To i7 or not to i7?

[Kibokun]

I'm planning an upgrade, but I'm working with limited funds. (<$800) My CPU is absolutely abysmal, so my first stop was to look at Core i7. Turns out, a full i7 upgrade with mobo and ram is rather expensive. Though I'm working with $800, steering far clear of that number is great too.

I'm wondering if it'd be more cost effective to simply upgrade to a high end C2Quad. (I do 3d work on the side so I want the 4 cores either way for rendering.) Would I be shooting myself in the foot for staying in this architecture or does the Core2 series still have a lot of life in it?

To compare, the upgrades I was going for were:

Pricey Option: ($708)

• Core i7-920
• Radeon 4780
• 4GB DDR3 PC10666
• MSI X58 Pro mobo

Cheaper Option: ($457)

• Core2Quad 9550
• Radeon 4780
• 4GB PC6400

 

[don'tknow]

Many people will probably tell you to go i7, since it's a noticeable performance increase in rendering and encoding over the Q9550. It depends on how much you use multithreaded applications. Some will also say things like "socket 775 is dead, why bother".... eh personally I see no need to upgrade to 1366 right now, unless I run a big 3d rendering company that needs multithread performance 24/7 or at least most of the day.

In my case I sometimes encode but most of the time it's gaming/web/movies... I had a choice of upgrading to i7 but for me it would almost be a waste as I wouldn't be utilizing that CPU power 99% of the time. Going to get the Q9550 next when it goes down in price - edit: actually just noticed it finally went down.... it's about damn time, Intel >.<, it was about equal to an i7 920 until today (ofcourse not counting the motherboard/ram prices, but still felt like a major ripoff).

Go with the Q9550 unless you're really dependent on doing tons of rendering work all day that really must be finished fast. Or like seeing higher numbers on benchmarks.

 

[Chris_F]

Unless you are planning on using this PC for very CPU intensive tasks like 3D rendering, or you are planning on a heavy duty SLI setup, there is no reason to go i7.

If all you end up doing is regular everyday tasks and some gaming with a single HD 4870, there would be no benefit from an i7 over a regular C2Q.

 

[Kibokun]

Awesome news. Yeah, my rendering time will only be hobby time at this point and the primary purpose is gaming, no SLI here. The benchmarks seem to be reflecting that idea. (Small advantage in gaming to the i7, huge in other tasks, but not enough to warrant the price for me.)

I'll read some more and wait for some more replies. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Chris_F]

You could also spend the 800 or so, but on the C2Q plus a new 4870 and go CrossFire. Just a thought.

 

[Mjolnir]

If you only do 'on the side' 3D work (like myself, though mines for study at the moment) or things that love multi-threads, grab the C2Q. It'll more than serve you well enough.. But it'll pretty much be your last major upgrade on that system, the best you'd get after that would be some more RAM and an extra GPU. It depends how urgently you need it really.

If you're REALLY patient, you can wait for the i5 . If you plan to keep this computer for a long time (i.e 2 years +) I'd personally actually grab the i7. Because look at the price difference, minus the mobo in your i7 build, and there's not that huge a difference in price (of course thats exactly the point). If you plan to get more into multi-threaded apps in the future, go the i7, if 3D work will only ever be 'on the side' and every now and then, then it'll be more than capable in the gaming area with a C2Q.

I know i've sorta said 'GET BOTH' here, but eh.

 

[Kibokun]

bleh, so I just learned I'd have to flash my motherboard BIOS to get support for any of the newer C2Ds or C2Qs out there and I don't have a floppy drive. (It'll kill my soul to buy a floppy drive just to flash this old motherboard's bios.) I'm not sure what would happen if I were to buy a new CPU and try to use it even though Gigabyte says I need the 2008 bios for support. it'd probably not post, right?

I figure i should take this as a sign and upgrade to a nicer mobo...but if I'm doing that, I might as well go i7 and save myself the expense of doing it again when LGA775 dies.

So, I might just bite the bullet, spend a bit more and go for the i7-920 and hopefully by the time I buy this (probably August / September), the absolutely ludicrous prices on motherboards will have dropped.

 

[OpenSource]

Do it.

Switch to i7 (get the 8 core one though).

Do the rest of the upgrades later.

 

[don'tknow]

bleh, so I just learned I'd have to flash my motherboard BIOS to get support for any of the newer C2Ds or C2Qs out there and I don't have a floppy drive. (It'll kill my soul to buy a floppy drive just to flash this old motherboard's bios.) I'm not sure what would happen if I were to buy a new CPU and try to use it even though Gigabyte says I need the 2008 bios for support. it'd probably not post, right?

I figure i should take this as a sign and upgrade to a nicer mobo...but if I'm doing that, I might as well go i7 and save myself the expense of doing it again when LGA775 dies.

So, I might just bite the bullet, spend a bit more and go for the i7-920 and hopefully by the time I buy this (probably August / September), the absolutely ludicrous prices on motherboards will have dropped.

Check your mobo manufacturer's site for software; it should have a BIOS upgrade app that you can use from within windows. All my mobo's in the past ~10 years had that, didn't need to use a floppy to update it. I've been using ASUS though (and before that, Abit on my first few AMD systems).

If not, you can get a good P45 mobo nowadays for around $100. Also keep in mind prices change overtime (this is something many people don't take into account), so the i7 setup you're looking at now costing $700 could be down to $500 or less within a year. With a Q9550 you won't need to upgrade for at least another few years; nowadays hardware is becoming more and more overkill for almost everything, especially games (except if you need number crunching power for heavy CPU related work). I can't predict prices 100% but I'm sure that in a few years it'll cost twice less to build an i7 system of today's hardware; and probably slightly more $ to build a significantly better system.

But if you don't mind spending money, do whatever. My suggestions are just from a budget-minded person; I see plenty of people around here who can afford several i7 builds easily; and after that upgrade again to the new cpu stepping... and then still have enough to upgrade to the newest gpu out every few months or so. It's your money.

 

[Kibokun]

Wow, so Gigabyte's site didn't make clear that the executable they included in the BIOS download wasn't what you're supposed to run. There's a separate BIOS flash tool that I had to google for. In any case..successful BIOS flash!!

My options just opened up quite a bit. I'll look into those Wolfdale chips now.

Question though. I'm apprehensive about this list of supported CPUs from Gigabyte.

http://www.gigabyte.us/Support/Motherboard/CPUSupport_Model.aspx?ProductID=2456#anchor_os

A few of them, in the BIOS column have "Not official support". Should I pay any attention to this? I do have the correct BIOS version now...

Also, don'tknow, I think now that I can actually get the non i7 cards without having to upgrade my mobo, the Q9550 or something a bit lower looks like a great idea, as a fellow budget-obsessed person. Price : performance is key.

 

[Mjolnir]

My opinion still stands in the more 'future resistant' option of the i7. The price difference between the q9550 and the i7 as compared to final performance.. There's just no question ><. Well naturally there is, due to price XD. But that said, generally I guess the q9550 still has a fair amount of life left in it, and you can OC if you feel its gettin a bit slow. But remember it'll be the last upgrade you do on your system in terms of CPU. The few higher models from that aren't worth the cost/performance. So just remember when you do want to upgrade itll be a brand new computer anyway =).

Basically this is the way I see it. The i7 for your needs is a more 'permanent' (i use that term loosely) solution to an upgrade, where the q9550 is a temporary step 'for now' til you decide it's too slow. .

But again, it's all about opinion in these things, not to mention your actual preferential limit on a budget. Eh dunno. Btw, why not just keep the 8800gts? The HD4870 is a decent jump, but does it validate a new card? Personally (again opinion), I'd get the i7 build with your current card (GPU) and save up a bit later on for a HD4890 OR a 275GTX (same performance/price range, ROUGHLY! I'm well aware the 275 generally is the better performer in real world apps/games as opposed to benchmarks).

*Shrugs*

 

[Kibokun]

Well, I understand that the i7 is more future-proof, but as you can see by how long I've tolerated this setup, I'm used to having some choppy frame rates in games. That's fine. I don't play the highest end games often, nor do I run any res higher than 1440x900 (right now).

So, I'm fine being a bit behind as I don't want to spend the money to be on the high end. I did it once when I bought the 8800GTS at release and I'm pretty disappointed that It's showing its age after I paid $300 for it. It doesn't even feel like it's been that long, but I guess it has been.

Also honestly, I'm mostly an MMO player, and you don't see Far Cry graphics and physics going on much there. (Even though Aion runs on the Crysis engine, it's all for eye candy, less physics, so it's nowhere near as tough.)

Right now, I'm looking at the E8400 because I don't necessarily need 4 cores and as you said, I don't want to spend tons of money on something that isn't future-proof.

 

[Nebulous]

As you can see in my sig, my dual core does evrything for me no sweat. The xfired 4850's handles evrything I throw at them with all the eye candy maxed.

I was thinking the same thing about the i7 upgrade, but then I rechecked myself and thought why? I don't do any 3D work at all. I do some DVD/Music encoding and that's about it. I do game tho and that's where I use most of the horsepower. Last upgrade for my particular setup will be a Q95/9650 sometime down the road.

Unless you're looking at 3D rendering/super multitasking and, of course, are a benchmark junkie,lol, then the i7 is the way to go. Providing, of course, you have the xtra cash to throw away and you're looking at "future proofing"

If games is more of your forte', then the 84/8500 is more than enough for your needs. Save the xtra cash for something more useful like going out to dinner or something

 

[MadMan007]

Your best bet, unless you really want it asap, is to wait for i5 and get one that has Hyperthreading. You'll get within 5% of i5 performance but with less cost in RAM (not really much though, tens of dollars, for dual vs triple kits) and probably less cost in a mobo. Just imo of course.

 

[Randyman...]

I also thought 775 would be "Future Proof" when choosing between 478 and 775 back in the P4 days, but my first 775 board wouldn't support C2D's (Pentium-D was the furthest it would support) - so I had to upgrade to a newer 775 MoBo when the C2D's came out. I doubt the current i7 MoBo's will be compatible with future encarnations of i-Core 1366 chips - but the i7's integrated Northbridge might lessen future incompatibilities. I dunno.

I'd say save your cash and overclock the snot out of a 45nm C2D/C2Q with dirt cheap DDR2 RAM. I'm fairly CPU intensive with my PC's, and I'm still fine with C2D/C2Q. It is a hard price-to-perfomance barrier to beat IMNSHO.

 

[DragonTattooz]

Get the biggest, baddest, fastest thing you can afford, because in a few months it will be obsolete anyway.

The reason I responded to this thread is that I remember a few years ago when I built this rig people were saying the exact same thing as they are saying in this thread regarding "only get the xxx if you are doing CAD, or whatever". NO, get the biggest, baddest, fastest that you can possibly afford- if yo can afford the i7, get it. That's my advice.

 

[don'tknow]

Hmh well that's the keyword, 'afford'.

To some people it could mean "spent my $2000 on an alienware then not pay bills until they're overdue next month", to others "search for best price/performance, build a nice rig that can handle any game without overkill components for ~$500 and save the rest for whatever need", and there's all those in between.

 

[cyberfish]

I would get the C2D.

With the price difference ($251, maybe a little bit more), in 2 years or so, when you really need the power, you can probably get a mobo + CPU combo that's way faster than the i7 (remember that 2 years ago, Core 2 was still very high-end. I bought my E6300 @ 1.86ghz for $200 back then).

My general advice - only get whatever you need right now. Save the money for later upgrades. You can probably get something a lot better then. Overkills are not worth it IMHO, due to how fast prices of these things drop.

 

[MongGrel]

I'm holding off on going I7 and SSD's awhile still myself, I'd say a Q9550/Q9650 myself as Nebulous said for the time being and see what happens with the I7's in the future.

(BTW I still drool at your water set-up pics, have a TRUE 120 Copper en route here ATM though. I'm an air junky I guess and I've wanted one of those since they were released )

Or whatever else happens along those lines. I'm still not totally convinced the current i7's are really future proof as Randyman pointed out, have to see though...



Up that RAM and put that baby in crossfire too with that chip, I'd say you'd be good a long time for now, I bought one of the dual chip 4870's when they came out to have it on one card to save space I guess. Works nicely for anything I try atm. I needed the second slot on this setup for my RAID card.

 

[BigDan3131]

I'm going i7 because I was money short[still am] during all the latest and greatest in the last few years. Not because its the hottest thing out there but because I will be buying piece by piece when I can afford to. Once I have it all together I'm sure that something else will be out by then. But from looking at the market I don't really see much change.