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    The PC (Personal Computer) is a highly configurable and upgradable gaming platform that, among home systems, sports the widest variety of control methods, largest library of games, and cutting edge graphics and sound capabilities.

    Building a Gaming PC. looking at an i7 processor. it worth it?

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    korwin

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    #51  Edited By korwin
    @Devil240Z said:
    " @Korwin said:
    " AMD are due to launch socket AM3 very soon, if you are going the AMD route I suggest you wait for that. "
    umm what?  "
    Sorry been a long week, I forgot to include the new chipset in there... 890GX on socket AM3 :P
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    SeriouslyNow

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    #52  Edited By SeriouslyNow
    @Geno said:
    " 
    2. There is no Core i9, there's the Core i7 980X. After that it will likely be Sandy Bridge, which is in 2011. 
    3. Most benchmarks don't show any performance benefits of a 6 core processor vs. a 4 core processor in games. Benchmarks for the 6 core i7 980X are already out (scroll down to March 11).  "
    Gesher's not the originally promised hex core "Core i9" 1366 pin Gulftown but rather an Extreme Revision Westmere (which Intel renamed Gulftown later last year once Larrabee and thus Clarkdale slipped back).  It's essentially a midway point before they go to proper 6, 8 and 12 way load balancing caching techniques because Gesher only does some of that load balancing effectively, which is why certain apps which are cache centric like Winrar don't show much performance benefit versus apps like TrueCrypt which are more focussed on branch prediction and large datasets which do show performance benefits for hex core over quad core even with HT at play.  When the later hex and octo core CPUs hit sometime next year, everything threaded will benefit from them because they will have much better designed load balancing 6, 8 and 12 way cachepools unlike Gesher's uniform pool because it's pretty much squarely aimed at database servers.  Essentially Winrar starves the current Intel hexcore cache because its hits aren't uniform enough.  Smarter load balancing techniques should fix that in much the same way that Core i5's smarter cache and core load balancing shows benefits over faster by measure of Ghz Core2Quads.
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    Geno

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    #53  Edited By Geno
    @Alphiehyr said:

    " @Geno said:

    " i7 is top of the line from a pure performance standpoint, but the upper i5 and Phenom 2 processors are close in performance for about half the cost. It really depends on your budget, and what sort of performance you're ultimately aiming for. Anything specific?  "

    What's your opinion on Radeon? I've seen some people practically shit on it in favor of Geforce. "
    There's no point in brand loyalty in the hardware department, just go with whatever's the best price for performance or whichever one has the performance that you need. In general, Radeon cards are both cooler (temp wise) and cheaper than equivalent Geforce cards, but Nvidia is known to have much better drivers, and to also have the best performing cards in an absolute sense (except for this particular instance in time where their previous driver overheated cards and their regular hardware launch has been delayed over 6 months :/).  
     
    @SeriouslyNow: As you can see in my post I was talking about games. Clearly productivity applications, many of which are fully multithreaded will benefit from hex-core, but I'm talking about games, which show almost no difference; in some games it actually performs worse than less powerful processors. The same website's gaming benchmarks of the i7 980X show as such, it performs the same or worse as older processors, despite the reviewer choosing as CPU bound games as he could find. At the moment there is little difference between a tri core and a quad core for gaming, so I would expect even less difference from a quad core and hex core. 
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    Devil240Z

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    #54  Edited By Devil240Z
    @Korwin said:
    " @Devil240Z said:
    " @Korwin said:
    " AMD are due to launch socket AM3 very soon, if you are going the AMD route I suggest you wait for that. "
    umm what?  "
    Sorry been a long week, I forgot to include the new chipset in there... 890GX on socket AM3 :P "
    Ok. I was like AM3 is out already... Like for a while. hmm 890GX ill have to look it up! and yeah I have already committed to going AM3. the motherboard is already in the case.
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    Binman88

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    #55  Edited By Binman88

    I think it's absolutely worth it. The i7 920 was fairly cheap when I bought it, and I got it very soon after launch.

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    Alphiehyr

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    #56  Edited By Alphiehyr
    @Geno said:
    There's no point in brand loyalty in the hardware department, just go with whatever's the best price for performance or whichever one has the performance that you need. In general, Radeon cards are both cooler (temp wise) and cheaper than equivalent Geforce cards, but Nvidia is known to have much better drivers, and to also have the best performing cards in an absolute sense (except for this particular instance in time where their previous driver overheated cards and their regular hardware launch has been delayed over 6 months :/). 
    I don't care much for brand loyalty. I just get what's best. Thanks for the advice though. However, I figured that there's no point now asking now since the GPU's I intend to get aren't out yet.
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    Cslaw

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    #57  Edited By Cslaw

    i got a i5 750 in this Motherboard, though mine is not the rev. A (they don't sell the p55 udp4 only p55A udp4) main difference is this one has a Lotes socket and usb3 sata 6gb/s. it overclocks great i got my i5 750 to 3.8 with no trouble.  with a pair of 5850's  you'll have a pretty killer system though  this one is a very good choice also.  

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    ReefTrigger

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    #58  Edited By ReefTrigger

    I don't know if I buy into the whole 2x of a slower card vs a single faster card  for like $20 more you could get a 5970 and have an actual upgrade path in the future (2x 5970 = beast) , not to mention better air flow and (I'm assuming) less heat in your case.
    As for processors, I'm partial to the 1156 processors personally...  $15 more gets you a i5 750 (not counting whatever mobo difference there is)

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    Devil240Z

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    #59  Edited By Devil240Z
    @ReefTrigger: Id get a 5970 if they were ever in stock. also I would have to save up for way longer. 
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    Nightmarerec0n

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    #60  Edited By Nightmarerec0n

    At this point in time the GPU is always  going to be the bottleneck, even if you are running multiple cards in SLI or Crossfire. 
    CPU matters very little in gaming.

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    WickedCobra03

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    #61  Edited By WickedCobra03
    @Geno said:
    " i7 is top of the line from a pure performance standpoint, but the upper i5 and Phenom 2 processors are close in performance for about half the cost. It really depends on your budget, and what sort of performance you're ultimately aiming for. Anything specific?  "
    Yeah. I mean if you have the money go with a i7.  My next build, I am looking a at a AMD X4 965 or a i5.
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    Phaseshift

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    #62  Edited By Phaseshift

    If you can afford an i7 go for it! They be some powerful calculators yo.

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