Anyone looked at the Intel i5 680 (3.60 - 3.86gig)

[markl 1]

I was about to upgrade to an Intel i7 2.93 gig on the weekend when a new bloke in the shop I was going to place my order with asked if I had considered one of the newer i5 chips that run at 3.6 to 3.86 in turbo. His question was why over clock an i7 when this one runs at the over clocked speed at stock.

 

I have had a quick google and have found no real reviews for this chip and flight simulator. The shop also has not built a system with these chips either yet as most people want to go straight to the i7 range since the prices for mid range i7's are about the same.

 

Now my main reason to upgrade is for future versions of OFF and FSX. If I have to make a choice on which one to optomise for I would pick OFF as I think FSX is a bottomless pit when it come to PC requirements.

 

What do people think about these i5 chips, and is faster clock speed the best option for CFS3 as I gather it only used one core. I am at this time only interested in getting the most out of what I own now and can not really see myself buying a lot of new PC games so future releases are not an issue.

 

Regards MarkL

[Bletchley 8]

I have recently upgraded from an AMD 3400 (single core) with AGP ATI 9800 PRO to an i5 with PCIE ATI 5770 card and I am very pleased - it runs OFF very well in Turbo (no need to do anything, it kicks in automatically) with all the sliders on 5 except Terrain and Scenery on 4, with 40-50 FPS and no stutters at a price that I could pay. For older games that only make use of a single core, I think the Turbo feature is very good (turns the PC into faster dual core, in effect, but quite automatically as needed). For a game that makes use of multiple cores (e.g. RoF) you might be better off with an i7 though (and you may be better future-proofed with an i7 as more games come out that can make use of multiple cores). When I bought my i5 it was significantly cheaper than an i7 920.

 

Some of the techy people here will be able to give you a more informed answer - all I can say is that I am very pleased with the i5 so far. Great for BoBII and small child's Need for Speed as well :) I now use the older one (Win XP) just for internet and older games that Windows 7 has problems with.

 

Bletchley

[Von Paulus 8]

Be careful with I5 family processors you choose.

If you go to I5-750 or I5-760, you'll have 4 real CPU cores and 0 threads. All the others only have 2 real cores but have 4 threads.

The first one are true quad processors, the others are basically Duo processors.

The duo processors have usually higher clock speed, but in term of modern gameplay can suffer from having only 2 cores.

In case of OFF, probably the processors with higher clock will be better. But with the possibility of overclocking and thus pushing the clock speed, the I5-750, I5-760 and all the I7 are a much, much better option.

Personally I have a I5-750 2.66Ghz overclocked 3.2Ghz. I could go easily to the 3.6Ghz, but to be honest, so far I don't need. Every game is running fine.

[markl 1]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I am not sure which way I will go yet as these processors seem to have mixed reviews depending on what you use them for. I will have to give it a bit more thought.

 

Regards MarkL