# A Few Questions on i7



## El Fiendo (Aug 14, 2009)

Well, I'm going to be sanitizing myself of almost 3 computers worth of hardware and re consolidating to just 2 rigs. Everything but video cards and HDDs and opticals are moving out the door. So I though I might look into the i7 line of things, or just go back to Core 2. If I didn't have a violent aversion to AMD, I'd consider them. I don't really, but I've never used them and prefer to stick to what I know, besides from what I can tell it'd be a lateral upgrade being closer to Core 2 then to i7.

Reasons to upgrade:

Everything is leaving already. Its just a case of whether I put 6x GTX 260s on 2 i7 rigs or 6x GTX 260s in 2 775 rigs.
Used Penryns have proven exceedingly hard to come by, and I'm not going to pay 340 CAD + taxes and shipping for a new one when I can get a used 920 D0 for ~$300 CAD (at the most)
Used 780i / 790i boards that are compatible to my hardware requirements (or anything posessing 3x PCI-E slots) have been ranging from $150-200 CAD. Pretty sure I can get an i7 mobo along the same lines for similar.
775 is 'obsolete', and will eventually mean diminishing returns when it comes to resale.
HyperThready goodness means more work done on probably exactly the same amount of power.

Reasons to stay 775:


Myth that things randomly burst into flame around the i7.
I really, REALLY don't want to get pigeon holed by the damn socket system.
Myth that my circuit breaker box will make a vortex suction sound, much like water draining from a sink, due to over 1.21 Jiggawatts being eaten by my systems.

Ok, so I'm mainly going to focus on the negatives. First, how much cooling is required for these suckers? Some say lots, some say stock is fine. The CPU will see a mild overclock and then be doing distributed computing all day and night. I don't want to go water cooling, as it just seems like there are more parts that can go wrong with a water line. I'm after reliability and longevity.

Looking at the development table:





32nm isn't scheduled to hit the i7 line-up? The only thing 32nm on the 1366 socket is a chip that many suspect will be $800-1000 (i9). That's out of my price range. Other than that, 32nm goes to 1156. I'm sure 1366 has a future, but what? Some say its the server socket like 771 was, but that's what Socket 1567 is supposed to be for. So what the hell? This alone has been the sole reason I haven't gone to i7 so far. 775, 1155, 1156, 1366, 1567 is far too many sockets for me to care to keep track of. Does anyone have any insight on this? What's the point of 1156 if it just goes back to Northbridge and no IMC? Doesn't this make it essentially a different socket size Penryn with a bit faster of an architecture? I'm assuming it'd lose Quickpath without the IMC. Would it still have HyperThreading?

How comparable are these with power draw up against Penryns? It really won't matter too much, but I'm going to be running these day in, day out. It isn't much of an issue as I'll be running 6 x GTX 260s that will be sucking back the power. Will a Corsair 850HX still have enough guts to handle 3 video cards (OC'ed) and an i7 (OC'ed) along with whatever else?

I'm sure I'll come up with more questions as this continues. Sorry, I'm pretty noob to all things i7. If something I said didn't make sense or is wrong, its because of this. I'd like to learn my options on this.


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## PaulieG (Aug 14, 2009)

It is no myth that i7's run hot. They beg for water cooling when signicantly overclocked. If you are going to stress an i7 with crunching, you are going to want at least a solid air cooler. Stock will just not cut it, unless you undervolt a lot, which will minimize even a mild OC. However, the benefits are great. You will crunch significantly more with an i7 than a 775 Quad.


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## livehard (Aug 14, 2009)

Paulieg said:


> It is no myth that i7's run hot. They beg for water cooling when signicantly overclocked. If you are going to stress an i7 with crunching, you are going to want at least a solid air cooler. Stock will just not cut it, unless you undervolt a lot, which will minimize even a mild OC. However, the benefits are great. You will crunch significantly more with an i7 than a 775 Quad.



Yeah, i7s run really, really hot. Does anyone else suspect a flawed architecture?...


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## DanishDevil (Aug 14, 2009)

How is it a flawed architecture? They put the memory controller in the CPU with 4 cores and hyperthreading. That's an architectural feat. Now yes, they run hot, but once they die shrink them, they will be great. The technology implemented is just a bit ahead of its time for die size, so they run a little hot.


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## livehard (Aug 14, 2009)

New manufacturing processes don't fix the flaws, they just hide them. I know what they did with the Simultaneous Multi Threading, that's its real name (Hyper Threading was Pentium 4), and the memory controller. AMD did it before Intel in the retail market, and Intel had chips with it that never saw the shelves. Both of those things are old, old tech. Innovations? No. Good timing? Yes. Hyper threading wasn't  embraced earlier because applications were only written for one thread, having two logical cores just gunked everything up. 

Point is, Nehalem isn't what its made out to be. Its a lack of competition. If Nehalem was a *really* good architecture, it would have the memory controller and SMT, _and_ stay cool. Want a faster car? Slapping a turbocharger/supercharge on it is the simplest thing to do. That or NOS. Does that make it a good solution? No.


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## mrhuggles (Aug 14, 2009)

i feel that way about it too, not a very popular opinion.


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## El Fiendo (Aug 14, 2009)

I only ever deal in solid air coolers. I wouldn't attempt to put stock on a CPU even if it was only ever stock clocks.

I guess i9 could come out and be a reasonable value, but aside from that there's little chance of me getting a 32nm chip being the only other one is on the 1156 socket. Aside from that, whether or not Nehalem is flawed or not is of no consequence. I originally only wanted to pick up a 32nm chip, working it so that I skip the 'tock' so they can work out the bugs. By the time I get around to upgrading everything, it'll probably have more news on its release. I'm looking at getting current i7 chips though because it looks almost like I won't have 32nm chips in my 'upgrade path'.


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## mrhuggles (Aug 14, 2009)

El Fiendo: hows my air cooler?


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## WOOKZ (Aug 14, 2009)

CAN anyone tell me if thors hammer with two fans will fit on a asus rampage two ex with g skill trident ram with the added height from the rams heat-spreaders or will it hit


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## El Fiendo (Aug 14, 2009)

mrhuggles said:


> El Fiendo: hows my air cooler?



Comparable to my Zalman 9700 and a good solution for 775 socket chips. Not sure if it'd handle i7 temperatures. Also, you'd need to buy a bracket to make it fit, if it was at all possible.


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## digibucc (Aug 14, 2009)

my i7 920 runs 3ghz @ 42c / ambient temp is 72f , using stock cooler.  it's running seti in addition to me using adobe suite 10+ hours a day.  working great.


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## livehard (Aug 15, 2009)

mrhuggles said:


> i feel that way about it too, not a very popular opinion.


I know, right?


digibucc said:


> my i7 920 runs 3ghz @ 42c / ambient temp is 72f , using stock cooler.  it's running seti in addition to me using adobe suite 10+ hours a day.  working great.



340 MHz isn't a big leap in clocks. 150 bclk right? At least its staying cool for you.


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## DanishDevil (Aug 15, 2009)

Mine runs at 61C max 3.5GHz at 1.17V, but it's mainly thanks to my Shin Etsu and full copper Xig Achilles.

If you run it at a modest OC and undervolt it, and use a decent cooler, your chip won't really run that hot.


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## livehard (Aug 15, 2009)

You shouldn't have to undervolt and have a moddest OC to keep it at an acceptable temperature.


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## DanishDevil (Aug 15, 2009)

It all depends on your definition of "acceptable" and "hot." I come with a Wolfdale background, so 60C load is pretty toasty to my instincts.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 15, 2009)

El Fiendo said:


> I only ever deal in solid air coolers. I wouldn't attempt to put stock on a CPU even if it was only ever stock clocks.


920 2.8 GHz (2.666 with turbo on) load temps (WCG 100% CPU load)...
Stock cooler: 80-85C
Scythe Mugen-2: 55C




El Fiendo said:


> I guess i9 could come out and be a reasonable value, but aside from that there's little chance of me getting a 32nm chip being the only other one is on the 1156 socket. Aside from that, whether or not Nehalem is flawed or not is of no consequence. I originally only wanted to pick up a 32nm chip, working it so that I skip the 'tock' so they can work out the bugs. By the time I get around to upgrading everything, it'll probably have more news on its release. I'm looking at getting current i7 chips though because it looks almost like I won't have 32nm chips in my 'upgrade path'.


i9 will never be "reasonable value."  As far as I know, it will only carry the Extreme Edition moniker and you know what that means. 


I think the 32nm chips are coming in early 2010.


Edit: Westmere is intending to replace Nehalem.  Core i9 will never be cheap but I would not be at all surprised if there is a quad-core based on Gulftown in the works.


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## livehard (Aug 15, 2009)

DanishDevil said:


> It all depends on your definition of "acceptable" and "hot." I come with a Wolfdale background, so 60C load is pretty toasty to my instincts.



Exactly what I'm saying. Core 2 is good architecture, other than the FSB. With Nehalem, they made no changes besides tacking on the memory controller and SMT. They didn't change anything else, thats where the crazy temps come from. In all honesty, I think AMD has a little better product, the only thing is, they're 15 months behind in releasing it. If they wouldn't have dicked around with the original Phenoms, and released what we know as the Phenom II at the same times the 45 nm C2Qs were, I think it'd be a much different ballgame today.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 15, 2009)

There is very little in common between Penryn and Nehalem outside of the x86-64 instruction set.


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## livehard (Aug 15, 2009)

FordGT90Concept said:


> There is very little in common between Penryn and Nehalem outside of the x86-64 instruction set.



 I was hoping no one would call me on that.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 15, 2009)

Expect to be called out when you make baseless claims.

Nehalem has...
-more stages in its pipes (Penryn = 14; Nehalem = 20-24)
-QuickPath Interconnect (~133 MHz)
--Integrated, tri-channel memory controller (industry first)
--Turbo (thanks to low frequency/high multipliers)
--Hyperthreading (up to 30% performance boost in some applications)
-SSE 4.2 (full SSE4 + some, SSE 4.1 wasn't complete to SSE4 spec)
-Monolithic quad-core (Intel's first)
-L3 cache  w/ an extra branch predictor and look aside buffer


That's as big of a jump as moving from Pentium III to Pentium 4.  It took them about about 8 years to make QPI work and work it did.


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## El Fiendo (Aug 15, 2009)

Ok. I wasn't too worried about heat, I'll just need to keep an eye out for a nice cooler on the market.



FordGT90Concept said:


> i9 will never be "reasonable value."  As far as I know, it will only carry the Extreme Edition moniker and you know what that means.
> I think the 32nm chips are coming in early 2010.
> Edit: Westmere is intending to replace Nehalem.  Core i9 will never be cheap but I would not be at all surprised if there is a quad-core based on Gulftown in the works.



32nm chips will be hitting as early as late Q3 early Q4, I just got a little worried when I saw no 32nm chip slated in the i7 lineup. I doubt I'll ever touch i9, but I will look for a 32nm quad core that's 1366. I guess it makes sense they might just not have it listed. 

So I guess now I've got to answer the question 1366 or 775 for my needs.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 15, 2009)

If you ever plan on upgrading, for sure LGA-1366.  It could be around for aleast 5 years.  If these are computers you are going to put together and never touch again, LGA-775.  It might be difficult to get processors for them in a few years but your up front costs will be lower.


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## Binge (Aug 15, 2009)

El Fiendo said:


> Ok. I wasn't too worried about heat, I'll just need to keep an eye out for a nice cooler on the market.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I offer the argument of work vs size.  The i7s currently do more CPU work than any cpu on the market and I wonder if AMD will come out with something other than dual socket that can compete with an i7 that comes in a 32nm or 45nm flavor.

Personal rant:  I'm an early adopter of i7 and the D0 change was pretty much just what the doctor ordered for heat issues.  You think you have a heat issue on air?  Run it stock and undervolt it sub-infinity and beyond.  I've seen stock run at below 1.0V and return amazing air temps.  In every day use you can roll around with a stock volted chip doing 4.0GHz (1.2~1.25V or less) and see air temps of 35-40C idle to 70C under normal loads (not including stress tests).  I don't count stress tests as anything but a way to show how beefy someone's WC system is for their i7.  My i7 has never worked at those temps under any strain be it encoding, compression, editing, or crunching.

I'll have this chipset and CPU for a while now.  Mostly because I don't see an app that I'll use require any more raw power.  The cooling on the rig is beastly, the only change I see in game performance is with GPU upgrades, and it's obsenely fast at 4.2GHz.

The price is right for now as well as mobo/cpu for someone close to a Microcenter is $430.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 16, 2009)

Linpack temps matched my WCG temps.  If you get all the cores at 100% load with similar ambient temps, the resulting temp will also be similar.


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## MKmods (Aug 16, 2009)

livehard said:


> You shouldn't have to undervolt and have a moddest OC to keep it at an acceptable temperature.



I would normally agree with you on this....

But the i7 isant for the "Normal" market...If you buy one with the $$ mobo and the 3 channel mem you  should be able to keep it running cool... (while waiting for the i9 to pop in and replace it in the near future )

The i7/i9 box should say "For the Mac Daddy Enthusiast Market.....noobs stay away"


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## livehard (Aug 16, 2009)

Good point MKmods.


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## El Fiendo (Aug 17, 2009)

Well, I'm not Mac Daddy, but I'm not noob either. However I just went ahead and started the proceedings on purchasing me some i7 parts. I'll eventually need 2 rigs worth total (less the GPUs). Sure hope my bank account likes me next month.


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## livehard (Aug 17, 2009)

I know the feeling El Fiendo, good luck.


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