Which Processor For My New Rig?

[Heir]

Hey guys I know I have posted about buying my rig in the past and now I'm finnaly getting it within 1 week. I was getting almost everything ready but I ran into a bit of a problem. I am not sure whether to get an i5 750 or an i7 860. The fact that the i7 860 is basically the same as the 750 except for the fact that it has 2x the threads and hyperthreading and the fact that it starts on higher clock by default. I read that threads are the smallest part of any program.


What I ask is, if how much benefit 2x more threads can have?
If only 2 cores are in use, does that mean only 2 threads are active or are all 4?
Can anybody shed some more light for me please.

I don't plan on upgrading or buying a new computer anytime soon.
I might crossfire my Radeon 5870 later due to the fact that I'm on a budget that I cant go over and when it would be more affordable.
I do plan on heavily overclocking at some point just to try it.

Here are my current specs.

i5 750 or i7 860
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro 1156 P55 SATA6Gb/s USB3.0 Crossfire8x/8x
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 1.5V DDR3 1600 Dual Channel
Radeon HD 5870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 DirectX 11
W.D. Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA II
SeaSonic 850W Crossfire/80 PLUS SILVER Certified
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 – 1x 120mm 2x 200mm fans
Windows 7 Home Premium

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

Unless you do crossfire you only need at most a 650watt ps. if you do spend the extra money for the power supply you might as well spend the money for crossfire. That's what credit cards are for . I do recommend corsair power supplies though. Good choice on motherboard. I have an asus also and no problems here.

as for i5 vs i7 it's all about what you're doing with your computer. If you're just gaming the i5 at the same clock speed is slightly faster then my xeon quad core at 2.8ghz. What I have is plenty fast. Do you need something like a core i7? depends on your budget I guess. i would say you would be happy with a i5 impo. You could use the extra money to buy another ati card and crossfire. That would benefit you more than the extra 4 hyperthreads.

this is what I would do:
i5 750
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro 1156 P55 SATA6Gb/s USB3.0 Crossfire8x/8x
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 1.5V DDR3 1600 Dual Channel (I'm more of a corsair xms fanboy but these are fine)
x2 - Radeon HD 5870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 DirectX 11
W.D. Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA II (I'm more of a seagate fanboy but this is fine)
Corsair 850W Crossfire/80 PLUS SILVER Certified
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 – 1x 120mm 2x 200mm fans

Hey guys I know I have posted about buying my rig in the past and now I'm finnaly getting it within 1 week. I was getting almost everything ready but I ran into a bit of a problem. I am not sure whether to get an i5 750 or an i7 860. The fact that the i7 860 is basically the same as the 750 except for the fact that it has 2x the threads and hyperthreading and the fact that it starts on higher clock by default. I read that threads are the smallest part of any program.


What I ask is, if how much benefit 2x more threads can have?
If only 2 cores are in use, does that mean only 2 threads are active or are all 4?
Can anybody shed some more light for me please.

I don't plan on upgrading anytime soon but I might crossfire my Radeon 5870

Here are my current specs.

i5 750 or i7 860
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro 1156 P55 SATA6Gb/s USB3.0 Crossfire8x/8x
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 1.5V DDR3 1600 Dual Channel
Radeon HD 5870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 DirectX 11
W.D. Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA II
SeaSonic 850W Crossfire/80 PLUS SILVER Certified
COOLER MASTER HAF 922 – 1x 120mm 2x 200mm fans

 

[Heir]

Well, I might use the PC for more than gaming later on but do all the threads always run or are they assigned to a core and when that core runs so does the thread?
ie. 2 cores are running so are only 2?

And for the extra 200 watts the price is only $20 more

 

[Mark Heath]

For mainstream, 750'd be the better choice, but for things like photoshop, which is both relatively intensive but also well threaded (designed to benefit from running in more threads) 8 threads would be better.

But if you're doing something that would benefit from the extra threads, then usually the X58 platform would be better anyway, but as I said, mainstream and gaming use, the 750's cheaper price is usually better than the hyperthreading.