Intel Core i7 - Toms Hardware Review ( Drool)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Core-i7-Nehalem,2057.html

so its on average 25% faster than core 2 duo. and the new extreme edition is 160% faster than AMD's flagship model (ownd lol)

big 30 page review with pretty much any benchmark you could ask for.

id soo get the 280$ 2.6ghz one but the catch is due to the new socket a new mobo is needed and the new mobo's are in the 300's range... :( :(

isnt ddr3 still extremely expensive? ive seen comparisons to ddr2 and frankly for the price difference.. unless your doing some extreme overclocking.. i cant see the performance increase warranting it.

i mean for a 3000$ + computer sure id put it in there. but i try not to build for over 2500 and for the build i made in april i could barely afford everything and keep on mark..

EDIT: i just looked on newegg, you can get a 2x2gigs (4gigs) of corsair ddr2 ram for 85 bucks, but for ddr3 corsairs cheapest is 2x1 gig (2gigs) packs for 91 each, so two packs, 4 sticks would be 182$ for 4 gigs... a lot cheaper than it used to be.. but 2x the price ... meh..

Overclocking protection for non-extreme editions... How thoughtful of Intel to protect us. I guess initial benchmarks were way off, even gaming is seeing significant gains, although the gains from a top end core 2 are not really neccesary in the real world...

is the rumor i heard true, that opon the release of windows 7 intel plans to release yet another new architecture along with nvidia and ati with their dx11 cards... ?

if thats true itd be a great and easy time to build a new computer if a new OS, cpu, and gpu series all come out relatively near eachother.. :P

what are you talking about bro, they tested crysis, UT3, supreme commander, and world in conflict, and 3dmark vantage....

so not only are you wrong about testing one game, crysis is pretty much the test bench for new hardware these days along with 3dmark. and also the new processors topped the charts on all tests. GG? yeah.

Overclocking protection for non-extreme editions... How thoughtful of Intel to protect us. I guess initial benchmarks were way off, even gaming is seeing significant gains, although the gains from a top end core 2 are not really neccesary in the real world...

Captain__Tripps

Double-check the games settings, they were running those games at low. Crank up the details and watch the gap close significantly (except possibly in World in Conflict).

[QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

Overclocking protection for non-extreme editions... How thoughtful of Intel to protect us. I guess initial benchmarks were way off, even gaming is seeing significant gains, although the gains from a top end core 2 are not really neccesary in the real world...

RayvinAzn

Double-check the games settings, they were running those games at low. Crank up the details and watch the gap close significantly (except possibly in World in Conflict).

Yeah, WiC responded better to my .4Ghz overclock than it did to a second graphics card for me!

I guess initial benchmarks were way off, even gaming is seeing significant gains, although the gains from a top end core 2 are not really neccesary in the real world...

Captain__Tripps

There's a benchmark running games at higher detail. Granted they didn't test any RTS games (and they really should have), but you'll see that the Core i7 chips don't always offer superior gaming results. In fact, they put up worse results on occasion - even the E8600 bested the Core i7 920.

it won everything all but fear, and it lost by 1 fps.. negligable.. nimatoad2000

They are also testing overclocked i7 with stock Core 2 chips.

isnt ddr3 still extremely expensive? ive seen comparisons to ddr2 and frankly for the price difference.. unless your doing some extreme overclocking.. i cant see the performance increase warranting it.

i mean for a 3000$ + computer sure id put it in there. but i try not to build for over 2500 and for the build i made in april i could barely afford everything and keep on mark..

EDIT: i just looked on newegg, you can get a 2x2gigs (4gigs) of corsair ddr2 ram for 85 bucks, but for ddr3 corsairs cheapest is 2x1 gig (2gigs) packs for 91 each, so two packs, 4 sticks would be 182$ for 4 gigs... a lot cheaper than it used to be.. but 2x the price ... meh..

nimatoad2000

What I mean is that, there won't been any DDR2 compatible mobo for I7 mobos.

The Core i7's general purpose performance is solid, you're looking at a 5 - 10% increase in general application performance at the same clock speeds as Penryn. Where Nehalem really succeeds however is in anything involving video encoding or 3D rendering, the performance gains there are easily in the 20 - 40% range. Part of the performance boost here is due to Hyper Threading, but the on-die memory controller and architectural tweaks are just as responsible for driving Intel's performance through the roof.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3448&p=20

The Core i7's general purpose performance is solid, you're looking at a 5 - 10% increase in general application performance at the same clock speeds as Penryn. Where Nehalem really succeeds however is in anything involving video encoding or 3D rendering, the performance gains there are easily in the 20 - 40% range. Part of the performance boost here is due to Hyper Threading, but the on-die memory controller and architectural tweaks are just as responsible for driving Intel's performance through the roof.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3448&p=20

Bebi_vegeta

Or to put it in another perspective, the $300 I paid for my E6600 just over 2 years ago is easily the best hardware investment I've ever made. Pity I didn't wait another few weeks for the 8800GTS 640MB to launch as well, then I'd have a really badass machine.

IIRC, in custom PC they showed a warning about currend DDR3 modules and how it won't work with i7.

Thing is current DDR3 modules are way too high a voltage for the i7 boards and you may damage your CPU or mobo/RAM.

Asus (i think) even went as far as putting a sticker over the RAM slots to warn users.

[QUOTE="Bebi_vegeta"]

The Core i7's general purpose performance is solid, you're looking at a 5 - 10% increase in general application performance at the same clock speeds as Penryn. Where Nehalem really succeeds however is in anything involving video encoding or 3D rendering, the performance gains there are easily in the 20 - 40% range. Part of the performance boost here is due to Hyper Threading, but the on-die memory controller and architectural tweaks are just as responsible for driving Intel's performance through the roof.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3448&p=20

RayvinAzn

Or to put it in another perspective, the $300 I paid for my E6600 just over 2 years ago is easily the best hardware investment I've ever made. Pity I didn't wait another few weeks for the 8800GTS 640MB to launch as well, then I'd have a really badass machine.

Good point, 2 years later and still not enough gains to justify an upgrade from a C2D. An OCed C2D will still last a few more years for most gamers.

I was going to build a Phenom rig over the summer. Then I heard this was coming out later in the year. I should be able to build it for around $600 all I need is the CPU/920, Mobo and Ram every thing else I will carry over from my current computer.fivex84

I haven't seen any low ends mobo X58, so I fear it will cost you a little more.

[QUOTE="fivex84"]I was going to build a Phenom rig over the summer. Then I heard this was coming out later in the year. I should be able to build it for around $600 all I need is the CPU/920, Mobo and Ram every thing else I will carry over from my current computer.Bebi_vegeta

I haven't seen any low ends mobo X58, so I fear it will cost you a little more.

ECS is making one, I thought I had seen it was going to be around $270... His price isn't far off for just cpu/mb/ram.. maybe closer to $700, will just have to wait and see how prices are once the stuff hits the market. I think it will depend on how overclockable the 920 is as well, although personally I don't think i7 will be worth buying period until it reaches a more reasonable price point, but thats just me.

They tested one game and its one that is not multi-threaded and no one plays anymore. Gotta love those retards.Merc_Scar

they tested a bunhc of diffrent games...

full review roundup form many sites

http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/03/intel-core-i7-review-roundup/

the 920 ( cheap one right?) is gonna be 280 thats pretty affordable.nimatoad2000

Yeah, but you need a $300 motherboard, and probably another $100 in RAM.

Here's some super pi!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=AnbMomZiCws

[QUOTE="nimatoad2000"]the 920 ( cheap one right?) is gonna be 280 thats pretty affordable.Captain__Tripps

Yeah, but you need a $300 motherboard, and probably another $100 in RAM.

$100 for DDR3! Is that for one stick? It cant be triple channel. Ha, who is going to but an x58 and core i7 and cheap out on ram? My DDR2 costs more than that!

[QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

[QUOTE="nimatoad2000"]the 920 ( cheap one right?) is gonna be 280 thats pretty affordable.artiedeadat40

Yeah, but you need a $300 motherboard, and probably another $100 in RAM.

$100 for DDR3! Is that for one stick? It cant be triple channel. Ha, who is going to but an x58 and core i7 and cheap out on ram? My DDR2 costs more than that!

I didn't look at prices, so I guess its even worse, lol. Also, triple channel gives very little benefit, so dual channel is fine.

[QUOTE="artiedeadat40"][QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

[QUOTE="nimatoad2000"]the 920 ( cheap one right?) is gonna be 280 thats pretty affordable.Captain__Tripps

Yeah, but you need a $300 motherboard, and probably another $100 in RAM.

$100 for DDR3! Is that for one stick? It cant be triple channel. Ha, who is going to but an x58 and core i7 and cheap out on ram? My DDR2 costs more than that!

I didn't look at prices, so I guess its even worse, lol. Also, triple channel gives very little benefit, so dual channel is fine.

I dont know man. Ive seen somepretty crazy bandwith on these x58s with triple channel.

[QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"][QUOTE="artiedeadat40"][QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

[QUOTE="nimatoad2000"]the 920 ( cheap one right?) is gonna be 280 thats pretty affordable.artiedeadat40

Yeah, but you need a $300 motherboard, and probably another $100 in RAM.

$100 for DDR3! Is that for one stick? It cant be triple channel. Ha, who is going to but an x58 and core i7 and cheap out on ram? My DDR2 costs more than that!

I didn't look at prices, so I guess its even worse, lol. Also, triple channel gives very little benefit, so dual channel is fine.

I dont know man. Ive seen somepretty crazy bandwith on these x58s with triple channel.

Thd dual/triple wasn't that great from what I saw. Even dual channel on i7 is a huge improvement vs core 2.

A 2.93 GHz Core i7 940 system has been used to run a 3DMark Vantage benchmark and gave a CPU score of 17,966 ( Nguyen, Tuan (2008-07-09). "'Nehalem' 2.93 GHz Benches Revealed". Tom's Hardware.) A 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo E6600 scores 4,300. ("Intel Bloomfield 2.66 GHz: First Comprehensive Evaluation". techPowerUp! (2008-07-09))

This new CPU is quite an improvement since the last generation. It would be interesting to see how it stands up with Crysis and GTA 4 when it comes out.

$100 for DDR3! Is that for one stick? It cant be triple channel. Ha, who is going to but an x58 and core i7 and cheap out on ram? My DDR2 costs more than that!

artiedeadat40

[QUOTE="artiedeadat40"]

$100 for DDR3! Is that for one stick? It cant be triple channel. Ha, who is going to but an x58 and core i7 and cheap out on ram? My DDR2 costs more than that!

RayvinAzn

Ive seen ram running well past 1.7v on an x58. There are ways around that limitation.

Ive seen ram running well past 1.7v on an x58. There are ways around that limitation.

artiedeadat40