Slowhands opened this issue on Jan 09, 2009 · 31 posts
svdl posted Mon, 12 January 2009 at 1:37 AM
Here is the breakdown in Euros and dollars (approcs);
CPU: i7 920 (2.66 Ghz) : € 270 ($ 400) Seems to be a reasonable price/performance ratio.
Q6600 or Q8200: € 180 ($ 270)
You save $90
Mainboard: cheapest Socket 1366 mainboard I saw was € 220 ($330)
Good 775 mainboard: € 85 ($125)
You save $200
Memory: 6 GB DDR3 Tri -kit : € 140)
8 GB DDR2 kit: also € 140.
It's around $300 indeed that you can save, especially on the mainboard.
Depending on the kind of rendering you do, those extra 2 GB of RAM in the DDR2 setup may more than compensate for the faster CPU speed of the i7 system. I know that my own work profits more from RAM than from CPU.
Bear in mind that it's not only the CPU that affects computer performance. Nowadays, the main bottlenecks are disk drives and network cards.
The pen is mightier than the sword. But if you literally want to have some impact, use a typewriter