Anyone know much about the new Intel i7s?

[TwilightOdyssey]

I've never seen so many posts that were absolute Greek to me! PDT_008

[MDV]

Your priorities are in order and the force is strong with you, Roo.

Noodle - when you have the time please do comment.

The striker was a fussy little bar-steward. Didnt take perfectly good corsair ram that ticked all its compatibility boxes (XMS2, its not like its obscure) - took quite a fight get it to accept 4Gb, occasionally forgets what order its PCI bus is populated in and/or forgets that there are things in it (or were, once upon a time) after the graphics card, wont accept RAID controller updates, screws up the nforce driver updates and is way fussy about how you update the bios (it HAS to be through floppy - cant use a mem stick, cant do it in windows).

Now, obviously all of these have been worked around (by me or people that know way more than me), but they still shouldnt really happen. Pernickerty fussy contranaptious recalcitrant obstinant capricious and unreliable PoS. I dont like it.

[Roobubba]

I find this surprising, given my own experience with asus boards, which have all been without a fault. Of course, with a high end machine, there is always the possibility of other problems not experienced on the mainstream market, and it's these that really define the manufacturer. My personal best experiences have been with DFI, whose boards I have had nothing but total satisfaction from!

Roo

[MDV]

Well, a few lurkings over at the asus boards, overclockers club, and a couple of other places that have come up in googling the striker extreme, it seems to be the exception. The striker II, maximus and formula all seem to be shit hot, and the SE has, I found out too late, a bit of a reputation for being a git.

Nice to see some votes of confidence from people with more experience than me in asus in general though: I was reluctant to go with them again with the P6T after my striker experience, but it looks like the best choice atm.

TO, you wanna see some greek - go and take a peek in any PC hardware dedicated forum!

[MDV]

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/806/1/

Choose your ram carefully, padawan.....or not?

<1.65V for me. Not worth the chance. looks like 1333 CL7 is about the fastest I can put in there, which is actually slower than what I have now - 800 CL4 - 5.25ns per bit transfer to my current 5ns. BUT 6Gb of it. At 38Gb/s, tripple channel :twisted:

[Roobubba]

Yeah the tradeoff between latency and bandwidth is always a tricky one, and is - I suspect - the key reason for sub-optimal game performance for i7 at present. Of course, loading times will be better with the 6GB for large games, or specifically for those with very very large levels, but they key performance gain isn't in gaming and never has been for i7. I suspect that once the initial nuances are sorted, it will rock all round


Gotta go

Roo

[MDV]

Yeah the tradeoff between latency and bandwidth is always a tricky one, and is - I suspect - the key reason for sub-optimal game performance for i7 at present. Of course, loading times will be better with the 6GB for large games, or specifically for those with very very large levels, but they key performance gain isn't in gaming and never has been for i7. I suspect that once the initial nuances are sorted, it will rock all round


Gotta go

Roo

Yeah, it looks very much like there have been some problems with the mobos and ram with these monsters

Well, not 'problems' per se, but non-optimalnesses.

The mobos - tripple channel means 6 dimms is best, and that takes up space, plus the chips are quite large. The Dell XPS's with the i7s in have perpendicularly mounted chipsets! Never seen that before, its a novel solution to half the problem. The PT6 has a novel northbridge heat sink to save space (forget the details, but its.....novel) and SATA ports take a hit - 6 is max, it would seem.

This I can live with all of. Its fine. Cant change euclidean geometry. If the i7s set a new trend maybe we'll start to see a bigger version of the ATX to house bigger mobos?

The ram peeps need to up their game for this though. The new chipset is all about interface with the ram, and the current tripple channel released for the X58/i7 is quite.....rushed looking. limited options that all look like quick adaptations of existing lines, priced to cover some panic R&D costs. I suspect cost will go down and performance increase quite quickly. 6 months and we'll have some pretty serious tripple channel ram available, and whats around now should be more realistically priced. 

I think I might go with the cheapest tripple channel around and maybe upgrade when they have their act together. Looks like its 1999ish-2003ish again and ram is a really big player once more in PC performance with the i7s

[ailean]

I've never seen so many posts that were absolute Greek to me! PDT_008

It's Geek Ben, absolute Geek.

Anyway, since I'm a geek...

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned hard drive speed, if you are going for uber then consider 10K or 15K disks, or maybe a solid state. These are NOT cheap options, but 7200 disks are probably going to be your biggest bottle neck in a high spec system. Of course that means a SCSI card too... £££££

[MDV]

I hadnt thought of hd speed.

Really hikes the price up with the drive config I want though. Like, lots.

Anyone got experience with Mesh? They're doing i7 rigs with P6Ts: might be simpler to get one.

[Roobubba]

Well, on the systems I'm building, I'll be choosing a solid state disk if I possibly can. Apologies for not having gone through this in more detail (my last post was a rushed send job as the bus pulled up outside my house!)!

With that said, a pair of 7200k rpm dsks in RAID0 are likely to be fast enough. Of course, a pair of Raptors would be nicer ;)

I tend to go for one or two large storage disks, and a couple of smaller disks in RAID0 if I'm feeling like I need the speed for the OS. That helps to keep costs down, although naturally the read and write operations to your storage disks become rate-limiting.
 
Re: ATX - that's where BTX comes in, no? Or maybe a Lian Li V343B :D

[MDV]

SS drives are a new one on me

What a completely rubbish capacity to price ratio!

I'd much rather get 300Gb 15000Rpm conventional drives. I'd love to use ss drives, but £200 for 60Gb? One measly terrabyte (yes, I need getting on for that) would cost more than the rest of the pc, and there wouldnt be space or ports for it!.

Anyone got any thoughts on Mesh? In general, that is. Are they known for goodness, cr@ppyness, mediocrity? Anything?

[Roobubba]

No opinions on Mesh, I'm afraid.

Re: SSDs - don't write them off yet - as a primary OS disk, they are blisteringly fast! Tag a couple of 500GB disks along in RAID0 as a storage/program array and you're absolutely laughing!

[MDV]

Would I be right in thinking that

- 2 SS disks in RAID 0 would be stupidly fast (or would it not see the benefit?)

- That the increased chance of total failure is mitigated by the SS disks?

thus making an SS raid as my main disk a very good idea?

[Will]

I ordered a Mesh a bit back, should be here within a week.
Its the bottom of the line model, so I don't think I can contribute much though

[MDV]

Cheers anyhow will - if you have any comments on the quality of it, chip in!

In the mean time, what do you think of this?

Yes, I have completely lost my mind :lol:

Processor (CPU)
 Intel® Core™i7 Processor i7-920 (4 X 2.66GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
 
Free Item
 FREE Far Cry 2 DVD Game (RRP: £49.99) with any Intel® Core™ 2 Quad/Core™ i7 CPU!
 
Memory (RAM)
 6GB CORSAIR XMS3 1600MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (3x2GB)
 
Motherboard
 ASUS® P6T DELUXE: DDR3, SATAII, 2 x PCI-e x16, 2 PCI, 1 x PCI-e x1
 
Operating System
 Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium 64-bit Edition + SP1, CD (£69)
 
USB Options
 8 x USB 2.0 PORTS (6 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD
 
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
 64GB SATA II SOLID STATE DISK (MLC) (120MB/sR | 80MB/sW)
 
2nd Hard Disk
 64GB SATA II SOLID STATE DISK (MLC) (120MB/sR | 80MB/sW)
 
3rd Hard Disk
 500GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
 
4th Hard Disk
 500GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
 
RAID (HDD 1 & 2)
 RAID 0 (STRIPE) (£9)
 
1st CD/DVD Drive
 20x Dual Layer LightScribe DVD Writer ±R/±RW/RAM
 
2nd CD/DVD Drive
 20x Dual Layer LightScribe DVD Writer ±R/±RW/RAM
 
Graphics Card
 896MB GEFORCE GTX260 PCI Express + DVI
 
2nd Graphics Card
 NONE
 
Sound Card
 ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
 
Network Facilities
 2 x ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORTS
 
Floppy Disk Drive
 1.44MB - 3.5 INCH FLOPPY DISK DRIVE
 
Case
 Stylish Silver/Black Sigma case + 2 front USB
 
Power Supply & Case Cooling
 700W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£79)
 
Processor Cooling
 ASUS TRITON 81 PURE COPPER BASE ULTRA COOLER
 
Warranty
 1 Year Return-to-Base incl 1 Year Free Collect & Return: £5
 

 

Sellers blurb (they seem quite good)

Other Features Included As Standard...
 
Software
 CD/DVD authoring software and Power DVD software is included with all DVD Writers.
 
Ports
 Each computer comes with 1 x PS/2 keyboard port and either 1 x PS/2 mouse port or 2 extra USB ports.
 
Fans
 Where necessary your computer will come with extra case fans fitted.
 
Memory
 Our memory comes with a 100% tested lifetime warranty!
 
Bezels
 All our drives come in either silver, black or beige and are all of a
high quality & matched brand.
 
Support
 We offer lifetime hardware technical support during normal office hours.
 
Cables & Manuals
 A power cable, all drivers, manuals, and a heatsink & fan are included with every order.
 
Service
 Our computers come fully assembled & thoroughly tested. We are so confident in the quality of our computers that we offer a free collection and re-delivery service* should you ever have a problem with your computer.
 
Installation
 If you order an operating system it will come fully installed with the CD and licence key.
 
Low Total Cost of Ownership
 Taking into consideration our low cost telephone support, free collection warranty service* and our strive to use energy efficient components where possible, the total cost of owning a pcspecialist computer is reduced as much as possible.
 
And Finally
 If you are lucky enough to have seen a cheaper quote, click here.
 


Price for this PC System:
 
Price for this PC System:

£1459.57 ex VAT.


£1715 inc VAT and Delivery.

From these guys http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/index.php?page=aboutdeliverytime

I cant get the componets on their own for less, and wont be building it myself anywho (so that would be another cost)

 A rather horrific amount of money for something that will be obsolete soon, no? But I am tempted. If I can get a good price for my current PC....well, we shall see.