teddyv, I was in the same boat as you last week. I had even gotten a great price on a EVGA LGA1156 mobo that was already at home. I was waiting for the 860 to maybe go down to $199 at MC.
I ultimately decided 'to heck with it' and went i7-920 with EVGA 1366 board. The increase in price worked out to $85 total. I figured that was worth it to me to possibly (!) upgrade to a hex-core in 12-18 months.
If you stay with LGA1156, go with the 860 for hyperthreading on your video encoding.
And as you read, I am already in one of those boats. I got the $199 860 at MC the last day of "President's Day" sale week, but already wonder if I should have got the 920. I effectively have a really good 750, since it runs 4.0 at decent temps/voltage without hyperthreading. With the 920 CPU at the same price, it is a tough call, but I will probably hang onto the 1156 rig.
...
Ben90 beat me to it on both counts, but yes to both questions. Your 860 may clock a bit higher than a 750 due to binning but I wouldn't bank on it. That's still not a bad price for the chip.
Also, I get a 21 multiplier with the 860 instead of a 20 with the 750.
However, this chip is rock solid at 20 x 200 @ 1.3v with hyperthreading off.
Turn HT on and it fails OCCT or PRIME quickly.
So, a very "funny" 860, masquerading as a fast 750.
To OP:
My take on the 860 vs 920 is that it seems that 860 owners are in the vast minority.
I don't know if this is a bad thing.
There is also the whole "burn up the socket" thing with 1156 and I am running at 4.0!
It also seems that almost everyone running a P55 board wants a cheap board with a 750.
I have (this moment) a P7P55D Deluxe and an 860 and Corsair XMS, which is more money than
most will put into an 1156 setup. Need to reconsider.
Also, there are few P55 tweakers , that's why they built the "instant overclock" features into them.
The P7P55D Deluxe has a "Crazy OC" setting of 3.08GHz built into it. Ridiculous since I am sitting a 4.0GHz
right now.