Good for what?

Seriously, it depends so much on what you want or need to do with the machine. In my case "good" meant faster fluid simulations and rendering of computer generated animations and large high resolution still images - things that sometimes took a day or more of hard compute on a dual core system. Getting them down to a few hours or overnight was my definition of "good" and it was fairly expensive.

Rendering of video, while compute intensive, tends to be less intensive than the above. But for video, disk speed might be more of an issue than for CGI.

I think if you say more about what it is that you want to do you'll get better answers more tailored to your needs.

I would check out Dell, for starters, Marcus. People are picking up a basic i7 system for under $1000. For some reason I have trouble finding ready access to the i7 prices, but once you find them you can configure or price the system you want.

Well... in terms of cost... if you are just looking at the bare bones parts...

Motherboard = $200
Memory 6Gb = $145
CPU = $295

So, for $650 or so, you have yourself the core components of what builds a solid i7 based system.

Depending on what you want to spend on power supply, case, hard drive(s), DVD Drive, video card, & monitor(s) - if you need 'em, would dicate the total cost of ownership for one of these beasts...

Jon

I finished putting together an I7 computer and it was the easiest build I have ever done. I was a little disappointed that previewing HD clips from a Canon 5D Mark II in Vegas is still a little choppy, but they play fine using Apple Quick Time and Windows Media Player.

System ended up being a 920 overclocked to 3.7 GHz, 12Gb ram, Vista 64 bit, Vegas 8.1, and the boot drive is a WD 10,000 rpm Velociraptor. I just started getting into editing video and did a few short renders on a 2.9 GHz Core Duo before this computer. It appears to have cut the render times in half for rendering HD 1920x1080p MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 output.

Thanks to all the people commenting in this thread which motivated me to build a new computer.

Andy

How do i over clock my I7? I would like to knock it from 2.66 to 3 gigs.

thank you.

Have a great day.

How do i over clock my I7? I would like to knock it from 2.66 to 3 gigs.

thank you.

Have a great day.

Dale,

This is not franlkly the easiest place to answer this question and probably not the forum suitable for it either however I would recommend going to AnandTech: your source for hardware analysis and news (http://www.anandtech.com) or Tom's Hardware: Hardware News, Tests and Reviews (http://www.tomshardware.com) and look in their member forums where you'll find oodles of information regarding overclocking the i7. Also a google search of "overclocking an i7" turns up some usefull information as well. Provided you have adequate cooling and are familiar with BIOS settings, overclocking can be as simple as a few quick changes...

I am not typically an overclocker as I've always said I'd rather have a stable than fast system, but moving from 2.66 to 3.0Ghz is such a modest overclock and given the reports of others who are going far more than the 3.0Ghz speed I felt it made some sense and I don't regret this at all.

Jon

Dale, if I'm not mistaken you have a Dell. Unfortunately you cannot overclock your model. I thought we discussed this but I might be wrong. Even the Dells that are overclockable are done at the factory, but yours is not configurable that way.

Jeff,

Thats right, I do. I do remember someone mentioning not being able to over clock them; however, there is always someone that figures how to beat those things.

Thanks for the site too!!!

I am ok with how it runs as it is.

DIY'ers, tell me what i7 board your using. I'm looking at most all of them, and reports are very mixed, even with the ASUS P6.

I having a devil of a time selecting one.

Here are some reviews Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P DDR2 P45 Motherboard | GA-X48T-DQ6,Motherboard,X48,Gigabyte,LGA775,x48 express,Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6,DDR3,Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 Ultra Durable 2 DES Intel X48 Socket LGA775 Socket T Hardware Enthusiasts and Overclocker Motherboard (http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=12&Itemid=69)
I like the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P board. The construction seems top-notch and good price/performance ratio when compared to other comparible boards.

Thanks Mark. I like the UD5 on paper and the EVGA. The EVGA i7 is among the highest rated i7 board on Newegg, definitely higher than most of the ASUS or Gigabytes...but all of them have shockingly high DOA rates.

DIY'ers, tell me what i7 board your using. I'm looking at most all of them, and reports are very mixed, even with the ASUS P6.

I having a devil of a time selecting one.

I built mine on a GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 and it's been rock solid three weeks later I built another i7 for a friend with a gigabyte and his has been solid too.

Normally, I have always built with ASUS boards but when I was building mine I looked at the 1366 boards and the gigabyte had a lot more onboard SATA and I wanted to have a lot of drives in a couple RAIDs

Ken- I was just reading up on the board you listed, that looks awesome. Are you running the air or water cooled version? What is you experience with it in regards to set-up ease and stability? Are you using the RAID features? I am not an overclocker, but am looking to build my own in the near future.

Ken- I was just reading up on the board you listed, that looks awesome. Are you running the air or water cooled version? What is you experience with it in regards to set-up ease and stability? Are you using the RAID features? I am not an overclocker, but am looking to build my own in the near future.

I bought the air cooled version but I put a giant Noctua NH-U12P with a pusher and a puller fan then made a duct with another puller on the case (overkill). Drivewise, I currently have a 1 TB formatted into 4 partitions for the OS's:
XP pro with my day to day programs
XP pro with only my editors
Vista 64bit with only my editors
Empty one for future proofing (I'm debating trying windows 7 64bit beta).

I use a RAID 1+0 (using the onboard controller) with four 750gb drives I picked up on sale cheap for my editing files and I have a 1TB drive I use for storage (music and files). Everything worked out fine though the driver disc has two options: install individually or install all; install individually because some of the install stuff is junk. It's a nice board my only concern would be if you have small case the SATA headers lay flat so if your case was tight it might be hard to get them in if the HDD bays were real close.

Asus finally released V2 of their board, I might go with that one, newegg listed it yesterday.

I like Gigabyte, but the random reports of the onboard LAN issues bugs me. I don't know, I've got a week to decide.

Thanks Mark. I like the UD5 on paper and the EVGA. The EVGA i7 is among the highest rated i7 board on Newegg, definitely higher than most of the ASUS or Gigabytes...but all of them have shockingly high DOA rates.


I think the rating are biased towards unhappy people. If your mobo goes kaput in the first 2 days you can bet you are gonna flame post on newegg about it; on the other hand if it works you are unlikely to post anything about it. I was skecthed out when I was picking one too, I think in the ratings numbers are very skewed towards failed items.

Yeah, I know...I look for consistency, and there have been consistent complaints on the LAN with it. Right now I'm waiting for reviews to come in for the new ASUS to see if that is an option...V2 should have some bugs worked out.

Thanks Mark. I like the UD5 on paper and the EVGA. The EVGA i7 is among the highest rated i7 board on Newegg, definitely higher than most of the ASUS or Gigabytes...but all of them have shockingly high DOA rates.

I built my I7 with an Asus P6T. I did not want the SAS controllers so I didn't consider the deluxe version a month ago. With the V2 it may be a consideration, but only if they added additional SATA ports.

My P6T has been rock solid. When I put it in a new case this week I seem to have introduced a feedback loop into the onboard audio so I just picked up a Sound blaster Titanium PCI-e card at CC's going out of business sale and it sounds great and background noise is much less than it was with the onboard audio.

I also bought 12GB DDR3 OCZ Gold series 1600 speed memory for stability and overclocking head room and I have not been disappointed. Have been running the I7-920 on Vista 64 bit at 3.6 GHz. With the new case, which has better cooling, I can probably overclock higher now but I haven't tried. Cooling is important and I purchased a Monsoon CPU fan. All parts from Newegg except the memory came from Amazon because it was less expensive at the time.

That was the easy part. The harder part will involve learning Vegas this year to edit HD video :)

Andy

Actually Andy V2 of the Deluxe version ASUS has fewer ports (6) and they lost the SAS controller altogether which was reportedly useless for SAS. I would add an Adaptec controller to make up for the fewer ports, and actually prefer to run 4 drives from a non-onboard controller anyway. Also has an e-sata port on the rear panel, and that is something I'd like.

Glad to hear your experience is good. I'm glad to hear the good reports on the Gigabyte from Ken also, but that one issue is of concern to me.

Jeff
What does V2 stand for and what is your interests in it?

Norm

Yeah, I know...I look for consistency, and there have been consistent complaints on the LAN with it. I do remember you had to load the LAN drivers off the install disc before it would work I wonder if there were bad discs...

Don't know Ken...I was just at the Gigabtye forum last night and found a thread of a "bunch" of people (not sure how many, but more that a few) that were finding that there LANs just disappeared; internet stopped working, the device was gone from device manager. The thread was a few days old and I just stumbled across it. This was a compaint I first found voiced at Newegg.

What was troubling was that the solution for one person usually did not work for another...and as of my last reading one person still has not found a solution. One solution was to shut down and and disconnect the plug, restart up to 3-4 times to get it back. Another had to reinstall their audio drivers, and neither of those solutions worked for others. And no, none of it made sense to me either.

Overall as you say, most seem VERY happy with the board, and all in all it is my favorite on paper. I love Gigabyte boards, and have been very happy with my X48.

I hate to throw this out there, and muddy up a nice impression of a great board, but I'm concerened because when I go to swap out my components I will be between editing jobs, and I don't have a backup (other than a nice laptop) to fall back on.

Norm, my interest in the ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 is that it is a second, updated version of itself. The first version of the board had bothersome issues with the SAS controllers, etc., and while that may or may not have affected regular SATA performance, it bothered me anyway. I had recommended the board to someone based on other's experiences here and only hope they are not having issues. Since most with it are fine, just as with the Gigabyte, I'm sure they will be OK, but I'm not taking any chances.

One thing about the new ASUS V2 is it has only 6 SATA ports. Since I run 8 internal HDs, I would need to add a controller card, but I've been wanting to do that anyway. I don't like the MOBO controllers running all of my HDs, I prefer to spread out the workload.

ASUS is not my preferred brand of MB. Gigabyte boards, are to me, just nicer. When I overclock with my current GB board (which I no longer do), if I screw up a setting the PC will reboot anyway to a default safe setting allowing me another chance to get it right. This is such a nice feature I can't imagine why all motherboards don't do this.

I don't care for the ASUS support, not that Gibabyte is necessarily better, I didn't have good luck with my last Asus board. But the ASUS P6T does have a large following of happy users, so I'm hoping V2 is a better more consistent version of itself. We'll see. Oh, V2 costs $10 less BTW, which is not nearly as much of a price drop as you would expect for losing four ports.

I had recommended the board to someone based on other's experiences here and only hope they are not having issues.
If you are referring to me, dear Jeff, I am getting along just GREAT. Still love my new PC! :)

Jeff, Thanks for the reply on the V2 board. I guess I will sit this dance out for awhile and see what the future brings.

Norm

Settled on the P6T V2. Decided the P6T Deluxe V1 would be fine, but V2 supports more RAM configurations. The Gigabyte was the one I would prefer, but the LAN issue is kept me away. For additional SATA ports I'm adding an adaptec controller, and hope it doesn't conflict with my eSata controller.

If I want to change my out my AMD6600 and motherboard with an I7, do I have to reload all my software (Vista 64, Vegas 8, CS4 Prod Prem) or will the system work when I connect my old hard drives and perphs to the new motherboard/processor?

Is there an easy way to switch out the MB/Processor on an existing system?

No. With a new MB you must reinstall windows. Processor or ram only, not necessary. Wish I could tell you differently.

Thanks Jeff. I'll probably just build a whole new system then when Windows 7 comes out. Hopefully Dual-i7 quads or better will be out by then.

Roger, something totally different than i7 and better is in the works, I have read.

Norm, FWIW the ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 has more flexible RAM handling abilities than the original board, and supports higher clock speeds. Just learned this, so I am happy to have chosen it. In reality, the original board is fine and is a great performer, and I almost went ahead and bought an open box version for $200. However, I wanted the ability to run RAM at higher rates, and since this will be my last board for a while I went ahead with V2.

Jeff, Sounds like a real good choice. I did a download of the manual and it has my interest. What specific RAM will you be using? I would appreciate it if you let us know how every thing turns out.

Best of luck.

Norm, I chose g skill ram, after much deliberations. It's $105 for 6GB, and the reviews have been very positive. I wanted Kingston top of the line ram, which is blazingly fast, but the gskill is supposedly reasonably acceptable for overclocking. It is DDR3 1600, and is overclockable to at least 1800. The Kingston is $245 for 6GB and for it's speed, it is without a doubt the best value and the fastest available. But I couldn't find it ini stock anywhere, and in the end I decided that if I could have 12GB of good ram for $200, it would be silly to spend over twice as much for a relatively small speed increase.

Newegg.com - G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Desktop Memory (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225)

OK, i7 is running fine. Here's an overclocking guide for those that need it.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20081220191040237&board_id=1&model=P6T+Deluxe&page=1&SLanguage=en-us

M2t files play perfectly on the Vegas timeline, and act much like SD clips. Definitely an improvement over the Q6600. Rendering seems to be about 1/3 of the time or less.

Jeff, How fast are you running it and what are you using for cooling?

Norm

Hi Norm, running it at 3.8 with the stock cooling fan. Running memtest for 6 hours and zero errors. It appears stable so far. From what I've read you "should" be able to run up to around 3.9 with stock cooling. I haven't been able to reach above 3.8 and run stable, though I've followed the OC guide.

BTW, the board is nice and when I installed everything was perfect from the beginnning. For overclocking faster ram is unnecessary with the 920, as I ended up underclocking it at around 1500 (following the guide) so I'm super glad I didn't spring for the expensive ram!

BTW Norm, I think 12GB of ram is overkill, and was probably a waste of money. I don't know, but it would seem that way.

This upgrade was expensive. If it had not been for the fact I'm shooting and editing in HD wouldn't have upgraded. The Q6600 was perfect as it was for SD. But M2t files were difficult to handle on the timeline, and rendering was very slow.

A 30 minute HD project being rendered to SD widescreen that took 1 hour with the Q6600 now takes 12.5 minutes, so the difference for HD is significant. Rendering appears to be over 4X faster, takes less than 25% time.

Rendering HD to SD is actually faster with the i7 than rendering SD was on the Q6600. I had planned to purchase Vasst Gearshift to handle the M2T files, but this processor would make it appear unnecessary.

BTW, if you do go down this path, you will want a power supply unit that is at least 750 watts. Mine is a Zalman 850 watt, I think (don't remember now) but don't skimp on the power or buy a cheap one. You can probably get by with less, but if you run lots of hard drives and have lots of USB connections, etc., you shouldn't skimp on the PSU. I have run with an undepowered PC before and it is no fun.

Jeff, sounds like you have built a great system. I need to educate myself a little more and than I am going to build one using the motherboard, CPU and RAM that you used.

I went to the site you recommended to learn about to how oc the P6T V2 but I really don’t understand too much. Is there another site you used to learn more? If not, can you tell me what settings you used?

What video board are you using? I don’t plan on using any plug-ins in the near future but I want to be able to use a HD TV along with my monitor.

Norm

For OCing using my settings you go to the third (last) table titled "Overclocking for Core i7 920" and go to the first column "Base Clock" and go down to the number 190 and change the settings as indicated in all column except the last column.

Then change the following settings:

CPU Voltage [1.33V]

CPU PLL Voltage [Auto]

QPI/DRAM Core Voltage [1.33V] (QPI / Uncore)

DRAM Bus Voltage [max 1.63] Intel states, that DRAM voltage beyond 1.65V may permanently damage the processor.

Finding these settings and then sorting through them was time consuming, so make sure you get these settings saved somewhere for when you need them.

The settings above gave me a perfectly stable and safe overclock, but you can lower voltages as directed in the instructions. You should read them even though you don't understand them before you attempt the overclock.

For some reason, people do not like to share specific OC settings and tend to be selfish with them, it is a very weird thing. Main thing is don't change anything but what is listed.

My graphics card is an older basic one BTW.

Jeff,

Are you able to run Prime95 for at least a 1/2 hour with no failures at 3.8? I am using the P6T (non-deluxe) and seem to have hit a wall at 3.6 but it is very stable at 3.6. I was also able to lower the timings on my memory to 7-7-7-20 at 3.6 GHz with 12GB of memory so I am satisfied with the results. 3.8 would have been nice though :)

Andy

Hi Andy, yes I ran it for a couple of hours...I can't get above 3.8.

Are any of you Core i7 users working with an external eSATA drive?

Please let me know if you've had any issue with Vista 64bit and eSATA, thanks.

I'm suffering from such a problem with my Dell XPS Studio 435MT. The drive was recognized in BIOS, but the port worked only after I connected my eSATA drive via USB to load the drivers. Then it quit working altogether after I rebooted the PC the next day.

Sam

No, I've used two different eSata controllers with Vista 64 bit. It appears your problem could be Dell related. Another person here had similar issues. I think they said Dell replaced the card and all was fine.

Are any of you Core i7 users working with an external eSATA drive?

Please let me know if you've had any issue with Vista 64bit and eSATA, thanks.

I'm suffering from such a problem with my Dell XPS Studio 435MT. The drive was recognized in BIOS, but the port worked only after I connected my eSATA drive via USB to load the drivers. Then it quit working altogether after I rebooted the PC the next day.

Sam

That would be me!

My first XPS eSATA died very soon after I connected it up. Connection was problematic and prone to not working then stopped altogether. The eSATA port actually smelled fried. Dell replaced the full machine. The new one works although I have this feeling it starts slowing other stuff down when its connected.

I have an e-sata pcie card if anyone needs it, would sell for next to nothing...It's an adaptec and I paid $100, it currently sells for around $50, it is the 1225SA and it works perfectly with vista 64 bit. I am not advertising it as for sale as such but just lettting anyone know if they need it I have one. My new MOBO has built in and I don't need it any more...I have so many old add-in cards taking up space I would be happy to get rid of it.

Wow, just rendered a 60 minute 32 bit project with "best" setting that would have taken hours previously. It took 30 minutes. That is fast.

There were several minutes toward the end of the project with MB effects added, making the feat more impressive.

Ok, I am jealous now.

These rendering speeds are excellent. I cannot help but imagine what the next generation of chip will bring. Intel has something in the works that will blow these i7s out of the water next year, or so I've read.

I got the chip because of the unmanageability of M2T files, but their are other benefits also.

Maybe due to the DDR3 memory, mulitple programs run simultaneously quite well. Even when rendering, I can open any program, and when there was a delay previously before in the program opening up under load, they now open up instantly, as if nothing else was running.

It's most noticeable with Adobe programs like Adobe Acrobat Pro and Dreamweaver....they just pop open like a popup window...there is no loading time. It's freaky.

Andy, I have read that hitting 4.0 as I had wanted to do can be problematic with this processor. In your case you have a different MOBO than I, and probably different RAM. Did you try the settings chart I referenced above to hit 3.8?


My temps under load are hitting 75C, which is as high as I want to go temp wise. I haven't found (or tried very hard to find) a better cooling solution than the stock fan. From what I've seen 75C is fine under load, but I'm still investigating what the safe temps are.

Jeff, I did try the settings you posted. I think I might have once gone a little higher on the CPU Voltage setting as well. Maybe if I relaxed the timings on my memory. I looked for, but couldn't find anything, about the benefits of better memory timings versus CPU speed with this processor. I am using a Monsoon cooler fan which works well. After running prime for a 1/2 hour my maximum CPU temp. is 68 C. At 3.6 my settings are 1.30 for the two settings you listed in you post.

Hmmm, well, the only thing I can guess is that possibly V2 of the board might be optimized slightly better for OCing. I don't know about the memory timings, I haven't touched mine, and they are not that great to begin with, I think they are 9-9-9-24. But then they only cost just over $100 for 6GB, so I got what I paid for.