Hardware Canucks - Alternative to X58?

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Alternative to X58?

I dropped by my favorite computer store the other day and had a short conversation with one of the clerks about upgrading to a Core i7 system. He told me a price drop was coming soon, and also mentioned the possiblity of a new chipset release as an alternative to the X58s...I've tried finding some info on this, but the only articles I can find refer to the upcoming i5 CPUs...nothing on motherboards. Anyone hear anything different they can share? It sounds like the X58s are still going through a lot of growing pains.

the next xhipset will be P55, and if I have this correctly, will NOT be LGA1366. IT will be 1107, or whatever Intel has planned for thier "MAINSTREAM" socket. X58 is a bit QPI-limited, but I think jsut a revision may deal with that issue decently.

will be P55 correct for the socket 1156 or 1107

is it 1156 for the "smaller" intel socket? I cannot remember the exact details, jsut that there are less pins...having been not impressed by Core i7, I haven't paid to much attention to Intel in the past few months.

With X58 mobos priced below the $250 mark and 6GB DDR3 kits going for $200 or less, I personally think that i5 is ALREADY redundant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL (Post 169833)

With X58 mobos priced below the $250 mark and 6GB DDR3 kits going for $200 or less, I personally think that i5 is ALREADY redundant.

I don't want to spend $250 on a motherboard. I prefer to spend a max of say $150. So unless i7 drops below those prices I'm not interested.

I know at least three manufacturers who are designing X58 motherboards in the $180 - $220 range so that will probably be more appealing to those on a tighter budget.

Like SKYMTL said the prices of x58 boards are going down steadily, give it 6 more months and the i7s will be alot more affordable of an upgrade, im sure given a little more time we will see DDR3 start to come down in price and x58 boards start to hit the lower price ranges. I dont understand how a 1366 i7 would fit into a socket with less pins, Im thinking the P55s will be i5 only which I though where supose to be dual cores? maybe im wrong.

I for one will be jumping on the i7 bandwagon in 6 months or so.

Quote:

i5? i5! Core i5 would be the brand name Intel's mainstream desktop derivatives of the Nehalem architecture based on the Lynnfield core would carry. It is similar to its big brother, the Core i7 for the most of the part except for a few differences:

A current generation Direct Media Interface (DMI) Interconnect as chipset interface
-A 128-bit wide DDR3 memory interface (Dual Channel) instead of triple-channel
-Some more machinery from the northbridge migrated to the CPU, such as the PCI-Express root complex
The newer LGA 1160 socket

Lynnfield continues to have four x86 processing cores with HyperThreading enabled, with 256 KB of L2 cache per core and a shared 8 MB L3 cache. Chiphell got its hands on not only the processor, but also a compatible motherboard and run a quick preliminary evaluation of the processor. The processor, clocked at 2,127 MHz, was put though SuperPi, wPrime, Cinebench, Fritz Chess, and 3DMark Vantage. The processor is expected to release in the second half of 2009.

It doesn't look like it'll be too bad. I guess I'm just a tad bit worried that this is going to be a trend, with each new processor lineup.

I'm hoping that when the 32nm cores finally come out into the sunlight that I won't have to buy an entirely new M/B, among other things. :blarg:

Does anyone know what's going on with that, by the way?

Oh, and as far as prices on i7's and DDR3 triple-channel memory...I've witnessed, in the past two weeks, a price drop of a bit over $50 on some corsair modules (PC12800's), not to mention that you can find some perfectly good sets for as low as $60, anyway. I can only imagine that some people who bought new RAM for themselves a couple of weeks ago are kicking themselves for not waiting a couple days. :haha:

4 core cpu clocked at 2127mhz better overclock pretty well =(