Intel Core i5

[faxon]

Originally posted by: taltamir
I stated the FACTS, which make it CLEAR AND OBVIOUS that the s1156 i7 is a much better deal. I did not make a judgement call, and yet you attack me by claiming I am anti performance? Since when is getting less for the same amount of money a better deal? Since when is stating facts that prove something is a better deal being "anti performance"

the 200$ microcenter deal is really a red harring. 1. there is tax. 2. there are less than 20 of them country wide... only TWO in texas... oh look a store with cheap i920... if only you happened to LIVE near one. sorry, no shipping, you gotta drive to the store and pick one up... sorry, ill pass on driving half a state over for a slight discount.
Even with all that... there is no reason why they wouldn't sell the s1156 i7 for the same price because it costs them THE SAME to buy it from intel!

and good luck finding one in stock LOL. fry's price matches any competitive retailers price, and there is a frys in santa clara, so sunnyvale, san jose, and palo alto all price match off of them. the only issue? we only do it if they have one in stock. we havent price matched an i7 for someone vs microcenter since the first week they had that deal since they run out faster than Wii's did when they came out.

 

[Majic 7]

The Micro Center in Denver seems to keeping them in stock. 2 days ago they had 185, right now they have 170. It is tempting, 12$ for gas + tax 12>18$, not sure what city tax in Denver is. About 70$ saved. For me it is a good deal, except for the convincing myself that I really need it part.

 

[x2 3600 rules sazakky]

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/14885/1/

P55 board listing

 

[taltamir]

oh... i ALMOST forgot... microcenter has a "no returns unless the item is faulty" policy on ALL items at the store.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Idontcare

Originally posted by: Jovec

Originally posted by: taltamir
[HT actually DECREASES performance in SOME workloads.

Of course it does. Some people seem to forget (or not understand) how it actually works.

Yep, just as using more than 1 thread on a multi-core chip that has a shared cache level (like the L2$ on wolfdale, or the L3$ on PhII) can cause performance degradation as the cache/thread ratio declines as you load up the cores for some workloads.

(and is also true of cpu's which don't have shared on-die cache between cores/threads but do have a shared memory controller and ram bandwidth contention issues)

Anytime there are resources shared there is opportunity for something to become temporarily resource starved...this is not a peculiarity of hyperthreading, it is true of any multicore multithread computing environment.

What I do find peculiar (and I think you've noticed this too) is how some folks just get fixated on the anti-HT thing, its almost pathological in the same way some folks just get strangely fixated on being anti-Raid0. To me its the old adage "standing too close to a tree and can't see they are standing in the middle of forest" blinders-on type mentality.

Yes... just to clarify, I am not anti HT though... It can add performance and usually does, it can also take performance away... it is definitely not the second coming though.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: taltamir

Yes... just to clarify, I am not anti HT though... It can add performance and usually does, it can also take performance away... it is definitely not the second coming though.

Farrr better than P4's Hyperthreading however...

For example:
http://www.solidmuse.com/2008/...yperthread-or-not.html

 

[havuk]

Originally posted by: taltamir
oh... i ALMOST forgot... microcenter has a "no returns unless the item is faulty" policy on ALL items at the store.

not true, i biught a Q9550 and decided to return it for an i7 cpu 2 weeks ago, i also was able to return some dvd-r i didnt end up needing. the receipt says 30 days for returns.

 

[taltamir]

maybe it changed... but they do have a 15% restocking fee, I just checked.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: IntelUser2000

Originally posted by: taltamir

Yes... just to clarify, I am not anti HT though... It can add performance and usually does, it can also take performance away... it is definitely not the second coming though.

Farrr better than P4's Hyperthreading however...

For example:
http://www.solidmuse.com/2008/...yperthread-or-not.html

that shows mostly a small increase in speed, with the occasional smaller decrease in speed.
But even at it's highest point, it does not justify the price premium over the i5. at least not in this benchmark suite.

 

[Byte]

I've been trying to hold off on i7 for a while, but its getting really hard. I haven't played games in a while, but with 4870s being about $100, its just so easy to get one now. I've been trying to wait for Usb/Sata 3 but thats probably at least 2010. So far it looks like i'll just wait for P55. The only thing is i'm planning to run 12GB because of all the VMs I run and I mostly see 2x1 dual channel configurations. Are we going to see 3x3 dual channel configs?

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: Byte
but with 4870s being about $100, its just so easy to get one now.

Sorry, where do you see 4870s 1GB for $100?

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: Byte
I've been trying to hold off on i7 for a while, but its getting really hard. I haven't played games in a while, but with 4870s being about $100, its just so easy to get one now. I've been trying to wait for Usb/Sata 3 but thats probably at least 2010. So far it looks like i'll just wait for P55. The only thing is i'm planning to run 12GB because of all the VMs I run and I mostly see 2x1 dual channel configurations. Are we going to see 3x3 dual channel configs?

4x4gb = 16GB

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: taltamir

4x4gb = 16GB

3 x 4GBs DDR3 1600 - $1200

vs.

6 x 2GBs DDR3 1600 - $250

So imagine what 4x4 will cost. Even if prices decrease by a factor of 2 in 12 months, it'll still be prohibitively expensive. However, some P55s like Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 will have 6 memory slots.

 

[ilkhan]

Yeah, 4GB DDR3 modules are insane. Ive been looking at 8GB for my next laptop (same as my current machine has), and its just insane how much that would cost over the 4x2 the desktop has. Even weirder, you can get 4GB SO-DIMMs much easier than 4GB DIMMs.

 

[imported_Shaq]

Originally posted by: rgallant
-do we know if a GTX 380 or [x2 sli] + a GTX 285[physx]or [next gen] will max out the pic-e 8x8 +4 a year or two from now when the cards are going to be cheaper ? or is it a dead end platform for gaming , even mid to high now ? how many people will buy pci-e x8 boards today for a mid to high gaming machine.
-I could see if these were 32nm , but their not , just cheaper\crippled i7's for OEM's [that I can see] so they can sell lot's of boxes. which I can't say anything bad for them doing so , they need to sell lots of affordable chips to pay for the plants.
-just a noobs .02

It will definitely be a bottleneck for 2 G300's in SLI and anything after that. A G300 GX2, if it is made, will be bottlenecked in a single x16 2.0 slot. Every game may not be because it varies from game to game but the vast majority will be bottlenecked. Even if you used 260 SLI for the next two years there will be a small bottleneck but not enough to worry about except for FSX, GTA4 and a few other games.

If someone games consistently at 1920 resolution or above they should get s1366. Everyone else can save about $100 and get the s1156. Personally I don't care if the $100 goes to waste over two-three years but some people might care. When I upgrade next and s1366 920's are rare I will get that money back on the used market anyway.

Also some people are anti-multiGPU and will choose a single PCIe board. But here is an interesting article that just came out. Half of all PC's will have multi-GPU by 2012 is what the authors predict.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/v...n_Peddie_Research.html

This surprised me. 67 million people, just in the US, use the PC as their primary gaming platform and 17 million play over 23 hours a week.
http://news.bigdownload.com/20...mbers-of-us-pc-gamers/

 

[IntelUser2000]

Originally posted by: taltamir

that shows mostly a small increase in speed, with the occasional smaller decrease in speed.
But even at it's highest point, it does not justify the price premium over the i5. at least not in this benchmark suite.

Dude, 0.5% isn't a degrade...

Yet you call 10% increase nothing. I'm not talking about the i5. I'm talking about HT.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: taltamir

4x4gb = 16GB

3 x 4GBs DDR3 1600 - $1200

vs.

6 x 2GBs DDR3 1600 - $250

So imagine what 4x4 will cost. Even if prices decrease by a factor of 2 in 12 months, it'll still be prohibitively expensive. However, some P55s like Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 will have 6 memory slots.

what makes you think it will NOT decrease?

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: taltamir

what makes you think it will NOT decrease?

Oh I know the prices will decrease eventually but you would probably be better off just paying the extra $50 in 1 month for a 6-DIMM P55 board when they come out. It will probably take quite a while before 4GB modules become affordable.

 

[Jovec]

Originally posted by: IntelUser2000

Originally posted by: taltamir

that shows mostly a small increase in speed, with the occasional smaller decrease in speed.
But even at it's highest point, it does not justify the price premium over the i5. at least not in this benchmark suite.

Dude, 0.5% isn't a degrade...

Yet you call 10% increase nothing. I'm not talking about the i5. I'm talking about HT.

100% cpu apps that see a nice boost from HT aren't properly optimized. I'm not saying HT is bad, as it is an effective hardware solution to a couple of software (compilation and scheduler) problems.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation

Originally posted by: taltamir

what makes you think it will NOT decrease?

Oh I know the prices will decrease eventually but you would probably be better off just paying the extra $50 in 1 month for a 6-DIMM P55 board when they come out. It will probably take quite a while before 4GB modules become affordable.

you mean he wants that much ram TODAY? well yea, obviously in that case... i made the same suggestion to another guy who wanted more than 8GB today, i said get 6x2GB instead of 4GB DIMMS.

 

[rgallant]

+1 Shaq ,

-I don't see the upcoming i5\i7 \p55 as a possible upgrade vs a i7 , that I can buy now .but if the 32nm's is pushed only onto the 1156 so be it, I'll have a look when the time comes ,with the 32nm shrink maybe 48 lanes are possible , or like msi sports a p55 with a nv 200 tri sli -- whoopee did we not see this where ,O yea ,last years i7 boards w\out nv200
-the lastest intel roadmap shows what you guy's know till sandy-no 32nm quads- new socket ?
-but for now , the upgraded I wanted [i7 quad 32nm ] is not a cheaper\crippled i5\i7 45nm p55
****** upgrade put on hold***********\so I'll wait.
-money is not a issue for me----value vs upgrade bug
-but with , so many Pxx chip sets , cpu's that = i7's [$] -\+ , I would say hold off until the smoke clears.
-i7\x58-- con's to me , i7=WC--can't run @ 4.25 with low temps\vcore on air 24\7[@ 1.25vcore] as I run now ,[which is downclocked] or I can run @ 4.45 @1.3625 vcore 24\7.and it's not the best e8600 out there.
-i5\i7\p55 cons --------crippled pic-e maybe - even if these chips oc to 6.0 on air it won,t overcome crippled vid cards if they hit a bottleneck @x8 and no one can be sure at this point if they will be even\= @ 8x8 on die vs 8x8 old config. spec's.\benchmarks needed-relating to sli.\cf.
-given all the press time given i5\i7\p55 chips and boards maybe I'm missing something , but for now ,with these coming releases To 3Q 2010, it just looks like a side step -1 , until the 32nm quads are released ,but on what socket ,that is the question .

 

[eternalone]

Best answer in my opinion is that a newer cpu line will create a pricing competition, so either way you will win because of the pricing that new Intel chips will create in the market. In other words in terms of money you should wait, performance wise thats always debatable, but monetarily you should wait till i5 comes out.

 

[Axon]

Originally posted by: taltamir
maybe it changed... but they do have a 15% restocking fee, I just checked.

You're correct. I went to return my i7 at the Paterson, NJ location and was turned away. I was told they would replace but not restock the item. This policy was indiacted on the receipt.

I wasn't too worried about it Just gave me an excuse to "have" to buy a 1366 mobo.

 

[dmens]

Originally posted by: Jovec
100% cpu apps that see a nice boost from HT aren't properly optimized. I'm not saying HT is bad, as it is an effective hardware solution to a couple of software (compilation and scheduler) problems.

there is no such thing as 100% CPU utilization. maybe a power virus will get really close. but never on generic code. 100% utilization in the task manager does not mean 100% utilization of functional units on the CPU.

no amount of optimization in the compiler or at runtime can remove data latencies from the machine. that is not a problem, that is just a programming reality. SMT/HT is designed to recover those fundamental losses.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: dmens

Originally posted by: Jovec
100% cpu apps that see a nice boost from HT aren't properly optimized. I'm not saying HT is bad, as it is an effective hardware solution to a couple of software (compilation and scheduler) problems.

there is no such thing as 100% CPU utilization. maybe a power virus will get really close. but never on generic code. 100% utilization in the task manager does not mean 100% utilization of functional units on the CPU.

no amount of optimization in the compiler or at runtime can remove data latencies from the machine. that is not a problem, that is just a programming reality. SMT/HT is designed to recover those fundamental losses.

4 seperate distributed computing apps running concurrently... 100% CPU utilization.