Deal: Pickup Core i7's for Less than Core 2's

[vaskodogama]

hmmm...

 

[Guest]

Micro Center has i7 for 229.99 and has had it as such for almost 2 months now.

www.microcenter.com

 

[veszerin]

^^The above deal is still on. While it was at 229.99 while Micro Center was having its Build Your Own PC month, it is still at $229.99 for at least the beginning of the month of march.

But be nice and buy some other stuff there while you're at it. Micro Center is losing 60$ on each i7.

 

[lamorpa]

I'm guessing the headline was meant to read "Pick up..."? Pickup is a noun. In this context it would sort of be in the place of an adjective. Is there a special 'pickup' kind of Core i7?

 

[scooterlibby]

Another bizarre element is relegating the Core 2 Duo to the "budget system" or "HTPC" category. I have an e8400 @ 4ghz. It feels pretty high end and games about as well as one could imagine. Yes the Duo saves money, but can handle a lot more than HTPC duties.

 

[Guest]

Wowo, we have never had it better, just pick a budget and all of the choices will do, yes, bang for buck with phenom, solid performance from c2d/q and cutting edge fast i7, just be gratefull that we have such a choice, amd nice to see amd competing better again, looking forward to my next build in 2011 after 7300@ 3.8ghz is getting old in the tooth.

 

[hellwig]

[citation][nom]MoUsE-WiZ[/nom]Silly question.SC2 and D3 are still on the horizon... gotta wait till they (or at least SC2) are out before I know what sort of money I need to spend, if any ~_~[/citation]
I ran D2 on my 266MHz k6-2 with a Trident CyberBlade graphics chip in my Compaq Presidio 1200 laptop. Ran SC fine though.

As for the upcoming D3 and SC2, you might as well buy now. By the time Blizzard gets those games out, you'll be a few years into your new computer.

 

[megabuster]

[citation][nom]Anonymous[/nom]Micro Center has i7 for 229.99 and has had it as such for almost 2 months now.www.microcenter.com[/citation]
I don't know where do you guys find those products on that website, since there are only 3 Intel CPU's listed and none of those is i7 920

 

[68vistacruiser]

I picked up my I7 920 at Fry's about a month ago for $239. Yes, the memory, motherboard, and power supply was expensive, but all that's getting cheaper now. Maybe I'll upgrade my 6yr old son's q6600 for his birthday!

 

[davekozy]

You have to buy them in person to get those prices. Unfortunately not available online from Micro center. DDR 3 prices are dropping fast you can get a 3x1GB kit for $80 and X58 board for $190. $500 for i7 is not too bad.

 

[dlvonde]

[citation][nom]scooterlibby[/nom]Another bizarre element is relegating the Core 2 Duo to the "budget system" or "HTPC" category. I have an e8400 @ 4ghz. It feels pretty high end and games about as well as one could imagine. Yes the Duo saves money, but can handle a lot more than HTPC duties.[/citation]

yeah it's really dumb how as soon as new hardware comes out, the last generation all of a sudden is only good for "light web browsing" and word documents

 

[dandrep]

I built a new Core i7 about about two weeks ago.
i7 920 @ Frys = $227
6 GB RAM + Gigabyte MB (U3DR) = $250

I am overclocked to 3.7GHz (+ 1 GHz) without trying on the stock cooler. It was a tough choice C2Q/C2D or i7 for less than a $100 more.

 

[Guest]

I think many of you are not thinking about the future.... i7 boards will continue to get faster and faster CPU's while Core 2 is at the end of it's life cycle.

i7 will be around and upgradable for a good while that will blow the doors off Core 2 stuff in the future.

 

[tuannguyen]

[citation][nom]b777[/nom]What has Tuan been smoking? Comparing Q9650 (3.0 GHz) to i7 920 (2.66 GHz) is stupid at best. Why aren't you comparing QX9770 to i7 920? Heck, core i7 920 has always been cheaper than the Q9650 (~$300 vs. ~$500, when i7 launched). Tom's hardware has really gone down hill. And I am surprised that Tuan wasn't fired after apple article debacle.[/citation]

Hi b777 -

In recent years, clock frequency only doesn't equate to a total picture of a processors performance; I think we all can agree on this now. Likewise, it would not be fair to compare a 3GHz Pentium 4 to a 3GHz Core 2 quad. You're also not taking into account that Core 2's for the desktop will reach their EOL not too long from now. It's best to invest not only for the present, but for the future, I think.

In regards to the Mac articles, to be honest, a lot of people emailed me liking the content, while a lot didn't like them either. Either way, there's two sides to the fence right? If Macs aren't your cup of tea, then I guess you don't have to click on the article and read if next time you see one pop up.

We don't have to share the same point of view. That's okay. But that doesn't make one of us "stupid."

/ Tuan

 

[average joe]

If I had to build an entirely brand new system today I would go definitely go I7 hands down. It is just plain faster than everything else out there. The X58 board will be the flagship board for quite some time. It has SLI and Crossfire so its really functional.

If it was possible to upgrade I would upgrade. I have an older 775 motherboard so I just recently bought a Q6600 and dropped it in there to replace my E6300. Cheap Thrills. It runs like a champ and I didn't have to buy any other components or even reinstall Vista. Now I can play Age of Empires while waiting for Spybot to finish. If I had an AM2 motherboard I would certainly get a Phenom 2 and do the same thing. I don't really see the value in buying an AM3 board just to buy a Phenom 2.
A 775 board is cheaper and performance is similar or better. An AM2 board and last years top of line DDR2 for dirt cheap would be best if you wanted great value. It's going to over clock much better.

 

[Eletriarnation]

The point of getting an i7 now is not its power or price but the fact that LGA1366/DDR3 systems will remain upgradeable for significantly longer than LGA775/DDR2, a combination which has been on the market approaching five years now.

I bought an i7 recently, not because I think I actually realistically need an eight-threaded processor or 1600MHz ram but because I want to avoid the situation I ran into when I bought a S478 system in June '04 and LGA775 came out a few months later.

 

[Eletriarnation]

[citation][nom]Anonymous[/nom]I think many of you are not thinking about the future.... i7 boards will continue to get faster and faster CPU's while Core 2 is at the end of it's life cycle.i7 will be around and upgradable for a good while that will blow the doors off Core 2 stuff in the future.[/citation]

I agree - The point of getting an i7 now is not its power or price but the fact that LGA1366/DDR3 systems will remain upgradeable for significantly longer than LGA775/DDR2, a combination which has been on the market approaching five years now.

I bought an i7 recently, not because I think I actually realistically need an eight-threaded processor or 1600MHz ram but because I want to avoid the situation I ran into when I bought a S478 system in June '04 and LGA775 came out a few months later.

 

[Caffeinecarl]

Right now, if I was running any sort of Core2 Duo or Dual core Athlon, I wouldn't upgrade to either one, hehehe.

This is because even though there's a ton of power to be had in a quad core, I just can't tap it with what I do. I don't do anything really heavily threaded like video editing, so any quad is really just a waste... at least for me. Hopefully, they still continue to crank out some really high end dual-cores with maxed out clock speeds on the current architectures. (Core i5 or i7)