Intel Core I5 or i7?

"Better" is subjective. What are you mainly going to be doing on your PC? All I've learned is that a balanced system which suits your needs is the best way to go. However, just as a suggestion based on others replies to my own inquiries, if price is no issue, go with the i7 920. It has an upgradable future and pulls ahead in benchmarks. The 1366 platform will cost more, however, and for me that decides a lot. Again people can be more helpful if you list your whole planned system and give usages for it. God bless.

+1.

Well said.  

What i mean by best is what wil perform better in the benchmarks? If the i5 670 was added to the tomshardware cpu benchmarks now, would it perform better or worse than the i7 920?

Until you actually decide on a budget and purpose of build, the differences are academic.

I actually have a similar question. I've been itching for an i7 920 system for a while, but the money I need just isn't coming in the way I want.

My intended use is gaming and 3D CAD work, but the 3D CAD is DirectX based, so I can kill both birds easy enough. My budget is <$2k. I intend to drop the 160GB Intel SSD-M in there as my primary drive, and either the latest Radeon, or wait for the GF100. This will be a single card solution.

My concerns arise with the LGA1156 vs LGA1366 situation. I can only afford to do massive system overhauls every 3 years or so, so i'd like to leave myself the option to purchase incremental upgrades over the next couple years. This leaves me debating between the i7 920 and i5 750. I intend to overclock to 4Ghz. I undersand it's going to be a $300 motherboard either way, but choosing between a socket is causing me a touch of anxiety.

Suggestions or thoughts?

While we're here, any suggestions on a good air cooler for a LGA1156? There seems to be quite a bit of support for teh LGA1366 socket, but less so for the LGA1156, especially when intending significant overclock.

my choice would be the core i5 670 (3.46ghz, 2cores 4 threats) its a easy overclocker combine that with 8gb ram, ssd128gb (kingston v+ or intel g2) to put your programs and OS on + hd with 64 mb cache for your files for storage + take a motherboard that is usb3 ready and has more then 2sata controllers such a mother board you can find between 130 and 230€ acording to your below 2000€ budget i would go for the ati 5850
if you got this then you got a fine pc

Unless you are using single threaded app like AutoDesk's AutoCAD. Multiple cores are redundant and processor speed is everything with AutoCAD.