i7 v i5

[wanoennogs]

After reading various posts and websites I am a bit confused.

1) Is the i5 a crap version of the i7?

2) Is Intel going to phase out the i7 once the i5 is released?

3) Is the i7 better at overclocking than the i5? I have seen posts
where people have been able to overclock the i7 extreme to between
4.5 and 5.5 Ghz with water cooling. From what I have read the i5
will be coming out in 2.66GHz, 2.80GHz, and 2.93GHz versions and
Intel say you should be able to overclock the 2.93 version to 3.4
which isn’t much really.

4) Can you get Sata 3 motherboards for the i7?

5) Should I get an i7 extreme before they get phased out?


Here are some of the comments I have seen

“A Core7 IS the Ferrari of CPUs, A Core5 is a BMW”


“Dam, I was going to get a i7 920 in like 2 weeks, does this mean I
have to wait until September to get a worse CPU for more money?
Or should I just buy a 920, and hope it doesn't break?”

“I bet that the i5 will not overclock as well as the i7, due to
its rumored higher BCLK of 250 MHz, hope I'm wrong”

“The added knowledge that the cheap i5 boards get Sata3. I
guess early adapters must feel very angry now with their expensive i7
motherboards. And why do we need another socket for the i5”

“Spec wise the i5 look virtually identical to i7. They have a
tad lower QPI I believe though, and perhaps less instruction sets? Is
the motherboard going to be the main distinguishing factor b/t the
two?”

“I'm guessing they are going to put clock controls on these
chips to limit how high they can go? Also they seem to be more or
less the same price as the i'7's! same price for a lesser chip?”

“You'll find it MUCH MORE DIFFICULT to clock-double an
integrated northbridge and CPU. Either the Northbridge won’t
handle it, or it will send your PCI/PCIe slots out of whack.”

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,687805/Intel-confirms-Lynnfield-CPU-specs/News/

 

[MonkeyMhz]

1).
i3 = Entry Level
i5 = Mainstream/Higher End
i7 = Highest End/Server

So to some extent, yea, but I woulden't say crap.

2). No, but intel is re-arrangeing their CPU numbers and structure to fit the above rankings.

3). i5 probably won't overclock as well as the i7, but we can't really be certain until its released.

4). Probably, when SATA III comes out. But right now, to my knowledge, no, not at this time.

5). Absolutely not, any extreme version of a CPU always skyrockets into huge price ranged with little to no advantages for normal users. Unless if your trying to set a world record with liquid helium/nitrogen and you just wanna overclock the thing to its breaking point.

Summary:
i7 is high end, i5 is mid/starting high end. Im pretty sure the i7 will be more powerful. However, for games, I woulden't be suprised if they clock almost exactly the same. Since lots of the i7's power is in encoding, and harsh number crunching which is were the i7 really stands out as a amazing CPU.
All we can wait for is the benchmarks, but obviously the i7 will be a higher level CPU than a i5.

 

[Mjolnir]

I reckon the i5's will OC a lot better than 3.4 lol. The top model, you'd be looking at 4 ghz easy if it's anything like its previous versions (i.e. i7, e8xxx series).

If they sound as good as they're sposed to be, they should easily outclass the e8xxx series, especially with some models having Hyperthreading.. etc etc. Blah blah

 

[Ha-Nocri]

I am looking forward to one CPU especially, 32nm i5, codename 'Clarkdale', 2 cores, 4 threads, 4 MB L3 cache, Q4 2009. Just to see price...

 

[Deanzo]

Most of what you ask, no one can tell you.

As unless you work for intel (and would be under NDA) they just do not now. End of story.

I'm an "early adapter" to most hardware, went i7 the day it came out. I've been very, very happy with it. So not angry at all, tech moves on, thats just the way of things.
I'm looking forward to trying i5/P55.

 

[Voidn]

Nice chart from one of the other threads, i7 / 1366 / x58 isn't going anywhere yet. Upgradability is in question though.

http://www.ocforums.com/showpost.php?p=6143674&postcount=7

One thing I don't get is all this talk about Sata 3. AFAIK even 15K RPM sata drives don't use up 3GB sata2 ports. So sata 3 isn't really a must have feature. Maybe SSD's will change that (I haven't looked into it yet).

Also I wouldn't get an "extreme" anything. A i7 920 D0 will hit the same/similar clocks for 1/4 of the price.

Weather or not the i5's are better for gaming with DMI instead of QPI we'll have to wait an see.

There is always going to be something better in 6 months. My i7 has been awesome. And if I have to start over from scratch next time so be it.

 

[xilix]

I'm still on my Q6600 and my machine still cuts through any game and application like butter. The need to upgrade is more like a want. If I was an average reasonable person I wouldn't upgrade for another 3 years at least. But I WANT i7 as soon as I can afford it, which is hopefully yesterday.

 

[jason4207]

I am looking forward to one CPU especially, 32nm i5, codename 'Clarkdale', 2 cores, 4 threads, 4 MB L3 cache, Q4 2009. Just to see price...

Me too!

That seems like the best of everything for a gaming rig.

 

[deathman20]

The i5 line, which actually is partial i5 and partial i7's. It gets confusing since there isn't that much information on it currently and some recent things have come out speculating the new naming scheme for intels CPU's.

In general the "i5's" as we know it will be great still. They will feature a better base turbo mode then what we have currently. Bumping it up 2 multi's. So you should see some nice performances out of these CPU's.

The "i7's" as we know it isn't totally dried up either. While it seems the Desktop 4-Core market CPU's will be phased out relatively quickly it will be replaced by the 6-Core chips for the socket. Still will be able to get the 4-Core versions from the Workstation CPU line at least too, so we will have options at least.

 

[Shiggity]

Branding Information (i3 vs i5 vs i7) - http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3585

i7




i5



The pictures pretty much sum up the differences. Notice that the i5 legacy design consists of 2 chips, whereas i7 consists of 3. The P55 is essentially an X58 + ICH10 put together, with the PCI-e lanes and quickpath taken out.

Looking to the future, you can see how Intel is pushing for System on Chip designs for all their mainstream products. The next step is putting the P55 into the CPU itself, almost fully negating the cost of a motherboard.

What a lot of people don't understand is that i7 was NEVER meant for gaming / home use. It was specifically built to compete with AMD in the server marketplace, because AMD's hypertransport / Opterons were beating the **** out of Intel before they unveiled i7. Tri-channel memory bandwidth and quickpath have absolutely no place in home-PC use, they're simply a waste of money to PC users because there's no way a typical workload will take advantage of that bandwidth. i5 takes all the best things from i7 and lowers the cost of it and takes out what you don't need.

 

[Voidn]

Tri-channel memory bandwidth and quickpath have absolutely no place in home-PC use, they're simply a waste of money to PC users because there's no way a typical workload will take advantage of that bandwidth.

Not all of us run "typical" workloads.

 

[freeagent]

Tri-channel memory bandwidth and quickpath have absolutely no place in home-PC use, they're simply a waste of money to PC users because there's no way a typical workload will take advantage of that bandwidth.

its not just bandwitdh, the latency drop between 775 and 1366 is intense!

hopefully i5 will be as good, or better in that regard, i really dont want to fork out for a new i7 setup just yet, but i think to do my card justice, i maybe have to take the dip.. or just wait and see what happens! my setup doesnt bench with the best of em anymore, but i can wait a bit for one that can

 

[Shiggity]

Not all of us run "typical" workloads.

Please show me something that you're running that can use tri-channel memory bandwidth and quickpath up to their full potential.

Unless you're running a server or VM's, then yeah, i7 was meant for you.

Media encoding and Molecular dynamics are pretty much entering the GPU domain at this point (both are an order of magnitude faster on GPU's). I don't really accept that buying an i7 machine is justified for those two tasks, when GPU's are cheaper and can do it significantly faster.

@freeagent - If your thing is latency, you'll really like a solid state hard drive

 

[Voidn]

Last night I was running 2 gentoo vm's folding 4k each and had my 2nd vid card folding 8k while I was playing Civ 4 on max settings, output at 1600x900 to 52in tv (i'd up the res but I can't read the text) while streaming internet radio with resources left over.

Sure i7 is overkill for most people. Most people will be fine with a dell. And most gamers will be find with Dual Core. But blanket statements like "absolutely no place in home-PC use" is a load. When you do SLI/CF on lastest gen vid cards i7's increase frame rates over C2Qs.
http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i7-multigpu-sli-crossfire-game-performance-review/19
Maybe I want 60 FPS on Crysis god dman it (joke, I don't even play crysis). So obviously there is an improvement for the hardcore gamer too.

When the i5's are out we can compare them. Also how much cheaper do you think its going to be? $200?

 

[Amtrak]

i7 was meant for me because i5 didn't come out soon enough.

 

[freeagent]

@freeagent - If your thing is latency, you'll really like a solid state hard drive

I know! I keep hearing that! ssd's scare me, what kind of hd does not need to be defragged!!!

Its just not normal lol

i7 was meant for me because i5 didn't come out soon enough.

good answer

 

[deathman20]

I know! I keep hearing that! ssd's scare me, what kind of hd does not need to be defragged!!!

Its just not normal lol

You need to defragment a HDD? Woah thats new

SSD's FTW looking forward to intel's new G2 version drives in the near future.

i7 was meant for me because i5 didn't come out soon enough.

I hear you there man. I needed a new PC and didn't want to use the old platform so upgrade it be.

 

[Voidn]

I waited so long to replace my opty, LGA775 was already a dead end .

 

[gcs8]

i love my i7. i have it set to 4.25GH i have clocked it to 4.3+ and it gets an odd boost of power. could also be the ddr3 clost to if not at 1800MH cant rember. i am tempted to go with a thermal eletrical / water cooler to combat the heat so i can. if i can get 4.3+GH 2 work i will haft to bench it.