I7 930 or 860 both $199 at MC, Help need from youall.

[yingwuzhao]

Hi, guys, sorry to bring back this old topic. I have read tons of threads discussing about this issue. But now I have both of them sell at $199 at local Micro Center, I am really hesitating, so in short, which one do you guys prefer, and why?

GA-X58A-UD3R ($210) + i7 930
or
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro ($190) + i7 860

Thanks a lot, any help is appreciated.

 

[saaiello]

The I7 930 would be the better choice for 3 reasons

1 There will be more choices for upgrades later on with that socket socket 1156 will not see processors with more then 4 cores so for better upgrade ability the 1366 socket is better choice.

2 Triple channel ram provide more bandwidth for the CPU to work

3 P55 boards are limited to 8x 8x crossfire\SLI configuration the X58 can use 16x 16x this is really only important if you decide you want to run multiple GPUs

 

[rolli59]

^+1

 

[Lmeow]

I say go for the i7 860. Socket 1156 is cheaper, only need 4GB of RAM instead of 6GB, triple channel doesn't help very much, the difference between single and dual channel wasn't exactly amazing either. Also, the i7 860 is faster than the i7 930 in single/dual threaded applications, which is the majority, because Core i7 800 Lynnfields have higher turbo boosts than Core i7 900 Bloomfields.

However if you're either going to be using HD 5970s or GTX 295s in CrossFireX/SLI OR you are going to use three or more graphic cards, then get the i7 930 and the X58 chipset it runs on, which offers 16x/16x or 8x/8x/8x/8x, instead of P55's 16x/4x or 8x/8x/4x. Most graphic cards, even the HD 5870 aren't bottlenecked by 8x/8x, although if you do constantly upgrade, then the i7 930 would be a better choice, as LGA 1156 is going to die sooner than 1366 will.

The ASUS P7P55D-E Pro is a nice motherboard, two 8x/8x PCI-e lanes (most lower end models only have 16x/4x) as well as SATA III/6.0Gbps and USB 3.0 support, which will be decently futureproofed. The X58 is similar with SATA III/USB 3.0, but also supports trifire and three way SLI.

 

[saaiello]

The I7 930 will still be faster it can do 4.8 GT/s where as the I7 860 only can do 2.5 GT/s. If you dont know what GT/s means it stands for Giga Transfers per Second. Iy makes no sense at all to get an 1156 if he can get a 1355 for the same price yea he will have to spend an extra $50 on RAM but its worth it.

 

[yingwuzhao]

I am kind of lean to 930, too, my concern, besides about $50 more cost, is that the 1366 platform constantly consume about $35 watts more power than the 1156 platform.

 

[saaiello]

The extra watts isnt that bad In all honesty if they werent the same price and the 860 was cheaper then I would say get the 860 but since they the same price there really is no reason not to get the 930. As somebody previously posted the I7 860 is faster then the 920 but your not looking at the 920 the 930 you are looking at has the same base clock as the 860, and as for the turbo boost if your overclocking which you most likely will be then turbo boost mean nothing. The 930 can hit 4ghz on air with a decent cooler with no trouble.

 

[abhishekk89]

i guess it all boils down to which and how many graphics cards u are and will be using... for crossfire/sli for tri-fire and tri-sli i'd suggest the 1366 platform... single card go for the 1156..

 

[Raidur]

The 930 should OC a little easier with that higher multiplier as well.

 

[yingwuzhao]

Further more, how about the two mother board I listed, if take the mobo into consideration, which combination is optimal? Considering there is a %40 chance I will CF in one year.

Is the ASUS P7P55D-E Pro has a better quality (mid-range 1156 mobo) than the GA-X58A-UD3R (low-end 1366)? in term of component quality, heat dissipation and so on.
Also, under stock, will the 860 be hotter than the 930 or the verse-wise?

Let me know, guys.

 

[photonboy]

A 2x8 PCIe2.0 configuration can use 2xHD5870 or a single HD5970 with no difference compared to a 2x16 configuration. If you plan to get faster video cards you'll need the 1366 motherboard OR a board with a chip that supports 2x16 (I think it might only be for SLI and not Crossfire?).

1156 Pros:
Cheaper, uses less friendly.

1156 Cons:
Bandwidth limited if you need greater than 2xHD5870 (Or NVidia equivalent).

I don't consider the inability to buy a 6-core CPU a disadvantage. They will be $1000. By the time they are cheap enough it would make more sense to build a newer computer, and by then the next-gen XBox and PS3's are going to have people reconsidering getting a new computer for gaming.

 

[Margin]

I got an email from a company says their CPUs is on sale. I compared the prices around and found they are really good deals. It’s very tempting and I think it’s time to upgrade my CPU.

You can check here to see the deals.
http://www.centralcomputers.com/corp/pages/Intel_CPUs_Promotion.html

 

[yingwuzhao]

Thanks everyone, unless there is no light shed on this issue, I will decide to go the 860 route, just for the efficiency of 1156 platform.

Just one more question, how do you guys like this mobo?
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131621

any comment or other suggestions?

Appreciate it.

 

[abhishekk89]

Thanks everyone, unless there is no light shed on this issue, I will decide to go the 860 route, just for the efficiency of 1156 platform.

Just one more question, how do you guys like this mobo?
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131621

any comment or other suggestions?

Appreciate it.

I heard in certain motherboards there is a whining noise that is being produced by the motherboard...