i7 is it worth it

over the next few weeks im putting a rig together. im tempted with the i7 but the i5 is also reasonable. then i see the i9 is out in march...
hmmm decisions decisions. anyway my total spend is 1200 pounds i just wana know which is it worth it or should i wait...

Build a system that meets your demands, simple as that
Don't get transfixed on processors as on themselves they don't make a system on their own.
TBH you need to know what you're going to be doing with a machine before you can consider what to put in it. Either way I'd refrain from buying bleeding edge tech as the price premium is hard to justify in most cases

well so far im looking at this

Asus ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £309.99
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £207.99
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333MHz) Super Low Latency Tri-Channel (PVT36G1333LLK) £106.98
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £61.99
Prolimatech Megahalems Performance CPU Cooler (Socket 775/1366) £42.99
Samsung SH-S223B/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Full Tower Case - £129.99
Antec CP850 850W Modular PSU - *ONLY COMPATIBLE WITH ANTEC 1200 P183 AND P193 CASES* £94.17
Samsung EcoFit P2270 22" LCD Monitor 16:9 Full HD 1920x1080p £169.97
ASUS Rampage II GENE Republic of Gamers X58 Socket 1366 8 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard 175.99 (its a tossup on this board i could go for the gigabyte ud5 which is at £190 +10% off)
basicaly its for gaming, video editing and 3d rendering...
grand total of £1317 ish
i will be adding a second 5870 maybe june next year and the odd hdd there after but basicaly i dont want to have to upgrade it for at least 3 more years.

oh and win7 premium upgrade at 79 quid.

the i5 seems to have issues with sli xfire as it splits the pci bus to 2x8 so it will lose a lot of gaming performance but if i just go for the 1 card then the i5 is attractive in that it will be about 200 cheaper.

Ah, the age old future proofing so not having to upgrade for a while
Stop and consider this though. If you buy what you need now rather than what you think you'll need in three years it normally works out cheaper. A few personal pointers:

• I'd spend a little more on the screen and drop down to 1680*1050 at 22" or go up to 24" at 1920*1200 if you want full HD.
• 850w is overkill and is just going to reduce energy efficiency
• As is the Antec 1200 unless you'll be fitting a lot more inside
• Retail CPU and separate HSF? Why not buy a CPU without the stock Intel cooler?
• Make sure your software likes a 64-bit OS
• If this is a build from scratch you forgot the human/computer interfaces
  

nah m8 im keeping my logitec g11 and razer lachesis.

the reason i think 22" is that it wont need fsaa ing as much in games so i get more raw power. the smaller the pixel pitch the better was my thinkin.
the 3rd paty cpu cooler is because il be overclocking it to at least 3.6. as the gfx will bottlkneck the cpu in Xfire with any game other than crysis.
the gfx card needs 177watts the system will need 500 wats at load with a single card so 850 is ok when i Xfire it. (bit of headroom for extra hdds)
as for the case in still undecided. i could get away with the 900 mk2
my only other concern is the ram i can get 1800 mhz 9-9-9-24 or 1333mhz 7-7-7-18 ram for roughly the same price. i just cant figure if the lower latencey will be better than the higher clocks, due to the cpu having an onboard memcontroler.

i know on my amd that the memcontroler prety much negated the need for lower latencey giving only a 2 percent boost on superpi (standard test 1M) where as the lower latencey on a c2d has nearly a 7 percent increase in performance. at the same clocks.

anyways ive got till saturday to decide.

(26-10-2009 05:48 )Hexit Wrote:  well so far im looking at this

Asus ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £309.99
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail £207.99
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666 (1333MHz) Super Low Latency Tri-Channel (PVT36G1333LLK) £106.98
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £61.99
Prolimatech Megahalems Performance CPU Cooler (Socket 775/1366) £42.99
Samsung SH-S223B/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Antec 1200 Twelve Hundred Full Tower Case - £129.99
Antec CP850 850W Modular PSU - *ONLY COMPATIBLE WITH ANTEC 1200 P183 AND P193 CASES* £94.17
Samsung EcoFit P2270 22" LCD Monitor 16:9 Full HD 1920x1080p £169.97
ASUS Rampage II GENE Republic of Gamers X58 Socket 1366 8 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard 175.99 (its a tossup on this board i could go for the gigabyte ud5 which is at £190 +10% off)
basicaly its for gaming, video editing and 3d rendering...
grand total of £1317 ish
i will be adding a second 5870 maybe june next year and the odd hdd there after but basicaly i dont want to have to upgrade it for at least 3 more years.

oh and win7 premium upgrade at 79 quid.

the i5 seems to have issues with sli xfire as it splits the pci bus to 2x8 so it will lose a lot of gaming performance but if i just go for the 1 card then the i5 is attractive in that it will be about 200 cheaper.

Think that would be nice in black , i think they're faster...

Still think you are over estimating power consumption. Even with crossfire and a few extra drives I think you'll have power to spare with a quality 650w. If you want to be safe by all means stick with the 850w, but I'd suggest you check your figures closer

Personally with the memory it all depends on how successful your overclocking is as I tend towards getting memory that syncs better with bus speeds so I'd go 1800 for 3.6Ghz or 1333 for 2.6Ghz. TBH you're erring over something which will effect overall system speed by less than 1%. If you're that worried about an odd percent get a dedicated sound card as they normally hit the CPU less than an onboard solution

What is it with gamers and eeking out that last drop of speed? Actually I've been there done that when overclocking was still pretty much a rarity. Now I build a system for stability and silence but then I work on my machines now, not play

its all about crysis m8 getting the best out of that game means anything else will run sweet. 50 fps on that now means im set for alanwake and the new crysis2 maxed out full dx11, seriously my im getting a bit chubby thinkin about it hahahaha.
nah as im starting a 3d modeling course i need somthing that will render in the shortest possable time and at the least amount of money (cant afford a decent quadro fx so high end dx11 will have to do) and as the finished presentation will be hidef i need a machine that will handle it and not take 3 weeks to render 2 mins of animation.

rite i went the whole hog and got the i7... 1600 c8 ram 850watt thermaltake... gigabyte ud5
couldnt get the gfx though. so i gota wait till monday.
superpi 15 seconds so i have a good baseline to start from.

Sounds like a good little machine that. Where you buying from, ebuyer?
I haven't upgraded my system for a year now, and don't use it anymore, just use the lappy.
Everytime i upgrade something always goes wrong. For some reason my system on my desktop will just hang for no reason, and then I have to reset the bastard thing. My mates and I can't work it out like. I'm still using ancient agp, as when i bought the moetherboard they were still "in". Then the fucking motherboard gave way after a few months, and I didn't have enough money to get a whole new setup so I had to spend £80 to get a half decent motherboard. I'm cursed