I7 930 or i5 750

Hi i was thinking of getting a i7930 but my minds revamped a bit... Basically this pc is for gaming and is to last like 3-4 years, im getting a HD 5970 with it and i was thinking if i cut down on the i7 then i could maybe buy something else which could improve my performance more... such as switching gpu and trying to go for dual 480's though im sure there is a i5 mobo problem with the bandwidth of high end graphic card SLI and xfire.. I also like having several internet tabs open with lots of other aps open too such as gaming on one screen and msn and internet and something else on the other...Am i better just sticking with my i7 930? Also going with i5 750 would also mean i'd only have 4gb to run all these apps...

Am i right for going i7 930?

Reply to a1an

Go for i7 if you plan to crossfire HD 5970 such high-end card or else it will be bottleneck.

i5-750
Expansion Options
PCI Express Revision 2.0
PCI Express Configurations 1x16, 2x8

Reply to triplebug

I don't think there'd be any point of crossfiring 5970's in the future.. looks like they don't scale with eachother very well at all compared to gtx480's.. So i'd probably buy a new card after... but then i thought of getting a gtx480 and then in the future i can scale them up pretty well but then again the power you need for them takes the cake and also the heat... yeah the graphics card may be able to cope with the heat lol but will the mobo which is attached to it cope? lol, and im only going for ail cooling.

Reply to a1an

GTX480s would be the strongest setup you could get. However, do you need that much performance to warrant the price over 2 5870s?

As far as pcie lanes go, 8x 2.0 will decrease a 5870 by 2% and a GTX480 by 3% in performance. This is insignificant so 8x/8x crossfire/sli will do you more than fine.

As far as an i5 bottlenecking more than i7... The i5 is basically an i7 with no hyper threading. Since hyperthreading isn't used in games they perform extremely similar. Something to note, with i7-9xx you'll get triple chan memory, 16x/16x slots, better RAID, so if you have the money to spend i7 on the 1366 socket could be worth up premium.

Up to you!

If it was me and it was mainly a gaming machine i'd take i5.

------------------------------ "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent."

-Bill Gates

Reply to Raidur

makes no sense 2 me to buy a 5970 and a p55 mobo, get the 930

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ Athlon X2 5800+|ECS A740GM-M|Kingston 2GB DDR2
Reply to xaira

going the AMD way wouldn't be better would it?

Reply to a1an

to me it would, and to ur pocket it would be better also, you can get a phenom II 965 quad for $170 thereabouts or you can get a 1090t hexacore for $300 and a ultrapowerful 890fx board with an insane number of pci-e slots for just $200

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-890FXA-G [...] 755&sr=8-2

and later on you can add another 5970 even, with amd ur options are limitless, i wouldnt recommend going for dual 480s until they release the new revision with lower tdp also the noise is horrible i hear, or you can go tri 5870 or even quad, ah im babbling, the final choice is yours, for me, with a gaming rig, 965 asll the way, hope i helped

and if you still decide to go 1156, no there are no boottlenecks with even he 5970 in quadfire with dual x8 slots

Message edited by xaira on 05-03-2010 at 10:22:44 PM

------------------------------ Athlon X2 5800+|ECS A740GM-M|Kingston 2GB DDR2
Reply to xaira

In term of gaming & application performance, i5 750 still performs slightly better than Phenom X6.
Obviously i7 suits you better.

http://www.techspot.com/review/269 [...] page8.html
http://www.techspot.com/review/269 [...] page6.html

See the whole review.

Message edited by triplebug on 05-04-2010 at 02:35:10 AM

Reply to triplebug

xaira wrote :

makes no sense 2 me to buy a 5970 and a p55 mobo, get the 930

? Explain ?

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

What are you gonna be playing with em ? Old DX10 favorites or new DX11 games.....if DX11, here's what they cost you in "dollars per frame (fps)" in DX11 at 1920 x 1200 on hi settings

ATI 5970 11.93
nVidi 480 10.01
ATI 5870 10.59

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ If a man speaks in the forest and no woman hears him, is he still wrong ?
Reply to JackNaylorPE

well, if ur gonna blow all that cheddar on a gpu, i just dont think it makes sense to go budget on the rest of the build, some nice tripple channel memory, a visible upgrade path, multiple x16 pci-e slots etc

Message quoted 2 times

------------------------------ Athlon X2 5800+|ECS A740GM-M|Kingston 2GB DDR2
Reply to xaira

I get by on 4gb fairly well with multiple tabs, and other programs going while gaming. P55 will be fine with a single 5970. i5 750 is a really nice chip for the money. Platform wise a P55 setup is generally cheaper. You can take the money saved and use it towards better hdd's or better PSU and such.

------------------------------ HAF 922, 750w Corsair, Asrock P67 Extreme4, i5-2400,8gb Gskill ddr3 1600 Ripjaws,2x 750gb F1 Samsung, 2x Sapphire HD5850 Xtreme 1gb

Reply to logainofhades

xaira wrote :

well, if ur gonna blow all that cheddar on a gpu, i just dont think it makes sense to go budget on the rest of the build, some nice tripple channel memory, a visible upgrade path, multiple x16 pci-e slots etc

Right, But it's price to prformance.

Rather go i5 and 5970 as opposed to i7 and 5770.

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

Xaira does make a good point. It is pretty silly to pair a first rate GPU with a second rate platform.

But the performance purely for gaming will be very similar.

Now that the OP has heard the differences between i7 (1366) and i5 and can decide whether the 1366 (i7) perks are worth the premium.

Message quoted 2 times

------------------------------ "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent."

-Bill Gates

Reply to Raidur

Raidur wrote :

Xaira does make a good point. It is pretty silly to pair a first rate GPU with a second rate platform.

But the performance purely for gaming will be very similar.

Now that the OP has heard the differences between i7 (1366) and i5 and can decide whether the 1366 (i7) perks are worth the premium.

Why is it silly?

You are getting th ebest Price-preformance, nothing silly about thta!

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

Raidur wrote :

Xaira does make a good point. It is pretty silly to pair a first rate GPU with a second rate platform.

But the performance purely for gaming will be very similar.

Now that the OP has heard the differences between i7 (1366) and i5 and can decide whether the 1366 (i7) perks are worth the premium.

Its beyond BOGUS to call 1156 a 'second rate platform' You can choose from basic micro ATX boards to high end o/c specialty boards with every bell +whistle. If your referring to the pci-e lane specification. Its not a issue in 99% of configurations. P55 ,1156 offers dual channel memory VS triple in X58. Both offer more potential bandwidth which desktops don't get anywhere near utilizing.
Let me point out, since the AMD fanboys don't call the 890gx northbridge/platform , 'second rate' but it also only has 16 pci-e lanes available, or 8x 8x.

Quote :

In addition to its graphics core, the 890GX north bridge features second-generation PCI Express logic. 16 lanes of connectivity are reserved for discrete graphics cards, and unlike the 785G, the 890GX can split those lanes evenly between a pair of x8 links for CrossFire. The 890GX has an additional six PCIe lanes reserved for expansion slots and peripherals, too. http://techreport.com/articles.x/18539

Message edited by notty22 on 05-04-2010 at 04:51:19 AM

Reply to notty22

JackNaylorPE wrote :

What are you gonna be playing with em ? Old DX10 favorites or new DX11 games.....if DX11, here's what they cost you in "dollars per frame (fps)" in DX11 at 1920 x 1200 on hi settings

ATI 5970 11.93
nVidi 480 10.01
ATI 5870 10.59

I'll be playing both im just worried lookng at some of the videos on youtube the hd5970 will struggle with some of the tesselation in future games if developers use decide to go quite far with it.. where as the 480 is more optimized for it.

Reply to a1an

xaira wrote :

well, if ur gonna blow all that cheddar on a gpu, i just dont think it makes sense to go budget on the rest of the build, some nice tripple channel memory, a visible upgrade path, multiple x16 pci-e slots etc

Thats what i kinda thought i just wasn't sure if it was the right way forward or not because intel has already announced the new 1155 and 1335 motheroboards.. But i won't be looking to upgrade my pc for a while anyway after an i7 930 due to it being so good. And an i5 750 delivered good gaming performance too and was cheaper so i thought about going to get an i5 750 and maybe trying to get a SSD or something.. im already getting a 850 PSU. My build is actually on homebuilt area of the site but it must be like 4th or something now lol.

Reply to a1an

AMD X6

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to witcherx

witcherx wrote :

AMD X6

what? lol

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to a1an

a1an wrote :

what? lol

He was talking about a fail.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

at high resolutions in every other genre except RTS, the FPS will solely depend on GPU unless its a real crappy notebook CPU, but in other applications the phenomx6 will rock, there getting the X6 is the smartest choice

Reply to rescawen

^ Uh...

1. Sure

2. No.

Is that clear enough?

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

the x6 is a fail to not care about ur customers, so amd keep failing and ill keep buying

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by xaira on 05-04-2010 at 10:47:39 PM

------------------------------ Athlon X2 5800+|ECS A740GM-M|Kingston 2GB DDR2
Reply to xaira

xaira wrote :

the x6 is a fail not to care about ur customers, so amd keep failing and ill keep buying

Waht?

The's a grammer fail, speaking of fails.

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

No reason you need anything more than the i5-750, especially if you can or want to OC it. Benchmarks have shown repeatedly that the i5-750 is a perfectly capable gaming platform. And as folks already mentioned, the 8x / 8x PCI-E lanes is not a major issue with GPUs. We're talking 2-3% performance loss, versus $200 to $300 price differences depending on what exactly you're comparing.

Get a good quality P55 board, and i5-750, and use the money saved to buy a good GPU (5850, 5870, gtx 470, gtx 480). Get a new 1TB or 2TB hard disk, copious RAM (at least 4GB), and a decent 1080p monitor and call it good.

If you already bought an i7-930 then stick with that. You'll be fine.

Message edited by jerreece on 05-04-2010 at 11:48:16 PM

------------------------------ i5-750 4Ghz @ 1.32V / Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P / Xigmatek HDT-S1283
GTX 470 SLI / 8GB GSkill DDR3 1600 9-9-9-24 @1.5v
2 x WD Caviar Black 1TB / Thermaltake Armor BWS8003
Win 7 64bit / Antec TPQ-850 / Vantage P31806 / 3dMark06 25351 / 3dMark11 P7597
Reply to jerreece

Get a 955, overclock it to 3.8. Done deal. No need for anything above this PC for high resolution gaming, period.

------------------------------ E8500 @ 3.8 (Normal settings)
E8500 @ 4.5 (Benchmarking settings)
Reply to werxen

My point wasn't that 1156 wasn't enough to handle a 5970. The point was that if you're going to spend $600 on a GPU you might as well spend an extra $200 on a better platform/CPU.

Do you get my point?

I'm not saying 1156 is a bad decision.

And to X58, P55 is a 2nd rate chipset.

X58 first

P55 second

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by Raidur on 05-05-2010 at 12:00:56 AM

------------------------------ "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent."

-Bill Gates

Reply to Raidur

Raidur wrote :

My point wasn't that 1156 wasn't enough to handle a 5970. The point was that if you're going to spend $600 on a GPU you might as well spend an extra $200 on a better platform/CPU.

Do you get my point?

I'm not saying 1156 is a bad decision.

And to X58, P55 is a 2nd rate chipset.

X58 first

P55 second

Nope, your failing to make any point, that makes sense.
Two platforms, they don't compete against each other. They both have their own plus's + minuses. And depending on sales, combo deals ,either might be a better selection for someone whose main focus is gaming.
What does the price of a gpu have to do with, the price of platform selection ? Your scenario of a single card rig, makes your logic even worse. Either platform will have a primary 2.0x16 pcie slot.

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to notty22

Don't matter which one you get. What it really comes down to is this:

If you're going to spend 600 on a gpu setup then you NEED the 930 simply because once overclocked to 4 it will be the least bottleneck on those cards. MY recommendation is to not spend this kind of silly money on gpu+cpu setup unless you plan on running eyefinity at high resolutions. My setup still runs games perfectly fine and it is at least 21/2 years old. 955 + 5850 = win.

------------------------------ E8500 @ 3.8 (Normal settings)
E8500 @ 4.5 (Benchmarking settings)
Reply to werxen

I think ill only be playing it on one monitor at 1920x1080 resolution and yeah ofcourse your setup will win just now so far but there's no games which really test DX11 yet.. which will come out in the next 2-4 years and im wanting a future proof graphics card.. and a future proof processor for whichever i may be doing in the next 5 years sop i thought id go with i7 930 but i just wasn't sure if it still could be decently future proof if i went i5 750 and spent more money on a different part which would make a better difference

Reply to a1an

Yo! AMD. I am goin from X3 to X6 soon

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to witcherx

witcherx wrote :

Yo! AMD. I am goin from X3 to X6 soon

...? lol

Reply to a1an

and we care because?

------------------------------ Athlon X2 5800+|ECS A740GM-M|Kingston 2GB DDR2
Reply to xaira

notty22 wrote :

Nope, your failing to make any point, that makes sense.
Two platforms, they don't compete against each other. They both have their own plus's + minuses. And depending on sales, combo deals ,either might be a better selection for someone whose main focus is gaming.
What does the price of a gpu have to do with, the price of platform selection ? Your scenario of a single card rig, makes your logic even worse. Either platform will have a primary 2.0x16 pcie slot.

You aren't getting my point. So let's drop the point, it's irrelevant anyways.

I rarely advise 1366 for gaming systems, but someone with this much money to spend can make future-ability worth it.

The OP was talking about crossfire in the future no?

The only plus 1156 has over x58 (besides h55) besides cost is a more aggressive turbo on comparable CPUs usually making insignificant differences.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent."

-Bill Gates

Reply to Raidur

is there much point crossfiring 5970's in the future? they don't seem to scale too well in a way what would be worth the price but then again the 480 isn't exactly great with the heat which could probably fry your motherboard and taking in lots of power even though admirable performance and good scaling.. hard to justify though

Reply to a1an

Raidur wrote :

You aren't getting my point. So let's drop the point, it's irrelevant anyways.

I rarely advise 1366 for gaming systems, but someone with this much money to spend can make future-ability worth it.

The OP was talking about crossfire in the future no?

The only plus 1156 has over x58 (besides h55) besides cost is a more aggressive turbo on comparable CPUs usually making insignificant differences.

Incorrect.

P55 has only 16 lanes, not sutible for multi gpu.

X58 has 32-64 lanes, depeding on ammount of NF200.

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

whats NF200 by the way?

Reply to a1an

^ Allows more lanes for 3 way and 4 way Xfire/SLI

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

Ok, this is 2010 and you are buildind a brand new gaming PC from scratch, so my opnion on that:

- i7, I9 or Hexacores: absolutely not needed for gaming. Any fast quad-core will be plenty and it will save you power, heat and money. i5 or similar AMD is the way to go.

- 3xSLI/Xfire: pure stupidity. The new generation of DX11 cards offer all you want in graphics horsepower in a single GPU, and then some. Not to mention heat/power/noise... And by the time you'd want/need to upgrade your GPU, chances are that you are going to have to upgrade your mobo/cpu/memory sticks as well. So don't bother with triple GPU cards now.

My conclusion: buy the CHEAPEST mobo of any decent brand, an i5 or similar AMD, a good cooler, an SSD and invest in the best SINGLE GPU you can afford.

Message quoted 2 times

Reply to MARSOC_Operator

MARSOC_Operator wrote :

Ok, this is 2010 and you are buildind a brand new gaming PC from scratch, so my opnion on that:

- i7, I9 or Hexacores: absolutely not needed for gaming. Any fast quad-core will be plenty and it will save you power, heat and money. i5 or similar AMD is the way to go.

- 3xSLI/Xfire: pure stupidity. The new generation of DX11 cards offer all you want in graphics horsepower in a single GPU, and then some. Not to mention heat/power/noise... And by the time you'd want/need to upgrade your GPU, chances are that you are going to have to upgrade your mobo/cpu/memory sticks as well. So don't bother with triple GPU cards now.

My conclusion: buy the CHEAPEST mobo of any decent brand, an i5 or similar AMD, a good cooler, an SSD and invest in the best SINGLE GPU you can afford.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NONO NO NO NO NO NO NO NONO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

1. An i7-930 is rewuired to avoid bottleneck once you get to the high end, (ie Dual 480s/5970)

2. No. The 5770 Xfire i the bes Price/preformance you can find.

3. The GTX 480s scale very well, and triplw 480s is the perfect soultion for 2560x1600.

4. SSDs don"t help frames. An SSD and a 5770 at 25x16 will be a fail.

5. it's pretty clear you"re not a hardcore gamer.

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

builderbobftw wrote :

^ Allows more lanes for 3 way and 4 way Xfire/SLI

Could be a little more clearer but yes it allows more lane.

a1an: NF200 is nvidia chipset the provides more PCIe lanes that a normal motherboard has. Most common step ups i seen in the high end gives an addition x16 slot making 3 16x PCIe. If there 4 slots than it normally gives 8x instead of x8 for 3 slots

Message edited by warmon6 on 05-05-2010 at 11:04:39 PM

------------------------------

http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/4272/sfolding6.gif

<-- CLick the banner!

Reply to warmon6

MARSOC_Operator wrote :

Ok, this is 2010 and you are buildind a brand new gaming PC from scratch, so my opnion on that:

- i7, I9 or Hexacores: absolutely not needed for gaming. Any fast quad-core will be plenty and it will save you power, heat and money. i5 or similar AMD is the way to go.

- 3xSLI/Xfire: pure stupidity. The new generation of DX11 cards offer all you want in graphics horsepower in a single GPU, and then some. Not to mention heat/power/noise... And by the time you'd want/need to upgrade your GPU, chances are that you are going to have to upgrade your mobo/cpu/memory sticks as well. So don't bother with triple GPU cards now.

My conclusion: buy the CHEAPEST mobo of any decent brand, an i5 or similar AMD, a good cooler, an SSD and invest in the best SINGLE GPU you can afford.

Where is this I9 you speak of? :lol:

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------

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Reply to warmon6

warmon6 wrote :

Where is this I9 you speak of? :lol:

Don"t feed, or even acknowlege it!
Just kick it back under the bridge, where it belongs.

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

(Intel meeting) Lets get rid of i9

i7 975 quad

i7 970 hexa

this wont cause any confusion at all

------------------------------ Athlon X2 5800+|ECS A740GM-M|Kingston 2GB DDR2
Reply to xaira

^ lmfao harsh ^^ but yeah doesn't make much sense when i want something which is quality and will give me superb performance throughout 2-4 years

Just so you don't have to debate much about what i'd be getting with an i7 930 if im to go with that heres my pc list build

PC BUILD

CPU : I7 930 - £219.73
http://www.rusmart.co.uk/product_i [...] ts_id=1092

MOBO : Asus P6X58D-E - £163.72
http://www.micomonline.co.uk/produ [...] 0EAY00Z&go

RAM : 6GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 PI Series CL6 (6-8-6-20) Triple Channel kit £172.68
http://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Skill-PC [...] 605&sr=8-9

GPU : Sapphire RADEON HD 5970 2GB DX11 OC PCI-E 2XDVI DP ATI EYEFINITY IN -£476.32
http://www.lambda-tek.com/componen [...] ID=B274865

HARDDRIVE : Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 SATA 3Gb/s 500GB Hard Drive - £34.53 https://www.pricelover.com/product/ [...] 3500418AS/

POWER SUPPLY : Antec 850W CP - £88.76
https://www.pricelover.com/product/ [...] 5-06881-9/

Antec Twelve-Hundred ATX Full Tower Computer Case - £104.93
https://www.pricelover.com/product/ [...] 5-08120-7/

HSF : Noctua NH-U12P SE2 Quiet Dual Fan CPU Cooler, Intel and AMD - £59.33
http://www.overclock.co.uk/product [...] 24851.html

TOTAL = £1320

Message edited by a1an on 05-06-2010 at 12:13:12 AM

Reply to a1an

You read me wrong builderbob, I was talking about 1156's benefit over 1366, not the other way around.

Either way a 5970 shouldn't see much of a performance hit from an 8x slot (under 5%), but I haven't seen any accurate data on the matter.

Message quoted 1 times

------------------------------ "The world today has 6.8 billion people. That's heading up to about nine billion. Now if we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services, we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 percent."

-Bill Gates

Reply to Raidur

NF200 can be implemented by any m/b manufacturer.
X58 has 36pci-e lanes, 32 are available for the graphics cards.
rofl at this hardcore gamer cr*p
dual 5970's is not a good idea, because this is 4 way crossfire, which scales lousy.
8x 8x is plenty for dual gpu.
When a 5970 a dual gpu card is in your top 16x slot, each gpu talks to your system at 8x through a bridge . This is partly why two 5870's at 16x 16x can outperform a 5970 even clocked the same .

Reply to notty22

Raidur wrote :

You read me wrong builderbob, I was talking about 1156's benefit over 1366, not the other way around.

Either way a 5970 shouldn't see much of a performance hit from an 8x slot (under 5%), but I haven't seen any accurate data on the matter.

8x 8x imposes a 4% preformance loss on any cards in Xfire, Wether they be 3870s, or 5970s.

Message quoted 2 times

------------------------------ "As far as other trolls, I'm glad to say that I have not run across anyone else quite like builderbob on these forums."- elel
"I try to remain optimistic and assume he is intelligent"- astralite
@astralite
"I ROFLED SO DAMN HARD!!" halodude
Reply to builderbobftw

builderbobftw wrote :

8x 8x imposes a 4% preformance loss on any cards in Xfire, Wether they be 3870s, or 5970s.

With regards to the 3870 a pci-e x8 1.0 slot maybe, but I doubt it would suffer anything from a pci-e 2.0 slot. 5970 OTOH, would most definitely choke in either.

------------------------------ HAF 922, 750w Corsair, Asrock P67 Extreme4, i5-2400,8gb Gskill ddr3 1600 Ripjaws,2x 750gb F1 Samsung, 2x Sapphire HD5850 Xtreme 1gb

Reply to logainofhades

Forum CPU & Components : CPUs I7 930 or i5 750

CPUs

Power Supplies, Cases & Mods

Sound Cards

Servers

NICs

Other Components

Akasa

Antec

Cooler Master

Cougar

DeepCool

Enermax

Please mind