Ed Oscuro wrote:People told me the same thing when I traded up to the i7. "The e6600 is still a beast, you can overclock it and go to a e8500 in the meantime"
Maybe so, but it's often much better to just move entirely over to a new ecosystem - which with modern component prices isn't all that painful actually. Intel and its board partners are doing a much better job targeting the mid-range than at the i7 launch, where the marketing made it seem that you had to pay $300+ (whatever it was) just go get your foot in the door. i7 920 is a dog compared to any $150 or less CPU in even the i5 and i3 ranges, and probably you can get a board for that price too; the high-end parts are really only necessary for people whose competitiveness and productivity is limited by their computing power, and who have to over-provision computing power on a rapid basis (or perhaps if upgrade costs can only rarely be overcome).
For a modern upgrade (i.e., if you have SATA hard discs and a PCI-E graphics card, if that is necessary), the only things you should need to change are for preventing failures from years of use - outside of the motherboard and a CPU. And, additionally, you get computing power along with efficiency and longer-term support, if you have to rely on the same computer to keep you happy for years at a time - overclocking won't get you efficiency or reliability. Adoption of new technologies tends to be much more bug-free once you've gotten them in a mature platform, rather than in some bunged-together collection of specialist chips (hello USB3!)
I've been building a 'beast' 3570k for the past 2 1/2 years out of buying amazing parts new but on special, the last piece I need is a power supply, but I'm waiting for Christmas deals. Somehow, the power supplies now cost an arm and a leg. My brother delided the chip for better temperatures. I'm going to be limited anyway with the advent of DDR4 ram, might as well overclock the chip. I don't have the money to invest in a new computer now.
The i7 975k can be used as a dedicated streaming device for the predicted future.
In regards to the testing of the P6T deluxe and i7 920, it appears to be running the card without 100% CPU.
The 4890 is great for streaming, and I overclock it to 1300mhz no problem.