i7 CPUs

[Guest Chaz]

Damn, it seems like everyone is getting/building/upgrading new PCs lately. So it's time for me to hop on that bandwagon. It's been over 3 years since my last build.

I researched CPU prices and discovered that the i7 990x is rougly $1000 and the i7 Sandy Bridge 2600k is $300-320. In overall benchmarking, the 2600k is 10-15% faster than the 990x (depending what you're doing, gaming, encoding, etc). Though the 990x has 6 cores as opposed to the 2600k's 4 cores. Yet there aren't many games that truly utilize all 4 cores let alone even 2 cores.

So on the surface, from a frugal shoppper's view, why would I pay $700 more for an extra 2 cores? Speed wise they are about the same but people are reporting much higher (and easier) overclock speeds with the 2600k.

Update: i7 995x due out Q3 2011

[=VG= SemlerPDX]

It's really all about performance bottlenecks. Like you said, there are few softwares out that could possibly utilize 50% of that particular i7.

The true beauty of all the i7's is they have the best performance per overclock of any CPU ever made, and the right i7 boards support tri-channel RAM.

That's 50% increase over all other RAM buses because of the "cap" that seems to have been reached in the FSB/Memory Clock speeds. Only way to improve is to expand laterally, to more channels of RAM.

So there's another entire reason to go with an i series setup, but you don't need than near "server grade" edition.

Check this one out, it's a $300 model and I don't think any game(out this year or next) could utilize 100% of it's potential overclocked or not:

Intel i7 950
Pair it with the Asus SaberTooth X58 and 12GB of ViperXtreme (s/n 6461732). All three have the same 1333MHz FSB clock, and await only a nice SSD RAID array and maybe an Asus ENG TX480, if you can keep it cold enough that is!

The Patriot Inferno SSD 120GB's are around $270, but are THE fastest SSD's available, or were less than 6 months ago. They can fully take advantage of the 6Gb/sec transfer rate allowed by the SaberTooth.

If you do go this (expensive) route, talking to everyone now, make sure you got a good UPS like the BX1300G.

Hope that helps! Good luck, bro! !rockon

[PITN]

I have a Gulftown (i7 6-core cpu). Do I need it? No. Did I want it? Yes. DO I use it? I suppose. But I proboably would have been fine with a 4 core cpu.

A thread I found on the subject.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/280976-28-core-core

[PITN]

If you go with an SSD try Crucial. I have the 128gb version as my OS drive. Overall they have the best specs.

[=VG= poffadder (Inactive Duty)]

The i7 2600k may not have 6 phyisical cores but it still runs 6 threads because of its 2 logical cores. I've also heard of people reaching nearly 5 Ghz on air cooling and a small increase in voltage which is quite amazing. Unless you are very into folding or or other multi-threading intensive apps there is really no point in 6 cores. The sandy bridge is very much an all rounder and it copes very well in all modern games and simulations, especially with a healthy overclock. The only problem is that it does not support triple channel memory or real SLI and you would also need to get ddr3 memory running at 1.5v instead of 1.6v. The sandy bridge also draws alot less power.

Core for core the 2600k beats the 990x and the forthcoming 995x and does better in benchmarks for most games including Arma 2 with 10km view distance.

I recenlty helped a friend built a sandybridge rig, its lightning quick and was relatively affordable. He was very impressed with the 2600k's performace and mentioned that he probably wouldn't bother overclocking because the chip is overkill even at stock speeds.

You can also use the money you save on the 2600k to get a beast of a graphics card.