OG i7 still relevant...and used?

[jimbob200521]

I'll admit it, I still use (and am relatively happy with) my OG i7 920 oc'd to 3.2ghz. I don't do anything intensive aside from an occasional video encode/transcode. Otherwise, basic desktop usage. I said goodbye to PC gaming a few years ago when I got into Xbox 360 and now Xbox One so that's a nonissue (I will every now and then install a game and putz with it but nothing super intensive).

However, performance wise, I have no issues. Sure I wish it used about half the power but there's something about having a nice big capable tower sitting on my desk that I thoroughly enjoy. When I do throw a game at it, it handles it just fine. Sure she gets warm, sure she sucks power like there's no tomorrow, but performance has still been great. Sure I'd love to upgrade to something newer but I don't see any reason to spend several hundred plus dollars to get a more recent i5 or i7, motherboard, and RAM.

So anyone else still using an original i7 line of CPU? Are you still happy with it? Plans to upgrade and why? What do you use your i7 for?

 

[Shaun_Brannen]

I feel a bit held back by my i5-750. I don't play AAA games, mostly web stuff, but I can tell it's showing its age.

It's definitely manageable however, by all means. I feel that if you're the person that's buying $60/$70 games from time to time, it'd be worth it to save that cash for an upgrade every once in a while too. It's not really difficult to eat out one less time a week either, and save that money up over time. It adds up quick.

 

[Stormflux]

I still am running a i7-930 @ 4ghz. Mostly used for 3D Content Creation and Motion Graphics. I will probably replace it with a Xeon 5650 and OC it soon and upgrade the video card for VR. Initially had a GTX 460, and running a GTX770 currently. Not sure what card, will wait for some VR stuff to come out to decide.

Will be a layover until Zen comes out for an entire new build. Don't know if I'll go Zen but don't feel the need for a whole new system now. Then I'll donate/repurpose/hand off my old rig to family.

At the start, the processor was great for rendering. Over the last few years however, GPGPU rendering has taken a huge leap forward, mitigating the need for most recent processors. Unless you got an entire farm at your disposal. However I've gone from doing high end 3D stuff to more coding, which isn't as demanding.

For gaming, I've also stopped buying most games on release day, even release year. A few I will but they'd have to be my highly anticipated. Waiting for steam sales (mostly patches) and working through my back log is enough for me.

I do have a Surface Pro 3, which I do spend most of my casual browsing and media consumption on. Tower PC is strictly for work/games.

 

[Burpo]

Anytime you want to upgrade, just drop a hexcore Xeon in your rig and sell the I7-920. The Westmere Xeons are 32nm instead of 45nm and use less power compared to the 920. They also overclock very well, and a cheap Xeon X5650 at >4.3Ghz, will mostly best a 4790K (except single thread).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-...789874?hash=item3abc45bbf2:g:kNIAAOSwLnlWprUb

 

[jimbob200521]

Anytime you want to upgrade, just drop a hexcore Xeon in your rig and sell the I7-920. The Westmere Xeons are 32nm instead of 45nm and sip power compared to the 920. They also overclock very well, and a cheap Xeon X5650 at 4.2Ghz, will stomp a 4790K in all but single thread.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-...789874?hash=item3abc45bbf2:g:kNIAAOSwLnlWprUb

I love that idea, that'd be a nice upgrade to keep the system alive. However, looks like my motherboard won't officially support the X5650 but it would support the X5550 (which doesn't seem like as much of an upgrade from what I have).

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X58 SuperComputer/?cat=CPU

But man, at that price it's almost worth buying one just to see if it would work. If it did, adding 2 more cores while using a good chunk less power would put a smile on my face.

 

[Burpo]

It works in your board.. Their list just wasn't updated.. There's a huge thread about these hexcores and BTRY B 529th FA BN is using same board as you with an X5690! But the X5650 has 27% better power consumption than the i7-920 CPU.

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/92/Intel_Core_i7_i7-920_vs_Intel_Xeon_X5650.html

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2335636&page=103

 

[jimbob200521]

It works in your board.. Their list just wasn't updated.. There's a huge thread about these hexcores and BTRY B 529th FA BN is using same board as you with an X5690! But the X5650 has 27% better power consumption than the i7-920 CPU.

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/92/Intel_Core_i7_i7-920_vs_Intel_Xeon_X5650.html

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2335636&page=103

Wow I owe ya a cold one, thanks for the info!

 

[ozzy702]

As a X5675 owner, I highly recommend getting one of these chips. Lower power consumption, higher clocks and two extra cores.

 

[Mercennarius]

As a dual socket X5690 owner I couldn't recommend these chips more. Incredible bang for the bucks.

 

[jimbob200521]

As a dual socket X5690 owner I couldn't recommend these chips more. Incredible bang for the bucks.

Can I ask what you do with all that horsepower under the hood? Graphic design? Heavy video editing? That 12 cores/24 threads of power has to be doing something!

 

[Mercennarius]

Can I ask what you do with all that horsepower under the hood? Graphic design? Heavy video editing? That 12 cores/24 threads of power has to be doing something!

Not really...just for fun . I do random benchmarks and gaming with it but nothing to heavy. It was just a fun build. In multi-threaded applications it does extremely well, not surprisingly.

Dual X5690s,390X,1TB SSD,48GB of RAM.

 

[jimbob200521]

Not really...just for fun . I do random benchmarks and gaming with it but nothing to heavy. It was just a fun build. In multi-threaded applications it does extremely well, not surprisingly.

Dual X5690s,390X,1TB SSD,48GB of RAM.

Yeah that sounds about like what I'd do with it if I had that much horsepower. I honestly don't get into gaming like I used to when I built this PC. Not that there aren't any games damn worthy of attention on the PC but all of my friends I game with game on Xbox so I either play with myself or play with friends, and it's always more fun to play with friends.

 

[blotto]

A coworker of mine just got the upgrade itch after hearing me talk about my 5930k and dropped in a 5650 @ 4.2ghz to replace a 920 @ 4.0. He is very pleased, it's close to his girlfriend's 4790k @ stock in most multithreaded benches.

 

[MongGrel]

Anytime you want to upgrade, just drop a hexcore Xeon in your rig and sell the I7-920. The Westmere Xeons are 32nm instead of 45nm and use less power compared to the 920. They also overclock very well, and a cheap Xeon X5650 at >4.3Ghz, will mostly best a 4790K (except single thread).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-...789874?hash=item3abc45bbf2:g:kNIAAOSwLnlWprUb

Yep, my X5680 I tried out I'm happy with @ 4.6 just to be stable, but have been hanging out with Burpo and a few others there awhile now.

X5675 the way to go, heat wise I'm sure. Even stuck the one X5650 I was playing with in the HTPC I am using, and have a spare L5639 just hanging around. Have replaced the old I7 920 I had in here a few times in the main rig playing around.

 

[Mercennarius]

My cinebench R15 at stock clocks:

 

[Deders]

I've just upgraded from an i7-750 @3.8GHz to an i7-6700k @4.6, and whilst the i5 at that speed was still pretty good for gaming, the Skylake system is definitely an improvement Not only do framerate drops happen much less often, but games feel smoother, more fluid and more responsive. Even the difference between 60fps on both machines is very evident.

 

[sm625]

I'm still using the Xeon equivalent of the i7-920. It was first released 7 years ago. Hums along just fine.

 

[dark zero]

I've just upgraded from an i7-750 @3.8GHz to an i7-6700k @4.6, and whilst the i5 at that speed was still pretty good for gaming, the Skylake system is definitely an improvement Not only do framerate drops happen much less often, but games feel smoother, more fluid and more responsive. Even the difference between 60fps on both machines is very evident.

You just jumped 5 generation, a RAM generation and OC the chip by 20%+

The boost must be massive.

 

[Deders]

You just jumped 5 generation, a RAM generation and OC the chip by 20%+

The boost must be massive.

Some synthetic benchmarks show around 100% performance increase, but for gaming at the moment it's as I described above, except what I meant by 60 fps on each system (head was foggy earlier) framerate in the 45 to 60 range feel much smoother and more fluid, closer to the 60 fps experience than the i5.

That being said, where my i5 would need 2 cores, my i7 only needs 1 so there is a lot more headroom for the future, or if I want to use a high refresh rate monitor.

 

[Nashemon]

My daily rig is sporting an i7-920 @ stock. Got her in '09. Runs everything I've thrown at her. I use it heavily for gaming. Also done some video editing over the years. A lot of my processes I've automated, and it handles that well. I go 100+ days without a reboot regularly. Really only ever shut it down when I need to add or swap a hard drive. Haven't yet gotten a NAS for that yet. Really use her as my workhorse for everything, and she's never let me down.

I've seen no reason to upgrade other than the aforementioned power consumption.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Currently running an i7 920 in the GF's rig, used to be mine, shifted to hers about three weeks ago. The 920 replaced a q6600. That system was built in '07 with 4GB of ram, and an 8800gtx, upgraded the video card to NVidia...275? I think. Had that in it until three weeks ago as well. Still ran WoW and Chivalry (about the only games played on that system) fine, albeit with lower settings.

Hers now has aforementioned 920, a 470gtx I think, and 6GB of ram, with an SSD... running like a top for WoW

Mine got a 6700k and a gtx970, very large upgrade over the 920 and 470gtx, but I was still wrecking most modern titles at 1080p with settings at least on a middle ground/high, if not ultra. Honestly I think if I had just put the 970 in with the old i7 I might not see enough of a difference outside of benchmarking.

 

[moonbogg]

Isn't a first gen i7 equal to a modern AMD chip? I'd think it would be fine for anything but the latest games on a high FPS monitor (over 60fps).

 

[Burpo]

A highly overclocked X5650 has about same single thread perf. as a 3770. In multi-thread, it slaughters even a 4790K.

 

[hectorsm]

My main system is still a Core i7 920 @3.4Ghz (3.6Ghz turbo). I have not felt the need to upgrade yet. This is one of the best processors that Intel has released in my opinion.

 

[jimbob200521]

Glad to see a few guys out there still using the OG i7 line of CPU's and happy with them. I believe they are a great CPU and still hold there own in today's real world for most situations. Anyone else care to share?