The "REAL" price difference between a Phenom 2 and I7 System - Page 2

enigma, you would really help us if you actually start behaving like thunderman . I believe currently there's a high demand for that.

Thats the point being made here. At 3gigs, sometimes its simply not enough, and tri channel doesnt show advantages in many apps, and shows nothing for games, so yes, its 6gigs or slow in some situations

98% that don't overclock? That's rich

Yeah, I know... it's probably closer to 99% but hey I was going to give you that percent.

RAWR!

I'll acknowledge the i7 is worth it's price for futureproofing, but many Intel fans are waiting on i5 and most AMD fans are simply upgrading current AM2 systems. Me, I'll get the fastest Phenom II triple core black edition in the fall and see how it overclocks. Just spent too much upgrading everything else while moving my old triple core over.

For new budget builds, a 780G board isn't bad, it just doesn't overclock well because of the SB700. I replaced my old 780G board with a $149 at Fry's 790GX board with SB750. For AM3, SB800 will be out by fall. We'll see how that compares to Intel boards in price then.

Tom's article update on i7 vs. Phenom II with a GTX280 shows that the i7 is best with a 4870x2. That brings the price up for a gaming system. If I'd not had the 4870x2 as a warranty replacement for a dead 3870x2, I would have simply gone 4850 or 4870 with this build.

So, motherboards aside, an i7 gaming system is still much more expensive than an almost equal performance Phenom II system. It's a matter of bang for the buck. If you have the cash, then go for it. If you don't, then go for a Core 2 or Phenom II system until i5 shows up at mainstream prices.

I paid $189 for my 21.5" Acer 1080P monitor and LOTRO looks fantastic. I also picked up a $79 Sony Blu-ray drive. Many spend quite a bit for a 24" 1920 x 1200 monitors when going down to 1980P is a hundred less.

I like pins on my processor and, as I found out when the old 3870x2 failed, it was nice to have a good IGP while waiting for the 4870x2 that arrived as a warranty replacement.

I've found that for the same amount of money, you can get an AMD system with higher quality components even if the CPU has slightly lower IPC and benchmarks, but performs close enough in the real world.

I upgraded to Vista Home Premium 64 when I upgraded my hard drives and it's nice to have all my memory working for me. I'm wondering if I should go to 8 gigs? DDR2 800's certainly inexpensive enough now and when I go Phenom II, I'll just put an AM3 CPU on this board.

The whole point the OP doesn't seem to get is that you need 6 gigs of RAM for the i7 to get the same benefits as 4 gigs with Phenom II. That isn't a big deal if there are DDR2 kits (don't know about that) but if it's DDR3 only, it adds to the cost comparison.

Is anyone arguing that Phenom II's are equal? They're arguing that it's a better bang for the buck and you don't see the difference in games or most programs in the real world. If one is running software that actually benefits from the i7 right now, then that's worth the price difference.

Can't wait to get a Phenom II X3 720, but I'm tempted to wait on the rumored Phenom II quad @ 3.6 native towards the end of the year. Right now, for what I do, the 8750 isn't a bottleneck as I'm gaming at 1080P.

That's not true at all. I dual boot both Vista64 and XP, I can use the same overclock on both OS. If anybody tells you that switching to a 64bit OS made their overclock unstable, it is because their overclock was unstable to begin with.

So as it is, there is no advantage to running 3gigs over 6gig+.

You'll see small difference in gaming from 3gig to 6gig. However, i7 users are not all gamers. 3D animators, graphic artists, video encoders, VM users, all these benefit from the max memory you can use.

LOL yea go buy your low end parts and see how lo it takes for that cheap mobo and PSU to blow up

this battle is pointless unless your an anal hardcore gamer who needs to get the top performing CPU even though it beats it by 3-5%. i buy intel because i TRUST intel everyone else is the same way with the brand they stay with

I have a Phenom 9600 and a 790FX MB already and thinking about upgrading...
How much would it cost me to upgrade to a Phenom II?
Now how much would it cost me to upgrade to the i7?

Most AMD users are in the same situation thus the costs will be in the range of $120 to $180 for most of us to upgrade.

I think it's misleading to compare the lowest costing Intel system against the highest costing AMD system. When you purchase an AMD system you are buying a cost efficient system that has future upgradable compatabilities.
When you buy an Intel system you are buying a throw away system. When you are ready to upgrade with an Intel system you throw the whole thing away and start over.

Both cost the same over time but one you pay as you go and the other you pay all at once up front. Over time the AMD system will exceed the Intel system as the AMD system is continually upgraded, then the Intel system will hit a point of unusability and will exceed the AMD system.

So what is the point?
For some the AMD system is a way to have a constant line of performance while the Intel system will start with a high degree of performance that will only degrade over time.
Saying: Well you can get the lowest performing Intel System for this amount and the highest costing AMD system will cost this amount. OK, point taken. You have proven that the lowest performing, bargain basement Intel system is more expensive than the highest performing AMD system... Good job?
My question to you is why would you do that?
If I was buying an Intel system I would buy components that would last because I wouldn't be looking at upgrading for a period of time. The costs would be two to three times more than an AMD system but the performance would reflect that.
What you are doing is misleading, factually inaccurate, and dishonest.
There is nothing wrong wih buying an AMD system or an Intel system and the reason people pick one system over another isn't based just on cost. There is a lot of factors that go into a persons decision on which brand they choose. You should be glad that we have a choice at all because without competition we get stagnation. Along with all of that we get increased cost for a product that isn't worth the price.

Be on Intels bandwagon if you want, and root for your team, but remember that right now the only person playing against Intel is AMD. Should you loose this last remaining opponent there won't be anyone to play against and that would mean Game over for all of us.
We wouldn't want that would we?

OK here http://arstechnica.com/hardware/re [...] ling.ars/6 we see a typical review finding the i7 coming up short at stock speeds, which 90+ percent gamers use, stock speeds that is. Good enough at 90+%?The claims being made that these poor lil gpus just cant cut the mustard, and those big mean ol games need i7 to help em out, well, read my link, gpu bottlenecking is just plain bull. In each game they tested, there was significant fps increases as clocks went up, so, the poor lil gpu is waiting on the big bad cpu here. In each game, the i7920 loses to the P2940. Each game was done at 12x10 with 4AA. The differences were 30% down to 10%, all wins for the P2. Its at a lower res, so theres no excuse there. The fps wins are much higher than wed see on margin of error, so theres no excuses there. So, 4 games tested, 4 P2 wins. Low res, no gpu bottleneck, convincing wins, no iffy buts or maybe cause of drivers SW HW or any other excuse. The i7 920 loses here, big time. Read the rest as well, the "superior" ability of i7 doesnt really show itself that often, or that well in many real world apps here either. Obviously the reviewer knew what he was doing by getting the P2 to 4.2 as well, and doing all these benches at that clock as well, with stability in mind. So, if I was a gamer, and wanted the best after seeing this, and be able to save money as well, Id pick the P2. Im only posting this because Im tired of people saying gpus are soooo bottlenecked, when its simply not true. It was run using a 4870 as well, so no blaming those evile nVidia folk either

Here is something to think about. A oc P2 940 clocked at 4.2 ghz keeps on par or sometimes beating it with a i7 920 clocked at 2.66 ghz. So start reading.
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/re [...] caling.ars
oh by the way JD, they are using a smackover board which really doesn't have the tripple channel setup as the others do. Also they are showing a P2-940 standard clock cpu in there too and they are showing that it isn't coming up roses.

Now I wonder what if instead they used the i7-940 instead of the i7-920, and I wonder what if they were shown overclocked and what would it look like. Imagine running tripple channel with 2 gig, in 1 slot, and 1 gig in the other 2 slots just so it can be matched with a ddr2 system running 2 2gb modules in dual channel. Now if someone has to oc a P2-940 to wipe the floor with a standard clocked i7-920. We don't have to state what happens with a i7 system running a single video card. It's already been said enough.

Im pointing out the stock speeds and the results. In all apps, yes, i7 owns many, in these games? They lose. So, as I said, for gaming, i7 doesnt impress, as Ive said long ago. Also, it says 15% IPC may not be enough for the 940 to best the 965. What Im saying is, looking here http://www.htw-dresden.de/~stenzel/lite/iedm2008.pdf and adding in newer revs, its very likely we will see more than 15% clock increases. So, again, at stock, the P2 may hold its own even against i7. And Im sure if that chip is made, itll cost more, question is, who do you think will be cheaper? Look at figures 11 and 12 in the pdf, it shows the improvements there.

Again, if the foundry makes money, so does AMD. So, in essence, even on the higher costs of producing these cpus, the profits from them seen from the foundry will help off set this, and any other profits seen from it. Its not just a more costly scenario, it does have other benefits as well. Say when NY goes online, and all the fabs are crammed, if this happens, AMD actually stands to make more money than they would have just selling cpus. Also, ATI going to the foundry. Whos to say what kind of deals theyre getting, like AMD, vs say TSMC? It actually may be cheaper for ATI to have their chips made at the foundry, which is most likelt the case, so therefore, shouldnt the costs of the gpus go down as well?

Yeah, but those on this site and other sites like it make up a good portion of those who BUILD PCs. Since manufacturers already put a "high end" tax on any i7 system, then the only time this argument even matters is when it is being used in a custom build.

i7 doesn't do as well with games because the GPU is the bottleneck. Run with 2x GTX 285's, or run at low res (to remove the GPU), and i7 wins. Run on most single card setups, and you get a tie (due to the bottleneck).

Now, there is the issue with a single NVIDIA GPU; I'll have a better idea what thats about when i5 comes out...(I'm guessing a bottleneck on the Shared Memory Bus, which would mean we need a whole new memory architecture...)

At least $1k of GPUs?

That's a little ridiculous - it pulls away to some degree with 2 or 3 4870 1GB cards or a pair of GTX 285s, neither of which is anywhere close to a thousand dollars.

I would say $500 of GPUs. But if going i7 is going to drop your video card budget $100-200, the video card will probably be the better choice (if gaming is your purpose).

OK, this is just speculation, but may be why we see these types of things. If using only 1 card doesnt allow the i7 to use turbo, could this be why were seeing this? So, at 2.67, a i920 isnt really that fast til turbo kicks in? And when its truly running near P2 speeds (2.93) is when we see i7 doing better?
@cjl, have you checked this out? Im just wondering if turning off turbo in gaming with a single card makes no difference, but a huge one with sli/cf?

Same here cjl. The 920 I have will usually actually idle around 2.8Ghz, and will jump to 2.9Ghz at the slight hint of load (starting up a program).

No idea, but that could be tested for fairly easily (OC to max turbo mode clock, then turn off turbo and speedstep).

I look at the Foundry spinoff as sorta like AMD getting a mortgage. They got the money upfront so as to stay in the competition for a while, but at the higher cost of doing business. Of course, they really had no alternative since without the deal they would likely have been Chapt. 11 by the end of 2009.

I read a while back that AMD is not using their current fab at full capacity, in order to reduce inventory. Q4 was not kind to AMD (or Intel for that matter). And higher than expected inventory could be a reason for the X3 -- X4 business as well, if indeed it was on purpose and not just a goof by AMD and the mobo manufacturers.

As for making $$ if the economy turns around, isn't AMD's ownership of the Foundry down to somewhere <30% now, due to the revised deal in December? So they would get less than a third of any profits to be made if true.

And from various AMDZone threads, it would appear that TSMC's process is more tuned for GPUs while AMD's is tuned for CPUs. So hardly anybody there expects AMD to shift manufacture of GPUs to the Foundry anytime soon. Dunno 2-3 years down the road when the NY fab comes online however..

If you're a fanboy (whether Intel or AMD or whatever) then at least start a thread where you have a chance of winning the argument.

We now have a intel version of thunderman. Great.

Bummer. I was hoping to find some information in this thread regarding the difference in price between an i7 and a PII...and while many people stated there was never an apples to apples comparison, no one ever provided one.