Doing a gazillion things at once.
I have not loved a computer upgrade like the upgrade to 64-bit/12 gigs RAM/Core I7 since I got a Pentium with OS/2 years ago.
WOW! How does one max out an octo-core processor!? My dual-core processor is thankfully enough for now, it's the memory i need more of; few more gigs ram, and 64b OS to make use of it, i7 possibly in the distant future, when people react to it: "How about something NOT from the last decade"
damn nice , can't wait for the i7's to drop in price...
Yes....just giving everyone advance-warning so they can organize their 'I'm washing my hair that day' appointments...
GenBlood: If you have the money and want to spend them on something shiny for yourself then I'd say go for it. Personally I dropped around 3 grand on a new i7 rig about a month ago and it really does demolish every other cpus out there. Combined with some lovely sticks of ram in triplechannel and it's like night and day from my old e8500 (despite it being OC'ed to 3.8ghz).
A Core i7 920 can be overclocked to around 3.4ghz with the stock cooling as long as there's decent airflow in the rest of the case and you don't live in sahara, and at that point it will outperform a stock 965. Will go a lot further with some real cooling, of course.
ToJKa: A processor is always maxed out when performing a task unless another component is bottlenecking or you have artificial limiters in place, such as vsync turned on while playing a game. You could get a 965, toss it in a liquid nitrogen bath and overclock it to hell and back (pardon my french) and it would still be maxed out on something simple like compressing a large file archive. What changes is how fast you can complete the task at hand, which in this hypothetical scenario would be pretty damned fast.
The sad part about all of us drooling over the i7.........Intel and AMD buy out all of the smaller companies that make processors so they effectively have a monopoly. The truth is, these companies have the capability of making processors much much better than the i7, but they introduce a little more power at a time just to make more money. Its a great sales strategy but I think its unfair that we don't get the best thing possible.
(I still really want the i7.......)
You might want to have a look at IBM, VIA, SIS and TI. There's more manufacturers out there than AMD and Intel. Also, they're introducing quite a bit more than just "a little power at a time". Check out some benchmarking charts for the latest generations of cpus sometime and compare them to earlier ones. There's usually been a 50-100% increase between each new processor family if not more. Also, factor in the power consumption of today's cpus versus the ones used 5 years ago and you'll notice that they are in fact pretty darned impressive improvements. A brand new i7 has comparable power consumption to an overclocked Prescott, but performance is what, 10-20 times higher (I'm a lazy bum and haven't checked the exact figures on prescott performance relative to i7, but feel free to have a look)?
Intel Core i7 Processor 920 (4x 2.66GHz/8MB L3 Cache)
12 GB [2 GB X6] DDR3-1600 Triple Memory Module
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1GB
500 gig hd with blue-ray player
should be delivered Monday. except for the reinstallation of programs, setting up my accounts, transferring my data and dealing with a new OS (vista 64-bit) I'm looking forward to this.
Brad what OS is that? Does not look like Vista x64 ...but Win7???
Jafo said he is coming in September Brad, but I will be up on May 3rd. I could take that system off your hands if you want.
(I might beat you to it Jafo!)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x64ASUS Rampage II Extreme LGA 1366 Intel Core i7 CPU 965 @ 3.20GHz12GB G. Skill DDR3 1600 Triple Channel BFG Tech GeForce GTX 280 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 1 WD VelociRaptor 300 GB, 4 WD Caviar Green 1TB Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W Antec Twelve Hundred (7 Fans)COOLER MASTER V8 CPU heatsink/fanLG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black LG 4MB Cache SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner Super Multi Blu-ray Disc BurnerHannspree HF259H 25" LCD Display @ 1920 x 1080Gateway FPD2275W 22-inch LCD Display @ 1680 × 1050Bought this setup back in late December/early January. Little over $4k but well worth it. These i7's rock like you wouldn't believe. I can encode a 2 hour avi to DVD in like 6-8 mins. Takes longer to burn the discs now than it does to encode. I'm transoding 1080p .mkv files to my Xbox 360 using Tversity with no playback problems. When I tried that with my old Athlon 5400+ rig would lock up and would get a still picture on Xbox. Haven't even attempted to overclock yet. I hear people have gotten the i965 up to 4.0 GHz on just air.
Well, I realize there are other companies that are introducing a lot of power. The point I was trying to make wasn't very clear and I apologize. What I was trying to point out is that the processors that are available to consumers are not the best they can be. Technology is growing exponentially so it makes sense that each new generation of processor is 50%-100% better. I just think that most of the companies are holding out on selling their best product by introducing one that is almost as good but not quite. This leaves room for them to grow upon the next generation and make it even more impressive to the consumer.
If you mean they're sandbagging themselves then that is something that can't be done over time, because in that case you'd be just holding progress back. If they did sandbag themselves at one point so the next generation of cpus would seem more impressive then after that second generation you'd be back up to using the best there is again. If they alternate between sandbagging and then releasing something really impressive then for every two families of cpus released there'd be no change from if they weren't doing it at all. In the long run (a period of a couple years) everything evens out and it turns out they really do give you the best there is. That is if they were doing such a thing at all to begin with.
Another issue is that for something like that to even be feasible to do you would have to hide the fact that you can produce something better, but choose not to. Now considering that 99%+ of hardware innovations in cpus, gpus, ram, storage, anything really, is a result of collaboration between thousands of individuals and that academic research on these topics are available for anyone to read, it's a little difficult to hide the fact that it's possible to {insert generic manufacturing technique for drastically increasing chip density here} when everyone else who have read up on the technique from the same paper possess the knowledge already.
Detailed technical specs on all modern desktop cpus are widely available for everyone to read, including the competitors. If Intel were holding themselves back then AMD would see where and how Intel did it (or vice versa) and the result would be that Intel just handed AMD a clear and free advantage they could make use of by simply building their next processor without such limitations. It would make absolutely no sense as a business strategy.
The problem with conspiracy theories is that most of them require the cooperation of thousands of individuals to keep the conspiracy itself a secret. People in general aren't very good at keeping secrets. Thousands of people as a whole, even less so. This is particularly true in a field like computing and science where their entire field of study is based upon sharing of information and the benefits derived from it.
