I5-750, i7-860, or Westmere?

[hassanje]

I'm considering putting together a PC and both the i5-750 and i7-860 look attractive, but I'm wondering I should think about putting things off until Westmere is available. Is anybody considering the same thing? Is Westmere going to be a much more expensive uP when it's released? I really don't want to pay over $300 for a CPU...

 

[emyyhh]

You are never going to be up to date for long. If you need a PC now then buy now - if you can hold on then wait for current prices to drop. You don't mention anything that people can use to help you, ie, budget, system uses, what you have now etc.

 

[hassanje]

I've been looking around at i5-750 and i7-860 designs and think I could get something pretty nice for $1200-1300. I don't do a ton of gaming (I need to buy a PC for a new job which requires a home office)...


I was thinking of building when Windows 7 is released. I think the new Radeon 5xxx cards will be available by then...I wouldn't mind overclocking my system 10-15% as I've done it in the past and had great results. I guess I'd just hate to buy a CPU knowing that westmere is on deck. Just wanted to know if anybody was specifically waiting for that processor to be released. Intel seems to be making a big deal of it. I don't know much about the architecture yet, just wanted to know what the general feeling out there it.

 

[astrodudepsu]

You can always play this game though, there will always be something on the horizon. I'd buy now, the i5-750 is a solid value in this price point.

I WOULD wait for the 5xxx series and win7 though, as those are less than a month away.

 

[xaira]

the 750 is pretty much a steal, wen the new 32nm quads r released, upgrade

 

[emyyhh]

As your main priority is not gaming, i'd go with the i5 750. Its a great chip and overclocks nicely, and has plenty of gaming power should you need it. If home office is your main use you dont even need a high-end GPU. A 4650 would be plenty for office tasks, or you could hold out for the more energy efficient 5xxx versions. Of course if you still want a game-capable rig then the 5850 would most likely serve you well.

As far as I understand westmere is just a 32nm shrink of nehalem. It will arrive first in the shape of core i3's and find its way into i5's and i7's next year.

 

[truerock]

I consider Westmere to be the perfected version of Nehalem. Because Westemere is about to ship, I think it is worth wating for. Also, Intel's 4 core, 32nm CPUs that ship Q2 2010 will be the perfected version of the current generation. The current 130 watt versions are almost experimental in my mind.

After that, I think the next thing to wait for will be USB 3, PCIe 3 and SATA 6Gb. That would be comming out in 2011. I guess there will not be an ICH 11 or ICH 12 - I'm not sure. I guess the I/O will all be on the same chip as the CPU?

 

[SpidersWeb]

You're almost 2 months late with that post truerock

Good thoughts though.
Best thing about the 32nm is overclocking on lower voltages and power requirements. I posted a link to an article showing a sample doing 4Ghz @ 0.8V. I'm looking forward to giving them a crack next year. First ones are dual core i3's though, not quads (guess that comes later in the year).

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Also, the 130W TDP of the i920 is really just a very conservative binning by Intel. The i920 could easily have been rated at 95W, since the turbo-boost feature is only 2 bumps up from the stock frequency...

 

[SpidersWeb]

And for some reason, Intel always rates all processors with the same TDP in a range, the 130W rating is likely for the extreme edition.