Q9400 vs. i7 - what's the difference?

[kuronosan]

I'm wanting to build a new computer this fall and I'm really hurting trying to find out the difference between the new i7 processor and the quad core series by intel.

What the heck sets them apart so much that one is almost $150 more than the other? I spent about $1000 building my last system and that was a dual-core. I'm wanting to spend a little less this time around and still have a decent gaming machine that won't be outdated 3 months from now.

Can someone fill me in?

[Ragnell]

My Q9300 is good enough and can be overclocked to 3.0-3.4ghz

i7s are just Epeens tbh

[Olo401]

The i7's core design is based on the Quads - where the Quad is basically two Duo cores sandwiched on a single piece of silicon & connected, on the i7 the cores are more interconnected & therefore work faster & more efficiently. An improved version of Hyperthreading was also included on the i7, since multi-core processors are better suited to take advantage of its features. The i7 also moves the memory controller from the northbridge chipset into the CPU, and there's plans to build in some sort of graphics processor (similar to 3DNow! on the AMD Athlon/Phenom).

Here's a side-by-side chart of the i7-920 and the Q9400: http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=35365,37147,

[njitjk68]

If you are looking to go for the q9400 instead of the i7, you should look into q9550.


q9550
Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

q9400
Newegg.com - Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 2.66GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops

As you can see, for the same price you get 8.5x multiplier instead of 8x, 6MB more L2 cache, and about ~0.2GHz higher frequency for the same price.

[Banigayru]

the arcitecture differences between i7 and the old lga775 platform are significant but for playing ffxi, not so much. The new integrated memory controller and integrated chip desgin do bring a lot of benifit for applications that are designed to run on multicore computers, however there are not many. Also if you choose to go i7 you'll have to buy ddr3 ram which is much more expensive than ddr2 atm. I think it really depends on what you want to do. If your budget is 1000, like your last one you could spend more money where it counts, and where you'll get more performance/$ on stuff like graphics card, hard drive. Maybe even a faster dual core isn't a bad option. I had a Q6600 overlcocked decently and i ended up replacing it with c2d again, becasue while 4 cores sounds cool, programs that can only use one are going to run on the slower core of the 4core than the faster core the 2.

edit: also with i7 youll have to buy a new mobo as well.

[fishstix]

Also the i9s with 6 cores!?!?! are coming out sometime, if you're going for epeen. Although, there's a cheap-ish i7 for $200 atm at microcenter

Micro Center - Core

[Minions]

Also the i9s with 6 cores!?!?! are coming out sometime, if you're going for epeen. Although, there's a cheap-ish i7 for $200 atm at microcenter

Micro Center - Core

That is damn cheap, get that shit while its there.

[kuronosan]

Fuck me I'm not even going to have the money to get that until Fall. Blah.

Not interested in e-peen. I'm just interested in being able to play my video games better than PS3 so I can avoid buying one... plus I use it heavily for music and audio-mastering/recording.

[OzzofAsura]

PS3 + Badass PC = Ultimate Combo!

[Solefald]

CPU isn't the bottleneck in any of today's games, in fact a dual-core E8400 will outperform the Q9400 in most games because of its higher clock speed. It's anyone's guess right now as to whether games coming out in the next 9-12 months will be better off with a quad. Also the tri-core and quad-core AMD processors are very competitive with Intel's right now when you consider their price.