Core i7 920 vs core i5 750

[jcpwn3r]

I'm kicking myself for building an LGA 775 system at the time that they are pretty much being phased out. The one I got now works well and now that I've OCed it, I can run any game at full settings, even crysis. but I am worried that in the future I will need to upgrade and I believe that when I decide to upgrade the value of the parts I have will go down to almost nothing.

right now my CPU is worth 900 RMB or roughly 130 USD and my mobo is worth 700 RMB or 100 USD

I was looking at either an i5 because the price is reasonable and the performance is good, but the i7 920 is known to be great processor as well , but it costs 300 bucks.

according to the following website http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634 the i5 is equal to the I7 920 in performance but uses more power, which i don't care about because I have plenty to spare.

if I replace my core2duo setup with
an i5 : $140mobo + $190CPU - $230old parts = $102 to upgrade
an i7: $200mobo+ $300CPU - $230old parts = $270 to upgrade

I care about the following aspects
game performance:
Overclock ability:
Price:

so far the i5 is way in the lead for price but is there anything anyone would like to say that would cause me to spend an extra 170 to go for the i7?

 

[Flying Sq]

I love my 920, hit 3.8 easy, barely changing voltage, and with the PCI-E controller on the die for an i5, you loose lanes if you plan on sli/crossfire. The 920 uses 1336, which will have the i9 sku on it, so if you looking for pure performance with years to come, go for the 920, the 750 will still provide performance, but with out the additional cores to be see in later models.

 

[andy5174]

Performance: Since i5 is equal to i7-920 most of the time according to the article you mentioned, save the money towards a better graphic card.

OC ability: They are pretty even and you can oc both of them to 4.2GHz with an average chip which is what you most likely to get.

Price: There's no way for you to find another Intel CPU that is better than i5 in cost-performance ratio.


i7-920 will have significant performance gain in 8-thread applications which I have never seen and not likely to become popular within a few years.
However, there definitely are some rare applications that will utilize all 8 threads according to cjl who is an owner of i7-965

 

[andy5174]

I love my 920, hit 3.8 easy, barely changing voltage, and with the PCI-E controller on the die for an i5, you loose lanes if you plan on sli/crossfire. The 920 uses 1336, which will have the i9 sku on it, so if you looking for pure performance with years to come, go for the 920, the 750 will still provide performance, but with out the additional cores to be see in later models.

As long as you don't have something like two HD5970, the difference between 8x and 16x is minimal.

As for i9, I am sure that 99% of the LGA1366 owner including you won't be able to afford it.

Yes, 920 is more future proof than i5 but you will have something better for cheaper then. I doubt that you will see 920 beating up i5 badly in 3-4 years.
And there's NO additional cores on 920! The extra four cores are LOGICAL which won't give you much performance gain.

 

[jcpwn3r]

is it true that most games only use 2 threads, and at most 4?

yeah right now I have 2 gtx 260s and at the most I will have something equivalent to 2 gtx 295s at sometime in the distant future.

 

[andy5174]

is it true that most games only use 2 threads, and at most 4?

yeah right now I have 2 gtx 260s and at the most I will have something equivalent to 2 gtx 295s at sometime in the distant future.

Most games utilize 3 cores now and only some TO BE RELEASED games will utilize four cores.

 

[andy5174]

However, I would get a PII-955 instead if I were you. Because, the cost-performance of PII-955 is much better than i5 in East Asia.

Besides, 955 is more than enough for all the graphic card setups as i5/i7.

 

[jcpwn3r]

only problem with that is there are literally no motherboards that support SLI and AM3 processors in the entire country. Plus they looooovvvvveeee the new intel lines in china so they have some good deals, and not to mention the prices are identical here in china.

2491 RMB plus shipping for an i5 and an MSI P55-GD65 mobo so therefore I am only spending about 900 rmb (120) USD for the upgrade, not bad imo

 

[andy5174]

i5 will be your best option then.

 

[jcpwn3r]

alright then, now I just need to earn 1000 rmb