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Intel Core i5 or i7

V

Vulsker

n00b
Joined
Dec 1, 2009
Messages
23
Well I am purchasing my CPU tomorrow and I will be using this computer for multimedia. Such as video editing, etc. How much more beneficial is getting the i7 over the i5? Would the i5 be ok for a while?

Thanks for the help!
 
well i went with the i5 and im not disappointed... the only benefit for the lower model i7's vs the i5 is hyperthreading if i believe im right
 
Robert_J said:
well i went with the i5 and im not disappointed... the only benefit for the lower model i7's vs the i5 is hyperthreading if i believe im right
Click to expand...

+1 There's about a 133MHz difference in speed, but that is hardly noticeable especially if you plan to over clock. The HT does have its advantage in some applications though. I'm very happy with my 860 and was very impressed with the i5 system I built for my brother. He went from an old ass Athlon XP 2000+ to an i5, so he is happy too. :D
 
If you can afford i7 go for it, if not, be happy with i5. That's my best suggestion.

BTW do you have a local Micro Center? Awesome deals right now if you do.
 
And in case you don't have a microcenter around you, use Bing with Tigerdirect...

i5 $189.99 - 12.8% = $165.67

i7 860 $279.99 - 12.8% = $244.15
 
IXBTLABS did several studies. Please refer to original source for verification. I just give a particular generic summary.

Under optimal situation with the right hardware and software, for example x264 test, (time to complete, lesser is better) they found 4-core-7:43 and 4-core-8-threads(Turbo+Hyperthreading)-5:57. So for this very specific area with the right setup, it does bring in noticeable benefits.

If your ideal is preference for stock-clock,reduce power,reduce heat,less noise and use CPU-based software for video encoding, then maybe i7 with Turbo/Hyperthread can be considered

If you are OK with overclocking, additional power,heat,noise and a cost for a better cooler, you can use i5 and overlock them to the max to compensate for the loss of HT.

Alternatively, you can use stock i5 and go for good GPU-based video encoding software (please double-check with AV forum).

Finally, you may find the stock-i5 speed satisfactory requiring no further enhancement.
 
The main difference between the i5 750 and i7 920 (both at 2.66GHz) is that the 920 has hyperthreading and the 750 is the 1156 socket while the 920 is 1366. Therefore the i5 utilizes dual channel RAM while the i7 920 uses triple channel. The i7 860 at 2.8Ghz is also 1156, however. If you do RAM hogging tasks like Photoshop or video editing then go with an i7. Otherwise, I'd go with an i5.
 
Thanks guys.

As in for Microcenter I am actually going there tomorrow to get the CPU. I will be using a 1156 socket. As for OCing, I might try it down the road but right now just stock.

Im leaning toward the i5 but for like $60 more I can get the i7 860... so its between those 2.

Video encoding and editing would benefit from HT though right?
 
I just got the i7 over the i5,and coming from a Q6600 all I can say is wow,its like night and day:)
 
PC_User said:
Yes. This article provides a rough estimate, showing that video encoding receives approximately a 20% benefit from hyper threading.
Click to expand...

interesting...why do games have a negative impact with HT enabled?...even with games that don't take advantage of more then 4 cores why wouldn't it just remain flat, why the decrease in performance?...so it should be disabled when gaming?
 
Yeah I read about that as well. But from what I saw is the game has to be coded to use HT and then you'll get a boost but not many games right now use it. I guess one that is used to test HT in gaming is lost planet which shows a decent increase with HT enabled.
 
HT= "hype that" and always has prety much. But hey, it gives Intel a reason to sell the i7 over the i5 I guess .....
 
Vulsker said:
Yeah I read about that as well. But from what I saw is the game has to be coded to use HT and then you'll get a boost but not many games right now use it. I guess one that is used to test HT in gaming is lost planet which shows a decent increase with HT enabled.
Click to expand...

doesn't the game just view it in terms of how many cores it thinks the processor has...so if I have a quad core CPU with HT enabled wouldn't the game just view it as being 8 cores?...I thought HT was just a way of tricking the system into thinking it has more cores
 
maleficarus said:
HT= "hype that" and always has prety much. But hey, it gives Intel a reason to sell the i7 over the i5 I guess .....
Click to expand...

False. That used to be the case with the old P4 but not anymore. See the link I posted above.

polonyc2 said:
interesting...why do games have a negative impact with HT enabled?...even with games that don't take advantage of more then 4 cores why wouldn't it just remain flat, why the decrease in performance?...so it should be disabled when gaming?
Click to expand...

The decrease, as you can see, if minimal. And that's for some games, not all. Many games show neither a decrease nor increase in performance from having hyper-threading enabled.
 
Dave65 said:
I just got the i7 over the i5,and coming from a Q6600 all I can say is wow,its like night and day:)
Click to expand...

ditto for me - i7 860 replaced a q6600. Both 4MB (had to upgrade from ddr2 to ddr3 though)/win7x64. I do a lot of video work and as an example a bluray reencode went from 14 hours down to 8 or 9. Noticable faster doing just about anything
 
This is the final piece of information I can contribute on this subject based on info digging on the web.

Estimate, YMMV,

For user who want to overlock on stock heatsink. (why ? because some want faster speed but are not willing to raise further effort/resources for better heat-sink/power/other component cooling and casing adaptation) For instance, some users know they can overclock to 4GHz but will result in 80s+ heat that he/she doesn't like. The 4GHz brings them marginal benefits so they are willing to go for lower clock-speed and spend the money on other aspects, ie quiet pc.

Important base on this -->[Nehalem with No-Turbo/No-HT 2.66GHz stock heatsink]. Some say you can safely overclock until 3.2GHz max using the stock-heatsink with good case airflow.
So assume a bit of conservative estimate, we take 3.0GHz (No-TB/No-HT), this will give you estimate equivalent of a good Phenom2-X4 system in 3.7Ghz to 4.1GHz range depending on your software (some video software very optimized on intel platform) This discussion is only focus on est. processor performance.
 
if the i5's have the turbo mode feature I may be interested in one, the problem I have noticed with intel's obessions with multithreaded cpu's is that the vast majority of software is single threaded only. So the only way for such software to speed up is higher clock speeds.
 
chrcoluk said:
if the i5's have the turbo mode feature I may be interested in one, the problem I have noticed with intel's obessions with multithreaded cpu's is that the vast majority of software is single threaded only. So the only way for such software to speed up is higher clock speeds.
Click to expand...

It's not so much an obsession as physics as both AMD and Intel reached a point long ago that pure clock speed increases from one generation to the next were simply becoming unsustainable. And Nehalem offers excellent single threaded performance increases over prior Intel CPUs without increasing clock speed.
 
chrcoluk said:
if the i5's have the turbo mode feature I may be interested in one, the problem I have noticed with intel's obessions with multithreaded cpu's is that the vast majority of software is single threaded only. So the only way for such software to speed up is higher clock speeds.
Click to expand...

Ummm....Do you really want a single core CPU? There's always the Celeron 450 and Atom Z270 and such if you really want it.
 
allow me to throw a wrench into the works.

the lynnfield xeons fall in line between the i5 and i7, assuming you're looking at the i7-860 and not the 920. specifically, the x3440 is the cpu i'm talking about. with the xeon, you get the hyperthreading that the i5 lacks for about $50 less than an i7-860. also, xeons are traditionally better binned than their desktop counterparts so i think it's safe to assume you'd be able to get a decent overclock should that be a concern.

that being said, there is no 100% guarantee that a xeon chip will drop into just any p55 mobo. none of the non-server 1156 socket mobos have official xeon support to the best of my knowledge. however, many people from various corners of the net (here at the [h], over at tom's hardware, also checked in at xtremesystems) have had success with several different p55 mobos.

personally, i'm getting ready to build a system with a xeon x3440 and a gigabyte p55-ud4p. i'll be sure to start up a build thread and let folks know how it goes.
 
You will not be disappointed with an i7 920. My biggest bottleneck right now is that my HDD can't read/write fast enough to keep up with what I want to do. Kind of irritating but hopefully RAM drives will come down in prices soon.
 
I just got the i5 750 and overclocked to 4ghz.. then decided to get the i7 860 and I got it to 4ghz. Both were very fast. The i5 ran much cooler without HT. If your going to be doing video encoding or editing I would buy the 860. Its not much more from Microcenter.
 
core 2 quad or i7, the i5 is absolutely pointless and seems to have no future. Turbo mode is a joke, you don't need an electronic hand holder to raise a fsb.
 
I went with my i7 because I don't overclock and I tend to upgrade the cpu the least and I wanted something as forward looking as possible.
 
interesting...why do games have a negative impact with HT enabled?...even with games that don't take advantage of more then 4 cores why wouldn't it just remain flat, why the decrease in performance?...so it should be disabled when gaming?
Click to expand...
It's more a problem with the OS than it is with the game or with the hardware. Because each core pair shares the cache and bandwidth of a single core if hyperthreading were turned off, then if you load both the cores of a pair then you will get lower performance than if you loaded two physically separate cores. Since the OS can't tell the difference between threads on the same physical core and threads on different cores, you get a situation where sometimes a dual-threaded application (which a lot of games are) will have both threads loaded onto the same physical core, decreasing performance.

This is from what I understand, anyway.
 
Well I thought I had more money then I did so I ended up going with the i5. Later down the road if needed I'll upgrade. Now I got a question on the heat, stock sink and a couple fans what should the system be running at when in use?
 
450 said:
Ummm....Do you really want a single core CPU? There's always the Celeron 450 and Atom Z270 and such if you really want it.
Click to expand...

no I dont :) I am just saying that hardly anything I do can fully utilise both my cores, so considering I struggle ot max a dual core I wonder how much extra use 4 cores would be.

The i5 and i7 interest me tho since they have features to help with single threaded apps which in my opinion is the majority of software.

Where my dual core does help me is that it aids in multitasking. If an app hogs cpu then another app can still run unaffected.
 
Vulsker said:
Well I thought I had more money then I did so I ended up going with the i5. Later down the road if needed I'll upgrade. Now I got a question on the heat, stock sink and a couple fans what should the system be running at when in use?
Click to expand...

Anything in the 35-45C degree range at idle and <80 at 100% load after 15 minutes is fine. I know some people are fanatical about temps and but the i5/i7 Nehalems are designed to work within those ranges.
 
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