intel tax...

[plonk420]

so i had one of those moments (or 30) of hardware daydreaming after seeing this pic:



and wondered at the price of doing that with i7s... and here is what i came up with:

(price: price @ 24)

mobo msi x58m:            170: 4080
cpu i7-920                280: 6720
crucial 3x1gb ddr3         46: 1104
pc power & cooling 420     50: 1200
sparkle 7200gs          23.50:  564 freeship
recert: 40gb ide hdd       20:  480
-------
$14,148

now, considering you don't OC, <controversial question>would you consider 32 phenom ii 945s similar (or greater) in performance compared to 24 i7s?</question> if yes, here's what i found:

(price : price @ 32)
mobo biostar 760g openbox   47: 2144
cpu phenom ii 945 95watt   170: 5440 freeship
2x2gb ddr2                  46: 1472
pcp&c 370:                  40: 1280
recert: 40gb ide hdd        20:  640
----
$10,976

note: i chose 3/4gb because of projects like BURP, who seem to have an upcoming project that wants 750mb/core, it seems. and there's that other one that's 2gb/core. otoh, enigma@home uses like 850K/core

also, it seems ram prices have started to go up... very few tasty rebates, anymore.

if you went with an Elitegroup 8100 ($53 pre $18 rebate) for a new mobo, just add $192. still $4,000 less.

i guess that's the price you pay for intel... (and fewer computer cases)

as for i7 vs phenom ii, i'm curious as to overall non-OC'd DCing performance... it absolutely wipes phenom ii at x264 video encoding: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?b=28 (note: pass 1 is nearly irrelevant as recent x264 builds do it many, many times faster than pass 2)

...however, other than that and 3d rendering, it seems to be all that the i7 is particularly good at... (oh, and boring server crap)

also i wasn't sure as to how much power the i7 might use. you could drop $240 off the i7 price if you went with the same PCP&C as the phenom (and as long as the i7 will even take a 4-pin connection on the 8-pin additional power connection)