I wouldn't think so (if your on about if it will fit quite nicely in the Antec 1200?) I'd say it would, or are you on about price wise? To be honest (deviating from the 5850 question for the time being) I will give Barndoor101 some credit that if money was or is no object then go for the 920 but me being me £20 is £20 or £50 is £50 no matter which way you look at it and it's a fact the 860 has a higher clock speed than the 920, 920 is 2.66ghz and 860 is 2.80ghz so you've made the right choice and trust me the 860 is one hell of a chip. P.S) I back up what PureSilver says about having to pawn your entire family! Look here in the marketplace forum Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5970 OC he wants £529.99 (which is what he paid) so the 5970 is a super expensive graphics card!! I know you mentioned the 5950 but I really can't see there being much difference in price between the 5950 and the 5970 but I don't know for sure, that's just pure speculation.
The money for this isn't too much of an issue (to a degree). Basically if the i7 920 was a far superior cpu that had huge advantages, and cost £50, I would go for the i7 920. But seeing as the i7 860 seems to have some advantages over the i7 920, that is more of a deciding factor than the cost. One thing that I do find interesting is Gigabytes announcement of a new 1366 Board the GA-EX58A-UD7, which seems to have the 'new bits' that the GA-P55A boards have on them. With this in mind, and money (to a degree) being no issue, would it be worth going for the i7 920? Decisions, decisions!!
I made my comments about what I consider to be the right choice on page 2, It's the choice I made when I was faced with the choice between i5/i7. As no headway has been made, as in you're still undecided, perhaps it's time for a different track. Forget about specs / offers / options. Write a list of "must haves", a list of "would likes", a set of "may as well" and "don't want" Try not to be lead by what you know an item has, be clear and objective, just the things that you feel are important Start with the CPU, then do the mother board, and then the RAM. 1st go try and do them seperate. You might get an I7 cpu and a i5 mobo, but then decide which ticks the most options for you. What ever comes in the cheapest ticking the most points is what you should get. If you ask here on what a "must have" feature is, then your getting some one else's needs..... Good luck. As long as you look at all your options, and fill your needs, then you get what you want. I got what I wanted and I'm happy with it.
So the Gigabyte UD7 will have the same 'new bits' that the GA-P55A boards have on them so there isn't any difference, but the difference between the 860 and the 920 is the 860 has a higher stock clock speed so in all honesty you really need to make a decision and soon before this thread exhausts all the paper left in the office because there won't be any left to write on at this rate and no trees left to print more lol , so if I were you just go with what you want and not what everyone else says is the best, both are great cpu's and it doesn't matter which one you get so it's decision time
ill say this again. there is no right or wrong, either system is very good and will both last years and years. i just happen to think in terms of percentages - if i drop 800 quid on a new build, 50 quid works out at just over 5%. its not about having all the money in the world (although my bonus sure did help), because if you did you would get a 975, or wait for gulftown. when lynnfield came out i was torn between that or a bloomfield - if the 860 had been ~180 quid i would have bought that, no hesitation, but it is inexplicably priced higher (intel still seem to be very hung up on Mhz again). as another disclaimer i am trying to get my work to buy half a dozen i5 systems - these offer so much performance for not alot of cash, it almost makes me sad as i used to be a bit of an amd fanboy.
Yeah I know lol, that's why before you read what I put about the price I replied to what you typed which was So I put the below before I got on about the price, saying basically if you were on about it fitting in your Antec 1200 you should have no problem. So to sum up I think it will fit in an Antec 1200 easily
Been looking at making my decision in the next day or so. Is the extra 0.14GHz the i7 860 has that noticeable? I think I've got my pro's and conn's of both the i7 860 and i7 920, just got to decide on the best that will suit what I need.
we are talking about the platform overall here: (at stock speeds) pros of i7 920 with undecided x58 motherboard and 6GB of RAM: -tripple channel which earns you more points in benchmarks, no noticeable difference in real world -full 16x for graphics card so it's a good choice for multi-graphics card pros of i7 860 with Gigabyte p55a-UD5 and 4GB of RAM: -about 50w less system power usage than 920 all across the board (probably saves a lot of electricity in the long run) -all the new tech in there: USB3.0, SATA6Gbps -cheaper to upgrade your RAM later on in the future -more advanced turbo mode for faster gaming to be honest, the 200Mhz difference isn't really going to make any difference, that's why i didn't put in there. but the 860 can bump its multiplier to 26x, that's more than 3.4Ghz. it would beat the most expensive Intel i7 LGA1366 processor in gaming.
I know this might change things a bit, but I've started looking at the Asus motherboards. Am I correct in thinking that some of the Asus models are SLI/Crossfire capable? I notice that you use an Asus P7P55D-E Deluxe. It looks like it has the same features as the Gigabyte one, but the ability to have multiple graphics cards, which could be a possiblility in the future. As I've said before, all of this is pretty new to me, so how are Gigabyte and Asus regarded as board manufacturers? Are they pretty good?
gigabyte and asus are regarded highly by many people, just because they tend to make good stable boards =)
its not strictly applicable, but when i was buying my parts i considered an ASROCK and MSI boards, but i am soooooo glad i got an asus instead. you get what you pay for, and ill probably be buying asus from now on.
If you enjoy abysmal RMA service, hours waiting on the phone on a long distance call to RMA your board, and once you finally reach the department they send you to Tech support and treat you like an idiot. After waiting a month (firends had to wait longer) to get an replacement board.. you end up with a super dusty, refurbished and even deep scratch board... and the warranty doesn't restart.. bur rather continues. If you enjoy all this.. get ASUS. And I am really not alone with this. Since 2004 ASUS started to cut down on quality, and testing, severely. And that comes out form a ASUS fan. Oh you have 50% chances that your board that you get works at 100%, including your dusty refurbish that is waiting for you at ASUS (I have a feeling it's someone else broken motherboard.. and ASUS hope that you won't notice the other person problem) When Gigabyte said that ASUS was rubbish multiple times, I thought Gigabyte had problems... but no... me and my friends clearly see that their statement is 100% correct. MSI, Zoltac (because of their life-time warranty in US and Canada) and Gigabyte is what I recommend for motherboards.
Got Asus, never had a problem. All electronic items usually fail within the first month or not until the scheduled end of lifespan, and any problem I've ever had with components I've RMA'd to the retailer and not to the manufacturer. That said, that's in Europe and not in Canada.
Very hard choice IMO I was also considering ASUS because I have been using their MBs for years. However, just a couple of days ago I placed a call to their technical support and was not satisfied at all; primarily, long hold time, somewhat rude, then they said they would call back – still haven’t heard a word. The person I was talking to was a tech rep and took more time to blow me off than answer a simple memory question. Needless to say I started looking at other MB options. I too have been struggling with the 920 vs. 860 decision which has been horrific to finalize due to the completely polarized views of what I consider qualified sites, e.g., Anand, bit-tech, TweakTown, X-bit labs, etc. But as many of you have pointed out, the decision will ultimately be determined on your usage. With that said, I am leaning towards 860 for the following reasons: Overall system will be cheaper Runs cooler Single GPU user Limited OClock Because of reviews, I am looking at the MSI GD-80 – incredible reviews. The GD-65 is also nice but I like all the troubleshooting LEDs, etc. At around $210 it’s OK for me. I went with the Cosmos 1000 case (CSX version) because of price and looks. Also considering: Power Supply - HX-850 – ultimate quality and will last me for many builds – I want single +12V rail CPU Cooler - Corsair Hydro Series CWCH50 – quiet, decent cooling, does not take up so much room – can actually see MB, 2nd choice Noctua. GPU - 5870, Vapor X cooling – single solution with awesome performance and quiet. SSD - Intel X25-M 80G – instead of VelociRapter Disk - Western Digital Caviar Black 650G – only $75 with great performance and reviews Memory - Will most likely get 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10660) Dual Channel – cheap and not much real world difference in 1600 kits. I will go for the 1600 if available in a combo deal with a nice discount. Just what I’m doing – open for comments.
Well.........guess what? I've gone for it! Intel i7 860 Asus P7P55D Deluxe Antec 1200 Still deciding on gpu. Probably ATi 5850 or 5870 No decision (haven't looked at yet) for memory, psu and cooler. Anything else you can think that I can add to the shopping list?
