So has anyone heard that intel's releasing an i7 930 Q1 2010??

[mrcrybaby]

WHAT THE NONSENSE is intel thinking!?... Same price as current i7 920? I thought the i7 860 was a 920 replacement... Guess this means we're gonna see some price drops on the 1156 processors ya?

http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?id=30551&catid=2

~mrcrybaby

 

[cjl]

The 860 isn't a 920 replacement - it's on a different platform. I would guess that this will have basically no effect on 1156 CPUs.

 

[chowmanga]

I think its natural for them to do that. As they tweak the processor a bit and come out with new revisions, they can up the clocks without losing on manufacturing costs. They did that when they replaced the 940 with the 950 at the same price.

 

[mrcrybaby]

mmmm well if the 930 is an improvement on the i7 920, why would anyone buy an i7 860 unless its cheaper? Honestly I don't really see that much price difference in i5 and i7 mobos, and since the 920 and 860 are pretty neck and neck... im guessin some price droppins in order :]

~mrcrybaby

 

[chowmanga]

Yeah, I agree. The current focus on particular price points doesn't make any sense. Something needs to give.

 

[mrcrybaby]

actually what bothers me most about this is that it happened right after I decided on buying an 860 as opposed to the 920... Sure I wanted to wait till next year, but there was no reason for intel to drop prices on anything really... and now THIS i7 930 news came outta nowhere -_- another few months of waiting.. and WAITING!!! ugh. anyone else in the same boat? as much as I enjoy new tech, these insanely quick cpu releases are annoying as heck!

excuse the rant.. venting.

~mrcrybaby

 

[chowmanga]

Well think about it this way.. maybe in the couple of months that you would have been waiting, you could be saving up for your next upgrade. The 860 is nothing to scoff at. Its still really fast, and will still be really fast even with the supposed 930's clock speed boost.

edit: typo

 

[randomizer]

This is why you should stop waiting, evaluate what will suit your performance needs now, and go buy it.

 

[cjl]

For the most part I would agree, though there are times when waiting would be a better choice. I waited for 6 months for i7 to come out, because I do a decent amount of heavily threaded work and I could get by on my old Core 2 Duo for that period. That was a pretty significant change though - waiting for something like a new stepping or revision (such as the 930) seems like a waste of time in almost every case.

 

[chunkymonster]

If the i7 930 is a 32nm chip then it would be worth the upgrade, IMO. But if a 45nm, then it really isn't much more than a 920 that took it's vitamins. Why bother with a 930 @ 2.88GHz base speed when you can oc a D0 920 to +/-4GHz? Maybe not the right rationale, but considering I paid $280 for my D0 920, I'm not feeling an i7 930 for a 220MHz speed bump; unless it is a 32nm chip.

This is why you should stop waiting, evaluate what will suit your performance needs now, and go buy it.

This statement should be in bold letters at the top of the first page of the forums and at the top of every forum category!

 

[mrcrybaby]

If the i7 930 is a 32nm chip then it would be worth the upgrade, IMO. But if a 45nm, then it really isn't much more than a 920 that took it's vitamins. Why bother with a 930 @ 2.88GHz base speed when you can oc a D0 920 to +/-4GHz? Maybe not the right rationale, but considering I paid $280 for my D0 920, I'm not feeling an i7 930 for a 220MHz speed bump; unless it is a 32nm chip.

This statement should be in bold letters at the top of the first page of the forums and at the top of every forum category!

Wise words indeed. But the reason why i'm considering the 3-4 month wait is
a) not sure what the 930's bringing to the table
b) intel WILL have to drop i5/i7 prices to avoid c*ckblocking themselves
c) perhaps those few months will allow some time for mobo and bios maturity on 1156 boards...

i'm I being overly cautious on this?

This is what I was thinking for my i860 build, just to add some hardware talk in here haha.

i7 860 - $230 @ microcenter
MSI P55-GD65 - $155 @ amazon (no tax + free shipping) or $148 @ newegg (after promo code)
G.SKILL 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) or the Ripjaw series.. although I don't really know what the difference is between the 2. - $90ish @ newegg

its a big help talking to u guys btw...

~mrcrybaby

 

[rodney_ws]

TechReport mentioned that today.

 

[chowmanga]

Wise words indeed. But the reason why i'm considering the 3-4 month wait is
a) not sure what the 930's bringing to the table
b) intel WILL have to drop i5/i7 prices to avoid c*ckblocking themselves
c) perhaps those few months will allow some time for mobo and bios maturity on 1156 boards...

i'm I being overly cautious on this?

This is what I was thinking for my i860 build, just to add some hardware talk in here haha.

i7 860 - $230 @ microcenter
MSI P55-GD65 - $155 @ amazon (no tax + free shipping) or $148 @ newegg (after promo code)
G.SKILL 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) or the Ripjaw series.. although I don't really know what the difference is between the 2. - $90ish @ newegg

its a big help talking to u guys btw...

~mrcrybaby

I have no reason to believe the 930 is anything but a revised bloomfield core. If there were a die shrink, we would have heard about it when the articles about the westmere architecture came out. Generally, we know well in advance when a die shrink is coming just like when articles about penryn started coming out. What really gives it away is the fact its a quad core. The current westmere lineup only include 2 and 6 core processors. If 930 were more than a bloomfield revision, I think we would have heard about it already.

Also, looking at intel's past, new cores or die shrinks include new naming schemes. For instance when the core2 die shrink came out, we could differentiate the manufacturing process by looking at the first number: e8xxx meant 45nm and e6xxx meant 65nm. Only recently did intel decide to reuse old model names as they phased out the 65nm process. Intel still does this today.. how many lynnfield processors (which is a core update, not a die shrink) do you know of that starts with a 9? A lot of people say that intel's branding is convoluted, but I think some sense can be made of it.

Your build looks good. You chose i7 860 for a reason, and I don't think those reasons will change with 860 vs 930.

westmere lineup: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3513&p=5

 

[chunkymonster]

I have no reason to believe the 930 is anything but a revised bloomfield core. If there were a die shrink, we would have heard about it...

True that!

If this revision is something significant, like being able to push past 4.5GHz on good air cooling; then that might be worth playing with. But another $280 in this economy is hard to justify.

An article posted on Anandtech about the i7 930 came up in a Google search but when I clicked the link it appeared that Anand has taken it down. No spec sheets on the Intel site from what I could tell, either. No "official"info other than the press release.

 

[chowmanga]

If this revision is something significant, like being able to push past 4.5GHz on good air cooling; then that might be worth playing with. But another $280 in this economy is hard to justify.

An article posted on Anandtech about the i7 930 came up in a Google search but when I clicked the link it appeared that Anand has taken it down. No spec sheets on the Intel site from what I could tell, either. No "official"info other than the press release.

Yeah it may be worth playing with, but I was just thinking he chose i7 860 for lower power consumption, higher turbo binning and possibly cheaper ram with dual channel.

D0 was able to overclock higher than C0, so its possible that the next revision could go even beyond that. However, this whole thread is pure speculation. Like you said, nothing official can be found about it.

 

[mrcrybaby]

he def factored in lower power consumption, more aggressive turbo mode, and the likelihood that he will probably always be running a single gpu vs sli >.> haha.. he's also currently running: AMD 939 X2 4800+ toledo, asus a8n-sli, 2gbs ddr, an xfx black edition gtx260-216 with a tuniq 650w psu :] He is currently mainly worried about weak mobo bios's and foxconn sockets -_- ughhh...

u guys r great!

~mrcrybaby

 

[chowmanga]

...he's also currently running: AMD 939 X2 4800+ toledo, asus a8n-sli, 2gbs ddr, an xfx black edition gtx260-216 with a tuniq 650w psu :] He is currently mainly worried about weak mobo bios's and foxconn sockets -_- ughhh...

Ah yeah, aren't cpu bottlenecks a pain? Your cpu isn't doing your gtx justice.

I wouldn't worry too much about bios, they can be updated when the manufacturer revises them. As long as you don't go for a bottom-bin motherboard, there should be bios updates.

Did you read that anandtech article about foxconn sockets? Haha, as soon as I read that I opened up my case and checked my socket. Turned out to be LOTES. Even though I don't run lga1156, it was relieving to know it wasn't foxconn. I guess it was more a peace of mind thing than anything else. It's too bad they don't list the socket manufacturer on the motherboard box. Apparently, its not much of an issue unless you're doing extreme overclocking though.

article mentioned: http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3661

 

[mrcrybaby]

Ah yeah, aren't cpu bottlenecks a pain? Your cpu isn't doing your gtx justice.

I wouldn't worry too much about bios, they can be updated when the manufacturer revises them. As long as you don't go for a bottom-bin motherboard, there should be bios updates.

Did you read that anandtech article about foxconn sockets? Haha, as soon as I read that I opened up my case and checked my socket. Turned out to be LOTES. Even though I don't run lga1156, it was relieving to know it wasn't foxconn. I guess it was more a peace of mind thing than anything else. It's too bad they don't list the socket manufacturer on the motherboard box. Apparently, its not much of an issue unless you're doing extreme overclocking though.

article mentioned: http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3661

Ya seriously, it's that damn murphys law! haha... True, as of right now it's just known to be an issue with extreme overclocking, however no one really knows the long term effects until they happen. Bad contact over a long period (1-2 years) might cut down the life of the mobo OR the cpu somehow and that's just something i'd hate gamble with UNLESS it gets covered under warranty i suppose. I'm a college student so i'm overly cautious with my purchases by nature... especially in this economy! Way I see it is either wait till late November for new mobo batches or just cough up some more dinero for a safe X58 build :/

~mrcrybaby

 

[T3kl0rD]

This is my kind of nonsense. I can't afford a 920 right now anyways so I can wait for the 930. I prefer the 920/930 over the 860 because the GPU lanes are full x16 in CF/SLI among other reasons. I hope Micro Center has the 930 for $199 as well!

 

[chowmanga]

Ya seriously, it's that damn murphys law! haha... True, as of right now it's just known to be an issue with extreme overclocking, however no one really knows the long term effects until they happen. Bad contact over a long period (1-2 years) might cut down the life of the mobo OR the cpu somehow and that's just something i'd hate gamble with UNLESS it gets covered under warranty i suppose. I'm a college student so i'm overly cautious with my purchases by nature... especially in this economy! Way I see it is either wait till late November for new mobo batches or just cough up some more dinero for a safe X58 build :/

~mrcrybaby

Yeah, that's true. Its impossible to tell what would happen to the boards or cpu over time. That anandtech article stated that top tier evga boards don't use foxconn and that dfi won't use foxconn until further notice. Maybe you can look into getting one of those boards and cross your fingers.

I don't know what kind of apps you need to run, but since money's a big issue, maybe you could consider other options. I'm a student too and recently upgraded my cpu/mobo. The only apps I run that could be considered intensive are MatLab, Visual Studio, Eclipse, and CAD software for digital logic design. None of those are heavily threaded in my use of them and I don't game too much anymore so budget was taken into account heavily. The local electronics store had a combo deal with e7500 and msi p43 for $100 without rebates. At the time, you could get those two parts together on newegg for ~$200 so I jumped on it. It ended up being much faster than my previous build, so I'm happy.

I just wanted to share my experience because we're coming form the same boat. According to tom's hierarchy cpu chart, pretty much any cpu on the market today will be faster than your current 4800+. Unless your applications demand it, maybe it will be worthwhile to consider forgoing having the latest and greatest and upgrade later when you need to with the money saved.

Tom's cpu hierarchy, Oct.09: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu,2437-6.html

 

[mrcrybaby]

Good advice chow, but for right now im gonna play the waiting game I think... Looks like gigabyte gonna release thier sata6 boards soon for p55. Maybe right around the holidays or in time for the 930 to make its show??

~mrcrybaby