i7 990X or i7980 vs i7 920 overclocked, anyone upgraded?

[Leslie Wand]

mike,

i'd wait even longer till 11's out and about and you can get some idea from the first users as to what exactly is going on.

i'm following this with some interest as i'm happy with my existing set up but 'would' consider an upgrade to my gtx250 graphics card IF the 'promises' of better previewing is realised. frankly rendering is not a big deal since i usually batch render overnight.

it certainly seems they (the software/hardware manufacturers) will continue to create ongoing markets for both their wares no matter how (relatively) little advances there are technically.

just finished a major project and was thinking how, with an nle loaded with some pretty serious fx and a fast pc exactly how little i use the full potential of either. perhaps if i was doing serious music clips, higher end tvc's, etc., i might think the gains i'd get for spending on the higher end of ladder would be worth it, but it seems there's usually a sweet-spot one or two notches down from the cutting edge that i'm most comfortable with. ie. there's no way i would ever consider a $2k+ video card a sensible investment, but as above, i'd spend $500 for a NOTICEABLE improvement.

of course all this is coming with a global market downturn, and christmas. i think i might have to really consider what my priorities are, other than a new pair of monitoring headphones (that's a joke in itself considering my hearing;-()

[Jeff Harper]

Mike, I knew the chips were coming, and they often come before Christmas, but I had thought they were coming out this time next spring, boy I was wrong.

[Mike Kujbida]

Leslie & Jeff, I think I"ll just crawl into my cave (after the pro 11 release, of course) and hibernate until next spring (fall for you Leslie) in the hope (yeah, right!!) that things will have settled down by then :)

[Jeff Harper]

You know Mike, it might happen that the prices on the 980, or the other six core i7 chips might drop in price just before or after the release of the new ones, so unless you're determined to wait it out, it might be a way to get great performance at a good price.

Othewise, who could blame you for sitting this one out?

[Randall Leong]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

You know Mike, it might happen that the prices on the 980, or the other six core i7 chips might drop in price just before or after the release of the new ones, so unless you're determined to wait it out, it might be a way to get great performance at a good price.

I wouldn't bet on it. You see, when the Sandy Bridge CPUs came out early this year, the older Lynnfield and Clarkdale CPUs they replaced stayed at their original prices. In other words, the i5-760 remained at over $200 even after the i5-2500K came out at around the same price point. Similarly, when the LGA 1366 and LGA 1156 CPUs came out in 2009, the older quad-core and dual-core LGA 775 CPUs remained at their high price points ($200 to $300 for the quad-core Core 2 Quads) until their discontinuation (although some resellers sold them at reduced prices just to clear out inventory). And if history tells me, Intel only reduces prices on its existing CPUs if there is a newer, higher-clocked CPU of the exact same generation as the model being replaced or superceded (for example, a higher-clocked Bloomfield or Gulftown CPU pushes out the existing Bloomfield or Gulftown CPU within the $500 to $600 price range).

I suspect that Intel is locking the price of older CPUs at their then-current price point to divert sales to the newest line of CPUs.

[Jeff Harper]

Well, so much for that idea. I don't remember prices dropping ever before, now that you mention it.

[Dave Blackhurst]

There are two major factors in pricing on high end CPU's - NEITHER of which bodes well for better/cheaper pricing on a "high end" build.


AMD used to be relatively competitive... it's been a while. I used to buy AMD when I'd do a build for myself, mainly on price IF the AMD chip was competitive on performance... all recent builds (meaning several YEARS)have been Intel... While AMD makes some pretty decent CPUs (I did do one build for the inlaws on a low budget/ low use upgrade), as a practical matter, they have not been able to keep up with Intel when it comes to video rendering scores for a LONG time. Unfortunately this means if you're building a VIDEO production system, you're probably buying high end Intel CPU's with almost no "competition".

For "consumer" use (if they aren't buying a tablet, which is the more likely purchase), there really probably aren't many applications/uses for the faster and faster CPU's - that means that the computer is priced like a commodity, with "cheaper" being a major factor in purchase decisions - which means they don't make a lot of "high end" CPUs, meaning the prices aren't droppping anymore on THOSE - they are like killing a fly with a bazooka for the "average" user.

I'm actually setting up a small "net/notebook" for my primary use (light, portable, does more than a tablet, but almost as easy to carry around, and does all the "everyday" taks) - it does most everything OTHER THAN video at an adequate speed for my use - I'll turn the "room heater" on when I need "4 smokin' cores", hot running video card with fans a spinnin' and all that...


Boils down to the sad situation that there's ONE source, limited market, and toss in the bad economy for good measure, and the high end computer build is going to be far more expensive than we'd all like it to be!

[Mike Kujbida]

All of which means that my trusty quad core will be with a while longer :)

[Jeff Harper]

I'd like to report that rendering 90 minutes of 720 60p to bluray is taking 40 minutes, much faster than with my older processor. When I have time in the near future I must play with getting a faster overclock, but who can complain at 2x rate? It's really a nice improvement, but admittedly a very expensive one. Since I'm quite behind in my work, I really do welcome the increased speed, but I cannot deny I should have waited, had I known about the newer processors coming.

[Jeff Harper]

I'd like to report my previous report was a fabrication. Well, not on purpose. I was rendering Cineform files, having forgot to switch to HD to render...so things are not quite as fast as I thought, but happily not much slower. Glad I caught the mistake before burning Bluray discs!