Pros: The i7's are the fastest, most efficient commercially available processors in the world right now. There is really no debate on this.

But, don't be fooled. Of the three offerings right now (the 920, the 940, and the 965 Extreme Edition), this is, by far, the best bang for your buck. After purchasing a good aftermarket cooler (Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme), I easily overclocked this processor to a stable 3.8GHz!!

Yes, 3.8GHz--on air cooling! You can real 'Other Thoughts' for details, but this processor has a tremendous amount of headroom. I even got a 4.2GHz stable on a water system from a similar batch chip.

So, don't waste your money on the more expensive 940 or 965 Extreme unless you really want to go above ~4.0Ghz, or need an unlocked multiplier.

This processor will meet your needs without stealing your wallet.

Cons: It failed the razor test.

The processor was slightly uneven on the top, but not enough to justify lapping. I just had to use more Artic Silver than I'm really comfortable with.

This is a common problem with all processors from both manufacturers, so I can't count it against them.

Come on guys. If an enthusiast can level these by a simple lapping procedure, surely you (Intel/AMD), with your state-of-the-art facilities and resources, can develop a process to ensure a nice, smooth finish before it hits my retail box. =/

Those dips cause heat dissipation issues, you know.

Other Thoughts: Here's my setup (for the visual people out there):

*Case - Antec 1200
*MB – Asus P6T Deluxe/Palm OC
*CPU – 3.8GHz Intel Core i7 920 CPU (Batch#3842A555) @190x20 @1.25V w/Ultra120 Extreme running two 120mm "Slipstream" Fans @ ~85CFA -- Max load temps are 51-48-52-49 and idles are 30-29-32-26 after 12 hours of prime
*RAM – Corsair Dominator 12GB (6 x 2GB) DDR3 1066/1333 @ 1520MHz 9-8-8-24T
*VGA – SLI – (2) ASUS GTX295
*PSU – Tagan BZ1100 Modular
*HDD – Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB (System Drive), and 3 Seagate 750GB Storage Drives

*BIOS Settings*

AI overclock – Manual
CPU Ratio Setting – 20
BCLK frequency – 190 (Temps were high 70s @ full load for 200, so I brought it down to 190.)
PCIE frequency – 100
DRAM frequency – DDR3 1523MHz
UCLK frequency – 3047MHz
QPI frequency – 6857MHz

Cpu voltage – 1.25v
CPU PLL voltage – 1.96v
QPI-Dram voltage – 1.35v
DRAM Bus voltage – 1.65v
DRAM REF voltage – Auto
CPU Differential Amplitude - 800mV

*Remaining entries

Pros: My processor overclocked to 3.2GHz by doing absolutely nothing besides turning up BCLK to 160MHz. Never tried the stock heatsink, but with a Noctua NU-12P SE1366 My cores run at 32C idle and 55C in Prime95 at 2.67GHz. Temps when OC'd to 3.2GHz are exactly the same!

By turning Vcore up to 1.30V and BLCK up to 180MHz, 3.6GHz is rock solid, but temps go up to 36C idle and 65C in Prime95.

This is all with the Turbo still enabled, so if you are running a heavy single-threaded app with the BCLK at 180MHz this part self-OC's to 3.8Ghz and runs at about 41C.

It would probably run faster, but I don't feel comfortable running a core beyond 70C and don't want to mess with water cooling or the fans necessary to air-cool.

At 1.30V Vcore and 180MHz BLCK, my machine gets Passmark scores of 2972 for the total system and 8262 for the CPU!

Cons: Going beyond 3.2GHz, the system blue-screens during prime95 if unless you increase Vcore. Beyond 3.6GHz, because of the Vcores required, power consumption goes up really fast and the power-performance ratio really isn't worth it for me.

Price of my tower came to $1500 without a monitor.

Other Thoughts: This was an upgraded on my home PC from an Athlon XP Barton 2800+ (overclocked 2500+) so my exuberance might be out of perspective for some of you. However, my work PC's and laptop are all Dell Core 2 Duo's and are still really sluggish compared to this beast.

System components: Antec 900, GA-EX58-UD5, 6GB GSkill F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 1600DDR3, EVGA GTX 260+, PC Power S75QB 750W power supply, Vista 64 Ultimate, Samsung SH-S223Q DVD, 2xSamsung F1 HD103UJ 1TB in RAID 1. All from Newegg, except my heatsink--Newegg didn't have any real LGA1366 heatsinks :(

Pros: Great overclocker. I'm doing 3.83GHz on air with a Thermalright Ultra Extreme. Awesome performance. Around 6.4K in 3dmark06's CPU test. I could do well over 3.2GHz on stock voltage with the stock cooler. Most of you should be able to as well. 3.6GHz only took 1.28v to hold. 3.83GHz takes 1.35v. Very fast. @ 3.2GHz it blows away my old Q6600 G-0 @ 3.51GHz. O6 CPU scores at the mentioned speeds are 5516 vs 4901 respectively.

It's beastly for multi-media applications.

Cons: None. Buy one.

Other Thoughts: Glad I bought this. I am running it @ 3.83GHz with GTX 260 SLi @ 730 on the core. It's a perfect setup for 1920x gaming with AA. Also, again, if you do a lot of encoding, you'll love it.

If you plan to go Tri-SLi or SLi get on X58 with one of these. The massive bandwidth on said platform benefits them both.

Most people that invest in decent aftermarket air cooling or water cooling should see at least 3.6-3.8GHz with one of these. I've seen them over 4.0GHz on water and better cooling.

Pros: Overclocks to the same level of performance as the $900 version. Stock cooler temps are fine with base clock. I OCed with both the stock cooler and Coolmaster V8. I would recommend the V8 if you are going to OC.

Really not much to say on this, it can multitask like a champ running just about every MS Office Application without any problem while running Chrome and IE in the background.

I even ran Warhammer Online and Alt-Tabbed out to see if it would lag and I never came close to overloading it.

Again, just a dream to have with the EVGA X58 board and no problems for a non-OCer to OC this to maximum performance. I would recommend reading Maximum PC's recent article on how to OC this CPU, it worked perfectly.

Cons: Still a little high in price but if you OC then the Cost/Performance Ratio is very favorable.

Other Thoughts: Antec TPQ-850 850W
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
ASUS MK241H Black 24" LCD Monitor
LITE-ON 22X DVD Burner with LightScribe SATA
COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU
EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
2X EVGA 512-P3-N871-AR GeForce 9800 GTX(G92) 512MB
Antec Nine Hundred Computer Case
OCZ Gold 6GB Triple Channel Kit Model OCZ3G1600LV6GK
Western Digital Caviar Green WD6400AACS 640GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives
Intel Core i7 920
AFT PRO-28U SILVER 28-in-1 Card Reader

Pros: Has anyone ordered one of these recently and received the newest D0 stepping from Newegg's california warehouse? The box should show "SLBEJ" as the sSpec instead of "SLBCH". Please post here if you do get one.

Cons: If you do get a D0 stepping, you will likely have to flash the bios on your motherboard to the latest bios version so that the D0 stepping processor will work with your motherboard. You will likely need a lower stepping CPU to perform the bios flash.

Pros: Great CPU. easy OC to 3.2Ghz (did not touch a thing except BClock. Left TDP and thermal threshold limits on. It never throttles itself at 3.2Ghz even at 100% load on 4 cores).

By far the best bang for your $$ right now if you are going i7.

Cons: Heatsink mounting system is garbage in my opinion.

It literally took me 3 tries to mount the heatsink properly. I've put together a good number of PC's over the years(mostly AMD), but this was tricky. At first I was getting high temps under load (nearing 80C). Reseated the heatsink and replaced the thermal pad with arctic silver The 3rd time I finally got it right and idle temps dropped into the 30's, underload and OC-ed to 3.2 I hit 60's, maybe low 70's.

Other Thoughts: Just make sure that you seat the heatsink properly. It was not obivious to me that it wasn't fully seated until I googled for the temps these CPU's normally run at. Either that or find a quality aftermarket cooler.

Pros: FAST. Also a realy overclockable chip, was able to hit 3Ghz on stock air without breaking a sweat. I will be pushing it much farther when I go liquid cooling. I have heard most people are getting it to 3.6-4.0Ghz on good air or water. I am upgrading from a Amd 4000+ and this thing handles everything I throw at it and asks for more.

Cons: None that I can see so far

Other Thoughts: The stock hsf does a decent job and is real quiet, so if you are not overclocking then dont waste the money on an aftermarket one.

Pros: Fast for sure. My BlueRay encodes now take 4 hours instead of 14 hours on my E8400 at 3.6Ghz. I'm seeing a 40% reduction in DVD Shrink speeds. Programs open in the blink of eye. I'm running at 3.8Ghz with the base clock at 181mhz and Turbo on equaling 3.8Ghz. All my settings are default except Northbridge freqeuncy which I set at 3000mhz. 3.8Ghz at stock settings,amazing.

Cons: Of course the Intel HSF

Other Thoughts: I initially used the stock fan,I cut off the Intel fan and replaced it with a 3000RPM 95mm fan, Idle temp was 32C and low 50's on moderate load. I did replace it with a Coolmaster N520,idle speed remained 32C,but load temps went down 5-6C. I turned off Hyperthreading because it did not seem to improve speed with the programs I use. HT greatly increases temps. On moderate loads HT adds 10-15C,on heavy loads it adds 15-25C to individual core temps. My CPU temps went to the high 50's under heavy load with HT on,with HT off my heavy load temps are in the high 40's.

Pros: Shorter times to working desktop. Easily overclocked with minimal "research". Stable. Better performance at some tasks.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I am not a gamer. I had an overclocked Q6600 and although the i7 920 is noticeably faster at some tasks (video encoding in particular), it really is not by much. Not much difference in "everyday" tasks. When you factor in the cost of a new MB, memory, and aftermarket cooler, if you have a Quad core or higher end Core 2 Duo you may not want to spend that kind of money for small gains. But hey, it was Christmas, and I'll take a processor, MB and memory over shirts, pants and socks everytime!

Pros: Stable 4GHz overclock on Air with 10 hour Prime 95 test under 100% load on all threads.

Temps under Load:
Max Core Temps: 83c/81c/80c/81c
Avg Core Temps: 82c/80c/79c/79c
Motherboard Temp: 41c

Temps while Gaming:
Max Core Temps: 56c/46c/54c/44c
Avg Core Temps: 45c/41c/43c/40c
Motherboard Temp: 37c

The temperature range will be fine for gaming at 4GHz, but would go with a liquid cooling solution if running applications that really stressed the system.

Average temps for 3.8GHz under Prime 95 were 73-77c, 3.6GHz was 70-74c, 3.4GHz was 63-67c, and 3.2GHz was 62-65c.

Remarkably smooth and easy overclocking experience; no doubt due to having a fine sample of the i7 920 (Revision D0 Stepping 5), an excellent motherboard, high quality memory, a solid power supply, and superior cooling.

Cons: None.

All testing was with a closed case; changes were made within the BIOS. Overclocking was performed after setting the Ai Overclock Tuner to its XMP setting, thus enabling the BIOS to automatically detect and use the RAM's Profile #1. Then boosted BCLK incrementally without altering CPU Voltage from its default of 1.20 to see what happened; also ensured DRAM Freq and UCLK Freq remained within profile. The BCLK settings were 160 (3.2GHz), 175 (3.5GHz), 180 (3.6GHz), 183 (3.66GHz), 185 (3.7GHz), 190 (3.8GHz), 195 (3.9 GHz), 200 (4Ghz). All changes posted and ran without problems under gaming conditions.

Upon reaching 4GHz without issues, Prime 95 was then run with 100% load on all threads:
Test #1 - CPU Voltage at its default of 1.20; system failed and rebooted after 3.5 hours.
Test #2 - CPU Voltage at 1.25; Prime 95 detected a hardware failure for one "worker" after 2 hours, although the system kept running.
Test #3 - CPU Voltage at 1.30; test ran stable for 10 hours.

Other Thoughts: Here are my BIOS settings ...

Ai Overclock Tuner: XMP
eXtreme Memory Profile: Profile #1
Profile Info: 1600MHz-8-8-8-24-2n-1.65V-1.35V
CPU Ratio Setting: 20.0
BCLK Frequency: 200
PCIE Frequency: 100
DRAM Frequency: DDR3-1603MHz
UCLK Frequency: 3208MHz
QPI Link Data Rate: 7218MT/s
CPU Voltage: 1.30
CPU PCI Voltage: 1.80
QPI/DRAM Core Voltage: 1.35
IOH VOltage: 1.10
IOH PCIE Voltage: 1.50
ICH Voltage: 1.20
IOH PCIE Voltage: 1.50
DRAM Bus Voltage: 1.64

System:
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366
Intel i7 920 Revision D0 Stepping 5
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme RT 1366 (with optional 2nd fan for dual-fan push/pull air flow)
OCZ Freeze Extreme Thermal Conductivity Compound
Corsair Dominator 6GB 8-8-8-24 1600
Corsair HX1000
MSI GTX285 SuperPipe OC
WD Velociraptor 300GB GLFS
Cooler Master HAF 922 (with optional 200mm side-panel fan for additional air flow)
Sound Blaster Xi-Fi XtremeGamer
TSSTcorp SH-S182M WriteMaster/LightScribe DVD-RW
Vista 64-bit Home Premium

Pros: Very easy processor to work with. I had a Core 2 Duo Extreme. This processor runs just as cool on stock cooling as my aftermarket cooler on more Core 2 Duo. Even if you like to tweek the speeds on your processor this thing is so easy to work with you can use the stock cooler and get speeds over 3 ghz..........absolute dream

Cons: Normally I like to add a negative here but I can't bring myself to do it. Even the price of this processor is superb. You get a lot for your money from this bugger.

Other Thoughts: The price of this processor MAY drop when AMD launches Deneb. If you have anything less than a Penryn, and have the means, get this processor. If you have a Penryn you probably won't get a huge increase in performance, but frankly this processor is too much fun to not play with.

Pros: As the entry level Core i7 this is truly an amazing processor. Was previously using the Intel Core 2 Duo E4500, My Blue-Ray encoding times were 19 Hours or more on average. The DVD encode were a decent 2 Hours or so. With the i7 My Blue-Ray encodes are almost real-time, somewhere between 1.5 and 2 hours. My DVD encodes are faster than real-time at 30 to 45 minutes.

Cons: Price, but Intel stuff is better right now. You get what you pay for. This processor also seemed to have a slight hiccup and system instability issues with Vista pre SP1. SP1 pretty much makes Vista useable though so I recommend getting soon after the system upgrade.

Other Thoughts: Can't imagine how much better the higher end i7s could possibly be. If your on the fence then go with this, you won't regret it.

Pros: As most know, great, no, awesome for overclocking. Each CPU is different, but from what I've experienced with my own, read online, and heard from others, these generally overclock to 3.6GHz with little effort on your part, 3.8 is possible on most, 4.0GHz if you're lucky and get a really good one. All of these can be achieved with a good air cooling system.

Cons: The only con really is that not every CPU will perform the same, no fault of anybody's as this is uncontrollable for the most part, lithography is... a very delicate procedure, especially the smaller and smaller things get.

Other Thoughts: Core i7 920 @ 3.8GHz
ASUS P6T6 Revolution motherboard
12GB G.Skill DDR3 1600
Nvidia GTX295
Silverstone 1000W PSU
Thermaltake Armor case
3x 22" Acer LCDs
Nvidia 8800GT (dedicated PhysX and to enable the 3rd LCD)
Mix 'n matched HDDs totally 2.7TB (will be replaced eventually)

Pros: Very fast processor, easy install, stock fan/hs is large and sufficient if not overclocking (I'm not - yet).

Cons: none so far.

Other Thoughts: Windows task manager shows 8 cores thanks to hyperthreading, I guess. I haven't been able to bog it down yet. Stays cool enough in my setup at its stock speed. I do a lot of video editing using Avid Liquid 7, so I ran a before & after upgrade test. Before upgrade system was an AMD64 4000+, an MSI K8Neo board, 1GB DDR Corsair, a Radeon x1950Pro, two sata drives and one pata drive. New system is this processor, a Biostar Tpower x58 board, 2GB G.Skill DDR3 1066 ram, same video card, drives, and Windows XP OS as before (did not do a clean install). PS is an Antec Trupower Trio 650W. For the comparison test I applied a Magic Bullet filter (the cheapy free version that comes with Liquid and is very cpu intensive) to a 20 second SD video clip. Render time under old system was 6 min 45 secs. In new system it rendered in 2 mins 30 secs.

Pros: Hyper-threading. I didn't know what all the hype was about until I received a system with this chip in it. It shows up as 8 processors! What I thought was just a marketing tactic turns out to actually be something truly awesome.

Now I see what all the hype is around this i7 chip.

Cons: Price.

Other Thoughts: I have built nothing but AMD-based machines for the past 10 years. Their chips were often faster and much less expensive. When my company got me a new workstation with this i7 chip in it, I was initially skeptical. Then I put it through some real-world tests. It ripped through them without blinking an eye.

As a comparison, I have my Phenom II 940 overclocked to 3.5GHz on all 4 cores. This chip, without overclocking, edged out the results from my Phenom on 7-Zip's benchmarking test. It was very likely due both to hyper-threading and the slight edge DDR3 has over DDR2.

If you can reach the price tag, these i7 chips are awesome. It puts AMD a generation behind, and as loyal as I have been to them for over a decade, I'm going to have to reconsider using Intel for future builds.

Pros: Purchased two cpu's, one was D0 stepping and other was C0. Both overclock to 3.66GHz w std air cooling at stock voltages

Cons: None, other than Newegg should create seperate SKU's for different steppings on CPU's

Pros: Upgraded from an Athalon 65 3700+, my CPU Bottleneck is gone, my average FPS on WoW(2560X1600) increased from 30 to 60, no noticable lag in any other games including Crysis now.

Cons: Beware installing on an old 32 Bit Windows XP Pro SP1 Disk. I kept getting BSOD until I figured out the problem probably had to do this the quad core hyperthreading. I changed the cores to 1 and disabled the hyperthreading in the BIOS, and install worked perfectly. Updated to SP3, switched everything on and it flies.

Other Thoughts: Samsung 305T
32 Bit XP Pro SP3
Gigabyte EX58-UD5
Muskin 2GB DDR 1333(Single Channel)
Sapphire 4870X2
Raid 0 36GB Raptors
Soundblaster X-fi Titanium Championship Series
Antec 1200
Antec Quattro 1000

Pros: The i7 920 is the best processor for your money right now, especially if you're ordering now---most should be D0 stepping allowing for lower temps on OC'ing.

Cons: Some might argue the price is steep. It is. But it's still within reason. You aren't forced to pay for the 940 or the 975 and both of the speeds of them can be reached by simply OC'ing the 920.

Other Thoughts: Don't waste your money on the 940 or the 975. The benefits are certainly not worth the additional hundreds of dollars you'll spend.

The stock cooler is garbage. Invest in a V8. I'm at 3.8GHz stable with the CoolerMaster V8 with idle temps at 48C and 68C at 75% load.
Guru3D.com has awesome reviews on the processor and cooling options for it as well.

Pros: Very Fast! Supports Windows 7, Vista 32/64, Windows XP Pro 32/64.

Cons: Hot! Way Hot! Technology is very new and it is obvious. No real advantage in 3D Mark 2006 from my 2 yr old Q6700 Extreme running at 3.6GHz and has a score of 22,898 with the same cards I am using on this platform. Read other thoughts.

Other Thoughts: Pricing of this Processor is not too bad considering it is the newest kid on the block. A word to Intel though, Drop the prices on the older model processors........Don't you want to clear out your old inventory?

I gave this processor -1 Egg due to the fact that to OC this thing it takes a PHD, j/k, but there is a lot more to factor in. I have the ASUS P6T6 Evolution, although a great board there is a lot more to desire with this system. I want a Quad Core with a min. of 1MBx4 of L2 Cache with a minimum of 12MB of L3 Cache. And do not try installing this on XP Pro 32/64, there will not be a big performance difference. How ever in Vista Business 64 I was impressed. My opinion, if you already have 3-8gig of ram on your current Quad Core platform, you will not be very impressed with this, esp. after you fork out over $700 only find out you have to spend another $60-80 for a after market heatsink. AMD might not be faster but it is sure more economic. Save your money for now. My Opinion

Pros: Fast, especially when Overclocked. HT is a nice option for multi-thread applications but for gaming I get better performance, Safer CPU volts, and lower temps with it off.
(I would have just went with QCore, but I wanted the new QPI architecture.)

Cons: Intel locks the multiplier and they should have switched from FSB to QPI a generation ago. (I am not paying a grand for the Xtreme Edition.) Only perfect products get 5 stars in my opinion.

Don't get me wrong I love this processor!

Other Thoughts: My PC.
Cosmos S w/ alternate coolermaster window side panel (to fit the V10)
750 Watt PC, Power & Cooling power supply
Foxconn Bloodrage Motherboard
Intel i7 920 Nehalem (24/7 Stable O.C. to 3.88Ghz/ HT & Turbo off to control temps/ 36C idle, 58C load)
Coolermaster V10 (Fans replaced w/ 2, 110cfm Scythe’s)
6Gb DDR3-1600Mhz Mushkin Ram 7-8-7-20 T1 (1642Mhz)
EVGA 285 SC Graphics Card (O.C. to 285 F.T.W. specs)
Western Digital Velociraptor 300Gb HDD
Seagate 1.5Tb HDD for storage
2 Hanns-G 27.5” monitors
Logitech G15 Keyboard and G9 Mouse
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit

Pros: This processor was blazing fast out of the box, even. I now have it with a stable overclock on an ASUS P6T running 4 Ghz with a Thermalright Extreme 120 1366 CPU Cooler (not even lapped and with the included thermal paste)! I have this thing stable at 1.325 volts on my Asus P6T Deluxe. Been working on slowly bringing volts down to get it a bit cooler, but temps are decent.

Temps are between 38-40 degrees at stock, and get up to 50 Degrees with heavy gaming, 65 max when running stress test programs. This is in Celsius! Still within limits but much warmer than previous 775 processors.

This makes my former Intel Core 2 Dup e8400 look slow in comparison.

Cons: The stock cooler is adequate if you run it at stock, overclocking be prepared to shell out almost another $50.00-$120.00 for a good CPU cooler! I highly recommend the Thermalright Xtreme 120 1366 but you cannot buy it here, sadly!

Most say the stock cooler is junk, it does the job but you can do much better!

I do HATE the Intel push pin design too, it's too big of a pain and I broke the first one I had, another reason I always buy aftermarket coolers that do NOT use the system. A trick is to drill out the push pins then replace them with a long enough screw and plastic washers.

Screws = easier and hold down the CPU Cooler better for more contact.

Other Thoughts: Make SURE you have adequate case cooling, and do not skimp on the power supply either.

Expensive for Core i7 but as of this date, there IS no better of a setup and you have to pay for the best.

Just be prepared, these babies run HOT but they perform that way too!

Pros: Awesome CPU!!! I have overclocked this CPU to 3.82 and it is stable after 12 hours Prime95 Torture Test.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: First system build, Core i7, Asus P6t Mobo, 6GB OCZ Platinum 1600, Vigor Monsoon III Cooler, XFX GTX 285, 2x WD 640 GB HD, Asus DVD Drive, Asus DVD Burner with Light scribe, Silverstone 1000w PSU all packed into a Coolermaster HAF Case

Pros: Best bang for your buck of the i7 series.
On stock speeds it can run on very low voltage, reducing heat and prolonging its life.

Cons: Had a problem with excessive heat (50C idle, 80-85C load) under stock settings with stock cooler (but see below).

Other Thoughts: Discovered this puppy (well, at least mine and some others' that I've talked to) can run on as low as 1.00v (stock setting on mine was 1.26) and remain perfectly stable. Making this change dropped my temps to 40 idle and 60 load.

Pros: You can't get a better price/performance ratio than this CPU. The thing just absolutely flies with everything I throw at it. Installed easily, idles around 31C with stock cooling. HyperThreading gives the OS 8 threads to work with. Absolutely demolishes games and applications (Adobe CS4 is pretty fantastic with the CPU). On my overclocked Athlon X2, Left4Dead pinned both cores at 100% all the time. The i7 920 barely breaks 28%. I'll save hours in the next few weeks alone when encoding HD video. Highly overclockable (with proper cooling)

Cons: Requires a complete platform change, but who doesn't like building new computers? Stock heatsink/fan is average, but adequate.

Other Thoughts: If you are looking to build a new system, consider this CPU. It's longevity is ensured with its high overclocking potential. Anyone creating content/encoding video/rendering should seriously contemplate the Core i7.

Pros: Best i7 for the money, Overclocks VERY well (especially with aftermarket cooler), stable, fast, accesses memory remarkably fast. All around, a great offering from Intel!

Cons: The stock heatsink may run a little warm (depending on your case, and the chip you get). Stock cooler is ok for stock speed, but if you're going to overclock at all, you should keep an eye on the temps.

Other Thoughts: Getting 47941 CPU score on vantage using Vista 64 bit with the processor running at 3.6GHz (system in stable at 4GHz but I dropped it down because I don't need that much power, and I'd prefer that the system stays in the 40's under load). This processor will easily exceed stock i7 965 speeds and then some. I Recommend saving $700 and putting a little money into a nice big heatsink (I have found the Vigor Monsoon 3 to be quite capable).

Pros: I've been playing Aion with full detail and not a single hiccup. Overclocked from stock to 3.6Ghz without a great gain of heating. I did this with an after market fan. Slap in some DDR3, 12GB in my case and this chip loves virtual machines. I built my system about 3-4 months ago, when DDR3 dropped in price. After many years as an AMD fan, I'm finally happy that I gave Intel a try again. This was worth every penny.

Cons: Costs more then a typical AMD setup, but worth it in the long run. This thing screams in every application I throw at it.

Other Thoughts: I purchased this sometime back and heard people complain about the C0 steppings and overclocking. I was lucky and received an E0.

Pros: Good CPU out of the box.
Price is decent.

Cons: White clips!! Never EVER remove the heatsink unless you plan on completely replacing it altogether! The white clips are cheap and flimsy. Don't mess with the heatsink after installing!

Pros: 4 Cores, 8 Threads
Nice Price Point for said cores/threads.

Intel got HyperThreading right this time. It does offer the boost that multithreaded apps demand.

Turbo Boost allows for performance gains in single threaded apps (such as games), and with stock speeds up to 2.8 with Turbo Mode at Stock Speeds, you get a more powerful CPU than you pay for.

Memory Bandwidth gets a boost with the new On-Die Memory controller.

Enthusiasts Look no further.

Cons: Intel's Cooler doesn't allow for much to be done with it. Doesn't cool effectively under severe loads.

Cons with the Actual CPU: None really.

Other Thoughts: Although OCing is warranty voiding, and Intel makes a token attempt to stop the End User with it's horrible heat sink (although it could be to keep costs down as low as possible), They've actually made it easier to OC.

With the departure of the FSB, you only really need to worry about the BClock and Voltages now. It also helps that the On-Die Memory Controller also increses the RAM bandwidth with the BClock.

By adding a better cooler, you can take this up to, and even beyond the Core i7 965/975 XE chips with enough determination and common sense, for 7, to 8 hundred dollars cheaper.

I don't want to devalue the CPU, it is an amazing CPU and I would recommend it to any PC Enthusiast, including in the business sector. Also, socket 1366 allows for the Hexa-Core CPU due out within the next year.

Because the PCI-E (Graphics) controller isn't on the die, as it is with the i5 700, and i7 800 series (1156) CPUs, it offers more memory bandwidth and true x16 SLI setups.

Pros: Very fast! With the Turbo Boost engaged, you actually get 2.8 GHz stock. The energy saving mode (C1E, I believe) is also kinda nifty, as it only pushes your processor up to the 2.6 GHz+ mark when it needs to. At idle, you run at 1.6 GHz to save energy. Runs everything very quickly, and I have yet to have an issue.

Cons: This runs HOT. The stock cooler that comes with the processor may not be enough if you plan on building a more extreme machine. Even with an Antec 1200 case and a Prolimatech Megahalem heatsink, my idle temperatures are around 40C (tested twice by installing the heatsink twice and running CoreTemp) with Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound.

Pros: Easy to Overclock. Had it to 3.5ghz easily and have seen it run a 4.0ghz

Cons: Stock cooler could be better

Other Thoughts: Would consider water cooling or a high end air cooler if planning to Overclock

Pros: Blazing fast
Running at 4.0Ghz near stock voltages!
D0 stepping for the masses.

Cons: Runs hotter than most chips out there, requires beefy cooling for a good OC.

Other Thoughts: Got a Xigmatek Thor's Hammer strapped to this beast and 4.0Ghz was a breeze.

Pros: Very Fast and cheap for the i7 line.
Easily OCed to 4.2 with eVGA's board and the TRuE

Cons: didn't write the review for me

Other Thoughts: Best for the Price on the i7 line and worth the price.

Pros: I never installed a pinless CPU before so it was scary; this little baby survived my bumbling and works like a charm.

Runs stable and cool at 3.4 GHz

Cons: Instructions should be better.

Other Thoughts: Ultra m998 Aluminum extra wide Mid-Towe Case w/ modular cable manager
Ultra X3 600W Hi-Efficiency modular psu
DFI LANPARTY JR X58-T3H6 Micro ATX board
Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz OC to 3.4GHz
[ 2 kits] mushkin 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model 998659
MSI R4870-T2D1G Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
COOLER MASTER V10 Hybrid TEC RR-B2P-UV10-GP 120mm CPU Cooler
Nippon Labs ICR-EE Card reader/FDD combo # N82E16820816002
[ 2 ] LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH22NS30
[ 2 ] WD Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
how-to-OC this: www.gamespot.com/pages/unions/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=26796989&union_id=11552

Pros: Runs everything I throw at it. Multitasks well. 10-15% framerate increase in games I've tested, Crysis, COD4, Far Cry 2, at 1900 x 1080 with the same settings used with my Q9650. Both at 3.6ghz.

Cons: Puts out some heat. Stock Intel HSF is the same one they give with the 95 watt Core 2 Quads. LOL this chip is rated almost 40 watts higher.
I got a Xigmatek S-1284 with the 1366 adapter and have no heat issues. 33-35 idle, 65-68 in Prime95 load.

Other Thoughts: What this processor excells at is multitasking. This chip does kill a Core 2 Quad in that aspect. To give you an example this is on the main gaming rig, in the house. I have 2 sons, one was playing spore. Had his game up and running when my wife needed to check something, so he Alt-tabbed the game w/o pausing it. She checked her email and left the page up. My other son decided to play COH and minimized the email page, fired up the game and started playing a skirmish round, my wife needed her email back up so she alt-tabbed COH. My first son came back an figured his Spore game was done and fired up L4D and played a versus round, while I watched the last few levels, w/o issue. When he was done I shut the game down, noticed ram was at 70% then saw the windows in the task bar. COH and Spore were RUNNING!! unpaused. This chip was running 3 games at once w/o any issues or hiccups. Crazy!!

Pros: Excellent processor for overclocking, even at low voltage. I am running at 3.9GHz @ 1.325V VCore, QPI/CPU VTT both @1.2V. I turned HT off because I do not need 8 virtual cores for gaming or anything of the sort, and I don't do 3D rendering, so for me, HT adds 10*C to my load temps without doing much good in real situations. My voltages are low enough that I should be able to get a few years out of this processor should I want it, and it is stable after several hours of burn tests. My processor ran hotter at stock temps than a lot of other owners, so I was worried about overclocking, but it was relatively easy to do. By the way, this is all on air cooling with a TRUE with push-pull fans at 1200rpm.

Cons: The only con is the temperatures that I am getting at idle. As I said before, my temps were always higher than other reviewers (Batch #3841A371). I am getting idle temps of anywhere between 37 and 45*C depending on time of day, how long pc has been on, etc. Still, load temps for 3.9Ghz do not cross 75*C, and unless you are doing burn tests, you won't cross 65*C (in games, etc). I would have liked to keep Hyperthreading on just for posterity's sake, but my temps were way too high for long term use.

Other Thoughts: Overall, this is an amazing processor for the value. The batch I had works great for me, and I had the processor at 4.2GHz with HT on at 1.35V, with QPI/VTT slightly higher as well. If it wasn't for the temperatures (load temps crossed 90*C), I would have kept those settings. Without HT, the temps dropped into the low 80s, but I chose to keep all my voltages a little lower for longer life. For those who want to up their voltage, huge overclocks are definitely attainable (with air, turn HT off for better temps unless you absolutely need it). I'm not sure how much better the 940 is at overclocking, but I really can't see how you could justify the extra $250. To get to 940 stock speeds all you have to do is up the bus speed to 140, and turn Turbo mode on. You can do this without any changes to voltages, so again, in my opinion the 920 is the best valued processor of the Core i7s. Get a good cooling solution though, air or preferably water to get the most out of this chip.

Pros: Overclocks very well. Super fast!

Cons: Runs pretty hot with stock heatsink and fan.

Other Thoughts: Get a aftermarket heatsink for this beast.

Pros: I wanted the new i7 processor but didn't want to spend a TON of money on one. So i got the cheapest one, this thing blows away my Q6600 both at stock speeds. I tried to bog it down, but nothing was bogging it down. Well worth tax money.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I have the after market cooler (ZALMAN CNPS 9700 with kit) and it keeps this cpu around 38(idle)-55(max).

Pros: -Excellent performance out of the box. I have had virtually no performance problems with any of the latest games purchased in the last few months. I can run 64-bit Vista Premium, several browser windows / web applications, and a few chat programs without drawing more than 4% CPU usage. This is a SUPERB processor and well worth your money.

-Requires a new X58 motherboard to support the chip, most of which have open ended support for some amazing hardware (DDR3 RAM - anywhere from 12-24 GB max, 3x SLI / Crossfire Cards, etc.), it will definitely support you for years to come.

Cons: -The stock-fan and voltage setup for the processor seem to make bring the idle temps between 50-59 C and increase close to 80 and above under load. It's higher than I'd like, but remedies do exist without even requiring additional purchase of a CPU cooler (see other reviews for details).

-Requires a new x58 motherboard to support the chip, which will definitely drive the cost of your home-built PC up.

Other Thoughts: Compared with the other i7 models and the competing quad-cores (even the latest produced by Intel), you can't go wrong for the money. If you're willing to spend the $300, you should be fairly future-proof with the latest games / apps in the coming years!

Worth reading for a good evaluation: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2333766,00.asp

(EVGA motherboard used: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188039 with Corsair RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145224)

Pros: Well i do not think i should try any higher ,but i always do! Got it to 216.43x21= 4.545ghz .Im still trying for the 2ghz overclock or 4.667ghz. I cant believe you can oc a quadcore almost 2ghz over stock,UNBELIEVABLE! I was at a soft 31c at 1.6375v with my vigormonsoonIII but of coarse im using the winter outsides to help.

Cons: I havnt got it to 4.6ghz yet!

Other Thoughts: cpu validator ID# 505013. My memory is ocz 1600 and i use 2:8 ratio with the uncore clock at 16x which made my ram oc to 1730 at 11-11-11-24. Heres my only problem i have to say.why do people say they hope they get a good batch,like there really is a difference, if you know what your doing all the nehalems are good. Fact is, mine is a 3839A ,and all i hear is the As arnt good and only the 3835,3837,and 3841B are good ,well have any of you guys with the B's got it to 4.55ghz. Or maybe i just got lucky and the 3839A is the ultimate cpu batch. Come on guys?! --Mine runs stable all day at 4.21ghz @ 22c idle (1.45v)

Pros: I can't find anything to run 100% of it's CPU. Even unreal tournament 3 can only take up about 25%.

Cons: Really hot, you need a good cooling machine or you'd have some heating issues.

Pros: Very easy to OC. I have it set to 3.8 right now.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: Asus Rampage 2 Extreme
Intel I7 920 OC to 3.8 w/ Cooler Master V8
6 gig OZC Gold
GTX 260 C216 Superclockeds SLi
Corsair 1000watt
Rapter 300 gig RAID 0
Cooler Master HAF 932 *great case*

Pros: Incredible. Really. Runs insanely fast. I'm upgrading from a E6600, and I can absolutely feel the difference.

Cons: Tad hot with stock heatsink/fan, but Newegg people hardly use that junk. Wicked cool with my Vigor Monsoon though.

Still a little pricey, but it will go down.

Pros: getting 37860 cpu score at 3Dmark Vantage @ 3.86Ghz and using 1.29vcore.
it's like no loading when start GTA4. the crazy high brandwidth is helpful.
Huge different between my old amd x2 4000+@2.7Ghz

my config:
i7 920 @3.86ghz
ASUS P6T Deluxe
G.SKILL PI Black 6GB (3 x 2GB) F3-12800CL8T-6GBPI-B
Vigor Monsoon III LT

Cons: none

Pros: CPU easily overclocked to 4.2GHZ on the Asus P6T V2. The multiplier selection allows a setting of 21. When Setting the BCLK to 200, you are at 4.2GHZ, rock solid.

Minor mods to the CPU Core Voltage (1.35) and NB, as well as setting the CPU Diff Amplitude to 800mV and the QPI/DRAM to 1.25 took care of business. Corsair 12GB DDR3 Memory 3X12G1600C9 G kit runs at 1600MHZ at 4.0 and a tad more at 4.2. Idle temps with my new Zalman 9900A are 41 degrees c for CPU and 38 degrees c for MB chipset.

I used a new Antec P183 case, lots of air flow and filters on each external expansion slot as well as the two filter panel/doors.

Power supply is the Corsair 750. The CPU at stock speeds, along with the monitor and peripherals + the router use only 150 watts at idle! Impressive as that was what my older E6600 Core 2 Duo running at 3.25GHZ used. This board, processor and memory smoke my old setup. A 50-60 percent gain in overclocking with air cooling is almost unheard of.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Don't bother buying the 930, 50, 60, and 975, the 920 OC's to their speeds and beyond. QPI is the only limiter. Tone down the CPU speed and QPI and the Corsair mem kit will run at 2.0-2.23GHZ. That is some serious speed on the mem bus. And the ram is cool as room temp.

System Specs= Antec P183 Case
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz
CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 - HX3X12G1600C9 G
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit Full
ZALMAN CNPS9900ALED 120mm

Pros: Well I got this up and running around new years and have slowly played with overclocking from then since I have the V8 CPU cooler. I have never overclocked in my life and with a few forum posts that I have read I have this at a stable 4.2Ghz w/ Hyper Threading + Turbo Mode. Runs at 27C idle and with prime95 64bit for 24hrs 100% on 8 cores hits 84C which is still under the 100C threshold. Excellent CPU for the price don't waste money on more expensive i7s when this one is blowing the extreme edition away by 900Mhz with a $50 CPU cooler. Running a few games I have yet to break 20% usage on this yet and scores a 7.7 in WEI which could be better as my ram scores a 7.9.
Running 201Mhz QPI 21x multiplier
1.40 CPU Vcore +300mV
Uncore at 16X 3.2Ghz

Cons: Does get hot when at a full stress load but under normal application usage and 4 games running at once it stays under 40C pretty much.

Other Thoughts: Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932
Mobo: EVGA E760 CLASSIFIED
CPU: Intel Core i7-920 @ 4.2Ghz D0 Stepping
CPU Cooler: COOLER MASTER V8
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 275 1792mb
GPU PHYSX: EVGA 9800 GT
RAM: Mushkin Redline 12GB Model 998691
running at 1602mhz 6-7-6-18 timing
HD: WD Caviar Black 1TB x3
HD: WD 500Gb out of my external x2
CD/DVD: Sony Optiarc Black
Monitor: Acer H243Hbmid 24" 2ms LCD Monitor
7-120mm Red LED case fans
1-230mm Red LED case fan
1-140mm Exhaust fan
Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit

Pros: 3.93 Ghz without overvolting anything. Fast!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cons: Stock heatsink / fan is horrible, but who uses that anyways?

Other Thoughts: Absolutely amazed at the overclocking abilities of this chip. I had a 3.0 ghz Core 2 Duo before and was able to get to 3.6 ghz without overvolting, but anything over 3.6 required large bumps in voltage. Stunned that I was able to get over a 1 ghz overclock with the stock processor voltage. I am using a lapped Thermalright TRUE Black with a 3000 RPM Scythe Kaze fan and my temps have never exceeded 60 C for any core and are usually around 55 C during a Prime 95 torture test running for an hour+. This is with about a 25 C ambient temperature.

Pros: Well from me this processor is like lightning upgrading from an old P4 3.6Ghz processor! I have never overclocked and i did get the V8 CPU cooler so I could try it for the first time. When running stock it idled between 18C-23C then did the dummy overclock on my E760 Classified only bringing it to 26C so I went right for the 4.0Ghz mark and idled at 33C so it will be staying at 4.0 forever now. I love seeing 8 cores in Windows 7 Ultimate x64!

Cons: none that I can see. Maybe the poor design of the stock cooler having a circular base to go on the CPU

Other Thoughts: Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932
Mobo: EVGA E760 CLASSIFIED
CPU: Intel Core i7-920 @ 4.0Ghz
CPU Cooler: COOLER MASTER V8
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-1000HX 1000W
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 275 1792mb
GPU PHYSX: EVGA 9800 GT
RAM: Mushkin Redline 12GB Model 998691
running at 1600mhz 6-7-6-18 timing
HD: WD Caviar Black 1TB x3
HD: WD 500Gb out of my external x2
CD/DVD: Sony Optiarc Black
Monitor: Acer H243Hbmid 24" 2ms LCD Monitor
7-120mm Red LED case fans
Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit

Pros: I swayed back and forth between this i7 920 (x58) and the 8xx series (p55) and I am VERY happy I went with this chip. I am running it at 3.6ghz on an EVGA board with temps around 45-50 C on all cores while gaming, and around 30-35C idle with a CoolerMaster V8. I have no doubt that I could push this chip to 4.2ghz, but I just don't feel the need to get greedy just yet!

Don't waste your money on any other chip, unless you are looking for more extreme cooling and want to go above 4.2ghz.

Cons: Wish they'd offer a version for like $10-15 less that doesn't come with the heatsink for those of us who just by a better one anyway.

Other Thoughts: My System:
i7 920 OC'd @ 3.6 ghz
EVGA x58 LE
OCZ Gold 6GB 1600, 8-8-8-24
EVGA 260 gtx Core 216
EVGA 8800 gts (Phys-x)
WD Velociraptor 300 GB
Seagate 7200 500GB (storage)
Corsair 850w Modular PS
CoolerMaster V8 CPU Cooler
CoolerMaster HAF 932
Windows 7 64bit

Pros: Best value in the Core i7 900 series, which includes 3 memory channels.

Cons: Better value in the Core i7 860. LGA 1366 motherboards are more expensive than LGA 1156 motherboards with comparable or better performance.

Other Thoughts: This is an outstanding value for the Core i7 900 series, if you must absolutely have the memory bandwidth of tri-channel RAM, which is available with the LGA 1366 platform.

Short of that, the benchmarks show that the performance gains made by the higher clock speed and more aggressive Turbo Boost in the Core i7 860 more than compensate for the lack of a memory channel, and make for a better value, especially in combination with the lower cost of the LGA 1156 motherboards. The Core i7 920 is stock 2.66GHz, with Turbo Boost up to 2.93GHz. The Core i7 860 is stock 2.8GHz, and will get up to a max 3.46GHz more aggressively when needed.

Pros: Unbelievably fast! Overclocks like crazy if you need the extra power. I was skeptical about using the Intel Turbo Boost feature instead of manually overclocking but after trying it, I actually like it. Turbo boost raises the CPU multiplier allowing clock speeds reach well over 3GHz when running demanding applications. It doesn't compare with a 4GHz overclock but it works great for my needs and provides a nice performance boost for my games and other intensive apps. The heat reduction and power savings gained by using turbo boost instead of overclocking all four cores 24/7 is definitely a nice option.

Cons: Some people list the price as a con. It may be a little pricey but a processor of this caliber for less than 300 dollars is not a con in my opinion.

Other Thoughts: I almost went with a socket 775 mobo, Q9550 and DDR2 memory for my new build. I decided to spend the extra $150 and go with the i7 platform - it was money well spent. DDR3 memory running in tri-channel mode at 1600 MHz is ridiculously fast!

Pros: It is a very fast processor, very cheap for i7 and has great performance, has great OC abilities

Cons: runs hot even with non-stock cooler 50c idle 70c full load

Other Thoughts: i replaced my phenom x4 2.5ghz with this and i dont really see a big difference, if you already have newer quad core just stick with it and save ur money for when the iprocessors come out or these prices drop, or just buy the phenomII x4 they boost great performance for under 200 and run cooler then intels

Pros: I finally decided to build a new computer after my old faithful P4 single core was getting slow (and unable to play current games.) This thing is smoking fast! Win7 specs it at a 7.6 out of 7.9 and I have gotten it to run stably at 3.2GHz on the stock cooler running BOINC (climate modeling) with all 8 threads 100%, and temps are holding in the mid 70Cs. I will probably snag a better cooler soon, but I didn't think this was too bad for stock cooler/paste on air.

Cons: none, I half expect this thing to form an intelligence and start talking to me one day!

Other Thoughts: I really love mine and am not sorry that I didn't wait for the new i7/i5. BTW, encoding a full length movie in Nero 9 used to take my old computer b/w 1.5-2 hours; this computer tears through it in ~20 minutes!

my system specs:
i7 920
ASUS P6TSE mobo
6GB OCZ Gold DDR3 1600
XFX Radeon 4980
Corsair 650TX PSU
WD Caviar BLack 1TB
CM Storm Scout case

Pros: This processor is one of the fastest things that I have ever run, it loads up everything and can easily handle vista with 4 gigs of memory

Cons: because this is such a nice processor i was very nervous when i put it in

Other Thoughts: It is not really worth it to go up a step to the extreme because it does not give you enough power to constitute the extra .3 or whatever GHz

Pros: - Extremely fast, blows the previous gen chips out of the water
- Runs pretty cool, I've never had to worry about the temps even when overclocked (mildly at 3.0 GHz) using the stock cooler
- Very quiet
- Stock cooler is very easy to install
- Overclocks easily
- Did I mention it was fast?

Cons: A bit pricey over the previous Core 2 Duo/Quad chips, but it's worth it.

When installing the CPU, it feels like you're going to break it when securing the retention bracket, but that's just like the Core 2 Duo/Quads. I just wish they designed something that didn't feel like I was crushing it.

Other Thoughts: I was toying for a while whether to go for the i7 or stick with Core 2 Quad for my desktop build. I decided to fork over an extra 100 bucks to get the i7 build, and man am I glad I did. The performance is great and I have future upgradeability.

Comp Specs: Core i7 920, GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked, Gigabyte X58-UD3R Mobo, 3 GB DDR3 RAM, 640GB + 750GB WD HDDs, Corsair 650TX PSU, Antec 300, S-Flex Scythe fans

Pros: I expected an improvement over my old E8500, but this was much beyond what I expected. So, its fast, of course, but more than that, it overclocks better than a Core 2. I have able to get a stable OC from the stock clock to 4.0GHz with minimal effort. I disabled HT, I increased the FSB to 191, so that the processor is is clocking at 191x21 =~ 4.0GHz (21 since turbo mode is enabled, and I have found that is it always active -- I have never seen the multiplier drop to 20). According to CPU-Z, the actual FSB is 190.5, which makes the core clock almost exactly 4.0GHz (really 4.01 or thereabouts). With a modest increase in the voltage (from the default on my mobo.. 1.2 something, to 1.425 -- CPU-Z shows as 1.415) I was able to get it perfectly stable at that clock -- Prime95 4 thread torture test all night ran with no probs.

Temps are great too (using Zalman CNPS9700). According to speedfan, cores idle at ~28C (25-30) and under load (again prime95 for hours) ~64C (60-65).

Cons: None really. The price isn't even something to complain about anymore -- least not for the 920.

Other Thoughts: Intel Core i7 920 @ 4.0GHz
EVGA X58 SLI LE Mobo
EVGA Nvidia GTX285 1GB
6GB Mushkin DDR3 1600 (3x2GB) 7-8-7-20
PC Power & Cooling 750W PSU

Pros: Overclocked to 3.6 ghz on a coolermaster V8, runs ~55 degrees on prime95! Its a wonderful CPU.

Cons: The equipment overall is a little $$, but...

Other Thoughts: A Phenom X4 965 setup will save you only ~$200, and the stock i7 920 still is a little better. When you overclock, the i7 920 just pulls away from AMD's 965, making it well worth the slightly larger investment.

Pros: By far the best processor I have ever owned and the most fun to overclock. Performance even at stock speeds is fantastic and the overclocking limit is huge (3.8ghz for C0 and 4.2-4.4ghz for D0 on air!). I was able to easily get my D0 to 3.2 and 4.0ghz with minimal voltage increases. A modest overclock for most of these chips, such as a 3.2ghz OC, requires almost no voltage change and runs acceptably under stock cooling and with virtually no change to temps with a good air cooler. Using the Turbo mode multipliers the core increases to 3.4ghz.

Cons: The multipliers can limit your overclocking speed choices based on your ram speed. For 1600mhz ram this means 2.66, 3.2, and 4.0ghz options.

Other Thoughts: With a D0 I was able to get a 3.2ghz (3.4ghz turbo) overclock with these settings: 160mhz bus speed, Core multiplier 20x (21x turbo), QPI 6.4GT/s (3.8ghz), memory 2:10 ratio @ 1600mhz. Voltages: VCORE 1.22V, DIMM 1.65V, QPI PLL VCORE 1.1V, CPU PLL VCORE 1.8V, IOH VCORE 1.1V, CPU VTT 1.15V (+50mV), IOH/ICH I/O 1.5V, ICH VCORE 1.05V. The only voltage I increased was DIMM for my Dominator ram, and the VCORE to 1.22V up from 1.20V and +50mV VTT to ensure stability with SpeedStep and Turbo. In my machine this runs around 58C under load, slightly above 54C at nominal speeds, with a Noctua heatsink in summer (85F ambient).

I was also able to get a 4.0Ghz overclock stable by increasing various voltages slightly and setting the VCORE to 1.33V and VTT to +150mV and dropping the QPI to 4.8GT/s. Increasing the VTT to +250mV gave me stability with turbo mode on. This runs at ~80C in the summer (85F ambient) so I dropped it back for 24/7 use. Still fun to push the chip to its limits.

Pros: Overclock stable at 3.6 Ghz with mild voltage increase to 1.275 , memory at 1600 Mhz. After market air cooler necessary to keep temps low while OC'ed - still the cooler is an additional 70 dollars and the speed is better than the high end core i7 for an additional 700 dollars.

Rock solid for over a month, running Windows 7 RC.

Cons: A little pricey and an after market cooler needed.

Pros: Outstanding performance, a great foundation for anyone from a beginner who wants out of the box performance to the most experienced enthusiast who wants to get every bit of performance for their money.

Moreso than many previous processors, the i7 920 batch and stepping make a difference, with the c0 stepping being a notoriously hot/ poor overclocker, while the D0 384XXXX batches overclocking exceptionally well.

Cons: Runs extremely warm! Users should not be be satisfied with the included HSF, which is garbage. Newegg has several worthwhile choices for cooling.

Although the price tag is palatable, its still more than Newegg should be charging. Other retailers have been offering the same processor on sale for sub $200.

Other Thoughts: Value wise, the i7 920 is the best processor on the market, match it with a good motherboard and 6-12GB of memory for a system that will handle anything thrown at it for the next 2-3 years.

Pros: :: Fast
:: I think it is capable of controlling my mind
:: Not a ton of heat (surprisingly)
:: Did I mention it was f'ng FAST?

Yeah.

Cons: Still a bit pricy, but to be completely honest, it's worth every penny if you are putting together a system you plan on keeping for a while.

Other Thoughts: I like mother's cookies.

Pros: What a beast for the money! This is the best in terms of performance and cost.

It also can be overclocked very easily and allows it to stand next to its older brothers 940 and 965.

Cons: Runs hot with the stock cooler. Consider an after market cpu cooler.

Pros: The i7 is an overclocking beast.I was able to achieve 3.6 ghz @1.18v ht on turbo off on air prime 95 stable.The max temp under full load was 62c with a room temp of around 75f.Outside of torture testing i haven't been able to push the i7 above 26% cpu useage.This cpu runs general apps and games with ease and begs for more even at stock speed.Well i could fill this page with pros for the i7 but instead i'll just say after 9 years as an amd loyal fan i'm glad i finally seen the light. As the saying goes "You get what you pay for" !!!

Cons: As we all know by now the useless paperweight intel calls a heatsink. Please intel don't sell us nearly overkill cpu technology with a stoneage junk heatsink!!!!!!!!!

Other Thoughts: I would like to thank newegg for the great service placed my order on 4/27 at 11:30 pm est had all my stuff 4/30 by 5:30 pm standard shpng all products came well packed and in great shape.

system build:
nzxt tempest case (sweet case for the $)
i7 920 3.6ghz @1.18v
foxconn bloodrage gti
6gb gskill ddr3 1333
evga gts 250
corsair 650w psu
scythe katana 3 cpu heatsink
sonar x-fi sound card
wd 500 gb 32mb cache hd
lg dvd-cd
vista ultimate 64 bit
23" acer lcd monitor and coolit domino (upcoming upgrades)

Pros: Installed this with a EVGA classified(759) and redline memory in an antec 1200 case under a True Black 120.
Booted up and changed VTT to +300, Dimm to 1.65, Vcore to 1.30, CPUPLL 1.9. Took QPI to 200 without any more Voltage needed. Gave me DDR3 1600 at 6-7-6-18-71 at 3.99 Ghz. Took 3 hours to install and boot. Took 20min to go from stock to 4ghz. Idle with fans low 41c load with prime or LinX is around 72/75 depending on room temp. Benched 3dmark 06 with single EVGA GTX 285 SSC at SSC speeds scored around 1800. This has been the best expirience with a CPU yet

Cons: Heatsink that it comes with is probaboly only good at stock speeds or up to 3.2ghz with good air flow.

Other Thoughts: Glad I waited for the D0 stepping cause I read other reviews where 4ghz was hitting vcore 1.4 and up. Mine will do it at 1.3. Prob. less with more tuning.

Pros: -It's fast

-It's Faaaaast! GTA 4 nearly doubled in framerate with this!

-4 cores, 8 Threads: Multitasking monster!

-Overclocks really well and it's not even the D0 stepping revision that'll surely improve that.

Cons: -Expensive
-Need to get an X58 board and DDR3, so expensive again
-I didn't use the stock cooler as I got the bolt through adapter for my thermalright HSF, but I would imagine it runs quite hot with it.

Other Thoughts: I was able to overclock it to 4.0 Ghz (4.2 w/ Turbo) and boot into Win7 with little to no effort. Of course it wasn't totally stable, but I'm not gonna go that high for 24/7 overclock; just wanted to see if it would go there, and it sure does.

I've been at 3.81 (191x20) @ 1.325 Vcore (reads 1.305 in cpu-z under load) and it's solid. Idles at 34C with speedstep and C1E, never seen above 70 under 8-Thread Prime95, but really no real world application loads it that much.

There's something about seeing 8 graphs in the task manager that just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Pros: Speed that most people dream of. Setting aside graphics card limitations, you really can't max this processor out with anything short of a benchmark program like Prime95 that's purely designed for that. I literally ran Crysis with all settings set to high on one monitor and had Adobe Premier encoding a 720p video into mp4 while playing it on my second monitor just to see how it would handle it and it barely pushed 70% CPU usage. If you do a lot of video editing like me and have your RAM triple channeled like most 1366 mobos, the only real bottleneck you'll have to worry about is hard drive speed.

Cons: I did a lot of research before I bought this for myself, and I had heard all the stories about it's tendencies to run pretty toasty. I put mine together using Arctic Silver 5 instead of that crummy guck intel calls thermal paste and haven't really had to worry much. According to my motherboard readout it idles around 27 Celsius and under load it seems to peak around 58 Celsius. Personally I'm not too worried since rarely have I ever been able to push it hard enough to go above 45, but if that's still too hot for you you may want to consider a 3rd party fan/heatsink combination.

Other Thoughts: As for motherboards, I can't recommend enough the EVGA 132-BL-E758. The price may be slightly higher than the ASUS P6Ts, but their failure rate seems to be far less (and it should be for this price range!) and their support has a lot better record than ASUS's.

Definitely a pricey upgrade when you factor the cost of new RAM and mobo, but by far the most value in terms of processing power for your dollar. Just look at the performance comparisons over at Tom's Hardware.

Pros: This i7 model. It is the best price here at Newegg. Best of the 3 processors. When OC'd (easy) it is faster than the 2 standard i7 processors. Got mine to over 4.0 and got scared so backed it to 3.8GHz. Never had a single problem at all. This choice also allows me to wait for other i7 models to become more affordable, then upgrade for the future !

Cons: Are you kidding?

Other Thoughts: My PC configuration built at home:

i7-920 2.6 OverClocked to an amazing 3.8GHz !
Asus P6T Deluxe Version2 motherboard
12GB G.SKILL DDR3 SDRAM 1600 PC3-12800 Memory
CoolIT Domino ALC Water Cooling system
Biostar HD 4650 Graphics card (ATI chips)
Seagate Barracuda 1 TB Sata disk drive
PC Power and Cooling 750W silent 80plus power supply
Antec 902 case
2 Noctua Silent fans
(total cost just over $1k)

Transfered from old pc:
250GB WD IDE Disk
Pioneer DVD RW Drive
Dell Keyboard
Logitech track mouse
Logitech cam
22 inch HP w2207 monitor

One mistake:
The awesome water cooler (coolit domino) conflicted with
the side see-thru plastic panel optional fan mounting
bracket. Like a dummy, I sawed the bracket off. Should
have studied it a bit more to see all I had to do was
turn the panel inside out to allow me to mount an outside
120mm fan. Called Antec and they are so awesome they are mailing me a replacement.

Pros: VERY overclockable (3.8GHz on stock voltage). New archetecture, really fast. Hey, Hyperthreading actually works this time around (Thanks Intel!)

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Get this CPU instead of anything else in the lineup. Once overclocked a little bit, it will beat out the Extreme i7 CPU in any benchmark.

Pros: Wow, this is an amazing processor. I have been an AMD fan for most of my life, the last time I owned an Intel was the original Pentium. My last processor was an AMD Phenom X4 9950 140W. It was fast but it was never as smooth and responsive as this processor. I have never been so amazed by a processor. I will NEVER go back to AMD.

Cons: It was a bit more expensive than AMD competitor processor, but a LOT faster. So you get what you pay for I guess.

Pros: Extremely fast. Their is nothing this thing can't do.

Cons: Are you joking?

Other Thoughts: Built a Media/HTPC/Family/Workstation with this.

Core i7 920
Intel x58 mobo
6 GB OCZ DDR3 1600
Pioneer Blu-Ray Disc
Samsung 22X SATA DVD Burner
Seagate 500GB SATA II HDD
Zotac Geforce GTX 260 core 216
Vista Ultimate 64-bit


Fastest computer I've ever used, kids and wife love it.

Pros: WOW!, stepping up from a classic AMD Athlon xp2700 to this. Smokin' performance and got her oc'ed to 3.2 solid as a rock!

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Wish I had the extreme edition:(

Pros: Handles ANYTHING I throw at it at max settings (of course in unison with other great products like a geforce gtx 260). Havent had a problem with it overheating! FAN IS QUIET! Since its retail product comes with a heat sink and thermal grease!

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: I like pie

Pros: Incredibly overclockable on air
Runs very cool and quiet at stock speeds
4 physical cores plus 4 hyperthreaded streams

Cons: Locked multiplier

Other Thoughts: Very very capable even at stock speeds due to Intel's new Turbo system - it overclocks individual cores as needed - so as you boot up it overclocks to boot fast, then underclocks at idle to maintain low fan speed and temperature.

Pros: This CPU is great! It can be overclocked all the way up to 4 GHz and is still stable. I cant find an application that runs the processor at more than 10%

Cons: I haven't found anything i don't like about this product.

Other Thoughts: The i7 series is a great line of processors. This one can be overclocked to keep up with the 940 and even the Extreme edition.

Pros: Actually it really is quite a bit faster than my old Q6600 Quad

Cons: Not really a con but the motherboard presses down sooo hard on the processor I second guessed if I was doing it right.... wow.

Other Thoughts: The most amazing thing about this processor... after carefully loading everything back onto my new PC... this i7 idles extremely low! My Q6600 would always float around 8% to 15% after everything was loaded (Adobe CS4 Masters and other big programs). This sucker is currently sitting at 1% to 3%. OUTSTANDING! I even have 6 monitors - all with applications running like email, security cameras... stuff like that.

Pros: incredible overclocker and a bargain at less than $300.

Cons: none.

Other Thoughts: i cool mine with an Apogee gtz block and a dual 120 radiator and it idles @ 15-18c and under load i've yet to have it go past 34c, regardless of how high i overclock it.

Pros: Great performance at the reasonable price. Very easy to OC. It is running for days (2xOrthos - 100% load over 4 physical cores) at 4Ghz - CPU Vcore 1.34V on P6T MB with Corsai DDR3 kit. Air cooled with dual fan mount on lapped Thermalright UEX120

Cons: As hot as Q6600 under load. The X58 MBs are too expensive and are the only choice for I7

Other Thoughts: If you could wait couple months to upgrade, go for it. The X58 MB, DDR3 and I7 CPU price should be lower by atleast 20%

Pros: I can't slow this thing down, and I'm still only running it at stock speeds. All the games that used to give me grief on my old CPU are now running flawlessly. It's also good in terms of heat...after several hours of running SupCom at high settings with multiple players, I don't think I passed 42 degrees C, with stock cooling.

Cons: I'm tempted to say price, but you get what you pay for, and in this case, a little more.

Other Thoughts: X58 EVGA MB
6GB 1333 G.Skill RAM
850W Corsair PSU
Vista Ultimate 64
EVGA GTX 285

Pros: Rock solid at stock speeds. Currently running at 4ghz (200x20@1.325v), can prime overnight without problems. Runs relatively cool (Currently rendering in Premiere, CPU Diode @ 46C, Cores @ 62/62/59/58, Idle @ <40C.

Cons: Only 1 QPI Link, the only current i7 line with more than 1 is the 965 (Not worth the extra $700). Bclk > 200mhz causes instability, but could be attributed to ram/mobo.

Other Thoughts: ASUS Rampage II
i7-920@4ghz => Apogee GTZ
12GB F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ(x2)
Sapphire 4870x2 => EK 4780x2 Acetel
2x Velociraptor (RAID 0)
MCP655 -> BlackIce GTX240/PA120.1

Pros: FAST!!!! This processor is awesome. It has taken everything I can throw at it and asks for more. I am currently running it at stock speeds and see no reason to overclock at this time. It is a vast improvement over my previous build that has been retired after about 5 years : AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 2.4 GHz. It handles all my games including Crysis at all the best settings (alongside my EVGA 9800 GTX+) and will even play a game with multiple apps running in the background.

Cons: Stock heat sync and fan are just ok. I would definitely suggest upgrading to an aftermarket one. I did and I am very happy. Also, this new system makes my old Athlon 64 obsolete, maybe I'll turn it into a file server. Also, to be able to legally put the Intel Core i7 sticker on my case, I am required to sign a license agreement with Intel... Lame!

Other Thoughts: I was torn between getting the i7 920 or the Q9550. The Q9550 has a higher clock and more on board cache but was an older technology. The price was about the same for the processors but the RAM, CPU fan and motherboards were more expensive for the i7. I priced out the two systems and the i7 build was ~$200 more. After a little research, I decided on the i7 because it is such a new technology and there is a better chance of being able to upgrade the system without having to start over. I highly recommend this processor.

CPU: Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58
CPU Fan / Heatsync: Vigor Monsoon III LT Dual 120mm
RAM: G.Skill 3GB (3X1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 1333MHz (PC3 10666)
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB 7200 RPM SATA
Video Card: EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB 738MHz (Core) 2200MHz (Mem)
Case: Raidmax Smilodon ATX Mid Tower
Power Supply: Raidmax Hybrid 2 530W Modular LED
OS: Dual Boot XP & Vista x86
Windows Experience Index: 5.9

Pros: I put mine in the GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD3R mbd. with Windows Server 2003 R2 "Enterprise" edition. The Windows Device Manager shows (8) CPU's. So far, everthing is flawless. CPU heat sink is cool to touch. The performance reviews indicate this CPU completely replaces even the $1460 QX9770 quad.

Cons: Intel will have a monopoly if AMD goes out of business.

Pros: Runs great, and is very fast out of the box. Same easy installation as the C2 socket, and it's even easy to overclock (3.2ghz on stock voltage, rock solid). Even without overclocking, the performance-per-dollar is better than the other i7 processors.

Cons: None that I can see, though you might get slightly better bang for your buck going with a mid-high end C2Q.

Other Thoughts: Temps are rather high on the stock cooler, but I can't blame the processor for that because I'm not running it at stock settings. That aside, tweaking a single BIOS number turned my 920 into a 965 without spending an extra penny, so I'm very happy with this purchase.

Pros: This thing is fast.
Installation is easy, even with the stock HSF unit.
I do not see this running hot, according to EVGA's Eleet utility the CPU is 38C at it's highest.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I have yet to run any real tests, but extracting zip files, and installing programs is faster than anything I've seen. If this is the "low-end" processor, I can only imagine what the extreme does for you. This should be more than enough for anyone.

Pros: Extremely fast processor, it has been able to take everything I've thrown at it without a hitch (video encoding, gaming, etc.). Relatively expensive, but you get what you pay for.

I did a lot of research before buying and decided I might as well go with the new platform since it out performs some of the socket 775 extremes. Not to mention, eight graphs in task manager will impress friends and family.

Great for encoding video or gaming.

Cons: Cost of the new platform is high.

Stock heatsink/fan was awful! The pushpins never really felt secure, and the processor was idling around 60 degrees celsius despite my massive case that pushes tons of air.

If you are considering this processor, do yourself a favor and throw an aftermarket cooler in your cart. It isn't worth having to remove the motherboard, re-apply thermal grease, and put it all back together. What a pain..

(With an aftermarket cooler I'm seeing temperatures around 38 degrees idle, 50-60 running prime 95 on all cores)

Pros: With 4 cores and hyperthreading, you've effectively got 8 processors. Running 64-bit Vista, my CPU usage gadget rarely registers higher than about 2%. It's the fastest machine I've ever used. You click on things and they just happen. Suddenly, everything is just way more fun. But I'm spoiled now. Working on anything else, even a fast dual core, I notice the difference immediately.

Cons: The standard Intel heat sink and fan is totally adequate for cooling but the push-pin mounting system can come loose if the system is jarred. (That happened to me when I was carrying the system and it slipped in, but not out of my hands.) The resulting symptom is that the system won't stay powered up for more than a few seconds at a time; the solution is to push the heat sink pins back in.

Other Thoughts: My complete configuration (all bought here on Newegg) is the Core i7 on an ASUS P6T Deluxe MB, ASUS GeForce 9600 GT video, 6 GB RAM and four WD 500 GB Caviars in a RAID 10 configuration in a Lian Li PC-A6010B case. I'm in love with this machine!

Pros: * Makes Vista 64-bit run well
* Speeds up Video encoding
* Improves graphics performance
* Plays HD videos without stuttering

Cons: * Motherboards are expensive
* Installation was nerve-wracking
* Had to upgrade my case for better cooling

Other Thoughts: This chip is amazing! I upgraded from an old 64-bit AMD Athlon with 1.5 GB of memory to this with 4 GB of DDR3, and the difference is even greater than I expected. Installation was nerve-wracking. I thought I'd damage the motherboard when I mounted the chip in the socket, and the stock cooler was even worse. The cooler seems to work OK for me, but I haven't tried overclocking yet. I did have some problems with my old case, which only had one cooling fan. I upgraded to an Antec case made for gamers, with four built-in fans, and it has solved the problem. If you have the money for it, this is definitely the processor to use!

Pros: Works great, the heat sink is awesome. Vista is blazingly fast and overall this cpu makes me feel good

Cons: Like i reflected in my tech knowledge, I'm no expert on computers. I've built a couple before, with supervision. This rig was the first i attempted completely solo. The 1366 was a little intimadating and i was a little disturbed putting any kind of pressure into locking it in. Obviously, everythign went as planned, but still, the installation can send a shiver down your spine.

Other Thoughts: I'd buy this again in a second and i highly recommend it to anyone looking to buy.

Pros: Awesome. Seriously, just awesome.

Cons: No pie included.

Other Thoughts: Witness the future of processor design in your own home!
EVGA X58 mobo
Stock cooler
X3 Corsair Dominator PC3 12800
RAID10
8800GTX
Stock BIOS settings with ver SZ1A

Pros: I upgraded from a P4 3.4GHz running under Windows XP to this i7 running on Vista 64 Ultimate. It runs absolutely beautifully. I haven't attempted to OC yet as I only have the stock fan, but running 8 BOINC threads puts the temp at 69 degrees for all cores, with idle temps in the mid 30's.
The increase in performance in video transcoding compared to my P4 w/HT is phenomenal--times reduced from 2.5 hours to about 25 minutes. No problems whatsoever. I've never seen the temps exceed 70 degrees thus far with stock cooling.

Cons: None so far. Would like to see it a little cooler but it definitely is not too hot.

Pros: Great chip. built 3 computers for christmas. a core i7 rig for myself. a e8400rig for my fiance and a e5200 rig for my sister. i myself actually upgraded from a pentium D wich it completly blows away of course. i find that in alot of areas theres not a huge leap of performance over the e8400(high end core 2 wolfdale) however i have noticed something i truly enjoy that im not sure the e8400 could do as well. never owned a regular quad core just this puppy. but im not a big gamer but have noticed i can recode a movie, while running utorrent and several open web browsers, and been playing fallout 3 on ultra high settings 2x aa without a hitch no lag ect. and can ctrl-alt out to start a recode of another movie every 5-9 minutes to start recoding another full length dvd from 720P files. i find this truly amazing and graphics actually to me seem better not due to my graphics card but i think because of the full compliment of the SSE4 instruction set. the frame rates are unreal.

Cons: none really. i think i may of ended up with a nice chip of the die process, because on stock fan i idle at 34celcius. where most people report temps a bit higher.

----one con would be my con and that is that i want to use my old zalman 9700led cooler wich means i'll have to reseat the cpu and i have near perfect temps already on stock ;P

Other Thoughts: cannot wait to get my bracket kit for the zalman 9700led cooler i have.

if your getting temps above 42celcius at real idle in cpu-id Hardware monitor, you may want to think about re-seating your cpu. just rember the thinner the layer the better. less thermal paste is better. i usally cut up a clean plastic card into half a centimeter strips, and kinda putty it on like you'd do drywall, then i clip the ends of the silverized plastic and continue to thin out the artic silver.

Pros: Works great. Is amazingly fast compared to previous AMD 6000+ X2. Runs everything great game wise, have yet to push this CPU.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: Windows sees 8 cores but, that is due to the 8 Hyper threads. Yet to overclock much waiting for a good cooler to come out to stick on this thing before I do. Pushed it to 3ghz and it was getting really hot on stock cooler about 70C. System Specs: Intel 920, 6gb G.Skill 1333mhz, 8800 Ultra with 8800 gs backer for physics, Asus P6T Deluxe, Antec 1200 case, 74gb Raptor, and 750 watt PSU!

Pros: Has worked flawlessly for almost a year now, speed is excellent, while somewhat expensive this chip is worth the cost.

Cons: Price is a bit high and hasn't really dropped in the past year but as I said above it is worth the cost.

Other Thoughts: Splurged on puting together an i7 machine and it is fantastic still after a year. Build:
i7-920
ASUS P6T Deluxe V LGA 1366
EVGA GeForce GTX 280
Corsair XMS3 6gb (2gbx3) in triple channel
Corsair 750TX 750W PSU
Sony DVD-burner
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
Cooler Master Storm Sniper (behemoth of a case but awesome if you have room for it)
Windows 7 OS
This system runs so smooth with everything I've done on it.
Total cost was about $1600 after my 24" LCD/TV but it was worth every penny.

Pros: Way beyond most peoples needs. Gains are about 31 % in synthetic tests over E8500. OC'd to 4.2 on auto with UD5. Gains were with PC1600 DDR3 RAM vs PC800 DDR2 RAM. Runs hot at anything 4.0 or over and throttles due to temp (at least on my MB)

Cons: Synthetic tests are only for people who have too much money and want to bragg, actual gain is about 10-15%, in actuality the Money vs performance comes into effect about the I7 920 and anything above is stupid on the curve dude.

Other Thoughts: I have noticed almost "NO" gain from E8500 to I7 920 OC'd to 3.8. It's my guess that the new 35-45NM ain't gonna make more than 1-2 % difference. If it's worth $1100 to gain 1-2% your an idiot/moron.

Pros: Used with resounding success by masses of overclockers who can't even tie their shoes - many of them can't even find their shoes. This product is revolutionary within the PC enthusiast CPU industry.

Cons: How could there be a con to a sub-$300 product that defines perfection?

Other Thoughts: It would be nice for the software developers to catch up a little on core/thread utilization. They just need to put in more hours, and I KNOW they all have laptops on their yachts. Why can't they just use? I mean it has been nearly ten years for multi-core CPUs. Do you know how many shingles I 've nailed on roofs in the same period? Catch up, developers!

Pros: I needed new PC...BADLY. I went from a Celeron -> P4 HT -> Athlon X2. The P4/X2 chips weren't THAT bad, but I wanted a mid/high range gaming computer.

Long story short...I was torn between this chip and the regular Core 2 Quads, so I went with this one for 2 reasons. One being the newer socket type and two the increase in performance over the regular quads.

If you are on the fence about buying this CPU because of the price or whatever, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR and buy this processor. Even if you have to save the extra for the motherboard, DO IT! The bang for the buck is incredible. Never have I ran so many demanding applications simultaneously without slowdown or lag...even while downloading and gaming on the net.

I waited 2 days before I did a minor overclock to 2.8 GHz...man thing has serious potential. The AC Freezer 7 Pro I have keeps it at 35-38C Idle, and 40-50C while under load but if you plan on oc'ing higher, protect your investment with liquid cooling. I am in the future.

Cons: Of course the stock heatsink/fan...but that has nothing to do with the actual CPU however, still runs like a champ regardless =)

Other Thoughts: My current setup:

RAIDMAX ENZO ATX Mid Tower Case
GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R
Intel Core i7-920 (Obviously)
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W PSU
G.SKILL 3GB DDR3 1333 Triple Channel Memory
XFX GS250XZDFU GeForce GTS 250
Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB

Pros: Great overclocker
Love the new architexture
System stability

Cons: This truly isn't much of an upgrade coming from a Q9450

If you already have a Q9XXX chip, going to this isn't much of an upgrade. You really can't tell a difference in system responsiveness.

Other Thoughts: Antec 1200
Core i7 920 @ 4.0ghz
Asus P6T Deluxe V2
ATI XFX 5870 1gb
Corsair H50 CPU cooler
Corsair HX 1000Watt PSU

Pros: I have the D0 stepping, which overclocked to 4GHz rock stable at 1.25V with the Xigmatek Dark Knight air cooler. Idles at ~30C and load on Intelburntest is mid 60s.

Cons: I get a hard-on whenever I go near it.

Other Thoughts: i7 920 @ 4GHz 1.25V, Asus GENE II, G.Skill 6GB @ 800 MHz 9-9-9-24-2T, eVGA 8800 GT w/ modded XP90 @ 750/1850/1000, Antec P180 mini, Tuniq Ripper 1000W (overkill=max overclock), Hitachi 1TB HDD

Pros: Wow. Even coming from an OC'ed Q6600 quad core - this thing is fast. Stock form with 1066 ram, it more than doubled my best CPU benches. I run it at 1.3V at 4.2Ghz with 2000 DDR3 at 9-9-9-27-1T and it's stable as a rock (water cooled). I haven't tried to go any higher because half the time it sits idle because it processes everything so seamlessly. Buy a good mobo, good ram, and this - and you won't be disappointed.

Cons: It puts out some heat! It's a 130W processor and it means it. I can't speak for the temps/ performance / noise level of the stock cooler it comes with because I have it on a dedicated loop in my water cooling setup and it idles at 38-40C and loads up to 70C at 4.2Ghz on Prime95. Of course that's with the fans on silent and they can move mass air but I don't like listening to them so I keep them on silent lol... most gaming/desktop work it doesn't get over 55 anyhow. Again I can't speak for the stock heatsink - it looks like the one from the last gen of processors but who knows - my wife uses one on my old Q6600 and I can't hear it and it seems to keep heat in check there. I don't know if it would hold up to OC or not but I've never tried.

Other Thoughts: i920 @ 4.2Ghz
Asus P6T Deluxe V2
Corsair XMP DDR3 @ 2000 9-9-9-27-1T
5850 x 2 in CF
Corsair 750W Continuous P/S
Antec 1200 Tower + Scythe Sony FDB fans
Customized Swiftech 220 setup

Pros: Dynamic overclocking. Also, easily overclocks with stock cooling. Not that you'll need to.
This thing runs extremely cool, which means it'll last forever. Combine that with the massive headroom for overclocking and you get a CPU that you won't need to replace five years from now.

Cons: Requires a new motherboard and probably new memory. It's pretty expensive, but worth it in the long run.
Messing with the multipliers in the BIOS isn't as fun as it should be, mostly because this thing is way more powerful than it needs to be already.

Other Thoughts: I bought this CPU and a somewhat weaker GTS 250 GPU because I knew that this processor would outlast any GPU I could buy anyway. In a few years all that I'll have to do to keep my PC High-end is replace my GPU and get some faster memory, then overclock the CPU memory controller.

If you're building a new gaming system, this is the CPU you need. If you're still on the fence, buy it. Buy it now. Skimp where you must, but get this CPU. You won't regret it. Bang for your buck.

Pros: Very fast... loads Photoshop in 3 seconds with Windows 7, which surpassed my expectations.

Cons: i7 board are still a little pricey.

Other Thoughts: Build went flawless, here it is:
Antec Nine Hundred
Antec EA650 PSU
Intel i7-920
Freezer 7 pro
ASRock X58 Extreme
OCZ Gold 6gb triple channel kit
EVGA GT240
OCZ Vertex 30gb SSD Boot drive
(2) SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB in Raid 1
Windows 7 Professional
Dell U2410 LCD (not from newegg, but its the best lcd Ive seen yet!)

Pros: This processor is absolutely the best purchase I've ever made for my computer. Its price/performance is amazing and it's super easy to overclock. It smokes everything else out there and for the price you can't beat it.

Cons: It doesn't come with bacon.

Other Thoughts: I finally made the switch from AMD to Intel after 9 years and I'll probably never go back.