due to the lack of funds ive had to put my very first build on hold and was thinkin of goin down the i5 route and wondered what you peeps thought. Now before you all shout i7!!! at me let me stress a couple of points. i wont be using it primarily for gaming, actually the only game i will be using will be football manager. id be using it mainly for uni work on maya and after effects etc. secondly, as i said im a student so funds are low
If I were you I would wait until about Christmas time because by then Lynnfield (i5) prices will have dropped significantly, especially motherboard prices.
i5 is barely worth it at the min. its not much cheaper than i7 1366. +1 on the wait till xmas when better boards are out, cheaper ones too and the price of the CPU has dropped abit. i5 750 stands to be a very very good choice just not at its current platform price
In my experience (I've used an i5 and a i7 in the 1156 format) the i5 may well be a good processor but the i7 860 due to it having Hyper-Threading thrashes the i5 due to the i5 having no Hyper-Threading. Trust me people keep saying Hyper-Threading doesn't make much difference and is Hyper-Threading worth it, YES IT IS! It gives the CPU a massive boost in everything in my experience. I used to have a Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3ghz and the Core i5 even though it was a Quad Core and the E8400 is Dual Core, the E8400 thrashed it in games, which for me was down to the Hyper-Threading on that chip, my advice stay away from ALL Intel chips that lack Hyper-Threading as you would be making a mistake if you were primarily a gamer, Yes you might read reviews claiming there is only 1-2 fps difference between the games but believe me the lack of Hyper-Threading still makes games feel a lot more sluggish and unresponsive (in my experience) but you said you won't be using it mainly for games so you will probably not notice any difference at all and the 4 cores would probably be better for you in Maya and all the other software you use but either way the i5 still lacks Hyper-Threading which does give it a pretty big performance hit. Bear in mind all the above I typed is only my experience, you can make your own mind up depending on all other opinions and reviews you read, but Hyper-Threading is more important than everyone is making out, no doubt due to all the Hype surrounding the i5 CPU, it's really not as great as everyone thinks! (maybe it is when overclocked. I don't know?) but at the end of the day it still has no Hyper-Threading
The E8400 doesn't have hyper-threading - no Core 2 chips do. The only chips with hyper-threading are some P4s, Atom, and i7.
Well I guess I was wrong then, but I can say this the E8400 was one special chip and a damn site better than the i5 in my opinion, I'd say avoid the i5 and make a more worthwhile investment by buying an i7, because the i5's don't live up to the hype by a long chalk.
isnt the i7 860 a lot more expensive than a 920 though? im after the best i can get for between £800-£1000, and this has to include mouse, keyboard, monitor everything as all i have at the mo is a 4 year old laptop..........and it sucks
well i have no idea about any AMD products, i dont know whats a decent CPU, or mobo or anything. only intel CPU that i have a fair knowledge about
I'll have a look around and see what I can come up with for your budget and post back later, might hit the top end of your budget though so be warned lol. P.S) AMD are decent chips but I would still stick with Intel if that's what you know best, I'll find some options for you AMD and Intel though so you can pick the best one for you.
Hey Darth, for a start see below, it comes in at the top end of your budget and including delivery will no doubt be bang on budget. Intel System Case = Coolermaster CM-690 V2 Dominator Black Midi Tower Case £60.36 Inc VAT Motherboard = Asus P6T-SE intel x58 Socket 1366 Motherboard £140.50 Inc VAT CPU = Intel I7 920 Socket 1366 Nehalem 2.66 ghz 8 MB Cache OEM £209.50 Inc VAT CPU Cooler = Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro v2 for Socket 1366/1156/S775/AM3/AM2plus-AM2/939 £18.39 Inc VAT Memory = 6GB-(3x2GB)-CorsairXMS3-DDR3-PC3-10666-(1333)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24 £99.02 Inc VAT Power Supply = 850 Watt Silverpower SP850-A2D Silent with 140mm Fan £93.14 Inc VAT Graphics Card = Gainward-GTX-275-Golden-Sample-55nm-2370MHz-GDDR3-GPU-648MHz-Shader-1450MHz-240-Cores £175.92 Inc VAT Monitor = 22-Acer-V223WBbd-Black-Widescreen-LCD-Monitor-5ms-DVI-VGA-1680x1050 £110.16 Inc VAT Hard Drive = 1TB-Hitachi-Deskstar-7K1000-35-SATA-3Gb-s-7200-rpm-16MB-Cache £53.22 Inc VAT DVD/DVD-RW Drive = Samsung-SH-S222A-BEBE-22x-DVDR-12x-DVDDL-DVDplusRW-x8-RW-x6-DVD-RAM-x12-IDE-Black-OEM £16.32 Inc VAT Keyboard = Microsoft-Wired-Keyboard-500-Internet-Multimedia-Keys-PS2-Black-Spill-Resistant £6.66 Inc VAT Mouse = Microsoft-Wheel-Mouse-Optical-400dpi-PS2-USB-11-20-3-Buttons-Black £7.12 Inc VAT Total = £990.35 No doubt you would find some of these items cheaper elsewhere but it's just to give you an idea. I'll look at a system based around AMD CPU now, then edit this post to add it on. AMD System Case = Coolermaster CM-690 V2 Dominator Black Midi Tower Case £60.36 Inc VAT Motherboard = Asus-M4A78T-E-AMD-790GX-AM3-PCI-E-20-(x16)-DDR3-1600(OC)-1333-SATA-II-SATA-RAID-ATX-VGA £98.08 Inc VAT CPU = AMD-Phenom-II-X4-965-Black-Deneb-Core-S-AM3-34GHz-512KB-Cache-FSB-HT-3600MHz-140W-Retail £157.67 Inc VAT CPU Cooler = Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro v2 for Socket 1366/1156/S775/AM3/AM2plus-AM2/939 £18.39 Inc VAT Memory = 4GB-(2x2GB)-Corsair-TwinX-XMS3-DDR3-PC3-10666-(1333)-240-Pin-Non-ECC-Unbuffered-CAS-9-9-9-24 £72.57 Inc VAT Power Supply = 850 Watt Silverpower SP850-A2D Silent with 140mm Fan £93.14 Inc VAT Graphics Card = Gainward-GTX-275-Golden-Sample-55nm-2370MHz-GDDR3-GPU-648MHz-Shader-1450MHz-240-Cores £175.92 Inc VAT Monitor = 22-Acer-V223WBbd-Black-Widescreen-LCD-Monitor-5ms-DVI-VGA-1680x1050 £110.16 Inc VAT Hard Drive = 1TB-Hitachi-Deskstar-7K1000-35-SATA-3Gb-s-7200-rpm-16MB-Cache £53.22 Inc VAT DVD/DVD-RW Drive = Samsung-SH-S222A-BEBE-22x-DVDR-12x-DVDDL-DVDplusRW-x8-RW-x6-DVD-RAM-x12-IDE-Black-OEM £16.32 Inc VAT Keyboard = Microsoft-Wired-Keyboard-500-Internet-Multimedia-Keys-PS2-Black-Spill-Resistant £6.66 Inc VAT Mouse = Microsoft-Wheel-Mouse-Optical-400dpi-PS2-USB-11-20-3-Buttons-Black £7.12 Inc VAT Total = £869.65 So basing it on an AMD system if you went for AMD it would cost you £120.70 less than if you went down the Intel route.
If you're not gaming, then that's a reason to get the i7. In games, there's not a massive difference between i7 and i5, but with 3D, rendering, video editing etc, the LGA1366 i7 is a much better choice, and you'll see more benefit from the HT and triple channel RAM in apps like this than you would in games.
if you can stretch £900 or so get an i7 920 now. if you dont have that much cash wait till xmas and then take alook at i5 as it should be cheaper and therefore make sense buying then.
Any numbers to back that up? Custompc showed that hyperthreading is a double edged sword so to speak. In certain apps it gave lower results. Video encoding tho got a bigish boost
