Sanity check from you "pro's" please.....

I currently have a i7 920 @ 4Ghz on air via a x58 MB.

What would be the real world benefit in going for i7 980 (and clocked to same speed), whilst still on my x58 MB?

I know the 980 has more cache and 6 physical cores.... but what does that mean in comparison to the 920 in reality.

Would there be any speed benefit in junking the x58 and going for a newer socket and i7 CPU?

 

What are you using it for and what is your present CPU usage?

 

Hi Shaun as above for what is your PC primarily used?

If you are considering all points,980X The 980x has 6 cores which makes it a better processor.But price for 980x is higher than for i7-2600k,which is still great CPU for money and with right components can be overclocked(without the problem) up to 5.1GHz

Jura

 

Hi Shaun as above for what is your PC primarily used?

If you are considering all points,980X The 980x has 6 cores which makes it a better processor.But price for 980x is higher than for i7-2600k,which is still great CPU for money and with right components can be overclocked(without the problem) up to 5.1GHz

Jura

 

I agree with Jura, even though you'd need a new motherboard (Would you need a new copy of Windows too?) it would be better to go for the 2600k.

 

Everything and anything.... but the hardcore tasks are games & video encoding. Encoding gives the current i7 a good bashing, but in all honesty I perhaps only do that once a week.

 

Ahhh... forgot about Windows... Yeah I have OEM versions (Win7 64bit).

Perhaps I'll leave it 12 months and upgrade when Windows 8 has been around a few months.

 

Your W7 64bit should be OK with new CPU and your MB is LGA1366 i assume.

What CPU cooler you are now running,i've tried on mine Noctua and i was able to overclock up to 4.4GHz and at this clocks i don't think i will need something better,personally my PC is used at studio for a making music and some 3DS Max,Maya things and i'm happy with this


Still thinking watercool my PC and go above 4.8GHz


Jura

 

Yeah it will be fine with the CPU change, but not if I changed my MB - which is something I forgot about.

Yeah pretty sure its 1366, I would double check before doing anything.

Not sure of the name of the cooler, but it's one big ***** though.

Can't be arsed with all that watercooling malarky!

 

What value is a second saved from your video encoding and 1fps extra on your favourite game (if even it is CPU bound anyway)? Depreciate the new kit and you can work it out yourself, I suspect it isn't worth it though as you're already well into diminishing returns.

If you could make £1000 every time you could encode a video in 4:59 but you wouldn't make it if it took over 5 minutes then it would be worth it clearly, mostly it is geekery though, but nothing wrong with that

 

Pretty pointless upgrade really as what you have is pretty good and the extra cores would only possibly be utilised for video encoding, which you say is only once a week anyway.

It would be interested to see the difference in rendering if you got some faster Ram though, there are some wicked 30ns sticks of 2133 Samsung knocking about cheap now.

 

You don't need a new cpu to look at **** on the web