Whereas I went from a P4 3.0 to an i7 920  [there are probably at least 2 possible steps inbetween]....;)

In that context, I also skipped two possible steps in between... the Athon II's and the original Phenoms.  The advantage with my upgrade, however, was the backwards compatabilty of the Phenom II with my existing mobo... otherwise I would have been waiting quite a bit longer, perhaps another year to do a completely new build... an i7 920, of course.

Still, I am quite happy with my Phenom II upgrade, it performs well enough for my needs, and now that I've got it overclocked from 2.88 to 3.22, it zips along nicely.  It will become my second rig when I've built the i7, however, and my current spare rig, the AMD Athlon x2 6400 @ 3.2 will be given to my sister.... anything and everything of use gets recycled in my family, and it would be a significant upgrade from her P4 (476 socket) @ 2.2ghz

 

I have been running the Core i7 920 socket 1366  for about a year now and love it, but i also am running a Core i7 860 socket 1156, and this thing is quite spectacular, I have found that the core i7 860 handles overclocking better than the 920, but thats me i would buy the core 17 860 1156 before i bought the i7 920

This is quite interesting indeed... given the i7 860 is somewhat cheaper than the 920.  If there's not a lot of difference between the standard clock speeds it'd be worth looking into, and being that it overclocks really well, it may well be that it's a better prospect than the i7 920.

Hmmm, now you've got me thinking.

The Phenom II upgrade has some good bang for the buck, but the issue is the timing.   AMD is right in between product releases.   If you can wait till the next release, both that and the Phenom II will both be better deals then.   IMO the best bang for the buck at the moment is your monitor.  And maybe Wireless N (depending on your situation), and maybe a computer desk to go with your monitor(s).   A Phenom II rig, already a good deal, still runs around $700 just for what goes inside the case.  For $200, you can upgrade that 17" CRT to a sweet 22" flat screen.   And then as a bonus you can even keep that 17" as a second monitor, depending on your video and your furniture situation.  Wireless N doesn't really apply to everybody, but if it does it's like tripling your internet for under $100.  That's practically free.  Then later in like 6 months you can get the Phenom II rig for $500 and plug it into your monitors. 

If we are talking LCD monitors I suggest keeping a eye on the local pawn shops. I got my wife's Dell LCD at one for a good price.

If AMD has released its new generation CPU's by the time I'm ready to upgrade in April/May 2010, I may very well be interested in what they have to offer. If, for example. they've produced a quad, six or 8 core that's comparable to/better than the i7 series, I could easily be persuaded to go AMD again.

Then again, I do so like the look of the Core i7's.  Decisions, decisions!!

As for 22" LCD monitors, I already have a dual 22" setup... it has other uses, but the second is mostly for watching telly/video while still on my PC... saves having to go into the loungeroom.

 

I7's may go down, too, when AMD releases their Bulldozers, but it would probably be like 3 weeks later; whereas AMD would probably slash their Phenom II's to coincide.

What about the look is appealing?  Is it the heat sink?  Personally I'd rather have a CPU that didn't need a world-class heat sink. 

My wife worked at Dell and her opinion of Dell is not good.  With their monitors, though, it may not matter.  I regularly see their 19" LCD's for $99.

The Core i7??  No, it's not the heat sink... I'd replace that with a good after-market cooler, anyway.  No, it's the performance and efficiency I'd be looking at... and not just from the say-so of technical mags/reviewers.  Several people who actually own/have Core i7's have commented most favourably on much improved performances, as compared to earlier quads/duals they had, both Intel and AMD.

It's not about needing a world-class heatsink/cooler... more about preserving the life expectancy of your CPU.  The cooler you keep it the longer it is likely to last... and most stock coolers are largely inadequate, partiularly for overclockers.

I wouldn't touch a Dell or any other proprietry brand PC with a 40' pole... no way, no how.  Why would I when most are loaded with crap and bloatware, are made to the cheapest common denominator and do not come with a (pure) Windows installation disc.

What?  No Windows disc????  That'd be like buying underwear without a crotch.  And when you NEED extra HDD space, Dell (other OEM manufacturers) will charge S300+ to add another 250gb... otherwise you screw your warranty if you add it yourself.  Bugger that... $99 later and I've added 1tb to my home-build, no warranty issues.

 

This argument has a false premise.  Fabrication techniques improve over time for any given factory, so a core i7 920 found in stores today is likely to be far more stable (and overclockable) than a core i7 that you bought a year ago.  Oftentimes the only difference between specific processors from a given line is how they "test."  I'm not sure if this is the case between the 860 and 920, but it's likely that they come from the same factory and production line, they simply label and assign different clock/multipliers to them depending on how they test.

Not exactly.  It's also about reliability in the now as well.  As it runs hotter, the atoms are randomly bouncing around faster and faster.  And when you're at 45nm technology and running at 1.2V (which is ungodly low), that matters.  You'll start getting random 1's instead of 0's.  And as you know with computers, that only has to happen once and your whole session crashes.  But still, the Phenom II's run at 125W while the I7 920's are at 130W, so it's a wash.  Yeah, the stock coolers weren't designed with overclocking in mind.  Last I remember, Intel was engineering their processors to last 7 years.  But with the heated competition (pun intended), it wouldn't surprise me if they lowered that to 5.  You of course lower that further with overclocking, but the idea is, who cares...it was 7 years to begin with.  I only need 3.




Yeah, the basic idea is, if the processor passes at 3.33 GHz it's labelled a 965.  If it fails but passes 3.0 GHz, it's a 950.  If it fails but passes 2.6 GHz, it's a 920.  So for overclocking, you want the top-of-the-line.  Unfortunately with i7's that runs a cool $999.  You can still overclock the lower-ends, but what you're doing is cutting into the margin Intel built in to account for reliability, like I mentioned earlier.

Fabrication techniques do improve over time, but when you're talking the same processor, on the same process, you're talking incremental improvements intended to improve yield.  What they do is enrich silicon (just like enriched uranium), and then they try to get the maximum number of working parts off of one wafer that they can.  More working parts = more money for them.  And of course they make more money if they get more passing 965's than they do 920's, so they are trying to make it incrementally faster.  I don't know that that means a given 920 off the shelf will be more stable, though.  Just means they will slash the prices on the 965 one day, when they get suitable yield on it.  Which is what you want, because that is what you want to overclock.

Actually at micro center in boston, the core 17 920 is 199.00 and the core 17 860 is 229, go figure

 

huh? the 860 and 920 may or may not come from the same factory and production line. that i'm not sure about. i can guarantee you that they don't "simply label and assign different clock/multipliers to them depending on how they test". since the 860 is a socket 1156 processor and the 920 is a 1366 proc, there is no possible way they "simply label and assign" them depending on tests.

Just checked on Pricespy and the i7 860 best price is $339.00 AUD... and the i7 920 is $350 best price. However, top price for an i7 860 is $503 AUD and $548 for the i7 920.  There's also a couple advertised with a Microstar x58 for $966 - $988.  Hmmm, way out of my price range.

Was reading yesterday about a new series of i5's and i3's here and here.  The i5 661 has graphic support, apparently, and is supposed to be a mid-range, mid budget CPU to compete with AMD's pricing on its mid-range inventory for OEM's.

AMD Fusion should be out soon. Did you look into that Starkers?

Not as yet... only saw the Intel reviews because Majorgeeks had links.  However, I no doubt will get to read about the AMD's at some point soon.

On another note, there have been some hefty price hikes here in Oz on the Nvidia GTX200 series .  I was all set to pick up a Gigabyte GTX260 this week, but my PC store said that 200 series cards are now hard to get and have gone way up in price just in the last week or so.  Apparently it has to do with limited availability due to manufacturing going all out on the 300 series.

Anyway, I ended up with an ASUS EAH5770 @ 1gb... only I got mine for $220 AUD, whereas the GTX260 had to be ordered and would have been about 3 - 4 weeks away @ $299.95... was previously $219.  Bugger!  I knew I should have put down a holding deposit while he still had one.

Oh well, the 5770 is a decent card and stacks up well against the GTX260 for what I need.  The GTX streaks away in some games (framerates, etc) but that is of no consequence to me... I don't have/play those games anyway.  I've heard that ATI drivers are not as good as Nvidia's, but again, that is mostly related to high perfomance gaming, and that is of no consquence to me.  For standard home use, video watching/editing, etc, the 5770 and drivers will be more than adequate.

As for a new CPU, board and RAM, I've decided to attach a separate account to my general savings and save all the spare cash I can to build a new PC at the end of the year.... by then I'll have a better idea if I'm going Intel or AMD.

It's true that there's no way they bin 860's vs. 920's based on how they clock at testing.  The manufacturing process they use is different, as is some of the peripheral design.  However, the process they both use is very similar:  they're both manufactured on Intel's in-house 45nm process.  The cores themselves are virtually indifferentiable:  same process, same architecture.  It's how you fuse the quad cores together that they differentiate.

Now, when you get to 975 vs. 965 vs. 950 vs. 920:  now THAT they bin based on how well they clock.

So much for the best laid plans of mice and men, eh!  Not getting around so good these last few days, so I got my sister to go in and pick up the ASUS 5770... yeah, right.

When she got there it hadn't come in from the supplier, so Pat, having to pick up some things anyway, decided to go get it himself... yeah, right.

When he got there he was told somebody walked in off the street and bought it... despite it being on order and the last one they had.  Anyhow, to cut a long story short, they replaced it with their (also) last Gigabyte GV-N260OC-896... thankfully still in stock because a customer changed his mind.  Instead of having to pay the new price of $299, however, I got it for the pre-hike price of $219 cos Pat argued that it was only right after they'd stuffed me/us around so much.

All's well that ends well, as they say.  I originally wanted the GTX260 and now I've got it.. installed and running like a dream.  Dunno how system builders and upgraders will go, though, cos apparently new shipments of 'older' hardware aren't arriving often enough, just container loads of the latest and greatest.

it is very confusing - my pc has quad processor and tons of ram and yet is still slow at times. as for hyperthreading i never understood what that was  lol

best laid plans, starkers? yeah, i know what ya mean. i have a gtx285 sitting on the shelf behind me that i can't use. there's nothing wrong with it. it's nvidia's drivers that are the problem. any nvidia card i try sees my monitor as a high def tv and pushes everything to the left and up. the only way i can get the display right is to hack the driver's inf file. but after doing that, i can't run the windows experience control panel applet. a couple other things are wrong but i don't remember what they are at the moment. so, i'll stick with my 4890.

 

anyone want to buy a gtx285? LOL

I might have been interested if I'd known beforehand... had it been at a similar price to what I paid (as in second-hand/used) and easily accessible. Probably not, though!

I did look at the GTX285's when I was looking to buy, but the best price on a 285 @ 1gb was $425.00 AUD, with a top price $785.95 (beats me why there's such a huge price difference on the exact same item), and the GTX285 @ 2gb started at $509.00 right up to $737.00 AUD.  That's why, after the purchase cock-up, I ended up with the Gigabyte GTX260 @ 896mb, which is good cos my mobo is also a Gigabyte, thus making any possible BOIS or other tweaks easier.

Must admit, though, I had a bit of fun (not) installing it.  Being that the GTX260 is 4'' longer than the 9800GT and 2" longer than the 8800GT being used as a fill-in, I had to move 2HDD's to get it to fit in the case. Then I had to cut half a dozen snaplock ties to access a couple PSU of cables (peviously unused with the 9800GT low powered) to power it up.

Moving the HDD's was a sinch.. easy, but this GTX260 requires two 6 pin plugs, and it took a major re-wiring/re-cabling effort to provide power AND keep the inside of my case tidy.  Several other cables also had to be moved, and cos I'm a tidy/neatness freak, everything had be tidily in its place and properly tied off.

Oh well, it's done now.... 'til the next upgrade.

 

 

I hear you. My single core Athlon CPU is a bit faster than some dual core machines I have worked on.

oh and i hope not to sound like a complete idiot but......... what is over clocking?  will i blow my pc up if i do this? 

 

lol starkers - i have a total of 4 hdd in my pc and NONE of them are screwed in place, i just crammed em in and leave em hanging about. one is laying on bottom of case   -   i dont like housework either  LOL

Now that would never do in a PC of mine... being  tidy freak n' all, but it's probably not advisable, either.  Not that HDD's thrash about when they start up or anything, but possible damage to other 'delicate' components could occur if and when the case has to be moved... going into the shop for repairs, etc.

As for overclocking, that's when you adjust the CPU, RAM and/or video card settings to make them run faster, However, it is not something I would advise a novice to do... in fact, I would advise strongly against it.  Overclocking, if it is done incorrectly or is taken too far, can cause system instability and comonent damage, therefore it is better left to the enthusiast and/or experienced techie..

Me either... but I had better get off me bum and do some dusting/cleaning around here.  Haven't been too mobile in the last few days and we've fallen behind a little... not that it's bad or anything, but I do like things cleaner/tideier than they are at present.