Is the i7-970 still a good choice?

[Blue_Max]

After some good trading, I have two backup machines I can fall back to. I have an i7-920 machine with a super motherboard, and an i5-2320 with very basic board.

I'm a bit of an electricity miser and like the i5's ~40W savings... but I multitask like game & skype voice. Even the i7 would double the threads there, though at a lower single-thread speed.

It's tempting to snag the i7-970 SIX core processor as a cheap upgrade to maybe help games like Civ5 / B.E. so the turns go faster?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree using old tech at all? I'm hoping to hold off a bit longer until DDR4 becomes the defacto standard before I buy a whole new platform.

Thanks.

 

[MongGrel]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2335636&highlight=l5639&page=67

 

[Blue_Max]

Good thread! Thanks! That Xeon looks almost as fast but at half the wattage! Wonder if I can find one cheap?

 

[MongGrel]

Good thread! Thanks! That Xeon looks almost as fast but at half the wattage! Wonder if I can find one cheap?

Yep :thumbsup:

The X5650 are the way to go price wise I'd imagine, the L5639 I still have one on my desk, I've been too lazy still to change out my 920 in the HTPC.

 

[Denithor]

x5650 are on eBay everyday for around $65. Doesn't get much better than that!

 

[Blue_Max]

x5650 are on eBay everyday for around $65. Doesn't get much better than that!

Oh baby! I didn't think it'd be THAT tasty! Looks like my system of choice (between the two I mentioned) will easily be the 1366 platform! Sure, some games will run better on the faster-threaded 1155 i5, but overall the 920 for now and the Xeon soon will be the better choice. I can even find a cheapo Radeon 7770 to crossfire with those extra slots.

 

[Bman123]

Thats really cheap for that cpu. How much do the mobo's run for them with a little overclocking headroom? Id be interested in snagging one of those to play some older games i missed out on and less demanding current games too

 

[CropDuster]

Thats really cheap for that cpu. How much do the mobo's run for them with a little overclocking headroom? Id be interested in snagging one of those to play some older games i missed out on and less demanding current games too

Mobos seem to be all over the place, anywhere from $100-300 on ebay.

 

[Brekyrself]

Oh baby! I didn't think it'd be THAT tasty! Looks like my system of choice (between the two I mentioned) will easily be the 1366 platform! Sure, some games will run better on the faster-threaded 1155 i5, but overall the 920 for now and the Xeon soon will be the better choice. I can even find a cheapo Radeon 7770 to crossfire with those extra slots.

I think you will be hard pressed to find any performance difference between an overclocked x5660 vs anything newer.

These xeon's are beasts once overclocked >4ghz.

 

[Lepton87]

I think you will be hard pressed to find any performance difference between an overclocked x5660 vs anything newer.

These xeon's are beasts once overclocked >4ghz.

Come one, HW-E has a 35% better single threaded performance at the same clock and clocks a bit higher, still that 6 core CPU for so little money would be my choice for a budget CPU, it's about as good as SB overall, maybe even better. Just incredible value. Depending on how well it would OC I might have even preferred it over IB. So far threading seems like a better bet for future performance than AVX instructions.

 

[Burpo]

X5650 @190+BCLK is pretty close to a stock 5820..

 

[Lepton87]

X5650 @190+BCLK is pretty close to a stock 5820..

pointless comparison it's stock cause I assembled it two hours ago

 

[Burpo]

Not pointless.. You said 35% improvement (clock for clock) but with the Xeon being able to run @ 200 BCLK, that negates some of the performance gain. $60 vs $389 for similar performance..

 

[Brekyrself]

Come one, HW-E has a 35% better single threaded performance at the same clock and clocks a bit higher, still that 6 core CPU for so little money would be my choice for a budget CPU, it's about as good as SB overall, maybe even better. Just incredible value. Depending on how well it would OC I might have even preferred it over IB. So far threading seems like a better bet for future performance than AVX instructions.

Should have clarified performance difference in games as that is what the quoted user was looking for.

 

[Blue_Max]

Should have clarified performance difference in games as that is what the quoted user was looking for.

Well I'm not about to go and buy a whole new mobo/platform, etc. I asked about the 970 because I already have the stuff with a 920 processor I picked up for next to nothing. :awe: Knowing I can upgrade it so much for so very little is great news! As much as I'd like the extra gaming performance of the latest i5/i7, I love knowing I have all that cheap multitasking potential (and the single-thread performance certainly isn't lacking!)

So glad I made this thread. Thanks!! :thumbsup:

 

[Lepton87]

Not pointless.. You said 35% improvement (clock for clock) but with the Xeon being able to run @ 200 BCLK, that negates some of the performance gain. $60 vs $389 for similar performance..

Yeah, the way it's been going with IPC improvements between generations that have been on the order of 5-10% except sandy which was 15%, 35% higher IPC is a massive improvement. HW-E overclocks too and a bit higher so 40% faster is massive for a CPU, how long will we have to wait to get a CPU that is 40% faster than HW-E at 4.6GHz? (in single thread) 5 years? If those CPUs are similar than 8370(or 9570) is similar to 5930K in performance too.

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/157?vs=1320

similar indeed. like those

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1289?vs=1320

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1289?vs=157

that's also interesting how far behind AMD really is, when was Westmere released?

more tests against 990X

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1289?vs=444

All of that is not taking into account new instructions which to be fair have been irrelevant so far but the potential improvement in using AVX is big not to mention AVX2

 

[Burpo]

Don't know anything about your links, just real world testing & work loads..

Simplest way to find out.. Download CB 11.5..
http://download.cnet.com/CINEBENCH/3000-6677_4-10788988.html

Here's my Cinebench scores with a used, almost 5 yr old, $59 Xeon cpu..



Where does your i7-5820 score? Show me 16.5 (40% improvement)..

IMAGINE THAT!

 

[Lepton87]

Sure, and it's stable at 4.85GHz? It was basically a suicide run, right? I don't have time to OC right now, but I'll see how much I can manage but it's just one benchmark, if we used linpack with AVX2 then... You know what I mean.

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1320?vs=444

Sometimes HW advantage is huge sometimes very small, 11.5 are one of the better cases for Westmere. Why 11.5 and not 15 or 10? Easy to see with the benchmarks above.

 

[Burpo]

11.5 is most widely used, my 15 score is posted here also (1053). Not a suicide run (look at all the scores in the 11's). At the highest 211-212 BCLK some programs error out back to desktop, but I built & use this for rendering. It's either idling or full tilt crunching data since I built it. You spent more for your chip & board than I did on my whole rig, and rendering won't be much faster. The X58 platform & hex core Xeons are easily the most bang for the $$.. Would I like a new rig? Sure, but for what I do, X58 gets the job done plenty fast..

 

[Magic Carpet]

It's tempting to snag the i7-970 SIX core processor as a cheap upgrade to maybe help games like Civ5 / B.E. so the turns go faster?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree using old tech at all? I'm hoping to hold off a bit longer until DDR4 becomes the defacto standard before I buy a whole new platform.

Thanks.

I had an overclocked i7 950, but I absolutely hated the power consumption of the X58 platform, so I just sold it. That 32nm 6 core Xeon will be better with power and for 60 (?) bucks I would prolly try it, just for fun [if I were you]. Good luck, but check if your mobo supports it

 

[Makaveli]

After some good trading, I have two backup machines I can fall back to. I have an i7-920 machine with a super motherboard, and an i5-2320 with very basic board.

I'm a bit of an electricity miser and like the i5's ~40W savings... but I multitask like game & skype voice. Even the i7 would double the threads there, though at a lower single-thread speed.

It's tempting to snag the i7-970 SIX core processor as a cheap upgrade to maybe help games like Civ5 / B.E. so the turns go faster?

Or am I barking up the wrong tree using old tech at all? I'm hoping to hold off a bit longer until DDR4 becomes the defacto standard before I buy a whole new platform.

Thanks.

I would do it if you can get it for a good price if not look at the xeon's.

Yes there is a fairly big difference in ipc from the newest gen but when overclocked you don't notice it much unless your workload is IPC heavy.

There is no need to cherry pick benchmarks in average computer usage its hard to tell the difference.

Most will overclock in the 4-4.4Ghz range before you require insane voltage to keep it stable and at that point not worth it as most aren't 24/7 stable.

 

[Lepton87]

11.5 is most widely used, my 15 score is posted here also (1053). Not a suicide run (look at all the scores in the 11's). At the highest 211-212 BCLK some programs error out back to desktop, but I built & use this for rendering. It's either idling or full tilt crunching data since I built it. You spent more for your chip & board than I did on my whole rig, and rendering won't be much faster. The X58 platform & hex core Xeons are easily the most bang for the $$.. Would I like a new rig? Sure, but for what I do, X58 gets the job done plenty fast..

4.85GHz Westmere is a golden chip like 5.0GHz-4.7GHz Cache HW-E. Most top out before 4.5GHz which is very good for westmere.

 

[Makaveli]

4.85GHz Westmere is a golden chip like 5.0GHz-4.7GHz Cache HW-E. Most top out before 4.5GHz which is very good for westmere.

I highly doubt that 4.8 clock is 24/7 stable anyways so kinda irrelevant.

As for the OP he should do it a drop in replacement for under $100 bucks if you go the Xeon route is a no brainer.

 

[Burpo]

Yeah, I run 4.3Ghz 24X7 for rendering. Any higher and after an hour or so, it starts to throttle. Blu-Ray iso's take about 1 hr 20 min and I don't want underuns. I'd love to have a 5820.. It comes close @ stock, but these Xeons are disposable
This was a suicide run...lol

 

[escrow4]

That performance test only shows a stock 3770, a stock 4790K no overclocking would be even faster and dump way less heat and power. Not even mentioning a 5820K.