Will the world go i7 Benchmarking mad ?

[mactronix]

This is just for conjecture and opinions sake but it seems to me that there is a very serious possability that when the wonder chip from Intel is released we will end up with a plethora of reviews and benchmarks for the latest GPU's performed soley on a system with the i7 chip at its heart, and probably under Vista also. Much the same way that when Vista was released you had to dig really hard for about a month to find a decent review of anything done under XP and at a sensible resolution. Thankfully the world began to see the error of its ways after said month or so and now its the norm again to see reviews etc under both XP and Vista.
Hopefully the reviewers will take into account that not everyone and his dog will automatically switch to the i7 chip, but then again they did seem to think everyone would switch to Vista.
Mactronix

 

[yipsl]

That's not really that different from benchmarks done on Intel EE quads in the past. Even before Yorkfield, many benchmarks were done using Kentsfield as the CPU of choice, regardless of whether the GPU's benchmarked were entry level, mainstream or enthusiast. As for Vista, more benchmarks should be done on it. It's not that bad and we'll see more DX10 and 10.1 titles out over the next year.

What I'd like to see are parallel benchmarks done on Vista with Deneb plus various GPU's and then Nehalem with various GPU's. What we usually see in CPU comparison is a top of the line GPU mated to a whole slew of CPU's from AMD and Intel. With GPU comparisons is the whole range tested with just one very high end CPU. We never see comparisons of entry level, mainstream or enthusiast systems as a whole.

IMHO, XP testing should die a slow death and people should get used to Vista. I'm sure XP gaming will be as obsolete in 3 years as Win98 gaming is today.

 

[IndigoMoss]

Depends on if Core i7 is a disappointment or not. I'm not sure it's going to be the success everyone claims, it really comes down to overclocability, price, and performance per clock.

 

[mactronix]

My main worry is that assuming the i7 is as claimed then results won't be directly comparable with Core 2 systems, much the same way an AMD system cant be directly compared to a Core 2 system.
I may be jumping the gun and it may not be an issue i just wanted to put it out there and see what others think.
Guess i should go over to the CPU section and check what the i7 is all about.
Mactronix

 

[emp]

That's not really that different from benchmarks done on Intel EE quads in the past. Even before Yorkfield, many benchmarks were done using Kentsfield as the CPU of choice, regardless of whether the GPU's benchmarked were entry level, mainstream or enthusiast. As for Vista, more benchmarks should be done on it. It's not that bad and we'll see more DX10 and 10.1 titles out over the next year.

What I'd like to see are parallel benchmarks done on Vista with Deneb plus various GPU's and then Nehalem with various GPU's. What we usually see in CPU comparison is a top of the line GPU mated to a whole slew of CPU's from AMD and Intel. With GPU comparisons is the whole range tested with just one very high end CPU. We never see comparisons of entry level, mainstream or enthusiast systems as a whole.

IMHO, XP testing should die a slow death and people should get used to Vista. I'm sure XP gaming will be as obsolete in 3 years as Win98 gaming is today.

+1, XP served it's purpose until Vista graphics drivers caught up, we can see that under Vista DX9 using AA now is actually faster than on XP.

From what I've been reading, apparently Core i7 seems like it won't have much of an impact on gaming, since the performance improvements seem to be geared more towards servers, so you don't have much to worry about. This is why I'm actually much more excited about Deneb now than for i7, but next year I might end up buying an i7 after the 32nm refresh anyway...

 

[mactronix]

Xp is still the no1 choice for a gaming rig and so far nothing has happened to change that. Untill the games come along with support for higher DX no's there is simply no need to change, there is no reason for anyone to change OS from XP to Vista. I agree there is little wrong with vista as a gaming platform, most of the bugs have been ironed out or worked around. But the fact still remains there is and in my view never was a reason to spend the extra on a new OS.
Xp will die out in time but calling for reviews in XP to slowly die a death is premature to say the least.
Unless there have been new numbers released lately then XP still accounts for alot more rigs than Vista and that dosen't take into account the ones that were downgraded to XP after being sold with Vista installed.
Yips is right there is not enough rariety in the hardware when benchmarking but then you will always get that.
Thanks for the input
Mactronix

 

[emp]

XP should be the choice for a gaming rig IF you already have an existing XP installation, but if you're in the market for a new PC the obvious path is to get Vista 64.

I think yipsl is right though, XP was the choice for benchmarking since it provided better results, but it should start to die soon, given the fact that Vista provides just as good if not better results overall.

PS: How did we end up switching from Core i7 to Vista?

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Heres my take. i7 will screw everything up, and theyll stick with older chips. The reason why is plain to see. i7 comes with auto ocing. Does anyone here think that this oc will be consistant from rig to rig? Temp to temp? Game to game? Im not too certain of any of it. I think its going to put a wrench into everything for benching, as Im not so sure you can "lock" the turbo oc. Anyone know if its possible?

 

[mactronix]

@ JDJ,
Thats exactly the kind of thing i was worried about(and didnt know about). Thats the main reason for the thread.
So you say there will probably be inconsistancies with this auto OC part of the chip and it will throw things out of wack. But you know they (reviewers) just cant help themselves using the best of the best when doing these reviews. Wouldnt this problem have to be pretty big to be an issue though ? I mean as yips pointed out earlier the differant sites use a wide range of chips and most people if they have any sence use 3 or 4 sites for comparison purposes.
I hope you are right and if it does prove to be an issue they dont bother with it at all.

@ emp,
Because i used the mass migration of reviewers to vista (untill they realised most people were on XP still) as an example of the scenario i was worried about

Mactronix

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

I get rated down any time I mention i7. LOL. Anyways, if they dont handle everything similarly, itll be tough to tell how good benches are, or theyll have to monitor cpu speeds as they run. And theyll probably also run with it off, if thats possible. I think I read you can shut off turbo in bios. Whats going to be even more confusing is AMDs cpus may become competitive, and we will have side by side reviews heheh. Who knows, its too early, and Intel has all the info bottled up. Alot of sites are taking guesses as to how the cpu operates, whether its the MC to memory voltage, or the turbo or whats locked and what isnt. I think Intel should just come out and let people know. Get us used to how it works, so when we see benches etc, we have somewhat of an idea as to how it works, and why were seeing what were seeing

 

[mactronix]

Well i guess it will be little differant than getting used to how a differant archetecture works at the end of the day or the differance between a card with differant RAM etc, just one more thing to miss when studying the reviews :lol: :lol:

Mactronix

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Thats just it. Imagine all the benches that are a lil different, and everyone will be making claims for this card or that card, when the cpu just isnt behaving lol

 

[bobbknight]

I love it when ppl say vista is just as good a xp.
Sure at almost twice the price.
I hope win 7 fixes things.

 

[gamerk316]

XP should be the choice for a gaming rig IF you already have an existing XP installation, but if you're in the market for a new PC the obvious path is to get Vista 64.

I think yipsl is right though, XP was the choice for benchmarking since it provided better results, but it should start to die soon, given the fact that Vista provides just as good if not better results overall.


PS: How did we end up switching from Core i7 to Vista?

Thats the trap I fell into. I didn't trust 64bit Vista when I built my new rig (I still had nightmares about 64-bit XP), so I shipped it with XP instead, as I saw no incentive to upgrade. Later this year, im getting another 1TB HD, and setting up a 250/750 partion for Vista64 and system tools/Games.

I wonder how the linked memory/CPU voltages will play with overcloking, especially with the recommened 1.65 Volt limit...I still think a > 3GHz Yorkfield will end up being as fast, and cheaper, as i7. I think that people which have a decent Yorkfield could potentially make it to Sandy Bridge (and another new socket change ) before worring about an upgrade.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

Unfortunately, I agree, i7 just doesnt look that good for now. As time goes along, and we see MT as almost the norm, then yes, i7 all the way. Im not big into futureproofing, and in a way, thats what i7 is, but I dont want to spend alot of money compared to less for a small amount of performance that eventually will turn into more. Who knows when thatll be? Video encoding etc, doesnt require a quad, as most of this will be switched to gpu usage, and done faster. The who knows at what clock itll run at what temps and how well will it oc, and if oceed, will it show it consistantly in a benchmark leaves me wondering as well.

 

[gpippas]

i7 and Deneb create another annoying dilema for someone like me who has an old 939 skt system because I need to upgrade cpu, mobo, and ram. I don't mind buying q6600 and a 754 skt mobo and some ddr2 except I would prefer the build after that not to need to upgrade everything again.

With both i7 and deneb ddr3 is a must. So upgrade to q6600 with ddr3 is the obvious choice. Except we now know that most current ddr3 modules will fry i7 anyway so thats not really a viable option. The other problem is that both are moving to new skts which means the old ones will become obsolete very quickly. I know in denebs case there will be am2+ versions but realistically how long will they last.

I don't think future proofing is possible but I think there are options you can take to improve the situation. Both Intel and AMD have made it very difficult to justify a new system with any of the currently released components. I give Core till July 09 and despite what any roadmaps or anything else like that says it will dissapear into the oblivion with the exception of the low cost Pentium and Celeron parts.

Also the release of windows 7 and dx11 will further screw up review sites and everything else just as we are all settling down after Q4/Q1 havoc.

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

ummm, ok, regarding the DDR3. Ive heard if you place slower DDR3 in first, and let the settings set, then you can use the higher DDR3. Its complcated, but works, as I guess the system will adjust to the higher volts, but just wont start from the get go with them. Sounds like maybe how the reviews may go eh? Oh well, they dont use AMD cpus in their reviews, maybe thatll change heheh.