i7 9xx series worth it?

[er8000]

is the i7 series worth the cost? i overclock alot and im planning to build a stronger computer for everything pretty much... if theres a stronger series of prossecer in intel i might look into it...im also new here...

[Remeniz]

Welcome to CF!

I made the jump from AMD to Intel's Core i7 920 CPU. I paid £208 for it and for that I have a cracking CPU.

It's the best of the bunch and over-clocks like hell!

[er8000]

thanks for the warm welcome and the great advice!here i can get it for ruoghly 200$ for the 920 500$ for the 940 and a little over 1000$ for extreme edition... i dont really need extreme edition tho... should i go with the 940 instead of the 920?

[Remeniz]

I wouldn't pay more than double the price of a i7 920 for an i7 940! Thats madness.

They're the same chip apart from the stock running speeds, 2660Mhz & 2926Mhz respectively, and the i7 920 will over-clock to at least 3500Mhz at stock volts! Faster than the 940 @ stock.

So unless you hate the words 'Over' and 'Clocking' go for the i7 920, OC it and spend the extra $300 on something else.

[Mutant Corn]

^ That.

The only stronger cpu intel has is a Xeon, but it's not cost-effective and I don't think it overclocks as well.

[lhuser]

Xeons handles a heavy and stressed enviroment work area. They're not the same as an i7 at all. They're more stable, that's all...

As for the i7, well, the 1156 series are more affordable, but in the 1366, a 920 is the best to get. A 940...eh..double for a bit more speed that you can obtain with a breeze on the 920...doesn't appeal me.

[Mutant Corn]

Originally Posted by lhuser

Xeons handles a heavy and stressed enviroment work area. They're not the same as an i7 at all. They're more stable, that's all...

As far as I know, the Nehalem-based socket 1366 Xeons are the same as the i7, but with support for ECC and multiple cpus. Some models are stronger than their i7 equivalent.

The 920 is the most cost-effective one to get though...agreed. Here's a general comparison using Passmark results:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html


And I was wrong, Xeons do overclock well. Lookit:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/overclocked_cpus.html
That W3540 on top is awesome!

[THERMAL-REACTOR]

The server chips actually OC better than the Desktop counter parts because they are held to a higher standard as well as take less volts. Most of the time they could be binned as a 975. Actually Intels yeilds are so great right now they say even 920 D0's could be binned as 975's.

For the OP I would say it depends on if you are going to go with multiple video cards. If you plan to just stay with one you can save yourself money and go with a P55 motherboard with an i5 750. Most of the time they are about par in game benchmarks when only using a single card.

[sina13]

Originally Posted by THERMAL-REACTOR

The server chips actually OC better than the Desktop counter parts because they are held to a higher standard as well as take less volts. Most of the time they could be binned as a 975. Actually Intels yeilds are so great right now they say even 920 D0's could be binned as 975's.

For the OP I would say it depends on if you are going to go with multiple video cards. If you plan to just stay with one you can save yourself money and go with a P55 motherboard with an i5 750. Most of the time they are about par in game benchmarks when only using a single card.

how is your i7 proccessor at 4.2 GH? i mean it says 2.6 on the box. How did u overclock it?