[din]

Dell is offereing to replace my xps 8300 with the i7-2600 processor because of the intell chip issue. They are offering a studio xps 9100 equipped with an i7-960 processor. This replacement unit also comes with a radeon 5870 gpu to replace my current radeon 5770 card.

Can anyone help me understand the difference in a simple way between these two processors and cards.

My primary use is video editing of a rambunctious 2-year old for the grandparents. Needless to say, gaming is no longer a priority.

Thanks in advance.

 

[EnderWiggin]

The differences are sometimes as simple as performance and age of the components. The i7-2600 based system is a newer CPU and MB design and probably more expensive than the i7-960 series. Below is a side-by-side benchmark comparison of the two CPUs from Tom's Hardware. As you can see, the i7-2600 CPU clearly outperforms the i7-960 on all tasks especially video encoding. I suggest that you wait for the XPS 8300 (i7-2600) if you can.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/...compare,2417.html?prod[4786]=on&prod[4474]=on

 

[hugh]

While the i7-2600 is superior when QuickSync is enabled, those transcoding scores may not be applicable when a discrete GPU is used. the i7 960 is a powerful beast and until recently would be loved by all.

Also the Radeon 5870 is significantly superior to the 5770 so that is a big step up on the graphics side.

Tough decision.