Old i7 vs. New i5 (or Xeon E3)

[Mercutio]

I have four i7/9x0s sitting around. Two of them even have nice, expensive motherboards (1366 boards are STILL ridiculous) that have barely been used, to the tune of perhaps 50 power-on hours. Another board I have had a lot of power-on time before I retired it a few months ago.

I have a nice opportunity to sell a three machines on a budget that would accommodate a decent CPU, something i5ish.

I'm thinking this might be an opportunity to ditch these i7s that are shamefully going to waste in my parts collection.

Down side: 1366 boards are still ridiculous and at this point they are also OLD. Were one of them to break outside its warranty period, that would be problematic.

Up side: Obviously it would be more cash for me and for the end users it would presumably be a nicer machine, though I doubt they'd notice; I could probably give them dual core Athlons for all they know.

Thoughts?

 

[CougTek]

MY two i7 2600 are, according to FAH stats, roughly 40% faster than my i7 960. The i7 960, however, outproduces a SandyBrisge i5 by ~30%, also for Folding@home. I realise that most people don't use their computers for distributed computing, but that's the only test I've run systematically on all the computers I've owned. I'll also have a Core i5 3450 to test next Wednesday, although I might not have it for long (already sold).

I would get rid of the old i7 if I were you. Together with a GigaByte X58-USB3, they are not that expensive (I've seen this motherboard go for 140$ lately). Those systems would cost ~100$ more to your customers than i5-based systems. The motherboard's build quality is higher IMO and the chance they fail prematurely is quite low. The i7 are faster for massively parallel task, even if according to what you wrote, such tasks won't be performed often by your customers.

The bottom line is : while an i5-based system would be a better value for your customers, I don't feel you would rip them off by offering them your old i7 processors.

 

[ddrueding]

The bottom line is : while an i5-based system would be a better value for your customers, I don't feel you would rip them off by offering them your old i7 processors.

Indeed. And turnover of your inventory is never a bad thing.

 

[Santilli]

What are they using the computers for? The new i5's use about half the power of the i7's and as stated are generally faster. As a person who lives in a state where power consumption is expensive I might be bothered if my energy bill went up considerably
when the new processors are so green.

 

[Mercutio]

It's a bullshit thing. These systems are going to sit on manager-types' desks. They get higher-spec machines for more-or-less no reason at all. They aren't concern with their power bill, at least not that they've told me.

 

[Santilli]

I think it would be kind of funny giving them a bunch of machines that even though old, they are not likely to approach 10% CPU useage in any task they will do, for 10 years.

 

[Bozo]

I know of one manager that insisted he have the top of the line computer. His old one was removed from his desk. The guts were transferred to a new case and returned to him. Kept him happy that way for years.

 

[Santilli]

Guess it depends on the tech level. An i7 is no joke.

 

[LunarMist]

It has been 3.5 years so there are a range of CPUs. I wonder how long intel will use the same name.