I have had my previous P4 for quite a while. I had overclocked it and took it for all it was worth and have been waiting for the right time to buy a new PC. Well, after many years of good use, the P4 forced my hands last week when the southbridge fan gave way and the board stopped functioning. After having to work through a bunch of glitches with it for the last six months, I knew it was time for me to build a new system.
When I get ready to build a new system, I spend tons of hours researching everything. I specifically focus on quality. I know that I am more satisfied with the Intel line than the AMD line (I built both). I spent a lot of time looking at the 800 series, 900 series, and 900 extreme series i7 processors to make sure I know the value of each chip. It will always be a question of quality and speed versus dollars and everyones value point is different.
I had a choice here. I could have gotten an i7 920 (or even the i7 860 with an even cheaper motherboard), some good but cheap memory, add a nice 1.5TB hard drive and have a definite upgrade from what I have now and cost me half as much for my system. I would have been happy with it and love the increase in performance. But one thing I have learned is that if I am willing to spend a little extra, I will be satisfied a lot longer. The price I paid here on Amazon is the same as for the 950, although almost twice as much than the 920. With free shipping, and no sales tax, I really get a better value for this chip here than anywhere else. The speed tests show that the performance of the 960, especially when paired with good memory and an extremely fast hard drive, far outperforms the 920 so that the money difference can be justified. I know a lot of enthusiast are set on buying the 920 and then just overclocking it, but the 960 can be overclocked easily to 4.1 Ghz and can get to speeds the 920 only dreams of having (I am not complaining about the 920, but I just don't care for the overclocking argument). Paired with a solid state drive and PC3-1600 low latency Dominator triple-channel memory chips (and a P6X58D Premium motherboard with SATA III and USB 3.0) and I have a system that will last me quite a while before I need an upgrade. Could I have waited until the price of those components come down? Yes, but there will always be something better. I spend a lot of time on my computer (for work and play) and I want something that will satisfy me for many years before my next upgrade.
As far as performance, OH MY GAWD! I can't really compare it to the 920 since I don't have one. I can't even separate out the effect of the solid state drive, dominator memory, P6X48D motherboard, or the i7-960, but I swear the computer just reads my mind and performs the tasks. Never had I seen instant loading like this system does. I am absolutely blown away. I am sure Windows is creating a new operating system to slow things down, but until that happens, I am a happy camper. Intel Core i7-960 Processor 3.20 GHz 8 MB Cache Socket LGA1366
A very good affordabe CPU indeed. Most people are stuck on the budget based i7-920..I'm sorry but it's 2011. The i7-960 isn't the newest chip on the market either, but it has 8 logical cores and will compete for the years to come. It ranks as a 7.5 on Windows performance test. I've overclocked it to 4Ghz and it's ranking a 7.7 out of 7.9! If I overclock it a litte more I could probably max it.
The speed is amazing and this chip spreads the work out so well it's usually at 0% in my performance monitor. I've actually never seen it go above 25% honestly lol. It runs all the CPU intensive games smoothly [if you have a good graphics card]. This chip is for X58 boards and can use X.M.P compatible memory and triple channel memory. Of course it can do DIMM memory as well.
This chip can EASILY be overclocked to 4Ghz by rookie overclockers. Anything higher than 4.0Ghz-4.2Ghz can get tricky. 4Ghz with 8 logical cores [4 core+ 4 HT] will be more than enough for the years to come with a good set up. I give this chip 5 stars for it's greatness and speed.
Another thing you might want to know about this chip is that it is a 45nm chip and can take more overclocking heat than Intels newer chips which are 32nm chips, which are more susceptible damage from heat/higher Vcore/CPU voltage values. So this chip is defintely a great buy for long term use.
This is an excellent CPU just as the other reviewers mention. I just want to mention that it DOES come with a fan/heatsink (Intel calls it a "Thermal Solution". They really do!).
Anyway, I could not find any mention of this in the description or review so I thought I would save somebody money. I bought an extra fan and did not need it.
Installed on asus rampage3 gene oc'd to 4.2 and installed 12gb ram. Multitasks like crazy. No problems at all and running air cooled system. Get the 6 core extreme if you can afford it if your as power hungry as I am.
The processor is very good in performance almost always walks around 6% of maximum use Internet browsing and chatting on msn, I felt good investment and buy it on offer, the only thing that I really like is the high handles this micro temperature which shows minimum 40 ° making basic things and more than 55 ° - 60 ° in short sessions of play. I rely on this as I can do compared to my previous architecture which was an intel Q6600 which remained much cooler both in idle state (34 °) as playing or demanding applications (max 50 °) really thought that this I7 could be cooler but it's only a matter of put a giant cooler (thermaltake, cooler master or any other) the problem is that the new refrigerators are very heavy and I'm afraid I bent or split the motherboard.
I chose this over the 2nd gen i7-2600K because it was cheaper and had great reviews, and the corresponding MoBo's were cheaper and more reliable according to reviews. I'm glad I did, because this processor is more of a speed demon than I expected, and I'm glad I didn't spend another $50 for what I would expect to be marginal improvements. I've never seen the processor go above 30% and that was when I was trying to max this thing out. My MoBo monitoring software reads the processor at 3.4 Ghz out of the box and Windows Experience Index gives it a 7.6.
Very strong processor and you'll save over the newer models on both the processor and corresponding MoBo's. - Core I7 - Processor - Computer - Intel'
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