..:: PCSX2 Forums ::..

Cheapest LGA1156 mobo (foxconn bleh board) $90 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product
Cheapest i5 (not on sale, the price the majority of the people would have to pay) (750 2.6.ghz) $200 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6819115215

So $290 for the cheapest "top of the line" processor in Intel's new mainstream 1156 socket type.

If we go for cheapest "top of the line" processor in their top of the link socket (1366) we get

Cheapest 1366 mobo (another foxcon bleh board) $144 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813186170
Cheapest i7 (720 2.66ghz) $289 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6819115202

That's $443 for the cheapest you can get of Intel's best line of products.

cheapest AM3 mobo (MSI, better than foxcon, but still bleh board) $52 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813130243
Cheapest Phenom 2 X4 (925 2.8ghz) $141 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6819103656

That's $193.

That's why "AMD fanboys" say intel is expensive. You can get a top of the line AMD processor on it's top of the line motherboards for just about $200 after tax. To get the cheapest of intel's new mainstream board you have to pay $100 more. To get the cheapest of their top of the line is $250 more.


Yes, Intel processors are usually better clock for clock than AMD... but cost of ownership plays a huge factor for a lot of people and general game performance difference isn't that great.

Best proc from what I've seen is the one that overclocks to high frequencies relatively painlessly. I can run any game at 200~%+ fps with correct settings on my e8400 at around 3.8ghz. high-end core 2 duos are affordable and great for this emu. Confirm/deny?

You also have to remember that the LGA1156 setup is still very new. I'm sure when it has been in the market for some time, it will get even cheaper. Intel is already planning even more CPU's down the line that are more efficient and more cheaper. Even then it has more performance than the AMD counterparts. The cheap Intel boards might be expensive, but they are running the P55 chipset and are much more efficient. But if you have the money for an i7/i5, you are not going to go cheap on the board. It's like trying to fit a Mercedes Benz V12 engine on an a Beetle. LGA1156 IS mainstream. It preforms like a dream, and it's not as expensive as an i7/x58 setup. Give it time, and it will get cheaper and better. (P.S. I used to be an AMD fanboy myself. Intel was too rich for my blood, but now they are cheaper and still offer much better performance than AMD.)

If I can finally allow myself a i7 860, it will bring me more than i5 750?

I saw it y'avait hyper threading + Vt-d and more but ...

After choosing the worst is between P7P55D and UD3 ...

I wouldnt call 1156 as mianstream yet. Maybe on more wealthy countries. In some poorer like mine i5 is still exclusive and mainstream is still lga 775.

When I say mainstream, I mean that as that's what intel's new mainstream mobo type is. The 1366 is exclusively for high-end expensive parts with 1156 going to be intel's mainstream once it's fully established which takes time. The i5's have only been out a few months and 1156 was designed with them and the i3's in mind.

Intel (relatively to the past) has come down quite a bit in the past, and I do expect their 1156 boards especially to come down in price... but a middle to high end AMD system continues to be cheaper than intel middle to high end. I really am not an AMD or intel fanboy... I'm just a college student with a very limited budget

The i7 860 is around $80-100 dollars more expensive than the i5-750. While there is Hyperthreading and a slightly higher clock speed, I don't think it's worth the extra money. Mostly everything I throw at my i5, it eats it for breakfast. This is at stock speed w/Turbo Boost. My Intel DP55WG board is also very good. It retails for about $140USD and supports SLI and Crossfire (@ x8) Many decent socket 1366 boards will be around that price anyway. (Same goes for socket AM3) Most high end Phenom II chips are around $150-180. You will STILL need DDR3 ram and a decent Mainboard. If you choose wisely, the ram and Mainboard will be around the same price as buying a P55 Mainboard/DDR3 ram kit. So if you spend $20-50 more, you can get a much better processor. (The Intel Core i5-750 that is) I own the i5-750 and I am completely satisfied with it's performance. If Intel keeps their processors this powerful at this price, I will never buy another AMD.

I've been very satisfied with my i7-860 setup at least but for pcsx2 it doesn't offer much improvement at all over a Core 2 Duo setup even, about 10~15% clock for clock improvement, in my case i7-860 at 4.12GHz about 16% improvement over the E8400 @ 4.0GHz. But it doesn't really really matter cuz I get well above full speed in any game I throw it at in any case. ^^ However in pc games it's been a different story, take UT3 for example where I got bad performance in Win 7 with the E8400, fps dropped to 70 or so in crowded online games on some maps, now it's like 170 fps minimum (I normally play with 120 fps/120hz).

That is awesome. One day I will OC my i5-750. I'm sure I can get similar speeds. I get full 60fps on every game I threw in PCSX2. Even with increased resolutions and AA. But to be honest, it was a MAJOR upgrade for me. I came off of an AMD Athlon x2 5000+ OC'ed. Right now my CPU is set at stock, but Turbo Boost works real well. I haven't found a need to OC at the moment as everything I'm running right now works amazingly. I am just curious how my Intel board is going to handle an OC. :/

Yea that's one big advantage the P55 has for non-overclockers. The turbo mode is made to overclock even more than the previous X58 / Bloomfield 9xx series. My 860-i7 was overclocked to 3.2GHz I think with all 4 cores active (more if less cores are utilized), not too shabby 400MHz overclock out of the box. It's nice to see that Intel has gone from previously discourage overclocking to do it themselves for their CPUs. That's probably a good thing for future in mind as well as that means they will probably continue to try create CPU architectures that scale nicely clock wise in order to be able to continue offer such feature. For the competitor AMD, it's a disaster when comparing performance.