As technology marches on, what was once the bleeding edge becomes the midrange, and what was once considered midrange becomes entry level. I recently built a pair of midrange systems. By any measure, their performance would have been bleeding edge just three years ago. Time and engineering march on.
These systems were the last pair of systems built to upgrade my Friday Night Follies LAN party systems. Will I be good to go for a few years, or will I be writing a version of this article in a couple of years? That depends, I suppose, on the health of PC gaming a couple of years from now.
But for the present, let’s see what the midrange looks like.
Twin Flavors of Core i7
One interesting artifact of the current http://www.intc.com/priceList.cfm Intel price list is the wholesale pricing for two Core i7 CPUs: the socket 1366 Core i7 920, and the socket 1156 Core i7 860. The 920 weighs in at 2.66GHz, 4.8 gigatransfers per second over its dual QPI links and triple channel DDR3 memory support. The Core i7 860 clocks in at 2.80GHz, but only has a single QPI link, for 2.5 gigatransfers per second, and a dual channel DDR3 memory controller.
Which is faster? It’s hard to say. Both support Hyper-Threading, but the D stepping of the Core i7 920 has become somewhat of a darling among overclockers. However, you can also argue that the Core i7 860 has more Turbo Boost headroom. Turbo Boost is Intel’s auto-overclocking capability, and the 860 offers more Turbo Boost modes than the 920. That’s likely to be a bigger factor than the number of QPI channels. My next Hot Hardware column will touch on the performance comparisons of these two CPU cousins.
The Core i7 920 System
Configurations
While I plan on benchmarking these systems with identical graphics cards, the final builds will be somewhat different, more because of what I have available here in the Basement than because of any intent. Here are the final bill of materials for the two systems:
| Component | Core i7 860 | Core i7 920 |
| CPU | Core i7 860 @ 2.80GHz | Core i7 920 @ 2.66GHz |
| Motherboard | Asus P7P55D Pro (P55 Chipset) | eVGA X58 SLI Micro (X58 Chipset) |
| Memory | 2 x 2GB Corsair DDR3-1600 | 3 x 2GB Corsair DDR3-1600 |
| Graphics Card | AMD Radeon HD 4890 | eVGA GeForce 260 GTX Core 216 SSC |
| Hard Drive | Hitachi 1TB 7,200RPM | Hitachi 1TB 7,200RPM |
| Optical Drive | Lite-On IDE 20x DVD+/-RW | Lite-On SATA 22x DVD+/-RW |
| Power Supply | Corsair 750TX 750W | OCZ ModStream 700W |
| Case | CM Scout | NZXT Panzerbox |
Let’s consider pricing just for motherboard, CPU and memory for a moment:
| Component | Core i7 860 Pricing | Core i7 920 Pricing |
| CPU | $290 | $280 |
| Motherboard | $170 | $201 |
| Memory | $100 ($25 per GB) | $130 ($21.60 per GB) |
| Total | $560 | $611 |
Core i7 860 Parts
As you can see, the Bloomfield / X58 system costs more – about $51 more – for just the core components. The key difference is the motherboard pricing: even the micro ATX eVGA board costs about $200, versus the $170 for the mid-level Asus P55 board. However, memory cost per gigabyte is cheaper for the triple channel kit, although the total cost of memory is higher.
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20 comments
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Derek Rost says:
September 30, 2009 at 10:11 am (UTC -7 )
Based on the last paragraph it sounds like the 1156 socket will not get a quad-core. Is that correct, or will it just not get a 32nm quad but still have 45nm quads?
Loyd Case says:
September 30, 2009 at 10:23 am (UTC -7 )
Currently, no official Intel roadmap shows a socket 1156 quad core. However, if you go beyond the Nehalem generation, to Intel’s Sandy Bridge new architecture, the picture gets a little murky. Sandy Bridge will likely offer socket 1156 variants, and reports suggest that Sandy Bridge will offer “… four to eight cores.” So that could be the real successor to quad core Lynnfield.
But Intel isn’t releasing specific product details regarding Sandy Bridge.
What is likely is that we will see 45nm Lynnfield speed bumps, particularly after Gulftown ships. But that’s just crystal ball gazing on my part.
Paul Fabrie says:
September 30, 2009 at 12:28 pm (UTC -7 )
I think that based on my needs and what I am going to be doing on it, i am going to go with the 1156 socket. I am going to start playing Aion: Tower of Eternity but mainly I am a heavy multitasker. I am going to edit video and encode videos to my Creative Zen. And I will be dabbling in several Linux distros through Virtual Box.
Tony says:
September 30, 2009 at 1:03 pm (UTC -7 )
I’m curious what you think about the upcoming Lucid HYDRA chip? Engadget says they’re going to be adding it to some upper end boards for the end of the year. I’m extremely skeptical of the claims, but am still waiting out to see if they deliver.
Eric says:
September 30, 2009 at 6:05 pm (UTC -7 )
After making the same considerations discussed here, I just went the Lynnfield route with an i860 CPU. No regrets; haven’t made an in-place CPU upgrade in a long time.
Loyd Case says:
September 30, 2009 at 8:47 pm (UTC -7 )
MSI is supposed to ship a motherboard with a Lucid chip before the end of the year. I remain unconvinced, not because I think there’s anything wrong with the tech (it looks pretty good), but because it will be a support nightmare. Also: I’m simply not a fan of multi-GPU solutions for desktop PCs.
Paul Fabrie says:
October 1, 2009 at 8:00 am (UTC -7 )
It is supposed to be called the MSI Big Bang. Should be interesting.
YS says:
October 1, 2009 at 11:45 pm (UTC -7 )
Holy cow i7 is midrange?!
I can’t imagine what you’d label those gaming on CPUs like AMD X3 720s or AMD 7750s…
David says:
October 12, 2009 at 8:35 am (UTC -7 )
I wanted was looking to build a new system, and was going to follow your last $800 killer gaming rig( From May of this year), I noticed you used the same Graphics card there and in this build. I want to know if you could compare the two on which would be better to build now. I am upgrading to improve the framerate in WOW, and my old Nvidia GeforceFX 5700 ultra, fan has died. I do not do any video editing, just everyday web email photos, photoshop (occasionally), and the one game mentioned above.
Thanks for any advice you can gives
David
Loyd Case says:
October 12, 2009 at 1:40 pm (UTC -7 )
It really depends on your budget. The Radeon HD 4890 is faster, but costs more. If you can swing yet another $40 more (around the $260), the Radeon HD 5850 is the fastest thing out there today, except for its big brother, the HD 5870.
David says:
October 13, 2009 at 6:47 am (UTC -7 )
Thanks for the quick reply! Also for chipset and motherboard recommendation, which one of the two build here would be better, for gaming, VS 800 killer gaming rig’s Core 2 Quad Q8400.
David says:
October 13, 2009 at 7:00 am (UTC -7 )
I think was sort of confusing was, that I now know the i7 860 is newer/ Also any reason you chose to use 4GB of ram fro the 860 VS the i7 920? Could this ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145222 The cost for the 6GB is $110 after a 20 dollar rebate, (the reason I ask is I ahve a hard time purchasing the right ram for a motherboard in the past) work in the i7 860 ?
Thanks again
Loyd Case says:
October 13, 2009 at 7:20 am (UTC -7 )
The 920 is a triple channel CPU, so you install three memory modules at a time. Typically, that means 3 or 6GB (with three slots filled) or 6 or 12 GB on a board with six memory sockets.
Core i7 860 is dual channel, so you install two modules at a time, which leads to configurations with 2, 4 or 8GB.
David says:
October 13, 2009 at 8:05 am (UTC -7 )
For my question in post 11, the Asus 97P55 w/ Core i& 860, should be great that the chip motherboard combo, in the $800 dollar kilelr gaming rig?
Thanks again!! Hopefully I will order the part later today when I find a case for to fit the mother board
Loyd Case says:
October 13, 2009 at 8:28 am (UTC -7 )
That will definitely be better than the CPU and motherboard in the last $800 gaming rig.
David says:
October 13, 2009 at 1:31 pm (UTC -7 )
I have the core components, for $10 more the ram was just touch more from Newegg, http://preview.tinyurl.com/yzhzb43 I was looking to get the Cool Master case, you had here, but as it did not come with a power supply, are there any minimums for power I will need for the to run the motherboard chipset combination and probably going to go with Radeon HD 5850 [ my first non Nvidia card,
]
Daniel says:
October 15, 2009 at 12:37 pm (UTC -7 )
I was wondering, what kind of CPU cooler do you recommend. I’m using socket 1156. Thanks!
Jorel S. says:
October 24, 2009 at 1:38 am (UTC -7 )
Hey Loyd, I’m Currently on a Phenom II x2 @ 3.6ghz + 5850 + 740g chipset motherboard, would I see noticeable improvement in FPS gain if I moved over to either of these platforms your suggesting here?
Fyi, My monitor is a 52″ lcd so my fps/refresh rate is capped at 60.
Even with a 5850 I get some “microstutter” and “hitchy” framerates in certain games where fps dips below 60. I. E. Batman:AA
Loyd Case says:
October 24, 2009 at 10:14 am (UTC -7 )
Are you running at full 1080p on your HDTV when gaming?
In most games, you’ll see a definite frame rate increase. In some, not so much. The slight stuttering you see may just be driver issues in some games, though — 5800 drivers aren’t completely mature yet.
Jorel S. says:
October 25, 2009 at 6:09 am (UTC -7 )
yes that’s correct, Ideal settings for most games would be 4x AA 8x AF @ 1080p. I guess the “stutter” seems to be game-to-game cause its non-existent in games like Dead Space, Half-life 2, Cod4….I find the stutter issue more persistent in Nvidia “meant to be played” games, i.e. batman:AA, bioshock…
Build an Atom-based Nettop PC « All Topics « Improbable Insights says:
October 14, 2009 at 3:37 pm (UTC -7 )
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