I5-750 vs i7-930 (vmware/linux/photoshop usage)

[maflynn]

Hello,
I'm looking to build a new system but I'm debating whether an i5 or an i7 would be a good fit.

As the title suggests, I'll be using windows7, linux, vmware for a number of guest OSs. Possibly running two or more at the same time. Some photoshop, and some adobe LightRoom.

I don't really play games so I'm not even going to add that into the equation.

Thanks
Mike

 

[Henry Chinaski]

Here you have some comparisons between the 750 and the 920 (which is very similar to the 930, only changes the multiplicator, so the 930's speed is a bit better: 2,8Ghz). You can get some conclusions.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/109?vs=47
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/2009-desktop-cpu-charts-update-1/compare,1396.html?prod%5B2617%5D=on&prod%5B3519%5D=on

I would go for the 930.

 

[maflynn]

Thanks for the links.
Can you (or anyone) can tell me if I'd see a benefit running vmware on the i7 over the i5. I'm thinking the hyperthreading of the i7 may be beneficial, provided vmware is written to handle it.

 

[Henry Chinaski]

The most important aspect for running wmware is to have a lot of RAM.

 

[maflynn]

Agreed, I have a MacBook Pro with 4 gig and its quite constrained. The good news is I'm running fedora as the guest OS and that's a small foot print. My win7 guest OS is another matter.

 

[Pro Llama]

I would say the i7 930 for sure. As you have more than one virtual os running it pulls harder on your system. The i7 has much more head room and with allow you to do more. As stated above the amount of ram is very important, so be sure to take full advantage of the 6 ram slots that the socket 1366 motherboards have.