Hi
Just got my interst back again into computers and seen the new i7 chips come out. My e2180 seems to be holding the system back a bit these days, even though its at 3.5 Ghz and fully stable, i feel that the new i7 can be about 5 times better and also overclock higher with lower voltages thus temperatures. PC is also getting a bit out dated after 2 years.
Cut a long story short, realised the i7 920 DO isn't compatible with my p5k or watercooling setup, therefore it would be best to get a new motherboard, cpu and ram and a good cooling setup at a later date.
Well i was wondering what motherboard would be sufficient and also with the tri channel RAM that seems to be popular with the new motherboards, do you think it would be sensible to pay £110 for 6Gb DDR3 tri channel or just buy a simple 4gb setup for less than half that price. Also, would it be a lot more expensive to get an SLI compatible motherboard because was also thinking of getting a cheap 2nd hand 8800GTS 640mb BFG OC at a later date and run in SLI.

My idea was to sell (Please let me know how much you think i would get for this):
antec 900
swiftech h20 120 compact watercooling kit
2 x 1Gb OCZ RAM
Intel E2180

Please check this out for £450 as well:
Intel Core i7 920 D0 Stepping (SLBEJ) 2.66Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366)
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3
Corsair XMS3 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 (1600MHz) Tri-Channel

And one final question, will my corsair 520W PSU be able to power this, (8800GTS (maybe SLI) and the i7 etc.)

Cheers for your help.
Harjun.

Quote from harjun :

Hi feel that the new i7 can be about 5 times better and also overclock higher with lower voltages thus temperatures. PC is also getting a bit out dated after 2 years.

Depends on the use. For multithreaded encoding type of stuff, yes, for games, not so much. I ran that LFS benchmark and clock for clock it's about the same as C2D E8XXX if not even slightly slower, so going from e2180 to i7 will mean next to nothing. i7s seem to pay off if you're using SLI/CF.

Quote from harjun :

do you think it would be sensible to pay £110 for 6Gb DDR3 tri channel or just buy a simple 4gb setup for less than half that price.

2x2GB DDR3 setup is more than half the price of 3x2 GB? Something's wrong with those prices. I'd generally recommend tri-channel only because of more RAM, tri vs dual means next to nothing in practice.

Quote from harjun :

Also, would it be a lot more expensive to get an SLI compatible motherboard because was also thinking of getting a cheap 2nd hand 8800GTS 640mb BFG OC at a later date and run in SLI.

No, any X58 will do, they all have SLI afaik. 3-way SLi on the other hand may be more expensive.

Quote from harjun :

And one final question, will my corsair 520W PSU be able to power this, (8800GTS (maybe SLI) and the i7 etc.)

Yes. Though it depends how crazy you plan to go with OC-ing, like if you're gonna go water again...
Also, I'm not sure why are you selling the case too.

I'll buy the E2180 for 10GBP .

Just feel it would be sensible to sell the case at this point because it was a pretty expensive case when i got it (hope it is even now) and ive already got a cheaper £20 case which is probably sufficient. Basically, selling the case because i dont need it and it's not necessary it was only a luxury.
Thanks for the help autopilot
Do you think sticking with all my setup and buying a Q6600 instead would be a better choice because these can overclock better and i can stay with all my current setup.
Cheers,
Harjun.

it would certanly be cheaper. i7 is kinda overkill for most games out right now. Though i ended up getting one myself recently.

Quote from Gabkicks :

it would certanly be cheaper. i7 is kinda overkill for most games out right now. Though i ended up getting one myself recently.

oh yeh because it definately will get a lot cheaper when the c2d start to die out maybe hope so because ill probably get one then as like you have said, not needed for games right now, and my e2180 at 3.5Ghz does LFS pretty good, guess i'll save money for another 8800GTS

Core 2 Duo E8500 ~160€
Core 2 Quad Q9550 ~200€

Either way, you'll get the same game performance for half the cost of i7 setup. I'm running a quad and for most games, two cores are sitting idle or running background processes.

Quote from Crommi :

Core 2 Duo E8500 ~160€
Core 2 Quad Q9550 ~200€

Either way, you'll get the same game performance for half the cost of i7 setup. I'm running a quad and for most games, two cores are sitting idle or running background processes.

hmm interesting
Also heard that the new i9 chip is coming out soon anyway
Cheers

Never underestimate the need for a good (and expensive) case, I've gone through several cases in the past year and the only one that could keep my system cool was the antec 300 I bought for around $70 canadian localy. Since the 300 is basicaly a lower-end 900 I would say keep it. The air flow is much better than any case you would get for cheap.

Just switching from a cheap Xblade case to the Antec 300 got me a CPU temp drop of 15ºc And under load it never goes above 45ºc now, when it used to go above 60º before.

Basicaly what I'm saying is, use the 900 if you buy the new setup, it'll be much better for air cooling untill you get the water cooled setup in.

Too many times I see people buying cheap cases, and it can litteraly kill a good setup.

yeah, my i7 really wants a better case... my coolermaster 534 has very bad cooling/airflow, also my power supply is very cheap. these are things to consider when upgrading. buy a very high quality case, and you can reuse it.

I hope i can grab a better powersupply before something bad happens.

Quote from harjun :

hmm interesting
Also heard that the new i9 chip is coming out soon anyway
Cheers

Those will be 6-core CPUs, so even less useful for most games. On top of that, they will only come in Extreme editions, probably $1500+

There are many-core cpus and they will come sooner or later. If im not wrong, then Intel's biggest creation is a 80core CPU right now.

Quote from DragonCommando :

Never underestimate the need for a good (and expensive) case, I've gone through several cases in the past year and the only one that could keep my system cool was the antec 300 I bought for around $70 canadian localy. Since the 300 is basicaly a lower-end 900 I would say keep it. The air flow is much better than any case you would get for cheap.

Just switching from a cheap Xblade case to the Antec 300 got me a CPU temp drop of 15ºc And under load it never goes above 45ºc now, when it used to go above 60º before.

Basicaly what I'm saying is, use the 900 if you buy the new setup, it'll be much better for air cooling untill you get the water cooled setup in.

Too many times I see people buying cheap cases, and it can litteraly kill a good setup.

I understand what your saying but I've got a watercooling setup which will go in straight away and I'll probably be getting the i7 920 for Christmas along with morthernoard and ram do I'll have a bit
spare for another 8800 640mb to run in sli
cheers
for ur help anyway

Quote from harjun :

Also heard that the new i9 chip is coming out soon anyway
Cheers

that's what wikipedia seems to say too... maybe the i7 will start dropping in price then... i've been watching it for 6+ months, and it hasn't budged much.

speaking of price drops, when the i7 hit, how come c2d's and c2q's didn't drop in price much either?

Quote from bunder9999 :

that's what wikipedia seems to say too... maybe the i7 will start dropping in price then... i've been watching it for 6+ months, and it hasn't budged much.

speaking of price drops, when the i7 hit, how come c2d's and c2q's didn't drop in price much either?

different socket i suppose so they were still popular amongst those with 775 sockets

Get the i5. Seriously, cannot stress this enough to people. Whats the point of paying more for basically no increase in the FPS to the human eye?

And talking about gaming, the i5 actually outperforms the i7 in many benchmarks.

Just my 2 cents.

Are you confusing i5/i7 instead of sockets 1156/1366 ? Because the only i5 is i5 750 and it won't beat i7 860/870 on the same socket, maybe i7 920 in specific cases because of its very aggressive turbo, and even this advantage pretty much only applies to stock clocks.

I agree with the recommendation though, i5 750 is a better bang for the buck than i7s, hands-down.

welll, if you look around, you may be able to build an i7 system for not much more than i5. I found a i7 920 for $200 when its regularly over $290 and I also got my X58 motherboard for $170.

Microcenter, right? They're the only ones selling i7 920 for $200, but you have to live near one, it's only pickup. and the OP isn't from US...

yes, that's why I said "if". the difference is not big, currently. i5 is dual channel instead of tripple, has no hyperthreading, and 8x 8x crossfire/SLI instead of 16x. this is only a few fps difference in all games currently out.

Quote from Gabkicks :

yes, that's why I said "if". the difference is not big, currently. i5 is dual channel instead of tripple, has no hyperthreading, and 8x 8x crossfire/SLI instead of 16x. this is only a few fps difference in all games currently out.

In a few years I think that there will be quite a difference

I'm gonna wait till DX11 gets up to speed then go for multi core, as DX11 will make it very easy for game makers to make games that properly utilize more cores and multi GPU setups. But if going Nehalem now, I'd go for the Lynnfield i7's(8xx) over the Bloomfield (9xx) ones, cheaper with v.good turbo boost and almost as good, i5(7xx) maybe but they miss out with hyper threading.

Here’s that fork in the road: Lynnfield is cheaper and gets you 90 percent the performance of a Bloomfield system, but early next year Intel will introduce a CPU code-named Gulftown, aka Core i9. Core i9 adds two more physical cores to the CPU and will likely be the first consumer hexacore CPU. With Hyper-Threading, that’s 12 threads available to the OS and enough to make the most jaded enthusiast perk up. Core i9, however, will only be available on the Bloomfield/LGA1366 platform. If you were to build a Lynnfield LGA1156 box there’d be no six-core for you! At least, not at this point. Intel said it has no plans for an LGA1156 hexacore. You see the dilemma. Save money now and build a really kick-ass LGA1156 or spend the extra $200 to build an LGA1366 that has an easy upgrade path to six cores with Hyper-Threading. It’s not an easy choice to make under normal circumstances, but in this economic climate, it’s even harder—that $200 goes a long way toward a better GPU, better PSU, more RAM, or a bigger hard drive. The choice, however, is up to you.

In MaximumPC

I already mentioned above - first hexcores will cost $1500+ and it will stay that way for some time. By the time he can upgrade to hexcore for some reasonable price, he will probably want to upgrade his MB too for whatever reason (it might not be compatible e.g., or like USB 3.0 or something). I don't think it should be any kind of a factor right now.
I think the general advice I've seen is: go 1356 if you run CF/SLI and/or if you OC (and not some light OC), otherwise Lynfield. triple channel doesn't seem to do anything...

Money and sense.

You have one of these in excess of the other.