i5 or i7?

[Zipfinator]

So fellas. It's finally time for ol' Zippers to get rid of his 4 year old laptop. I've got nearly all of my components picked out but, as you guessed, I can't decide whether to get an i5 or an i7.

The personal pros of getting an i5 are lower price and the pro of the i7 is better performance. There's really not much else that I've learned to help me decide. Does anyone here have any advice? Any personal experiences with the i5/P55 and i7/X58? Any horror stories about EVGA motherboards that I should avoid?

Your help is appreciated!

[whiffen]

i7 Pros

Aimed at high end users
Triple channel memory
LGA 1366
Hyper threading (Makes the OS think you have 8 cores rather than 4 to make better use of programs that use multi-threading

The rest is pretty much the same on both. So If you have the cash go for an i7, just expect to may more for the mobo and triple channel memory as well, but its defiantly more future proof.

For mainstream users i5 is perfectly fine. You might not have all the bells and whistles of an i7 but you've still got some of the best computing of late 2009-.

Sweet spots are

Intel Core i7-920 on the i7 end for 280
Intel Core i5-750 on the i5 front for 220

[Armageddon]

If you play alot of games the i5 is better.

[Chopium]

I'd prefer i5 myself.

[Zipfinator]

I guess this will all come down to how much of the computer I'm paying for. I don't mind the bit of extra cash if I won't have to upgrade for the next few years. I've been using this single core for 4 years and it was outdated when I got it so getting the best hardware now should definitely last me at least 3 years.

Thanks for the advice.

[stoopdapoop]

LGA1366!

No experience, sorry

[Unreal_Me]

i7 uses the LGA 1366 socket, is newer than the LGA 1156, which the i5 uses.

The 1366 will support anything new that intel releases, including one that's set to come in March

[RefaelBA]

I'm just upgrading my own system and i7 is my way to go even though I need to invest a little more.
The 1366 boards seem to be the best option for future upgrading. There's a pretty neat Gigabyte 1366 board that's not very expensive but does a solid job.

Anyway if you're looking to the future, I think that 1366 is the better option, in 2-3 years time you'd be able to replace your CPU and have an almost brand new computer instead of buying a whole new one again in 4 years. Plus, 1366 boards support a gazillion of PCIe slots and multiple GPUs, so if you want to upgrade your GPU in time, you could just buy another card like the one you will already have (which by that time will be much cheaper than a top-tier card) and use two! Woohoo

[Corigami]

The i5 will stay current for a good long while, and they are a great value at the moment. I got an i5 750 for $190 this Christmas and I've loved it so far. Map compiles and renders take practically no time at all, I'm able to play crysis with maxed out settings.

As for the evga motherboard, if I have a choice with my parts I go with evga. They have lifetime warranties and 24/7 customer support, but the parts are high enough quality that you probably won't need to bother with either.

[coder0xff]

i7 also uses a 3 channel DDR3 scheme.