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Flying Fox wrote:

Got link? I am a little itchy to build a new one as it has been 2 years since my 875K.

Man, that's premature retirement. 875K is still big pimpin.

flip-mode wrote:

rogue426 wrote:

Now that AMD has cut Bulldozer prices , does that change anyone's opinion on that proc too?

Far as I am concerned, it is hard for these polls to take price into account. You have to assume that at the moment most people don't have the money set aside for a purchase, so the already budget is already hypothetical. So budgetary concerns should just not be a part out of the equation. IMO.

So you're saying that the poll should be worded as "What CPU would you use for your next build if someone was going to give it to you for free?"

Flying Fox wrote:

Krogoth wrote:

End User wrote:

Stock 3770K is more powerful than my [email protected] while consuming way less power and generating way less heat. I'm waiting for a Thunderbolt equipped motherboard in June before I buy. The 920 based rig will become my Linux box.

Not to nitpick or anything, but that OC'ed i7-920@ still beats the 3770K (3.5Ghz/3.9Ghz Turbo) at stock by a decent margin in mutli-threaded applications and a tiny bit faster at single-threaded applications. Sandy-Bridge/Ivy Bridges are not much faster in IPC performance than their Bloomfield predecessors.

Got link? I am a little itchy to build a new one as it has been 2 years since my 875K.

There's no direct review, but the numbers are there if you go back with Bloomfield and Sandy Bridge reviews.

Assuming that all parts are at equal clockspeed. SB is marginally faster than Bloomfield at multi-threaded stuff, while SB pulls ahead by 10-15% in single-threaded applications. The jump from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge is even smaller.

Oc'ed 4.2Ghz i7-920 pulls ahead because of clockspeed nothing else, but getting there requires a lot of power. Oc'ed Bloomfields easily eat up 200-300W depending on the amount of overvoltage.

flip-mode wrote:

Flying Fox wrote:

Got link? I am a little itchy to build a new one as it has been 2 years since my 875K.

Man, that's premature retirement. 875K is still big pimpin.

Unfortunately I did not have time to play around with and test overclocks, so I am still running at stock. But who said it is retirement? It may retire from my active duty but I always hand it out.

Krogoth wrote:

There's no direct review, but the numbers are there if you go back with Bloomfield and Sandy Bridge reviews.

Assuming that all parts are at equal clockspeed. SB is marginally faster than Bloomfield at multi-threaded stuff, while SB pulls ahead by 10-15% in single-threaded applications. The jump from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge is even smaller.

Oc'ed 4.2Ghz i7-920 pulls ahead because of clockspeed nothing else, but getting there requires a lot of power. Oc'ed Bloomfields easily eat up 200-300W depending on the amount of overvoltage.

This may be enough. The 875K is just Lynnfield with dual channel RAM, so this means going from Lynnfield -> SB -> IB I may be looking at 20-30% more performance out of the box, plus a bit less power consumption. Especially if I am going to hand it down to someone else this may be ok. However my current priority is actually an HTPC so IB is still on my radar screen, but it will be the lesser and may even be the "S" variants, if Intel is going to sort out their process and/or get some nice bins out of their lot.

Crayon Shin Chan wrote:

NarwhaleAu wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Yes, but still not enough to make me want one unless I already had an AM3+ motherboard on hand (which is unlikely since the only reason to buy an AM3+ motherboard is to run Bulldozer). If they drop the price again by a similar amount, I will start seriously considering it for new builds.

A FX-8150 at $150 would be very tempting - a lot of processing power for very little money. Wonder how it runs 30 firefox tabs. That's the majority of the workload I will be running through a processor.

I have a Sempron 145 and it handles 30 tabs very well!

Yeah, but how much ram do you have?
I am running a 2500K, and 16GB of ram. Currently have 54 tabs open in Chrome, a VPN running, and two RDP sessions into work using over 6GB of ram right now.
Windows 7 64 bit has allocated 16GB of space for my page file too.

Its not just the CPU that matters, is all I am saying. Having a balanced system for your typical usage is what I use to determine my system config and when to update.

I voted Sandy, since the current steppings are mature and very fast; it could just of easily been Ivy but the newness of the process, combined with the lack of a major upgrade in horsepower make me want to wait.

In a mobile setting I would be more tempted.

just brew it! wrote:

(I've actually got an informal rule that I will not pay more than $200 for any single component. I think I've broken this rule less than a half dozen times in the past 15 years.)

Ha, must say am surprised, just brew it. I thought you would've regularly crossed the $200 mark on your motherboards / video cards at least.

To OP - Am looking to upgrade my build shortly and I picked Ivy in this poll. However, am interested in finding out which air cooling solution works the best. Hoping TR puts up an article for that soon.

just brew it! wrote:

So you're saying that the poll should be worded as "What CPU would you use for your next build if someone was going to give it to you for free?"

Yikes, why you mad, bro? And no, that's not what I meant.

just brew it! wrote:

BitBlaster wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

I've actually got an informal rule that I will not pay more than $200 for any single component. I think I've broken this rule less than a half dozen times in the past 15 years.

Good rule. Do you include processors and video cards?

Yup. And given that I'm not a gamer any more, following the rule has become a lot easier...

#1: Monitor.
A great 24" 1920x1200 H-IPS LCD monitor will set you back around $500. A stunning 30" 2560x1600 version is at least double that. If you've got to pick one component on which to splurge, your monitor is it.

#2: Graphics card.
Radeon HD7850 is still $247½ and up. We might expect that it will drop to $200 later this year, but if I were buying a gaming graphics card right now, I would be trying to stretch the budget for one of these rather than settling for a GeForce GTX560 or Radeon HD6870.

#3. Processor.
With Core i5-2500 going for $195 this week, we can keep within your rule here without compromising.

Everything else is easy.

just brew it! wrote:

flip-mode wrote:

Far as I am concerned, it is hard for these polls to take price into account. So budgetary concerns should just not be a part out of the equation. IMO.

So you're saying that the poll should be worded as "What CPU would you use for your next build if someone was going to give it to you for free?"

Let's see. How about this one (8 cores) or this one (6 cores)? We'd have to break your rule for a matching motherboard, especially if we went with dual socket.


On-topic: I voted for Ivy Bridge. Without over-clocking it uses less power than Sandy Bridge. Besides saving energy that generates less heat and noise.
I'd suggest the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo as an aftermarket heatsink+fan.

rogue426 wrote:

Now that AMD has cut Bulldozer prices , does that change anyone's opinion on that proc too?

Nope.

"Another website" ran a m/b review on a few of the latest 990FX series boards with the Phenom X6 and the Bulldozer chips. The Bulldozer was never even really competitive. I think it beat the X6 in one test. Now it may be that there are some software patches, etc. that will get you more performance out of the Bulldozer, but the rumors of such have gone around, and I'm not really hearing a whole lot about them. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

I stuck a new motherboard under my old X6 so I could through more ram and video cards at my current 'obsession' (Blender) in the linux box and the old i7-870 in the windows box is probably safe till the fall. We'll see what happening then.

Later,

flip-mode wrote:

Yikes, why you mad, bro? And no, that's not what I meant.

Not mad at all. Just sayin' that "budgetary concerns should not be part of the equation" implies that price does not matter at all.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

If you've got to pick one component on which to splurge, your monitor is it.

I would tend to agree. Especially given that monitor interface standards change very slowly (how many decades has it taken us to migrate away from analog VGA?), so you can keep using it through multiple system upgrades. I did "cheap out" on my last monitor purchase (money was a little tight), but will probably splurge on the next one.

just brew it! wrote:

Especially given that monitor interface standards change very slowly (how many decades has it taken us to migrate away from analog VGA?), so you can keep using it through multiple system upgrades.

VGA may have been an anomaly. It seems like we've gotten a profusion of digital connectors lately, and DVI's on its way out.

For future-proofing I'd get a monitor with both DisplayPort and HDMI, but I'd not be surprised to see Yet Another Connector in five to ten years.

just brew it! wrote:

flip-mode wrote:

Yikes, why you mad, bro? And no, that's not what I meant.

Not mad at all. Just sayin' that "budgetary concerns should not be part of the equation" implies that price does not matter at all.

We're not buying. Price doesn't matter when we're not buying. To me the question is asking which processor I'd prefer. Well, I'd prefer SB-E, but I'm not buying anything. So I'm not implying price doesn't matter, I'm explicitly stating it.

Personally if if I had a CPU as fast or faster than say a i5-750 I would likely hold out until Haswell. Since my only processor right now is a i3-2367M though, I'll be grabbing an Ivy Bridge (likely a i7-3770, I won't be OCing) and whatever Z77 based mATX motherboard strikes me as the right quality and price (looking like the Asus P8Z77-M Pro). I can't imagine replacing that within the next 4 or 5 years.

They're here...

Ivy Bridge processors at Newegg
All quad-core LGA1155 processors at Newegg

bthylafh wrote:

VGA may have been an anomaly. It seems like we've gotten a profusion of digital connectors lately, and DVI's on its way out.

For future-proofing I'd get a monitor with both DisplayPort and HDMI, but I'd not be surprised to see Yet Another Connector in five to ten years.

Yeah, but since all of the new standards are digital I imagine there will be inexpensive converters available to go from cards with the newer connectors to older monitors, just like we have DisplayPort to HDMI/DVI converters now. When you don't need a high-speed DAC or ADC, conversion is easy and (relatively) cheap since it is just a matter of shuffling bits around...

I have i5-2500k and its been running smoothly for..uhm, 2 months I upgraded from a [email protected] GHz, still the performance difference even in desktop level is noticeable.

I'm reading news about retail Ivy's cannot reach 4.4 GHz because they are having thermal issues. My current build can do 4.5 GHz without problems and I can push it towards 5 GHz barrier pretty easily. I just don't need to do so because it would server only as e-peen nothing more However, if Ivy cannot do that, no matter what it offers for desktop usage, I'd just skip it.
On mobile front tho, it's a different story. I have high hopes about mobile Ivy parts and been waiting for them to buy a 11-13" ultrabook based on Ivy...Maybe even coupled with a kepler


addendum: Ofc, I voted for cheese. I really don't get how other options even got some of the votes

Ivy got my vote for building today- it's hard not to recommend it, even with moderate (~4.5GHz) overclocking considered. Hell, if you just overclock Ivy on stock voltage, you get more than enough speed and lower power draw than Sandy.

For things that matter, QuickSync is faster on Ivy, and for things that don't so much, having PCIe 3.0 around as well as Intel's new-fangled (and finally here!) USB 3.0 controller are nice.

Heck, PCIe 3.0 might even matter if one were to build a GTX690 quad-SLi rig for 3x 27" or 30" panels, given that you'd be down to 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes of bandwidth per GPU (disregarding a motherboard-based PLX chip to increase cross-GPU communication speeds). I'd just hope that such a person has the sense to get cards with 4GB/GPU .

Did anyone notice that Intel released that cpu replacement warranty covering OCed CPUs a long while after Sandy bridge was released.Plus i know they had early ivys probably B4 the Warranty.
With the heat the little die puts out it has me worried.
If i had Ivy i will repeat it again.Just OC on stock volts.

@ Morphine

i agree with you 100%!!!!! i have no ambitions on hitting anything over 4.3ghz, i just dont need to at all, bragging rights isnt enough.

NarwhaleAu wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Yes, but still not enough to make me want one unless I already had an AM3+ motherboard on hand (which is unlikely since the only reason to buy an AM3+ motherboard is to run Bulldozer). If they drop the price again by a similar amount, I will start seriously considering it for new builds.

A FX-8150 at $150 would be very tempting - a lot of processing power for very little money. Wonder how it runs 30 firefox tabs. That's the majority of the workload I will be running through a processor.

Its pointless to be honest. That thing may be able to be stable on all 8 cores at 4.8GHz with a Corsair H100, but its worthless when you actually benchmark it for things. The i5/i7 3570k's are better, and only 4 cores. Sure they are a bit more, but they are still well worth it, as I know alot of people who have the i5-3570k and a Corsair H100 at 4.5GHz very stable, one person has it at 4.7GHz, wouldnt recommend it though. It will handle 30 Firefox tabs without even trying. Not trying to be an Intel fanboy, as I was interested in the bulldozer, but its just a piece, very unfortunate.

I will stick with my i5-2500k for quite awhile as well, I think for most regular users and even gamers, I would stick with sandy just for the multitude of options available in the motherboard department, nvm the cheaper price as well.

This weekend at Canada computers I was able to grab an FX-6100 for $119...........I figured for the second son, this will be more then enough until I can get them both out of the house,lol.


Picked up another one of those Asrock 970 Extreme3 boards for it as well, works so well with the other sons Phenom 965.

As well, let me add, I am a convert to Asrock now, after my absolute trouble free and easy as pie o/c the 2500k with an Asrock P67 Extreme 4..........I decided to get them for the boys as well.

ADHDadditiv wrote:

NarwhaleAu wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

Yes, but still not enough to make me want one unless I already had an AM3+ motherboard on hand (which is unlikely since the only reason to buy an AM3+ motherboard is to run Bulldozer). If they drop the price again by a similar amount, I will start seriously considering it for new builds.

A FX-8150 at $150 would be very tempting - a lot of processing power for very little money. Wonder how it runs 30 firefox tabs. That's the majority of the workload I will be running through a processor.

Its pointless to be honest. That thing may be able to be stable on all 8 cores at 4.8GHz with a Corsair H100, but its worthless when you actually benchmark it for things. The i5/i7 3570k's are better, and only 4 cores. Sure they are a bit more, but they are still well worth it, as I know alot of people who have the i5-3570k and a Corsair H100 at 4.5GHz very stable, one person has it at 4.7GHz, wouldnt recommend it though. It will handle 30 Firefox tabs without even trying. Not trying to be an Intel fanboy, as I was interested in the bulldozer, but its just a piece, very unfortunate.

Benchmarking is all well and good, but for the majority of people in the real world, if then can get the 6100 as I did or a good price on the 8150, they are going to be very happy, no need for those folks to spend more money on performance that they are never going to use.

You'll quickly use that performance in a high-end game. And overclocking is a whole different story, as it's quite hard to beat a ~4.8GHz Sandy with anything.