CPU Upgrade - Thuban or Piledriver?

[lifeblood]

I have the upgrade fever am trying to decide on what it should be. My current rig (in sig) has a nice AM3+ board. My wife has promised to buy me a new GPU and I'm waiting until the 7800 or 7700 GPUs come out to decide what to get. That means I can upgrade the CPU now. The question is, do I want to go for a Thuban now or wait to see what piledriver brings? I don't have to upgrade but I have some money saved up, and I don't want my new GPU to be badly bottle-necked by my CPU. If Piledriver has the potential to do significantly better than Thuban (at the same cost) then maybe I will wait for it.

First off, no I'm not going to toss the whole thing and get an i7. I will consider an Intel processor once AM3+ finally dies and my rig doesn't do what I want it to.

Second, I won't go Bulldozer as it fails to provide an acceptable performance increases for its price given my expected workload.

So the real question is whether Piledriver is expected to be faster than Thuban at the above workloads, and at what cost? I expect we're a couple of quarters away from seeing it, but what are we realistically expecting?

 

[Maximilian]

Edit: Nvm it is on AM3.

I would just wait for piledriver to see what it brings if your X4 is good enough for now. If you cant resist upgrading snag a thuban whilst they are still available.

 

[KingFatty]

What are your expected workloads? Some workloads may benefit from more cores, or more CPU cache, where you'd notice it with a different CPU. But some workloads will be GPU-limited, so changing the CPU won't help those and even if you get a 7XXX-series GPU upgrade, perhaps those workloads will still be GPU limited?

 

[gmaster456]

I would wait until Piledriver. I hear its on both AM3+/FM2. AMD isn't usually one to ditch sockets.

 

[sm625]

Since you're upgrading the gpu too I would try and sell your current system and... dare I say, buy a 2500k. lol

 

[blckgrffn]

Since you're upgrading the gpu too I would try and sell your current system and... dare I say, buy a 2500k. lol

No ebay i5-760? How could you help not bringing that up?


+1 on the wait for Piledriver argument. Thubans will still be available second hand, worse case.

 

[LoneNinja]

Does your unlocked Athlon have the L3 cache unlocked or just the 4th core? Is it currently overclocked?

I feel both of those need to be answered to determine whether Thuban would be worth while or not.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

bulldozer was a let down. Get a Thuban quick before they're gone

 

[ctk1981]

Theres a new sealed 1090T for sale in the fs/t section also. If you're dead set on AMD I'd go ahead with thuban.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2215438

I just bought an 1100t, I'm going to ride it out and see if piledriver can correct the short comings of bulldozer. If not guess theres always Ivy.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

What clockspeed are you currently running at? If you're around 3.5, I just don't see spending upwards of $200 on an incremental upgrade.

 

[lifeblood]

Does your unlocked Athlon have the L3 cache unlocked or just the 4th core? Is it currently overclocked?

As far as I can tell the L3 cache is not unlocked, just the fourth core. I'm running it at about 3.05 GHz. I overclocked it enough just to break that magical 3 GHz barrier.

I'm currently playing Skyrim on high settings. The GIS is not processor intensive, it just requires a lot of RAM. My wife is working on Modelling & Simulation stuff and I know a couple of her modeling programs list my rig as being "just enough" to run the software. Her statistical software ("R") runs fine on it.

 

[lifeblood]

I would wait until Piledriver. I hear its on both AM3+/FM2. AMD isn't usually one to ditch sockets.

I don't know about FM2 but I've read at least one official release from AMD saying AM3+.

If you mean Trinity with its piledriver cores then yes, FM2 as well. But that is an APU which is nice but doesn't do me any good, at least until they get hybrid crossfire working well.

 

[guskline]

lifeblood: Have the Very same MB in one of my rigs and put an 1100T in it. Was originally going Bulldozer but the "less than steller" reviews convinced me to snag an 1100T. Not as fast as my Intel 2500k rigs but a good strong rig. I have 2 MSI Cyclone 460GTX-768s in SLI and the 1100T performs well. Wait for Piledriver???? If it's the same debacle as Bulldozer you might see one in late 2012 if you are lucky. Plus are you SURE it will fit in the AM3+ mb? My quick research indicates it might be for an FM2 socket. If you aren't going to use a Bulldozer ( and I understand why!) get a 1090T or 1100T. They are available NOW, not some nebulous time in the future.

 

[Chiropteran]

I'd wait. FX 8150 is lackluster, but only because it's barely faster than the high end phenom 2. So, your choice is a slow bulldozer or a slower Ph2 X6.

That said, the supposed patch might make bulldozer more interesting. I've heard 10-15% improvement across the board but there are posters here who will claim it's all BS. Either way, waiting is the safe bet.

 

[lifeblood]

If it's the same debacle as Bulldozer you might see one in late 2012 if you are lucky. Plus are you SURE it will fit in the AM3+ mb? My quick research indicates it might be for an FM2 socket.

Piledriver was originally not going to be AM3+ but after the BD disaster AMD officially stated it would be AM3+. I'm sure they did it in order to salvage AM3+ chipset sales. Trinity, which uses Piledriver cores, will be FM2. They also may release an FM3 PD although I doubt it. To much work for to little benefit.

As for timing, they say Q3 2012. I'm pretty sure it will be Q3 or Q4. PD is not a major architecture change and will remain on a (by then) well understood and mature 32nm process.

 

[Magic Carpet]

If you can wait for "something better", then you probably don't need to upgrade just yet.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Piledriver was originally not going to be AM3+ but after the BD disaster AMD officially stated it would be AM3+. I'm sure they did it in order to salvage AM3+ chipset sales. Trinity, which uses Piledriver cores, will be FM2. They also may release an FM3 PD although I doubt it. To much work for to little benefit.

As for timing, they say Q3 2012. I'm pretty sure it will be Q3 or Q4. PD is not a major architecture change and will remain on a (by then) well understood and mature 32nm process.

My contact at AMD says end of June for Piledriver.

 

[lifeblood]

My contact at AMD says end of June for Piledriver.

Junes the end of Q2. I would be surprised if it was that soon, but I also wouldn't be surprised. The disaster that is BD may be driving them to new efforts. But physics is still physics and the process required to produce a new CPU design can only be hurried so much. I'll stick to my Q3/Q4 2012 prediction.

 

[Ferzerp]

Fool me once shame on you.

Fool me twice... won't get fooled again?

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Junes the end of Q2. I would be surprised if it was that soon, but I also wouldn't be surprised. The disaster that is BD may be driving them to new efforts. But physics is still physics and the process required to produce a new CPU design can only be hurried so much. I'll stick to my Q3/Q4 2012 prediction.

Which is what almost everybody else is predicting.

Also, Piledriver is not a new CPU design. It's a tweak of BD, so don't expect miracles in terms of performance.

 

[thilanliyan]

I'm counting on Piledriver too lol. It better be a good upgrade!! I picked up a FX6100 which I hope to OC to close to 5GHz to tide me over until PD.

 

[Rvenger]

My contact at AMD says end of June for Piledriver.

But how many times will it get delayed?

 

[tweakboy]

Go with Screwdriver instead of Piledriver. Actually better yet IMO , go with Hawaii the code name for the next AMD chip.

No but seriously in all honesty, If you have a quad now, don't upgrade. Wait it out and let 2012 play out a bit. You will regret it if you make a quick piledriver or thuban move then 2 months later AMD Hawaii chipset comes out.

Also What type of apps do you use ? If you use Adobe Premiere or Photoshop or Sonar X1 then you should go for HT which means Intel. 8 threads . your quad behaves like a 8 core with 64bit app and HT supported app which the above do.

If you just play games and use net and pics and dvd etc,,different apps,, surfing,, then wait it out. Save your money for a future SSD along with a newer AMD chipset. gl

 

[lifeblood]

I get the feeling the general consensus (with exceptions, of course) is to wait until Piledriver is released. I can do that.

I could buy a better heatsink and overclock my current CPU, but I reuse my old hardware. When I get a new CPU, the current one will move into a "family" PC that plays my daughters games, records movies, etc. I don't want to trash my current CPU when I could get a few more years of use out of it.

Anyway, thanks for the advice.

 

[douglasb]

The consensus is basically "Don't waste your money on Bulldozer." Ideally, you'd want to switch platforms, but if you can afford to wait, you might as well wait for Piledriver and hope for the best. The current AMD offerings are marginally better than your current system, and overpriced for what you would be getting.