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Worth upgrading to i7?

S

sockhead

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 12, 2005
Messages
103
I can basically upgrade to a complete i7 system for about $350, which includes the 920 processor, intel mainboard, and 12gb of memory. I would at the same time have to give up my Q6600 and p5k-deluxe. Is this worth it? Will I be seeing any differences in gaming, load times, etc?
 
If pure gaming, no. For everything else, yes.

For load times, look into SSDs.
 
So for $350, you would not upgrade? Are there any really big things coming out on the intel front in the near future? The q6600 seems to have a lot of lasting power in that I've never really felt compelled to upgrade... But maybe I just don't know better. Any other opinions on the matter?
 
sockhead said:
I can basically upgrade to a complete i7 system for about $350, which includes the 920 processor, intel mainboard, and 12gb of memory. I would at the same time have to give up my Q6600 and p5k-deluxe. Is this worth it? Will I be seeing any differences in gaming, load times, etc?
Click to expand...

I'm in the same situation and I'm passing for the time being....I want to see i5/i3 stuff first.
 
upgrade to i7 for 350 bucks ??? You could sell your current system for that price so it wouldnt cost you a dime. Its a no brainer.
The i7 should last you for quite some time .
 
If you have a buyer for your old stuff it's a no-brainer to me. The longer you wait, the harder it is going to be to offload your current setup. It's not like you're going from a Q9450-9550 either, Q6600 is getting long in tooth.

When i5/i3 comes what, what makes you think the buyer of your old setup won't jump on that over your current setup? Now you're stuck with your old setup or selling it for considerably less.
 
sockhead said:
I can basically upgrade to a complete i7 system for about $350, which includes the 920 processor, intel mainboard, and 12gb of memory. I would at the same time have to give up my Q6600 and p5k-deluxe. Is this worth it? Will I be seeing any differences in gaming, load times, etc?
Click to expand...
This is a pretty good deal but for gaming...it isn't really worth it unless you are running SLI/Crossfire .
 
if you have a buyer for your q6600 i would definitely do it, from the looks of things i5 is going to be good but not [H]ard, It's not going to have triple channel ram, and most likely won't have the same level of sli crossfire support that i7 has, as well as rumors that it won't have the same overclocking potential, also the rumors of phasing out the 920 keep swirling around which would make jumping onto the i7 bandwagon a lot more expensive in a year or so, for me with looking at basic specs for i5 it doesnt give me any incentive to wait, which is why I went i7 from q6600, and I am quite happy with the up, and I don't even have my tripple channel ram yet.
 
Wait till the i5. I was in the same boat. Countless returns and exchanges later I'm back and quite happy with what I had before the i7 switch. Trust me, just wait. It will save a lot of time and hassle.
 
As other people have stated, if you can sell your system, go for the switch,otherwise, don't. I was in a similar boat as you, but my old PC got fried, so really, I didn't have a choice. But I have 2 friends who practically had similar (or better systems), and they've seen my new system, and even remarked at how much faster it is than theirs. While SSDs are the best way to help in loading, my load times with the new processor have drastically decreased. Photoshop CS4 went from loading up in 6 seconds to loading up in 2 seconds (on a 7200 RPM non SSD).

In terms of gaming though, the only game I could never really run on my old machine at all the highest settings was Crysis. And while I can now run it with all the setting on very high, the question becomes, how many programs do you have that your current machine can't handle to your liking. If it's only Crysis, is it really worth upgrading for one game? Now,if you spend a lot of time video encoding, then it might be worth it. But it comes down to what you use your PC for.
 
The i7 shines in pro apps. Don't have benchies to prove it, but I notice less stutter when moving stuff around in programs like Solidworks, that is using the same graphics adapter (8800GT). I do have more ram in my i7, so that may be helping out. Otherwise, it used to take my Xeon (c2q equivalent) a bit more time render new edits to a completed design. If you're patient and can wait a few seconds, the i7 may be overkill, but if you spend a great deal of time on pro apps, a few minutes gained here and there is always worth it. In this case it's probably the integrated memory controller that's making the difference.
 
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they got it right, right at the beginning with i7/x58. no bios flashining needed, no soft power downs, no bad ram compats, etc. get an i7 and decent board and you are set for a while.
 
sockhead said:
I can basically upgrade to a complete i7 system for about $350, which includes the 920 processor, intel mainboard, and 12gb of memory. I would at the same time have to give up my Q6600 and p5k-deluxe. Is this worth it?
Click to expand...

YES of course you should upgrade for $350 to get a full i7 system including 12GB of DDR3. Overall it is an improvement over what you have and for an excellent price. That's a bargain.

(Did the rest of you guys telling him not to do this actually read his post? And the first comment about waiting for i5, all I can say is LoL)
 
I was in the same situation just last week when my friend was looking for an upgrade himself. He offered to buy my Q6600 with motherboard and ram since since I was considering building a new i7 920 rig. Long story short, I decided to just go for it and build a brad new box. Like you, total cost involved for me was only around $300.00 total. I did re-use hard drives and my GTX 260 to keep costs down as well.

My room was also getting to warm for me to sleep at night with the Q6600 so that was my most important issue I was looking to solve. Honestly, the only benefits I gained from the upgrade were in case temperatures (also lowered room temperatures!) which was worth the little extra to me. Obviously I really can't tell any difference fps wise or even feel while gaming since I reused my old graphics card. But like I said, my case temps and graphics card are down over 10c which is alright with me. I can also achieve lower min/max temps while overclocking my 920 to 3.0ghz+.

I really like this new computer, it has become my favorite build to date. It should provide me with plenty of headroom and its making me want a new graphics card, or two! Anyway, hope this helps you with your decision!
 
I would upgrade not because of performance improvement but just for the FUN of it!:p
 
For 350 bucks I would jump all over it. I upgraded back in February from a Q6600 and 4 GB of ram to Ci7 920, 6 GB of DDR3 and a Gigabyte X58 UD3R for 629 out the door at Microcenter and for me it was worth every penny AND, I mostly game.
 
I'm still on my q6600. I see no reason of switching over, at 3.6ghz there is more than enough power.
 
"No reason to switch over, more than enough power."
If I followed by that logic I would still be using my socket 939 x2 4800+, that had more than enough power, but i wanted a whole heck of a lot more than enough.
 
Yes, jump on that shit. I swapped out my q6600 @ 3.4ghz for an i7 920 and spent way more than that on the upgrade, and was STILL very happy with the improvement in performance I got relative to $ invested. Do it. Even my c0 i7 manages 4.1ghz and the difference in performance was not small between my q6600@ 3.4 and my i7 @ 4.1
 
Ok, I'm doing it. Shame that the intel mobo only has 4 ram slots. I guess 6 GB will be enough...
 
gaming with a current gen GPU will be ALOT better with I7 also and dvd encodeing will go alot faster i went from 10mins to 5mins per dvd.
 
I'm just gonna get a q9650 and see if i can skip this generation.
 
For a complete i7 system with 12GIGS $350 is definatly worth it as long as your video card is decent (if your're a gamer). 4 days ago I paid $500 for mine.

We dont know much about the i3 and i5 only that the i7 is going to be the fastest of the 3 CPUs models and on top of it the 920 (I assume its a 920) is a pretty good overclocker.

I'd say thats a pretty good deal. I'd do it.
 
I hear i7s are good cpu's, definitely go for it, if cash is not the prolblem.
 
The core components (mobo, cpu, ram) for an i7 920 setup should only cost you about $600. Everything else can be reused from your last build. Your friend should be able to reuse his gear to go with your q6600 parts as well. Doesn't seem right to me that you're only going to get 600-350 = $250 for your quad/mobo/ram?

Investment wise, you probably come out the same either way. Some people upgrade cheaply (by selling their not-very-obsolete stuff) every year or so while others buy the best everything all at once every couple years and as far as I can tell they both spend the same amount of money just the frequent upgrader has more fun. You be the judge.
 
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