Are i7's Really Worth It? What about Hyperthreading?

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I'd say go for the AMD Athlon X4 620 2.6GHz Propus. Save more than 100 bucks and get good stuff. Don't know how big is the difference between that and the Core i7 as far as gaming goes.
 
I'd say go for the AMD Athlon X4 620 2.6GHz Propus. Save more than 100 bucks and get good stuff. Don't know how big is the difference between that and the Core i7 as far as gaming goes.

Don't doubt yourself, because that's right.

The CPU price difference could get you a much better GPU which is what will help you more in the game FPS and smoothness (can't think of the appropriate term for it.. EDIT: Fluidity I guess fits)

I mean in the benchmarks, the difference between a Phenom II 940 and a Core i7 920 is negligible in gaming, in most other situations, like rendering the difference is night and day, but for a gaming only rig, you can go a bit cheap on the CPU. (But by no means does the X4 II 620 perform like a cheap CPU)
 
I don't know guys. The Athlon 2 X4 is close to the Q8400 in terms of performance, and we never recommended those.
AnandTech Bench (beta): AMD Athlon II X4 630 vs Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400

Not only that but when using multiple video cards, especially the new ATI cards, that could introduce some major bottlenecks. The i5 750 does much better in crysis than the athlon 2, more than what you can explain with just being a faster cpu. It looks to me like the Athlon is pretty close to bottleneck territory with beefier video cards.
AnandTech Bench (beta): AMD Athlon II X4 630 vs Intel Core i5 750
 
I don't know guys. The Athlon 2 X4 is close to the Q8400 in terms of performance, and we never recommended those.
AnandTech Bench (beta): AMD Athlon II X4 630 vs Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400

Not only that but when using multiple video cards, especially the new ATI cards, that could introduce some major bottlenecks. The i5 750 does much better in crysis than the athlon 2, more than what you can explain with just being a faster cpu. It looks to me like the Athlon is pretty close to bottleneck territory with beefier video cards.
AnandTech Bench (beta): AMD Athlon II X4 630 vs Intel Core i5 750

I didn't recommend the q8400 because you could get a q9400 for a bit more, or the Phenom II 940 for the same price back then, plus everybody knows how bad the Q8000 series were, no VM, FTL D: .
 
Just because you aren't using the newest generation of hardware doesn't mean your computer is outdated or underpowered. Just wait for a significant hardware launch like Sandy Bridge or something.
 
The i9 will NOT be cheap, just look at its name and the target market. I know i would love one for rendering, but they also probably wont see that much improvement in gaming. We dont know if LGA1366 will continue after the i9 [hopefully it will] but we do know that LGA1156 will be limited.

In alot of circumstances i would recommend buying an i7, but in your circumstance i would think its better to just save the money and get an i5 setup that will do almost as well. You wont have alot of upgrade options down the line, but theres nothing to say you will with an i7 setup either. If you save some cash it then makes a new computer down the line not so bad.

If your only going to use one graphics card, want to save cash, dont intend to get an i9, dont want HT and so on, there really isnt much point going for an i7.
And that brings up another topic:
Are the current-gen games able to run on more than four cores?
 
And that brings up another topic:
Are the current-gen games able to run on more than four cores?

Some do take advantage of multi cores, but most are not using the ability as of yet. (According to the games I have had recently) There will definitely be games that are taking advantage of all cores available, in the near future. GTA-IV is one game that loves a quad core.
 
There are very few games that use 4 cores, but many current titles use 2.

I'm fairly sure most Codemasters' games do. Only know this, 'cause I'm installing GRID and DiRT right now, for about the 4th time. :thumbsup: Anyone know if DiRT 2 will utilized 4 cores?
 
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