel did a sorta of a tick-tock all at once.)

Nothing like the plans for LGA 1336 or LGA1156 and it got nothing to do with where i get my information :rolleyes:
 
Atech said:
Making a lower segment socket(dual channel) later to run alongside the high segment (tripple channel) is not the same as launching a new "core", revising the "core" and making a better socket for that.
(actually they made a process shrink from "willamette"(180nm) to "northwood"(130nm), they ran into issues at higher speed with the socket 423 (voltage instabilites >2.0Ghz) added more chache (from 256KB to 512KB) so there Intel did a sorta of a tick-tock all at once.)

Nothing like the plans for LGA 1336 or LGA1156 and it got nothing to do with where i get my information :rolleyes:
Click to expand...


It doesn't? So where did you get your information then?

Still doesn't mean they're going to stick to that route. Unless you can predict the future or you work for Intel's R&D dept--your information is pretty much what Intel wants it to be (or doesn't want it to be) ;)
 
Burner27 said:
It doesn't? So where did you get your information then?

Still doesn't mean they're going to stick to that route. Unless you can predict the future or you work for Intel's R&D dept--your information is pretty much what Intel wants it to be (or doesn't want it to be) ;)
Click to expand...

Thread bookmarekd for later reference.
 
I think it's dumb to be asking that question in the first place. In whatever case as many reviewers have already stated the 920 will be the cpu of choice this year.
 
Go go 920...
ecstatic.gif
 
veedubfreak said:
Can't wait for the evga x58's to launch. Now if only evga made memory....
Click to expand...

You are not the first person I have seen say this about EVGA X58 motherboards. I am as big an EVGA fan as the next guy, but PLEASE tell me what it is going to do for an X58 motherboard that is not going to be done by ASUS, MSI, or Gigabyte?
 
Ideal time to buy up i7, ddr3 and x58/p55 mobos would be around January - Febuary 2009. By then hopefully the mobo bios's matured more, ram incompatibility has been sorted out and the guys over at xs figured out all the ways to clock their i7 920s to 5Ghz+ :)
 
veedubfreak said:
Because i dont trust the customer support of those 3 companies. I have had to RMA 1 board to evga and done at least 6 stepups and every transaction has been flawless. Where as, asus, about 90% of the CS stories i hear/read about are nightmares about broken boards coming back, or taking weeks to get fixed. HAvent heard much from MSI and gigabyte seems to have less than stellar CS also from what i've read.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback, good to know your motivation!
 
Pros:
1) Lasts longer in the upgrade cycle (more CPU upgrade room)
2) SLI +Xfire support
3) 20-40% preformance boost

And yeah get the i920 and save a few hundred, still costs about 200$ more, but definitely worthwhile in my eyes if you can afford it.
 
altcon said:
Pros:
1) Lasts longer in the upgrade cycle (more CPU upgrade room)
2) SLI +Xfire support
3) 20-40% preformance boost

And yeah get the i920 and save a few hundred, still costs about 200$ more, but definitely worthwhile in my eyes if you can afford it.
Click to expand...

Isn't that speculation? It may be the intent at this time, but it could be that a revamp of this socket could come quick.
 
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