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Has anyone else read this recent article on AnandTech?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4291/addi ... nd-lga2011

If this is true, it looks like the quad-core Sandy Bridge-E is going to be pretty awesome.

Too bad for those who already splurged for the i7-2600K with no intention on using integrated graphics.

Of course, I just bought an i7-875K so I'll probably hold out for a similar segment Ivy Bridge or Haswell.

Sort of.

It's the same core as Sandy Bridge, so there's no IPC gain like you'd get coming from Lynnfield/Nehalem or earlier; and while there are four memory channels, we've already proven that memory bandwidth isn't an issue for the Sandy Bridge cores. Just like Lynnfield to Nehalem where the 875K pretty much negated the 950 (930, 920...), the 2500K/2600K pretty much negate Sandy Bridge-E for the majority of users.

Remember that most of the new processors will still be quad core, especially those price to compete with current Sandy Bridge parts. You'd need to be willing to spend the extra cash to get a 6-core part for it to matter at all, and even then as we've seen with Sandy Bridge vs. Gulftown this isn't going to make nearly the difference necessary to cover the additional cost.

Meanwhile, I just got my 2500K up to 4.8GHz. Doing a long-term Prime95 run with Furmark loading both GPUs right now to see if it's really stable, but it lasted over an hour already before I headed out to work. Hard to argue with that kind of performance for $200!

Well I guess then it's no cause for remorse for those who have already bought a 2600K. By the time the Sandy Bridge-E does come out, there will be Bulldozer, Llano, Ivy Bridge and probably i7-2700/2800s with greater performance for the same price. But originally I was pretty sure that Sandy Bridge-E would just be a bunch of overpriced Extreme Editions, but that doesn't seem to be the case. There will be a reason for the average consumer to get a Sandy Bridge-E if they choose to do so. Personally I think this is a pretty big deal because it means there won't be such a huge income gap between them. We might actually be seeing Sandy Bridge-E's being recommended here for the Sweet Spot budget in the future. Thumbs up!

EDIT This also means that we might have less waste of unused transistors on die being sold to consumers. Personally I feel like half the reason current Sandy Bridge chips are so exciting to many is really wasted on me. Less waste is always good.

You're missing something else

Having four memory channels is horrible for price vs. performance, and the extra DIMMs and extra layers on the motherboard to support them will easily eclipse the total end cost to the consumer for the extra transistors on the LGA1155 CPUs. Given that very few people will not make use of those transistors, essentially the enthusiast crowd purchasing P67 boards/systems with those boards pre-installed, I don't see that as being a huge deal for Intel.

This news seems more suited toward people like me who are waiting patiently to retire their x58 and i7.

DeadOfKnight wrote:

Too bad for those who already splurged for the i7-2600K with no intention on using integrated graphics.

Meh, I'm not seeing any of this as upsetting to anyone who has already gone with a 2600K. The SB-E chips will cost more, to start with, as will the motherboards. They'll likely be faster, but we're not talking gaming changing faster. Not to mention, 2600K (or 2500K) owners will have had the pleasure of having their CPU in hand for 6 or more months already by that time. Just my thoughts.

Yeah, actually now that I think of it, it's no big deal at all. It does have a good possibility of being a longer supported socket but personally I don't see the appeal of keeping motherboards forever as the chipsets can be significant.

It seems I spoke too soon, anyway. This new tri-gate transistor 22nm technology seems to hold a lot of promise, almost like intel is skipping a full node. That combined with die stacking technology, Haswell is going to be a beast.

EDIT AMD better start focusing more of it's attention on discrete GPUs because it looks to be fighting a losing battle vs Intel. I don't see how it can possibly remain competitive. I hope for everyone they do, but it does looks bleak.

DeadOfKnight wrote:

Yeah, actually now that I think of it, it's no big deal at all. It does have a good possibility of being a longer supported socket but personally I don't see the appeal of keeping motherboards forever as the chipsets can be significant.

It seems I spoke too soon, anyway. This new tri-gate transistor 22nm technology seems to hold a lot of promise, almost like intel is skipping a full node. That combined with die stacking technology, Haswell is going to be a beast.

EDIT AMD better start focusing more of it's attention on discrete GPUs because it looks to be fighting a losing battle vs Intel. I don't see how it can possibly remain competitive. I hope for everyone they do, but it does looks bleak.

Given the importance of mobile machines vs. desktops in so many enviroments, I think AMD is doing all right. What they really need to focus on is efficiency, which is where a dual-core Intel chip with Hyperthreading eats them alive; it's more than fast enough for any application or game that would be running on a laptop. AMD's latest upcoming CPU looks very interesting with it's extra GPU performance over Sandy Bridge, although that lead may be quickly erased with Intel's current pace of GPU development. Doesn't look like much now, but with what I've seen in my SNB laptop, they're getting caught up in a hurry.

Airmantharp wrote:

DeadOfKnight wrote:

Yeah, actually now that I think of it, it's no big deal at all. It does have a good possibility of being a longer supported socket but personally I don't see the appeal of keeping motherboards forever as the chipsets can be significant.

It seems I spoke too soon, anyway. This new tri-gate transistor 22nm technology seems to hold a lot of promise, almost like intel is skipping a full node. That combined with die stacking technology, Haswell is going to be a beast.

EDIT AMD better start focusing more of it's attention on discrete GPUs because it looks to be fighting a losing battle vs Intel. I don't see how it can possibly remain competitive. I hope for everyone they do, but it does looks bleak.

Given the importance of mobile machines vs. desktops in so many enviroments, I think AMD is doing all right. What they really need to focus on is efficiency, which is where a dual-core Intel chip with Hyperthreading eats them alive; it's more than fast enough for any application or game that would be running on a laptop. AMD's latest upcoming CPU looks very interesting with it's extra GPU performance over Sandy Bridge, although that lead may be quickly erased with Intel's current pace of GPU development. Doesn't look like much now, but with what I've seen in my SNB laptop, they're getting caught up in a hurry.

That's true, I have actually been looking at Llano myself as it seems the integrated GPU will be able to go Xfire with a low-end discrete GPU:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Fusion ... 12682.html

This could be the ideal solution for people looking for an ultraportable with decent gaming performance, assuming this works in the mobile segment.

Of course everything in this thread is purely speculation. We will have to see how things pan out in the future.

I would wait for the 22nm from Intel it will utilize Tri-Gate transistors which translates into higher performance and lower power consumption.

Tri-Gate transistors

michael_d wrote:

I would wait for the 22nm from Intel it will utilize Tri-Gate transistors which translates into higher performance and lower power consumption.

Tri-Gate transistors

This has already been observed in this thread

DeadOfKnight wrote:

It seems I spoke too soon, anyway. This new tri-gate transistor 22nm technology seems to hold a lot of promise, almost like intel is skipping a full node. That combined with die stacking technology, Haswell is going to be a beast.

I am hoping to get the Sandy Bridge E in the lab at work. For one thing, we use dual GPUs for compute so ours is one workload where dual x16 slots acually help. Also, some of our CPU bound codes are also memory bandwidth bound, so might benefit from quad-memory channel though it remains to be seen how much. Currently we are using an X58 board. Will also consider Bulldozer and AM3+ platform but the FP performance of bulldozer is not clear at the moment.