intel i5 750 vs i7 860 best value at da moment?

Hi folks,

Im new here, so I thought I'd have an intro with my 1st THREAD....

RE: Core i5 750 vs i7 860 - Best value for money including Overclocking too.!

I have both the Core i5 750 2.66Hz o/c'd to 4.2Ghz and i7 860 2.8Ghz o/c'd to 3.8Ghz both on (ARCTIC Freezer Pro 7 Rev.2) and both MSi P55 GD65 Motherboards...

The only difference is £60 in extra for the i7 860, however, for most people they are still stuck away back in the "Core 2" days... I was there too, but in Nov 2009 I changed and by Xmas, I had both 2 new rigs.

Im not a gamer, just desk top publishing, Photoshop and video editing.... etc.

Back to my thread, what do you think what P55 setup is best, and why? you can include all the new i5's and i7's..... H55 & H57 if you like also... as they can hold all.!

Thanks for all your contributions.... :rockon2:

Well both builds are really fast at stock and so IMO there's no need to overclock for 24/7 usage. I've felt for a while like I shot myself in the foot buying the i7 860, benchmarks tend to show that the i5 750 is equal on the majority of stuff. However, I was converting some videos the other day using Sony Vegas - and thats when the i7 began to shine for me personally. The extra 4 threads did make a huge difference in rendering and I'm know glad I spent the extra £50 in plucking for the 860. The extra multiplier is also useful for OC as you can see in my sig. :)

OTOH my i5 740 at 4ghz ain't too bad so it really depends on what you want. Strangely, the i5 750 seems to be the fastest gaming quadie out, as it beat i7's by 1-2 fps in some benchmarks.

I did have my 750 at 4ghz, but decided that for my current usage, that was pointless.

For the random surfing and the older games, a 750 at stock is more than enough

By the way what settings are you using to get 4.2 ghz out of your 750? I hit a wall at 4 ghz and that was with better cooling, memory and 1.46 vcore!

i5 at this point.

i5 750 temps and how I reached 4.2Ghz

I reached a stable O/C using a Corsair HX 850w PSU (for clean ripple free power)
With MSI P55-GD65 Mobo
Freezer pro 7 (rev.2)
Kingston DDR3 Ram @1333mhz
Vcore 1.43v
o/c DDR Ram 1.7v Never had it this high before so I don't know the long term implications, however its not running to warm inside HAF 922. (With all those fans)
Base Clock 209 20x multiplier

Used Everest tests to check Temps on all 4 cores including a 30min aggressive test where I maxed out the cache, ram and loaded the cores to number 10. then paased stress test with the following temps, minimum idle 34c Max Temp 64c

However at (stock), before O/C my temps were unbelievably low 16c idle and 34c normal to high load. (oh! I used MX-2 thermal paste)... "best in my humble opinion"....

Some, other folks say my temps seemed a bit on the low side, but when I 1st built the PC; burning in, I had temps of 12c idle with Arctic Freezer Pro 7. and 30c load. (unbelievable I know, but genuine)...

I understand, if I keep these spec's unchanged the life of my CPU will not last long, and I would appreciate any advice from folks who are experienced clockers, as Im not happy with my DDR Ram voltage running at 1.7v just to get 4.2Ghz. Its just an addiction like chocolate.

Like others have said, you do not need to really o/c the i5 750 as it runs well enough at Intels base specs, with auto turbo enabled at 3.2Ghz.

Thanks to everyone that contributes to this thread. cheers!
All genuine advice from P55 enthusiasts welcome...

1.7v for the RAM @ only 1333MHz ?

@Terbinator

Yeh, I used the Normal Manual settings to OVERCLOCK the MSI-P55-GD65 MOBO...

HOWEVER, it would only let me use Auto mode, and the "CELL MENU" would NOT let me change the voltage back to (Stock) 1.5v - I have discussed this with others, and they said that I would be safer trying back my original 1.65v 1600mhz DDR3 RAM and wait and see... But that would change everything... "I'm amazed that the machine is going at all at 1.7v DDR RAM"

Have you come across this before, my RAM is not over heating which is why I let it persist at present. I agree that the (STOCK) original settings were ideal, however - the over-clock past the 4Ghz Barrier is impressive.

Any advice welcome....
Thanks! :)

I have reversed the overclock back to stock, until I can get my RAM voltage sorted out:

Here is my new system specs:

http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/1005670.png

Those temps are never gneuine. Arctic freezer is no where near as good as that. Certainly not as good as my h50.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nibbler

Those temps are never gneuine. Arctic freezer is no where near as good as that. Certainly not as good as my h50.

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I thought that could have been explained by his living in Scotland, but that one's out the window.

It does depend on ambient temperature, guys. When I finished the first build of Project :hexlub: I switched it on and it reported 2 degrees for the CPU! That said, the room I was building it in wasn't getting regular use, so hadn't had the heating on for months, and it was the middle of winter :mrgreen: Now I'm actually using my computers occasionally that room gets heated, and I've not seen a temperature that low since ;)

But if i remember correctly that was an old amd? This is overclocked and overvolted i5 750 :P

Temps reported by most programs for the i5 750 are not accurate below ~25c on the core. Having had the house extremely cold at many points this winter, I noted the following:

Code:

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Ambient        Coretemp GB Easytune HWMonitor
10c        12c        0c            23c
13c        20c          2c              26c
18c        28c          18c              30c

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As can be seen, only HWMonitor reports the temperature accurately. This is for an air-cooled i5 750 @ 3.8ghz with 7v fans.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nibbler

But if i remember correctly that was an old amd? This is overclocked and overvolted i5 750 :P

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Good memory sir! Yeah, my X2 3800+. But even so... 2 degrees dude!

Sounds to me like sadbuttrue is onto something...

Even so, my i5 idles at 30 and full load 70 and thats with 18c ambient and water cooling :)

A friend of mine bought the i5 750, hes running at 4.1 GHz with a Zalman CNPS10X Extreme. I think the temp were someting like nibbler`s i5 :P So its a nice cpu.

Yeah, btw jim, weren't you tmpted to go for like a massively stupdid overclock with thsoe temps? Like just see how high it goes with a high vcore :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nibbler

Yeah, btw jim, weren't you tempted to go for like a massively stupid overclock with those temps? Like just see how high it goes with a high vcore :P

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Sadly that was before I did the full build - I just fired it all up to make sure everything was working, 'cos you never know with these dodgy dealers on forums ;)

By the time I finished the actual build I'd turned the heating up a bit, and the CPU was at something like 9 degrees - nowhere near as impressive...

What kind of cooling was it again? And what was load temps :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nibbler

What kind of cooling was it again? And what was load temps :D

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Pictures or it didn't happen? ;)

I'm just curious :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nibbler

i'm just a massive geek :D

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ftfy ;)

And Proud!
To respond to that accusation in a rather childish manner:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

But even so... 2 degrees dude!

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;)

lol, you have a point :D

The cooler is a Kama Scythe Mine - a 100mm fan tower cooler. I'm going to be very interested in exactly how far it'll take my lowly X2 3800+, but I'm not going to start 'clocking it yet - the case it's in has very poor airflow so I need to do a bit of work to improve that before I start pushing it (look out for the modding thread :D ). Obviously I couldn't do a load test from the BIOS :P but I'll probably stick some numbers up once I've sorted the cases and started the clocking.

my alter-nerd-ego is pleased now :)

Just to reiterate guys, the i5 is the one to go for?

My Win7 RC is about to expire so I'm going to have to do a fresh install of Windows sooner rather than later. The thing is that I don't want to end up having to do 2 fresh install of Windows, 1 for my current rig now and eventually another for when I finally upgrade. So I might as well kill 2 birds with one stone and up my rig and only do 1 install.

I've got a GD80 and some good DDR3 ram in the cupboard so I just need to get a CPU. My original plan was to get the i7 860 but prices seem have to increased from £205 to around £225 where was the i5 750 seem to be roughly the same. I also don't want to spend too much right now so the i5 seems to be the better choice. This right?

Go for the i5, arguably the best £: performance of all the quads at the minute!