i7 920 x58 vs i7 860 p55 - same price

[DigitalFreak]

I'm debating between the GA-X58A-UD3R and i7 920 vs a ~$200 board (EVGA P55 FTW, etc.) and an i7 860. They both work out to roughly the same price. I'd like to overclock, using the retail HSF, if possible to around 3.4Ghz with minimal tweaking. I figure either of these systems will be more than sufficient for what I do.

PCI-E 16x (x2), USB 3 and SATA III are nice to haves, but not a top priority. The biggest thing is ease of overclocking and stability.

Any suggestions?

 

[shaolin95]

I am a i7 guy so that gets my vote.
D0 on the 920?

 

[DigitalFreak]

I am a i7 guy so that gets my vote.
D0 on the 920?

Dunno. It's the i7 920 that Microcenter has for $199

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

Dunno. It's the i7 920 that Microcenter has for $199

Those will be a D0, but they aren't $199 anymore, they raised the price to $229 a couple weeks ago. (Edit: It appears I was mistaken, I thought they raised the price on this the same time they raised the price on the i5 750.)

Unless you're going to use 2 video cards or want a hex core proc sometime down the line, I'd go with the 860. Alternatively, if you don't care about turbo modes or are planning to OC as high as you can possibly go, I'd go 920. Realistically you're not going to see a ton of difference here.

 

[brandonwh64]

i got a D0 and its a good clocker

 

[DigitalFreak]

Those will be a D0, but they aren't $199 anymore, they raised the price to $229 a couple weeks ago. (Edit: It appears I was mistaken, I thought they raised the price on this the same time they raised the price on the i5 750.)

Unless you're going to use 2 video cards or want a hex core proc sometime down the line, I'd go with the 860. Alternatively, if you don't care about turbo modes or are planning to OC as high as you can possibly go, I'd go 920. Realistically you're not going to see a ton of difference here.

Hmm... website is still showing $199.

I may go with SLI / CF down the road, or just get a dual GPU single slot card. Waiting to see what Nvidia comes up with for DX11.

 

[nitromullet]

I may go with SLI / CF down the road, or just get a dual GPU single slot card. Waiting to see what Nvidia comes up with for DX11.

Then get X58. Running a single card on X58 doesn't have any downsides, but running dual cards on P55 might hinder your performance. If the cost difference between the two systems is negligible, it's a no-brainer. Get X58.

 

[Gillbot]

x58 + 920

 

[Ayah]

920 + x58 for longevity. You can add a 6GB kit or maybe a 12GB kit easily in the future.

 

[Absolution75]

If they were the same price, then go for the x58+i7 920. The only reason why I think P55 is worth it is because it works out to be about $80 cheaper for the same quality of motherboard (I think 2 full 16x PCI-E slots is a gimmick feature).

 

[Meghan54]

Those will be a D0, but they aren't $199 anymore, they raised the price to $229 a couple weeks ago. (Edit: It appears I was mistaken, I thought they raised the price on this the same time they raised the price on the i5 750.)

You're not imagining things....MC did raise the price on the i7 920 for about a week and dropped it right back down.

 

[RussianSensation]

I'm debating between the GA-X58A-UD3R and i7 920 vs a ~$200 board (EVGA P55 FTW, etc.) and an i7 860.

Any suggestions?

Get a $150 board such as Asus P7P55D or Gigabyte UD3 for $140. Invest the difference of $50-60 (from EVGA P55 FTW board) into an aftermarket cooler.

Any decent overclocking on stock cooling for the i7, especially the i7 860, is going to be a no-go, considering it barely keeps the cpu <80*C at stock speeds without Turbo Mode. In fact, my i7 860 with Turbo Mode enabled at stock speeds was reaching 90-95*C. Just look at the size of the stock cooler:
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/intel/lynnfield/review/fanchip.jpg
I was so concerned with the VRM and CPU temps on stock cooling, that I downclocked my cpu until Megahalems arrived.

Put it this way, a 3.9ghz Core i7 860 under a Megahalems is going to produce 68-73*C loads at 22*C room temperatures.

Whichever way you do go (i7 920 is a great processor too), spend a bit and get the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus for $30. Great bang for the buck.

The X58 UD3R board only has 4 DIMM slots, so you aren't getting any more memory over P55 either, but you run into a situation of having to buy 3x2GB sticks (which is more expensive with no benefit over 4GBs). Put the savings into a faster graphics card, or better cooler!

Hey Zeus also pointed to Intel Xeon X3440, which is a higher binned Core i7:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117225&cm_mmc=LMCDBanner-_-CPC-_-NA-_-NA

You want want to check that out too

 

[Hey Zeus]

i'm debating between the ga-x58a-ud3r and i7 920 vs a ~$200 board (evga p55 ftw, etc.) and an i7 860. They both work out to roughly the same price. I'd like to overclock, using the retail hsf, if possible to around 3.4ghz with minimal tweaking. I figure either of these systems will be more than sufficient for what i do.

Pci-e 16x (x2), usb 3 and sata iii are nice to haves, but not a top priority. The biggest thing is ease of overclocking and stability.

Any suggestions?

x3440 > 860

 

[DigitalFreak]

Get a $150 board such as Asus P7P55D or Gigabyte UD3 for $140. Invest the difference of $50-60 (from EVGA P55 FTW board) into an aftermarket cooler.

Any decent overclocking on stock cooling for the i7, especially the i7 860, is going to be a no-go, considering it barely keeps the cpu <80*C at stock speeds without Turbo Mode. In fact, my i7 860 with Turbo Mode enabled at stock speeds was reaching 90-95*C. Just look at the size of the stock cooler:
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/cpu/intel/lynnfield/review/fanchip.jpg
I was so concerned with the VRM and CPU temps on stock cooling, that I downclocked my cpu until Megahalems arrived.

Put it this way, a 3.9ghz Core i7 860 under a Megahalems is going to produce 68-73*C loads at 22*C room temperatures.

Whichever way you do go (i7 920 is a great processor too), spend a bit and get the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus for $30. Great bang for the buck.

Thanks for the info. Just saw an article over @ Tom's comparing different 1156 coolers. Looks like I might go with the Scythe Mugen-2 Revision B. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/lga-1156-heatsink,2535-14.html

 

[n7]

RussianSensation summed it up nicely.

If you are spending the same for a P55 mobo/CPU as you would for X58, you're doing it wrong!

The entire point of P55/H55 is value.

x3440 > 860

False.
i7 860 > X3440

However, X3440 is cheaper, which means it's a great option if you'd like 8 threads.

 

[shaolin95]

I went through the same process and went with i7 for peace of mind...is horrible to have that thing on the back of your head nagging you about why didn't you go with the bigger and better one lol

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

You're not imagining things....MC did raise the price on the i7 920 for about a week and dropped it right back down.

Good to know I'm not crazy. Thanks .

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

To be clear, they are both i7's. One uses the X58 chipset, the other uses the P55 chipset. i7 9xx is a 1366 socket (x58) ; the others are a 1156 socket (P55)

 

[CraigRT]

I7 860 gets my vote... That setup should cost less! I have one sitting on my desk, just need to get the time to buy the rest of the parts, and put this bad boy together. It's all about the value.

P55 > X58 in terms of price/performance.... (if nothing else)

When I was pricing out, 1366 boards were more, and the CPU was just slightly more (not much) this in Canada though.

 

[KeithBlue]

i7-860 is my choice, too. Unless you absolutely need to wring the top performance out of an i7-920 (and pay and extra Franklin or so to so it), the i7-860 betters the 920 in most benchmarks -- and uses less energy.

In terms of future-proofing by buying the i7-920 and a forward-compatible LGA 1366 mobo, the jury might be out on that one. It's my feeling that by the time an overclocked i7-860 *or* i7-920 is actually slow, we'll all be buying boards with sixteen cores or "Nuclear Crossfire 3D" or USB 4.0 or something.

To wit: some years ago, I bought a dual-Xeon-capable PowerEdge server from Dell, thinking I'd pop in another CPU when I needed it and they would be cheap. Well, they *are* cheap now; the problem is that for what another vintage Xeon would eat in wattage, I can get an i7-based CPU that uses the same or less power but will absolutely burn it down in performance.

So I'm thinking that few folks just wanting to upgrade their older systems now will actually ever be replacing the i7-860/920 with a new Intel processor in 2014, in the same mobo...

I posted an article on the "Choosing a new CPU: Intel Core i7-920 vs. i7-860" that tries to sum up a lot of the current wisdom from Anandtech, Tom's, Intel's site, and other resources.... Hope it is helpful to someone.

Self promotion is not allowed. This is no different than spamming. Make this be your one warning or further action will be taken.
AT Mod
Gillbot

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

self promoting?

 

[MJinZ]

Those will be a D0, but they aren't $199 anymore, they raised the price to $229 a couple weeks ago. (Edit: It appears I was mistaken, I thought they raised the price on this the same time they raised the price on the i5 750.)

Unless you're going to use 2 video cards or want a hex core proc sometime down the line, I'd go with the 860. Alternatively, if you don't care about turbo modes or are planning to OC as high as you can possibly go, I'd go 920. Realistically you're not going to see a ton of difference here.

Cut to the chase - if you want an inferior setup, get an 860. If you want a superior setup, get a 920. Of course, one will cost you more in the big picture (motherboards and RAM etc).

IF you really cared that much about price/performance, you would have gotten an AMD system. Zing.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Last I checked, in-store, the D0 i7 920 was 199$ and the Q9550 was 179$ at MicroCenter - this was about a week ago.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Based on what I've been seeing around here, the 1366 socket is getting a major processor refresh very soon. If I were making the same decision, I'd go with the i7 920.

 

[StrangerGuy]

I don't get it why some people are willing to pay for top-of-the-line mobos. It's not like it's going to perform better and overclock better than a far cheaper model.