1156 vs 1366 with Crossfire

[wardy22]

i'm sure this question has already been asked hundreds of times but i can't seem to get the answer in my searches through older threads.

I was wondering what the biggest Noticeable difference was between two video cards (specifically 5850's) running at a x8 bandwidth on an 1156 motherboard with i7-860 and the same cards running on an 1366 with an i7-920

my biggest question is how will gaming be effected by the two cards running with half the bandwidth.

 

[abhishekk89]

about 5-10 % of performance increase seen in the 1366 platform...

 

[gidgiddonihah]

There is a VERY SMALL difference, maybe 5 fps in a game (from 8x 8x to 16x 16x), really nothing to sweat about, i had this very question , i got an answer just about a month ago... Cant remember which of my threads has it .

Even the two CPU's don't have much difference. I dont think its worth the money...

 

[Crashman]

i'm sure this question has already been asked hundreds of times but i can't seem to get the answer in my searches through older threads.

I was wondering what the biggest Noticeable difference was between two video cards (specifically 5850's) running at a x8 bandwidth on an 1156 motherboard with i7-860 and the same cards running on an 1366 with an i7-920

my biggest question is how will gaming be effected by the two cards running with half the bandwidth.

I wouldn't bother with the i7-860...I had one, it sucked for overclocking. I'd save a bunch of money and get the i5-750.

 

[tecmo34]

^+1... I agree 110% with Crashman.

The i5 750 is the best bang for the buck to performance CPU you can purchase... IMO

 

[chefboyeb]

1156, and grab an I5 750 while you're at it...

 

[duk3]

If you are using 5870s, the x8 vs x16 comparison for this is around a 4% increase in FPS on the 1366 platform.
You can see this nicely in this article.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p55-crossfire-nf200,2537.html
Doing just a small bit of number crunching, the 1156 platform loses ~4% vs the 1366 platform.

 

[jedimasterben]

^+1... I agree 110% with Crashman.

The i5 750 is the best bang for the buck to performance CPU you can purchase... IMO

Actually, the Xeon X3440 is an awesome CPU for the money. The i5 is roughly $200, the X3440 is $240, and the i7 860 is $280 (all prices are rough from a few stores), and the Xeon has hyperthreading if you do a lot of multitasking or use a lot of threads.

 

[wardy22]

thanks a lot for the answers, I'll take the advice that seems to be coming from most people and go with the i5-750 thanks again

 

[JackNaylorPE]

about 5-10 % of performance increase seen in the 1366 platform...

There's also the 920's overcloking ability to consider based upon this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-core-i7,2582-15.html

First let’s consider the gamers out there. Both the Core i5-750 and Core i7-920 do a fantastic job when it comes to complementing a powerful graphics subsystem. I can say that the Core i5-750 CPU is a fantastic gaming processor, and for the typical gaming enthusiast, there is little incentive to spend more money on the Core i7-920 CPU. However, for those about to overclock, the Core i7-920 salutes you. For whatever reason, it seems to leapfrog the Core i5-750 when both were pushed to higher speeds. Granted, the Core i7 in our tests does sport a higher overclock in the first place, but that still doesn’t fully explain the disproportionate leap in performance. You can blame some of the difference on the Core i7’s superior memory and PCIe lane bandwidth I suppose, and it should be mentioned that the memory was much more overclocking-friendly when it came to this particular Core i7 build.

 

[Crashman]

There's also the 920's overcloking ability to consider based upon this article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-core-i7,2582-15.html

First let’s consider the gamers out there. Both the Core i5-750 and Core i7-920 do a fantastic job when it comes to complementing a powerful graphics subsystem. I can say that the Core i5-750 CPU is a fantastic gaming processor, and for the typical gaming enthusiast, there is little incentive to spend more money on the Core i7-920 CPU. However, for those about to overclock, the Core i7-920 salutes you. For whatever reason, it seems to leapfrog the Core i5-750 when both were pushed to higher speeds. Granted, the Core i7 in our tests does sport a higher overclock in the first place, but that still doesn’t fully explain the disproportionate leap in performance. You can blame some of the difference on the Core i7’s superior memory and PCIe lane bandwidth I suppose, and it should be mentioned that the memory was much more overclocking-friendly when it came to this particular Core i7 build.

I wouldn't want to call out a colleague on a statement made in good faith, but I will point out that 1.) The 750 was overclocked on the STOCK cooler (and is actually easier to overclock with similar-sized cooling) 2.) That the x8/x8 configuration DOES LOSE around 4% in gaming performance, and 3.) That ATI has actually been bragging that these new drivers offer noticeable performance improvements over previous versions.

 

[RJR]

I wouldn't bother with the i7-860...I had one, it sucked for overclocking. I'd save a bunch of money and get the i5-750.

I agree if you aren't running many multi-threaded programs where the HT would come into play. As far as the OCing goes, I'm running my 860 at 4.0 Ghz (with HT enabled) without a problem at 1.31v so I wouldn't say they are bad Ocer's, but YMMV.