i7 worth the price?

NAIDANAC A

NAIDANAC A

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A buddy of mine is going to build a desktop soon and has his heart set on getting an i7 because he doesn't want an "old chip"...

He wanted a 4870x2 or 285gtx but because of price he has to cut back on those and is now looking at 4850's even.

I told him to forget about i7 and go with e8600 or a quad as all he will be doing is gaming anyways and the added costs for i7 (mobos' and the like) won't be worth it.

The setup I told him was e8600, 4870x2, ddr3 ram.

Any ideas on this?
 
NAIDANAC A said:
The setup I told him was e8600, 4870x2, ddr3 ram.

Any ideas on this?
Click to expand...

If you are not prepare to pay for an i7, you might as well as save more money by choosing DDR2 ram. DDR3 only make sense when you are running a chip that has integrated memory controller, which is the i7. You can't utilise the full performance of DDR3 with a 775 dual core.

If he wants a "budget" high performance pc, E8400 + 4gb DDR2 ram + 285GTX/4870X2 should do the job just as well, and you can save like a few hundred bucks, which can be used on a nice monitor/hdtv etc...

E8400 - $165
P45 - $100
4Gb DDR2 Ram - $60

compared to

E8600 - $270
P45 - $100
4Gb DDR3 Ram - $100

that's $145 saved right there, and you won't even notice the performance difference.


i7 is still worth the money though, if you ask me. An equivalent 775 quad core will set you back about $300 bucks, which is more than what the 920 is going for now.
 
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It comes down to this:
1. i7 920 is about 20-30$ more expensive than Core Q9550, but it's also about 10-20% faster already, and the performance gap will only widen.
2. I don't see the point in buying dual-core processors, although they are good and cheap, Modern games (like GTA4, Empire:Total War and others to be released) and OS (Win Vista and Win 7) are performing much better on Quad core processors.
3. The Motherboards for i7 (1366) are more expensive than the ones for 775, but they also pack more stuff, like better cooling and the ability to put in up to 24 (or now probably 36) GB of Ram, however 4GB is still enough for absolutely anything, so triple-channel 6 GB will set you up nicely for the next 3 years or so.
4. Unless you want to crazy overclock your proecssor to like 5GHz don't buy expensive ram, a simple Samsung DDR III (or DDRII for 775) is cheap, very reliable, you lose only 1-3% of performance, compared to the most expensive ones on the market, and you can OC your 2.63 Core i7 to 3.6 with no problems at all if you want to.

So i would get:

1. Core i7 920 (290$)
2. Asus P6T Deluxe or GIGABYTE "GA-EX58-UD5" or Asus P6T Deluxe V.2 (250$)
3. 6 Gig (3x2) of Samsung DDR3 10666 (cheap as shit nowadays)
4. Ati 4870Gx2 or simply two 1GB Ati 4870 (exactly the same performance, better cooling)

Yes it's quite expensive, but it wil set him for 2 years of lag-free gaming, and if you change the video, another 2-3 years after that without adding anything.
 
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ViperVX said:
It comes down to this:
1. i7 920 is about 20-30$ more expensive than Core Q9550, but it's also about 10-20% faster already, and the performance gap will only widen.
2. I don't see the point in buying dual-core processors, although they are good and cheap, Modern games (like GTA4, Empire:Total War and others to be released) and OS (Win Vista and Win 7) are performing much better on Quad core processors.
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Exactly my thoughts, which is why I think it's not an overkill to buy an i7.

Buying a top end 775 quad core on the otherhand seems a bit daft.
 
Shortly put no.

AMD Phenom II X4 940BE is almost as fast as the slowest Core i7.
But the CPU is about 100? cheaper, you can use DDR2 which is about half of the price of DDR3 and the motherboards for AM2+/AM3 are about half the price of LGA1366 motherboards.
So Core i7 system would cost about twice as much, but offers only a marginal gain.

Seeing as your friend is looking at 4850s, he is probably better off with something other than Core i7. They are really only for people who don't care about price, they are not for the general gamer. Hell, they were not even intended for the mainstream, Intel is coming with Core i5 later this year to cater for the mainstream market.

EDIT: To all Intel fanboys: AMD is quite good on the bang for the buck scale right now, so if you care about your money you will be better off with them right now.

EDIT2: I do agree that you should get a quad core now. It's supported by quite good number of games already.
 
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geeman said:
Shortly put no.

AMD Phenom II X4 940BE is almost as fast as the slowest Core i7.
But the CPU is about 100? cheaper, you can use DDR2 which is about half of the price of DDR3 and the motherboards for AM2+/AM3 are about half the price of LGA1366 motherboards.
So Core i7 system would cost about twice as much, but offers only a marginal gain.

Seeing as your friend is looking at 4850s, he is probably better off with something other than Core i7. They are really only for people who don't care about price, they are not for the general gamer. Hell, they were not even intended for the mainstream, Intel is coming with Core i5 later this year to cater for the mainstream market.

EDIT: To all Intel fanboys: AMD is quite good on the bang for the buck scale right now, so if you care about your money you will be better off with them right now.

EDIT2: I do agree that you should get a quad core now. It's supported by quite good number of games already.
Click to expand...

Not quite right.

On Newegg Phenom II X4 940 is 220$, while i7 920 is 290$, so it's only 70$ difference (in my local shop the difference is 32$, so it depends). Also AMD has 6mb cache, against Intel's 8mb. Overall AMD is about 10% slower on default settings, and up to 20-30% slower in OCed mode (depending on tests), therefore it's cheaper.

I would agree that AMD hardware atm is a better value/performance deal than Intel.

However i'd still suggest to get the DDR3 Ram, upgrading PC in 2 years, you could simply add another DDR3 module, while DDR2 will simply die out and one will have to get a whole new MB and a new set of RAM, which will cost the same or more, than buying a DDR3 MB today.

Also, don't throw money away on Gfx so soon, processors, motherboards and Ram last very good for 4-5 years, Graphic cards last 1-2 years at best, and then get replaced, might be wiser to wait for new cards from Nvidia and ATI, and when prices drop on older stuff buy that and wait for new series of cards that are due in early 2011.
 
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ViperVX said:
Phenom II X4 940 is 220$, while i7 920 is 290$, so it's only 70$ difference, and it has 6mb cache, against Intel's 8mb.
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Prices may wary depending where you live. The biggest difference is in the motherboard prices. Around here the cheapest LGA1366 motherboard is about 200? while AMD motherboards start at something like 70?. Sure the LGA1366 mobos have more features than cheap AMD mobos, but if you don't need 3 PCI-E 16x slots or 6 RAM slots etc. those features go to waste.
However i'd still suggest to get the DDR3 Ram, upgrading PC in 2 years, you could simply add another DDR3 module, while DDR2 will simply die out and one will have to get a whole new MB and a new set of RAM, which will cost the same or more, than buying a DDR3 MB today.
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RAM at the moment is a bit of a hard decision. Sure DDR3 is a bit more futureproof, but it really isn't. Changes are that in 2 years time there will be a new CPU slot and/or new memory type.
might be wiser to wait until they are released and prices drop on other stuff a bit.
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Never wait. There is always something coming around the corner in PC world. Just get what is the best option right now.
 
Unless you need the power of a quad core in your gaming computer, a overclocked E8500 will beat a i7 920 just about every time.

The money you save on the RAM & motherboard by getting a E8500\Q9550 (~$200) you can spend on a graphics card. Which is better, i7, 6GB, and 4870, or Q9550, 8GB and 4870x2.
 
low strife said:
Unless you need the power of a quad core in your gaming computer, a overclocked E8500 will beat a i7 920 just about every time.

The money you save on the RAM & motherboard by getting a E8500\Q9550 (~$200) you can spend on a graphics card. Which is better, i7, 6GB, and 4870, or Q9550, 8GB and 4870x2.
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Well to put a decent OC on E85 (let's say up to 3.8-4Ghz) you will need a 50-60$ worth of a cooler, and expensive Ram so it will end up costing more. And even a 4Ghz E8500 is still slower than 3Ghz i7. Also there is no difference between 6 and 8 gigs of ram, because if you want to turn off the Swap you need 12-16Gigs and therefore a new 6-slot DDR3 MB.
 
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low strife said:
Unless you need the power of a quad core in your gaming computer, a overclocked E8500 will beat a i7 920 just about every time.

The money you save on the RAM & motherboard by getting a E8500\Q9550 (~$200) you can spend on a graphics card. Which is better, i7, 6GB, and 4870, or Q9550, 8GB and 4870x2.
Click to expand...

q9950 is $274, which is $14 cheaper than an i7 920.

So where is this amazing $200 save that you are talking about?

geeman said:
AMD Phenom II X4 940BE is almost as fast as the slowest Core i7.
Click to expand...

No they are not. And especially after overclocking, the gap difference just gets wider and wider.

geeman said:
EDIT: To all Intel fanboys: AMD is quite good on the bang for the buck scale right now, so if you care about your money you will be better off with them right now.
Click to expand...

The OP requested for a gaming machine, and judging by the gfx card (4870x2 or 285gtx) there is absolutely nothing wrong going with an i7 build.
 
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MadCow809 said:
No they are not. And especially after overclocking, the gap difference just gets wider and wider.
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The Phenom II also overclocks like no other. In 3DMark06 Top 20 ranking the number 1 is a Phenom II machine. As stock the difference is only 10-30% according the tests I have seen. If that justifies spending ~200?/$ more on the system, then go ahead and get a i7. It's though to tell the difference when OCed, because it depends on the OC levels..
The OP requested for a gaming machine, and judging by the gfx card (4870x2 or 285gtx) there is absolutely nothing wrong going with an i7 build.
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True, there is nothing wrong with i7 build, but it simply is not the most cost effective solution. Also the first post talks about 4850 so it seems like the budget is not unlimited.
 
Without knowing a total budget, its hard to say if i7 is worth the price. If he is just going to get a 4850, then there is no point in going i7, but if he plans to lay out the cash for a 295 or 4870x2, then I would say it is worth it.

See if you can get his total budget.
 
If the choice is a 4850 with an i7 or a 4870x2 with a C2Q/D, the i7 loses. And if you go Core 2, stick with DDR2. Buying DDR3 because it's "future-proof" is silly, because you're not going to want to pair old, slow RAM with the stuff that'll be available even two years from now.
 
The Phenom II 940 is not bad, but definitely not on par with the Core i7. It's performance is between a Q9450 - Q9550. But still, spend the money on the GPU and just go with a slightly weaker CPU (for a gaming rig).

Just looked at the Canadian prices on the CPUs, the Phenom II 940 looks like a great choice (if he doesn't mind AMD) since it's about CAD$90 cheaper than the Q9550 on NCIX.

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=35467&vpn=HDZ940XCGIBOX&manufacture=AMD PII 940 $309
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=35920&vpn=TA790GX128M&manufacture=BIOSTAR Biostar 790GX $130
http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=26456&vpn=F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ&manufacture=G.Skill GSkill 4GB DDR2-8000 $69

So the CPU+mobo+RAM is only $510, it's at least $200 cheaper than a Core i7 build. Spend the money and get either a 4870x2 or a GTX285 (depends on if he likes Nv or ATI).

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=32659&vpn=AX4870X2 2GBD5-H&manufacture=PowerColor 4870x2 $574
 
Assuming this is just for the tower, I think he can possibly do an i7 build without sacrificing the graphics. Here's what I can come up with for the PII 940 build.

http://img15.imageshack.**/img15/883/newbitmapimage12.jpg

He can choose another diff case if he likes. If he doesn't need Blue-Ray then just get a regular DVD burner.

Here's a review for the mobo, the bios has a lot of options, the 790GX+SB750 chipset combination is good for oc'ing. http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/249249-29-790gx-built-ddr2-64mb-biostar-ta790gx-report
 
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