UK Discount INTEL CORE I7 960 SKT-1366 Lowest Price
Monday, 23. January 2012
Best INTEL CORE I7 960 SKT-1366 – Promotion
- Processor socket: Socket 1366
- Box: Y
- L2 cache: 0.512 MB
- Processor clock speed: 3200 MHz
- Processor family: Intel Core i7
Intel Core i7 processor i7960 LGA1366 Cache 8M BX80601960 Components Processors
List Price: £497.21
mosta67 "mosta67" Says:
Quality processor, good performer,
A dead psu and unresponsive PC prompted a rebuild and upgrade from the AMD Athlon AM2 architecture. I had a feeling that the old dual core architecture was bottlenecking the NVidia GTX 560 card, and DIVX ripping was taking ages (around 30fps) with the aging AMD chip.
This one is slightly faster than the entry level I7 3Ghz model, for a few more pounds, but nowhere near the top of the range models which are several times the price, for more cores, cache and speed.
I installed it into a modified X58 based motherboard, in a Shuttle SX58J3 case, without using the large fan and heatsink supplied, as Shuttle has it’s own bespoke heatpipe system. It wasn’t clear which way round the chip should be as the socket had no clear arrow – but the notches on each side sorted that out. After assembly, not forgetting some thermal paste and a minimal set of peripherals, the PC booted first time, the CPU identifying itself immediately.
Using Windows 7, the experience score rates this processor as 7.4 out of 7.9.
Ripping avi files at DVD resolution, all 4 cores and threads were utilised, resulting in a frame encoding rate at an average of 180-200fps; whereas I was struggling before to get 30fps out of the AMD chip before. Some titles rip faster than others, but in reality, most films take around 20-30 mins with 2 pass encoding.
3DMark06 with the old chip managed around a score of around 13-14000, whereas the I7 960 managed over 21,000 with an unoptimised desktop, several apps running, and there was no stutter during any of the individual tests at all, frame rate was always above 30fps.
Overall, Windows might be slightly quicker to start, but with modern bloated applications there isn’t a huge difference when there are so many other factors. I couldn’t test the graphics capability of the chip, as my system didn’t have the appropriate chipset. The main benefit for me is the ability to run several tasks at once with no obvious slowdown, a large file copy or backup, a download, video encoding and multiple browser sessions, all at once.
As a low end I7 chip, from comparison charts on the net, it may be slower and more expensive than some I5 CPUs, but for those who have to use socket 1366, this is a sensible choice, and I have no regrets about choosing this chip.
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|David A. Tickner Says:
I3, I5, I7??? Well I7 hangs in there as the best performer.,
OK, I haven’t put this processor on the board yet, so I can’t tell you about its performance, however I’ve done my research and if you need super fast processing speed for the likes of video editing without your whole system freezing, I believe this processor cuts the ice. It took quite a bit of debating over what processor from the range of I3, I5, or I7 to reach a conclusion. However for speed the I7 is worth investing in if you’re going for high-end 64-bit computing. But if this isn’t absolutely crucial to you, I recommend the I5, or I3. Intel have not really made it clear where the pros and cons of each series of processors are, so one has to do one’s own research. Without going for a server board with multiple processors, I chose this particular I7 for budgetary reasons. The six core processors are only for those with money to burn, at the moment, so if you need mission critical computing at a reasonable price – this is a good one.
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|Mr Antepli Says:
Mr Antepli,
OMG dam this cpu has 8 cores thats right 8 cores 4 real cores and 4 vitual this is one of the fastest cpu l ever seen in action combined with corsair dominator 3x4gb 1600mhz and Asus P6T deluxe V2 mb and corsair water cooler dammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm l tought my computer desk was taking off from this planet and l am not kidding you definately RECOMENDED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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