i5 dropped today

[Mercutio]

Intel's new i5/i7 stuff is available now on Newegg.
Looks like the new CPUs use another new, incompatible CPU interface, drop the tri-channel memory supprt and have vastly cheaper motherboards. CPU pricing for the new guys looks to be very similar to the current i7s, with $300 and $500 models for the new product.

From what I'm reading, Intel is going to keep producing two CPU interfaces. I have to say that is bogus.

 

[Stereodude]

I for one won't be running out to buy one, but it looks pretty nice from what I saw over at Tom's.

 

[ddrueding]

It looks like they are just intentionally crippling the i7 core and offering it much cheaper. Still a good deal; fast chip, low power, decent price, but I hate it when corporations do this artificial product differentiation BS.

 

[P5-133XL]

From what I've read, I like the i5's and dd's correct that it is totally bogus what Intel is doing to separate the i5 from the i7. It is so much simpler for the consumer to keep the same platform and for Intel to release the chips and scale the price points accordingly. It is also confusing to the consumer to have lower model numbers actually perform higher. Intel, if you are listening, please keep model numbers in sync with performance. If Intel needs to change the sockets then they really need to have a clear demarcation between them and little overlap. The less consumer confusion the better.

 

[Stereodude]

It's not really very crippled. The lack of a 3rd DDR3 channel doesn't really show up in the performance. The missing PCIe lanes on the other hand might under some scenarios.

 

[Mercutio]

We all know dual channel RAM is largely for benchmark wanking, let alone a third channel. I doubt it has much of an impact, either.

I do note that releasing the new socket has not impacted pricing on socket 1366 boards. Which is unfortunate, because that's really the one thing that's keeping me from buying a couple more i7s. There are some inexpensive options in the new socket but apparently the future upgrade path still points to 1366 getting the next refresh of updated cores (and 6 way SMP).

The GA-EX58-UD3R is still rather interesting to me. It has those nice, heavy copper heat sinks all over it and for $170, it also has 10 internal SATA ports (6 from the chipset, 2 from some other chip, and 2 + 4 from a Jmicron controller) and four eSATA ports. That's a pretty serious level of I/O.

Decisions, decisions, I guess.

 

[Handruin]

If money wasn't a factor, would you go for the Core i7 920 (1366) with tri-channel RAM or go with the new core i7 860 (1156) Lynnfield with dual channel?

 

[Handruin]

I'd was thinking of upgrading from my AMD 4600+. Any thoughts on this:

Intel Core i7 860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD4 LGA 1156 Intel P55
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (8-8-8-24)
EVGA GeForce GTX 275 Superclocked Edition 896MB
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM

Reuse existing components:
PC P&C 750 watt PS (60a single rail)
Antec p180 case (first gen)
Various DVD-R drives
4 internal hard drives

 

[P5-133XL]

Nothing wrong with what you've chosen.

Depending on your budget, I'd go a bit cheaper with some of your components and get an SSD too. Specificly, I think an i5 750 with an 4870 just to decrease the price a bit to pay for the SSD. Even without the SSD, I'd carefully examine ATI 4870/4890 cards as a better value for your buck than the GTX 275. I suspect that you'd notice the SSD performance more than the loss in processor or video card performance changes.

Also note that ATI should be shifting to their next generation cards in the next few months and that may be worth waiting for, if for no reason than the lowering of the prices for their current products (or the competitive lowering of Nvidia prices if you need Nvidia)

 

[Mercutio]

If money wasn't a factor, would you go for the Core i7 920 (1366) with tri-channel RAM or go with the new core i7 860 (1156) Lynnfield with dual channel?

I sincerely doubt the tri-channel RAM is worthwhile. The cheaper motherboards are quite appealing, but it's still kind of galling that Intel is going to be supporting three CPU interfaces for at least the short term, particularly when they're saying that only one of those sockets is going to be seeing the next forward revision of technology (six core CPUs) in the near future.

 

[Handruin]

Nothing wrong with what you've chosen.

Depending on your budget, I'd go a bit cheaper with some of your components and get an SSD too. Specificly, I think an i5 750 with an 4870 just to decrease the price a bit to pay for the SSD. Even without the SSD, I'd carefully examine ATI 4870/4890 cards as a better value for your buck than the GTX 275. I suspect that you'd notice the SSD performance more than the loss in processor or video card performance changes.

Also note that ATI should be shifting to their next generation cards in the next few months and that may be worth waiting for, if for no reason than the lowering of the prices for their current products (or the competitive lowering of Nvidia prices if you need Nvidia)

I already planned on getting a pair of the 80GB Intel MLC G2 when the price stabilizes, but I won't spend for it now. I was going to use one for boot, and another for various I/O intensive work. I'm fine with the prices for the i7 and it's well in my budget, so I don't need to save there for the SSD.

My last couple experiences with ATI were not that great and I've been very happy with my current eVGA card. My issue was more with the company I chose to build the video card than with the actual GPU. I could actually use my working 8800 GT for a bit longer until the next gen ATI come to market and reassess at that point. What I'm really looking for is more CPU performance for photo processing and then then gaming would be secondary. The games I play now work fine, but could be a little faster. The added CPU may help that until I decide on a new graphics card.

 

[Handruin]

I sincerely doubt the tri-channel RAM is worthwhile. The cheaper motherboards are quite appealing, but it's still kind of galling that Intel is going to be supporting three CPU interfaces for at least the short term, particularly when they're saying that only one of those sockets is going to be seeing the next forward revision of technology (six core CPUs) in the near future.

Do you know which socket will be supporting 6 core CPUs in the future? I guess that won't change my mind because in all the years i've build computers, I've only once upgraded the CPU and kept the motherboard the same...and that was a 486 66MHz to a 120Mhz.

 

[Handruin]

Not sure if this is a fluke, but I looked at microcenter and the same core i7 860 at newegg is $299 and microcenter has it for $229 (plus $14 tax)!? That's a big difference. Both are retail box with 3-year warranty. They have all the other parts for the same price as newegg...hhmmm.

 

[Stereodude]

Microcenter has been running specials on CPUs for quite a while. They were selling Q6600's for $199 when every other place had them for $250+. They had the Core i7 920 for $199 for a while now too (I think).

 

[Handruin]

Microcenter is 37 miles away in Boston which isn't ideal for me. If I buy the three parts from newegg it'll cost me $579.97. If I buy them from microcenter, it'll cost me $541.84 which includes tax. It won't cost me $40 in gas to go get it, so maybe I'll just get them from there.

 

[Handruin]

Looks like I'm buying them from microcenter. I called to ask about reserving them and the guy collected them on the phone and he said I could pick them up tomorrow under my name. I can get the hard drive and video card later.

 

[Mercutio]

Do you know which socket will be supporting 6 core CPUs in the future? I guess that won't change my mind because in all the years i've build computers, I've only once upgraded the CPU and kept the motherboard the same...and that was a 486 66MHz to a 120Mhz.

I re-use the hell out of high-end motherboards. If I'm buying a $150+ board, it's probably going to live in three different machines over three years, and in that time there will probably be at least one CPU change for some reason or other. Remember that it's comparatively easy for me to find someone to pay for something I've been using for six months so cycling upwards isn't cost-prohibitive.

I would prefer to have around three high end PCs and the rest of my machines can be just whatever, but I also like to standardize parts where possible. Right now I have two Q6600s and one i7/920, but thinking ahead the newest socket looks like the way to go just on the basis of motherboard pricing.

I just blew my play money for the summer on a bunch of 1.5TB drives though, so I don't even know why I'm complaining right this second, other than the general stupidity of having two different sockets for i5/i7 for no particular reason.

 

[Handruin]

For you that makes sense. I don't build systems for myself all that often and when I do, I don't buy the highest end motherboard. Usually by the time I get around to building a new machine, there's already been one to two new socket types to pick from. In this case, I'm building my first Intel system since my PII 350 MHz days. I'll probably have this another 4-5 years until the next big jump occurs.

Which 1.5TB drives are you buying these days? I'd like to buy a couple, but I haven't decided which brand to go with yet.

 

[Mercutio]

I bought 10 of the Samsung 5400rpm units about a month ago. I still haven't gotten around to putting them in yet, though.

I'm fairly tempted to run over to the Westmont Microcenter this weekend for a $220 i7, though. I doubt we'll see them that cheaply again until after xmas.

 

[P5-133XL]

I would really expect the 6-core chips to use the 1366 socket for the additional RAM bandwidth. The more cores, the more BW is needed and it isn't linear.

I'm actually tempted to buy the WD black 7200RPM drives in spite of them being WD. Other than that, I'm not seeing much difference between different drives now that Seagate has gotten over their firmware debacle.

By the way, all my GA-x48-DQ6 ultra durable (The MB I had standardized upon) motherboards are showing MB instability with random reboots and the inability to use more than a single stick of RAM (They used to use 4 sticks). I really expected these to last much longer.

 

[Stereodude]

RMA time! :idea:

 

[P5-133XL]

RMA time! :idea:

Too late.:x

 

[Stereodude]

Too late.:x

You've had them for more than 3 years?

 

[P5-133XL]

You've had them for more than 3 years?

no, but I thought the warranty was 1Y.

 

[Stereodude]

no, but I thought the warranty was 1Y.

It's 3 years. From http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Default.aspx

GIGABYTE 3 Years Warranty in N.A.
GIGABYTE U.S.A. Customer Service Center will only provide warranty service to GIGABYTE products purchased within U.S.A. and Canada.

 

[Handruin]

The new system is up and running. Seem pretty speedy so far from a basic UI observation but I haven't done anything taxing on it yet.

 

[ddrueding]

You haven't seen speedy until you have your OS on an SSD.

 

[Handruin]

I will soon. An SSD, video card, HSF, and a new monitor are on my short list. Merc is going to hate me, but to fill the time I bought the 300GB WD VelociRaptor (HLFS). So far it works ok...time will tell of course.

I also bought a new APC 1500VA to replace my dead one. It was an expensive day, but I like the new build. I ended up buying the Antec P183 and I like it better than my P180. I bought a total of 8GB RAM instead of 4GB. I also bought another PC Power and cooling 750w PSU. This way I can have two full machines once I get the new video card.

The install had no problems. I put Vista 64 on here for now until I move over to Windows 7. I'm going to see if I can time my move to windows 7 with the purchase of the Intel 80GB SSD. The WD VR will become a gaming drive or some other higher I/O bound.

 

[Mercutio]

Merc is going to hate me, but to fill the time I bought the 300GB WD VelociRaptor (HLFS).

I don't hate you. I just think you're criminally misguided.

 

[CougTek]

Why didn't you install Win7 right now and waited for October 22nd to activate it? The RTM is already available. The only thing you have to wait for is the license and you don't have to put it before 60 days after the original installation. October 22nd isn't 60 days away.

 

[MaxBurn]

I like the raptor 300 so far too, also holding out till later for SSD either late this year or early next. May even consider an OCZ from that Anand article which is a company I dislike much the same as Merc dislikes WD due to several failed pieces of memory in a row years ago (it's personal). Seems like they have recovered as they are everywhere now.

Coug, good point on the 7 thing maybe I will check out some warez sites this weekend!

As far as i5 goes I am thoroughly uninterested and will hold on to my Q9650 for quite some time. Agree, really to bad about the different socket.

 

[Handruin]

I'm going to do the windows 7 tonight then. I didn't know it was 60 days. I have it via MSDN, so I'll try that for now. Thanks for the tip.

 

[ddrueding]

IIRC, MSDN gives you retail keys for 7, so it isn't even as annoying as it used to be.

 

[Handruin]

I do have a retail key for ultimate. I guess I don't even need the 60 days.

 

[Mercutio]

Also, there's a royal.sys based Activation hack for Windows7 already. It works. I tested it.

 

[Handruin]

Good to know, but I now have windows 7 up and running fine and it activated ok.

 

[Handruin]

With the i7 I'm seeing about 3-4x faster in time for processing images than I was with my other system. It's taking about 3 seconds per image versus 10-12 seconds per image to process. This is just a rough observation.

For gaming, my 3dmark 06 score almost doubled using the same graphics card.

 

[Mercutio]

Well, I wound up in Westmont today on a completely unrelated matter, so a stop at Microcenter has left me $420 poorer.

Now I have to decide whether I want Server 03 or 2008 R2 or just plain Windows 7 on this one.

 

[Handruin]

Did you get the 860? What motherboard did you get for it? What do you plan to do with the computer?

 

[Mercutio]

Did you get the 860? What motherboard did you get for it? What do you plan to do with the computer?

860. I don't have any more DDR3 at home like I thought I did so I can't build it today. I got a Gigabyte P55-UD5P or it.

That machine is going to go at my desk in my bedroom, where it will probably spend a lot of time running VMs and doing documentation work; the machine that's there now has a flaky IDE port (P45-UD3P, I think, and yes I'm using the IDE port) and thinking I'll use cascade that machine down to being a Backup Exec or TrueImage server for the time being, since I kind of need to learn both products.