New Build Intel i7

[Mike Martin]

Excuse my ignorance. I've been researching this for a while, but I still have some questions.

So I'm going to build a new system - going Intel for the first time in a very long time. Every AMD machine I've had has had a bottleneck in performance that has created a ridiculous amount grief. I'm trying to avoid that and get a proven system. I probably won't be buying anything until November so I still have some time to research.

So I thought I had settled on the Intel i7 920, but now the new ones are out. Then Intel i7 860 is at the right price - but I'm not clear as to whether the original i7 920 is still a better choice or not.

The next question would be recommended motherboards for the i7 860 (if that is the recommended way to go).

Thanks for any help and advice.

[Animus]

Check out the benchmarks in the Test Bench.

[Mike Martin]

Animus,
Most of the benchmarks I've seen have the i7 920 tested, not the newer i7 860. So that is really my question. How does the newer i7 860 compare?

[Animus]

Hi Mike,

hmm weird. I thought I remember new benches with the new cpus. THe 860 is basically an i5 and Intel confusingly badged it an i7. I think both are fairly comparable but I beleieve the 920 can overclock better. THe northbridge is on the actual chip with the 860. I debated this when researching a new build myself. I ended up going with the 920 at TAFKAT's advice and it has been tried and tested for audio.

[Jcschild]

you can extrapolate from the 870 vs 920.
the 860 is slightly slower. (2.8GHz vs 2.93)

870 HT on 120 RXC
860 would be about 95% of that or 114
920 HT on was 130. 15% better than 860

Scott
ADK

[TAFKAT]

Just to clarify a bit further,

Base clock speeds for the 870 is 2.93 , 860 is 2.80 , 920 is 2.66 ( this is with Turbo Off ) base clocks with Turbo On are one grade up, i.e 3.06 for the 870 , 2.93 for the 860 and 2.80 for the 920.

The 920 , although being 2 clock speeds down outperformed the 870 , which is almost double the price , the 860 /920 price point is not that far off each other when weighing motherboard/memory , performance with the 860 is still great, but the 920 would still be my choice for outright performance.

Personally, I am in 2 minds over the 1156 / Lynfield platform.

The i5 750 is s great chip , and a good successor to the Core2 Quad line.

P55 chipset is simply the same interconnect as the P45 ( DMI PCIe) , but with the memory controller and PCIe x16 now shifted ondie to the CPU chip , making it a one chip motherboard solution ( i.e easier and cheaper )

The 860 / 870 where never meant to be marketed as "i7's", because quite simply , they are not i7's , they are i5's rebranded by some idiot monkey marketing department to confuse the market. Intel are also limiting supply of X58 / 920 chips to force the market to 1156, as its the higher volume earner for them as its a one chip solution , whereas X58 uses 2 chips.

P55 / Lynfield (i5) is a great platform, but as a replacement to P45/Core2 Quad , its not in the same league as X58 / Bloomfield ( i7) , IMO

X58/ i7 is now being shifted to the extreme high end only , and the mid to high level motherboards are disappearing at an alarming rate, again to force the market to P55.

The future for X58 will be with the i9 ( 6 core chips coming Q1 2010) , and once that becomes mainstream, we will probably see the end of the 4 Core i7's.

[Jcschild]

Personally, I am in 2 minds
yes yes we know :rotfl:

jokes aside i agree with Vin.

price wise X58 and P55 are very close so why bother. get the more robust one and be happy

now if what Vin says is true (and it might as i had trouble gettting a box of 10 920's last week they said "contrained" wth? contrained only happens at launch? that was 10 months ago)
mind you this was thru Channel (legit intel dealers) not grey market.

and more proof that it might be correct is i got that 10 for less than grey market (by 1$) but normally buying thru channel is $10-20 more.
so that means they 920's are drying up/being help back? or the market sales have increased.

and if the lesser priced mobos disappear for X58 then it becomes more than a $200 difference.

i think the channel is doing this to keep the price of P55/Core i5 UP rather than get people to go P55 so much.

right now
920/X58 affordable board vs
860/P55 is less than $100 and part of that is 3 sticks of ram to 2.

so who in their right mind would do i5/i7 p55?