New CPU - Q9650 or i7 920

[Kaldor]

Well its update time again. My issue is that Im pretty heavily vested in socket 775 atm with an X48 Asus w/ an E8400 and a P45 Gigabyte w/ an E6300. Ive weighed the costs of upgrading to i7 and switching the X48 for an X58 with a new cpu, mobo and RAM is fairly spendy. I do want to jump to a quad core.

I have been kicking around going back to Nvidia again for video, and that would require an X58 board, but that honestly is minor as both ATI and Nvidia are close to equal performance wise atm as I would run SLI or Xfire at 1920x1200 res.

The 775 platform is going to go away within the next year and I know the i7's are the future. Is it worth the money to jump to the i7, a more future proof platform, or just make an upgrade now, and be happy?

I figure a Q9650 @ 3.6ghz on an X48 should be a solid machine for at least a couple of years. And that the E8400 @ 4gz on that P45 should hang pretty well. Both machines should last at least 2 years without a single upgrade, Im thinking, but I want others thoughts.

Thoughts?

 

[sdf]

Its not worth upgrading to i7 especially with a x48 board. The 9650 OC'd will serve for some time to come. Save your money and if anything upgrade your gpu.

 

[CompuTronix]

Kaldor,

The Q9650 is the fastest Core 2 Quad available, short of spending the really big bucks for the extreme version. At 3.0 Ghz out of the box with E0 stepping and a 9x multiplier, it is higher bin and lower VID than the Q9550 or the Q9450, and is therefore a better overclocker. My Q9650 is overclocked @ 4.2 Ghz at 1.320 Vcore load with a 1.1875 VID. Unless you get a lemon, you should expect to reach at least 4.0 Ghz with a Q9650 on high-end air.

Comp

 

[rescawen]

jump to it if you want, but the performance will only increase marginally

 

[Kaldor]

Its not worth upgrading to i7 especially with a x48 board. The 9650 OC'd will serve for some time to come. Save your money and if anything upgrade your gpu.

Pretty much my thoughts as well. I will be running a pair of 4870s for video so that part is covered. Really cant get faster than that unless I go to 2 4870X2s which is a waste.

Kaldor,

The Q9650 is the fastest Core 2 Quad available, short of spending the really big bucks for the extreme version. At 3.0 Ghz out of the box with E0 stepping and a 9x multiplier, it is higher bin and lower VID than the Q9550 or the Q9450, and is therefore a better overclocker. My Q9650 is overclocked @ 4.2 Ghz at 1.320 Vcore load with a 1.1875 VID. Unless you get a lemon, you should expect to reach at least 4.0 Ghz with a Q9650 on high-end air.

Comp

Nice OC @ 4.2. Ill be happy with 3.6 or 3.8 honestly. Ill be using a Xig1284 EE on the 9650. I will probably switch this system to water this summer anyway, I just need to make up my mind on case, 1 or 2 loops, and such. Leaning toward a Mountain Mods or a Silverstone TJ07 and 2 loops. The E8400 runs really nice at 4 ghz on air, and should be fine on the Gigabyte P45.

Newegg is gonna love me this weekend. Buying enough pieces to basically put together 3 new PCs.

 

[chookman]

Agreed, the if you were starting from scratch i would say the i7, but seeing you already have an x48 board its not worth it just go with the Q9650