Go back abd look at the i5 core temp screen shot and then the i7 one and tell me the difference

 

Hmmm. Double the threads i see. Well i would have gotten i7 if it about when my pc was built. Still say my i5 runs pretty good. Surely 4.6ghz makes up a little for 4 threads less

 

Yeah sure it helps some, but its a huge difference in programs and OS being able to run between 4 cores and 8 cores. For every clock cycle your cpu makes, its able to process 4 sets of instructions, his 8. Thats a WOLRD of difference, granted your software has to be able to take advantage of it, but most 64bit based software applications now do.

For instance, I have two servers sitting here, each with 64GB ram, dual socket xeon cpu's. The nice new 6core procs. Each proc is hyper threaded, so i get 12 cores per proc essentially. The beauty of one of the boxes, its a dedicated SQL box and has all 24 combined cores and 64gb ram thrown at it. It screams at running queries and such. The software vendor is in absolute love with the speed of this machine. The 15k rpm SAS drives helps a bit to

 

On the other hand HT causes higher temps so your likely to get a higher/more stable clock out of an i5. Personally I have a i7 920 @ 4.0ghz, ht defiantly helps boot times. I know she's getting old, but she still gets the job done, bf3 anyone ??

 

For further proof.

lets looka t the Ghz cycles converted to cycles per second.
Yours at 4.61 (im to lazy to go back and look it up)
one second for one core = 4,610,000,000
multiple that times your 4 cores = 18,440,000,000

Now lets look at the i7 at a modest 3.50ghz.
one core = 3,500,000,000 per sec
multiply that by 4 to equal the cores you have = 14,000,000,000 and yes you have a substantial increase (not getting into the power consumption usage argument)
BUT if you take that cycles per second number and multiply it by 8, which is what the i7 can do via hyperthreading you get a nice, safe stable 28,000,000,000 cycles per sec.
Your i5 is only doing 50% of what that i7 is capable of.

 

Very few things take advantage of more than 2-3 threads, Your OS, something like cad, and a couple games. Especially from a "games" standpoint, your lucky to see 4 threads utilized.

 

Hence why I said your apps/OS has to be able to utilize it

 

Yes, was just adding to that by saying 9/10 things don't utilize more than 4 threads.

Hence forth, benchmarking aside, the average person would be happy with a dual core at 5ghz.

 

Yeah. I've noticed some games and apps only utilize a core or two

 

Ok. Now a question i often overlook. Motherboards. What do i look for? Currently have a gigabyte board and its nice and all. But its one of the slimline boards so impl really limited on pci ports. Im planning on upgrading the board so i can run sli. What do i look for in a motherboard

 

Just get one with all the features you need now or may want in the near future, preferably name brand one. Personally when I'm looking to upgrade something, I hit up newegg, see what everyone else is buying and read some reviews

 

I just got a Gigabyte 970A-UD3 the other day (sorry, still in love with AMD) and it came with a neat feature I had not seen - amped up USB ports.
Not sure of actual power but supposedly they pump more amps through for charging stuff ... even when the box is off. PCI Express for two Graphics cards, USB 3, plenty of SATA ports, etc.

Again, only good if you run AMD, but they make Intel boards too.

 

What's amd?

 

That is USB 3.0

 

Chipset, socket, and ports...That's where it's at.

 

For a mobo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131802

...if you can afford it. It's pricey. It will also allow you to build a PC that has far more power than just about anything you can run on it today will need. I used it as the mobo for the "future-proof" PC I built over the winter.

As Sebastian said, the chipset, socket and ports are what I would use to shop for a mobo.

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/nvid...s-a-low-end-pc

 

That's interesting, though not all that surprising. He's right, though: the best console will easily be outdone a year after its release by PC components.

 

Not in fun. I'll take LIVE over PC any minute of the day

 

Good article. I'd say that's spot on. I bought a Wii for the innovation...I bought a 360 for Live and for the game selection. But for, what is essentially, just a low-end PC, I don't think I can justify spending $400+ on another console.

Oh, and prices finally came back down enough for me to pick up a 3TB HD for my server.