Hi,It's that time again to upgrade and I have looked through this forum and did not find an exact answer for these specific cpu's. Is there a big difference from the i7-870 to the 930/950? The chips are about the same price, but the 870's motherboard options are cheaper. Does the socket type make a difference?Also, what motherboards do you recommend for them? Thanks in advance.

From what I know, the 870 is similar to the 930 at the base clock, but doesn't overclock quite as well as the 930/950. It also means that your RAM will only be double channel instead of triple channel.

If you want to overclock at or above 4.0, and/or plan on using SLI or crossfire the i7-930 or i7-950 is by far superior. The i7 930 triple channel memory is a plus, but it's not a necessity. Beyond that, the i7 870 is as good as the i7 930/950 and is much better value considering the premium priced X58 motherboards.

If you want to overclock at or above 4.0, and/or plan on using SLI or crossfire the i7-930 or i7-950 is by far superior. The i7 930 triple channel memory is a plus, but it's not a necessity. Beyond that, the i7 870 is as good as the i7 930/950 and is much better value considering the premium priced X58 motherboards.

The i7-950 for sure is a way better choice. And yes of course the i7-930 and 950 are better than the i7 870 especially since you can overclock it to 4GHz.

Thanks for the info. For FSX do I really need to overclock the cpu and if yes or no, what motherboards would you recommend for each chip? Thanks.

FSX is CPU hungry and you will get a lot better perforance with an OC assuming you have a CPU that you can OC. Over at Newegg there is only a $6 difference between a 930 and 950, go with the 950. On an Asus P6X58D MB you will be able to OC a 950 to 4.2GHz easy. Just make sure that you get a good HSF like a TR Silver Arrow ar a Noctura D14. Get some good ram to go with your 4.2GHz OC, I recommend thishttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226121

I actually think that I read somewhere that a i7 870 at 4GHz gave the same performance as a stock i7 950. I think it was in a specific game but I can't remember.

I still fail to see what is it that could make the X58 faster on single GPU set-ups. Some say the QPI link, but the QPI link is not in P55 simply because it's not needed as it has the PCIe controller integrated in the CPU itself, so no need for a northbridge/QPI to connect the CPU with the chipset.Yes, the on-die PCIe controller limits OC to some extent, but not that much when you see the speeds most are running their chips at.X58:P55:

I still fail to see what is it that could make the X58 faster on single GPU set-ups. Some say the QPI link, but the QPI link is not in P55 simply because it's not needed as it has the PCIe controller integrated in the CPU itself, so no need for a northbridge/QPI to connect the CPU with the chipset.Yes, the on-die PCIe controller limits OC to some extent, but not that much when you see the speeds most are running their chips at.X58:P55:

Yeah, it is kind of weird and why your 4GHz i5 doesn't keep up with my i7 is also strange.

Question is, why? I'd love to see more benchmarks from different people, with both P55 & X58. Not that I don't believe you, I would just love to see more results that's it, but I asked many times and no one else seems to be interested.Would you mind doing some more tests with FSXmark and the kind of settings we really use in the game? (Global High is way too low, and Max settings would bring any system to it's knees)

Yeah, it is kind of weird and why your 4GHz i5 doesn't keep up with my i7 is also strange.

Question is, why? I'd love to see more benchmarks from different people, with both P55 & X58. Not that I don't believe you, I would just love to see more results that's it, but I asked many times and no one else seems to be interested.Would you mind doing some more tests with FSXmark and the kind of settings we really use in the game? (Global High is way too low, and Max settings would bring any system to it's knees)

sure I'd like to, shoot me a PM when your ready

dazz: The diagram is a little confusing... see where the memory says 10.6 gb/sec for the the i5.... if they used the exact same diagram the i7 would read 25.6gb/sec instead. however they've chosen to show off the triple channel architecture instead, so you kind of have to know to aggregate the triple channels into one QPI link. At the end of the day the memory is twice as fast, giving FSX about a 20% improvement, ie every 5th operation is memory / file related.

dazz: The diagram is a little confusing... see where the memory says 10.6 gb/sec for the the i5.... if they used the exact same diagram the i7 would read 25.6gb/sec instead. however they've chosen to show off the triple channel architecture instead, so you kind of have to know to aggregate the triple channels into one QPI link. At the end of the day the memory is twice as fast, giving FSX about a 20% improvement, ie every 5th operation is memory / file related.

Thanks veeray. I see where you're coming from: P55: 10.6 x 2 = 21.2 GB/secX58: 8.5 x 3 = 25.5 GB/secBut I'm not sure things work like that. All the memory benchmarks I found showed very little difference in both RAM bandwidth and latency between Dual and Tripple channel. What I concluded is that even though max BW in X58 is higher, current RAM usually hits around 15GB/sec, so the max 21.2 GB/sec of the P55 dual channel should sufficeDo you have a X58 system to test it with only two sticks please?Lucky, when you run those benchmarks in that other thread, were you already on only 4GB?

Dazz: You are right about that. Both chips could do everything in 2 sticks worth of bandwidth. That's why a lot of vendors chose not to use 1600mhz memory chips in their i7s. But if you do have 1600/2000 mhz memory, it'll fit nicely inside a sandy bridge machine. So it's really a measure of future proofing by being able to use higher multipliers from the get go. http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop-cpu-charts-2010/Archiving-WinRAR-3.92-x64,2430.htmlIn the chart they really start showing their muscle. Either way FSX never really taps out all the memory bandwidth to begin with, so obviously higher core speeds such as 4ghz is more indicative of your overall performance.

I'd be happy to participate in FSX comparisons between i5 and i7. I've got an i5-750 clocked at 4GHz with 4GB of RAM at 1900MHz (CL7).