• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Q9450 or i7 920

C

crazymonkee84

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
Messages
506
So I'm on the verge of deciding on getting one of these 2 processors, which will ultimately lead to the other parts I will get (motherboard, ram, etc) I game a bit and encode videos and stuff but nothing that is huge. Price isn't too big of an issue so that's not really a factor in this decision. Is spending the extra money on the i7 worth it for the futureproofing?Anybody have any advice as to which one I should get?
 
If you got the money why not. Kyle said its not hard to overclocked with the 920, he hit 3.8ghz with like 3 changes in the bios. the Q9450 has a 8x multiplier also. The OS sees the 920 with 8 cores since each of the 4 cores is hyper threaded.
 
I think the only problem with the Core i7 is that sometime next year Intel will release a new socket. If you factor platform longevity, then you may want to reconsider the Core i7.

I think this reason (after the price of entry) is the biggest reason why I didn't wait for this cpu.
 
crazymonkee84 said:
So I'm on the verge of deciding on getting one of these 2 processors, which will ultimately lead to the other parts I will get (motherboard, ram, etc) I game a bit and encode videos and stuff but nothing that is huge. Price isn't too big of an issue so that's not really a factor in this decision. Is spending the extra money on the i7 worth it for the futureproofing?Anybody have any advice as to which one I should get?
Click to expand...
New hardware usually takes some time to get all its kinks worked out. At this point, I think you'd be better off going with a tried and true motherboard that many people have access to, in the case that you come upon any problems.
 
i used to say go for the 45nm quad
but the way it's looking now... i think you should actually wait/go for i7-920
 
vck6v3 said:
I think the only problem with the Core i7 is that sometime next year Intel will release a new socket. If you factor platform longevity, then you may want to reconsider the Core i7.
Click to expand...
If you mean LGA1160, you are right. But that wont effect bloomfield users. The westmere high end and dual socket, um, socket, is likely to be LGA1366 too.
 
vck6v3 said:
I think the only problem with the Core i7 is that sometime next year Intel will release a new socket. If you factor platform longevity, then you may want to reconsider the Core i7.

I think this reason (after the price of entry) is the biggest reason why I didn't wait for this cpu.
Click to expand...

Socket 1366 is the high end socket and will be, supposedly, through at least the 32nm versions late next year afaik.
 
so would just saving the money and getting a video card along with a penryn, good ddr2, and a motherboard be more worth it?
 
crazymonkee84 said:
so would just saving the money and getting a video card along with a penryn, good ddr2, and a motherboard be more worth it?
Click to expand...

The problem I see with going the 775 route is that you have no upgrade path - you'll be required to buy a new CPU, motherboard, and ram when you need more performance. With i7, quite likely you'll just be able to upgrade the CPU by itself whenever the next revision comes out.
 
crazymonkee84 said:
so would just saving the money and getting a video card along with a penryn, good ddr2, and a motherboard be more worth it?
Click to expand...

It depends on what you do. For rendering, video editing/encoding, et cetera, the answer is a resounding YES. You will see gains up to 30-50% clock-for-clock over a Core 2 Quad.

For gaming though, nothing really takes full advantage of more than two cores yet, and it will probably stay that way for a while yet so your money would be better spent on the fastest video card and Core 2 Duo that you can afford.
 
SulSeeker said:
I thought SKT1366 is going to be around for awhile?
Click to expand...

It is, right now this socket is the defacto top end socket, they are making the 1160's but that is for the lower end quads and dual cores in which in my opinion are worthless since the current 775's will probably still be viable.
 
A lot of people use the argument the same argument to say "don't buy an i7, get a penryn and invest the difference in a better Graphics card".

That's a bit off.. you can play perfectly with a 4850 for 150 bucks as long as you remain in a 1620x1050 (20" monitor) resolution.
 
I have a Q9450 right now, and I am still going to order a core i7.
The 920 is pretty much the same price as the q9450, in fact it is a little cheaper.
If you already have ddr3, it really is almost about the same. there is a core i7 mobo for 220 now on newegg. So I wouldn't even consider the q9450, I don't see any advantage.

Plus the 9450 has a low multiplier which can make it kindof hit or miss for overclocking (you have to rely on really high fsb speeds)

my 2 cents....
 
I actually need some clarification with the 920, every website I've read has said the 920 and 940 can only use 800 and 1066 ram, can I use 1600 or 1333 ram?
 
Porquetsi said:
A lot of people use the argument the same argument to say "don't buy an i7, get a penryn and invest the difference in a better Graphics card".

That's a bit off.. you can play perfectly with a 4850 for 150 bucks as long as you remain in a 1620x1050 (20" monitor) resolution.
Click to expand...

crysis? ;)
 
Mr. Bluntman said:
It depends on what you do. For rendering, video editing/encoding, et cetera, the answer is a resounding YES. You will see gains up to 30-50% clock-for-clock over a Core 2 Quad.

For gaming though, nothing really takes full advantage of more than two cores yet, and it will probably stay that way for a while yet so your money would be better spent on the fastest video card and Core 2 Duo that you can afford.
Click to expand...

There's one big unknown hanging over this usage argument and that is GPGPU applications which look to be coming on very quickly. OpenCL is nearing release thanks to Apple pushing it and a few companies are soon to release software that encodes video at good quality on ATi GPUs. Adobe Photoshop and others already run on NV GPUs and should be on ATi's soon. I've been waffling between a dual and a quad core for exactly this reason and still haven't decided. The geeky coolness part of me says go quad, the practical and hopeful side says dual :p

Depending upon how long one keeps their hardware a good enough CPU with the mid-upper midrange GPU might end up being the same as an i7 if the GPU is doing the work. I don't know if those types of apps are sped up by more CPU power when being run on the GPU though. Still, for buying all new it's hard to argue against the i7.
 
both of my Q9450s are great and i would get them again unless i saw a deal on a Q9550 :)
 
Really depends on what your main goal of the system and whats your budget. You should probably ignore my comments as I see buying high end hardware as a waste of money now.
 
crazymonkee84 said:
So I'm on the verge of deciding on getting one of these 2 processors, which will ultimately lead to the other parts I will get (motherboard, ram, etc) I game a bit and encode videos and stuff but nothing that is huge. Price isn't too big of an issue so that's not really a factor in this decision. Is spending the extra money on the i7 worth it for the futureproofing?Anybody have any advice as to which one I should get?
Click to expand...

If you have decided to buy and want advice on that, i7 seems pretty stable, is true q/core and has the performance to show it. Either choice means buying a number of components, might as well buy the future, not the past...
As for whether it is worth it etc - that will be your call...GL!!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top