1st Gen i7 in 2024 - Intel Core i7 860 Review (Benchmarks, Overclocking, Power Draw) | StefanTests

[@AlexScalero]

Still using my 860 as my main PC. Just upgraded from HD5870 to a GTX 1070. Still does everything I want it to.

[@Robotech_Gaming]

me too

[@Nick-zg2ym]

How does that work? I thought GTX 1070 uses PCIe 3.0 but the i7-860 only does 2.0?

[@opif]

@@Nick-zg2ym PCIE devices are generally backwards compatible, although the link bandwidth is lower. A GPU running on a slower interface is going to suffer a performance penalty, it's not going to be a major issue though

[@hackhp]

Same!! Core i7 860 and GTX550Ti. Still running flawlessly

[@GoodmanWed]

I upgraded my i3 cpu to i7 840 on my hp laptop. Now I can watch youtube reasonably comfortable I cost me around 30 nzd to buy the new cpu. Nice

[@chayut1992]

Watching this on my i7 870 with Radeon RX550 GPU. It is currently going very strong as my secondary rig for internet browsing, content viewing, and some light work that sits alongside my main rig powered by i9-10850K and Radeon RX6650XT.

[@andrew_d1612]

I have been using it from 2009 to 2020, and now I have it assembled into another computer on a MSI MoBo with 16GB of Ram, it still works great together with a 1080ti, I use it as a third computer. Amazing how that technology still works super well after so many years.

[@ccleorina]

I'm using i7 870 for my retro gaming PC and working like a charm for 19s and 20s games. I do couple my i7 870 with ATI HD3870 in CF and Audigy 2 PCI Sound card. Play Doom 3, Serious San First/Second Encounter, Red Alert 3 and COD MW 1 to 3 play perfectly.

[@BenchyTests]

Thanks for checking out my video!

[@frunkchungus]

I love seeing benchmarks of older hardware, which many often are using for one good reason or another. Keep up the good work!

[@George_Bland]

It's crazy how fast cpu technology comes along, I'm currently rocking a new low end i5 (13400f) it cost £200 new. It is slightly faster in both single and multi threaded tasks than the core i9 11900k over twice the price which was released only 2 years prior!

[@mrmerlin6287]

Got mine paired with a GTX 970 4GB GPU which I got at the height of the covid/gpu shortage crisis... It was all that was available at the time. I stick to capping frame rates to 30fps with Rivatuner and still really enjoy gaming.

[@Obie327]

Very interesting to see this CPU in action. I remember my neighbor building this setup brand new. My first foray away from Core 2 duo was the Sandy Bridge i7 2600k. I can see how low your GPU utilization is when running these games. When I bought my GTX 1080, I was concerned about having enough CPU grunt to drive Pascal. (4.4 ghz, 1.3 volts, Zalman 9900 Max air cooler) I'm also not sure if you are working at peak performance. Drivers are very old, Memory is slow DDR3, And not having a UEFI bios might also be huge limitation with latest Windows 10 release. (if that is the O.S. your are using?) I'm curious to replicate this on my old Sandy and see what it gets. My 2600k is currently running at 4.2ghz for longevity and stability with its original 13 year old air cooler. Thanks for the test setup and video Stefan!

[@pvc988]

Watching this on i7 870 :)

[@BenchyTests]

Awesome!

[@JoseLgamer05]

That i7 was a beast compared to my first computer, it was a Pentium T4300 equipped laptop, 4gb of ram and a blazing fast NVIDIA GeForce G103M, that was back in 2013, it played minecraft fairly well and that was what mattered.

[@Pidalin]

This is the last classic platform with no UEFI bioses and such modern "shits" and it still has drivers for Win XP and better compatibility with DDR3 memories that were problematical with sc775 platform. I really recommend first Core i platform for ultimate Win XP retro gaming build. You can have Win 7 on second HDD/SSD. Ofcourse some decent C2D E8600 or some better C2Q will it that job too, but sc 1156 is really the last "classic" platform from good old days and big advantage is that most of modern coolers still fits on socket 1156.

[@dssd7685]

I'm still using i5-2400 haha 1 week ago I ordered am5 motherboard Ryzen 7600 CPU ddr5 16gb ram

[@BenchyTests]

Ooh nice! The 2400 is still decent but that's a huge upgrade!

[@dssd7685]

@@BenchyTests yeah I'm using it since 2020 before this PC I had AMD phenom II 965 black edition

[@dssd7685]

@@BenchyTests believe it or not I finished on this i5 2400 God of war and 2gb of graphics card 🤣

[@dssd7685]

2-3 times

[@HuguesBalzac]

Still using an i860 as a server overclocked to 3.4GHz and an old T7700 core 2 duo laptop with an fx1600m which can happily play 1920x1080 streaming, not sure what advantage there would be to upgrading that to watch a video at the same res and framerate... ymmv. You should try at 1440p+ to see what the results are putting more load on the GPU as it seems your GPU is only hitting low utilisation %.

[@chazbotic]

a lot of these are great overclockers, but iirc from doing so many years ago they were primarily sensitive to the ratio you ran your memory and base clock at, not just vcore and temp - those old i7's were pretty voltage tolerant. older ddr3 was 1.65-1.8vdimm so sometimes a higher bclk for the CPU would necessitate (because of uncore frequency ratios) a slight memory change, either an oc or underclock or messing with voltage. x20 multiplier at 180 baseclock was pretty achievable at 1.35v and under with decent cooling for ddr3 1.65 1600mhz cl10 dram. on some motherboards you might need to be particular about load line calibration or ensuring that there isn't some sort of auto voltage going on that is throwing off your OC.

[@BenchyTests]

Yeah I had to adjust the memory multiplier to keep the ram at 1600MHz. Otherwise I didn't need any other changes apart from the CPU voltage to keep 4GHz stable.

[@chazbotic]

@@BenchyTests there are still some people out there running these as 24/7 OC'd daily drivers and i think only really limited by instruction set. if you pair the 860 with a "fine wine" GPU it could still be very viable today... although maybe it's hard to say where the line is where the instruction set holds you back or the GPU isn't being efficiently utilized... maybe around the RX 570 or something i would guess, polaris seems to always get much love for its longevity lol

[@prasannanpt4654]

intel core i7-860 1156 socket available.

[@dssd7685]

I5 2400 10 gb of ram 1300mhz GPU:hd 7850 2gb

[@memedecarpio6360]

I am still rocking at i5 2400 pared w gt 730 i can get 150+ fps in valorant lowest settings 1366x768 res

[@dssd7685]

@@memedecarpio6360 same man when installed valorant it had 120+fps on 1080p medium

[@dssd7685]

@@memedecarpio6360 but that was when valorant came out

[@WCGwkf]

I jumped through but the biggest thing i noticed was the cpu and gpu utilization is incredibly low. I feel like something is seriously wrong

[@BenchyTests]

I think the CPU utilisation was just underreporting. It was definitely maxed out.

[@Nicefisher]

I'm running a 2600 with 16gb of 1333mhz ddr3 and a quadro p1000 in an old 990 optiplex :0

[@BenchyTests]

Nice! The 2600 is still pretty decent.

[@mr.savage778]

​@@BenchyTestsI have one as a 2nd PC paired with 20gb Of RAM and an rx570 4gb, it can still run a lot of modern games quite decently. Just don't expect to be playing the latest games at 60 fps or above.😅

[@zbigniew2628]

To bad my first PC was a E8400, when first i7 was on its way 😂

[@BenchyTests]

The first PC I owned had a E6750. We all start somewhere :D

[@Obie327]

@@BenchyTests First intel since athlon 64: P35 chipset, 4 gigs of DDR2 ram, GTX 260/460/560ti

[@KBWarrioR2018]

This could oc to 3.8 GHz easy

[@ClesheLindeveld]

Just got a pc for free i7 860 and gtx 1060 3gb and 8gig ram

[@evilqtip7098]

Your GTX 1080 need CPU juice My GTX 1050 Ti 4g Low Profile on my HP old 860 gets more performance than you do...Because it doesn't need huge CPU power to boost it which a GTX 1080 8G does. You have to have a balance Try a GTX 1060 6G EVGA SC and watch a huge difference.

[@rodrlgues]

Limit to i7 860 is a GTX 1050 2gb or 1050ti 4gb!

[@user-zl6jk5xe3x]

Gtx 1650 , gtx 1060 6gb

[@PSS521]

Running a 980ti on mine. Works great

[@mariovidovic7594]

I have rx 570 8gb

[@Shvraz]

Had the xeon equivalent which was the x3470 and oc it to 4.15ghz until the motherboard blew like a year later lol