Am I getting old or is the i7 920 just that good?

[NyteOwl]

I'm still using a C2Q on an X48 board. It does everything my neighbours i7 does so I see little need to upgrade at the moment.

[sf101]

oced c2q are still decent but they are getting long in the tooth now, may do everything he can do but not quite at the same kind of efficiency.

but you aren't wrong if it still gets things done at a acceptable level "to you" why upgrade.

[elmorejohn46]

The i7-920 is that good when playing games and you have it overclocked to a decent speed.Some of the math and scienctific test and encodeing or recodeing the i7-920 is started to show it's age,it can be up to 40% slower in them test.As far as games go it is still up there with the top chips.I had a X58 and a i7-920 that I kept clocked at 4.2gigs form day one.I bought the X79 and the i7-3820 because of the new features and the lower power that the i7-3820 uses.But I did benchmark test in games and clocked them both the same 4.2gig and memory was set at 1600mhz plus I had a TRI-SLI GTX-470 running at 780/1800.There was only a 2% to 5% increase in afew games most were even closer,but a few stood out.But my i7-3820 is faster mainly because I can run it at 4.8gigs.I also updated to a SATA-6 SSD 256gig drive and running two ASUS GTX-670 Direct CU II in SLI which runs games faster and it was faster ten all three of my GTX-470's in TRI-SLI.Plus they are super Quiet and use a lot less power and the heat hardly ever see 70c.But if you are just a gamer then all you need is a SSD drive and maybe a GTX-670 or a HD-7970,as far as games but the i7-2600K ,i7-3770K or a i7-3820 is faster in other places that you might use.But If you have a i7-920 clocked above 4.2gigs and have two GTX580's in SLI then you should'nt have any problems with games.You can save on power if that is a concern and heat and noise.I used to need 1100 watts and now just need 850watt ,might could get by with a 750watt but I did'nt want to take a chance since I new I would be overclocking ,and that is not even nessassary.

[Arinoth]

There hasn't been any day to day software, especially for games, that has really benefited or required the improvement in speed that the newer chipsets offer (aside from SATA 3). Until we get more games that are cpu intensive, and require quite a bit of cache and cores the 920 and EX58 are still going to be an exceptional platform for a while.

[rjbarker]

The i7-920 is that good when playing games and you have it overclocked to a decent speed.Some of the math and scienctific test and encodeing or recodeing the i7-920 is started to show it's age,it can be up to 40% slower in them test.As far as games go it is still up there with the top chips.I had a X58 and a i7-920 that I kept clocked at 4.2gigs form day one.I bought the X79 and the i7-3820 because of the new features and the lower power that the i7-3820 uses.But I did benchmark test in games and clocked them both the same 4.2gig and memory was set at 1600mhz plus I had a TRI-SLI GTX-470 running at 780/1800.There was only a 2% to 5% increase in afew games most were even closer,but a few stood out.But my i7-3820 is faster mainly because I can run it at 4.8gigs.I also updated to a SATA-6 SSD 256gig drive and running two ASUS GTX-670 Direct CU II in SLI which runs games faster and it was faster ten all three of my GTX-470's in TRI-SLI.Plus they are super Quiet and use a lot less power and the heat hardly ever see 70c.But if you are just a gamer then all you need is a SSD drive and maybe a GTX-670 or a HD-7970,as far as games but the i7-2600K ,i7-3770K or a i7-3820 is faster in other places that you might use.But If you have a i7-920 clocked above 4.2gigs and have two GTX580's in SLI then you should'nt have any problems with games.You can save on power if that is a concern and heat and noise.I used to need 1100 watts and now just need 850watt ,might could get by with a 750watt but I did'nt want to take a chance since I new I would be overclocking ,and that is not even nessassary.

^^^ Wow, take a breath every now n then ;)

[jtf2]

i am happily running a 920 oced to 4gz on an evga e760 classified 3 with a 580gtx,and 12 gigs of mushkin blackline.
for my needs it rocks and will upgrade the gpu next

[Keywork]

Another 920 reporting in. Mine's been humming along at 3.8 under water for 3 years now. Here's to a couple more years of life!

[YoungMan]

I sold my 920 while it was still popular so I could get more money for it.
I found that I wasn't really using it for anything other than gaming, and if you look at the benchmarks between a 920 and a core i3 2100 or 2120, they are near identical, with the i3 pushing out ahead in some games.
I get to enjoy the much faster boot times, sata 6gbps, insanely low power consumption, and save more money.

[NyteOwl]

Yes Arinoth is right. In day to day use there is little improvements. Benchmarks are just that ebnchmarks - buit what can you do with them after all teh oohs and ahhs and bragging rights.

[elmorejohn46]

Nothing after the newness where off,You have a PC that is a hair faster and wondering why did I spend all this money when my i7-920 could have lasted another couple of years.But I had it over three years and wanted some new toys and the reviews were showing it to be quite a bit faster .But that was with a stock i7-920,once you overclock it then the difference gets very small.I wish I would have just sold all of my GTX-470's and bought 2-GTX-660-TI 3gigs and a 256gig SSD drive.Then I would have been set for probally another three years.I really thought the ivory-bridgr-E would have been out by October and now it looks like it may never come out,if it does it will be at the end of next year.Then they may change the socket again.That really suckks because that was going to be my last upgrade for a while and now I doubt that we will ever see it.It is getting where upgradeing your video card is just a waste maybe always has been when you just game at 1920x1080.But I don't regret this upgrade because my three GTX-470's sounded like a jet.