RaginMav From United States of America, joined May 2004, 372 posts, RR: 1 Posted (3 years 1 month 1 week 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 5436 times:
Newegg has the i7 980x available for a mere $1099 (oh but they have free shipping). Does anybody have one? In my fantasy land of endless cash I would buy one... but real world budgetary constraints beg to differ.
To those lucky enough to own it:
Full reports, please! Spare no details!
FPS increases? Assuming a good video card, is there anything FSX can do to slow it down?
Temperatures on load?
In you opinion, was it worth a four-fold price jump from the entry level i7's?
Newegg has the i7 980x available for a mere $1099 (oh but they have free shipping). Does anybody have one? In my fantasy land of endless cash I would buy one... but real world budgetary constraints beg to differ.
I have the 4 core i7 920 and it is much more than enough. It is overkill for FS9, I get peaks of 400 FPS. And it's just over $250 last time I checked. It's a TON of bang for the buck.
Not even FSX can efficiently take advantage of that many cores. There's no point of having more than 4 cores for FS IMO. The programs are just too old. You're much better off getting an i7 920 and then putting the rest of the money on a pair of ATI 5870s or even 5890s.
In fact the 6 core has been shown to be somewhat slower than the 4 core i7 in benchmark tests due to it not being able to support the faster DDR3 RAM
The only people that may benefit from that many cores will be video/graphics editors/designers and other extremely code intensive program users.
Quoting RaginMav (Thread starter): In you opinion, was it worth a four-fold price jump from the entry level i7's?
cpd From Australia, joined Jun 2008, 4879 posts, RR: 44 Reply 2, posted (3 years 1 month 1 week 2 days 11 hours ago) and read 5365 times:
Fortunately, my machine can support this new processor.
I do quite a lot of video editing - and to be honest, the Core i7 860 I have in the 8gb/1TB iMac 27" doesn't cut the mustard - although it might melt the mustard - the thing runs damn hot - 85 degrees celsius under full load, and 55 degrees celsius at idle.
Once I cranked the fan speed up with SMCFancontrol 2.2.2, that cooled it off a little bit. Sadly, it's a work computer and it's all we could get.
On FSX with advanced addons (FSL Concorde) I'm finding that the frame rates within the flight-deck (with huge numbers of analog dials) are around 30fps with everything at highest detail, when I'm out over the Atlantic.
When I get into airports - it drops down to about 20fps. Not fast enough. Big difference between default planes and advanced addons. That Concorde stretches the limits of FSX in every way. I long for the day when it'll run at 60fps on 1680x1050px resolutions with everything on full detail.
Fly2HMO From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 3, posted (3 years 1 month 1 week 2 days 5 hours ago) and read 5348 times:
Quoting cpd (Reply 2): Fortunately, my machine can support this new processor.
Errr. May want to check again. If you had a socket 1366 i7 (like my -920) then yes you can use the 980x after a BIOS update since they have the same socket. but i7s that are not from the 9xx series (your -860) are an 1156 socket. So no joy I regret to say. You'd have to start all over with a new motherboard, ram, etc etc etc
Quoting cpd (Reply 2): the Core i7 860 I have in the 8gb/1TB iMac 27" doesn't cut the mustard -
Tisk tisk. That's why I never recommend the i7s that are below the 9xx range.
cpd From Australia, joined Jun 2008, 4879 posts, RR: 44 Reply 4, posted (3 years 1 month 1 week 1 day 21 hours ago) and read 5309 times:
The 860 is the work computer. The upgrade would be for my home computer which will support it (DX58SO).
Sadly, for work, I recommended Mac Pro with dual Quad-core Xeon processors, but then someone decided that we should get the iMacs. So we are stuck with these useless overheating iMacs. They might be okay for someone doing general photo editing or word-processing / web-design, but for video editing, that really pushes them hard.
lhrsimon From United Kingdom, joined Apr 2002, 1342 posts, RR: 25 Reply 6, posted (3 years 1 month 5 days 10 hours ago) and read 5110 times:
Im having a pc built and im trying to decide on the spec. Budget will not allow a 5870 but im looking at having TWO 5750 cards as its still almost 150.00 pounds cheaper than the single 5870.
Is there any advantage to this over the 5870 ??? (wishfull thinking) or will i be with the 2 cards 50%/75% as goods as the 5870. My only concern is will heat become an issue ? and hence all the cooling in the below set up. Comments welcome
For info the CPU will be a i7-930 2.8 ghz (960 & 980's are just to expensive)
RAM is 6gb of corsair XMS-Tri DDR3 @ 1600 mhz
Cards as per above.
Motherboard Asus P6T DDRS SLI/CrossfireX
Hard drive 1.5TB @ 7200 rpm 32mb cache
800W quiet quad rail PSU +120 mm case fan
Coolit eco advanced liquid cooler.
Case : Coolmaster HAF922 / 200 mm front,top and rear fans.
Thank you.
[Edited 2010-04-14 05:46:10]
Canon 1D Mk III,Canon 20D+17-40 L f4.0,70-200 L IS USM f2.8,400 L USM f5.6,135 mm L f2.0, 50 mm f1.8,1.4 x II extender
cpd From Australia, joined Jun 2008, 4879 posts, RR: 44 Reply 7, posted (3 years 1 month 5 days 10 hours ago) and read 5107 times:
Go for more RAM I think. And the 5870 might be worth the extra. However, I think a faster processor will help more if you don't like doing overclocking.
For cooling - I'd suggest using something like the big tower style heatsinks from Thermalright (Ultra 120) and use a couple of Noctua NF12 fans with it - that should get you quiet, high performance cooling.
Fly2HMO From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 8, posted (3 years 1 month 5 days 3 hours ago) and read 5078 times:
Quoting lhrsimon (Reply 6): Is there any advantage to this over the 5870 ??? (wishfull thinking)
Highly doubt it. Cards below the 58xx series don't get that good benchmark results, not even in pairs.
You're better of with a single 5870. And then once prices for those come down you can save up for an additional one to have a dual 5870 setup.
I got the ASUS P6T "vanilla version" good very stable motherboard and piece of cake to overclock. Though I can't get my computer to sleep without Win7 freezing on resume (vista was fine) and every once in a while it won't boot due to overclocking settings being "lost" but in reality it doesn't loose them. Just reset and you're fine.
lhrsimon From United Kingdom, joined Apr 2002, 1342 posts, RR: 25 Reply 9, posted (3 years 1 month 5 days 1 hour ago) and read 5063 times:
Hmmmm...
So its looking like im going to have to save up for the 5870 card rather than the dual 5750's. Good idea on waiting for the costs to go down then adding an extra 5870 down the line.
Pleased top hear the motherboard is solid also. On the RAM issue i would like to go for more than 6 gb but think that will be the max amount i can afford.
As for overclocking. I doubt i will start fiddling. Mainly due to the fact i have an annoying habit of screwing things up when i try to get to technical. To be on the safe side i will stick to the standard settings.
Thanks for the comments
Canon 1D Mk III,Canon 20D+17-40 L f4.0,70-200 L IS USM f2.8,400 L USM f5.6,135 mm L f2.0, 50 mm f1.8,1.4 x II extender
Fly2HMO From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 10, posted (3 years 1 month 5 days ago) and read 5056 times:
Quoting lhrsimon (Reply 9):
Pleased top hear the motherboard is solid also. On the RAM issue i would like to go for more than 6 gb but think that will be the max amount i can afford.
You won't gain anything going over 6gb. Just put that money towards the video card. There's pretty much no program out there that uses that much. The closest I came to running out of RAM was with FSX and Tileproxy. 80% was taken up. But still played smoothly with no hiccups.
Even with the newest games and heavy video converting I rarely use up over 60% of my RAM.
Quoting lhrsimon (Reply 9): To be on the safe side i will stick to the standard settings.
Turbo boost will give you an automatic and safe mild overclock. It's on by default on the P6T. Just FYI.
Oh and by the way, get Win7 64bit. Runs great with a rig like ours.
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