I5 or I7?

kodjo

kodjo

Active member
I use CS3 under XP with a Quad Core 9300. I need a new system. The Quad Core has been discontinued.

I5 does not use hyperthreading. Will I see any performance difference between using I7 over I5?

I was told the I5 will actually outperform the I7 in certain circumstances.

Also, does the chipset matter? I will use an Azus motherboard but I have not picked one yet.

Thank you for the advice.
 
I was wondering the same thing (I'm on a Q6600), but it was pointed out to me the LGA 1366 (I7 only) boards will be able to take advantage of the new 6-cores that are starting to come out in the I7 line. I priced a home brew LG1156 (I5 and I7) and 1366 system, and there was only about a $100-$150 difference. I'd rather spend the little extra knowing that 2 years from now, I can just plop in a new 6-core, than worry that I may have to go through the whole CPU/MB/RAM upgrade I'm having to look at now.

My $.02
 
I think you'll see some performance improvements with the i7s. Especially under a 64 bit OS and a 64 bit app. like CS5. Especially as the OSes and apps take more and more advantage of the hyperthreads.

I put my money where my mouth is; I'm running i7s as of a couple of months ago, win7 and CS4 (the CS5 upgrade just arrived today).
 
Premiere CS5 is not yet available outside North America. So I will stay with XP and CS3 for now. On that level, does I7 and I5 make any difference?
 
I could be wrong, but it is my understanding that the i7 processors use either the LGA1366 socket (Intel's premium socket) or the LGA1156 (Intel's "budget" socket). Obviously, there is a difference in price between mobos and processors that use the different sockets. If you want to use one of the new hexacore processors (either the current Core i7-980X or the successor to the Core i7-970, which is supposed to be out this summer), then you will want to go with a premium LGA 1366 socket mobo, and be certain that the particular board will support hexacore processors. (It should ... but do your homework.) However, keep in mind that hexacore processors are not cheap, and a LGA1366 mobo will require you to buy a minimum of 3 sticks of ram, instead of 2 ... but we all want more ram, don't we?

If money is tight, but you still want blazing performance, you might consider a Core i7-870 on a LGA1156 mobo. The i7-870 clocks in at a standard 2.93 GHz and it will still give you hyper-threaded quad core performance. (And, supposedly it will be replaced this summer by an i7-880 that will clock in at 3.06GHz .. which can probably be pushed into the 3.6 to 3.8 GHz range.) That might be a very cost-effective way to go.

Just last week I finished a new box, primarily to run Premiere Pro CS5. (However, it is dual boot / dual OS and I also run FCP on it.) Anyhow, I went with a Gigabyte LGA1366 socket mobo-w-a Core i7 930 processor, 12 gigs of ram, 4TB's of of internal storage, and a GTX 285. The processor easily over-clocked to a "conservative" 3.85GHz (I could have gotten it well past 4.0GHz, if I wanted.) It runs stable and cool (with the right case and cooling) and it can handle just about anything that I throw at it.

I'm sure in a year or two it will be surpassed, but right now, it rocks.
 
kodjo said:
Premiere CS5 is not yet available outside North America. So I will stay with XP and CS3 for now. On that level, does I7 and I5 make any difference?
Click to expand...

I think you'll find that CS5 is available worldwide. I would highly recomend an i7 over an i5 for Premere, that and a NVIDIA card with CUDA support (there is a list of approved cards on Adobes site). That will pretty much give you rt playback of multiple tracks of all video types with multiple layers of RT.
 
Is CS5 backward compatible with CS3 files?

If I get the CS5 upgrade version, can I use it on more than one machine? Can I keep using CS3 on one machine while working with CS5 on the other if I get the upgrade version?

Thank you.
 
If I get the CS5 upgrade version, can I use it on more than one machine? Can I keep using CS3 on one machine while working with CS5 on the other if I get the upgrade version?

Thank you.
 
kodjo said:
If I get the CS5 upgrade version, can I use it on more than one machine? Can I keep using CS3 on one machine while working with CS5 on the other if I get the upgrade version?

Thank you.
Click to expand...

I believe you allowed to install on two or three machines or something like that at the same time. I have it on both my laptop and desktop and activated with no problems. If you need more, you can always deactivate one machine that's not in use. I don't see why you couldn't use CS3 on one while using CS5 on the other... but I really don't see why you would want to.

You will need to upgrade to a 64 bit OS though... so plan on getting Win7.
 
OK. Now things are getting crazy. You have to see this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aootHB_wR8&feature=player_embedded

Two (2) Xeon X5680's (basically the server version of the Core i7 980X processor ... but the processors talk to each other) in the new EVGA SR-2 mobo ... 24 cores!!!! He has it gently overclocked to a little over 4.0GHz. (He could probably get over 5.0 GHz if he wanted to.)

One guy commented that it would take 100 of his computers to achieve the same CineBench test score!

Edit: I just priced the 2 processors and the mobo .... figure around $4,000.00 just for them.
 
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kodjo said:
If I get the CS5 upgrade version, can I use it on more than one machine? Can I keep using CS3 on one machine while working with CS5 on the other if I get the upgrade version?

Thank you.
Click to expand...

You get two installs with activation, however, according to the licence agreement your not supposed to use them at the same time, that being said, there is nothing that will actually stop you from running it on two machines at the same time. As for the CS3, you can use it, but the files from CS5 are not backwards compatible, ie once you open them in CS5 you will not be able to take them back to CS3.
 
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