Core i7 930 vs Core 2 quad Q9400

core i7 has 6 core's. C2Q has only 4 but to be real honest no games need that extra 2 cores. what you do loss out on is advanced things like hyper threading (and ddr3 i think)   but thats still a nice build  

I am on the same boat here. deciding if upgrade from 9550 to i7.
current setup is 9550 stock/OCed and 4870x2.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/46?vs=76
ddr2 and ddr 3 RAM isnt something that really is worth think about because nowadays ram isnt the limiting factor..
If you had a chance to return them i would advise you to..Sandy Bridge is around the corner..January 11 is the official announce date take a look at the benchmarks.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3871/the-sandy-bridge-pre...

The i7 930 is a quad core not a hexa core.


Only the 970, 980x and upcoming 990x are hexacores

So the main difference is the architecture and the hyperthreading (terms of the cpu, excluding the ram bit)

Overall the i7s are much better, but in terms of gaming, gpu is probly gonna limit you more then cpu.

However, as zulfadhi mentions, lga 775 is pretty much dead, whilst lga 1366 socket will last a bit longer, but as mentioned sandy bridge is around the corner.

Q9400 is no slouch for gaming. What GPU are you using? Are you overclocking? It may be worth it, it may not.



I use a Q9550 @ 3.6ghz with 4890 crossfire and it's plenty.

You're fine. I couldn't see myself upgrading until I get 5870 crossfire or better.

Ah sorry about that, thought it was hex. no worries  

I have Two HD 5870's sitting in my closet I'm going to CF. The Core i7 would be far less of a bottleneck for that setup than the C2Q or Phenom II. The Core i7's are also known to overclock very well.

The Sandy Bridge is around the corner, but most games are GPU-limited than CPU limited. A faster CPU might give you 5-10 more fps in most situations, but most of the performance will come from having faster graphics cards. When games start using more than Four cores, I would imagine that's when hyper-threading comes into action. CPU-intensive applications like HD video encoding is what will benefit most from the 8-core SB.

The Nehalem's will still be excellent processors for many years to come.

Is there any significant difference in performance from using DDR2 dual-channel and DDR3 tri-channel memory?

Is it true that the memory controller on the Core i7 maxes out at 1033 MHz?

If you're looking into buying a new system, wait out for Sandy Bridge.

In gaming there is a measurable difference w/ DDR3 tri-chan, but nothing significant.

There are 2 separate chipsets for i7, and both are capable of much higher than 1033.   What Intel declares the max ram mhz for a CPU doesn't always apply to the chipset/mobo.