Intel's First Core i7...Is it Obsolete?

Hello everyone and welcome to another Budget Builds Video where today we're taking a look at Intel's Original Core i7, and finding out after 15 years is it finally obsolete, so join me today as we pit one of the early core i7's up against the modern world, look into its performance, and not just that but the value it possesses for both the modern world, and that of the past.

Intro - 0:00
What did I buy/pricing - 0:30
What is the Core i7? - 1:14
Architectures and Improvements - 2:04
What was it like back in 2008 - 3:12
The 2015/2016 Budget Resurgence - 4:14
Where are we today? - 5:22
The Specs - 6:05
Platform issues in 2024 - 7:05
Its smooth as anything to use - 8:11
The Benchmarks! - 9:13
Benchmark Summary - 20:51
General Usage, Temps, Power Consumption...and a little rant - 21:47
The Retro World - 23:30
Windows Vista Time - 25:10
Some Retro Benchmarks! - 26:34
Conclusion 28:00

Music
SC OST

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Specs:
CPU: Intel Core i7 860
GPU: Radeon R9 285 OC (and HD5850)
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600Mhz
OS: Windows 10, Vista, XP

[polaxis]

i7 860 still in daily use with a GTX 1650, maxed out RAM and SSD. Perfectly fine for Office, Youtube or login in remotely to work. And that with a 15 year old cpu. Now go back another 15 years and you are still in 486 country. Amazing the progress back then and on contrary: amazing how a 15 year old CPU is still so usable.

[Kennephone]

When this CPU was released in 2009, a 15 year old cpu would have been from 1994, which would be dx2/4 or a p75 or something, which could barely run windows 98 from 5 years later, but now a 15 year old processor can run the latest version of windows perfectly fine and only really struggles when you use heavy programs and the latest aaa games.

[foofighter]

Maybe the real i7s were the friends we made along the way

[iamsoldats]

A wild modern AAA game appears.
Modern AAA game uses AVX instruction set.
It's super effective.
i7-860 faints.

[dangingerich]

1. The Core i7 920, 940, and 965 came out almost a year before the 800 series came out, in November 2008.
2. The Nehalem architecture was far more than just a core 2 quad with modernizations. It was the first Intel chip to get the integrated memory controller. It got hyperthreading. It was the first to get QPI. It got SSE 4.2. It was a ground up redesign over the Core 2 Quad. Overall, it got a 20% IPC boost over the Penryn cores of the Core 2 series, with lower power consumption, despite being on the same 45nm production process.

[piratebear]

My dad bought one of these in an Alienware in 2009, and it’s still my main desktop today. Got it paired with a GTX 1060 and an SSD and it has ran anything I’ve thrown at it, except Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for some reason. Even can capably run VR.

I’ve considered upgrading, but I have a Steam Deck that can run most things well too and the combo gets me by pretty well.

[oggilein]

I know someone who still dailies a system with a 1st gen i7, I recently did some maintenence for them aka clean out the dust and new thermal paste, but the machine itself runs as well as ever

[elctrcl]

"...only thing limiting these processors really is graphic cards..."

You forgot to mention AVX support, which newer games utilize and require.

[bacongl]

I still have an i7920 running at 4ghz to this day on a 360 Corsair AIO and an EVGA X58 Classified board with 12gb of 1866 Corsair Dominator DDR3. It rarely sees 60c. Paired it with a 1660 Super and I use it as my HTPC. Still runs really well. Does everything I need it to. I play Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, Honkai Star Rail and a bunch of retro stuff no problem at 1080p. It doesn't like 4K. I built a whole new rig for that.

[bayuchandrasukma]

Wow, seeing this video is wild.
In Indonesia we still have people selling a 'brand-new' full PC build with this for as low as 150 bucks, and an upwards of 300 BUCKS! Sure, it comes with cool RGB case or 'dedicated GPU for gaming' alongside all the peripherals you need for a computer, but none of them are new and they're just hodgepodge of used parts with only 30days of warranty mostly. Oh and that 'dGPU'? GT 730, yep. Lots of cases where sellers justified the i7 as 'what matter is that its a Core i7!' and making bold claims like its way better than a 13th Gen i3 or something.

[hellbound]

Another fun fact: the "k" tag on the end of processor names didn't start until Sandy bridge. I've heard that all first gen i5s & i7s can be overclocked. Some YouTubers have pushed them far enough that these CPUs can rub elbows with processors that came out generations later.

[jimtekkit]

Many people actually thought the "Core i7" naming scheme was really stupid when it came out (the article even mentions it at 1:22). The numbers were in odd increments so they didn't signify the number of cores (whereas "Core 2" and "Core 2 Quad" kind of did), and the "i" moniker was a dumb marketing trend of the late 2000's that copied Apple products like the iPod, iPhone, iMac, etc. But the Core i7 name spent enough time on flagship products to become highly regarded and everyone eventually forgot it was a stupid name.

[uNpOpuLArOpInION]

This video is actually horrifying in a way. The hardware was always capable, yet people still need to upgrade and throw these out because they dont know how to change out the hdd for a ssd or deinstall bloatware that slows them down. Most of the time they say the problem is because their hardware is "old"

[camjohnson]

The First Core I7 was the i7 960 based on the X58 platform with Triple channel memory, get one of those and test that one

[ohareport]

boy that first round of nehalem reviews were so exciting. even the i7-920 had just bonkers performance and headroom.

i’m still running an i7-990x too! …in a retro rig, but still.

[TheWiseGuyKMan]

I still have my i7-920 system that I got back in 2009. It originally came with Windows Vista and managed to get free upgrades to Windows 7, 10 and 11. I replaced it in 2016 with an i7-6800K system but still use the old one today to play around with from time to time. The replacement computer is still holding up well after 8 years.

[gettoecoding]

only issue with these first gen core series, is that they are missing some instruction sets that are needed to play some of the newer games, for example COD.

[Jiyu]

the shot form 8:10 onwards looks really cozy. You lucky bastard have fun enjoying it

[masteryoffgtrash]

The problem with modern GPU is, that they require UEFI.
Some motherboards got updates, if their UEFI was "not good enough" and newer GPUs started to work on them.
Some GPUs got firmware updates to play nice with older motherboards.
If both did not get an according update, they will not work together.

Besides of that, the Radeon R9 did decrease performance. The architecture and drivers had been so bad,
that some games would create enough drawing calls to oversaturate 1 core and drop performance by 70% .
If I recall correctly the devs of Assetto Corsa 1 detected this issue and asked AMD for help.

To make it a fair test, you would need to use a RX480.
Vega 56 and 64 are out, because they share the same problems the older Radeons have and Navi GPUs
need a "good enough UEFI" too.

[WouterVerbruggen]

These earned me so much money, sold loads from discarded office dells. Nowadays, you can barely sell them at all anymore. Big issue is the lack of instruction sets that even less intensive newer games require. Also the much better performing 2nd gen is getting dirt cheap, and 1156 motherboards are getting a bit scarce