CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme 1030

ziggy53

I'm thinking a bit about an upgrade to a CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme 1030, with an Intel Core i5 750(2.66GHz) processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 7200RPM HDD, NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT (PCI Express 2.0 x16), Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

$760 at NewEgg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229130

Gamers say that it comes with software and guide for overclocking and they report that 3.6 Ghz is possible in the current configuration. (Longer durations require new cooler and CPU fan to be safe however.) The video card is weak but probably fine for the applications I will throw at it. (Mostly 2-D graphics apps. Not games.)

The mother board will apparently accept an i7 and 16 Gigs RAM for future upgrade.

Coming from a Pentium 4, 3.2 Ghz with 2GB RAM and XP, I hope it would be a significant upgrade.

Richard

ziggy53 wrote:

Coming from a Pentium 4, 3.2 Ghz with 2GB RAM and XP, I hope it would be a significant upgrade.

jeffreaux2

Ziggy,

You should try to verify which Core i5 CPU is being used here.

Make sure it is the "Lynnfield" as this is a true 4 core.

From what I understand, this Lynnfield is basically a Core i7 with Hyperthreading (for 8 proseccing threads) disabled. Some variants of the Core i5 are only dual core.

The core i7 motherboards are a socket 1366 configuration while the core i5 is socket 1156. I wasn't aware that they were interchangeable...but on the other hand I havent kept tabs on the i3 or i5 releases.

Eclipsed

The Core i5 "Lynnfield" is a superb processor and will be a great upgrade. Honestly, you won't even need to overclock it to get huge performance gains. Be aware that overheating is never fun and unless you have more that stock cooling 3.6 ghz is cutting it a little high for an i5 to be safe. It is better that the parts last longer than crank the most out of them at the beginning.

Eclipsed

jeffreaux2 wrote:

The core i7 motherboards are a socket 1366 configuration while the core i5 is socket 1156. I wasn't aware that they were interchangeable...but on the other hand I havent kept tabs on the i3 or i5 releases.

Ahh... But they are not interchangeable. There is only one that is and that is the i7 "Lynnfield" which is 1156. All the rest are "Bloomfields" and are 1366.

ziggy53

Apparently the Intel i5 - 750 is indeed a "Lynnfield" (45 nm), 4 core, 8MB L3 cache.

ziggy53

According to the following link it looks like the i5 - 750 should do very well indeed:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634

Eclipsed

You should be very happy with it.

angevin1

ziggy53 wrote:

According to the following link it looks like the i5 - 750 should do very well indeed:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634

Ziggy, I just bought a i5 laptop about a Month or so ago...it runs LR2 healing brush with little fanfair. The upgrade oughta knock yer socks off!

cheers,

ziggy53

Thanks to enlightenment from our "Eclipsed" in this thread, http://dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=163711, I'll be purchasing the CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme 1030.

Thanks to everyone for their encouragement and insight.

Eclipsed

Out of curiosity, which plugin is it?

ziggy53

Eclipsed wrote:

Out of curiosity, which plugin is it?

iCorrect Portrait

It saves me tons of time color balancing flesh tones. It also speeds up consistent tones between multiple images in general. I explored and tried lots of alternatives before settling on this plugin and it works nicely for how I need to use it.

PictoColor has said they are working on a 64 bit version but it's not available yet.

Eclipsed

I tried the plugin and it works fine.

ziggy53

Eclipsed wrote:

I tried the plugin and it works fine.

Thanks for testing. I ordered the computer last night.

ziggy53

Got the new machine. This is not a machine "for the masses" in that startup was not flawless. You have to open every package in order to find everything, much as you do from some other computer "customizers".

The motherboard BIOS settings were not correct for the HD controller and type of hard drive. The machine started slowly and was sluggish. When I tried the motherboard recommendations Windows would no longer load and run. I finally came upon a suitable setting (don't ask me what because I'm not really sure) that seems both stable and fast.

The keyboard and mouse are functional and serviceable but not at all suited for serious work or gaming. They are standard USB and I plan on replacing them soon.

The case is very nice but I'm not picky. It has 4 thumbscrews for tool-less maintenance. The side has a transparent "port" and there is a soft blue glow inside the computer case (does not do anything for me.) Case dimensions are roomy without being like a monster case.

I can't find my Photoshop CS4 upgrade disk right now so I can't test that yet but I'll run the machine in for a couple of days before any serious work anyway.

After a run in period I'll try to play with the overclocking and see what this thing will do.

RAM tested fine so far. (Supposedly Corsair, I'll check later.)

The motherboard documentation confirms Intel i7 LGA 1156 compatibility, so both the i7-860 and i7-870 should work for upgrading.

Eclipsed

Great You liking it more than your previous setup?

ziggy53

I've been dealing with some out-of-town family health stuff so I haven't shaken the machine down too much but I did stress the processor with Prime 95 for about an hour and everything held together nicely.

I was able to play some 1080p video from a Canon 5D MKII without a problem, and I converted the video with MediaCoder/FFmpeg to an HQ 1080p XvD with smoothing filter and gamma filter, 3 pass, at near-real-time for each pass, that also looks and plays nicely.

I found the Photoshop CS4 upgrade installation disk, but I'll probably wait around a week before I remove the software from the old machine and transfer the installation to the new machine.

AVG is working nicely on the new machine as is Google Chrome, RAW Therapee, Picassa 3, IrfanView and Faststone Image Viewer, although some are running in a compatibility mode. RAW Therapee is extremely fast now and much more usable than on the old machine. Nearly instantaneous for all operations.

A thermal monitor shows that the cores are running at their rated temperatures when fully stressed so a better heat sink and fan will be required for overclocking to avoid overheating.

ziggy53

Simple benchmark comparing old machine (left, Pentium 4) to new machine (right, i5):



The hard drive measurements above do not seem accurate to my usage. Running a Canopus DVRaptor hard drive test I get:

Old machine:
Read transfer, 36MB/S
Write, 27MB/S

New machine:
Read transfer, 105MB/S
Write, 99MB/S

... which seems more in tune with what I see in real life transfers.

ziggy53

Retouch Pro benchmarks posted:

http://dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=1369530&postcount=196