# Q9550 or i7 920?



## niko084 (Nov 24, 2008)

Probably going to rebuild here and I'm thinking of going 2 ways..

Either 
i7 920 with the MSI x58

or

Q9550 with either an Asus P5Q-E or P5E or P5E Deluxe

I'm kinda swaying back and forth on this one... Honestly not so sure about this MSI board, but don't want to fork the money out for the Asus.

Would be going dual channel 4gb on either system.


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## aCid888* (Nov 24, 2008)

To be honest, if I was looking to go with a new Quad now it'd have to be the i7...more longevity in that build than one with a Q9550.

Also, it comes down to how much you want to spend I guess..either way, both are good and its personal choice really!


i7 gets my vote.


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## niko084 (Nov 24, 2008)

aCid888* said:


> To be honest, if I was looking to go with a new Quad now it'd have to be the i7...more longevity in that build than one with a Q9550.



Well the DDR3 would mean more longevity..

But as for the processor, its not supposed to be a mainstream processor, so my guess is that there will be another socket that directly replaces the 775's for enthusiasts, say maybe the LGA1136 or who knows what other socket. Guess based on what they say the market is, maybe it will be mainstream...

But I'm not too worried about life span here, I want something that is fast and I can clock a bit for when I want more punch.


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## Dan2312 (Nov 24, 2008)

The MSI eclipse board in Custom PC UK mag got good reviews, also overclocks as much as the asus,is only a tad slower than the asus P6t, only bad thing it about it in the review is its fiddly to overclock. 

i'd get the MSI if i was strap for cash, also I7 is a much better CPU over q9550.

CPC  overclocked the 920 to 4 Ghz on the MSi board aswell in the review.


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## PaulieG (Nov 24, 2008)

niko084 said:


> Well the DDR3 would mean more longevity..
> 
> But as for the processor, its not supposed to be a mainstream processor, so my guess is that there will be another socket that directly replaces the 775's for enthusiasts, say maybe the LGA1136 or who knows what other socket. Guess based on what they say the market is, maybe it will be mainstream...
> 
> But I'm not too worried about life span here, I want something that is fast and I can clock a bit for when I want more punch.



At this point, you will get more for your money with the q9950. The jury is still out on i7, and it is very expensive, and limited chioces in chips and MB's.


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## farlex85 (Nov 24, 2008)

Depends what the system is for and the total costs of the two when you get it. i7 is certainly superior, but it will certainly cost more. If you want the best and don't want to mess w/ the system for a while, I'd go w/ i7. If you are price conscious and don't mind selling things in a few months if need be I'd go w/ the core 2 for now, and wait to see what AMD brings and let prices drop.


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## PaulieG (Nov 24, 2008)

farlex85 said:


> Depends what the system is for and the total costs of the two when you get it. i7 is certainly superior, but it will certainly cost more. If you want the best and don't want to mess w/ the system for a while, I'd go w/ i7. If you are price conscious and don't mind selling things in a few months if need be I'd go w/ the core 2 for now, and wait to see what AMD brings and let prices drop.



AMD should be a wildcard in this decision. Phenom II looks like it might actually be very good, and will cost significantly less across the board compared to i7.


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## aCid888* (Nov 24, 2008)

I'm happy with my E8400 and my E6750 that I gave to my girlfriend is still going strong..best value for money IMO!


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## farlex85 (Nov 24, 2008)

Paulieg said:


> AMD should be a wildcard in this decision. Phenom II looks like it might actually be very good, and will cost significantly less across the board compared to i7.



Well and regardless of it's performance it is likely to effect prices of i7 and core 2 somewhat, plus by that time the market will have gone down in general. I'm sure intel will have some way to respond. And of course if it ends up being kick-ass, then it will be the better choice anyway. Not too far away also.


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## niko084 (Nov 24, 2008)

Well the cost ends up about the same between the two, not enough to sway me in either direction put it that way.

I also don't care about what some magazine did with a chip, or what one guy with on his Biostar P45 board.... I care about what the average chip can do, and how stable it is, don't mind fiddling around with settings to get things right.

A dual core is out of the question, if it wasn't for the *outrageous* cost I would be buying a skulltrail.

The reason for re-building is that I have an engineer interested in buying my main system in my specs as it sits, minus the video card and sound card. So if it's going to happen, it's going to be soon.


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## farlex85 (Nov 24, 2008)

niko084 said:


> Well the cost ends up about the same between the two, not enough to sway me in either direction put it that way.
> 
> I also don't care about what some magazine did with a chip, or what one guy with on his Biostar P45 board.... I care about what the average chip can do, and how stable it is, don't mind fiddling around with settings to get things right.
> 
> ...



Well if you can work them out to be the same price, then go w/ the i7 no question. Why would you want a slower system for the same price?


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## niko084 (Nov 24, 2008)

farlex85 said:


> Well if you can work them out to be the same price, then go w/ the i7 no question. Why would you want a slower system for the same price?



Well that's where the ticket comes in, because of how new the i7's are its more of a question of what is an average clock on an i7 without having to crank voltage, vs an average clock of a q9550 under the same rules, then bench.

And obviously I wasn't too sure about the MSI board, but being that its said to be pretty decent, I'm thinking that's the way I'll end up going, its not the same price, but close enough for me to jump if its going to be a good bet better.


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## farlex85 (Nov 24, 2008)

niko084 said:


> Well that's where the ticket comes in, because of how new the i7's are its more of a question of what is an average clock on an i7 without having to crank voltage, vs an average clock of a q9550 under the same rules, then bench.
> 
> And obviously I wasn't too sure about the MSI board, but being that its said to be pretty decent, I'm thinking that's the way I'll end up going, its not the same price, but close enough for me to jump if its going to be a good bet better.



Check out fit/dark's i7 thread. 4ghz seems to be pretty reasonable on air, which is about what the q9550 will net you w/ probably a bit more voltage. With proper cooling and the learning curve of ocing the i7 it seems they can go a good bit higher too. And clock for clock of course it's faster, in some cases much faster, so benches at 4ghz for the i7 will definitely be higher.


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## Morgoth (Nov 24, 2008)

msi x58 eclipse is more for the extreame edition i7


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## a_ump (Nov 24, 2008)

i'd say i7 920, since you said there isn't big difference in price, plus more performance can't hurt, and if AMD comes out and owns and you decide to sell wihch ever chip mobo you had you'll get more out of the core i7 on re-sale, though i've heard a bunch of bad things about ebay recently on here. 

vote fore core i7

EDIT: shit in US the core i7 is even cheaper
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041


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## donttrustevery1 (Nov 24, 2008)

i would get the i7. its much more futureproof and it kicks the living tar out of c2d's.


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## Binge (Nov 24, 2008)

donttrustevery1 said:


> i would get the i7. its much more futureproof and it kicks the living tar out of c2d's.



The Q9550 is a quad.  The i7s are at a serious premium right now.  The price of Q9550 is going to drop retail, but people are selling at great prices right now.  With that in mind it's the price to performance that you're buying.  Will you be doing real work, or just gaming?  Anyway... the Q9550 never let me down.  I've yet to really know what an i7 will do but I think I'll find out first hand soon


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## niko084 (Nov 24, 2008)

Morgoth said:


> msi x58 eclipse is more for the extreame edition i7



Why do you say that? Just doesn't clock very well without multi options?


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## Morgoth (Nov 24, 2008)

no becus you wont use full power of the mainboard  with the 920


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## CarolinaKSU (Nov 24, 2008)

Binge said:


> The Q9550 is a quad.  The i7s are at a serious premium right now.  The price of Q9550 is going to drop retail, but people are selling at great prices right now.



Like me for example! 

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=76768


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## freaksavior (Nov 24, 2008)

Processors is cheaper to go with i7 but then your board $300 + and your ram 300 + so unless you want to shell out $900 then i say stick with 775 for now and let this be the last upgrade.

775 is $320 (proc) + $150ish (mobo)


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## Binge (Nov 24, 2008)

Dang Freak, you nearly quoted what I want for my current CPU/Mobo lol


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## niko084 (Nov 24, 2008)

freaksavior said:


> Processors is cheaper to go with i7 but then your board $300 + and your ram 300 + so unless you want to shell out $900 then i say stick with 775 for now and let this be the last upgrade.
> 
> 775 is $320 (proc) + $150ish (mobo)



Not even close to the prices....

As I said before the prices are almost dead on with each other.


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## freaksavior (Nov 24, 2008)

^^ if they are almost the same like $50 within each other go with i7


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## J-Man (Nov 24, 2008)

Q9550 I'd say. I heard that there's no performance increase (hardly) from my Q9550 to a Core i7.


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## niko084 (Nov 24, 2008)

J-Man said:


> Q9550 I'd say. I heard that there's no performance increase (hardly) from my Q9550 to a Core i7.



http://hwbot.org/hardware.compare.do?type=cpu&id=1741_1&id=1508_1

Pretty much shows that under massive overclocks that the 920 is pretty much the king between the two, now application use could show better or worse results.

I'm more curious about your average air clocks on the 920 vs the average air clocks on the q9550.

I think what I'm going to do is wait and see if this guy buys my machine, and if he does then I'll see what my options look like. I'm really tempted for the i7 just for heck of it but I'll have to see.

I mainly use my computer for video and audio work, and those applications will use multiple cores, on top of the fact that I tend to run 5-6 programs at the same time that are intensive, also considering going with 8+gb of ram because of this.


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## a_ump (Nov 24, 2008)

well J-man's post is sort of irrelevant since your asking which one, not if you should upgrade from q9550 to the i7. seeing as how the 920 is currently cheaper than the q9550 why not? just seems pretty plain that even if its only a few more fps faster in most games and a good bit faster in a few, why not get the better CPU that is cheaper?


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## ascstinger (Nov 24, 2008)

other thing you may take into consideration is any i7 optimizations that are to come in the future. I held on to my qx for money reasons after my first i7 try was a flop (note to self, never buy an intel mainboard again). The biggest thing holding me back is the lack of options atm, there's tons of reading material on how to optimize my quad, as well as many different sets of hardware that support it.


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