I7 920 vs Phenom II 965 with an ATI 5870.(Finally!)

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1. Neither review has the i7 at 4.0ghz
2. You forget that those games are not optimized for 4+ threads

As for the low resolution argument. YES it does mean that the i7 is faster, but does it really matter in the real world? Not at all, especially since:

1. Most people don't play computer games
2. There is no single card that is so fast that the CPU would be a bottleneck at a high resolution
3. By the time there is a card that is that fast, it'll be time for a CPU upgrade...

So once again, get the Phenom if you're are strictly gaming. Overclock it to 4.0ghz and let it run for 2-3 years and just upgrade graphics cards.
Get the i7 if you do heavy media editing or if you just want the fastest thing
Get the i5 as a middle ground between the two since you probably wouldn't upgrade to a six core CPU if you were considering Phenom or i5 since it would just be an extra cost anyway... and when you're looking at those two options you're trying to save money and get a good performance/price ratio.
 


Jenny admitting she was wrong!? :) Juuuust kidding hehe. Anyways, yeah I know what you mean, was just making a point is all, that it shows i7 is more future proof than Phenom II, and that you will see a gap between the CPUs in the future. Even if it isn't quite the near future. (unless you are one of those that needs to have the fastest GPU setups)
 
Yeah, but the thing is, I think we can agree that THAT future is pretty far away... at least far enough away that we won't be talking about these CPU's anymore...
 
Ooooh probably. I'd say we'll start seeing a difference in mainstream GPUs in about 2-3 years, or 1 to 2 generations of GPUs. (ATI 6xxx or 7xxx series, Nvidia 3xx or 4xx)
 
So what do you guys seriously recommend for CROSSFIRE 5850's? The i7 920, and OC the hell out of it, or just drop in the 955/965 and OC the hell out of it? I know it shouldn't be a worry, but if I am going to swap mobo's it has to be now. My money will become pretty short in a few months, and I want to do this while I have the chance, if it will be better.

I have a buyer right now that will take my mobo, CPU, and ram from me for 300$.(Canaidian) So if I take that 300$ and put some extra to it, what would you recommend? The other option is just pick up the 955 for 180$(CDN). The way Im looking at it is that the PHII 955 will set me back 180$, so I could take that 180$ and combine it with the 300$ for my old parts to get 480$. Do you guys think I could get an i7 920+Mobo+3/6gb DDR-3 1333/1600 ram for that? I'm thinking I may have to put a little extra with it, so I'll allow for another 40-60$ bringing me up to around 550$. Don't forget I will need atleast 2 PCI-e x 16 slots for the crossfire 5850's.

EDIT: I forgot that I also have a buyer for my 2 3870's as well so that gives me another 80$. So you can add that on as well, since the 5850's are already ordered. So now I'm looking at around 600$ that I will have available.
 


I'll copy/paste from another post I've made. It's about choosing i7-720 or i7-860 but the crossfire part of it is applicable.

As for crosfire/SLI performance (16x/16x vs 8x/8x):
It won't be a game changer if you are using two single GPU cards. If you are using two dual GPU cards it still probably won't make too much of a difference but 16x/16x will enjoy a small bandwidth benefit. I expect Radeon HD5870x2 boards will be the first boards where 16x crossfire is going to make a difference at highest resolutions and high AA settings. If you are willing to spend the money on a 4 GPU machine then the added cost of 16x/16x probably won't matter anyway and that's what you should get. But with "only" 2 GPUs you won't get burned with a 8x/8x set up.


http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/core [...] 72-12.html
From conclusion: "Core i7 for LGA 1366 does have an advantage in its QPI link to the X58 chipset, which offers high-end graphics cards full x16 PCI Express links. However, current-generation GPUs still deliver compelling performance over the x8 links enabled through P55, P45, and 790GX running in CrossFire mode."


Note though that the comparison is between i7-920 and i5-750, not i7-860. Also note that the "current generation" GPUs in that article are HD4800 series and GT200. Like I said earlier HD5870x2 probably has the power to benefit from larger bandwidth. But single GPU versions won't be crippled.


Here's another test: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/core [...] 31673.html
Note though that here i7-920 is compared to i7-870 instead of i7-860. But still it shows that 8x/8x bandwith is not going to cripple your PC.

So I wouldn't base my decision on 16x vs 8x crossfire. Considering the money you save by dropping phenom II 955 on your current motherboard versus the speed you would gain with i7... I would personally save the money by going with 955 and buy some games with it.
 


The first thing i'd do is replace the 3870s with the 5850s. Then see what kind of performance you're getting with the 710@3.4, my bet is your performance will be good enough that further upgrades won't be needed in the short term. If you can hold off for the next generation of mobos with the newest SATA,USB etc. you'll be better off.
 
That is what I will be doing first off, and I wasn't really thinking about the next gen motherboards, but I am now. lol. My main concern was that, if I can sell these parts now for 380$(including the 3870's) that it may be best. The buyer that wants this stuff may not want it later, and he may end up grabbing stuff anyway from somewhere/someone else, sticking me to the PH II 955/965 as my only option.

Maybe I will wait and see what happens for a bit. Who knows there might be an article released comparing some different CPU's while using crossfire 5800 series cards in the near future. Someone will eventually explore this I'm sure. I just hope it's sooner than later, since I have no idea how long my buyer will wait to get these parts.
 



This is why I can't really wait. If I don't do anything at all, I may end up with a way more costly upgrade in the future. This is the main reason why I want to future proof now as much as possible, while I can. After these upgrades I don't intend on doing anything with my computer for 2-3 years atleast. During those 2-3 years I will be going to school and money for computer parts will be at the bottom of my list of priorities, so I need to do it now, or at least within the next 2-3 months.
 

OMG! OMG! Let me explain this for the 100000000th time.

Phenom II performs the same in gaming when high details and high resolution is applied. I7 performs better on low resolutions and details. Ask yourself: "Am I getting an I7/PII to play at 640x480?". Now, NOTHING is future proof. NOTHING! When the time comes, true eight cores will come out and I7's hyperthreading will matter as much as Pentium IV's HT made it "competitive" with true dual cores at the time... Since PII scores the same as i7 on high resolutions which will be standard in future, I fail to see how an I7 could be more future proof than Phenom II.
 
We already explained this....

Not only that, but i7's HT is completely different from the HT of the P4's. Even though the CPU with 8 cores, not logical cores, will probably be faster than the current i7's, we have to remember that there will be other architectural improvements as well.
 


It performs the same when the GPU is the limiting factor. If given enough GPU power i7 will pull ahead. Wether that it is worth the price premium is another matter. The price/performance advantage of phenom II is even better if you make your comparisons using stock clocks given the high price of faster i7 CPUs. But for overclockers the difference would be much more reasonable. Check out the links in my earlier post for performance comparisons.
 


Lol, you say it like I've never heard it before, or like what I was saying wasn't explaining exactly what you are, but with a different point.

Do you really think they'll have games optimized for 8 cores before we see the difference in high resolutions between i7 and Phenom II 955? There are barely any quad core games and quad core cpus have been out for almost 3 years.

When I say 'future proofing' I mean the i7 is going to perform better longer than the 955. The i7 performs better on lower details because the GPU is losing its bottleneck, giving more room for the processor to take the performance farther. Once the GPU setups get stronger and stronger, you will see the i7 perform better and better compared to the 955.
 
Once again Raidur you say the same thing while ignoring the evidence.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3619&p=7

4 different titles, 4 different settings. Look at the first one, the Phenom II beats *everything* at *medium* settings. What is that a graphics bottleneck?

L4dead on max, which is even less demanding that Fallout 3 on medium - once again the Phenom II is right up there beating everything except the i7 965 EE which is operating at almost the same speed (3.33ghz vs 3.4ghz).

Farcry 2, as I mentioned before - and as anand mentions here - is an aberration.

Crysis Warhead on mainstream quality - 80'ish fps for all the top cpu's dropping down to 60 for the med range cpu's, are you telling me this is a graphic bottleneck?

The i7 is barely faster than the 965 BE, if at all. There is no 'future proofing' with the i7, no more than there is with the 965 BE. With faster graphics cards the i7 will still be behind at stock and still just scraping wins when overclocked.

Look at that last one - the Q6600 beating the 9950 BE by 5-6 fps. Guess what? That's what the Q6600 was beating the 9950 BE by over a year ago. Have faster graphics cards changed it or has it stayed the same?

You are *wrong*, plain and simple.
 


I don't think anyone would care except those that don't want to have to upgrade every few years.

I went with a Q6600 for that reason. I have a quad core that still wont bottleneck most single and dual GPU solutions so I can focus on the most important part of the gaming aspect: the GPU. I started with a HD2900 and now have a HD4870 1GB. Went from 60FPS consitent in L4D to 200FPS consitent. Didn't even have to change my CPU at all. I can do it with a 5870 too.

If at the time I went with a AMD Athlon X2 I would have had to upgrade to a Phenom only to find out it couldn't OC and was crap vs a C2Q in gaming. Then I could get a Phenom II but that would have been 2 CPUs in the same time period instead of just a GPU.

So if we put the same concept to current tech, a Core i7 will most liekly be viable longer than a Phenom II with single or multiple GPUs.
 


Um when Intel created and released its Pentium 4s with HT there were no "true" dual cores. In fact Intel released its Pentium D dual core a month before AMD released its first Athlon X2 in 2005. The Pentium 4 originally hit in 2001 and I think its was 2002 with HT.....
 


I'm not speaking for Raidur. I just want to point out that in that review they are using a single geforce gtx 280. Why do you think medium range CPUs giving lower fps proves there is no GPU bottleneck? Check out the links I posted previously for what happens when there is enough GPU power.
 
The problem with your links are they are done by THG, and THG haven't done decent benchmarks in months.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634&p=9

Completely different results on the 8x8x scaling issue. How come anand gets a P55 bottleneck while THG don't? The answer is simply, Anand do more thorough testing.

What happens in the Crysis at max settings in that link?

They're all the same. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, it's always been the case. Any CPU near the high end, when faced with the same GPU bottleneck, will perform the same in game.
Click to expand...

If the i7 was so much better how come it's not showing up that way right now? The Q6600 is a good 5-10 fps behind...why is that? Is it because it's a *slower* cpu? And the reason why the rest are at a similar high level is because they are similarly faster?

If it is a bottleneck why isn't it bottlenecked at the level of the Q6600? How come in Left4dead the 965 BE is only beaten by the i7 965 EE while the fps are in the 120's?

It's really quite simple - it's because in terms of gaming there is almost nothing between these cpu's, and there never will be - and even if there was going to be at some point way in the future, both cpu's would bottleneck the gpu's by far before anything showed up.
 
^L4D is a great game. But using it as a benchmark is not really fair. Its a Source based game and is very CPU bound. It even hates OCing sometimes. I love the game and it loves my Q6600 @ 3GHz but still its a very old engine that has been super optimized for multiple cores.

And in all reality if that is how you feel than when someone wants a Core i7 or Core i5 you shouldn't talk down to them. You say that the CPU is the bottleneck and both CPUs are the same yet you advocate AMD in every situation.

If anything I still stand by my ideal that a Core i7 would be better for future purposes thanks to its advanced cache system, triple channel memory and higher IPC.
 
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3640&p=3

Another link, or one I posted earlier. Look at it and tell me that the Phenom II is going to lose ground in the future. You can clearly see that the i7 and Phenom II 965 trade places in numerious benchmarks, at various resolutions. The graphs could barely be more clear.

How do I explain the odd behavior that we've seen in some of these games? Honestly, I'm not sure if there's any one explanation. What appears to happen is a perfect storm of CPU power, GPU power, GPU drivers, cache sizes, clock speeds and instruction mix. In some cases it looks to be cache related as the Core 2 and Phenom II both do very well and have a noticeably larger L2 than Nehalem, but in other cases it's much more difficult to explain by any one variable.
Click to expand...

Who's to say future games wont use more l2 cache? Why is Phenom II beating the i7 in any game? Is it because of more l2 cache, and if so does that explain why Phenom II does worse at lower resolutions and better at higher resolutions?

In this example we had the Phenom II winning by 7% at 2560x1600 res - supposedly gpu limited resolution. Seriously explain that one to me using your theories cuz I'd love to hear it.
 


None of which helps it one jot in gaming, as the benchmarks pretty clearly show.

I said it before in the thread and I'll say it again - the i7's being faster at very low resolution only proves that the i7 is better at very low resolution gaming. The l2 cache might well be, and probably is the reason why it cannot continue to keep up at higher resolutions.

What this means in future is, the i7 will still be beating the phenom II's...at low resolution. At the resolution most people with this hardware are gaming at, it will stay the same as it is now.
 
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