I5 or i7?

Sorry to ask to such a broad, generic question; I've been thinking of upgrading for a while now, but my system eventually broke-down fairly abruptly when it did, so now I'm a few years behind on anything to do with hardware, and need to make a purchase within the next few days.

I'll mostly be using it for work (nothing that should put too much of a strain on the system in itself, whatever that turns-out to be), surfing, and playing media, though I do plan to do some gaming, and of-course I'd prefer to do so as smoothly as possible. Otherwise, I'd like to get at-least 2-3 good years out of the machine, prefereably with as much of a future for the individual components at that time as possible.

Specifically, I'm looking at an offer for an i5-750 LGA1156 Package 2.6 GHz with a DP55WB (exchangeable for a DP55WG) Intel board, but I'd also like to know a little more about the differences between processor lines before I commit to anything, as well as any obvious or pertinent details I'm liable to be missing. Links to relevant articles would also be appreciated.

This being the third time I've had to type most of this, I hope I hadn't left-out anything important.

Cheers.

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i would get core i7 bored with 1366 because then later on u can get core i9 WITH 6 CORES
then u can game

Reply to demondrumer

What sort of gaming are you looking to get into? An i5 is probably plenty enough for your needs.

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Reply to mi1ez

mi1ez wrote :

What sort of gaming are you looking to get into? An i5 is probably plenty enough for your needs.

Most demanding would probably be Fallout 3 and Bioshock at the moment, and I'd rather not be too restricted regarding any future games that come-out, but full-details and so-on is something I could learn to live without if need-be. I use a 22" inch screen at the moment.

Anything to know about the specific i5 model?

Reply to sporkbearer

There's currently only one - the i5-750

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Reply to mi1ez

If you don't want to be restricted with future gaming then look at going multiple GPUs. You only need to put one card in now but in the future when you start to see some lag in the games you can drop in another card (and it'll be a lot cheaper too).

Now the 1156 socket (P55 chipset) can do SLI and Crossfire but your PCI-Express lanes will be limited to 8x each when running two cards which may well causes issues in the future. So, going down this route you'd be better off investing in the 1366 socket (X58 chipset).

Get a good 1366 board, an i7 920 with a good cooler (TRUE Rev C, Megahalems, Scythe Mugen 2 or Titan Fenrir) and 6GB of triple-channel 1600MHz RAM. Overclock the bitch to 3.8GHz (or more if you want - those coolers will take it) and whack in a nice GPU - 4870 is getting cheap now because of the new 5800 cards (or a GTX 285 if NVIDIA drop their prices).

That will last you for a while on its own, and then in a year or so whack in a second card of the same type and pair them up for an extra boost. Plus as deamondrumer said, the 1366 socket will take the i9 hexcore chip next year (will need to update your BIOS though).

Basically I think there's more life in the 1366 socket - bit more expensive yes but it's good for a long time so the investment's worth it.

If you're on a budget and only want something for 2-3 years then go i5-750 - the money you'll save on the motherboard and dual-channel RAM kit will probably help towards the monster 5870 and then you're sorted for a while, but may not have much of an upgrade path in the future.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to LePhuronn

LePhuronn wrote :

If you don't want to be restricted with future gaming then look at going multiple GPUs. You only need to put one card in now but in the future when you start to see some lag in the games you can drop in another card (and it'll be a lot cheaper too).

Now the 1156 socket (P55 chipset) can do SLI and Crossfire but your PCI-Express lanes will be limited to 8x each when running two cards which may well causes issues in the future. So, going down this route you'd be better off investing in the 1366 socket (X58 chipset).

Get a good 1366 board, an i7 920 with a good cooler (TRUE Rev C, Megahalems, Scythe Mugen 2 or Titan Fenrir) and 6GB of triple-channel 1600MHz RAM. Overclock the bitch to 3.8GHz (or more if you want - those coolers will take it) and whack in a nice GPU - 4870 is getting cheap now because of the new 5800 cards (or a GTX 285 if NVIDIA drop their prices).

That will last you for a while on its own, and then in a year or so whack in a second card of the same type and pair them up for an extra boost. Plus as deamondrumer said, the 1366 socket will take the i9 hexcore chip next year (will need to update your BIOS though).

Basically I think there's more life in the 1366 socket - bit more expensive yes but it's good for a long time so the investment's worth it.

If you're on a budget and only want something for 2-3 years then go i5-750 - the money you'll save on the motherboard and dual-channel RAM kit will probably help towards the monster 5870 and then you're sorted for a while, but may not have much of an upgrade path in the future.

As others have said get the 920 if you going to play some graphic intensive down the road.

Reply to warmon6

mi1ez wrote :

There's currently only one - the i5-750

Ha. I think the 1156 threw me a little, since searches seemed to bring back the 1366 a fair bit with the i5. Obviously I should have checked a bit deeper.

In any case, thanks to anyone who replied. Interesting comment about the 1366 socket in particular - the venders I've talked to (whom I do tend to trust, more or less, but that's not to say they can't simply be wrong) seemed to think the 1156 had a bit more future in it.

Graphics-wise, I was considering getting the comparitvely simple gts250 and waiting for the next price drop for anything fancier, under the theory that anything that ran on a D9 card (Radeon X1900GT) couldn't help but work better on a superior system.

Reply to sporkbearer

Facing a last minute decision before placing an order tomorrow - upgrading to an i5-860 at what I consider a very manageable price, or sticking to the i5. I'm tempted to take it, but I'm wondering at how much of a boost it would really be, and whether I'd be better off just getting a 920 (same basic price) and spending a bit more (the key question here being how much - I don't have any solid figures yet) on a p58.

Are the hex-core guarenteed to fit the 1366 socket? I've heard some conflicting reports about this.

Reply to sporkbearer

Since the prices of i5 and i7 are very similar in the U.S., get i7-920 if you are in the U.S. otherwise i5-750.

Reply to andy5174

i completely disagree with anyone here saying i920. lynnfield IMHO AINEC. you say nothing about OC or CF/SLI, and it seems gaming is not your no. 1 priority.

you'll benefit from lynnfield's lower power/heat/noise. at least on occasion, you'll benefit from the fact that lynnfield can turboboost by more bins than bloomfield.

furthermore, lynnfield's gaming performance is excellent and just can't imagine you're anywhere near enough of a gaming enthusiast that you would notice the somewhere between 2% and 7% higher FPS achievable on Bloomfield vs. Lynnfield.

your last question of i5-750 vs i7-860 is a bit harder. i think both choices are defensible, i'd prolly get an i7-860 if I was close to a microcenter (or find a good sale on it elsewhere), and an i5-750 otherwise.

Reply to jasperjones

Settled on this in the end:

Antec Three Hundred Tower ATX case
i7-860, LGA1156 Package 2.8GHz CPU
Intel Warrensburg DP55WG motherboard
Crusial (Micron) 4GB Dual Channel DDR-3 1333MHz (2x2GB) RAM
Gainward BLISS, Geforce GTS-250 [1024MB DDR3/b] GPU
[b]takeMS 64in1 Internal 3.5" bay Flash Card reader כונן
[b]Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB Serial ATA-II 7200rpm 16MB Cache harddrive

And my old HEC Cougar 650W PSU.

Reply to sporkbearer

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