How long will the i7-960 remain strong

[Xolvier]

Alright so Ive been wondering how long it will be before I need to upgrade the i7-960. This of course is with gaming in mind. Id imagine it will last a long time but I want everyone elses opinion.


Specs of my system

Operating System
MS Windows 7 64-bit
CPU
Intel Core i7 960 @ 3.20GHz 71 °C
Bloomfield 45nm Technology
RAM
20.0 GB Triple-Channel DDR3 @ 530MHz (7-7-7-20)
Motherboard
EVGA 131-GT-E767 (Socket 423) 59 °C
Graphics
X409BV-FHD (1916x1080@60Hz)
Acer H274HL (1920x1080@60Hz)
1024MB GeForce GTX 460 (EVGA) 42 °C
Hard Drives
488GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAKX-001CA0 ATA Device (SATA) 33 °C
Optical Drives
ATAPI iHAS424 B ATA Device
Audio
SB Recon3D PCIe

 

[neo_classical]

Just referred to Tom's CPU charts:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/cpu-performance-comparison,review-32592-16.html
The i7 960 is although a little less than the current top of the range, it's within 10% on most charts that I would suggest that it will be a while before it really starts affecting performance.
I have the i7 950 and my main bugbear is the lack of support by X58 chipset for native SATA 3 (6Gbps) controller; I have to use the Marvell and it's just not good... sometimes the Intel SATA 2 ports are faster 🙁

 

[alec3601]

the i7-960 is one of the higher processors in the i7-900 series that said it should last you a while hence it is faster than most processors it will last you a while before it should need to be upgraded