I5 vs i7

[cgleckman]

I am just wondering why so many people are suggesting the i5s over the i7s. Is it because of just price or are there other reasons behind it?

 

[warmon6]

well some of the reason why you may seeing people suggesting i5 over i7 because:

1. price to performance ration is very good. aka it's a cheap powerful quad core cpu.
2. Some people may not need the power of the i7 and the i5 will be more beneficial.

Here a pros and cons list i made on an old thread. This may help with understanding the reasons behind getting intels powerful cpus.

Well it depends on what you'll use it for. If it just going to be used for email and web surfing then i would say I5. If it going to be gaming that only going to use 1 graphic card the the get the I7 8xx's. If your going to need 2 graphic cards for a game and/or need max ram bandwidth for memory intensive programs then the I7 9xx's cpu's.

Here's some pros and cons to each CPU series.

I5:
Pros:
Cheap cpu.
Great turbo
Will get the job done for most to all programs.
Runs cooler than the I7 9xx's
Can run faster 1333 MHZ ram than the I7 9xx's.

Cons:
No HT
No triple channel memory
Doesn't have full dual 16x bandwidth for 2 video cards.
Will not be upgradable with 6+ core cpus.

I7 8xx's
(pretty much the same as i5's)

Pro's:
HT
Can be cheaper than the 9xx's (depending on locations and store)

I7 9xx's:
Pro's:
Triple channel memory
HT
full Dual 16X video bandwidth.
upgrade option down the road to the Core i9 when you need 6 cores

Con's:
Can be expensive. (depeding on location and store)
can be very hot if not in a well ventilated case.
Can only run 1066 MHz ram unless over clock to fully use cheaper 1333 MHz.
not as powerful turbo as the i5 and i7 8xx's cpus.

Well i hope this helps.

 

[cgleckman]

well some of the reason why you may seeing people suggesting i5 over i7 because:

1. price to performance ration is very good. aka it's a cheap powerful quad core cpu.
2. Some people may not need the power of the i7 and the i5 will be more beneficial.

Here a pros and cons list i made on an old thread. This may help with understanding the reasons behind getting intels powerful cpus.

Well it depends on what you'll use it for. If it just going to be used for email and web surfing then i would say I5. If it going to be gaming that only going to use 1 graphic card the the get the I7 8xx's. If your going to need 2 graphic cards for a game and/or need max ram bandwidth for memory intensive programs then the I7 9xx's cpu's.

Here's some pros and cons to each CPU series.

I5:
Pros:
Cheap cpu.
Great turbo
Will get the job done for most to all programs.
Runs cooler than the I7 9xx's
Can run faster 1333 MHZ ram than the I7 9xx's.

Cons:
No HT
No triple channel memory
Doesn't have full dual 16x bandwidth for 2 video cards.
Will not be upgradable with 6+ core cpus.

I7 8xx's
(pretty much the same as i5's)

Pro's:
HT
Can be cheaper than the 9xx's (depending on locations and store)

I7 9xx's:
Pro's:
Triple channel memory
HT
full Dual 16X video bandwidth.
upgrade option down the road to the Core i9 when you need 6 cores

Con's:
Can be expensive. (depeding on location and store)
can be very hot if not in a well ventilated case.
Can only run 1066 MHz ram unless over clock to fully use cheaper 1333 MHz.
not as powerful turbo as the i5 and i7 8xx's cpus.

Well i hope this helps.

Thanks for the info, so is there really a big difference between triple channel memory and dual channel? Also I thought ddr3 is triple channel? Will ddr3 not work with an i7 860?

 

[warmon6]

At the moment in time there not a big difference between dual and triple channel because the software hasn't realy caught up yet.

DDR3 works on all i7/i5's. just the the max speed of the ram vairies between the i7 9xx's and 8xx's.

i7 8xx and handle max drr3 1333 mhz while i7 9xx can only handle 1066. you put faster ram in than this just the cpu will underclock the ram to the speed it can handle it. (you can overclock the QPI to run faster ram.)

 

[cgleckman]

I didnt realize the 860( the one i bought) cant run the 1600 ram i bought as well. I should prob read up on how to get the 860 to read the full 1600, assuming its possible.

 

[warmon6]

well the good news it that you can put 1600 mhz on it. It just when booting up on post you'll see 1333 mhz instead of 1600.

 

[cgleckman]

Ok, so how do i go about utilizing the full 1600? Do I need to O/C or something?

 

[rockyjohn]

There is a difference between "run" and "read the full 1600" that it appears you are missing.

The 860 MAY be able to run the 1600 ram - just stepping it down to a slower speed. Or like any other compatibility issues - it might not run just like some 1066 memory will not run in some 1066 systems. How much slower speed may be affected by OC, as noted above.

I just hope you don't have 1600 memory with much higher timinings that you can't change such that you end up with running the faster memory at a slow speed while being stuck with slower timings because of the higher speed memory.

 

[warmon6]

im not much of an overclocker so i dont what you need do to bring that up to speed. If my memory serves me correct it should be the QPI. Although im not sure. Im sure someone in the overclocker section of the forms will know what and how to overclock the cpu/ram.

Sorry im not much help on the overclocking stuff.