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i5 or i7

Lee H

Hi

Can someone pliz tell me how big a performance difference these 2 will be

CPU - i7 869
Mobo - Asus P7P55D
Solid State SSDNow 64GB
Memory Corsair Dominator 8 GIG

CPU - i5
Mobo - Asus P7P55D
Hard drive SATA - 80GIG
Memory Corsair Dominator 4 GIG

Rest of PC is the same, ie pretty decent Gcard 9600 i think?

Never seen or used a solid state disk, is it a noticeable difference, is booting up any quicker?

also.....will this be a quad channel or a dual channel setup? ARIA website didnt say

Thanks for your help

Regards

Lee

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Comments

Hyper-Me

the fast SSDs are fast

I think an i5 quad and an SSD would be better than an i7 quad and HDD.

In those two layouts above, the i7 combo is much better.

kalebksp

I would imagine the i7 setup would be quite a bit better, I wouldn't buy a cheap SSD without looking at professional reviews of the drive. Some SSDs will start out fast and become slow fairly quickly. If you're looking for a real powerhouse system I would go with the 900 series i7s rather than the 800 series, they're very different chips.

tiersten

The i5 and i7 ranges aren't quite so clear cut. The exact model you get in each series actually changes quite a lot.

i5 7xx = LGA-1156 socket + 2 memory channels + DMI
i7 8xx = LGA-1156 socket + 2 memory channels + DMI + HyperThreading
i7 9xx = LGA-1336 socket + 3 memory channels + QPI + HyperThreading

They're ordered in terms of performance markets. i5 7xx = Performance Desktop, i7 8xx = Enthusiast and i7 9xx = Top end.

DMI and QPI are the connections from the CPU to the rest of the system. i5 and i7 both have integrated memory controllers so the memory directly connects to it unlike the older Intel chips which had the memory hanging off the northbridge. QPI being faster and more advanced than DMI.

HyperThreading is the technology used by Intel which splits a real CPU core into two. The rational behind this being that when 1 thread is waiting for something, another thread can be using the core. Depending on what you're doing, this may increase or decrease your CPU performance.

Lee H

Quote: "Some SSDs will start out fast and become slow fairly quickly"

How does a slow SSD compare to a SATA, does the SSD still out-perform the SATA when this happens?

How is this then for a top line quote

Asus Rampage II Gene = £172.44

i7-920 1366 = £214.99

12 gig corsair xms3 PC3-10600 1333Mhz = £208.09

Corsair SSD Gen 2 64GB = £161.00

Total = £756.52

This may be stretching the budget will need to speak to the customer, what could I substitute out of these to bring the cost down without sacrificing too much performance

IMO a SSD is a MUST!!, the mobo also looks awesome gotta love ASUS, do you think 12 gig of memory is a bit much for a desktop PC? on this build would anyone notice a difference if it only had 6 gig?

Please comment

Thanks

tiersten

Lee H wrote: »

Quote: "Some SSDs will start out fast and become slow fairly quickly"

Indilinx based SSDs support ATA TRIM now which fixes this issue but you need an OS that supports this feature like Windows 7. For usage on an OS that doesn't support ATA TRIM then you can get firmware that does periodic garbage collection.

I assume that the other popular SSD controllers have or will have similar support.

Lee H wrote: »

do you think 12 gig of memory is a bit much for a desktop PC? on this build would anyone notice a difference if it only had 6 gig?

Doubt it. Unless they have a specific need for 12GB they'd probably be fine with 6GB.

dynamik

I have 20 well-equipped VMs (some with Exchange, SQL Server, etc.) running along with a bunch of other apps, and I usually fall in the 12-14GB range (out of 16 total). If you're not going to be doing something like that, it's probably overkill.

Lee H

Hi

Thanks for your advice, changed back to the cheapest SDD and gone for 6 gig instead of 12, ide love this myself I might keep it and just not answer the door if he comes round

Asus Rampage II Gene = £172.44

i7-920 1366 = £214.99

06 gig OCZ 10666 = £124.14

SSDNow 64GB V series = 102.34

Total = £613.06

Lee H

tiersten

Not all SSDs are the same. Older/cheaper ones may have bad performance. The JMicron controller used in the SSD you've listed doesn't support ATA TRIM at all. Read the review.

Lee H

Hi

I may have found a suitable alternative, if you would pliz have a look and tell me if it has this feature

OCZ 30GB Vertex Series SATA II 2.5

OCZ 30GB Vertex Series SATA II 2.5" SSD Solid State Drive - Aria Technology

Thanks

tiersten

The OCZ Vertex uses the Indilinx controller so you're good for support for ATA TRIM or GC along with fairly good performance. Will 30GB be enough if that is the only drive in the system though?

Lee H

Will be fine for windows 7 and maybe 1 or 2 games, there is another drive in the PC which is used for storage

Thanks for your help

ziggi138

you could also build this system and have a super fast rig. YouTube - Samsung SSD Awesomeness