Intel Core i5 and i7

[TX-ScubaSteve]

Rah, I think I got the same motherboard and cpu as you have (or had)... back almost 3 years ago.  The EVGA's nForce 680i with Intel's E6600 cpu.

I think my CPU blew a gasket last night.  Over the last month, my computer has locked up on occasion when in a 3D game.  Last night, the same thing happened, but when I booted up, my video post screen had scrambled characters, and colored vertical lines.  I could still boot up... but then, eventually it froze in 20 minutes while running a virus scan.

Now, I can only boot into safe mode.  I've tried setting my bios settings to 'default', (to set my clock speeds and voltages back to normal) though with the scrambled screen, a hard feat to do.

I did notice that a couple wires had gotten wedged between the blades of my heat sink, and had jambed the fan from spinning...  I swapped out my video card with another to see if the video card was screwed up, but it did the same thing... so, I'm thinking with a dead fan, chances are my oc'd cpu got damaged.

Anyway, I have little clue (other than what I tried understanding in the links Eco provided) as to the i5 and i7s... (seems like designation numbers change every time I start shopping for new computer components--and I can't keep up)...

I looked up what cpu's my motherboard could handle on evga's site, and it only listed dual core processors... the most powerful being the E8600... but Rah, if you have the same MB as I do... perhaps I can go the quad core route?

Then again, the I7 900 seems enticing... but that means getting another MB, new memory... if I went with that... would it render my 8800GTX gpu obsolete?

[TX-Kingsnake]

I have the 8800GTS 512 with a dual core CPU and this CPU meets the minimum requirements for most games but the card is something I could take to another system and run Rise of Flight, IL2 or ArmA 2 and it would be fine for now but nothing lasts long in computer years. Damn computer years are like dog years only worse, like mouse years. 

Just wondering why your screen is garbled since that does sound like the card or the monitor. Good luck and I hope you have some hair left when you figure it out.

[TX-ScubaSteve]

Yeah, my first thought was that my GPU was over-heating / dying... but I swapped it out with an ATI card I have, and it was doing the same thing.  Also, I don't think it is a monitor issue, as it happens on all three of my monitors.  (Unless it's just a very interesting coincidence--as I haven't hooked the monitors up to another computer--but even that wouldn't explain the lock-ups, and the fact I can't boot into windows anymore).

Anyway, I didn't mean to hijack this thread with my computer woes.  Just curious about the new generation of cpus and Eco's post caught my eye.  I'm almost considering just buying a pre-built system... though sometimes I feel guilty about dumping so much money on things that depreciate / age so rapidly.

[TX-Kingsnake]

http://paulisageek.com/compare/cpu/

is easier to view it on their web page

Name  Performance  Price  Performance / Price 
AMD Athlon 5000 Dual-Core  1376  65.99  20.9
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200+  1374  73.99  18.6
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5400+  1443  81.99  17.6
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5600+  1472  50.99  28.9
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+  1577  53.99  29.2
AMD Athlon II X2 240  1601  58.99  27.1
AMD Athlon II X2 245  1679  62.00  27.1
AMD Athlon II X2 250  1663  67.00  24.8
AMD Athlon II X3 425  2366  76.00  31.1
AMD Athlon II X3 435  2416  87.00  27.8
AMD Athlon II X4 620  3079  99.00  31.1
AMD Athlon II X4 630  3282  112.99  29.1
AMD Athlon X2 240  1582  58.99  26.8
AMD Athlon X2 245  1566  62.00  25.3
AMD Athlon X2 250  1652  67.00  24.7
AMD Athlon X4 620  2794  99.00  28.2
AMD Athlon X4 630  2363  112.99  20.9
AMD Phenom 8250e Triple-Core  1535  75.99  20.2
AMD Phenom 8600B Triple-Core  1864  92.99  20.1
AMD Phenom 8750 Triple-Core  2000  87.00  23.0
AMD Phenom 9150e Quad-Core  2148  89.99  23.9
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core  2296  109.99  20.9
AMD Phenom 9500 Quad-Core  2250  175.00  12.9
AMD Phenom 9650 Quad-Core  2596  119.99  21.6
AMD Phenom 9750 Quad-Core  2728  79.99  34.1
AMD Phenom 9850 Quad-Core  2865  89.99  31.8
AMD Phenom II X2 545  1722  98.98  17.4
AMD Phenom II X2 550  1832  99.00  18.5
AMD Phenom II X3 705e  2324  134.99  17.2
AMD Phenom II X3 720  2524  140.99  17.9
AMD Phenom II X4 810  3019  139.99  21.6
AMD Phenom II X4 905e  2789  184.99  15.1
AMD Phenom II X4 925  3368  140.99  23.9
AMD Phenom II X4 940  3557  166.97  21.3
AMD Phenom II X4 945  3403  165.99  20.5
AMD Phenom II X4 955  3767  175.99  21.4
AMD Phenom II X4 965  4194  185.00  22.7
AMD Sempron 140  913  35.99  25.4
AMD Sempron 2200+  319  51.98  6.1
AMD Sempron LE-1250  550  31.99  17.2
AMD Sempron LE-1300  582  45.99  12.7
Dual-Core AMD Opteron 1216  1169  55.99  20.9
Dual-Core AMD Opteron 1218  1094  65.99  16.6
Dual-Core AMD Opteron 1220  1443  85.99  16.8
Intel 800MHz  132  45.99  2.9
Intel Celeron 430 @ 1.80GHz  530  39.99  13.3
Intel Celeron E1500 @ 2.20GHz  1216  49.99  24.3
Intel Celeron E1600 @ 2.40GHz  1007  61.99  16.2
Intel Celeron E3200 @ 2.40GHz  1515  52.99  28.6
Intel Celeron E3300 @ 2.50GHz  1668  62.99  26.5
Intel Core i5 750 @ 2.67GHz  4189  194.99  21.5
Intel Core i7 720QM @ 1.60GHz  3354  379.99  8.8
Intel Core i7 860 @ 2.80GHz  5563  279.99  19.9
Intel Core i7 870 @ 2.93GHz  6135  539.99  11.4
Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.67GHz  5452  288.99  18.9
Intel Core i7 940 @ 2.93GHz  6115  499.99  12.2
Intel Core i7 950 @ 3.07GHz  6298  569.99  11.1
Intel Core i7 960 @ 3.20GHz  6530  574.99  11.4
Intel Core i7 975 @ 3.33GHz  6927  969.99  7.1
Intel Core2 Duo E7400 @ 2.80GHz  1863  117.99  15.8
Intel Core2 Duo E7500 @ 2.93GHz  1946  119.99  16.2
Intel Core2 Duo E7600 @ 3.06GHz  2010  144.99  13.9
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz  2164  167.99  12.9
Intel Core2 Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz  2308  189.99  12.2
Intel Core2 Duo E8600 @ 3.33GHz  2471  279.99  8.8
Intel Core2 Duo P8400 @ 2.26GHz  1513  214.99  7.0
Intel Core2 Duo P8600 @ 2.40GHz  1592  219.99  7.2
Intel Core2 Duo P8700 @ 2.53GHz  1760  219.99  8.0
Intel Core2 Duo P8800 @ 2.66GHz  1923  249.99  7.7
Intel Core2 Duo P9500 @ 2.53GHz  1758  369.99  4.8
Intel Core2 Duo T7500 @ 2.20GHz  1240  249.99  5.0
Intel Core2 Duo T9400 @ 2.53GHz  1710  335.98  5.1
Intel Core2 Duo T9550 @ 2.66GHz  1903  319.99  6.0
Intel Core2 Duo T9600 @ 2.80GHz  1987  339.99  5.8
Intel Core2 Quad Q8200 @ 2.33GHz  3220  148.99  21.6
Intel Core2 Quad Q8300 @ 2.50GHz  3553  159.99  22.2
Intel Core2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66GHz  3598  167.99  21.4
Intel Core2 Quad Q9000 @ 2.00GHz  2988  364.99  8.2
Intel Core2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.66GHz  3684  189.99  19.4
Intel Core2 Quad Q9505 @ 2.83GHz  3810  229.99  16.6
Intel Core2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz  4177  259.99  16.1
Intel Core2 Quad Q9650 @ 3.00GHz  4456  324.99  13.7
Intel Xeon 2.66GHz  402  288.99  1.4
Intel Xeon 3.06GHz  493  144.99  3.4
Intel Xeon E3110 @ 3.00GHz  2269  179.99  12.6
Intel Xeon E5405 @ 2.00GHz  2983  229.99  13.0
Intel Xeon E5410 @ 2.33GHz  3750  289.99  12.9
Intel Xeon E5420 @ 2.50GHz  3733  349.99  10.7
Intel Xeon E5430 @ 2.66GHz  4485  499.99  9.0
Intel Xeon E5440 @ 2.83GHz  4589  739.99  6.2
Intel Xeon E5450 @ 3.00GHz  4583  986.99  4.6
Intel Xeon E5502 @ 1.87GHz  1602  199.99  8.0
Intel Xeon E5504 @ 2.00GHz  3139  239.99  13.1
Intel Xeon E5506 @ 2.13GHz  3507  269.99  13.0
Intel Xeon E5520 @ 2.27GHz  3960  384.99  10.3
Intel Xeon E5530 @ 2.40GHz  4290  569.99  7.5
Intel Xeon E5540 @ 2.53GHz  4467  779.99  5.7
Intel Xeon W3520 @ 2.67GHz  4743  309.99  15.3
Intel Xeon W3570 @ 3.20GHz  7166  1069.99  6.7
Intel Xeon W5580 @ 3.20GHz  6293  1679.99  3.8
Intel Xeon W5590 @ 3.33GHz  8597  1689.99  5.1
Intel Xeon X3220 @ 2.40GHz  2961  199.99  14.8
Intel Xeon X3230 @ 2.66GHz  3755  289.99  13.0
Intel Xeon X3360 @ 2.83GHz  4277  299.99  14.3
Intel Xeon X3370 @ 3.00GHz  4629  349.99  13.2
Intel Xeon X5450 @ 3.00GHz  4409  939.99  4.7
Intel Xeon X5460 @ 3.16GHz  5008  1249.99  4.0
Intel Xeon X5550 @ 2.67GHz  4424  999.99  4.4
Intel Xeon X5560 @ 2.80GHz  4900  1249.99  3.9
Intel Xeon X5570 @ 2.93GHz  5390  1439.99  3.7
Pentium Dual-Core E5200 @ 2.50GHz  1631  64.50  25.3
Pentium Dual-Core E5300 @ 2.60GHz  1705  69.99  24.4
Pentium Dual-Core E5400 @ 2.70GHz  1751  89.99  19.5
Pentium Dual-Core E6300 @ 2.80GHz  1859  80.99  23.0
Pentium Dual-Core E6500 @ 2.93GHz  2042  94.99  21.5
Quad-Core AMD Opteron 2378  3189  188.49  16.9