I7 920 or i7 860?

[archibael]

200 Mhz difference doesn't matter. Has anyone looked at the stats on Intels website for the 920 vs 860?

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/corei7/specifications.htm

Bus speed is 4.8 Gt/s for a 920 and 2.5 Gt/s for a 860. Even if an 860 is a little faster if the bottleneck is smaller BY HALF, then you push less data through. Its pretty simple! Turbo boost and over clocking don't mean anything again if you can only push through HALF the data of a 920's Bus. I would also agree with the earlier post of 920 = 24 GB of RAM and 860 = 16GB, if you want a power house for video encoding, gaming, or apps 920 wins again. Bus speed is key! Overclock your heart out of a 860 if you can't match the bandwidth (i.e. Bus Speed) of a 920 with triple channel memory then you can't come close to the power. Why would anyone think a 860 is faster?

Misconception, and I'm hoping my email is going to get that fixed. 🙁

QPI is the connection between CPU and northbridge, and DMI between northbridge and southbridge. On 920, the 4.8GT/s is between the 920 and the X58 and there is a 2.5GT/s DMI port between X58 and the southbridge. On 860, the northbridge is on the CPU silicon (as is the QPI), and the DMI is between the CPU and the PCH (southbridge). There's no penalty on the 860 due to DMI vs QPI.

Bus speed is really a meaningless concept from that perspective, and other than "tradition" I don't know why it's specified in those terms on the website.

 

[Guest]

Let's not forget the i7 860 is the replacement for the i7 920. If you can get a good deal on the 920, I would go for that, otherwise it's the 860 for me.

 

[hughski]

I was wondering the same about these two processors and found this test. Hope it helps.

http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=857&p=0

 

[kingpeter]

The Core i7 860 is your chip then, I do quite a bit of video encoding myself (I've moved all my DVD's to .Avi/XVID) and the only way to really speed things up is by having a faster CPU. Since the 860 and 920 share the same architecture the only the big difference in speed is the clock rate in which case the 860 has 200Mhz more than the 920. The same applies to gaming, more mhz’s the better triple channel memory won’t make any significant difference here.

I am also primarily interested in video editing, and image editing in Photoshop CS4. I have found trying to edit AVCHD encoded video completely hopeless on my Core Two Duo E6700 computer, overcocked to 3.2 GHz with 4 GB of ram. If Mhz is the only criterion important to video editing, then maybe the deciding factor could be the ultimate overclockable speed achievable with the 860 compared to the 920. I was about to buy a computer with i7 920 overclocked to 4 GHz, using Domino ALC water cooling. I am now undecided, wondering if the lower energy requirement of the 860 would allow even higher clock speeds at the same temperature, and would be the better choice for Hi Def video editing. I am guessing that more MHz possible with 860 would more than compensate for the loss of triple channel memory, but I do not know.

Any clarification on these issues would help me to decide.

 

[mrcrybaby]

those 2 run pretty much on par with each other.. performance wise (meaning not only the cpu) I believe the i7 920 is a better buy for overclocking, SLI, and triple channel memory. BUT if it was me, whichever one is cheaper BECAUSE they pretty much run on par with each other :]

~mrcrybaby

p.s. 1156 mobos r WAY cheaper... although the ASrock x58 Extreme is a really good buy too.

 

[allenpcmax]

First, sorry about my english , I am near of change my setup , I want to use the X58 chisep but i don t know what motherboard should be better

 

[allenpcmax]

First, sorry about my english , I am near of change my setup , I want to use the X58 chisep but i don t know what motherboard should be better

 

[lilotimz]

Use whichever overclocks better, have good reviews, and has a good price.

Look at the Gigybite and Asus boards.

someone lock this thread..

 

[Guest]

Definitely stay away from the ASUS mobos. They have some of the raunchiest customer service when it comes to warranty issues or you need to fall back on the warranty agreement. Check out BBB and see their horrible rating. Plus, there are tons of complaints out there about them basically hanging customers out to dry when the call them and want them to honor the warranty agreement. I KNOW!!!

 

[mostafa741]

the core i7 860 get higher score
because is higher clock than i7 920
sorry for my bad english

 

[osiris813]

Good for you i'm currently saving money for a little render farm, and since 3ds max 2010 is out i'm going to switch from vray to mental ray which is a memory hug and needs fast memory transfers, so i was thinking about xeons before but the cost is way to high, so in my case faster memory i have more time i save. Since i7 9XX have triple channel ddr3 and can transfer up to 25.6GB/s and 8XX only 21GB/s so i will definitely go with i7. But for now i'm waiting till the prices drops to no more than 400$ and maybe i will go with 940 😉

You should talk to Draven, and read the rendernode article on this site. If you're setting up a render farm, then you should consider whether the increase in price from one chip to the next is worth it in terms of performance. You're not trying to set up a top notch gaming rig....just get as much CPU speed thrown at a rendering job for as little power and cost as possible. Cinebench is your friend here....you can stack the benchmark results and get an idea of the combined performance in a renderfarm. You also don't need to be using anything close to 24 GB of RAM on a rendernode, so that is inconsequential. Performance per dollar is the key.

I just set up a node with the i7 860 and 8 GB RAM. As a test, I did a small overclock, and ran a Cinebench 10 test -- score of 19,800! By comparison, the i7 920 stock scores 13,200, and the i7 940 stock scores 14,540. The i7 860 is a fast chip. Not sure overclocking a rendernode is a good idea though. These things are running 24/7 for a week at a time...it will be hard to keep an overclock stable. Just the cinebench test got the chip up to 67c, and I have 5 fans in this case. If you try to run an i7 920 at 4 gHz (as some are suggesting here) during a long render job, it will overheat and the node will shut down in the middle of your job.

For the price of the i7 860, bigger case (2U), the 1156 motherboard, DDR3 RAM, etc, compared to what I could use with a 775 socket Yorkfield chip, I'm not sure it makes sense to even use one of these in a rendernode. I could set up 2 nodes with Q9550 chips for close to the same cost (slightly more) and I would run a stable combined cinebench of about 23,000 without any overclocking. And if you're talking about jumping up to a 940 or a 975, then those 2 Q9550 nodes will come in WAY under the cost of the 940 and 975 nodes. IF you intend to overclock, by the time you pay for adequate cooling, you've accounted for a 3rd (or 4th) Q9550 node, and the combined rendering power of those 3 (or 4) nodes will crush the overclocked (and unstable) long term rendering performance of the 940 or 975.

 

[Neeseius]

I'd like to just add that I purchased my system 1 month ago, and spent countless hours deciding whether to go with a p55 860 setup, or an x58 920 setup. COUNTLESS HOURS, I came to the conclusion that a 920 with a D0 stepping overclocked will always perform better at the same frequency than an 860. I was trying to find a reason to get an 860, there were many, but ultimately I chose performance over value. Despite what anyone will tell you, just believe me that the 920 is faster at matched frequencies, because if it wasn't, then I would not feel satisfied with my purchase, or many hours of research. But i do.

 

[lilotimz]

congrats, to be honest to people saying an intel i7-860 performs the same as an 920. While it may hold true as of right now today, in 2-4 years time , new programs will come out taking advantage of the best mainstream technologies. Mainly more quad core/multicore support and taking advantage of more memory channels and stuff. We dont know what the hell is coming around the corner, theyre might be a new crysis game (blasphemy days...) or windows 2012 Dead on Arrival which instantly kills all the weaker computers. So who knows, but if you were the person who looks ahead, prepare as best as you can.

 

[Guest]

INTEL and EVGA is FTW for sure who need TRI-Channels anyway, windows 64 bits is no way better than windows 32 bits.

 

[dredsilver]

I'm also in the process of a new build. However, I plan on doing less video encoding (I may in the future) and will be doing more gaming and some graphic work.
Someone had mentioned the 920 supporting multi-GPU technology. I'm doing my best to stay away from a crossfire setup to avoid headaches so I'll be getting a 5850/5870 which more than meets my needs for now, but I'm sure in the future I'll end up getting a second once I have a need for that much juice.
I'll also be getting a triple channel 6gb mem kit... I'm not super knowledgeable so is this where the trip channel controller comes into play?

In short I'm looking for best chip for daily tasks, gaming, and some light graphics stuff. However, I'd like it to be futureproof for a bit. I'm willing to overclock to a comfortably higher clockspeed.

I'm near a Microcenter so I can take advantage of the $230 in-store pickup deals for either chip, so price is a draw.

Any extra comments to the ones already made above are greatly appreciated.

 

[Guest]

INTEL and EVGA is FTW for sure who need TRI-Channels anyway, windows 64 bits is no way better than windows 32 bits.

I love when 13 year old kids try to be knowledge. try to do some research next time before you post. your 32bit windows with your 2GB ram maybe good for you with game and internet. But a lot of us need to use system beyond 2 gb RAM which windows 32 bit can only address up to 3.25 gb RAM. this is where 64 bit come in, not only it can see beyond 3.25GB ram, but it will be more stable and run a lot of 64 bit application faster.

 

[marney_5]

Definatly i7 920

 

[blackhawk1928]

INTEL and EVGA is FTW for sure who need TRI-Channels anyway, windows 64 bits is no way better than windows 32 bits.

Shut-up, don't say things you don't know or people will make you look really dumb like i am about to do now.

-32bit windows supports 3.5gb of ram approximatly, it may be enough for your facebook and p*** but people actually use computers for other purposes like for thier job and serious applications. Moreover 64bit is faster and runs 64-bit software faster (its the future).

-And really? who does need triple channels anyway except for photoshopper, video editors, audio editors, cad, photo editors, encoders...etc

 

[AnonX]

-And really? who does need triple channels anyway except for photoshopper, video editors, audio editors, cad, photo editors, encoders...etc

Just curious, is there a difference in memory/bus demands for video processing (editing/encoding) vs. constant pixel pushing (games/hdtv)? It seems to me that tri-channel memory would be better for constant throughput to the screen (PCIe slots), whereas video encoding and photo editing only need internal speed (clock/cache).

Both processors are almost the same in price (right now the 920 is actually cheaper than the 860 at Micro Center). I'm leaning toward the Lynnfield only because the 1156 mATX boards are cheaper. But I'd like to base my purchase on something other than price.

 

[AnonX]

Oh... and for the encoders and editors, does hyperthreading matter? I've read on some forums that it's best to disable it (so I'm also considering the i5-750). I'm building a system for pro audio recording. I want a multi-core setup, but I'm not concerned about graphics.

 

[Techno-boy]

ASUS P7P55D-E Deluxe is better than P7P55D Deluxe because it has an onboard SATA 3 and USB 3.0 support and it is a refreshed version of P7P55D Deluxe.

However, I would recommend P7P55D-E PRO more because it is cheaper while the Deluxe version will rip your wallet and it is like marketing hype more. The Deluxe is good if you are planning to run up to 8/9 Sata Drivers which is overkill while PRO version offers 7 SATA ports for 7 Sata drivers which is already enough (of course, most of people don't even run up to 3 hard disks in their system). The deluxe will also offer extra Gigabit Ethernet LAN Port but even 1 is enough unless if you are running a bigger home network or in the office. The 16 Phase powers on PRO version are enough (12+2=14 total Phase Powers) and 24 Phase Powers (17+2=19 Total Phase Powers) on Deluxe Version will not offer a lot of performance boost in overclocking over the Pro Version.

So save your money more and get the P7P55D-E PRO.

 

[Cryslayer80]

the i7 860 is the faster choice, no one xept the most demanding enterprise users will ever require tripple channel memory

http://vr-zone.com/forums/475539/core-i7-860-tested-faster-than-core-i7-920.html

 

[Cryslayer80]

Except anybody who uses Photoshop for more than painting simple colours and anybody who does even rudimentary video.

A double one for you.

 

[Cryslayer80]

Be that as it may, JeanLuc, the OP said he wants to do video work. Unless it's low-end consumer stuff (i.e. Movie Maker or Premiere Elements) then there is no discussion to be had - it's the triple-channel 920 and just clock it up to 3.4GHz where the stock cooler can still take it, so you don't have to worry about anything else.

So, to OP: how heavy is your video encoding going to be, and how often? How serious is your gaming?

And a triple one for that statement.

 

[keithblue2]

Hi i would like to update my system,which system would you choose
A- Asus P6TD Deluxe with core i7 920 and mushkin redline 1600 mhz 6-7-6-18
B- Asus p7p55d Deluxe with Core i7 860 and mushkin redline 1600 mhz 6-7-6-18

I want a system for faster movie encoding(DVD to AVI,MPG1),games(i'm not a big gamer)ALL I WANT IS THE BEST PERFORMANCE.
Thanks

Hi -- FYI after the same question and reading TONS of resources, I tried to sum up all the heat, light, and smoke into just the most significant differences: http://computingkeith.com/2010/02/10/choosing-a-new-cpu-intel-i7-920-vs-i7-860-2/

The basic conclusion: most of us would be happy with either CPU. If you're just looking for a faster system (e.g. upgrading from older P4 Xeons or older dual-core CPUs), the i7-860 will save you a few bucks, which you can put into more RAM/better HD's/graphics card etc. But if you're an avid overclocker, Photoshopper, or videographer, you might appreciate the extra bandwidth you might squeeze out of the i7-920.

-- Keith