Reviews - Intel Core i7 930 CPU review - busting through 4GHz

[mercyground]

intel have 6 core? /me goes to hunt.

Wow i have been sleeping. :-/ Not like me to miss that.

Guess changing their bus really is paying dividends. Ah well. Rock and Roll.

[mercyground]

GTX 480 with CUDA ?

I got a slice of the moon you can buy?

Seriously I dont believe NV can sort this clusterfark out before the end of the year (and i mean get /reasonably/ priced cards into regular buyers hands that are competitive to ATI's 5 series with FULLY working DX11.)

600bucks for a card? Yeah right. Dream on.

[Percy1983]

It does seem we are adding more and more cores with higher clocks just for the fun of it.

As a gamer mostly I also do a lot of video editing/encoding with AVCHD and HDV footage, now I can see a slight advantage to the i7's but the cost to gain over my Q9550 at 3.6Ghz just isn't worth it. Dare I say that my current processor is more than fast enough and at no point have I thought 'I wish this was faster' on both gaming and encoding fronts.

Am I alone in thinking 'whats the point?', it cost me just short of £300 for a Q9550, X48 board and 8GB DDR3. Bang for buck I must be on the money.

[scaryjim]

Man I REALLY REALLY hope its the AMD chip ...

I'd love it to be the AMD too, I really would - but I don't see any way they can pick up that kind of performance boost without a major overhaul of their CPU architecture - and that's not due until 2011 with Bulldozer. And even then, the rumours I've heard about Bulldozer don't suggest that it will necessarily be an i7 killer, let alone whatever new CPU Intel bring out in the mean time...

[0iD]

hose of you who think it's the much-heralded six-core Core i7 980X CPU will be disappointed - for a short while yet.

Dang! That's some seriously sexy silicon.

[Tattysnuc]

It does seem we are adding more and more cores with higher clocks just for the fun of it.

As a gamer mostly I also do a lot of video editing/encoding with AVCHD and HDV footage, now I can see a slight advantage to the i7's but the cost to gain over my Q9550 at 3.6Ghz just isn't worth it. Dare I say that my current processor is more than fast enough and at no point have I thought 'I wish this was faster' on both gaming and encoding fronts.

Am I alone in thinking 'whats the point?', it cost me just short of £300 for a Q9550, X48 board and 8GB DDR3. Bang for buck I must be on the money.

I have to agree with you. I upgraded following a water leak which blew my PSU asnd Mobo, splashing out on Core i7 920. It overclocks easier, but when I compare my benchmark scores for my single card system they are quicker, but it's not by a lot. The difference is certainly not giving me any tangible benefits.

It is nice though. REALLY nice. The X58 platform is so easy to work on.

[chis]

Am I alone in thinking 'whats the point?', it cost me just short of £300 for a Q9550, X48 board and 8GB DDR3. Bang for buck I must be on the money.

I'm in the same situation, only slightly lesser specs (Q6600 at 3GHz, Q33 board, 6GB DDR2). Only reason I OC'd my Q6600 to 3GHz is because I feel I can do this safely with the cooler I have (Megahalems).

To make a jump to a newer system with equal or better specs based on DDR3 will easily cost me £400+. Video rendering and Ableton Live are pushing my workstation very hard, but I don't see the point in upgrading right now when the "huge" jump in performance an i7-930 would get me, comes with an equally hefty pricetag.

[Percy1983]

Got to say I was lucky with my system as I got the DDR3 at £20.99 per 2Gb (Crucial 1333mhz) hence why I went for 8GB.

Assuming the AMD chips are around the perfomance levels of my Q9550 I would say they are a great buy. Buy all means if you needed absolute cutting edge speed get a i7 but the value AMD and 775 intels offer right now really can't be beaten.

[scaryjim]

Assuming the AMD chips are around the perfomance levels of my Q9550 I would say they are a great buy.

Hexus's review of the 965BE on release put it equal to, if not marginally ahead of, the Q9550. It's certainly good value.

[zoomee]

Hexus's review of the 965BE on release put it equal to, if not marginally ahead of, the Q9550. It's certainly good value.

I'd be more than happy if that was the case with a 890/965BE combo. It's vey hard to find reviews of overclocked (which I will be doing) 965BE's v's Intel chips.

I had to give my Q6600@3.2/P45/5850 away, but was more than happy with its power, yet feel sooo sad (especially having to use a cruddy acer 8530g laptop now!)

This will be a complete new build for me and being an AMD fan (not a extreme fan boy- but just a fan) I'd prefer to have the same power (Q6600) albiet AMD. Need to support the competition otherwise intel will start slacking and innovation will suffer as a result. Just like everyone so far is pointing out - who needs all the power of i7? I'd rather save myself £200 and settle for something which will rock at the same FPS in games (even at 4Ghz the Corei7 doesnt gain much on the 965BE for gaming)

890 will support the Hexcore stuff coming from AMD, hence give me anviable cost/performance upgrade path where as I doubt I will be able to afford the cost of the Intel hexcore alternative.

Now if only I can be patient enough to wait a couple of weeks......

[Percy1983]

I do think AMD have really started to take a few slots on the value front, yes they may not have the top end but if they offer better value for the 'normal' user then sales should pick up. Problem is many people will compare the top end processors and if Intel have the best top end they will assume that follows right down the line.

I have been with Intel for a good while now as it took AMD a while to catch to core2's, but I do seem to be a source of advice on computer building for many and the last processor I built a system with was an AMD 620 on a 785G board, the value offered there is amazing.

I do look forward to a return to AMD one day, it will just take a while for my current processor to be outdated so it may all change.

[Darren]

Fantastic, it is now even more costly ... -_-

£238.72 and rising!

[Lee H]

Fantastic, it is now even more costly ... -_-

£238.72 and rising!

This is because the £/$ exchange rate falling steadily over the last few weeks.

The pounds been in a slow free fall against the dollar for a while now as shown on the graph at the following link

[maxx11111]

"Better than the decent Core i7 920 in every way" = exactly the same but a higher multiplyer which can be done in most if not all bioses

[HW_90]

"Better than the decent Core i7 920 in every way" = exactly the same but a higher multiplyer which can be done in most if not all bioses

the 920 doesn't have 22x multiplier though even with turbo

honestly I'm thinking about getting this as a (poorly overclocking) 920 owner if user reviews can show that it'll hit 4.8GHz with the Venomous X.

[thrustmaster]

This is because the £/$ exchange rate falling steadily over the last few weeks.

The pounds been in a slow free fall against the dollar for a while now as shown on the graph at the following link

That's pretty shocking..
Hopefully it will improve over the next few month