what is the best/fastest consumer CPU out right now?

i7 Core something?

InteLarrabee <> wrote:
> i7 Core something?

Fastest (non-overclocked) is either the i7-980X (for most-things) or the
i5-680 (for single-threaded tasks):
http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=48504,47932,

....although for single-threaded tasks, any of the processors which
will turbo to 3.6ghz will perform as well as the i7-980X.

"Best" is a somewhat subjective term, and also depends on if you o/c; not
being a serious OC person, I don't keep track of which chips have the most
headroom for overclocking; with some of the promotional pricing ($199) the
i7-920 or i7-860 or ($329 with motherboard at some Fry's locations) i7-930
are all very hard to resist.

Unless you expect to need the memory bandwidth, expect to need over 8MB of
memory, or are planning to keep the same board for a later upgrade to 6/8
cores, I think the 860 is probably the single best "sweet spot" chip right
now for enthusaiasts, but mileages and workloads vary highly.

At regular ($280-$300) pricing for the 920/860, the AMD Phenon II x6 1090T
(about the same price) starts looking very attractive for those who need the
extra cores. For many people who don't need even 4 cores, the
dual-core/quad-thread i5-660/661 look almost unbeatable at $199 except when
promotional pricing pushes the quad-cores down to comparable pricing.


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