i5+P55 or i7+X58 for gaming?

[FtGF]

Obviously the X58 is a great platform but if the most intensive thing you are doing is gaming and you plan on going with a i5 750 I think that P55 is the best bet. Performance wise the difference is nothing for gaming. The sli bottleneck is negligible as of now and the rest is speculation on the new super duper Nvidia cards. Single cards are plenty powerful so that shouldn't even be an issue if you are going for value. From personal experience I'm coming down from a Classified and 2 gtx 275 sli setup to a p55 i7 950 with a single gpu. My friend has the i5 750 and single gtx 275 and the gaming experience is practically identical at a resolution of 1920x1200 for half the price I payed for my old rig. So it really depends if you want bang for the buck or you want to go full out. Just remember there is no such thing as future proofing in the PC hardware world. Save your money for more important things! Good luck.

[Linus]

Originally Posted by Retro

Glad to hear you went with the FTW mobo, especially since it has a good Lotes socket. I noticed your thread has died since I asked Linus@NCIX about whether the MSI board does actually have a Lotes socket now.
Would be great to hear from the HWC staff reviewers about this issue as they have done some excellent reviews on the P55 mobos and I would like to hear their opinion of this.
Let us know how it's going with the EVGA mobo, and it's Lotes socket. My Foxconn-equipped Asus board is still running, and I haven't smelled anything burning. Yet

My understanding is that they all have LOTES sockets at this time. I'm not 100% sure if they all do, but my GD65 has one for sure. My GD80 is in a system under a water block and it'll be a pain to check it right now, but once I do my re-build I'll look.

Sorry for the slow response (in a different thread), but I don't monitor HWC that closely. PM is key if you have a question for me directly :)

EDIT: I guess I might as well address the OP's question as well.

X58 is for a frequently-upgraded system. You can count on it to support Crossfire/SLI with upcoming cards and get the most out of them (16x/16x), and my understanding is that all current boards will have BIOS updates that allow them to support the new 6 core CPUs. That's what makes it an enthusiast platform.

If it's going to be built, then used until it's slow and needs to be replaced, then P55 is the way to go. It's more than fast enough for anything you could build today, and it's cheaper than X58.

To put this in perspective:

My system is X58 and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have 12GB of RAM (and I'll go 24GB as soon as it's economically feasible), 2 GTX 260s in SLI (which will be replaced with GT300 or dual 5970s, or maybe the next gen), and I'm DEFINITELY getting a hexacore as soon as possible.

my girlfriend's system is P55 and that's all she needs. The Core i7 860 is fast enough for anything she'll be doing for the forseeable future, 8GB of RAM is likely all she'll need for the next 5-10 YEARS, and a 4870 X2 (or even a second one in the future) is not going to be bottlenecked in any way by that platform.

[Oversized Rooster]

Originally Posted by Linus

my girlfriend's system is P55 and that's all she needs. The Core i7 860 is fast enough for anything she'll be doing for the forseeable future, 8GB of RAM is likely all she'll need for the next 5-10 YEARS, and a 4870 X2 (or even a second one in the future) is not going to be bottlenecked in any way by that platform.

Holy crap, it must be true love! I don't even have a P55 system for myself, let alone for my gf.

[Retro]

Originally Posted by Linus

My understanding is that they all have LOTES sockets at this time. I'm not 100% sure if they all do, but my GD65 has one for sure. My GD80 is in a system under a water block and it'll be a pain to check it right now, but once I do my re-build I'll look.

Sorry for the slow response (in a different thread), but I don't monitor HWC that closely. PM is key if you have a question for me directly :)

EDIT: I guess I might as well address the OP's question as well.

X58 is for a frequently-upgraded system. You can count on it to support Crossfire/SLI with upcoming cards and get the most out of them (16x/16x), and my understanding is that all current boards will have BIOS updates that allow them to support the new 6 core CPUs. That's what makes it an enthusiast platform.

If it's going to be built, then used until it's slow and needs to be replaced, then P55 is the way to go. It's more than fast enough for anything you could build today, and it's cheaper than X58.

To put this in perspective:

My system is X58 and I wouldn't have it any other way. I have 12GB of RAM (and I'll go 24GB as soon as it's economically feasible), 2 GTX 260s in SLI (which will be replaced with GT300 or dual 5970s, or maybe the next gen), and I'm DEFINITELY getting a hexacore as soon as possible.

my girlfriend's system is P55 and that's all she needs. The Core i7 860 is fast enough for anything she'll be doing for the forseeable future, 8GB of RAM is likely all she'll need for the next 5-10 YEARS, and a 4870 X2 (or even a second one in the future) is not going to be bottlenecked in any way by that platform.

Thanks for the confirmation and all the information and your viewpoints! I would have preferred to have gone X58 rather than P55 but the cost was a factor. Also the money saved allowed me to buy a second GTX 275 for some Sli goodness.
Good to hear one or both of your MSI boards has a Lotes socket, it seems likely then that they all do now. I think it will just be a matter of time before all the P55 boards have either a Lotes or a refined Foxconn socket.
You have gone a very smart route with your systems, both are just right for now and the future.
That also gives the op and anyone else asking an example of how both platforms are good choices, the X58 offers the best upgradeability for the future, the P55 is the best bang for the buck.

[icarus2]

I say go with the Core i5 and P55 platform as HT will have abosolute minimal to no impact on gaming at all.

[Squeetard]

AnandTech: ATI HD 5870 Scaling Performance: X58 vs P55 Showdown

[rjbarker]

As Linus stated..if your into upgrading...go X58...