Any Core I7 users yet?

Jim Andrada · February 3rd, 2009, 12:09 PM

Good for what?

Seriously, it depends so much on what you want or need to do with the machine. In my case "good" meant faster fluid simulations and rendering of computer generated animations and large high resolution still images - things that sometimes took a day or more of hard compute on a dual core system. Getting them down to a few hours or overnight was my definition of "good" and it was fairly expensive.

Rendering of video, while compute intensive, tends to be less intensive than the above. But for video, disk speed might be more of an issue than for CGI.

I think if you say more about what it is that you want to do you'll get better answers more tailored to your needs.

Jeff Harper · February 3rd, 2009, 01:03 PM

I would check out Dell, for starters, Marcus. People are picking up a basic i7 system for under $1000. For some reason I have trouble finding ready access to the i7 prices, but once you find them you can configure or price the system you want.

Jon McGuffin · February 3rd, 2009, 05:33 PM

Well... in terms of cost... if you are just looking at the bare bones parts...

Motherboard = $200
Memory 6Gb = $145
CPU = $295

So, for $650 or so, you have yourself the core components of what builds a solid i7 based system.

Depending on what you want to spend on power supply, case, hard drive(s), DVD Drive, video card, & monitor(s) - if you need 'em, would dicate the total cost of ownership for one of these beasts...

Jon

Andy Todzia · February 6th, 2009, 05:05 AM

I finished putting together an I7 computer and it was the easiest build I have ever done. I was a little disappointed that previewing HD clips from a Canon 5D Mark II in Vegas is still a little choppy, but they play fine using Apple Quick Time and Windows Media Player.

System ended up being a 920 overclocked to 3.7 GHz, 12Gb ram, Vista 64 bit, Vegas 8.1, and the boot drive is a WD 10,000 rpm Velociraptor. I just started getting into editing video and did a few short renders on a 2.9 GHz Core Duo before this computer. It appears to have cut the render times in half for rendering HD 1920x1080p MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 output.

Thanks to all the people commenting in this thread which motivated me to build a new computer.

Andy

Dale Guthormsen · February 6th, 2009, 11:25 AM

How do i over clock my I7? I would like to knock it from 2.66 to 3 gigs.

thank you.

Have a great day.

Jon McGuffin · February 6th, 2009, 11:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dale Guthormsen

How do i over clock my I7? I would like to knock it from 2.66 to 3 gigs.

thank you.

Have a great day.

Dale,

This is not franlkly the easiest place to answer this question and probably not the forum suitable for it either however I would recommend going to AnandTech: your source for hardware analysis and news or Tom's Hardware: Hardware News, Tests and Reviews and look in their member forums where you'll find oodles of information regarding overclocking the i7. Also a google search of "overclocking an i7" turns up some usefull information as well. Provided you have adequate cooling and are familiar with BIOS settings, overclocking can be as simple as a few quick changes...

I am not typically an overclocker as I've always said I'd rather have a stable than fast system, but moving from 2.66 to 3.0Ghz is such a modest overclock and given the reports of others who are going far more than the 3.0Ghz speed I felt it made some sense and I don't regret this at all.

Jon

Jeff Harper · February 6th, 2009, 12:06 PM

Dale, if I'm not mistaken you have a Dell. Unfortunately you cannot overclock your model. I thought we discussed this but I might be wrong. Even the Dells that are overclockable are done at the factory, but yours is not configurable that way.

Dale Guthormsen · February 6th, 2009, 06:59 PM

Jeff,

Thats right, I do. I do remember someone mentioning not being able to over clock them; however, there is always someone that figures how to beat those things.

Thanks for the site too!!!

I am ok with how it runs as it is.

Jeff Harper · February 19th, 2009, 06:38 PM

DIY'ers, tell me what i7 board your using. I'm looking at most all of them, and reports are very mixed, even with the ASUS P6.

I having a devil of a time selecting one.

Mark Williams · February 19th, 2009, 06:56 PM

Here are some reviews Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P DDR2 P45 Motherboard | GA-X48T-DQ6,Motherboard,X48,Gigabyte,LGA775,x48 express,Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6,DDR3,Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 Ultra Durable 2 DES Intel X48 Socket LGA775 Socket T Hardware Enthusiasts and Overclocker Motherboard
I like the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P board. The construction seems top-notch and good price/performance ratio when compared to other comparible boards.

Jeff Harper · February 19th, 2009, 07:09 PM

Thanks Mark. I like the UD5 on paper and the EVGA. The EVGA i7 is among the highest rated i7 board on Newegg, definitely higher than most of the ASUS or Gigabytes...but all of them have shockingly high DOA rates.

Ken Steadman · February 19th, 2009, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

DIY'ers, tell me what i7 board your using. I'm looking at most all of them, and reports are very mixed, even with the ASUS P6.

I having a devil of a time selecting one.

I built mine on a GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD5 LGA 1366 Intel X58 and it's been rock solid three weeks later I built another i7 for a friend with a gigabyte and his has been solid too.

Normally, I have always built with ASUS boards but when I was building mine I looked at the 1366 boards and the gigabyte had a lot more onboard SATA and I wanted to have a lot of drives in a couple RAIDs

Bryan Daugherty · February 19th, 2009, 11:45 PM

Ken- I was just reading up on the board you listed, that looks awesome. Are you running the air or water cooled version? What is you experience with it in regards to set-up ease and stability? Are you using the RAID features? I am not an overclocker, but am looking to build my own in the near future.

Ken Steadman · February 20th, 2009, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bryan Daugherty

Ken- I was just reading up on the board you listed, that looks awesome. Are you running the air or water cooled version? What is you experience with it in regards to set-up ease and stability? Are you using the RAID features? I am not an overclocker, but am looking to build my own in the near future.

I bought the air cooled version but I put a giant Noctua NH-U12P with a pusher and a puller fan then made a duct with another puller on the case (overkill). Drivewise, I currently have a 1 TB formatted into 4 partitions for the OS's:
XP pro with my day to day programs
XP pro with only my editors
Vista 64bit with only my editors
Empty one for future proofing (I'm debating trying windows 7 64bit beta).

I use a RAID 1+0 (using the onboard controller) with four 750gb drives I picked up on sale cheap for my editing files and I have a 1TB drive I use for storage (music and files). Everything worked out fine though the driver disc has two options: install individually or install all; install individually because some of the install stuff is junk. It's a nice board my only concern would be if you have small case the SATA headers lay flat so if your case was tight it might be hard to get them in if the HDD bays were real close.

Jeff Harper · February 20th, 2009, 11:32 AM

Asus finally released V2 of their board, I might go with that one, newegg listed it yesterday.

I like Gigabyte, but the random reports of the onboard LAN issues bugs me. I don't know, I've got a week to decide.

February 3rd, 2009, 01:03 PM	#152
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	I would check out Dell, for starters, Marcus. People are picking up a basic i7 system for under $1000. For some reason I have trouble finding ready access to the i7 prices, but once you find them you can configure or price the system you want. Last edited by Jeff Harper; February 3rd, 2009 at 02:24 PM.

February 6th, 2009, 11:25 AM	#155
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	dale guthormsen How do i over clock my I7? I would like to knock it from 2.66 to 3 gigs. thank you. Have a great day. __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

February 6th, 2009, 06:59 PM	#158
Dale Guthormsen Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Saskatchewan Posts: 3,048	Jeff, Thats right, I do. I do remember someone mentioning not being able to over clock them; however, there is always someone that figures how to beat those things. Thanks for the site too!!! I am ok with how it runs as it is. __________________ DATS ALL FOLKS Dale W. Guthormsen

February 19th, 2009, 06:56 PM	#160
Mark Williams Trustee Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Deep South, U.S. Posts: 1,526	Here are some reviews Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P DDR2 P45 Motherboard \| GA-X48T-DQ6,Motherboard,X48,Gigabyte,LGA775,x48 express,Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6,DDR3,Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 Ultra Durable 2 DES Intel X48 Socket LGA775 Socket T Hardware Enthusiasts and Overclocker Motherboard I like the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P board. The construction seems top-notch and good price/performance ratio when compared to other comparible boards. __________________ Mark videos: http://vimeo.com/channels/3523 Stock: http://www.pond5.com/artist/mark29

February 19th, 2009, 11:45 PM	#163
Bryan Daugherty Major Player Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Lexington, Ky - USA Posts: 552	Ken- I was just reading up on the board you listed, that looks awesome. Are you running the air or water cooled version? What is you experience with it in regards to set-up ease and stability? Are you using the RAID features? I am not an overclocker, but am looking to build my own in the near future. __________________ 3x-HD1000u - Ikan 8000HD- custom i7 PC - Vegas Pro 13 and 11 64 bit - Premiere Pro CS4 - and a whole mess of other equipment...

February 3rd, 2009, 12:09 PM	#151
Jim Andrada Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Tucson AZ Posts: 2,211	Good for what? Seriously, it depends so much on what you want or need to do with the machine. In my case "good" meant faster fluid simulations and rendering of computer generated animations and large high resolution still images - things that sometimes took a day or more of hard compute on a dual core system. Getting them down to a few hours or overnight was my definition of "good" and it was fairly expensive. Rendering of video, while compute intensive, tends to be less intensive than the above. But for video, disk speed might be more of an issue than for CGI. I think if you say more about what it is that you want to do you'll get better answers more tailored to your needs.

February 3rd, 2009, 05:33 PM	#153
Jon McGuffin Major Player Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Carlsbad, CA Posts: 634	Well... in terms of cost... if you are just looking at the bare bones parts... Motherboard = $200 Memory 6Gb = $145 CPU = $295 So, for $650 or so, you have yourself the core components of what builds a solid i7 based system. Depending on what you want to spend on power supply, case, hard drive(s), DVD Drive, video card, & monitor(s) - if you need 'em, would dicate the total cost of ownership for one of these beasts... Jon

February 6th, 2009, 05:05 AM	#154
Andy Todzia Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: Enfield, CT Posts: 34	I finished putting together an I7 computer and it was the easiest build I have ever done. I was a little disappointed that previewing HD clips from a Canon 5D Mark II in Vegas is still a little choppy, but they play fine using Apple Quick Time and Windows Media Player. System ended up being a 920 overclocked to 3.7 GHz, 12Gb ram, Vista 64 bit, Vegas 8.1, and the boot drive is a WD 10,000 rpm Velociraptor. I just started getting into editing video and did a few short renders on a 2.9 GHz Core Duo before this computer. It appears to have cut the render times in half for rendering HD 1920x1080p MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 output. Thanks to all the people commenting in this thread which motivated me to build a new computer. Andy

February 6th, 2009, 12:06 PM	#157
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Dale, if I'm not mistaken you have a Dell. Unfortunately you cannot overclock your model. I thought we discussed this but I might be wrong. Even the Dells that are overclockable are done at the factory, but yours is not configurable that way.

February 19th, 2009, 06:38 PM	#159
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	DIY'ers, tell me what i7 board your using. I'm looking at most all of them, and reports are very mixed, even with the ASUS P6. I having a devil of a time selecting one.

February 19th, 2009, 07:09 PM	#161
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Thanks Mark. I like the UD5 on paper and the EVGA. The EVGA i7 is among the highest rated i7 board on Newegg, definitely higher than most of the ASUS or Gigabytes...but all of them have shockingly high DOA rates.

February 20th, 2009, 11:32 AM	#165
Jeff Harper Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Cincinnati, OH Posts: 8,425	Asus finally released V2 of their board, I might go with that one, newegg listed it yesterday. I like Gigabyte, but the random reports of the onboard LAN issues bugs me. I don't know, I've got a week to decide.