Widescreen Gaming Forum

Did you guys catch wind of the new i7 cpu? Gulftown was not released as a new cpu series (i9) but rater added to the i7 line. Its a 32nm version of the current 45nm i7's with 6 cores instead of 4. Keeping the same TDP that it has now. Simply amazing.

Im still using a Q6600 overclocked and its doing fine for me, I really wanted an i7 but because I would have to change not just the cpu, but also motherboard and ram to do the upgrade it was not worth it for me. I think now though the 6 cores offers a large enough boost of performance to warrant the upgrade.

Still though only the i7 980x is out right now and cost $1000, its the first extreme cpu I would ever even consider buying if I had that kind of money but I simply do not. So 3rd quarter the i7 970 is due and it should cost probably half as much and that sounds like something I could go for.

The 980X is a monster 3.33ghz stock speeds and still overclocks as good as the current i7 line (4ghz+) its almost a perfect 50% boost in rendering speed for multi core stuff like video rendering. Gaming however obviously wont see any gains.

Its a harsh mental game to decide when to upgrade. Cost of i7 stuff has gone down now, you can get pretty affordable RAM and Mobo's when they were both expensive at release, but I feel the mobo/socket type is going to be EOL after a few more refreshes so if I am to wait all the way to years end for the i7 970 it may be better to wait for the next big thing.. though honestly I do not see needing more power than a 3.6-4ghz overclocked i7 970 :D

I'll be in video rendering heaven.

I run a i7 920 @ 4GHz with HT still turned on, and it does do a great job, main problem is a software one, I do my video encoding with XVid but it doesn't support multi-threading as well as it could. However I found a way around that, encoding 3 things at once happy maxis out my CPU 8)

I encode with H264 using x264 and its totally linear it will use all cores too 100% and H264 takes the longest of any kind of encoding I know of if you pick high quality settings so one of these would be awesome.

I think if the 970 is $500 or less I will go for it, otherwise I will just get a 930 and overclock it, I do not do a ton of video encoding and that is the only scenario I see the extra power really doing me any good.

Wait for sandy bridge to be released late 2010 since your satisfied with your q6600 for now. Well why would you need an i7 anyway?

Wait for sandy bridge to be released late 2010 since your satisfied with your q6600 for now. Well why would you need an i7 anyway?

Pretty much this.

By the time that the '970' comes out it will almost be obsolete and you will be wanting Sandy Bridge.

Afaik that's not true. First the maybe-i7 970 was rumored to be around USD 800. So it won't be really that much cheaper. Sandy Bridge is just a mainstream architecture replacing Lynnfield. Following that there will be no Sandy Bridge-Sixcore, only 32nm Dual- and Quadcores. Nothing is clear about speed, but many didn't expect that much of a gain over the Nehalems.
Moreover a Sandy Bridge will require a new motherboard as well since it will likely get socket 1155. Finally a Six- or Octacore based on a new architecture might be off the shores till mid 2011. So 980X will be the king for one year minimum. I expect Intel to wait for AMDs bulldozer and then crush it with the Gulftown-predecessor and X68-chipset.

So if you want a 980X and can afford it - BUY IT! Its by far the fastest and most advanced cpu money can buy these days. It is up to 50% faster than any i7 Bloomfield while running much cooler and drawing less power. With increasing multithreaded software-support it will even get better and better. I never thought about spending a grand on a cpu but hell I did on the 980X. Its the first Intel-EE in years which is worth the price-premium. (though still ridiculously expensive).

Just my 2c. :)