Are you upgrading to Skylake?

[tential]

It's pretty safe to assume that they won't pull an AMD and regress in performance (or at least in some critical areas), so for those of us coming from older platforms, it's the obvious choice if we're not looking to buy until the second half of the year or later.

I'll probably upgrade... I should have my financial situation hammered out by then. Using a 1st-gen i5 right now.

For us on Haswell it's a much harder decision. If Skylake was a massive jump (Like Conroe) I'd jump on it. But if it's a 5-10%? I'll get a Yoga 4 11 with great battery life and be very happy.
Still might get the Yoga 3 11.

 

[2is]

how can I make that decision when I know zero about its performance?

This.

The decision is not as impossible as the two of you have convinced yourself it is. It's a very safe assumption that it's not going to underperform their predecessor. If I was still running a Core 2 Quad or an AMD Phenom, it would be an easy choice to say yes. For people with newer systems, it becomes more difficult decision. Then there are people who want to jump on the next greatest thing and play around with DDR4 etc etc.

While technically your post was speaking for yourself and not everyone else, the undertones suggests that you think everyone should processes this decision the same way you do.

And lets not kid our selves VirtualLarry... These are higher end parts we are talking about that don't have a 4watt TDP. That effectively makes this a "do not buy" item for you.

 

[toyota]

The decision is not as impossible as the two of you have convinced yourself it is. It's a very safe assumption that it's not going to underperform their predecessor. If I was still running a Core 2 Quad or an AMD Phenom, it would be an easy choice to say yes. For people with newer systems, it becomes more difficult decision. Then there are people who want to jump on the next greatest thing and play around with DDR4 etc etc.

While technically your post was speaking for yourself and not everyone else, the undertones suggests that you think everyone should processes this decision the same way you do.

And lets not kid our selves VirtualLarry... These are higher end parts we are talking about that don't have a 4watt TDP. That effectively makes this a "do not buy" item for you.

I said "I" and I have a 4770k. so again there is no way I can make that decision with ZERO info known on the actual performance. and since when did a cpu not underperforming its predecessor become some kind of accomplishment? if its not at least 20% faster and with better overclocking then I will have zero interest in upgrading as even that is not really impressive.

 

[hawtdawg]

I doubt it. My 3770K has been more than fine up until this point. Any reason I have to upgrade would be for platform improvements (only having 2 SATA III ports sucks). Im thinking Cannonlake a the earliest.

 

[Yuriman]

Upgrading? Probably not, I'm pretty happy with my Ivy. I may get a Windows laptop with Skylake though, for work. My Chromebook is fantastic for what I paid, but Windows is necessary for some software.

 

[VirtualLarry]

And lets not kid our selves VirtualLarry... These are higher end parts we are talking about that don't have a 4watt TDP. That effectively makes this a "do not buy" item for you.

I'm really not sure why that comment was necessary. I've owned Q6600 and Q9300 rigs OCed. I enjoy a good OCed quad-core CPU too. It's not like everything I've ever owned is low-end. I just got into a fascination with what I could do with low-power / lower-end hardware. (I'm very impressed with my HP Stream 7, and my Winbook TW700 as a desktop.)

 

[Deders]

With any luck, if I can afford it

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

I have no need to upgrade from a 4.6GHz i7 2600k. My board has USB 3.0, SATA 3, and UEFI all of which is good enough for me. If I ever need a faster SSD (not really) that's what a PCIe m.2 card is for.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

Nope. I will be using my computer for three more years. It plays my games just fine.

Intel i7 960 stock clocks, 6gb of DDR3 1333mhz, GTX 570, X58 Sabertooth mobo, 160gb intel 320 and 500gb Samsung F3.

 

[toyota]

Nope. I will be using my computer for three more years. It plays my games just fine.

Intel i7 960 stock clocks, 6gb of DDR3 1333mhz, GTX 570, X58 Sabertooth mobo, 160gb intel 320 and 500gb Samsung F3.

you must not play demanding modern games or maybe you have a different definition of what fine means.

 

[Spydermag68]

I most likely upgrade to sky lake. My PII-965 is showing it's age. I have a program that takes 100 minutes to run on it. At work I have a haswell i5 and it runs the same program in 40 minutes.

 

[StinkyPinky]

No, I only got my 4790k six or so months ago. My next upgrade will be a GPU.

I doubt I will upgrade the 4790k until 2018. Nothing I do really stresses it.

 

[jpiniero]

you must not play demanding modern games or maybe you have a different definition of what fine means.

On a 960? Even at stock, I imagine most titles even now would be 40-60+ fps.

 

[toyota]

On a 960? Even at stock, I imagine most titles even now would be 40-60+ fps.

his gpu is a gtx 570...

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Not a chance, considering I just got a Xeon E3-1231v3 a couple of months ago that can keep my 970 fed at 100% even on Crysis 3 Very High system spec.

 

[Ken g6]

If I was still running a Core 2 Quad or an AMD Phenom, it would be an easy choice to say yes.

I am still running a Core 2 Quad. Been meaning to upgrade since 2013. Life got in the way in 2013; not really sure why I put it off last year. I guess it's partly that my CPU's not feeling too underpowered; I just need more RAM.

Edit: Oh, right, I upgraded my laptop last year and didn't want to do two major upgrades in the same year.

 

[boozzer]

Skylake is probably just another minuscule 10% performance bump considering they are releasing this WAY before Haswell E.

I got ivy, so if it is another 10%, I am not upgrading. my upgrade threshold is 50% the cpu have to be 50% faster than my own for me to upgrade. I may have to wait till 2017.

 

[poohbear]

Nope. Just got a 4790k. Think it will be at least 3+ years until I can justify that itch. DDR4 prices will have to come way down.

This. For a desktop i see absolutely no reason. For laptop it's different, a thin, passive cooled, 15 hour battery life would definitely have me upgrading, even from my current haswell ultrabook.

 

[Mondozei]

Largely depends how delayed Cannonlake is. If we see similar delays at 10 nm as we did with 14 nm, then probably yes, but not right away.

And I would upgrade primarily to get benefits of DDR4 and m.Sata SSDs, as well as the expectation that we'll see 6-core CPUs at more reasonable price ranges with Skylake.

 

[RaistlinZ]

No.

Currently rocking a 5820K @ 4.5Ghz. I'm good until 2018.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

you must not play demanding modern games or maybe you have a different definition of what fine means.

It's kind of both. I don't game nearly as much as I used to and I have resorted to more casual games like Team Fortress 2 and BFBC2.

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

For sure!

Sandy Bridge is kinda getting old for the stuff I want to do such as emulation, some intensive games, and other purposes too ...

I'll be aiming to get a Skylake-E and even if the improvements in IPC or clocks are disappointing I'm still looking forward to the extensions such as AVX-512 and TSX ...

 

[RussianSensation]

I got ivy, so if it is another 10%, I am not upgrading. my upgrade threshold is 50% the cpu have to be 50% faster than my own for me to upgrade. I may have to wait till 2017.

I guess it depends on what you use your CPU for. If we look at IPC gains:

- IIRC, IPC increase from IVB -> HW ~ 8%
- let's assume 14% for Skylake and another 14% for Icelake (I used these higher values for an optimistic case scenario)
- let's also assume 2017 Icelake overclocks to 5.0Ghz and a decent OC on IVB is 4.7Ghz:

5.0Ghz / 4.7Ghz x 1.08 x 1.14^2 = 49% increase in speed by end of 2017

However, I can almost guarantee that the performance increase in games will be nowhere close to that, probably 10-15% on average against a 4.7Ghz i7 IVB. Look at BFG's average increase from a stock i5 3.3Ghz 2500K to a 4.4Ghz 4790K - it's a mediocre 6% increase in games, after 1 architecture with 14-15% IPC increase, ~700mhz-1.1Ghz increase in CPU clock depending on threading and HT. D::'🙂mad: I can't see Skylake overclocking >1Ghz over IVB i7...

Unless there are a handful of games out there that you play all the time where you must have > 60 fps min (Crysis 3) at all times, Intel CPU upgrades for games now are basically more for fun/play with new OCing parts, but for performance increase for games, it's a waste of $.

OTOH, if you actually render, perform compute, etc. on your CPU a 5820@ 4.4Ghz will already be nearly 50% faster than an i7 IVB @ 4.7Ghz today.

I think with the state of PC games in the last 4-5 years, it's better to buy flagship GPU(s), larger SSD and a 21:9/4K monitor before even contemplating a CPU platform upgrade for gaming. Even with my 4-year-old 2500K OC, I would get way more performance from GM200 SLI/380X CF than Skylake @ 5Ghz. For that reason I am going to say that I am still undecided but leaning towards skipping the quad-core i7 Skylake. I would say on the top of my list a 500GB-1TB SSD, high resolution monitor and GPU upgrades sit way above a CPU upgrade*. Just my 2 cents.

*Of course if I can get a smoking hot deal on some parts to upgrade to on the cheap, I'll do it just to play with newer parts. That's always fun. I guess I just have to come to terms that CPU upgrades in the modern times are not like they were in the past. 🙁

 

[VirtualLarry]

Of course if I can get a smoking hot deal on some parts to upgrade to on the cheap, I'll do it just to play with newer parts. That's always fun. I guess I just have to come to terms that CPU upgrades in the modern times are not like they were in the past. 🙁

Or you could go the other way, like I did. Buying lower-power parts, just to see how low you can go with power-consumption and speed, before you can't stand it.

 

[asendra]

If the new retina macbook pros (15") come with Skylake, then yes, because I'm buying one of those the day they are released.

Wanted to upgrade from my macbook air last year, but because they didn't upgrade them, and it wasn't a priority, I waited. I cannot wait more though. Really hope they come with Skylake and not Broadwell.

My gaming Pc with an 4770k@4,2 won't be upgraded I presume, ddr4, mb, cpu... too much cost for too little performance. I'll guess Ill upgrade my gtx770 for whatever comes next of the gtx970, and I'll get a 4k/5k monitor soon.