Intel Core i7 920 - Moving to D0 Stepping

[piggin23]

Hi
I have seen this article

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...1906&Itemid=35

and was wondering is it better to get a 920 chip now or get one of the D0 chips when they come out. I am looking to overclock the chip with a water cooled system.

[shaithis]

Who the hell knows?

Chances are the new chip will be better but it may not be....

The entire i7 line has been suspect for it's longevity since it was announced, so any choice you make is likely to be nullified pretty fast anyway as the socket could very likely get phased out pretty quickly.

[moogle]

and was wondering is it better to get a 920 chip now or get one of the D0 chips when they come out. I am looking to overclock the chip with a water cooled system.

Unless you know of a retailer that will guarantee D0 steppings, when they come out you'll just get a random one. Not sure if you should wait or not though.

[piggin23]

I was thinking of purchasing a new system at the end of this month but this news has stopped me. I don't want to spend all that money and then find out that I have purchased the wrong chip. Overclocking is a bit of a crap shoot any way but to spend all that money and get a chip that has been produced so it will give poor overclocks is not what I want.

[kalniel]

I was thinking of purchasing a new system at the end of this month but this news has stopped me. I don't want to spend all that money and then find out that I have purchased the wrong chip. Overclocking is a bit of a crap shoot any way but to spend all that money and get a chip that has been produced so it will give poor overclocks is not what I want.

Why would the D0 stepping suddenly reduce the performance of existing parts?

[moogle]

Why would the D0 stepping suddenly reduce the performance of existing parts?

Because the stereotype would be that a newer stepping is less inferior in overclocking

[magneticman]

There's a feature on anandtech (i think) in which basically it explains it's a bit of a gamble when you're getting an i7 (920 in this case) as to how far it will overclock depending on the IMC - Some go to 3.6 and can't post any higher, some effortlessly go 4ghz+ at the same voltage.

I'd suspect it's the memory controller the new stepping addresses as that's what seems to be holding some chips back.

[Ciber]

Scan were good enough to offer guaranteed stepping on the Q6600 so hope they will here too.

[piggin23]

The problem is you can not tell what the stepping is on a chip until you open the box?

If retailers are able to tell the difference then they will charge a premium as they have done before.

[moogle]

The problem is you can not tell what the stepping is on a chip until you open the box?

If retailers are able to tell the difference then they will charge a premium as they have done before.

You can by looking on the CPU codes on the outside of the box

[piggin23]

Agreed, you can look at the codes on the box but I don't live near a good computer shop. I would have to order and return perfectly good chips to ensure I have the correct stepping. Most e-retailers will accept this but you have to pay for the return postage. As a chip cost approx 10 - 12 pounds to return then this can get very expensive very quickly.

[matty-hodgson]

You can by looking on the CPU codes on the outside of the box

yeah, my Q6600 has the code ...Q6600SLACR on the box, which means that it's the G0 stepping version.

[Lee H]

Scan were good enough to offer guaranteed stepping on the Q6600 so hope they will here too.

We only offer the Q6600 G0 as it was a seperate SKU compared to the normal Q6600 and as such binned by intel and given a different code from the standard Q6600.

I've read that on fudzilla and if they do implement it this way then it's going to be very simple for people to order the new processors as they'll have different numbers and different SKU's.

[piggin23]

As I purchase all of my goodies from Scan

does this mean that we will be able to order the new stepping when there are available.