i7? Why not just buy some SSDs?

R

Righty

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 18, 2007
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Im building soon and have been checking out i7 stuff. But wouldnt just doing a cheap q6700 and some SSD HDD be money better spent?

The quad cores still have lots of life in them right?.
 
if you already have a q6700 get ssd if not get a 860/920/930. I couldn't recommend buying a new a q6700
 
Roland00 said:
if you already have a q6700 get ssd if not get a 860/920/930. I couldn't recommend buying a new a q6700
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I dont but i was thinking of going used. Im just trying to get the most out of my money. Just had noticed no one was really bringing it up. But a older quad core is going to kill a i7 with a standard HDD. As long as you can get by with the lower amount of storage.
 
Well, it all depends on how you use your PC. A SSD certainly could be better.
 
Do you have an example other than needing HD space where is would not be better?
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How about, basically every single multi-threaded CPU-intensive application out there?
 
I'm running a Phenom 9600 quad core and it does everything I need it to in a very speedy manner. I'm pleased as punch.

That said, a 920 or better would perform even more impressively. Of course, I'd pay more for the 920 *alone* than I paid for this CPU *plus* the nVidia 8200 Asus Mobo I'm running with it. So really, it all comes down to a simple question: How much performance is enough for what you expect to be doing, and can you get it in the price range you want to pay?

For those who haven't been in the computer game for long, I'll just say that even today's "Slow" computers are pretty damn fast, all in all, especially compared to what some of us who've been working in the industry for many years started out on :).
 
Well, a q6700 is most certainly a weaker CPU. You have to take that into consideration. If you are doing CPU heavy work it would be a worse choice. Also, if you are gaming a Q6700 might not be the best choice unless you are getting it cheap and plan to replace it sooner or later. An i7 build will have more life in it.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
How about, basically every single multi-threaded CPU-intensive application out there?
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So a core i7 with a 7200rpm HDD is going to be better overall at mutil threaded cpu intensive applications than say a Q6700@ 3.2 GHZ with a SSD?
 
Righty said:
So a core i7 with a 7200rpm HDD is going to be better overall at mutil threaded cpu intensive applications than say a Q6700@ 3.2 GHZ with a SSD?
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Hard drives only help getting stuff off the disk. Everything is usually loaded into RAM.
 
Jospeh said:
Also, if you are gaming a Q6700 might not be the best choice unless you are getting it cheap and plan to replace it sooner or later. An i7 build will have more life in it.
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That is main thing im worried about. Video games aren't as CPU centered as they used to be and even crysis is not using half of even a Q6700 over the 4 cores. But what about RAGE, DOOM 4, Crysis 2 and ARMA 2?

Seems like the CPU race is all but over and these SSD drives are really going to change things but its really not being realized yet.

I can definitely see another 3 years (for gaming) out of a OCd Q6700 or any (Q quad core) with just GPU upgrades.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
How about, basically every single multi-threaded CPU-intensive application out there?
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So we are talking about photoshop, protools and final cut pro? What else :p I use none of these. Im not downplaying an up to date CPU but for the average user with a quad core already and a budget, a SSD drive should be first, then the i7 right?
 
Righty said:
So we are talking about photoshop, protools and final cut pro? What else :p I use none of these. Im not downplaying an up to date CPU but for the average user with a quad core already and a budget, a SSD drive should be first, then the i7 right?
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No,

A SSD Raid 0 array should be first.. that'll give you a reason to upgrade your CPU later.. Its an opinion.. I had a B3 Q6600 @ 3ghz and Raid 0 7200rpm HDD's up until last week.. I bought an Intel X25-M 80GB G2.. installed Windows ..and saw a big imporvment in speed.. really fast "enough" for the games and stuff I did.. ..but I splurged.. for no good reason and bought a scond G2 for RAID 0 and went ahead with an entire i7 build..

I ended up with 2 i7 920's also.. (i went buying crazy for a few days) going to be selling one. but the reason I decided to go i7 now. is because I just had read about the i9 core and support for the X58 chipset.. probably flawed logic, but I figured I could make some money back by selling my older rig.. (but I ended up with an HTPC and my i7 right which I'll be building this weekend)..

But yeah.. for the power you get it's ridiculously cheap to build a nice Core2Quad system right now, and for sure the first upgrade I would do on it would be an SSD.
 
I understand your point and agree with the idea of spending more on a SSD and budgeting less for the cpu. As to whether the Q6700 is a good idea depends on the price and if you already own a motherboard for it. There are other low cost options
 
You could also consider going with AM3 and SSD since the overall AM3 platform cost is cheaper than P55 or X58 and it has a better upgrade path than S775.
 
The SSD is no doubt a much larger "it feels faster" upgrade than the CPU upgrade would be. The vast majority of computing tasks are bottlenecked not by the CPU but by the hard disk. This is assuming your current CPU is modern or you can get into a modern one cheaply.
 
Go i7 and shove in a short stroked 1.5TB Seagate (300gb) on the OS side.
 
bigddybn said:
The SSD is no doubt a much larger "it feels faster" upgrade than the CPU upgrade would be. The vast majority of computing tasks are bottlenecked not by the CPU but by the hard disk. This is assuming your current CPU is modern or you can get into a modern one cheaply.
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PROOF. LINK. NOW.
 
Righty said:
So we are talking about photoshop, protools and final cut pro? What else :p I use none of these. Im not downplaying an up to date CPU but for the average user with a quad core already and a budget, a SSD drive should be first, then the i7 right?
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Well there is this one called "windows"
In the task manager you may notice more than one thing is running. all those services and things can run on different cores!
you can even run 2 single threaded programs at the same time and they can both use a whole core! isnt that amazing!

Trepidati0n said:
PROOF. LINK. NOW.
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SSDs do feel faster. look at this crappy e7300 with 2gb booting up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFVdGL6nQoM
most of that time is the BIOS too.

If you mostly use your computer for one thing and are not constantly opening and closing stuff, then mechanical hard drive is fine.
 
When WoW is CPU limited in some places with the system currently in my sig.... I would not go Q6700 over an i7.

In fact, I am upgradin to an LGA1366 i7 setup with DDR3-2000. The RAM throuput is going to be over 3x the throughput in the system in my sig... and the i7 920 at a stock speed of 2.66Ghz is faster than the CPU in my sig...

And I will be shooting for over 4Ghz on the i7... hoping to get 4.4Ghz but I will have to wait and see what the temps are at that speed.

SSDs are just way too expensive at this point... I'll take my mismatched 2x 250GB SATA RAID 0 array over an SSD until the prices of SSDs come down quite a lot.

So what if a crappy computer with an SSD can boot up faster than my system... The slower system is going to take much much longer to do CPU and RAM intensive tasks.
 
Eh, there are thresholds to all of this:

for someone who does office work (lots of small files, nothing overly intense) I'd certainly said SSD + i5 750
for a gamer / someone who does intensive simulation tasks, CPU all the way

remember the i5 750 can be had for $150-170 these days (at least @ Microcenter), hard to recommend anything Core2 related since Core only starts at $130ish I think
 
going ssd, in any system, imo, is the best upgrade there is. i agree that a cpu+mobo is also a good thing.
 
Mr. Pedantic said:
How about, basically every single multi-threaded CPU-intensive application out there?
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Every app needs tobe loaded from the drive. Not every app is multi-thraded and even less of those are cpu intensive all the time, and then you actually have to be a user of such app to reap the benefits. It's easy to say HD encoding would benefit, but how many people actually do that? Now compare that with how many gigabytes of data get transferred through that little SATA cable by even your most casual user.

This is pretty much the same argument as "should i upgrade my CPU or GPU" it's all dependant on the individual user and what hardware they currently have. Though i think it's pretty safe to say that the vast majority of Core 2 Quad users would benefit more from an SSD upgrade than a i5/i7 upgrade.

That said, if I was building a NEW system from the ground up, it would certainly not be based on an LGA775 platform.
 
I would also say the ssd is a larger upgrade, especially if you can put 2 of them into raid 0. Also consider the q9550 if you live close to a microcenter.
 
Arkangyl said:
Remember, the i5-750 can be had for $150-170 these days (at least @ Micro Center). Hard to recommend anything Core2 related since Core only starts at $130-ish, I think.
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Yes, but I think this is the conundrum, because an i5 does not exist in a vacuum. For 775 users, i5 represents a new motherboard ($120-$200) and RAM ($85-$125). It's roughly a $350+ investment, one for which some users may see little real performance gain. It can be a very close call in some cases.
 
Or you could get an X2 or X3 and unlock it, overclock it, AND get some SSDs. Nothing else even comes remotely close to the price/performance of a sub $100 unlocked X2 or X3.
 
ordovician said:
Or you could get an X2 or X3 and unlock it, overclock it, AND get some SSDs. Nothing else even comes remotely close to the price/performance of a sub $100 unlocked X2 or X3.
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Luck of the draw, though, isn't it? As I understand it, many of those cores are locked for a reason. :(

Given the price/performance with an Athlon II X4, why take the risk?
 
If you buy a SSD now you're going to regret not waiting to pair it with a SATA III board. As a SSD will be the only thing that will benefit from SATA III.
 
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