Core i5 or Core i7?

[danielj]

Some models with thousand of poligons is getting a slow down in my current system, a Core 2 Duo E7200.I?m planning to buy a better computer,but I?m not sure if a Core i7 is much better than a Core i5.I have chosen a Corei5 2500 or a Corei7 2600.Is this latter worth a while or it doesn?t matter?

[selden]

There's no appreciable difference for Celestia, if the CPUs have similar clock speeds. Displaying a model with many polygons depends more on the performance of the graphics card. Having many models in the field of view tends to need more CPU performance.

For multithreaded applications or when running many programs, more than two cores (thus an i7) would be better.

[CAP-Team]

Too bad Celestia isn't multi-threaded..

[duds26]

I've also heard the i5 have a very weak integrated graphics processor.
Try to avoid that. Because it's a waste of silicon.

[danielj]

Unfourtanetelly I didn?t bought the K series.So even being a Core i7,is a very weak graphic integration as well.I bought a Core i7 2600.

[selden]

So the next thing to consider is getting a graphics card. According to the benchmarks I've read, any 3D graphics card will be faster than what is built into the CPU chip.

[danielj]

Actually I have a video card,a GTS 250.But I am planning in a new video card, like a GTX 460 or GTX 560.But what I mean is there is any problem in having a Core i7 2600 instead of a 2600K knowing that I will have a new video card until 2012?Is there anything different besides the video integration?For example,the video card integrated helps the work of the processor...if so,I?m still planning to change for a 2600K!

[Fenerit]

The 2012 is near; I think that a i7 + 16Gb ram (wasted for 32bit apps, but nonetheless the more is RAM the more is the machine) and two GTX 560 in SLI mode is enough for a lot.

[danielj]

I will probably have 6 GB or maybe even 8 GB.However 16 GB is TOO expensive.And so is 2 GTX 560 Ti.I think ONE is OK and still I have a chance to buy the worse GTX 460.But I wonder if Celestia will benefit from a +4 GB RAM?When Celestia will be ported to 64 bit?

[Fenerit]

Celestia no, but the system yes. With more memory the OS will not occupy the part of memory Celestia need. The most important memory for Celestia is the video-RAM.

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[danielj]

My future Corei7 has 8 THREADS and 4 CORES.The maximum today is 6 cores in VERY EXPENSIVE Core i7 (+1000 dollars) or Phenom II X6.

[danielj]

Do you use the excess of memory in Celestia?Is anything faster?

[danielj]

I will have all this,except the video card.I will have a GTX 460 or GTX 560 and it is only 1024 MB VRAM.

[danielj]

Unofourtanetelly,good video cards with 1.5 gig or more are VERY EXPANSIVE.In the side of Nvidia,there are only GTX 480 and GTX 580.Do you recommend an ATI card,so?
There are some GTX 460 AND GTX 560 with 2 GB,but they are rare!

[selden]

Traditionally, ATI (now AMD) cards have had poorer OpenGL support than Nvidia cards have. You really don't need that much memory unless you like having many very large Addons installed at the same time. But I seem to recall that that is exactly what you like

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[Fenerit]

danielj, I wonder whether you feel Celestia slow because you do not load the textures in memory (video). Do you pre-load the textures? If not, of course when you travel across the space toward planets you can get slow-downs and even jerks: because the machine spends time in loading them. If you do not pre-load the textures, when Jupiter is approached, not only for Jupiter, but also for all the moons is required time to loading textures.

[CAP-Team]

This is even quite noticable when Celestia is run from a SSD harrdrive.