Devil's Canyon or Haswell E for gaming?

[moonbogg]

Sweet..:thumbsup:

But I advise you wait a few months.
Both Sandy Bridge & Haswell had a bug with the motherboard when they launched. For that they had to recall the MB that were affected.

You want to wait a few days or at least a month, to know that there are no bugs this time.
Just my 2 cents.

Yep. I had to rip apart my new sandy rig to RMA the board because of that damn sandy bug a few years ago. That sucked.

 

[Grooveriding]

Yeah I remember the SB bug with USB I think it was ? I never had the problem because I waited until 2011.

I would like to hope any bugs on X99 would be dealt with pre-release, it is still Haswell. But there are new things like DDR4.. sooo.

 

[tidy]

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[NostaSeronx]

As a currently inactive game broadcaster;

I would get Haswell-E 6c/8c then pair it with the highest end GPU with NVENC2 or VCE2.

Capture via NVENC2/VCE2 (Low-Latency Lossless, since the units are tied to the render out) -> then Encode to x264/x265 -> cast out to Twitch/Hitbox/Youtube, etc.

 

[Yuriman]

I was waiting for Haswell, then I was waiting for Ivy Bridge-E, then I bought Haswell anyway and it would have been OK if the morons at Asus had managed to come up with a mature BIOS after six months, but clearly that was too much to ask. I was tempted to switch motherboards, but by now the Haswell refresh and apparently Haswell-E are right around the corner so I sold all of my Haswell stuff. I was going to wait for Haswell-E until yesterday, when I came to the realisation that If I jump on this early adopter bandwagon again, I'll just end up with another bug-ridden pile of junk and waiting for new BIOSes etc. for another 6 months until it matures.

So, now I think I'm just going to go ahead and buy a P9X79 WS and 4960X. At least that way I won't have to worry about potential x99 chipset bugs (Intel's lost it's perfect reputation after the Sandy Bridge SATA debacle and then C1 Haswell), waiting for mature BIOSes, not having the latest mobo HW revision and all those headaches.

Time and time again I advise people never to play the early adoption game, and repeatedly I ignore my own advice only to suffer the consequences. I'm reluctant to buy into this hideously antiquated platform with it's miserable two SATA 6gb/s ports, lack of native USB 3 etc, but at least it's the devil I know.

My vote is for Haswell-E, tbh.

I benched some native Intel USB3.0 ports vs ASMedia, and found (on a flash drive) that sequential transfers were more than 40% faster. Haven't done any testing with SATA ports yet but I'm tempted.

 

[tidy]

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[tweakboy]

A 8 core Haswell refresh would cost 600 dollars. Haswell E , Then a 10 core 1.2k and fineally if you went 12 it will be 1400 dollars. maybe even more.

Then you buy it and baaam a new CPU comes out... Gotta be content with what they have. gl

 

[Tristor]

I've basically built all I'm going to build until I see X99 released. If it meets my expectations, I'll probably be selling my current rig to pick up an X99 Classified or a Rampage 5. I'm really looking forward to seeing what EVGA's newest mobo entrant will look like now that they have their mobo team back together. I've got high hopes for Haswell-E/X99, I definitely hope it can bring a win for me, because I've had no need to build on the Enthusiast platform for awhile, but I really wish I had gone X58 over P55 back when I had the choice then. X79 just wasn't compelling vs Z87, but I feel like X99 will be a true winner.

 

[rtsurfer]

I've basically built all I'm going to build until I see X99 released. If it meets my expectations, I'll probably be selling my current rig to pick up an X99 Classified or a Rampage 5. I'm really looking forward to seeing what EVGA's newest mobo entrant will look like now that they have their mobo team back together.

EVGA's x79 MOBOs had a lot of BIOS issues.
I like their color scheme, but if they could bring the quality similar to their graphics card then people would buy it.

I have heard that their previous board used to be good.

 

[Grooveriding]

Yeah I wouldn't buy an EVGA motherboard. Too many issues. It would take years of a good record again for me to consider a buy. Normally I'd avoid Asus as well since their warranty support can be abysmal, but they provide 'premium' coverage for their ROG products.

I had to RMA my RIVE not too long ago and it was a pain free process. Will be a Rampage 5 for me when X99 comes out.

 

[Tristor]

EVGA's x79 MOBOs had a lot of BIOS issues.
I like their color scheme, but if they could bring the quality similar to their graphics card then people would buy it.

I have heard that their previous board used to be good.

BIOS issues is standard EVGA. You don't buy EVGA for their BIOS, you buy it for the stellar hardware quality and overclocking features such as smaller increments of voltage control. As far back as I can remember EVGA has had meh motherboard BIOS. The rule of thumb was to essentially find the BIOS that worked the best for you and stick with it and don't update unless you're absolutely certain that the BIOS update specifically fixes an issue you're having, because it might not only significantly change the required stable overclock settings but it also might just not work for you.

That said, I'm really liking the Sabertooth Z87 I have now, so I would definitely consider a Rampage 5, but I have also had really good luck with EVGA boards in the past and I know exactly what I would be getting myself into if I chose to purchase one.

 

[Makaveli]

This. I bought 1366 and 2011 day 1 and both were top-notch for years, respectively. I will be getting the HW-E on launch date as well, and looking forward to DDR4 as well.

Agreed with you both.

I'm still on 1366 skiped 2011 and will be going haswell E.

 

[tential]

OP went on an enthusiast forum expecting a serious answer to his question lol. Blackened gave you the most realistic answer OP.

The majority of the posts afterwards are posts from an enthusiast standpoint. Haswell-E won't offer you much if ANY performance increase over Devils Canyon. If you want to pay a TON extra for 3-5% performance gain be my guest though. Majority of people in thsi thread who are voting for Haswell-E are doing so because for them, it's what they would WANT.

Asking questions on an enthusiast forum won't necessarily give you the most cost efficient plan. It's going to give you enthusiast talk of enthusiasts wanting to talk about the fastest/newest platform/hardware because that's what's interesting.

 

[TeknoBug]

You really shouldn't get a Haswell-E or even those LGA2011 setups for gaming, but lots of people do and show off the money they can spend, a i7 4930K don't perform that much better than a mildly OC'd 4670K.

Games are going heavily multithreaded now because of the new console landscape. Things like i5s and soon 4 core processors are anemic for gaming imo.

No, they aren't yet. Half-Life 2 since 2004 has supported multi-threading and Battlefield 4 can use up to 12 threads IIRC. I'd give it ~2 years before games start regularly becoming heavily multithreaded.

 

[frozentundra123456]

From a performance/dollar standpoint, you are undoubtedly correct. I will be interesting to see how an intel hex core performs in new cpu intensive games like Watchdogs and the new Mordor game however. Those call for a 3770k for the recommended spec. I suspect even a HD4670 will still be fine, but we shall see.

To be honest, I dont expect much improvement in gaming from either DC or Haswell E. If the new interface is so great for DC, I would expect stock clocks to be improved, and I have not heard any rumors to this effect. I remember before Haswell came out they were touting the OC features, and we know how that turned out. I am afraid Devil's Canyon will be the same thing. As for Haswell E, it should be great for productivity apps, but there might be too much sacrifice in clockspeed/OC headroom to see much improvement in gaming.

 

[moonbogg]

The hex cores don't provide much benefit of course. I think people know that. However, if you only play 1 game and that game does benefit, then you should get the hex core. Oh wait! No you shouldn't! Because I was stupid enough to make that mistake for you and I didn't gain a damn thing!
Lets say a hex core gives you 5-10% more in BF4 and that's all you play. Do you know how much GPU power you'd need to see that increase? Getting expensive there if you don't have plenty of disposable cash. I for one will likely go with Haswell hex core, because once you go hex you never go back. Can't fix stupid baby. Wanna go full retard with me?

 

[Galatian]

To extend the question a little further Core i5 or Core i7 DK chip? Last time I did a CPU upgrade people recommended me the core i5 because Hyperthreating was poorly supported. Is this still the case?

 

[moonbogg]

To extend the question a little further Core i5 or Core i7 DK chip? Last time I did a CPU upgrade people recommended me the core i5 because Hyperthreating was poorly supported. Is this still the case?

No. I wouldn't go i5. 4 threads is OK most of the time but its getting a little weak. At least go i7 if you can afford it.

 

[blackened23]

Well obviously you buy your setup based on what applications or games you use. HW-E makes sense for some people, but by and large I think it makes the most sense for what someone does outside of gaming. But if someone plays tons of BF4 MP, have fun with it.

That said the typical usage scenario is someone who plays a ton of PC games. Not just the same one. For such an individual on a budget, the fact of the matter is HEDT usually costs 500$ more than the mainstream platform - and adding insult to injury, since the mainsteam platform usually has better IPC - it can even beat the HEDT platform in quite a lot of games. Case in point being the IVB-E vs HW. HW wins some games based on IPC grunt. It isn't a significant difference in performance obviously, but this all goes back to someone with a budget and someone who plays a wide variety of PC games. For someone like that, does HEDT make sense? Hell no, no it doesn't.

But certainly everyone should buy based on the games and apps THEY use. If there's a killer app that someone plays or uses which would benefit from an 8 core, buy accordingly. There's nothing wrong with that, that's great. I'm just saying that games or apps like that are outliers at this point and time and the wide variety of games benefit more from IPC. Which wouldn't make much of a case for HEDT. But if budget isn't a consideration then the HW-E will certainly be a beastly setup. No doubt about it.

In the end, to re-iterate, the buyer should buy based on what apps / games matter most to them. Right now with PC gaming, IPC is king - but If there are a few games which would be better on HW-E and budget doesn't matter, go for it, that's awesome. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.

 

[tential]

To extend the question a little further Core i5 or Core i7 DK chip? Last time I did a CPU upgrade people recommended me the core i5 because Hyperthreating was poorly supported. Is this still the case?

Price difference between the two is so tiny I'd go with a Core i7. 4 threads vs 8 threads? If the price difference was 250+ then maybe I'd be worried but it's under $100. Why not just save a little extra cash for the 8 threaded model.

To sum up the thread though OP in a simple way.
If you're shopping Haswell-E, you aren't posting a thread asking if you need it. You generally already know you need it or you don't need it and are getting it anyway.

I'd take the i7.