I'm ordering a new computer and it comes an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor. Now to some this may seem like a stupid question but I haven't been paying attention to new hardware lately and this is the first I've heard of it so.
Is an extreme processor better or worse than a core 2 quad?
Twilight_guy: From what I've seen it is supposed to be better, but the ones I have seen are ridiculous expensive, so I haven't looked into it.
Well the price isn't that bad I'm getting an AlienWare computer and this one comes with an Extreme for $1349 but all the ones with Quads are up around $1600-$1900.
I know AlienWare is kinda expensive but there are some awesome features with their cases, ie. they look fucking awesome and the tool-free thing they've got is going to make upgrades so much easier.
Khadath: I know AlienWare is kinda expensive but there are some awesome features with their cases, ie. they look fucking awesome and the tool-free thing they've got is going to make upgrades so much easier.
Not wishing to want to rain on the parade, but a Core 2 Duo Extreme from what i remember only comes in the X6800, which is 2.93ghz with 4mb of cache.
Haven't looked up the price, as i like my kidneys but an E8400 in the UK is about £120 and it's 3.0ghz and 6mb of cache.
Usefulness for Quads in games at the moment is... interesting, unless you have Tri or Quad SLI it's pretty much wasted. Or do rather a lot of video processing or something else CPU intensive.
Get a Lian-Li or Silverstone case, something like that... great cases and lets face it, those Alienware ones do look like crap and are nothing but a gimmick.
If I bought a stock Ferrari, it'd be fast and it'd be a FERRARI. But if I bought the shell of a crapmobile, then rebuilt it myself with premium third party guts, well, it might not look as good, and people may never have heard of it, but when it DICKS on their FERRARI, they'll REMEMBER it. A case is just a face, it's what's inside that counts. :)
Please, for the love of whatever deity you believe in, do not buy an Alienware computer. For that matter, do not buy a Core 2 Extreme.
The Core 2 Extreme is heavily overpriced, with an overclocked Q6600 soon overtaking it in terms of performance for a far lower price, and an overclocked Q9550 making it look like the worst choice in the world.
If you just have to have the most powerful processor around, get a Core i7 920 and overclock the shit out of it. Even from a base level, the i7 920 makes the previous Core 2 processors look weak, so when sufficiently overclocked, it kicks the crap out of a Core 2 Extreme. Of course, there's no point buying a Core i7 unless you're going to go with an NVIDIA GTX 280 or ATI Radeon 4870X2 to go with it, but I suppose if you're already considering a Core 2 Extreme, that those graphics cards would have already been considered.
Now, back to Alienware. Their computers aren't just kind of expensive - they're overpriced to an insane degree. How about a comparison between two equivalent builds?
Alienware Computer:
ALX X58: Intel Core i7-940 Processor Alienware® P2 ALX Chassis Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply Single 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 280 6GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 3 x 2048MB Alienware® Approved Intel® X-58 Motherboard Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1 2TB (2 x 1TB) SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 2 x 32MB Cache 20X Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW) w/ LightScribe Dual High Performance Gigabit Ethernet Ports Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer High Definition 7.1 Audio 22" Samsung 2253BW - 1680 x 1050 (2ms) Widescreen Flat Panel Logitech® Z-5500 5.1 505-Watt Speakers Logitech® G15 Keyboard Logitech® G9 Laser Mouse Alienware® 28-in-1 Media Card Reader with Bluetooth
Price: $5,397.00 (ex. shipping & handling)
Home-Build - from Komplett IE:
Intel DX58SO, X58, Socket-1366 Intel Core™ i7 Quad Processor i7-940 Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W, Modular Thermaltake Armor Black, Aluminium Front EVGA GeForce GTX 280 1GB PhysX CUDA Corsair TWIN3X 1600MHz DDR3, 6GB, DHX+ Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit WD Caviar® Black 1TB 3,5", SATA NEC DVD±RW burner AD-7201S, SATA, Black NETGEAR PCI Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Creative SB X-FI Xtreme Gamer Samsung 22" Wide Syncmaster 2243BW Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard Logitech G9 Laser Mouse, USB Belkin SurgeMaster Maximum, 8-Way, 2m Logitech Z-5500 5.1 THX, DTS
Price: €3,097.98 (ex. shipping and handling)
Converting the euro price directly into dollars, to take account of the so-called "European tax", we come up with a price differential of:
$2,299.02.
There is absolutely no way that the warranty and customisation of an Alienware system will ever be worth a price differential of over $2,000 over a home-built system. Note as well that for the Core i7 home-built system, I deliberately used parts that I'd never consider in my own builds, like the Logitech G15, which I consider to be an overpriced piece of elaborate nonsense (and it's rare for me to think that about a Logitech product, but it's going to be the Unicomp Model M keyboard for me), a 1200W power supply (that build shouldn't need more than a 750W power supply), and most prominently, the more expensive i7-940 processor, which has a puny 170MHz clock increase on the i7-920.
Indeed, my own prospective Core i7 build, without peripherals and software, would cost only slightly over €1,500. I'm waiting for that price to drop as well, because there really isn't a game out there other than Crysis which requires a €1,500 computer right now.
But whatever way you look at it, you're getting royally ripped off buying an Alienware system. I would beseech you to build it yourself. Please. If a gesture of begging could be accurately portrayed using ASCII text, you can imagine that I'd be doing it right now. Alienware sells overpriced (and difficult to upgrade - thanks for noting that, Aries) junk, and you'll be so much better off with a computer you built yourself.
Twilight_guy: From what I've seen it is supposed to be better, but the ones I have seen are ridiculous expensive, so I haven't looked into it.
Well the price isn't that bad I'm getting an AlienWare computer and this one comes with an Extreme for $1349 but all the ones with Quads are up around $1600-$1900.
RAKtheUndead: Please, for the love of whatever deity you believe in, do not buy an Alienware computer. For that matter, do not buy a Core 2 Extreme.
The Core 2 Extreme is heavily overpriced, with an overclocked Q6600 soon overtaking it in terms of performance for a far lower price, and an overclocked Q9550 making it look like the worst choice in the world.
If you just have to have the most powerful processor around, get a Core i7 920 and overclock the shit out of it. Even from a base level, the i7 920 makes the previous Core 2 processors look weak, so when sufficiently overclocked, it kicks the crap out of a Core 2 Extreme. Of course, there's no point buying a Core i7 unless you're going to go with an NVIDIA GTX 280 or ATI Radeon 4870X2 to go with it, but I suppose if you're already considering a Core 2 Extreme, that those graphics cards would have already been considered.
Now, back to Alienware. Their computers aren't just kind of expensive - they're overpriced to an insane degree. How about a comparison between two equivalent builds?
Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply Single 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 280 6GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 3 x 2048MB Alienware® Approved Intel® X-58 Motherboard Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1 2TB (2 x 1TB) SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 2 x 32MB Cache 20X Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW) w/ LightScribe Dual High Performance Gigabit Ethernet Ports Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer High Definition 7.1 Audio 22" Samsung 2253BW - 1680 x 1050 (2ms) Widescreen Flat Panel Logitech® Z-5500 5.1 505-Watt Speakers Logitech® G15 Keyboard Logitech® G9 Laser Mouse Alienware® 28-in-1 Media Card Reader with Bluetooth
Price: $5,397.00 (ex. shipping & handling)
Home-Build - from Komplett IE:
Intel DX58SO, X58, Socket-1366 Intel Core™ i7 Quad Processor i7-940 Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W, Modular Thermaltake Armor Black, Aluminium Front EVGA GeForce GTX 280 1GB PhysX CUDA Corsair TWIN3X 1600MHz DDR3, 6GB, DHX+ Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit WD Caviar® Black 1TB 3,5", SATA NEC DVD±RW burner AD-7201S, SATA, Black NETGEAR PCI Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Creative SB X-FI Xtreme Gamer Samsung 22" Wide Syncmaster 2243BW Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard Logitech G9 Laser Mouse, USB Belkin SurgeMaster Maximum, 8-Way, 2m Logitech Z-5500 5.1 THX, DTS
Price: €3,097.98 (ex. shipping and handling)
Converting the euro price directly into dollars, to take account of the so-called "European tax", we come up with a price differential of:
$2,299.02.
There is absolutely no way that the warranty and customisation of an Alienware system will ever be worth a price differential of over $2,000 over a home-built system. Note as well that for the Core i7 home-built system, I deliberately used parts that I'd never consider in my own builds, like the Logitech G15, which I consider to be an overpriced piece of elaborate nonsense (and it's rare for me to think that about a Logitech product, but it's going to be the Unicomp Model M keyboard for me), a 1200W power supply (that build shouldn't need more than a 750W power supply), and most prominently, the more expensive i7-940 processor, which has a puny 170MHz clock increase on the i7-920.
Indeed, my own prospective Core i7 build, without peripherals and software, would cost only slightly over €1,500. I'm waiting for that price to drop as well, because there really isn't a game out there other than Crysis which requires a €1,500 computer right now.
But whatever way you look at it, you're getting royally ripped off buying an Alienware system. I would beseech you to build it yourself. Please. If a gesture of begging could be accurately portrayed using ASCII text, you can imagine that I'd be doing it right now. Alienware sells overpriced (and difficult to upgrade - thanks for noting that, Aries) junk, and you'll be so much better off with a computer you built yourself.
You must be getting screwed on exchange rates. the one I'm planing on getting(Area 51790i Quad Core Flagship) comes to near $2,100 AU with the before mentioned Radon 4870X2 and I can get a Core i7 920 for $475 AU from a place called MSY.
I convert you're 1500Eu to $2,950AU I've still got 400 spare.
But over all because you mentioned overclocking the i7 witch I'm not a fan of especially on 40degree celsius days with no aircon, would it be better than an extreme with out the overclocking?
RAKtheUndead: Please, for the love of whatever deity you believe in, do not buy an Alienware computer. For that matter, do not buy a Core 2 Extreme.
The Core 2 Extreme is heavily overpriced, with an overclocked Q6600 soon overtaking it in terms of performance for a far lower price, and an overclocked Q9550 making it look like the worst choice in the world.
If you just have to have the most powerful processor around, get a Core i7 920 and overclock the shit out of it. Even from a base level, the i7 920 makes the previous Core 2 processors look weak, so when sufficiently overclocked, it kicks the crap out of a Core 2 Extreme. Of course, there's no point buying a Core i7 unless you're going to go with an NVIDIA GTX 280 or ATI Radeon 4870X2 to go with it, but I suppose if you're already considering a Core 2 Extreme, that those graphics cards would have already been considered.
Now, back to Alienware. Their computers aren't just kind of expensive - they're overpriced to an insane degree. How about a comparison between two equivalent builds?
Alienware® 1200 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply Single 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 280 6GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 3 x 2048MB Alienware® Approved Intel® X-58 Motherboard Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1 2TB (2 x 1TB) SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 2 x 32MB Cache 20X Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW) w/ LightScribe Dual High Performance Gigabit Ethernet Ports Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer High Definition 7.1 Audio 22" Samsung 2253BW - 1680 x 1050 (2ms) Widescreen Flat Panel Logitech® Z-5500 5.1 505-Watt Speakers Logitech® G15 Keyboard Logitech® G9 Laser Mouse Alienware® 28-in-1 Media Card Reader with Bluetooth
Price: $5,397.00 (ex. shipping & handling)
Home-Build - from Komplett IE:
Intel DX58SO, X58, Socket-1366 Intel Core™ i7 Quad Processor i7-940 Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W, Modular Thermaltake Armor Black, Aluminium Front EVGA GeForce GTX 280 1GB PhysX CUDA Corsair TWIN3X 1600MHz DDR3, 6GB, DHX+ Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit WD Caviar® Black 1TB 3,5", SATA NEC DVD±RW burner AD-7201S, SATA, Black NETGEAR PCI Gigabit Ethernet Adapter Creative SB X-FI Xtreme Gamer Samsung 22" Wide Syncmaster 2243BW Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard Logitech G9 Laser Mouse, USB Belkin SurgeMaster Maximum, 8-Way, 2m Logitech Z-5500 5.1 THX, DTS
Price: €3,097.98 (ex. shipping and handling)
Converting the euro price directly into dollars, to take account of the so-called "European tax", we come up with a price differential of:
$2,299.02.
There is absolutely no way that the warranty and customisation of an Alienware system will ever be worth a price differential of over $2,000 over a home-built system. Note as well that for the Core i7 home-built system, I deliberately used parts that I'd never consider in my own builds, like the Logitech G15, which I consider to be an overpriced piece of elaborate nonsense (and it's rare for me to think that about a Logitech product, but it's going to be the Unicomp Model M keyboard for me), a 1200W power supply (that build shouldn't need more than a 750W power supply), and most prominently, the more expensive i7-940 processor, which has a puny 170MHz clock increase on the i7-920.
Indeed, my own prospective Core i7 build, without peripherals and software, would cost only slightly over €1,500. I'm waiting for that price to drop as well, because there really isn't a game out there other than Crysis which requires a €1,500 computer right now.
But whatever way you look at it, you're getting royally ripped off buying an Alienware system. I would beseech you to build it yourself. Please. If a gesture of begging could be accurately portrayed using ASCII text, you can imagine that I'd be doing it right now. Alienware sells overpriced (and difficult to upgrade - thanks for noting that, Aries) junk, and you'll be so much better off with a computer you built yourself.
You must be getting screwed on exchange rates. the one I'm planing on getting(Area 51790i Quad Core Flagship) comes to near $2,100 AU with the before mentioned Radon 4870X2 and I can get a Core i7 920 for $475 AU from a place called MSY.
I convert you're 1500Eu to $2,950AU I've still got 400 spare.
But over all because you mentioned overclocking the i7 witch I'm not a fan of especially on 40degree celsius days with no aircon, would it be better than an extreme with out the overclocking?
The Core i7-920 would at least run the QX9770 very close, if not beating it, according to the synthetic benchmarks I've read, and at a far lower clock frequency (meaning less power consumption). Considering that the best price I can find for a Core 2 Extreme QX9770 on its own, from Komplett is over €1,250, and the Core i7-920 costs only €282, not even the extra expense of an LGA 1366 motherboard and DDR3 RAM would make the QX9770 a more attractive prospect.
As for overclocking, it's not that difficult at all, and you'd only need to bring it up to 3.0GHz before you have something which wallops that old Core 2 conclusively, as well as saving you a massive amount of money on the Core i7-965. As I said, I could build something for less than €2,000 which would leave your Alienware system trailing in the dust.
Lets not even get into the devaluation aspect, my friend owns a Dell XPS. He bought it for around £2000, without peripherals. I'd just finished uni, and spent £500 with a Core2Duo E4300, 2gb RAM and an 8800GTS. It was faster than his one year old machine, by considerable margins. He just upgraded to a GT280, but i fear he is being bottlenecked by his CPU now.
Essentially speaking, my computer costs significantly less. It's come to about £1200 over the 4 years, whereas his is around £2500 and he's due a full upgrade in less than a year, and i've got at 2 years on this one yet.
Just reading this thread makes me want to stab something; please, if you actually enjoy computer gaming, you should learn how easy it is to build a gaming computer.
Eggo: Just reading this thread makes me want to stab something; please, if you actually enjoy computer gaming, you should learn how easy it is to build a gaming computer.
I know how to build a computer, just the one I designed would cost $1300AUD(without operating system) but the AlienWare one is a few hundred more and is better besides I can always update it. I just hadn't heard of an i7 or extreme processor and now I know I'm probably going to stick with the extreme for a while. Thank you RAKtheUNDEAD for you're help.
Now what is everyone's problem with AlienWare? They cost a bit more but I think it's worth it, liquid cooling and a kick-arse case, I would like to have a computer that didn't look like every other piece of shit in my room.
Liquid cooling really is useless unless you're going to overclock the shit out of your machine. But seriously? liquid cooling? NEXT TO ELECTRONICS!?
not in my computer. If you know how to build a computer, and you're going to buy an alienware PC(of junk) just because it has a pretty case. Then, sir, your priorities are in the wrong place.
Khadath: Now what is everyone's problem with AlienWare? They cost a bit more but I think it's worth it, liquid cooling and a kick-arse case, I would like to have a computer that didn't look like every other piece of shit in my room.
A bit more expensive? I could buy a whole Core i7 system, complete with NVIDIA GTX 280, with the price differential between the ALX X58 that I configured and a home-build with the same sort of performance and parts. Liquid cooling is overrated as well, particularly if you're scared of overclocking like you appear to be, and most good ATX cases (many of which will look better than the Alienware cases!) will have enough air-cooling already to make liquid cooling look like the unnecessary expense it is.
The Core 2 Extreme, by the way, has a few major demerits versus even the base-level Core i7-920 that I haven't mentioned yet. Most of the motherboards are incompatible with DDR3 memory, and what is more, you won't even be able to upgrade the computer the way you want to, because Intel's moving over to the LGA 1366 X58 chipset, leaving the old LGA 775 chipsets (which are what Core 2 runs on) behind them. If you want an upgradeable computer, the Core 2 Extreme is not the way to go.
Liquid cooling really is useless unless you're going to overclock the shit out of your machine. But seriously? liquid cooling? NEXT TO ELECTRONICS!?
You do know that most decent liquid cooling loops use a non conductive fluid???
Now what is everyone's problem with AlienWare?
Generally overpriced for what you are getting, I also hate the cases a lot of people think they look nice but really they just look tacky.
Thank you for something constructive.
Now I know many of you live in Europe or the US but I'm living in Australia at the moment, that's right the land of no R18+ rating for games, internet restrictions, unfair exchange rates and fucking hot weather that makes liquid cooling worth it if you don't have air-conditioning like me.
Now when I say a bit more expensive I mean $500 but comes with a better case with liquid cooling, an operating system, bigger and better hard drive, better graphics card and DDR3 RAM where as I was just getting a lot of DDR2.
Khadath: Now when I say a bit more expensive I mean $500 but comes with a better case with liquid cooling, an operating system, bigger and better hard drive, better graphics card and DDR3 RAM where as I was just getting a lot of DDR2.
But you've ironically locked yourself out of being able to upgrade your computer easily, with a processor which is becoming obsolete at the high-end and a chipset which isn't going to be supported any more.
By the way, installing operating systems is usually a piece of piss (although installing Windows is almost never a clean process for me), and having the disc there is very useful in the case of any problems.
If your in Australia go to this website http://www.gamedude.com.au/ and custom build a pc. you'll get it for way less than the alienware one. Ive been using them for years and can't fault their service.
Now I know many of you live in Europe or the US but I'm living in Australia at the moment
To be honest even if you can't be bothered to do a self build, chances are you will still be able to get a cheaper pre built from someone other than Del.. sorry, Alienware.
Now I know many of you live in Europe or the US but I'm living in Australia at the moment
To be honest even if you can't be bothered to do a self build, chances are you will still be able to get a cheaper pre built from someone other than Del.. sorry, Alienware.
Alienware is the child of Dell now. Or were you hinting at that?
I'm ordering a new computer and it comes an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor.
Now to some this may seem like a stupid question but I haven't been paying attention to new hardware lately and this is the first I've heard of it so.
Is an extreme processor better or worse than a core 2 quad?