the i7's: 920 or 860?

[stmckin]

if you are going to choose a $300 intel it comes down to a 860 or a 920?

which and why?

unless I'm missing something.... by going 860 you get :
- on chip interconnect
- lower priced motherboards
- very roughly same performance per clock and overclocking potential
- 95w instead of 120w

but give up:
- triple channel ram
- 3x vid cards: Lynnfield is limited to 1x16 or 2x8 pcie
- max ram limit of 24gb ... you get 16
- ability to plug in gulftown etc later (which is the biggest thing)

assuming you fully configured ram and took a middle/low priced MB and ram right now:
920 with 12g (6 x 2) DDR3 and a MB is roughly 280+240+210=730
860 with 8g (4 x 2) DDR3 is 300+160+115=575

[Splave]

in before being flamed for choosing 920

[leighl]

I cant decide but for now 920

[DavyBoy]

I voted for 920... more mem bandwidth due to triple channel RAM.

[phsinc1]

i7 920

I don't see any thing special in LGA1156, mobos are expensive[I mean the mobos which compare with the x58 mobos specification like EVGA P55 FTW200 and P55 Classified that gives you 16x +16x] all other P55's are limited to 8x +8x. CPU is same price. CPU OC are worse than i7 920 D0 and need to much voltage because of the built in pci-e controller. Only price difference will be dual channel ram vs triple, that's like $30 more

But the problem now that some of the gigabyte X58 started to discontinued, maybe because of the new x58A being released soon, not sure but I don't think X58 will get discontinued?

[zanzabar]

I voted for 920... more mem bandwidth due to triple channel RAM.

but the 1156 is lower latency than the 1366 and the 1366 dosnt saturate the buss with good ram

i would get the 1156

[stmckin]

unless I'm missing something.... by going 860 you get :
- on chip interconnect
- lower priced motherboards
- very roughly same performance per clock and overclocking potential
- 95w instead of 120w

but give up:
- triple channel ram
- max ram limit of 16gb instead of 24
- ability to plug in gulftown etc later (which is the biggest thing)

[zanzabar]

unless I'm missing something.... by going 860 you get :
- on chip interconnect
- lower priced motherboards
- very roughly same performance per clock and overclocking potential
- 95w instead of 120w

but give up:
- triple channel ram
- max ram limit of 16gb instead of 24
- ability to plug in gulftown etc later (which is the biggest thing)

why would u want a gulftown i dont see some magical code breakthrough to make 6/12 cores worth having (unless u crunch)

and i thought that the 1156 clocked a little better

[stmckin]

im crunching so more cores make sense for me....
the overclocking thing was a basic scan of articles on my part, hence the 'very roughly' and 'unless I'm missing something'

[nyeah]

i choose 920 until I9

[LC_Nab]

Dont you also loose the ability to run triple sli or xfire ? if you choose 1156 that is .

[ReverendMaynard]

If this was 6 months ago? 1156 all the way. Unfortunately that's not the case and the comparison here is between a very stable and maturing chipset/cpu vs something that will take 8 months to come into its own....just like the what the D0 did for early adapters.

[labs23]

I'll be building a rig. at the end of the month, the 860 is very very tempting. But I'll be sticking w/ my choice on 920.:up: So, another vote for 920.

[Tom128]

If you have access to a Microcenter I can't really see any set of circumstances where I would go with an 860. Right now any of the 1156 boards I would consider are still $140, and the 920 is actually cheaper than the 860. The cost of DDR3 has become a pretty moot point now, 3x2GB vs 4x2GB is not much of a price difference. I was looking at this today as I want to get an i7 with HT for a cruncher and every set of combo's I came up with included me getting the CPU + some parts from MC, the mobo + other parts from Newegg. The 920 was always the same price or within a trivial difference.

[caffeine]

Same here Tom; The question is... lower end MB with 1366 or mid range MB with 1156 for roughly the same price point? I'm completely torn as my budget it right there...

[ajaidev]

920 for multi CF, Overclocking "Both OC about the same" and pure clock to clock comparisons.

I also wanted to go for i7 920 but the the whole platform will cost me quite a bit compared to i5/Ph2, but when compared to 860 right now 920 is superior not only in performance but is upgradeable later.

[_FAKE_]

For me here in Australia:

i7 860 2.8GHz
-More expensive then i7 920
-Motherboards are practically the same price
-Performs is equal to a slower clocked i7 920 (from reviews I've read at least)
-Uses less power at both idle and load
-Good overclocker.
-4GB DDR3 RAM

i7 920 2.66GHz
-Cheaper then i7 860
-Motherboards are practically the same price
-Performs is equal to a higher clocked i7 860 (from reviews I've read at least)
-Uses more power at idle and load
-Good overclocker
-6GB DDR3 RAM

Now, I take power into consideration due to my nan's last quarter year power bill being over $750 and one of the reasons was cause I leave my PC on 24/7. I would like to use sleep mode but my crappy Gigabyte EP45 DS3P keeps crashing when I put it on.

I also like to overclock and am hoping to achieve 4.2GHz, which one of these CPUs are guaranteed/more likely to do that? Also I only got a single HD4850 and don't plan on getting CF or SLi but maybe a high end graphics card in the future.

So for me which will be better. If I go i7 I will get 6GB of Ram, with i7 860 only 4GB of RAM. But either i7 860/920 + mobo + RAM will cost almost $1000 so which will be better?

I'm currently steering more towards i7 920 but I'm scared I'm gonna get one with a high VID like I did with my E8500 and overclocking will be a pain unless using lots of volts.

[drizzt5]

The only use I have for one of these is crunching.. in which case I would get the 920 for the future upgrade to i9 for the 12 threads.

[INFRNL]

I am kind of confused now; some of you are saying if you crunch go with the 920. If you go to WCG section, they have a similar thread and say go for the 800series. Some claim 1156 is cheaper; I don't see it maybe by a little, but not much at all. Some say the 8x,8x will not affect you much if at all :shrug:

I personally think 920 is still a better route with damn near the same pricing. Bu I am not sure thats why I'm here :ROTF:

Guess I wil have to do more homework and wait for more responses and testing before I make my final decision

[_FAKE_]

I am kind of confused now; some of you are saying if you crunch go with the 920. If you go to WCG section, they have a similar thread and say go for the 800series. Some claim 1156 is cheaper; I don't see it maybe by a little, but not much at all. Some say the 8x,8x will not affect you much if at all :shrug:

I personally think 920 is still a better route with damn near the same pricing. Bu I am not sure thats why I'm here :ROTF:

Guess I wil have to do more homework and wait for more responses and testing before I make my final decisionYea, I'm stuck with a decision myself. If I go either route what kind of performance boost can I expect coming from an E8500 at 4.05GHz? I don't exactly what to spend $1000 or more on something that's not really gonna improve much. I'd be better off just getting an SSD or something.

[INFRNL]

I am not the right guy to give advise on a question like that ^^^. I gues it depends on what your nedds are and what you use your system for. Gaming, surfing, standard apps; I would say your fine. You want to join WCG, F@H; I would say there is definate benefit and worth the cost IMO.

I am currently into crunching and folding, so as many cores I can get the better. Since we are currently limited to 4 core; I need HT to get the other 4 virtual cores. The 800 series has HT too as far as I know, so its still a toss up, but I think I am still leaning towards the 920, unless someone can convince me otherwise. I need documentation on actual proof that the 800 series is just as good for crunching and folding. Getting tired so I am easily losing my train of thought :ROTF:

I would wait for others to answer your question, but I think most would need to know your needs and uses of your rig to give you a better idea

[WhiteFireDragon]

i knew this question would come up sooner or later. if it was RIGHT NOW, the 920 is a better value, but that's only because 1156 just launched. after a few months when price settles, the 860 + mobo should be the better value for relatively the same performance.

[stmckin]

assuming you fully configured ram and took a middle/low priced MB and ram right now:
920 with 12g (6 x 2) DDR3 and a MB is roughly 280+240+210=730
860 with 8g (4 x 2) DDR3 is 300+160+115=575

[Tom128]

Well this is coming from someone who would want to use the machine as a 24/7 cruncher not for gaming, I am doing just fine with my Phenom triple core for that :D To me my choices would be at the moment...

For an 920 build:
CPU from Microcenter $199.99
Foxconn FlamingBlade from Newegg: $169.99
Cheap 3x1GB DDR3 from Newegg: $45.99
Total: $415.97

For an 860 build:
CPU from Microcenter $229.99
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3R from Newegg: $139.99
Cheap 2x1GB DDR3 from Newegg: $35.99
Total: $405.97

For $10 more you bet your ass I am going to get LGA1366 over LGA1156 lol. And yes I am aware that there is more to a machine than that, but the rest of the parts would be the exact same with either setup so I did not list them.

[BlindFreddie]

I'm looking at i7 from the viewpoint of 24/7 crunching (WCG), and power consumption is very important, financially and ethically.
The 920's 3-channel memory seems to be overkill for a quad, and it is probably responsible for a large part of the 920's extra power consumption. The signal wires coming out of chips have to be driven by low-impedance, high-current transceiver amplifiers in order to change state quickly and to suppress RF interference, and with 1366 of them vs 1156 or 775, the 920s burn coal, baby. You don't push a TRUE to 75deg unless you are doing just that.
Power consumption leans me towards the 860, other things being fairly equal.

But for 6+ cores, 3 channels will make a difference, especially with HT, and I don't expect Intel to ever announce 6+ HT cores on LGA1156. 6 or 8 cores will be great for crunching and in 32nm, power consumption will be OK. Going 920 leaves this upgrade path, but Intel keep pushing the intro date back, and there's no word on price, other than that Gulftown will be targeted at the "extreme" market. If that means $2000+ CPUS, maybe I'm not so interested.
My 920/860 decision would be a lot easier if we knew the Gulftown intro timing/cost.

[FU1G0R]

My first post in xtreme systems :) ... well I was in that debate from 860 and 920, so heres my opinion, x58 is more future proof, so it´ll last longer .... the good boards for p55 are expensive, no doubt about that.... even if you want some good board, low price and high oc you can even go for a dfi x58 Jr, I remember that even being a matx board it supports 2 big cards like the 4870x2 in crossfire, also x58 give me triple channel, other important thing, your system (if p55) needs more cooling since the processor heats more than its 1366 counterparts in high voltage OC situations, so you have to buy an even more elaborate cooling (pricier) for p55 processors, Those charts showing temps aroun 90C do not make me comfortable at all, also the crippled memory channel made me kinda sad, even more now that I see some oem ballistix tracer 1600mhz around 136usd, for 4gigs of good ram for p55 I see prices around 130 the performance advantages for the 860 are because of the auto overclock stuff, clock the 920 the same (manually in bios) as the maximum oc frequency the 860 gets with the auto oc and the 920 goes strong even better with the new revision, if not just go for its xeon equivalent... triple channel again, lower max temps, less cpu degradation, higher life expectancy, so..... my vote definitely goes for 920 and the x58 platform ... nufffff said

oooo and the gulftown thing hmmmmm

[bfar]

Interestingly - this week, having taken advantage of launch deals, I've managed to get a high-end i7 860 build with bells & whistles for less than a low-end x58 build.

Going forwards it all depends on where prices end up, but i'd put my money on the p55 platform myself. As the months go by s1366 will become something of a trophy platform as cheaper p55 motherboards flood the market.

[Psyco]

I am very temped by the p55/i7 860 combo but its looking more and more like i am going to skip the i7's entirely, currently running a Q6600 @ 3.6 24/7 + 8800Gtx @ 1920x1200 I'm starting to get annoyed by low framerates, have orderd an evga 275 and when that comes im going to decide if i actually need to spend more money on an i7 upgrade or if i can hold off till i9... i like the idea of going i7 for Win7 though...

[xXxDieselxXx]

Interestingly - this week, having taken advantage of launch deals, I've managed to get a high-end i7 860 build with bells & whistles for less than a low-end x58 build.

Going forwards it all depends on where prices end up, but i'd put my money on the p55 platform myself. As the months go by s1366 will become something of a trophy platform as cheaper p55 motherboards flood the market.

Hi bfar, would you mind sharing your setup? I'm very close to do the i7-860 jump :D

I'm still trying to decide best mobo/RAM. I would like to hit 4Ghz on air or perhaps using the Corsair H50 water solution.

[FU1G0R]

for me this is very cheap for x58, I dont see any reason for going 1156

prices from newegg septemper 15 / 2009


I think this will be very cheap / cost effective solution, high quality motherboard and a great value, think Im gonna pair it with a Prolimatech Megahalem with a dual 120 fan setup

http://i639.photobucket.com/albums/uu111/FU1G0R/ncombo.jpg

[Computurd]

That looks like a winning combo for sure!

[damtachoa]

I don't know why people sometimes care about x16/x16 & x8/x8 in SLI/Crossfire. Did you guys know that when we use SLI/Crossfire we have to buy 2 GPU cards for more than $1000 like GTX295? Not everyone here in this forum have that much money.

[dctokyo]

From what I seen with hands on, the Core i7 860 is faster than a Core i7 920 also cost effectiveness is also better.

For a gamer the Core i7 860 beats the Core i7 920 if you go with a single card setup instead of crossfire or SLI.

[Chickenfeed]

I don't know why people sometimes care about x16/x16 & x8/x8 in SLI/Crossfire. Did you guys know that when we use SLI/Crossfire we have to buy 2 GPU cards for more than $1000 like GTX295? Not everyone here in this forum have that much money.

For one, anyone who is going to buy 2 top of the line gpus will most likely use high end hardware all around. Secondly the reason we are making a point of the 16 vs 8 thing is it is entirely feasible that SLI / CF will under perform to a noticeable amount on P55 boards.

All that said, I still think P55 is the way to go unless you have any aspirations of multigpu set ups into the future. P55 will be fine for single HD 5870s and GTX380s. I expect the X2 variants will hold a different story.

I went x58 over P55 for the reasons I've mentioned above. Other wise I'd have gone for a 860 on an MSI GD80 with 8GB of memory and been done with it (better stock performance and power usage with 33% more memory for about the same total price )

[Donnie27]

I voted i7 860
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=i7+860&x=0&y=0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128405

Dang, wish we had a microcenter nearby.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0317214
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0317378

Damned Intel Borg going around assimilating folks like this :mad:

This thing has Hyperthreading, is faster than the i920 at stock speed, has lower latency than the i920 and can out overclock the i920. Very affordable P55's are the reason worth not bothering the i920. I'll never use SLI or Crossfire or the larger PSU need from running two power hungry hot video cards anyway. I'd simply use one of the X2 Cards if it came to wanting more power. Honestly i860 should be compared to 930 or 940 since i920's closest competitor is the i5 750 since it runs at the same 2.66GHz and only runs 4 threads as well.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0317379

Funny thing is I saw folks spend more on high-end X58 motherboards than the i860 and the Gygabyte linked combined:lol: Would have been nice if Intel would have launched this 6 months ago. i920 buyers would have still bought i920 and the hold back was a waste of time IMHO!

[Asylum1]

i7 920 FTW!! :up:

[Aivas47a]

Of course it's always luck of the draw, but if you're looking to run at 4.0 or better ghz with relatively low vcore (1.30 or less), you've got much better chances with the D0 stepping 920 than with the 860. The 860 may well mature -- it's a lot like the early C0 920s in terms of voltage requirements and OC properties -- but right now the 920 is a better overclocker, if that's important to your decision.

[Khaotic]

I just had to help a friend through this delima over the weekend. She wound up going with a 860 becuase the "had to get it right now" syndrome was in full effect - and the local Microcenter didn't have any Socket 1366 boards on the shelf. Hope that doesn't become a norm...... the 1366 board availability issue that is.....
The "gotta have it now" will pretty much never go away.......
I've got a 920 with a mild overclock - only thing i wish i had was a better board ---- read: MORE RAM SLOTS. mine only has 4 slots. (EX58-UD4R i think)

[messerchmidt]

i would go 920 so you can drop a 6 core in there

your going to need a new board + cpu for pci-e 3.0 with 1156 as the pci-e controller is on the cpu (pci-e 3.0 vid cards will work on 2.0 motherboards though)

[Donnie27]

i would go 920 so you can drop a 6 core in there

your going to need a new board + cpu for pci-e 3.0 with 1156 as the pci-e controller is on the cpu (pci-e 3.0 vid cards will work on 2.0 motherboards though)

Why? Almost NO ONE here does drop in any more. 95% of folks here buy new boards with their new Processors anyway. X58 motherboards don't ship with PCI-E 3.0 just like P55 doesn't. Then add to this neither ships with SATA 3.0, USB 3.0 and or other new tech due out in the next 14 to 24 months, big deal.

IMHO, I don't think buying either of these processors ( including some of the AMD X4's) is a bad deal.

[RADCOM]

I'm in the minority here with the I7 860 but I wanted something a bit different:p: I tried not to go down the 920 route but in a moment of weakness I bought the i7 860. The board I got was quite expensive for a mid range EVGA FTW (http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=132-LF-E657-KR&family=Motherboard%20Family). I think current prices for P55 boards are artificially high. From what I recall the 8+8 Pcie did not compromise performance significantly ( review on 750i FTW) The i7 860 seems to be a tad faster at stock in most tests at Anandtech (http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3641&p=1)
The i7 920 does seem to have a better upgrade path although newer motherboards will probably be produced with better/newer features by then too.