I bent over... and got an I7 920.

HeatSurge

HeatSurge

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Joined
Jul 2, 2008
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So this week was payday, and one place where I was about to give money turned out they didn't want it (long story lulz) but I had $250 disposable income for the biweekly period, so today I was like "fuck it" and got an I7 920 when I saw one on ebay for an OK price.

I ended up with the list below. I went for the I7 920 simply because it's socket 1366, and the upcoming Intel Hexa-cores are aparently guaranteed to work with the X58 chipset with just a bios update - so if I ever want something more I can just do a drop-in upgrade. Simple and clean.

I didn't care about memory much, so I went with a cheap OCZ 1600 cas8 kit, which was on sale+rebate at newegg and the price was pretty nice (for today's prices anyway).

For the mobo, I went dirt cheap, because I think it has all the features I want and I figure I'll be exchanging it some time in the possibly near future with the new Intel chipset which is due in a few months (which will have native SATAIII and USB3.0). Moreover, the mobo can do 4ghz fine which is all I want right now. They also have their own pci-e AsRock SATAIII and USB3.0 drop-in cards which they support natively (a bios update was issued 5 days ago to support them), if I would ever want that sooner - although I really find it hard to think why I would. I'm not going to buy an SSD in the near future anyway.

I read a bunch of really positive experiences with open box purchases on hardocp, and I was feeling adventurous so I went for it. I'll let you know what I get. I'm really hoping it will have at least a backplate, besides working fine of course. We'll see. In the worst case, I'll just have to return it. They issue full refunds - the only thing I lose is shipping, but I figure it's worth the risk.

Total isn't too bad at all imo, considering the performance I'll get out of this (overclocked and tuned) is basically comparable to top-of-the-line equipment today.

If all goes 100% well, my current components will be replaced by next weekend ;-D .

And then I can finally play games properly on Win7. I'm gonna fire up supreme commander too to experience the multicore / i7 and jizz a bit at it :-D .

Can't wait. It's been such a long time since my last mobo/cpu upgrade (3 years I think...).

It will be replacing an Opteron 170 (OC'd to 2.7ghz) running on a DFI LanParty UT SLI-DR Expert (Nforce 4 SLI chipset based, socket 939 lulz) and Mushkin Redline DDR (2GB) running 1:1 with the FSB so like 270mhz I think DDR. They have certainly served me well.

The only thing which sucks about the whole deal is that there is a $20 rebate and $22.78 cashback which will take some time to get back - but I'm sure I'll get at least the cashback, and OCZ is ususally pretty good with their rebates from what I've heard as well. Details about prices:

<table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 506pt;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="674"><col style="width: 458pt;" width="610"> <col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"> <tbody><tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl65" style="height: 15pt; width: 458pt;" width="610" height="20">Newegg:</td> <td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; width: 48pt;" width="64">
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">
</td> <td class="xl66" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;">
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">ZALMAN ZM-CS4A Socket 1366 Clip Support Kit for CNPS9500/9700 - Retail</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$8.99 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">Open Box: ASRock X58 Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$118.99 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">OCZ Gold 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) OCZ3G1600LV6GK - Retail</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$149.99 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">
</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;">
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20"> UPS 3 DAYS </td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$7.87 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">OCZ Memory Promo code </td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">($5.00)</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">Order Total </td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$280.84 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">1% Bing CB</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">($2.78)</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">Rebate OCZ Gold Memory</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">($20.00)</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">Newegg total</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$258.06 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">
</td> <td class="xl66" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;">
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl65" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">Ebay:</td> <td class="xl66" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;">
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">
</td> <td class="xl66" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;">
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">NEW Intel i7 920 Processor SLEBJ D0</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$249.95 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">Shipping</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$9.95 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">Order Total</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$259.90 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">8% Bing CB</td> <td class="xl69" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">($20)</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">Ebay total</td> <td class="xl68" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$239.90 </td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl67" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">
</td> <td class="xl66" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;">
</td> </tr> <tr style="height: 15pt;" height="20"> <td class="xl70" style="height: 15pt; border-top: medium none;" height="20">Upgrade total:</td> <td class="xl71" style="border-top: medium none; border-left: medium none;" align="right">$497.96 </td> </tr> </tbody></table>
 
Looks nice from where I sit. I'll probably bit the same bullet soon. Although my current config will run BFBC2, it will be near the bottom of the spectrum. I've decided not to go SSD and get one of the new WD black drives. According to some feedback I've read the performance can beat the Raptor or at least in some cases.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:eek:ffice:eek:ffice" /><o:p></o:p>
<o:p></o:p>
Not trying to hijack the thread but what is the performance increase or what will be the difference in old SATA and III?<o:p></o:p>
 
SATA III is capped at 5.0 Gbps. I believe Sata II is only capped at around 300 Mbps.
 
So will you really see that or is that just one of those nano seconds where I'll still be dead...LOL
 
It's up to the people that make HDD's and SSD's to do that ;).
 
SgtDeadred said:
Not trying to hijack the thread but what is the performance increase or what will be the difference in old SATA and III?<o:p></o:p>
Click to expand...

To answer your question more thoroughly, you can look at this review:

http://hothardware.com/News/USB-30-and-SATA-6G-Performance-Preview/

Basically, SATA III is, right now, imo unnecessary unless you have a really fast SSD.

As you can see from the benchmarks, the sequential read speed is well below the 375MB/s (megaBYTES per second which is equal to 3000Mb/s - 3000 megaBITS per second), which is the current theoretical max speed for SATAII. Because of engineering and marketing, the real practical speed of SATAII is somewhere around 250-260MB/s... from what I've tested on my mobo and seen online.

So, basically unless you have something like a ridiculous SSD which can do more than 250MB/s sustained read or writes, you will not see a benefit from SATAIII in 99.99% of situations. No current hard drive has a sustained read above 150MB/s that I know of.

The only way you MIGHT see an improvement is if there is something in the hard drive cache which is fetched really quickly - which is what's happening in this screenshot imo:

big_hd-tach-sata6g.jpg


In fact, in the screenshot above, the controller implementation of caching is so ridiculous, that the burst speed actually goes beyond the SATAIII max speed specification (which is 750 MB/s - megaBYTES per second which is equal to 6000Mb/s - megaBITS per second).

With USB3.0, it's a different story. Supposedly it is 10 times faster than USB2.0, so you really will see a difference - for products which implement it. Currently, I do not use flash drives or any USB devices which require that kind of bandwidth. I do have a hard drive drawer on my case, but it's a SATA drawer, not a USB one.

USB3.0 might be practically useful for you if you have a really fast flash drive or want to connect stuff like external HDD's via USB. For me, it's useless...

Gay colors FTW!

P.S. The SATAIII specification's max speed is exactly twice higher than SATAII. SATAIII is 6Gb/s, SATAII is 3Gb/s.

P.P.S. Where all this comes into play in the gaming world is loading times. This all has nothing at all to do with how fast your game renders. It just affects how fast the info from the hard drive goes into the RAM, which happens only during loading (or hard drive access for a swap file if you're running out of memory).
 
I like more your motherboard than mine, yours, you can have 3 Vid card plus the spacing between each other looks better to
I think I'll take what you bought to.
 
Beaver said:
I like more your motherboard than mine, yours, you can have 3 Vid card plus the spacing between each other looks better to
I think I'll take what you bought to.
Click to expand...

I was wondering between mine (AsRock X58 Extreme), Foxconn Flamingblade, and the DFI LANPARTY DK X58-T3eH.

In the end, I decided the Foxconn Flamingblade had too many reviews with problems with memory etc. and the bios hasn't been updated for 6 months, and the DFI was just too expensive at $205...
 
I made a correction. I had one of the numbers FUBAR'd. 375 MB/s (megaBYTES per second) is equal to 3000 Mb/s (megaBITS per second) is equal to 3.0 Gb/s (gigaBITS per second).

I had the wrong number before...
 
I'm really ticklish there, so much than if you do that I will cry
 
Mobo, CPU and clip adapter for socket 1366 for Zalman 9700LED arrived today.

The "Open Box" mobo arrived perfectly clean, looking awesome, full retail package in retail box. The only thing which was opened was 1 sata cable and the backplate. SLI bridge, manual, CD's, etc. present and unopened...

Memory should arrive tomorrow and assembly will be done on Saturday if all is well.
 
After having to buy a hard drive and move around stuff to prepare for install - I finally went in yesterday, opened my case, and:
- Removed Zalman CNPS9700LED, blew the dust out, cleaned the bottom with alcohol.
- Removed old Opteron 170, cleaned it with alcohol. Good to sell (anyone looking for a Socket 939 processor? It's probably one of the fastest out there for S939? 2.7ghz lulz)
- Removed memory, old mobo, cleaned up the case etc. etc. etc.

So then I installed everything, and... I didn't even try stock clocks - OC'd on the first boot (after flashing the bios to the latest w/ flash drive) and started working on getting it stable by booting from "The Ulitmate Boot CD" and "UBCD4WIN."

Well, I got it stable alright, the only problem is that these tools don't support multithreading so it wasn't "really" stable.

So, I installed win and continued testing.

Final result: I believe I'm finally running prime stable right now (going on strong for 20 minutes for the first time on small FFTs 8 threads, knock on wood).

Basically, I got it running at 3.9ghz right now (x21 * 186 bclk, QPI should be double mem but is showing weird o_0 - have to look at that, mem 744.5mhz DDR so 1489mhz - wont do the higher multiplier, haven't tried to loosen timings).

The voltages are 1.270 for VTT/Uncore (bios), 1.250 (bios) and showing 1.232 real in cpu-z for vcore.

I feel like the processor can do more - even a lot more than 3.9ghz. I mean, if you look at the vcore voltage, I think the stock is 1.20v, isn't it? So it's like a tiny bump. I'm sure if I bump it up more, it can easily do 4.2ghz+.

However, even at 1.25v and 3.9ghz, I'm running into ridiculous heat. I mean, on idle it's like ~50C or something from what I've seen (which is still kinda hot) and when I load it with small FFTs on prime, the hottest core floats around 89C and the lowest around 83C!!! (FYI the thermal shutdown on the i7's is 100C... and trust me, they do shut your PC down when you hit it... first time I shat my pants when I had that happen, because I thought I burned out the CPU).

The heat buildup is ridiculously fast also - something I haven't necessarily seen before. I mean, it's at 50C and once I hit prime, it's at 80C already within like .5 of a second. The last ~9-10C build up a bit slower. I think my Zalman CNPS9700LED might be a little outdated for this QQ . I'm considering the omfghalemsomgsupermega or something else... big.

I think this is the first time I'm seriously considering water cooling as well. An additional problem is that I like my fans quiet (really quiet) so I'm running my Zalman at less than 1500RPM I think, when the speed plugged straight-in without a controller is around 2900-3000RPM. If I ever buy anything, I'll be looking at very quiet solutions.

I'll probably run this for a few weeks though, to see if it will remain stable.

D0 i7 920 delivered though. 3.9ghz on 1.25v FTW.
 
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