Any Core I7 users yet?

[Jeff Harper]

Terry, the answer to your question is no, you cannot swap out Dell MOBO or power supply. They are not standard sizes, and are made deliberately so they cannot be swapped out.

Dell connectors used are also proprietary and non-standard.

Though I build my own, I don't recommend building your own unless you have time for a new hobby. The research is lengthy, the potential pitfalls are many. In general it can be very trying.

The potential for increase in performance is huge with the i7 chip. I personally wouldn't consider a non-clockable i7 system at this point.

[Jim Andrada]

Another way to put it is that Dell components are purposely non-standard to keep people from buying components on the open market instead of buying through Dell.

I don't think Dell tries to scr-w people on price, or they wouldn't have been able to build their business to its current level, but they definitely want all possible sales revenue to flow through them for options/upgrades etc.

[Jon McGuffin]

Originally Posted by Jim Andrada

Another way to put it is that Dell components are purposely non-standard to keep people from buying components on the open market instead of buying through Dell.

I don't think Dell tries to scr-w people on price, or they wouldn't have been able to build their business to its current level, but they definitely want all possible sales revenue to flow through them for options/upgrades etc.

Well, I'd say this is about half true..

With virtually any Dell system you can add the following:

CPU Upgrade
Hard Drive
Video Card
CD/DVD Rom Drive
Memory
Any other Add-on Card, etc..

So that pretty much covers about 90% of what somebody might want to add to their computer. What you probably would have a very difficult time doing would be to replace a mainboard... So let's not give Dell too hard a time and throw them to the wolves as protecting their investments with proprietary hardware... It's not like they are Apple!!! :)

Jon

[Alastair Brown]

Mine arrived today. Wont get a chance to set it up for a week or so as I need to clear off some projects.

Anybody got a clue what the centre port on my graphics card is?

LHS-DVI
RHS-HDMI
Centre-Who Knows?

[Andy Wilkinson]

That's Dells Display Port in the middle. I have one on my Dell 2408WFP Monitor. It's a bit like (yet) another variant of HDMI I think and the cables look quite similar (BUT are not interchangeable). The port on the right is HDMI. Maybe someone makes a conversion lead or plug as it's basically a digital display connection.

I just use the DVI plugs so can't help further. Why do manufactures keep changing these things! (Apple are just as bad with their latest itteration of their own display plugs).

[Alastair Brown]

Thats crazy? Are DVI and HDMI not good enough for them?

Bit miffed as I specifically said I would be using two DVI monitors and they didn't include the HDMI to DVI adapter.

[Andy Wilkinson]

I suspect Jim's and Jeff's answers (earlier, above) give you the reason......Yes, it's crazy!!!

[Jeff Harper]

I think it is cool that you have an HDMI port, Alastair. Besides an i7 processor, I think an HDMI port is the only thing I'm missing from my currentl configuration that I miss.

[Alastair Brown]

Hi Jeff, You could always add a Black Magic Intensity card. I will be fitting mine into this case which means I have to use the adpater I mentioned to convert HDMI to DVI. Using 2 24's and a 42" 1080p panel via the Intensity.

[Jeff Harper]

Alastair, what is the purpose of the Black Magic Intensity cards? As someone who shoots in HD now, do I have a need for it?

[Alastair Brown]

For a Vegas user like me, it lets me output my preview screen to a 42" 1080p panel.

It works with other editing packages as well. Probably better, as the Vegas release is still a BETA version. It also lets you capture un-compressed HD. Be warned though...the files are HUGE!

[Jonathan Gentry]

Trust me that overclocking is not done for sport in my case. I don't play games. Raising your BUS speed from 133 to 185 required going into the bios and making about 2-3 changes. It took a few minutes.

I wasn't telling people who don't understand computers to go out and build a system, but they could purchase a system that includes a motherboard like and Asus P6T or Gigabyte equivolent. They may even have a computer builder in their area who could offer something.

This is not a fringe activity. For more information you can look here:
bit-tech.net | Guide - Overclocking Intel's Core i7 920

I don't agree with you dismissing the significant speed gains and saying it takes hours. It literally takes 5-10 minutes for someone who has never done it and it results about a 30-40% speed bump. Moving from 2.66Ghz to 3.6Ghz on the CPU while also increasing the BUS clock is not insignificant and if it can be done reliably (which with this chip it can)the results are huge. You recommended buying the next faster processor as a better option but the very fastest Intel i7 is 3.2Ghz and costs $900.00. The entry level processor overclocked will be much faster not only because of the faster clock speed to also becuase of the jump in BUS speed.

My recommendation is to talk to a local computer builder who may even make the bios changes for you, or investigate online options. Most of all don't dismiss things before fully educating yourself. Every new chip/motherboard combination yields different results and your results may have been mixed but this combo is pretty special.

-Jonathan

P.S. If anyone is interested in the exact hardware that should be used, the settings that need to be made in BIOS, or the risks to overclocking I would be happy to answer.

Originally Posted by Jon McGuffin

Oh, and let me add one more thing here.... And I'm speaking as somebody who HAS overclocked my systems in the past and have *always* built my pc's...

System overclockers mainly do so for sport... The time system overclockers GAIN with the performance increase will rarely ever make up for the time SPENT going through all the benchmarking, stability testing (burn-in), system configuration, cost of equipment upgrades such as better coolers, fans, etc, etc... People typically overclock as a hobby with the benefit of having a faster computer.....

To get 15% more speed in your Vegas renders you may spend countless hours and money to reach it. Heck, you might as well just buy the next fastest processor.

There have been times I've applied a very mild overclock to my system by way of a few BIOS settings that I knew were extremely conservative and my existing hardware would easily handle it. You may not yield the highest performance gains of overclocking, but you will get a small speed benefit while most likely not sacrificing reliability with the least amount of time involved with doing it.

Jon

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Gentry

...You are leaving alot on the table if you don't overclock this chip.

Since i used to OC everything, I can safely say, that messing with CS latency timing, voltage jumps, and frequency multipliers is.... not something 90% of hte people here in DVInfo are interested in. The jump of render times from 5hrs to 1hr is what matters, not the 1hr vs 58 minute difference.

But if you can reliably tweak your systems, then have fun because I remember how fun it was to squeeze more out of a box than the manufacturers said you could.

[Jim Andrada]

As I understand it, the i7 has something called "turbo boost" that automatically overclocks until it reaches it's temperature/power limits.

There was a comment in the Intel white paper that mentioned something about how this feature has to be "requested" by the operating system. Not quite sure what that means or how one gets the system to "request" it, though.

[David Johns]

Mine turned up this morning too. I'm supposed to be working very hard on some documents this week ... but only managed to stop myself setting it up until mid-afternoon. No willpower whatsoever ;-)

Plugged it in to the 1920x1080 Dell monitor I also persuaded myself to buy, installed Vegas 8.1 (hey, where's the preview in Trimmer gone, or is that only on 8.0c?)

Have had time for just one test, a video of my cat that I did when I first got the V1 (Cat on Vimeo if you're interested)

Time to render for Vimeo HD (H264 codec, 4Mbit-5Mbit)
* on my old Pentium 4 2.5GHZ: over 16 minutes
* on the Core i7 2.66GHz: 1 min, 27 sec.

Yum, yum, yum! Very pleased indeed. And full-screen preview at 1080 with no jerkiness too, lovely.

Regards
Dave