Core i5 i7

[TheFaQQer]

Anyone running one here? I'm in the market for a new PC as my P4 2Ghz is struggling a little of late.

I've spec'ed up an i5 750 with 4Gb 1600 DDR3 ram and GeForce GTS250 running Windows 7 for about £700.

Sound good?

No, it sounds bloody awful.

[SuperZ]

Looks alright to me but consider an Ati card (maybe 5770?) for DX 11 support. I don't know how much more expensive one of those is however. 5770 has low power usage.

i5 750 is a good choice. Uses less power than the i7 920 and the i5 has more advanced turbo boost I think, so when using less cores than 4 I think it is faster than the i7 920.

Does the 1600mhz memory have XMS profiles? If so, and with it enabled it will also raise the CPU speed. You might need a better CPU fan (not the retail one) if you do this.

I built an i5 machine recently for a 24/7 machine running VM's also, so used an i5 750 with 8gb ram (1600). Because the ram has XMS profiles, setting it to the full 1600mhz speed also automatically overclocked the processor to I think 3368mhz when running on all four cores and it even reaches 3800mhz or so when not all cores fully utilised. Also bought an Ati 5770, think they're around £110 now. The machine is plenty fast enough

[AtW]

It will be fine (we use Core i7 920 extensively), even though if I were you I'd consider ATI cards - they currently have edge, especially with DirectX 11 - more future proof.

If you don't use 64 bit OS then your 4 GB won't be fully used by 32 bit OS under most normal circumstances, if you go for Core i7 use 3 GB or 6 GB as they have triple channel memory controller.

[gingerjedi]

Anyone running one here? I'm in the market for a new PC as my P4 2Ghz is struggling a little of late.

I've spec'ed up an i5 750 with 4Gb 1600 DDR3 ram and GeForce GTS250 running Windows 7 for about £700.

Sound good?