Friends dilemma. i5 8GB or i7 6GB

Prophet · 14 Oct 2009 at 09:29

Been trying to help a friend figure out what system he should go for.

I've got an i7 and I'm building an i5 for my uncle. Not got the i5 yet so I can't really give a decent opinion..

This is the dilemma. He's priced up 2 systems. The differing components are the CPU, Motherboard and RAM.

The i7 920 system has the Gigabyte UD5 Mothervoard and 6GB Tri-Chan RAM.

The i5 750 system has the ASUS P55 Deluxe and 8GB Dual-Chan RAM.

The difference in cost is £67 (small due to the extra RAM on the i5 setup)

He's into games, photo editing and general surfing.

Is the saving and extra RAM of the i5 the way forward or is the X58'd i7 be the one he goes for?

Help!!

Franksi · 14 Oct 2009 at 09:35

Surely the 8GB of RAM in the i5 would limit the clock that you could put on the system?
I guess the main question is are they prepared to pay the hefty price for an i9 chip if they go down the Socket 1366 route?

JonJ678 · 14 Oct 2009 at 09:38

He probably wants the i5 with 4gb of ram. Games just wont care which processor/ram are in use, nor will browsing. "Photo editing" is fairly imprecise, but I get the impression you have to be working with very large images for over 4gb of ram to be of any use.

If it's definite that more than 4gb is needed, I would suggest the x58. If not overclocking the UD5 is excessive and money can be saved there; if you are overclocking the x58 machine is going to reach much higher speeds than the P55 running four sticks of ram. The x58 board is the better system, I'm just doubtful that he'll notice (I doubt I'd tell the difference in many things).

^ The i9 is not relevant to this. Anyone concerned about £67 is not going to drop well over £500 on a processor alone in six months time.

Prophet · 14 Oct 2009 at 10:40

He uses CS4 and edits RAW images which are around 16MB each. I've never used an 8GB i5 so wouldn't know if it's worth it over 4GB.

There's also batch processing to think about where any number of images could be in use.

He's not fussed about the i9. He keeps his PC's until they die which averages 4 years.

Edit. Dropping to 4GB makes the total saving around £140 over the i7.

McstylisT · 14 Oct 2009 at 10:46

Some good points to consider here Orange peel.

What is you and your uncles gut feeling on the memory amount. ? Do you both feel he would need the option of a full 8GB memory. ? Would this extra 2GB over the 1366's 6GB come in handy in the future. ?

The other good point is the over clocking. What are the initial thoughts or your rough targets you guys are thinking. Either the i5 or i7 seem to hit 4ghz nicely. However in most cases due to the new way intel have integrated the memory controller into the cpu , when populating all the dimm slots they system seems to struggle managing such high clocks on the cpu and running the populated memory slots at the high designated speeds.
Some have good individual chips and can run full 4ghz oc's with full memory slots. In most cases the over clock has to be slightly reduced to achieve stability. I myself have dropped down from 4ghz 6GB @ 1600mhz , to 3.7ghz 12GB @ 1410mhz. So its what suites your needs best.

Also seeing as the i5 is pretty new , I have not heard many with 8GB mem so its a little untested weather 8GB would effect the possible clocks as 12GB does on the 1366 systems. ?

I would forget about I9 , buy and build for your needs now. Its hard enough as it is.

My gut instinct is to look towards the i7 1366 x58 setup. Firstly its slightly cheaper. The CPU is better with the HT tech. I feel 6GB would be enough , however this is something only you and your uncle can decide on as you do not want to sell yourself short if it is really needed.

Good luck

McT

Sasahara · 14 Oct 2009 at 10:51

Orange Peel said:
He uses CS4 and edits RAW images which are around 16MB each. I've never used an 8GB i5 so wouldn't know if it's worth it over 4GB.

There's also batch processing to think about where any number of images could be in use.

He's not fussed about the i9. He keeps his PC's until they die which averages 4 years.

Edit. Dropping to 4GB makes the total saving around £140 over the i7.

16MB isn't that large to be fair, I regularly work on 100-200Mb images using a P4(not fast) & 1GB ram, so 4-6GB is plenty.

Prophet · 14 Oct 2009 at 10:54

I've used to have an X2 4400 AMD with 4GB RAM which struggled in CS4 with more than a couple of images open so I'm a little worried about 4GB although the i5/7's are monster CPU's in comparrison. My uncle has no real thoughts as he's coming from a Barton 2500+ 2GB RAM and I've not built his i5 system yet.

I really don't think he'll want to overclock. Will have to ask him what he wants to do.. If he did I'm sure he'd be happy with whatever increase he could get with 100% stability even if it didn't hit 4GHz.

Agreed, the i5 is still very new. Finding reviews with this configuration has been a struggle.

I love my i7 setup but if he can get away with 4GB on the i5 a saving of £140+ isn't to be sniffed at.

If was hard enough sorting out my i7 and my uncles i5, now I've got this to think about lol.

McstylisT · 14 Oct 2009 at 11:54

Orange Peel said:
I've used to have an X2 4400 AMD with 4GB RAM which struggled in CS4 with more than a couple of images open so I'm a little worried about 4GB although the i5/7's are monster CPU's in comparrison. My uncle has no real thoughts as he's coming from a Barton 2500+ 2GB RAM and I've not built his i5 system yet.

I really don't think he'll want to overclock. Will have to ask him what he wants to do.. If he did I'm sure he'd be happy with whatever increase he could get with 100% stability even if it didn't hit 4GHz.

Agreed, the i5 is still very new. Finding reviews with this configuration has been a struggle.

I love my i7 setup but if he can get away with 4GB on the i5 a saving of £140+ isn't to be sniffed at.

If was hard enough sorting out my i7 and my uncles i5, now I've got this to think about lol.

That's an important point too.

Maybe for that amount of saving he could try just 4GB and the i5. Since the price difference will be so much its hard not consider it.

If he does find out he could do with more memory he can always add more at a latter date, splitting the cost a little.

McT

roid · 14 Oct 2009 at 13:37

McstylisT said:
That's an important point too.

Maybe for that amount of saving he could try just 4GB and the i5. Since the price difference will be so much its hard not consider it.

If he does find out he could do with more memory he can always add more at a latter date, splitting the cost a little.

McT

This is exactly what I'm planning on doing. If 4 gig isn't enough for my needs then I'll just buy another 4 at a later date!

maz1989 · 14 Oct 2009 at 14:04

more ram is better for photoshop

Prophet · 14 Oct 2009 at 14:22

Gone for this spec.

Intel Core i5 750 2.66Ghz
Asus P7P55D Intel P55
G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Lancool Dragon-Lord PC-K58 Mid Tower Case
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 Dual Fan Quiet CPU Cooler 1156
Sony Optiarc AD-7240S 24x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter

He's already got a decent PSU, 4890 Graphics card and 2X 500GB Samsung F3's.

Should be solid enough, and extra RAM can be added if needed.

UncleBensSauce · 14 Oct 2009 at 14:23

maz1989 said:
more ram is better for photoshop

Disk performance is important to - open something or save something and it got to be written/read.

I've got 8GB in my i5 setup - can get to 3.2 Ghz (got the i5 750) and will prime/memtest/3dmark forever without issue. Could probably get it higher tbh

Asus PDP55 Pro here

Shakeel · 14 Oct 2009 at 16:07

id get the i7 and then you can move to the i9 if you want

Prophet · 14 Oct 2009 at 16:13

Shakeel said:
id get the i7 and then you can move to the i9 if you want

As said above, by the time he upgrades the i9 will be old hat.

EARNEST · 14 Oct 2009 at 18:32

I'd take the i7 with even 4 gigs of RAM

NeoVo · 14 Oct 2009 at 18:36

Whats £67 when your doing a full build? go for the i7.

Namak · 14 Oct 2009 at 21:08

The article in this thread shows exactly how many applications you need to be running at once to benefit from 8GB. It's a lot!

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18049407

I think 6GB would be ample for all but the most hardcore users.

JonJ678 · 14 Oct 2009 at 21:59

Folding is using 6gb of ram and all 8 threads on mine, and that's just one little script

#

143 for the UD3R, 200 for processor, 110 for 6gb of corsair 1333mhz. Comes to £453 total. You might want flashier ram but you don't need it, and the UD3 is an excellent board. What price were you looking at for the P55 system? Not getting the UD5 seems to be the answer, since I don't think anything it does will be useful to him.