Sandy bridge and gaming

[hatebreeder]

So i noticed that the sandy bridge is well above most of the i7's on the charts. is this a chip that you would recommend to buy for a gaming machine? obviously there would be a seperate GPU purchased for this machine. THey seem to be much cheaper than the other i7 cpus they are beating out in the charts.

whats the general consensus on these chips?

 

[binoyski]

It's a "great" CPU for gaming especially on a single 1900x1200 monitor, but not so for eyefinity or surround.

 

[ares1214]

Heres an overview of the performance:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=100

Thats a high end i7 vs a new Sandy Bridge. As you can see, the SB wipes the board. However, one small reservation, are you using a multi GPU setup?

 

[hatebreeder]

it would be a single card with dual gpu like a 295. would that conflict?

 

[ares1214]

it would be a single card with dual gpu like a 295. would that conflict?

No, a dual GPU would give you no problems.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

What are you guys talking about? Multi-SLI/CF works just fine on Cougar Point mainboards. You just have to get a more expensive one that has PCIe bridge chip for extra lanes, like an ASUS P8P67 Pro or Deluxe. Two cards would operate at x8/x8, and only multi-monitor setups (example: 5760x1200) have barely-noticeable performance differences. Even the largest single-monitor setup (2560x1200) has no difference in the benchmarks.

Two articles on the subject:

x16/x16 versus x16/x8
x16/x16 versus x8/x8

 

[hatebreeder]

is it gonna be worh the upgrade to go from an i7 940 to a sandy bridge 2600 if i am using it primarily for games?

 

[ares1214]

is it gonna be worh the upgrade to go from an i7 940 to a sandy bridge 2600 if i am using it primarily for games?

:lol: no not at all, that would be a horrible waste of money!

 

[hatebreeder]

:lol: no not at all, that would be a horrible waste of money!

just to be sure cause i cant tell if there is sarcasm there or not.

this chip: Intel Core i7-2600 (Sandy Bridge 4c/8t)

upgrading from i7-940 not worth it?

 

[Liu kang baking a pie]

you got a 940 why would you want something else? How many gpus do you have currently?

 

[hatebreeder]

i have 1 295 currently. i was just shocked when i saw the charts for the desktop cpus and how dominant the SBs were. i use my rig for gaming.

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

Yes they are dominant, but if you already have an i7 9xx series, it's a lateral move not worth the money. Better to get a better video card or a second one for SLI/CF.

 

[hatebreeder]

thats what i thought. anyone have any idea when nvidias next dual gpu is gonna be out and the starting price on it? i know when i bought my 8800gtx and 295 they were both around $550.

 

[ares1214]

just to be sure cause i cant tell if there is sarcasm there or not.

this chip: Intel Core i7-2600 (Sandy Bridge 4c/8t)

upgrading from i7-940 not worth it?

I was being serious, the cost of the new motherboard, CPU, and RAM if you feel the need to get the correct RAM would approach something like $550...thats a horrible investment for just a few FPS.

 

[ern88]

I would invest in a better video card then looking at SB. I would think I 570 GTx would fit nice for a real upgrade. Keep the i7 940.

 

[ufeeboy]

Heres an overview of the performance:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=100

Thats a high end i7 vs a new Sandy Bridge. As you can see, the SB wipes the board. However, one small reservation, are you using a multi GPU setup?

Why does a multi GPU setup matter?

 

[hatebreeder]

Best answer selected by hatebreeder.