My Intel Core i7 and Phenom II 940 Comparison

[Chicken Patty]

Hey there seems to be some issue with that PII score there, I just ran photoworks on everest at 3 Ghz on my 720BE with 4 cores on and I got a score of 26296, dont know why the difference. Would higher ram speeds make a lot of difference? Am running my ram at 1000 Mhz.

THANKS FOR SPOTTING THAT OUT, DONT KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM CAN BE. wHAT WAS YOUR RAM RUNNING AT?

 

[yogurt_21]

He didn't pay those prices for that gear, and in some cases spent a lot more/a lot less for the parts. In all... I don't like the price comparison. A lot of the time i7 is more expensive because of what brand name a buyer chooses, and not the performance he is getting for the extra dollar. System Viper has clocked higher than anyone else on these forums with 4 cores 8 threads on a motherboard that is less expensive than what anyone else who posts regularly on TPU uses. Fitseries proved that 1066MHz ram can easily be overclocked to 1600MHz cas 8 without much trouble to keep ram below $100. I'm just making a note of this because of the state of the economy. To me it's much more sweet to get the performance of the i7 at a price well below the starting premium. The things people really should be paying for is 2000MHz+ ram, D0 chips, and boards with flexible bios/power options.

of couser you can always get cheaper components and overclock them. just the same as for memory if I were going ddr3 I'd choose

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225 something like that you'd be surprised at how well lover volt memory can tighten timings from stock.

then for mobo prolly something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131359 which shaves 80-100$ off of the price while doubling the memory. (which btw the memory estimate may be off significantly now looking) dropping the price differrence between the two to 200$ obviously the cpu price difference isn't the issue, it's the motherboards mainly.

and yeah you can even go down to 40$ if you want a 3gb kit of ddr3 and overclock it. making it similar in price to 1066 ddr2 (which you could go down to ddr2 800 and clock that as well though the price jump is not as significant). and you can go to the zotac mobo for 199$ making it a 120$ difference which is minimal when you think about it. I'm merely looking from a consumer standpoint, when I read a review I like to know the cost of the hardware reviewed.

the point is to help me decide which way I want to go (not that I'm unhappy with my q6700's performance, it's the p35 chipset and 9600gt I have beef with currently lol) While the performance i7 offers is a big jump from my current rig, how much is that worth and how much can I recoup from part sales? and is it worth it in the long run?

theoretical questions sure as with my current situation due to the economy (as bnge brought up is not is such a good state) I'm not really ready to buy much of anything right now. But I will be in the future and I like how this review was far more practical than others I've seen. Which means I may come back to it when i do decide to buy.

 

[mav2000]

My ram is running at 1000 Mhz. Here is a screenie for u...I am running the cpu at 3 Ghz, thats why I am a bit confused abt this.

 

[Chicken Patty]

My ram is running at 1000 Mhz. Here is a screenie for u...I am running the cpu at 3 Ghz, thats why I am a bit confused abt this.

I was running my ram at 1066 Mhz. Weird.

 

[dr emulator (madmax)]

thanks bro. Yeah the Phenom II is not bad at all bro, I love it. You do have to keep something in mind. Phenom II is running on xp and i7 is running on W7. Although W7 is great, XP will give the i7 better performance as I have already tried it.

so you can run an i7 on xp
what's the problems you've run into (if any)
reason i ask is i was planning on getting 1 to upgrade this lovely machine

 

[Chicken Patty]

so you can run an i7 on xp
what's the problems you've run into (if any)
reason i ask is i was planning on getting 1 to upgrade this lovely machine

i didnt run into any problems. However I didnt do much with it. Had it for about 2 weeks then I went to W7. I just used it to bench as Xp yielded better scores for me.

 

[dr emulator (madmax)]

i see reason i asked is cause i plan on getting a i7
i just wasn't sure if i could run xp at all well i'll see in a few weeks
what makes me laugh ,is some guy at a shop i was ringing about prices on parts
said he had a copy of xp 64 bit with a recoverable licence which would work better than xp pro 32 bit
i thought as if ,dodgy version of xp that had been used no thanks
i'll probably invest in vista seen as it's not that much to buy

 

[Chicken Patty]

i see reason i asked is cause i plan on getting a i7
i just wasn't sure if i could run xp at all well i'll see in a few weeks
what makes me laugh ,is some guy at a shop i was ringing about prices on parts
said he had a copy of xp 64 bit with a recoverable licence which would work better than xp pro 32 bit
i thought as if ,dodgy version of xp that had been used no thanks
i'll probably invest in vista seen as it's not that much to buy

why dont you download W7 RC1. Its a badass OS, then just get W7 when it comes out