Gaming CPU - Which One Should I Get?

[acidischemical]

*NOTE, I know I have written a lot, you do not need to try and help me in every aspect, and most of my writing are details, NOTE*

Alrighty, I've decided to make my own gaming PC, I may or may not do it. I am looking to gather some information and at this point I want to know how I can combine different CPU's with motherboards and GPU's.

I have a keen eye on the "Core i7-920" CPU, but I spotted a "Core i7-960" CPU, which is a newer version of the "920".

The 960 seems to be about twice the price of the 920, and the only difference I know of the two is that the 920 has a "mult X 20" and the 960 has a "mult X 24". As you can guess, I'm not very experienced, I think the "mult" is the Bus of the CPU?

I still have my eye on the 920, as it is half the price of the 960, and only lacks the bus by 4notches.

I want to know if that makes a difference at all? Perhaps it's a no biggy, but still something you could notice lacking with the 920?

Also, what type of motherboard/GPU could I use with the 920/960?

The type of games I want to run are fast paced games. like FPS/Action/A few RPG/MMORPG (maybe)/Racing.

Those sorts, where the better your computer is, the better you can play the game.

Another thing is, I went on "Can you rune it" and it said my CPU/GPU doesn't have a vertex shader.
Does the 920/960 have these?

 

[fatfatr]

The i7 960 is a overclocked 920. Buying the 960 over the 920 is basically a waste of money.

 

[shubham1401]

Anything pricier than 920 is simply waste of money.

Even the 200$ i5 750,when OCed ,outperforms 1000$ i7.

 

[acidischemical]

What is the difference between the bus on each model?
I'm not looking into overclocking my cpu.

 

[Scotteq]

As pointed out above, the 960 is a faster 920 and is otherwise identical. The base clock speeds differ, but they use the same buss.

 

[acidischemical]

As pointed out above, the 960 is a faster 920 and is otherwise identical. The base clock speeds differ, but they use the same buss.

How much more faster is it? But I'm still leaning towards the 920.

 

[Scotteq]

How much more faster is it? But I'm still leaning towards the 920.

I suppose I could give a trite response based on clock speeds.... But rather than that, the answer to your question is "it depends on which benchmark you choose." In a gaming situation, the overall FPS you get will be much more dependent on yoru GPU rather than your CPU.

 

[warmon6]

*NOTE, I know I have written a lot, you do not need to try and help me in every aspect, and most of my writing are details, NOTE*

Alrighty, I've decided to make my own gaming PC, I may or may not do it. I am looking to gather some information and at this point I want to know how I can combine different CPU's with motherboards and GPU's.

I have a keen eye on the "Core i7-920" CPU, but I spotted a "Core i7-960" CPU, which is a newer version of the "920".

The 960 seems to be about twice the price of the 920, and the only difference I know of the two is that the 920 has a "mult X 20" and the 960 has a "mult X 24". As you can guess, I'm not very experienced, I think the "mult" is the Bus of the CPU?

I still have my eye on the 920, as it is half the price of the 960, and only lacks the bus by 4notches.

I want to know if that makes a difference at all? Perhaps it's a no biggy, but still something you could notice lacking with the 920?

Also, what type of motherboard/GPU could I use with the 920/960?

The type of games I want to run are fast paced games. like FPS/Action/A few RPG/MMORPG (maybe)/Racing.

Those sorts, where the better your computer is, the better you can play the game.

Another thing is, I went on "Can you rune it" and it said my CPU/GPU doesn't have a vertex shader.
Does the 920/960 have these?

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=47&p2=45

(core i7 965 is the closest cpu to the core i7 960)

For gaming, the core i7 has more power than it's needed. most games can only use 2 thread of the 8 threads the i7 has.

Scene gaming is more gpu dependent than cpu, A powerful gpu will be needed. Scene the core i7 the most powerful consumer cpus (at the moment in time), they can run any gpu the avalible today. The recommenced gpu is the Radon HD 5870, although the 5850 is just as good.

 

[Wisecracker]

Repeat after me:

It's the video card(s).

 

[acidischemical]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=47&p2=45

(core i7 965 is the closest cpu to the core i7 960)

For gaming, the core i7 has more power than it's needed. most games can only use 2 thread of the 8 threads the i7 has.

Scene gaming is more gpu dependent than cpu, A powerful gpu will be needed. Scene the core i7 the most powerful consumer cpus (at the moment in time), they can run any gpu the avalible today. The recommenced gpu is the Radon HD 5870, although the 5850 is just as good.

Ahh, well that explains quite a lot to me, thanks!

So, the CPU doesn't affect the Frames P/s I can achieve, the GPU does that. So the reason you'd want a powerful CPU is to handle a fairly powerful GPU?
I don't want to build a computer for gaming/browsing the net only. I want it to be capable to rendering true HD 1080P videos on Vegas (which can take a few hours!) and for it to load changes made on heavyweight programs. (like Photoshop / Macromedia Flash 8)

And can someone suggest where to look for GPU's? I know NVIDIA have a wid-, err.... unnecessary HUGE range of cards.
They just have hundreds of GeForces and what-nots, I can't tell which is for gaming and which is for other things.

I'll sniff around for the Radon HD 5870 you suggest, thanks ^.^

 

[werxen]

Well yes you can overclock the 920 to reach the speed of the 1,000+ dollar CPUS but nobody here took into consideration the multipliers of the uber cpus such as the extreme editions. If you think you can OC the 920 far.... wait till you OC the x editions. Those things are monsters. Sure, all the Intel line cpus are the same just different voltage rating depending on the manufacturing process but those EE chips are no joke. Worth the price IF you oc them.

 

[Aneesh@4GHz]

Get the 920 and OC it!