Trying to decide between i5 and i7 today

I

IndieSnob

Limp Gawd
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Jun 21, 2004
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I wasn't sure where to put this thread, so I hope this is an OK place for it.

After finally building a couple of i5 systems this week for friends, the upgrade bug has bitten me fully. Currently I am running an Abit IP35, 2x2 DDR2-800, and an E8400 (not overclocked).

Normally I'm pretty patient about waiting for parts to come from Newegg so that I have more choices, but with having to start doing some video editing works among other things this coming week I think I am going to go to Fry's today.

So here is the two choices I am looking at as far as an upgrade:

1156 build:

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R

Along with an i5-750.


The other choice is:


1366 build:

MSI X58M

Along with an i7-920.

I will be using the video card from my current system (Palit 9600GT), along with four 1 terabyte and larger SATA harddrives and a SATA dvd burner.

The computer will be used for both gaming (1920x1080) and light video editing.

Also one other thing of note is that with how tight money is right now, even if I go with the 1366 build, I will only be able to pick up a 2x2 kit of DDR3 right now, as I can't afford the price difference between a 2x2 and a 3x2. I've read that the difference between triple channel and dual channel is not really noticeable, but I wasn't sure how well the 1366 platform did if you didn't at least run 3 sticks of memory.

The 1366 build would only be $15 more out the door. I like that the 1156 Gigabyte board has more PCI slots, but at the same time other than a wireless card that I use from time to time, I don't really use my PCI slots at all.

So what would you do if faced with the same choice?

Thanks for any help as I'd love to stop gnawing off my fingers in worry about what to get.
 
Shadowssong said:
$15 more for 1366? Theres your answer, 1366 it is! If you want more slots, go with the AsRock X58, its $169 (rarely in stock though!) but it is full ATX. Actually it is in stock right now.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157163

It also has better cooling than the X58M (better for overclocking).
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Heh yeah, I figured it'd be a no brainer, but I always like to check to make sure, especially because I was concerned about not utilizing the triple channel off the bat.

Also I am getting the system at Fry's and it is a bundle, so I don't have a choice when it comes to the motherboard. I don't overclock at all so that's not a big issue, but I'm just a little worried about wanting more than one pci slot down the road, though again as I said earlier I haven't used more than one pci slot in quite awhile.
 
It actually turns out there is only a $10 difference between the the i7 and i5 build I am looking at doing.

The things that still bug me is whether the i7 would be fine with just two sticks of memory versus three, and whether I am sacrificing upgrade capabilities in regards to adding more devices later, seeing as how the MSI board only has one PCI slot.

Running down the list of things that I would possibly use a PCI slot I'd say the only two things that come to mind is a sound card upgrade (yet I have been more than happy with onboard sound for the past three years), or an HDTV capable TV tuner at some point (though a lot of them come in PCI-Express now).

With two hours left till I go pick it up, does anyone else have any input as to what they would do?

Thanks!
 
For me i'd go with the i7. From what I understand socket 1156 has no future. All future chips will be socket 1366. Correct me if i'm wrong.

So with that in mind i'd go with the platform that has more upgrade options in the future.
 
Gaming + Light video editing
Tight budget
Stock (!) E8400
1920x1080 gaming resolution
9600gt

You're wasting money getting a new processor. You'll be better off getting an HD5850 and overclocking your E8400 ~ 4.0ghz. Unless of course, the program you're using for video editing would really be sped up with 2 more cores then by all means get the 1366 setup, but you did say light video editing :)

33% clock boost or more would help tremendously with your video editing, and the 5850 would eat 3x 9600gt for breakfast.
 
I just built a 1366, and I kind of wish that I'd gone with 1156. 95W (1156) versus 130W (1366). But, with my usage, I noticed I never stress my processor.

You say you do video editing, and my intuition is that while the editing may be processor intensive, you are required to do a lot of encoding/decoding? Triple-channel might make a difference there, it might not. The 1366 I think is expected to have one more upgrade (a 6-way processor), while the 1156 probably has some upgrades coming down the road.

The other difference is that the 1366 architecture has more PCI-bus bandwidth. My understanding is that only comes into play where you're using SLI. Unless they come up with some new video-editing gear that uses the PCI-bus, that's probably not a consideration for you.
 
PHiZ said:
I just built a 1366, and I kind of wish that I'd gone with 1156. 95W (1156) versus 130W (1366). But, with my usage, I noticed I never stress my processor.
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A consideration for those who run their systems 24/7 and have high energy consumption. Also might be a factor if energy prices are high, but usually not much of a factor for those who build high-end builds and/or use SpeedStep.

PHiZ said:
You say you do video editing, and my intuition is that while the editing may be processor intensive, you are required to do a lot of encoding/decoding? Triple-channel might make a difference there, it might not. The 1366 I think is expected to have one more upgrade (a 6-way processor), while the 1156 probably has some upgrades coming down the road.
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Triple-channel will be an advantage here. Also, the 1366 will support the 32nm Gulftown processors while the 1156 will not.
 
You are fine running an X58 in dual channel and just upgrading it later. There will be no innate loss other than dual vs. triple. Go for the 1366 i7, you'll be better off now and for later.
 
I forgot how much I hate taking the bus to Fry's, heh. Whole trip took over five hours.

So I talked to my friend who I do video editing work for and we came up with some numbers as far as what his needs are, budget for the upgrade, etc. etc. With that in mind I walked into Fry's thinking I would go with the i7. I got a closer look at the MSI board and it really hit me just how bare-bones it was as far as upgrade slots and all that. I can also see why people say that the chipset gets so hot on it. After looking at it over and over it just made me uneasy. Another point against it was going triple channel. From reviews of triple channel I read it seemed as the difference was minimal outside of synthetic benchmarks.

Seeing as I wanted to get the most out of the i5 or i7 system I chose, it came down to the fact that if I wanted to do 8 gigs of ram it would be easier on an i5 board then having do do 12 gigs, as it would be overkill at that point. Again everything I read about i7 said it would be the winner at video editing, but outside of a few tools I use in Adobe Premiere, I couldn't see a huge advantage given the price differential I was really going to be looking at.

I wish I would have had more time to wait for better deals on an i7 board from Newegg or elsewhere, but I really wanted to finally go Quad and there was no way I was going to throw money into a Q9650 or the like. I know I could have possibly gotten a Q6600 and overclocked the heck out of it, but I've never really been big into overclocking and I need a stable system for when I am doing media work.

So I ended up getting the Gigabyte board that I linked to, an i5-750, and a 2x2 gig kit of Corsair. My friend had a matching kit of the same Corsair, so I'm going to throw it on that board.

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I just thought I would at least share what I decided on. Again I really couldn't see putting that much more into a really great i7 motherboard and going triple channel with the ram, and I think that extra money I would have spent would be better to go towards an SSD drive and possibly an ATI video card.

Thanks for the input everyone. I really do appreciate it!
 
absolutely no problem. its your funeral. you are the one stuck with an i5 build when you could have had an i7.
 
vanilla_guerilla said:
absolutely no problem. its your funeral. you are the one stuck with an i5 build when you could have had an i7.
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I'm not being a smart ass at all by asking this, but would you please humor me about why exactly I made a poor decision.

I really am curious as to why I should feel "stuck" having gotten an i5.

Now I know I asked for input from others and between this and other forums it was split 50/50, with one camp saying put your money into other things and the other camp saying that i7 has the better future.

Here is my take on why I don't necessarily feel that I am stuck.

#1: I don't overclock what so ever so I threw that out of the equation completely.

#2: While I know the 1366 i7's have HT, from what I could gather pouring over numerous reviews, threads and general googling, that for what I needed my system for HT was *not* going to make that big of a difference.

#3: I may be wrong, but I feel that the overall build quality and features of the Gigabyte is better than the MSI. I feel I have a little more wiggle room with having the extra PCI slots, and I much prefer the heat sink design and layout of the Gigabyte.

#4: From what I have read it is true that the 1366 is going to have a better roadmap/future than the 1156. Reading further it seemed Gulftown was one of the more promising things about going to 1366. While I of course drool over a six core processor, am I really going to be able to afford it? From what I read, and I may have read this wrong, but it seemed like launch prices on Gulftown are going to be quite high.

#5: I felt the price difference between a good 1366 motherboard/cpu combo (again was not hot on the MSI) and a quality 1156 motherboard/cpu did not justify the jump to me. I am quite sure I will never use Crossfire nor SLI. I am also sure that I would not see enough performance jump in a tri-channel memory setup.

Who knows, I may not know as much as I thought going into this upgrade. I did quite a bit of reading and with the input I received, I made what I thought was the right decision.

I'm not making this post to get into a flame war or to say I'm wrong or you're wrong, but instead I am seriously curious as to whether I made a mistake.
 
I don't think you made a mistake at all. I plan to go with an i5 myself once I get the cash together. Even though an i7 920 can be had for a similar price, when taking overclocking and SLI/CrossFire out of the equation there will be little to no real-world difference for the majority of uses. You just saved a little cash and got a more power efficient processor for your money, and you won't need to upgrade again until both motherboards are long obsolete.
 
IndieSnob said:
Seeing as I wanted to get the most out of the i5 or i7 system I chose, it came down to the fact that if I wanted to do 8 gigs of ram it would be easier on an i5 board then having do do 12 gigs, as it would be overkill at that point.
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That makes no sense at all. Why would 8GB be easier on i5 rather than i7? i7 920 can do single, dual, and triple channel, as long as you put it in the right slots. If you went with i7, you could have had 4 more ram slots free after you bought the two modules. Now, after saving a few pennies, you only have 2 slots free, half the PCI-E bandwidth, no HT, and a worse off upgrading future ahead of you. If the difference was $100, then maybe. But for $10? Come on man.
 
For $10 more, I obviously would have gone with the i7. However, it's ultimately your decision. If you're happy with your build and it fulfills all of your needs, then don't worry about it and just enjoy it regardless of what people here say.
 
Salavat23 said:
That makes no sense at all. Why would 8GB be easier on i5 rather than i7? i7 920 can do single, dual, and triple channel, as long as you put it in the right slots. If you went with i7, you could have had 4 more ram slots free after you bought the two modules. Now, after saving a few pennies, you only have 2 slots free, half the PCI-E bandwidth, no HT, and a worse off upgrading future ahead of you. If the difference was $100, then maybe. But for $10? Come on man.
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You're right, it doesn't make any sense at all now that I look at it. I guess I could have just used four of the six slots.

Shit who knows maybe I did make the wrong decision.

Not to sound weird but with my anxiety disorder I tend to really worry about every little detail of something, and I feel that if something I am going to do is making me anxious, then I'll make the decision that makes me less anxious.

Now however I am still a little worried I made a bad decision.

It also seems to make less sense in that I say the difference of $10 between i7 and i5 would be a waste because I wouldn't use some of the advanced features (tri-channel, SLI/Crossfire).

I'm still sticking to my guns that I really didn't like the layout of the MSI board though, and if I would have gotten a board I felt was what I wanted, the difference in price between the MSI and a board I would have liked more would have made it much more.

I'm afraid at this point though that I sound like an idiot. I really honestly had no intention of coming off that way nor asking for advice and tossing it out the window.

This is why I hate making hardware decisions. I let my anxiety rule out in favor of my decisions sometime.
 
Can you still return the products you purchased and go with the i7? Obviously, the i7 has more advantages, but price should be taken into consideration. However, for $10 more, I don't really see any reason to not go with the i7 920. The MSI may be a worse board, but it will still be more than good enough, especially if you are not overclocking. And there are also more upgrade paths down the line with the 32nm chips. That being said, the i5 750 may also be more than what you actually need (in terms of computing needs) so you may have made the right choice after all. You went with what you need (and not like me, getting something in excess of what I really need). Also, the i5 will use less power so that might prove to be beneficial.
 
IndieSnob said:
This is why I hate making hardware decisions. I let my anxiety rule out in favor of my decisions sometime.
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eh, doesn't really matter, you'll love the machine regardless. and if you don't plan on getting a 6-core Gulftown in 6 months, who cares.
 
yea really, its ok. dont worry about it. we wont tell you how bad of a decision it was anymore. its a perfectly, well, its an ok decision. really. right guys? just because he could have had a much better upgrade path with more options and features for 10 or 20 bucks more, and now he will never....

sorry. i just wanted to say dont worry about it. it was really not like a terribly bad decison, just well, oh never mind.
 
Oh give the guy a break. IMO he made a decent decision. The i5 has a better turbo mode which can give it the edge in some situations, especially useful for non-overclockers. Triple channel has negligible performance benefit outside of synthetic CPU and mem bandwidth benches. As for future upgradability, I doubt many would buy low cost current x58 mobos today to use with costly 6 core chips when they arrive. Chances are that a new chipset will appear that is more optimized for it, sort of like what happened with the old p965 to P35/P45 chipsets where the former could still run quads with bios updates, but not very well. I may go for an i5 myself.
 
^ Good post to read OP.

Going i5 was not a bad decision no matter what the i7 people will want you to think. Like you said, chances are the future 6 core chips will be out of your price range. You have a powerful quad core setup that should last for some time.
 
Not to jump on the band wagon, but going i5 or i7 with a 9600GT is kind of pointless!
 
acruxksa said:
Not to jump on the band wagon, but going i5 or i7 with a 9600GT is kind of pointless!
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I see what you're saying, but the OP can always upgrade down the line. If he's on a tight budget, he may not be able to get another card at the moment.
 
acruxksa said:
Not to jump on the band wagon, but going i5 or i7 with a 9600GT is kind of pointless!
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Not pointless. Some games are more CPU dependent than GPU. WoW for one benefits more from the CPU than the GPU. And even on other games a faster CPU will help. And you have to start the upgrades somewhere.
 
amenx said:
The i5 has a better Turbo mode which can give it the edge in some situations, especially useful for non-overclockers. Triple channel has negligible performance benefit outside of synthetic CPU and mem bandwidth benches. As for future upgradeability, I doubt many would buy low cost current X58 mobos today to use with costly 6 core chips when they arrive.
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+1. The 1366 superiority complex can get a little ridiculous. So what if it was $10 more? This whole, "Why get 1156 when you could get 1366 for $X more?" philosophy is getting old. Time and again, reviewers have made it clear. There is not much measurable difference between Lynnfield and Bloomfield. Honestly, do you think anyone could tell the difference between an i7-860 system and an i7-920 in a blind taste test?

OP, this has been hashed and rehashed in dozens of reviews and threads. Sure, 1366 is great, but your setup is certainly nothing to worry about. ;)
 
i just built my system monday this week. I also CHOSE i5 over the i7... With a nice CPU cooler im running at 3.8ghz VERY stable and can even push it a tad over 4.0 with stability...

very, very awesome proc.
 
OP theres this thing called bias. All the early adopters of the 1366 socket want to justify there purchase over the new 1566 socket they could have waited on and saved mucho dinero on and had similar performance overall. There rebutall to my aforementioned statement will be the obvious ohh well he only had to pay $10 more! Seeing as you are not OC'ing the i5 is more than enough for you and utilizes less power (non-OC'd). I would say you made a good choice in going with a moderate/high quality 1566 mobo over a low/moderate quality 1366 mobo. Your looking at longevity then the quality of your mobo purchase should be paramount.
 
Sherloc said:
OP theres this thing called bias. All the early adopters of the 1366 socket want to justify there purchase over the new 1566 socket they could have waited on and saved mucho dinero on and had similar performance overall. There rebutall to my aforementioned statement will be the obvious ohh well he only had to pay $10 more! Seeing as you are not OC'ing the i5 is more than enough for you and utilizes less power (non-OC'd). I would say you made a good choice in going with a moderate/high quality 1566 mobo over a low/moderate quality 1366 mobo. Your looking at longevity then the quality of your mobo purchase should be paramount.
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At least know what sockets you're talking about before trying to make a point...

From what we currently know, it appears that 1156 is going to have a short lifespan. There's a new P57 chipset coming out to support the 32nm chips clarkdale chips with integrated video, P55 is supposedly going to support them, but obviously will not support the onboard video features.

On the other hand X58 has been out for close to a year now, has great support, tons of mb options which have really come down in price since it was first released. It's a mature platform that will be getting at least one 32nm processor iteration that is better then what it currently has. The same can't be said for 1156, all it's slated to get is dual core chips with integrated video.

On top of that, HT is one of the best features of the nehalem chips, something you don't get with the i5 750.
 
ND40oz said:
At least know what sockets you're talking about before trying to make a point.
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LOL. Oh, please. :rolleyes:

From what we currently know, it appears that 1156 is going to have a short lifespan. There's a new P57 chipset coming out to support the 32nm chips Clarkdale chips with integrated video, P55 is supposedly going to support them, but obviously will not support the onboard video features.
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And everything else in the PC world will remain static! Heh, as if the Gulftown processors aren't going to change anything in 1366 world. Everyone will one day need to upgrade again. What is with this persistence? People may pick what they want, and the difference will be miniscule. Jeez.

It's a mature platform that will be getting at least one 32nm processor iteration that is better then what it currently has. The same can't be said for 1156, all it's slated to get is dual core chips with integrated video.
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And therefore . . . ? :confused:

On top of that, HT is one of the best features of the Nehalem chips, something you don't get with the i5 750.
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Well, that is one man's opinion, and you are entitled to it. Many (and I do mean many) reviewers have reported that Hyper-Threading is currently only truly useful in a limited number of multi-threaded applications. Meanwhile, Lynnfield's optimized Turbo mode boosts its performance in single- and dual-threaded applications. Which makes more sense to you? Will HT grow increasingly more useful? Sure. But by then you will have already made the swift upgrade to 32nm, right? ;)

Honestly, 1366 is one great platform, but why can't there be space for two?
 
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TheQuestian said:
LOL. Oh, please. :rolleyes:
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Yeah, calling it socket 1566 repeatedly really makes me think he knows what he's talking about... :rolleyes:

TheQuestian said:
And everything else in the PC world will remain static! Heh, as if the Gulftown processors aren't going to change anything in 1366 world. Everyone will one day need to upgrade again. What is with this persistence? People may pick what they want, and the difference will be miniscule. Jeez.
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It's practically a dead socket from the time it was released, that's the point, certainly not an enthusiasts socket since it's top processors came out first and their will be no better processors coming down the pipeline. With 1366 we've already had one iteration going from 940 to 950 and 965 to 975 at the same price points.

TheQuestian said:
And therefore . . . ? :confused:
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Confused about what, the fact that 1156 is going to go to OEMs bread and butter business lines and have no better processors released for it then what it got from the get go?

TheQuestian said:
Well, that is one man's opinion, and you are entitled to it. Many (and I do mean many) reviewers have reported that Hyper-Threading is currently only truly useful in a limited number of multi-threaded applications. Meanwhile, Lynnfield's optimized Turbo mode boosts its performance in single- and dual-threaded applications. Which makes more sense to you? Will HT grow increasingly more useful? Sure. But by then you will have already made the swift upgrade to 32nm, right? ;)
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Hyperthreading works great if you're using applications that take advantage of it. I know from personal use encoding and crunching it works great. Rarely am I only using one or two threads on my PC, most of the time, they're all sitting at 100%. The only time that I'd recommend a lynnfield i7 is if you aren't planning on overclocking, then you may see the benefits of turbo mode depending on your usage.

TheQuestian said:
Honestly, 1366 is one great platform, but why can't there be space for two?
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Sure, there is space for two, but what we have here is a clear differentiation in lines for Intel. It's clear that 1156 is being pushed for OEMs to use with cheaper desktops, especially since they're integrating video into the processor and dropping core count. While X58 is being marketed as the enthusiast/workstation/server socket for the near future, it's getting the 6 core processor. As an enthusiast, if prices are relatively the same, which would you choose? Me, I made my choice in the form of 1 C0 and 2 more D0s for my upgrades.
 
TheQuestian said:
Honestly, 1366 is one great platform, but why can't there be space for two?
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there can be. but the op was only going to buy one system. and there is only space for 1 best choice. all this other noise is just spam. he bought an i5. maybe he should let us know how he feels about it.


he hasnt posted back. hope he hasnt done something drastic because he feels bad about the choice he made. (read post 17). or maybe he just brought the stuff back.
 
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I have both - I got my i7 when they first came out with p6 and 9GB of ram (all 6 slots filled). It's my main rig for gaming etc with 260 gtx's in sli. Orig oc'ed to 4.02 Ghz but backed down to 3.6 @ defaults with ht and all the toys turned on.

I built and i5/udr3 rig for downstairs with two 4870/512's in crossfire, You know what? It's just as fast (faster actually since I got to 4.0 Ghz with no effort and less heat). and it cost me a lot less (139 for the cpu 139 for the mobo versus 199 for the 920 and 249 for the mobo)...that is 170 bucks less !

People can argue 1156 will be obsolete...so what..so will 1366 probably by the time you want to upgrade again.
 
ND40oz said:
Yeah, calling it socket 1566 repeatedly really makes me think he knows what he's talking about... :rolleyes:
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But a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, wouldn't it? ;)

Sure, there is space for two, but what we have here is a clear differentiation in lines for Intel. It's clear that 1156 is being pushed for OEMs to use with cheaper desktops, especially since they're integrating video into the processor and dropping core count. While X58 is being marketed as the enthusiast/workstation/server socket for the near future, it's getting the 6 core processor. As an enthusiast, if prices are relatively the same, which would you choose? Me, I made my choice in the form of 1 C0 and 2 more D0s for my upgrades.
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Alright, I don't feel like posting back and forth forever. This has been thoroughly discussed. If you want to call the delineation between the sockets "OEM" vs. "enthusiast", that is fine. I don't care what label you want to stick on it.

If you want to argue performance, pit an i7-860 rig against an i7-920 rig. See what happens.
If you want to argue value, an i5-750 is the best bang for you buck.
If you want to argue upgrade path, for 90% of users, i9 will make little to no sense when it is released.
If you want to argue CF/SLI gaming performance, just read the reviews.

To my mind, Bloomfield is designed to be an "ultra-high-end" platform and Lynnfield is design to be a "high-end" platform. But until i9 and i3 are released, it will be hard to tell the difference. At that time, I think we will see that you are right about the 1156 socket being cheaper (as 1156 moves to i3, and 1366 to i9), but I fail to see how being a more expensive platform can be seen as a benefit.

For now, any performance differences between the sockets will only be noticeable by mega-high-end users, and they already know they need triple channel memory and HT. For the rest of us, why bicker about it?
 
vanilla_guerilla said:
There can be. But the OP was only going to buy one system. And there is only space for 1 best choice.
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Ah, yes. And you presume that you know which that is. And I say it is not so simple. And hence the reason for this thread.

He hasn't posted back. Hope he hasn't done something drastic because he feels bad about the choice he made (read post 17).
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LOL. Not sure if that is more funny or awful. But if he did something drastic, it is only because he was convinced that i7 vs. i5 is a big deal, which it really isn't.
 
groebuck said:
People can argue 1156 will be obsolete...so what..so will 1366 probably by the time you want to upgrade again.
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You've already upgraded twice in that timeframe, on this board, I'm sure that there are plenty of people that upgrade every few months if not more often, I know I do.
 
It amazes me how much energy people put into arguing about this shit. It's really like some of you identify with your computer hardware. 1156, AM3, 1366, 775, who fucking cares if you buy a quad you most likely have a computer that's overkill fast for most of the things you do on the computer (there are exceptions of course) anyway.
 
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