Wait for i5?

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: SOON, I can wait a month if absolutely necessary

BUDGET RANGE: US$ 800-1200

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: 3D Modeling/Rendering, Gaming, Internet

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Monitor, keyboard/mouse, speakers, Optical Drive, GPU, PSU (i think? see below),

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Newegg.com or Local Fry's Electronics (I know they suck in most respects but I hate waiting for shipping) Other suggestions for etailers or retailers appreciated

PARTS PREFERENCES: I tend to prefer name brands for quality, but not fanatical about it

OVERCLOCKING: No (system is for college work, stability is paramount)
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Almost certainly not

MONITOR RESOLUTION: I work at 1900x1200 (Dell 24" LCD)

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Quiet PC, current system sounds like Jet Engine on Startup

Notes:
I am liking Antec P183 for the case, for silent rep and room to expand.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 1&Tpk=p183

I have a 600 watt seasonic psu from 2 or so years ago I think is powerful enough

seasonic ss-600ht ( no newegg page)

Im thinking of following Ars-technica April system guide for Hot Rod for CPU, Mobo, RAM, and etc here

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/gu [...] tion.ars/2

I am somewhat worried about i7 with i5 being released next month. I wonder if I should wait and go i5 or splurge now and have the new system ready for Fall semester.
Aside from that the only other concern is that funny feeling I get when dropping 1200 bucks at once.....

"funny" really doesn't describe it though "gut-wrenching" is more appropriate.

All replies appreciated

Message edited by menelath on 08-19-2009 at 06:02:02 AM

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microcnter had i7 920's for $200 .
cheaper than the i5 base model is likely to sell for

I dont think you will gain any thing much by waiting except a detuned i7

your psu will be fine unless you plan on installing top end gfx cards

Your link is to a budget pc

Reply to Outlander_04

correct address for ARS guide Hot Rod is

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/gu [...] tion.ars/2

Reply to menelath

as for microcenter, they don't have a retail place close to me and don't list i7-920s on their site

Reply to menelath

Don't wait for the i5, It's an i7 without hyperthreading. Who wouldn't want to pay extra 50 or so dollars for 4 extra virtual cores. It seriously increases performance by quite a bit, not to mention i5 doesn't use triple channel memory.

Message quoted 1 times

CG your the 2000000000 poster to ask the same dumb question.

Reply to daship

Buy the i7 920 now, no reason to wait with your uses.

Reply to dirtmountain

If it's not worth waiting to come out for then how are they going fit the i5 pricing in there?

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Reply to habitat87

stevensl2 wrote :

Don't wait for the i5, It's an i7 without hyperthreading. Who wouldn't want to pay extra 50 or so dollars for 4 extra virtual cores. It seriously increases performance by quite a bit, not to mention i5 doesn't use triple channel memory.

actually its an i7 with no hyper threading , memory bandwidth cut by a third ,a pci-e controller built in that doesnt speed anything up , and no QPI it wont run so well as an i7 in multi cpu boards

but you do get cheaper mb's

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Outlander_04

LOL!

I kind of assumed, but kind of knew already that they would hinder i3 and i5's performance but I think Intel went overboard with this one...

------------------------------ "Conspiring men derive intially from weakness being exposed" =me
Reply to habitat87

Where are you all getting that the i5 has no HT? There is only one model that is announced that has no HT the rest still do, so get your facts straight. Second prices for the i5 motherboard are gonna be a whole lot cheaper. Gigabyte has their p55 udr3 listed for 134.99 which is a hundred bucks less than the cheapest i7 board.

Here's the link

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/C [...] ,8448.html

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by slickjr169 on 08-19-2009 at 06:05:50 PM

Reply to slickjr169

and here's a link for a LGA1366 motherboard with SLI/crossfire, full size with 6- RAM slots for $189
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813130226

if you want to go mATX you can get one for $169.

Reply to dirtmountain

slickjr169 wrote :

Where are you all getting that the i5 has no HT? There is only one model that is announced that has no HT the rest still do, so get your facts straight. Second prices for the i5 motherboard are gonna be a whole lot cheaper. Gigabyte has their p55 udr3 listed for 134.99 which is a hundred bucks less than the cheapest i7 board.

Here's the link

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/C [...] ,8448.html

well since most of those hyprethreaded i5's are dual core cpu's its not that clever to compare them to quad cores .
The other exception is the top end i7 and thats not cheaper than an i7 920 so thats not worth waiting for , or that clever either

But you are perfectly correct when you agree with me about the cost of motherboards being lower , but again you get completely wrong when you claim its $100 cheaper than the cheapest i7 board

Perhaps you should get your facts straight
LOL

Its very close to i5's release , and I havent any doubt it will be a great performer and a better price than i7 , but no one knows what AMD will do with their pricing . Im sure they will stay ahead in the bang per buck catagory even if it means slashing prices since that has been their strategy for some time now .
Which is better value is still unknown i5 and phenom go head to head AND the prices stabilize.
Roll on cheaper processors

Reply to Outlander_04

AMD can't do anything with their pricing. They are way behind. $130 940 deneb? I don't think so...

And the Regors are about as cheap as they can get...

AMD is stupid for not offering the Regors for just a tadbit cheaper and bringing them out this late. They could have made a lot more sales from those cpu's if they had done this.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by habitat87 on 08-19-2009 at 11:33:50 PM

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Reply to habitat87

habitat87 wrote :

AMD can't do anything with their pricing. They are way behind. $130 940 deneb? I don't think so...

And the Regors are about as cheap as they can get...

AMD is stupid for not offering the Regors for just a tadbit cheaper and bringing them out this late. They could have made a lot more sales from those cpu's if they had done this.

the true cost to manufacture a top end Phenom quad core is less than the cost of the bottom end regor . There might not be much profit in it but there is some , and its a lot better than not selling cpu's at all even if your FAB amortization times become unreasonably long

They dont make the 940 any more so lets talk 945 . Yes $130 is possible , $160 probable because the 965 will be at or near the price of the 2.66 GHz i5 depending on relative performance

Reply to Outlander_04

If your talking about the Regor I disagree, they could have at least lowered the Regors a little bit when they first came out to make a lot more sales.

Hell, I'd have sold my e5200 to see what the Regor was about if it was priced at about $48 down from the $60 Regor 240. Sure, it's really low but they would have made out with more sales and would have Intel in a situation but they didn't do that.

That'd be something to see... Although an $80 x2 550 would be a lot more appealing.

Regors are already sort of phased out if this is the situation...

As far as the Deneb goes, I don't think they can take anymore more price bashing then they already are with these cpu's.

Message edited by habitat87 on 08-20-2009 at 12:16:03 AM

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Reply to habitat87

if you look at mainstream computer users , and how many are getting along just fine on an intel atom for their email and IM then I dont agree with your analysis of regor and other bottom end cpu's being obsolete

I tend to think that top end processors are so powerful now that almost no body needs them .

The bottom end exists because people want a computer , but the top end is there for a hard core of geeks and gamers . i7 is a server cpu , sold at retail probably to prove the design before it was rolled out as a Xeon . There is no retail use for the memory bandwidth or dual QPI and these "features" offered no benefit at all to gamers , but these are ideal for multi cpu server architectures .

AMD , quite rightly, set their prices to be cost/performance competitive with intels offerings in their respective price ranges . Business is about making money , not about making happy customers .
EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO MAKE CUSTOMERS HAPPY TO MAKE MONEY YOU DONT DO IT BECAUSE ITS GOOD TO HAVE HAPPY CUSTOMERS

Reply to Outlander_04

LOL!

Incorrect already. As for your first comment, I thought we were on the discussion of comparing AMD and Intel prices given that Intel is going to lower prices again to put the i3/i5 in retail stores.

I agree with that. I needed a computer since my socket 478 p4 wo/ht totally broke. I was going to get the AMD x2 5200 setup at the time but the e5200 that overclocks very well was a no brainer at best. And even after about a year and half later it still is. I only spent about 270 total on my computer so really I know exactly what you mean by people don't need all the speed that's being offered but that doesn't eliminate the fact that Intel has the whole market segment pretty much covered over AMD. And my setup is including a $100 dollar keyboard and mouse setup which I absolutely had to have.

Okay, I agree with that also.

AMD did a horrible job on trying to compete with Intel's lower offerings. Also, I disagree because I put my comment on the fact that AMD needs to make money and sales by setting the prices a bit lower to make it more appealing than Intel offerings. That was all. Why are you trying to add things in that don't even relate to the topic. Who cares about whether people are happy with their purchase. That's on them not the company. They don't handle personal issues that the customer has. Seriously...

As for your last comment, this is exacty why your are not making those decisions for AMD.

Message edited by habitat87 on 08-20-2009 at 01:08:59 AM

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Reply to habitat87

Also, Intel has faster counter parts for every Regor that's been released for about the same price range. Yeah, I know the Regor 250 is on sale, who cares... For about four dollars more you can get the e6300 which is better and let's not get into overclocking.

Message quoted 1 times

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Reply to habitat87

habitat87 wrote :

Also, Intel has faster counter parts for every Regor that's been released for about the same price range. Yeah, I know the Regor 250 is on sale, who cares... For about four dollars more you can get the e6300 which is better and let's not get into overclocking.

The AMD Athlon II X2 250 offers nearly identical performance as the E6300. In fact, it's better in almost all the gaming benchmarks. Do you even look at benchmarks before posting incorrect information?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] ii-x2.html

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=3572&p=1

The Athlon II X2 250 also overclocks to close to 4GHz.

Reply to shortstuff_mt

Regor 250 benchmarked against an e6300
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 324-9.html
Just to summarize the regor 250 is ahead in 3 out of 4 games and so close in the 4th theres no way to call a winner

Newegg costs
Regor 250 $79
e6300 $83.99

which one is a better deal?

Reply to Outlander_04

I was trying to have a more abstract discussion about the processors , their uses and pricing , and I still think their are valid points to make .

Go back 4 years and Athlon was the cpu king . The pentium 4s were not that good and couldnt compete .
Even with intels manufacturing and marketing might , even with intel doing deals with PC manufacturers that the EU now says were anti-competitive [ the recent fines !] they just couldnt compete and were losing ground .
At times AMD out sold intel .

Along comes c2d and its WAY better so intel milk the concept . They could have sold 3 GHZ c2d from day one but instead they clocked them lower , so they beat athlon and athlon x2 but by doing that intel gave people far worse processors then they could actually manufacture .
They ensured themselves huge profits by releasing tiny clock improvements that could have been there from day 1 and they milked the computer enthusiast .

AMD's counter punch was a disaster . The Phenom 1's werent as good , and the first models had the TLB error making them even worse . This brought AMD to its knees financially .

Roll on a few more years . Intel is still milking its clients , AMD is scrambling for business and cash flow
And their business strategy has been consistent for the last couple of years . The top end might belong to intel but who cares . Almost no one needs that much power , and only a few more enthusiasts are willing to pay for the bragging rights

Yes , demands on computers have risen , but the hardware is improving faster
AMD's strategy is bang for buck and it makes a lot of sense

Ignore clock speed and technical specs that no one outside these forums cares about and sell a processor that does a little more than the respective intel for $5 less .

If i5 is a revolution , then AMD's wheels will turn too , and they will stay price competitive no matter what .
But then intel are very good at marketing , and they wont be undercutting themselves and losing money on their top end processors . perhaps whats happened is that demand for socket 1366 Xeons is now high enough .
And stocks of the over priced socket 775 low enough .

Im sorry the arguments I was making went over your head habitat

But I can sumarise it pretty simply by saying I dont think its in any enthusiasts interest to buy pc components in the next 3 -4 weeks

Reply to Outlander_04

@Outlander_04

Can you call 6 fps on toms a significant difference? No.

Look at the whole review of benchmarks on toms, the e6300 clearly wins.

Everything else was basically neglible differences with a 200 mhz disadvantage. The e6300 is clearly the better choice.

I got my old stepping e5200 stable at about 3.8 ghz with a 1.4v. The new stepping is said to do this on nearly stock voltages. what's your point?

There are no detailed reviews on the e6300 overclocking and not much threads on it's overclocking abilities so I can't comment on that, but I know it overclocks well, I just usually like to find a lot threads before making such a comment.

Although, the second site you posted showed that the e6300 scales a lot better then the regor and was a lot faster even at 3.57 ghz vs 3.75 ghz. Which is bs since they were shoving 1.475v in the Regor and they said they couldn't get the e6300 to overclock anymore then they could while my e5200 can do 3.8 ghz easily with about 1.4v

Nevermind, I quote:

"Intel seems intent on keeping the Pentium E parts as crippled as possible, so the scenario above may not happen. But if it does, you can thank AMD for keeping competition alive"

I don't know about shortstuff's links, those sites tend be a bit biased. Probably a reason why none of these sites reviewed the e5200 properly... It overclocks too well while at stock speeds puts out some decent competition.

Well, if you can't catch the Regor on sale, obviously the e6300...

Like I said, it's on sale, so what, that's not the normal price range for the cpu...

I saved this comment to keep your attention glued to this post.

@shortstuff_mt

Yes, I sure do pay attention and I'll be honest I didn't look at those reviews but I felt I didn't need to since I've seen other small reviews where the e5200 was close to the Regor 250. I think they crippled the e6300 in a way we don't know about...

Either way, your basing your findings on newegg's sale price. The normal price for the Regor 250 is $94. If you want to compare this, then it would be fair to add in the e7400 and e7500 which would clearly win for just a bit more.

Both cpu's at 4 ghz and the e6300 and e5200 would slaughter that Regor in a second.

No, those are just basic things that happened over time, and it didn't go over my head, I was just watching and waiting for you to make an ass out of yourself because you thought you could prove my posts wrong, which you didn't...

But that's okay, cause that's not my persona, that's yours. I'm just here to have a good debate. Also, yout talking about a new released by AMD trying to compete with totally outdated architecture that Intel is trying to stretch out. Not a very good comparison and this makes AMD look really bad.

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by habitat87 on 08-20-2009 at 02:30:06 AM

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Reply to habitat87

habitat87 wrote :

Also, yout talking about a new released by AMD trying to compete with totally outdated architecture that Intel is trying to stretch out. Not a very good comparison and this makes AMD look really bad.

The E6300 is a brand new 45nm CPU.

Reply to shortstuff_mt

Okay, what does that have to do with the architecture of the cpu?

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Reply to habitat87

I know trying to have a reasonable conversation with you is impossible. I'm just saying that you get what you pay for in the mid-range segement whether you go with AMD or Intel at the moment. The Regor 250 and Intel E6300 offer very similar performance at nearly the same price. That trend continues all through the mid-range segment right now.

Reply to shortstuff_mt

If your keeping your cpu at stock I would recommend the Regor 250 over the e6300. I ain't agreeing with you cause that still doesn't pertain to the price/performance ratio. But nowadays it's almost stupid to leave your system at stock when these processors are overclocking to crazy speeds effortlessly on stock voltages without hardly any temp changes. Not to mention on sub ~$50 mobos. Also, I'd reccomend the e5200 over the e6300. Something weird about the cpu that I don't like. 65+50 for the cpu/mobo vs a NORMAL priced Regor at 94 dollars. For a sytem that the Regor can't touch when overclocked, that's quite the deal.

Currently have my e5200 cpu at 3.0 ghz at stock voltages. (Currently waiting for a mobo replacement to come in) According to the website you posted it's safe to assume since they have somewhat the same specifications overall that my cpu at 3.5 ghz can't be touched by a regor even at 3.75 ghz. And I'd love to see the app benchmarks at these speeds.

I think Toms should do a overclocked review on the e5200 and some of the core 2 duo cpu's at about 3.5 to 4.6 ghz. It'd be interesting to see what the scores would look like.

Message edited by habitat87 on 08-20-2009 at 03:12:29 AM

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Reply to habitat87

Its logic , Jim .. but not as we know it

Reply to Outlander_04

Quote :

Also, yout talking about a new released by AMD trying to compete with totally outdated architecture that Intel is trying to stretch out. Not a very good comparison and this makes AMD look really bad.

The regor is the same architecture introduced the first Phenom from a couple of years ago . Its not a new design at all .

You dont even have the most basic understanding of the hardware

Reply to Outlander_04

Yeah, it is. People get lost in the hype of all of it that's all.

Message quoted 1 times

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Reply to habitat87

habitat87 wrote :

Yeah, it is. People get lost in the hype of all of it that's all.

Was that an apology for deliberately misleading the people who might read your incorrect , false and uninformed posts?
if it was it was just as inadequate as the rest of the nonsense you post

if it wasnt I suggest you read this article
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2324.html
and then come back and make a proper apology, because you dont even have the most basic understanding of the topic you are posting about

or will you now accuse tomshardware of lying in their articles like you did about anandtech and xbitlabs?

Reply to Outlander_04

Where did I mention anything about AMD's cpu architecture? Hmmm...

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by habitat87 on 08-20-2009 at 04:19:46 AM

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Reply to habitat87

habitat87 wrote :

The first phenoms had 45nm? You don't think that has nothing to do with the architecture features of the cpu? Cache isn't part of the features either? I think you better rethink again...

http://www.tomshardware.com/galler [...] -jpg-.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] -x2_3.html

http://www.knowledgerush.com/kr/en [...] hitecture/

Quote:

"A family of CPU designs is often referred to as a CPU architecture."

We could sit here all day and I could say that well, there all basically x86 architecture cpu's so that doesn't really matter.

well you have proven my point about you not having even a basic understanding in a complete and thorough fashion . Thank you .

Reply to Outlander_04

Well, there are added features, but I changed my post because it was unnecessary to go into detail. I just realized I didn't mention anything about AMD's cpu architecture...

I got kind of lost there but I found out why, your original comment was incorrect.

Also, Cpu architecture does necessarily mean that a major change has to happen such as transistor count or ipc, although 45nm does lessen transistor count so technically it's an architecture change.

Toms must be full of it again! Toms you have no understanding of what cpu architecture is... Pffft... Have at it...

http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 746-2.html

"The microarchitecture behind Phenom has been known until now as K10, but is currently referred to as the Stars core. The most significant difference, as it highly influences the transistor count, certainly is the L3 cache, which is an extension to the twin-staged AMD64 cache design. While each processing core has its dedicated L1 data and instruction cache (64 kB each) as well as a 512 kB second-level cache, the L3 offers an additional 2 MB of super fast storage for all Phenom cores."

Obviously your one of those ignorant "know it alls" if you think this way. I was confused because I didn't realize I didn't mention AMD's architecture so I erased my last post cause it was unnecessary to post all of that.

Ironic...

Oh yeah, your quite welcome. But you should thank yourself for this one.

Message edited by habitat87 on 08-20-2009 at 04:33:41 AM

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Reply to habitat87

you dont even know the difference between an architecture change and a die shrink

a die shrink will NOT make a difference to the total number of transistors

Once again you dont even have the most basic understanding of the topics you post on

Reply to Outlander_04

Hmmm, funny, toms seems to classify this as part of the architecture of the cpu.

I guess Intel doesn't know what they are doing either... Maybe I don't have the basic understanding, but I'm sure Intel does... Of course I have to provide links... Here you go.

http://www.intel.com/cd/in/corpora [...] 340166.htm

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/arc [...] 28comp.htm

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Reply to habitat87

i5 is should be released in the second week of september, there were roomers of the 920 being extinct after that happens , but rescently those romers have died, my advice, buy the 920

------------------------------ "Envy is ignorance" - Henry Thoreau : Best quote ever.

http://www.pingtest.net/result/3022953.png

Reply to xaira

Why not just wait? price drops are worth waiting for.

You can also read the reviews about i3 and i5 also.

Message edited by habitat87 on 08-20-2009 at 05:31:08 AM

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Reply to habitat87

I opened a can of worms didn't I?

Ok, I've ordered the i7 from newegg so I'm commmitted now I guess, Im pretty much just gonna follow the "hot rod" build from the april edition of ars technica system guide, link to that is near the top if somebody wants to read it. Im more spurred on by the fact that fall semester starts next week and I want my new system up and running by then. I've also been spending way too much time obsessing over the decision than I should. 30+ hours of websurfing and forum hopping is quite enough. Gotta get it done, there are bigger fish need fryin

Thanks go to you whom responded, your input was appreciated...if in some cases not followed.

Reply to menelath

Just to clarify, I also chose i7 because it was the most powerful processor realistically available to a home users. This system is not primarily for gaming (notice I did not include a new gpu, my 8800gts will suffice for now) but for 3d applications and those of you who work with 3d know rendering is a bitch. 20+ hours to render a 30 sec. scene rotating scene of a lazy susan with 2 teapots and a bunch of grapes on it and only a basic light setup.

Reply to menelath

Outlander_04 wrote :

actually its an i7 with no hyper threading , memory bandwidth cut by a third ,a pci-e controller built in that doesnt speed anything up , and no QPI it wont run so well as an i7 in multi cpu boards

but you do get cheaper mb's

Haha thanks for elaborating!

i5 For the lose! i7 for the win! ( I sound like a fanboy, but they are both Intel Processors, so blow me people )

Focus On

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