i5 750 vs i7 930

[Eulixe]

i5 760** typo


Honestly speaking, if a system is going to be used for general gaming (WoW/CSS), some PS and some audio editing. How much of a boost would an i7 make over the i5.

Is the extra £70-80 (plus the extra ££ for 6Gbs on memory) justifiable?

Looking to run it with a GTX460.

Thanks guys

 

[AiiR]

No, the i5 is slightly better for gaming anyway. I wouldn't go for an i7 unless you use heavily multithreaded apps.

 

[OzZie]

i5 760** typo


Honestly speaking, if a system is going to be used for general gaming (WoW/CSS), some PS and some audio editing. How much of a boost would an i7 make over the i5.

Is the extra £70-80 (plus the extra ££ for 6Gbs on memory) justifiable?

Looking to run it with a GTX460.

Thanks guys

What audio editor and how much audio editing are you planning on doing?

 

[cmndr_andi]

In terms of gaming, the i5 and i7 will be just as fast as each other at the same clockspeeds.

In photoshop the i7 will be marginally faster.

For audio editing it depends on the application. If it makes use of hyperthreading (ie is very heavily threaded) then the i7 can provide up to 25% more performance at the same clockspeed. If it is not optimised for many cores then the speed will again be the same.

The main benefit (apart from hyperthreading) of the i7 930 over the i5 760 is the X58 platform. This platform is easier to overclock on, supports more memory, has greater memory bandwidth (if used with triple channel RAM), most boards support SLI and Crossfire and every X58 board has full x16x16 PCIe support - so multi GPU setups can be run at their full potential.

One thing that is worth considering is that this RAM and this motherboard represent the best value products available for the X58 platform at the moment.

 

[The Asgard]

I have a i5 750 and i7 920 and I would say its worth the difference.

 

[Eulixe]

What audio editor and how much audio editing are you planning on doing?

Audacity and Adobe Audition.

Its nothing heavy duty, I help on a podcast so most of the work is cleaning up the audio, adding in silly sound effects, all that good stuff.

PS is just for some design work at college.

I have the extra money available, I was just curious as to whether an i7 is that much of a leap and worth the extra money in my circumstance.

 

[glenimp617]

I went from an i5 750 to an i7 930 and the difference was amazing. This for me was the biggest CPU jump I have ever seen in the past 15 years of building pcs. I've had Lots of CPUs over the years lol

My video encoding time has more than halved. The main issue with the i5 is that it uses the p55 chipset which is a dog. They just can't overclock anywhere near as good as the x58 and I'm speaking from having two of each chipsets.

If you only do office and games, don't want to over clock and have no requirements for hyper threading then go i5 but anything else and the i7 will beat it hands down.

 

[cmndr_andi]

In terms of performance, for your uses the i7 will be just as fast as the i5. The main benefit is flexibility.

As mentioned above, all X58 boards have two full speed x16 PCIe v2 slots - so it will be able to keep up with dual graphics arrangements for a long time (because almost all P55 boards are limited to x8x8 arrangement, it is conceivable that future graphics cards will be bottlenecked by the x8 PCIe when run with two cards together).

Overclocking is a good deal easier on the X58 chipset - it really is made for overclocking.

Also, the X58 platform is compatible with the 32nm 6 core CPUs with the codename "Gulftown". These are very expensive at the moment, but they could provide a nice drop-in upgrade at some point in the future when they can be had second-hand for much cheaper. The s1156 platform used by the i5 is not able to use these CPUs and it looks like the quad core i7 870K is going to be the fastest CPU compatible with the platform.

It really is up to you whether these benefits (and the ones I mentioned in my first post) are worth your extra money.

 

[Eulixe]

Hmm. I suppose in the long run it makes sense to go with the i7 with the LGA1366 chipset.

If it keeps me from having to upgrade my CPU/Mobo earlier then it seems the right thing to do

Thanks for all the great feedback everyone.

 

[nmungur]

A friend has asked me to build a pc for her. Basically its only going to be used for gaming, WoW (literally thats it).

I was actually pretty much sold on the i7 930 option till I saw this about the 750. For a machine that is going to be used for a die hard WoW player which would be better???

 

[Big.Wayne]

In terms of gaming, the i5 and i7 will be just as fast as each other at the same clockspeeds

Intel® Core™i7 for gaming - More expensive £££ and slightly slower!

Honestly speaking

 

[cmndr_andi]

That graph uses stock i7 920 and i5 750s, therefore the i5 will have a slightly higher clockspeed due to a more aggressive turbo boost in lightly threaded apps (like many of the games listed above).

Therefore I stand by my statement, if they were at the same clockspeeds they would be approximately as fast as each other. This is not a technicality as one would be wise to turn turbo boost off if when overclocking.

 

[reflux]

]Intel® Core™i7 for gaming - More expensive £££ and slightly slower!

Turbo boost much? Given that almost everyone here clocks their CPUs to the high heavens, comparing i5 and i7 at stock is useless.

 

[Big.Wayne]

That graph uses stock i7 920 and i5 750s, therefore the i5 will have a slightly higher clockspeed due to a more aggressive turbo boost in lightly threaded apps (like many of the games listed above)

Dragon Age Origins? . . . lightly threaded app?

Turbo boost much? Given that almost everyone here clocks their CPUs to the high heavens, comparing i5 and i7 at stock is useless.

Is Eulixe clocking his CPU "to the high heavens" or is he running at stock?

 

[cmndr_andi]

Yea, I did say "many" of the games are lightly threaded - not all of them. DAO supposedly does make use of hyperthreading, so it should gain something extra from the i7 - but clearly the extra turbo boost of the i5 (and possibly its better handling of a single PCIe graphics card) gives it a small victory in this game.

However, in most games (even with a high-end graphics card) the graphics card will become the performance bottleneck well before this point is reached.

Edit: Misread graph

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hey cmndr_andi

Aye, that because Dragon Age origins is specially designed to make use of Hyperthreading - one of the very few games that can, and as you point out - in a CPU limited scenario it is 6% faster than an i5 at the same clockspeed.

Forgive me for asking but when did 1680x1050 become a "CPU limited scenario" . . . genuine question?

And even if it was a "CPU limited scenario" why on earth is Dragon Age Origins slower on the Core i7 which as you kindly pointed out is "specially designed to make use of Hyperthreading" . . . . . you would expect this would give it an advantage but yet it is somehow "slower" than the Core i5?

Did we overlook Turbo-Boost or maybe its something to do with the Core i5's on-chip PCI-Express controller?

However, in most games (even with a high-end graphics card) the graphics card will become the performance bottleneck well before this point is reached.

So is the graphics card a "performance bottleneck" in the results above or are they "CPU limited"?

I'm confused! . . . I'm sure Eulixe may be too!

 

[AiiR]

DOn't they disable TB for these benchmarks? Thought the i5 had an advantage in games due to the integrated pcie controller?

 

[Big.Wayne]

DOn't they disable TB for these benchmarks?

Don't think so? . . . why would they? . . . it's a cool Intel® Core™ i5 feature?

 

[cmndr_andi]

Wayne, I think my edit answers your questions. I genuinely misread the graph for DAO.

As for CPU limited, well if it isn't then it is a pretty crappy test - as the results would be determined by the GPU, not the CPU. Anyway, we are looking at framerates of over 120fps in both cases for this game - so both CPUs are more than powerful to play this game very well.

As for your second quote of me, I am talking about during real-world use, not in a test designed to evaluate CPU performance. This means most people would turn up the graphics settings nice and high, set the resolution to the native res and turn up AA and AF as high as possible. In such a case then it will usually (though not necesarily always) mean that the performance is limited by the GPU.

 

[Big.Wayne]

Hey cmndr_andi

we are looking at framerates of over 120fps in both cases for this game - so both CPUs are more than powerful to play this game very well.

most people would turn up the graphics settings nice and high, set the resolution to the native res and turn up AA and AF as high as possible. In such a case then it will usually (though not necesarily always) mean that the performance is limited by the GPU.

So from a gaming perspective what would your answer to Eulixe (or anyone else reading) be now?

Is the extra £70-80 (plus the extra ££ for 6Gbs on memory) justifiable?