Good deal on Intel processor at Micro Center

[KrazyMofo24]

In case anyone is looking to build a new pc, and has a Micro Center in their area they are selling an Intel I7 920 for $199.99.

By far the best quad-core processor you can get at that price newegg has it for $280. Only issue is that you have to get an X58 motherboard the cheapest I've seen is about $200, and DDR3 ram you can get 6GB Corsair XMS for around $100. But an upgrade like this should last you for quite some time.

[AsSiMiLaTeD]

They also have some good prices on the Q9550 and Q9400. The i7 is great if you're building a new system or have about $500 to spend on what is essentially a CPU upgrade, but if you've already got an Intel setup and just want to go quad core and your motherboard supports it, one of the other chips will yield more bang for your buck in terms of an upgrade.

Having said all that, I bought the i7 when it was on sale for this price a couple months back, and it really is a beast.

[KrazyMofo24]

That's true if you have already a socket 775 board probably going for an older quad core would be a good upgrade also. My board supports up to the Q6600 which is most likely what i'll upgrade to.

This is more off a new build versus an upgrade. Does the I7 run cool? My core 2 duo is overclocked a ghz on a stock fan and runs super cool. I'm hoping the new one does the same.

[AsSiMiLaTeD]

You'll want an aftermarket cooler for the i7 if you're going to overclock it, but the same is really true of all the quad core processors. They all run warm, and really benefit from a good aftermarket cooler.

The i7 is now my workhorse. In my gaming machine I still run the E8400, overclocked at 4.2 it's the best solution for gaming that I've found yet.

[KrazyMofo24]

The E8400 I'll need to look in to that since I would want it more for gaming. I know my Abit IB9 board won't support it, I do have an ECS board that came with the processor that might I'll need to check that out.

When I get caught up, I'm probably going to go with Q6600 or E8400, and the 4850X2 for $219.

[kawizx9r]

Krazy, I'm still running my E8400 in my 780i sli board@4.2ghz. People have reported OCng it up to 4.4ghz at about 1.35v. That thing is brutal for the money you pay for imo.

[AsSiMiLaTeD]

For gaming in the foreseeable future, the E8400 really is the way to go, hands down. They'll eventually start making more games that are quad core (there are a couple already out) but until that becomes more mainstream the E8400 is the way to go.

With a decent aftermarket cooler you should be able to get 4.0 on that chip easily, no way you're going to get even close to that on a quad core without liquid cooling. When games begin to use all the cores this won't play as big of a role, but right now it's a big ffactor.

[kawizx9r]

+1 AsSiMiLaTeD

Why pay the extra coin when not much software/games utilize quad cores? Right on the money imo. I'm still on my 8800GTS OC'd 1700 shaders/1ghz memory/750 core and it continues to blow my friends out of the water. What GPU are you running?

[KrazyMofo24]

Kawizx9r the 8800GTS still performing well? I have the 8800GT, and 4 GB of ram but I feel my cpu is slowing things down it's a Dual Core E2180 running at 2.6ghz but only 1MB cache same architect as the core 2 duo but I think the cache is killing me.

[AsSiMiLaTeD]

Just to be clear...

On what I'll call my production machine I do have the quad core i7, and it's worth every penny on that machine IMO. That's where I do everything except play games. All my work, Photoshop, video editing, web design, etc is done on this machine and most of those apps love the quad core cpu.

My gaming machine is strictly that. I have an OS and games installed nothing else, I don't even use it to browse the interwebs, don't even have winamp or Firefox installed.

For the average consumer pc a quad core is better, but for hardcore gaming the 8400 is the way to go. The 8500 and 8600 are also options, but generally more expensive and really don't perform better as they have about the same overclock limit as the 8400.

[kawizx9r]

You think it's your cpu? Is it when youre opening/running applications? Could be a harddrive thing as well. What's the cache/rpm speed of your HDD? And yes my 8800gts is running perfectly (as well as my pc itself). I'm running 5 fans and it's in an air conditioned room so no need for liquid cooling, as long as it remains in the room otherwise things start running hot

[KrazyMofo24]

To be honest I haven't played a bunch of games in months, but I remember it freezing a bit during games like Unreal Tournament 3 which I feel the card should run fine. Call of Duty 4 ran fine. Crysis not so good, but that's expected.

I think my weak points is the CPU and the hard drive I'm at 7,200RPM. It would be nice to run some Raptors in raid or SSD, but that would have to come later.

[kawizx9r]

Crysis ran fine for me as well, maybe an anti-aliasing issue on your part seeing you have an 8800gt. Should check the temp's on your gpu/cpu/mobo when playing such games and seeing where it would "hiccup" I used rivatuner for my gpu speeds/fans and just used nvidia control panel for my mobo. Bios for my cpu/memory/voltage/fsb. If you do get back into playing games just toss me a PM and I'm glad to help. I bet many others out there are just as into pc-gaming if not more

Imo, SSD's are still very expensive and not yet necessary. I'm also running a 7.2k rpm drive (WD Caviar) and it's never slowed down once, maybe my higher cache just helps out too. There are so many variations of that drive.