# i7 930 vs i7 870



## likconater (Jul 29, 2010)

ok this is for my new computer and im planing on getting GTX 460 sli in the future just 1 for now

i7 870 with ASUS P7P55D-E PRO

or 

i7 930 with ASRock X58 Extreme3 Motherboard


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

I dont want to try and change ur mind but first if i may can i ask u what the intended purpose of this rig is?


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## likconater (Jul 29, 2010)

general use and gaming


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## yogurt_21 (Jul 29, 2010)

gaming + sli means my vote goes for the 930.

gaming + single gpu my vote goes for the 870.


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

how bout u save a shit load of money and get a i5 - 750? and OC that monster...

no games use hyper transport and u said general use (surfing the web and watching movies)

the i5 - 750 is a i7 - 920 without hyper transport...

its the best quad core u can get for the price / performance ratio FOR INTEL!!

(now amd u can buy a x3 / x2 and unlock it  buts that another story lol)


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## likconater (Jul 29, 2010)

what you guys think about mobos, also wanted it to compess large videos, would the 1366 mobo be better for upgrading in the future???


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## JrRacinFan (Jul 29, 2010)

joeyck said:


> I dont want to try and change ur mind but first if i may can i ask u what the intended purpose of this rig is?


 Odds are that its going to be a gamer. EDIT: a few posted while I was typing

@likconater

IMO, I said it in the past not too long ago, there are 4 cpu's you should look into getting if you're not into heavy benchmarking and overkill overclocks:

Core i3 530: Good gamer and multitasker. Mediocre encoding.

Athlon II X4 6x0(Any from this family) Good gamer and multitasker. Outstanding encoding performance for price.

Phenom II X6 1055t Great gamer and multitasker. Almost twice as good with encoding than the Athlon x4 series.

Core i7 9x0(Any from this family) Great gamer and the best multitasker for price reasons. Disable HT if wanting to encode, but great encoder.


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

oh well if u plan on doing videos as well then i would chose a i7 since they have hyper transport and with intel u nvr no, how many sockets do they have now? lol 

(2 dif sockets for the i7 is gay -_-)

but yea go for i7...


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

well said racin fan...

but the BEST! gaming budget CPU is the x3 4xx series from AMD... best price / performance and if lucky a great unlock but a monster even if its a x3... shit the x2's r fuckin monsterous ... none the less the x3 is a great CPU i like the x3 440 

not trying to spam other forums but read this 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/athlon-ii-x3-440-gaming-performance,2619.html


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## JrRacinFan (Jul 29, 2010)

joeyck said:


> well said racin fan...
> 
> but the BEST! gaming budget CPU is the x3 4xx series from AMD... best price / performance and if lucky a great unlock but a monster even if its a x3... shit the x2's r fuckin monsterous ... none the less the x3 is a great CPU i like the x3 440



Wouldn't go that route with the x3 4xx. Just pay the extra 20 - 30 up front and get the "guaranteed" quad.


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

lol well for the price of a x4 athlon i would just get a 550 or 555


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## JrRacinFan (Jul 29, 2010)

joeyck said:


> lol well for the price of a x4 athlon i would just get a 550 or 555



More cores helps with general computing on everything over the extra cache. I've been there. The problem is, where is that balance for price/performance?


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## likconater (Jul 29, 2010)

thanks guys now i have more options...lol


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## JrRacinFan (Jul 29, 2010)

likconater said:


> thanks guys now i have more options...lol



Get the i7 930 and call it a day if you have the cash. If you need to save a few bucks, go down to the AMD x6 1055t, with not even considering the i7 8x0 family.


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

likconater dude if u got the money to spend and not care buy the i7 930 hands down dude its a monster and u can OC it nicely... but if u wana wallet friendly take a look at some AMD's none the less for gaming a AMD x2 would own... maybe get a x3 4xx  / amd x4 athlon  / AMD x2 555


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

or what racin fan just said lol


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## likconater (Jul 29, 2010)

thanks guys im planning to try AMD sooner or later but i need a new machine and i7 looks to be my best choice atm


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

yep... just make sure when u do go AMD the money u save from spending for a behemouth CPU spend it on a decent HSF  would do u a lot of good 

*cough* AMD ftw *cough*


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## JrRacinFan (Jul 29, 2010)

likconater said:


> thanks guys im planning to try AMD sooner or later but i need a new machine and i7 looks to be my best choice atm



Wanted to add also, AsRock has stepped up there game in the past year in the motherboard market. So that shouldn't be a deciding factor on which motherboard either. I think it just all depends on how much cash you want to put into the rig.  Although, when you posted general usage and gaming, we have no idea of what you consider "general usage" are you speaking surfing, media, IM clients, & "office" work ?


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## likconater (Jul 29, 2010)

yes thats what i mean by general use


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## JrRacinFan (Jul 29, 2010)

likconater said:


> yes thats what i mean by general use



Kk, noticed you also stated compressing large video files. Yah I agree go with i7 930.


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## likconater (Jul 29, 2010)

yer after recording games and ending up with over 100GB of recordings in one go of gaming you do have to compress it


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

then yea do the i7's look for a i7 - 920 its the same thing as the 930 but cheaper. if not then get the 930


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## GSquadron (Jul 29, 2010)

Core i7 860, from reviews, i know is better from core i7 920
So accordingly 870 > 930 (not in MATH!)
Anyway i dunno if the socket of 870 will last longer than that of 930


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## Frizz (Jul 29, 2010)

I'd personally go with the i7 930 or 870, or at least something that will alleviate any bottlenecks from your GPU(s). 

I know looking at benchies you may not see that much of a difference in numbers but the overall feel, smoothness is on a whole different level when I went from my 3.6ghz Q6600 to my current setup.

Lets just say its unlocked the real power of my GPU's and really makes crysis and all the latest games look less gpu hungry. My GTA IV now runs at 60 fps on high settings and as opposed to 20-40 with my Q6600, same with Assassin's Creed II which is from 30-40 to 50-60 and crysis is just smooth all enthusiast no aa 1920x1080 high 45's to 60's.

Oh and Dalaran on peak hour is at 60 fps, yay lol.


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## likconater (Jul 29, 2010)

from what ive seen is the 870 is better then the 930 just a bit but if i was going to go sli the 930 would work out better and get more out of the gpus


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## JrRacinFan (Jul 29, 2010)

One other thing want to point out (Alek basically has), Intel cpu roadmaps are going to be changing sockets again soon. Will edit post with info.

EDIT:
http://hardware-infos.com/bild.php?...ild_name=Intel-Desktop-Roadmap:+2009+bis+2011
Theres one link but without socket information

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=126627&highlight=intel+socket
Socket 1155

Still speculation around which socket is replacing 1366.


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

thats why i hate intel lol they nvr keep the dam sockets lol with AMD i'ma be buying a x3 440 and down the line if i need a new CPU all i gotta do is buy a x6 when it is cheaper and plop it right in lol AMD still ftw


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## vnl7 (Jul 29, 2010)

randomflip said:


> I'd personally go with the i7 930 or 870, or at least something that will alleviate any bottlenecks from your GPU(s).
> 
> I know looking at benchies you may not see that much of a difference in numbers but the overall feel, smoothness is on a whole different level when I went from my 3.6ghz Q6600 to my current setup.
> 
> ...



not a big performance gain, from a q6600 to a i7 @ 4ghz... or im wrong?


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## Frizz (Jul 29, 2010)

vnl7 said:


> not a big performce gain, from a q6600 to a i7 @ 4ghz... or im wrong?



Very very wrong. Huuuuge as difference.


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

lol q6600 is low end of the core 2 quads lol of course theres a huge dif.


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## vnl7 (Jul 29, 2010)

im talking about the performance he got, about 15-20 fps, which i think is not much going from a q6600 to a i7 or an ant to a hippo.


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## Frizz (Jul 29, 2010)

vnl7 said:


> im talking about the performance he got, about 15-20 fps, which i think is not much going from a q6600 to a i7 or an ant to a hippo.



Ah well I did mention those numbers aren't to be considered as minimum frames have been significantly improved and gaming overall feels new because even Crysis isn't sluggish anymore on very high. Whereas it would be walking on its knees with the Q6600, but I guess its something you gotta experience on your own since for me it went from a sheep to a wolf.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 29, 2010)

I'd say go with the 870.  Performance wise the 800 and 900 series processors are almost identical clock for clock.  So the 870 having the higher clock speed for the same price means it will perform better.  Also, the 800 series run cooler and consume less power, and hence can give better overclocks on air cooling.

Actually, I don't really see a reason to go with a 900 series processor unless you are planning to spend nearly $1000 for a 6-Core in the future or now.



joeyck said:


> how bout u save a shit load of money and get a i5 - 750? and OC that monster...
> 
> no games use hyper transport and u said general use (surfing the web and watching movies)
> 
> ...



I would have a hard time taking any advice from someone about Hyper-Threading when they don't even know its name...


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## Easy Rhino (Jul 29, 2010)

now boys, play nice please!


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## theonedub (Jul 29, 2010)

I'd also say that the i5 750 is more like a lower clocked i7 860 w/o hyperthreading. The i7 920 might match clocks, but still has a triple channel memory controller and the ability to go full x16 on Xfire and SLI setups.


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

Replying to new in a more sensitive way :

we were on the topic of CPUs and  I am more of an AMD person then a intel sorry that i ot one word messed up (threading and transport) i really didnt no that computer hard ware forums / tech forums were really that uptight up about wording and grammer 

(oops i forgot to put a g infront of ot)


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## Tatty_One (Jul 29, 2010)

I would go for the 930 for one reason only.... but this is personal preference, yes the 870 might perform better in area's, i think overclockability still depends on the chip and luck of the draw, i have had 3 920's, the worst got me to 4.2gig on 1.3V (this one), the best was a D0 stepping that got be to 4.5gig on air at 1.425V (just).  I know some of those 860's and 870's can overclock like demons also, I would go for the 930 purely on a platform basis, with S1366 I think you will have more room for an upgrade path in the future, whether that be faster 4 cores or the 6 core madness..... prices will come down, I am not so sure you will enjoy quite the same flexibility with S1156.


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## joeyck (Jul 29, 2010)

what do u think of intel making a new socket type? some one posted that above any opinions?


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## erocker (Jul 29, 2010)

joeyck said:


> what do u think of intel making a new socket type? some one posted that above any opinions?



As I said earlier, we should keep this thread on topic.


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## newtekie1 (Jul 29, 2010)

Tatty_One said:


> I would go for the 930 for one reason only.... but this is personal preference, yes the 870 might perform better in area's, i think overclockability still depends on the chip and luck of the draw, i have had 3 920's, the worst got me to 4.2gig on 1.3V (this one), the best was a D0 stepping that got be to 4.5gig on air at 1.425V (just).  I know some of those 860's and 870's can overclock like demons also, I would go for the 930 purely on a platform basis, with S1366 I think you will have more room for an upgrade path in the future, whether that be faster 4 cores or the 6 core madness..... prices will come down, I am not so sure you will enjoy quite the same flexibility with S1156.



I was going to mention the same thing, and it kind of has already been talked about, but 1366 is being replaced also.  So longevity of the socket doesn't really seem to be much better with either.  Yeah, an upgrade to a 6-core would be possible in the future with 1366, and not with 1156, but once the socket is replaced, the prices on the 6-core chips aren't going drop much, if at all.  Now if Intel was sticking with 1366 and releasing 8-core processors on it, and hence dropping 6-core prices, then I would defintiely hop on the 1366 sockets, but it doesn't seem like that will happen.


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## Gabkicks (Jul 31, 2010)

Sofar, my ASRock x58 extreme has been good to me . A buddy of mine ran into something with his 1156 motherboard. i didnt realize it also reduced pcie speed to 8x if you run USB 3.0. it isnt a big performance hit, but still something I don't see talked about often.


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## Konceptz (Aug 1, 2010)

to get the most performance out of the SLI setup you would want the X58, however the difference between sli on the x58 vs 1156 is so marginal you'll probably never notice the difference outside of a benchmark comparison


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