Do we REALLY need new CPU's?

[frozentundra123456]

I have been running a 2.2 ghz Core 2 Duo for five years and it still does everything I need except for gaming: for that I am getting CPU limited quite a bit. But I am a fairly light user except for gaming.

However, we should be thankful for the users that do stress their CPUs and drive the progress to faster and faster CPUs. I can remember when I thought a 400 mhz Pentium was so fast that anyone could not possibly need a faster CPU. That seems absurd now.So I am sure that eventually we will get applications that require faster processors for mainstream use.

BTW, I dont "need" an i7 2500 or 2600, but I sure "want" one. Just trying to wait a while until Ivy and Bulldozer come out, and maybe they will be even cheaper.

 

[Jeff7]

I'd love to see more programs that can use multiple cores. Having lots of cores does at least prevent one single-threaded program from bogging down the entire computer, at least without reassigning its priority in Task Manager. But if a program can only use one core, throwing more and more cores at it doesn't really help out a whole lot.
(Pro/ENGINEER, I'm looking at you. )

 

[sm625]

The problem is that you have to pay upwards of $200 to get the latest and greatest in terms of performance, even for a single thread. An i3-2100 is roughly equal to a 3.8 GHz E7500. Yet the E7500 is pushing 4 years old and can be had for much much cheaper on the second hand market. All you get nowadays is less power consumption and slightly better multithreading. For 4 years worth of advancement it is obvious that this is just intel gouging the crap out of us. So-called "enthusiasts" have all convinced themselves that the solution is to simply ... spend more money! Buy a 2500k!

 

[frozentundra123456]

The problem is that you have to pay upwards of $200 to get the latest and greatest in terms of performance, even for a single thread. An i3-2100 is roughly equal to a 3.8 GHz E7500. Yet the E7500 is pushing 4 years old and can be had for much much cheaper on the second hand market. All you get nowadays is less power consumption and slightly better multithreading. For 4 years worth of advancement it is obvious that this is just intel gouging the crap out of us. So-called "enthusiasts" have all convinced themselves that the solution is to simply ... spend more money! Buy a 2500k!

Actually, since they have the high end tied up, Intel's pricing on Sandy Bridge seems quite reasonable to me. They could have easily charged 500.00 for the i7 2600, since there is no real competition from AMD.

 

[toyota]

The problem is that you have to pay upwards of $200 to get the latest and greatest in terms of performance, even for a single thread. An i3-2100 is roughly equal to a 3.8 GHz E7500. Yet the E7500 is pushing 4 years old and can be had for much much cheaper on the second hand market. All you get nowadays is less power consumption and slightly better multithreading. For 4 years worth of advancement it is obvious that this is just intel gouging the crap out of us. So-called "enthusiasts" have all convinced themselves that the solution is to simply ... spend more money! Buy a 2500k!

you are not making any sense. an i3 2100 will smoke an E7500 at 3.8 in things that use more than 2 cores. among other things that is pretty much every game being made lately. and even in things that do only use 2 cores or less the i3 2100 delivers way more performance per watt and only needs to run at 3.1 to beat previous gen higher clocked chips.

and to make it your argument even worse looking, an E7500 costs the SAME as the i3 2100. heck there even killer combo deals out there for around 110 bucks if you look.

and for 215 bucks the 2500k delivers basically the fastest gaming experience you can get now with tons of overclocking headroom all while just sipping power. I swear some of you find the most ignorant things to complain about...

 

[sm625]

and for 215 bucks the 2500k delivers basically the fastest gaming experience you can get now with tons of overclocking headroom all while just sipping power. I swear some of you find the most ignorant things to complain about...

Try again. Your arguments are simply without merit. An E7500 can be found on ebay for much less. There is good supply. Further, it is 4 years old it should not be able to compete with an i3-2100. Yet it does. It may not beat the i3-2100 in every benchmark, but it trades blows. This should NOT happen. If you thing that sort of thing is normal or justifiable then you need to look up the word "ignorant".

 

[IAteYourMother]

The problem is that you have to pay upwards of $200 to get the latest and greatest in terms of performance, even for a single thread. An i3-2100 is roughly equal to a 3.8 GHz E7500. Yet the E7500 is pushing 4 years old and can be had for much much cheaper on the second hand market. All you get nowadays is less power consumption and slightly better multithreading. For 4 years worth of advancement it is obvious that this is just intel gouging the crap out of us. So-called "enthusiasts" have all convinced themselves that the solution is to simply ... spend more money! Buy a 2500k!

i3-2100 seems much better to me...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/87?vs=289

 

[piasabird]

They already have the video integrated on the CPU and the Sound integrated on the motherboard. Why not inegrate the primary storage or use simple plug-in modules. I think with some advances in USB and smaller optical drives, we could shrink down the computer significantly. I think optical disks may disappear. They get damaged too easily. Why not just store the data on high speed USB drives and ditch the DVD's completely. I hate it when some game disk gets too many scratches and becomes unreadable in spots and then your game just freezes up. In fact it is the anti-pirating that has led to requiring users to have to have a stupid DVD drive in the disk. This just causes the drives to ware out.

 

[toyota]

Try again. Your arguments are simply without merit. An E7500 can be found on ebay for much less. There is good supply. Further, it is 4 years old it should not be able to compete with an i3-2100. Yet it does. It may not beat the i3-2100 in every benchmark, but it trades blows. This should NOT happen. If you thing that sort of thing is normal or justifiable then you need to look up the word "ignorant".

the i3 2100 easily beats the E7500 while costing the same and using less power. AGAIN in things that use more than 2 cores the i3 2100 beats the hell out of the E7500. heck the i3 2100 beats the Phenom 2 X4 in gaming and almost anything else while using half the power. and only an ignorant fool would complain about what a 2500k brings to the table. stop looking so hard for an excuse to bitch about Intel.

 

[sm625]

i3-2100 seems much better to me...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/87?vs=289

Well duh of course it "seems" better. It is better. But is it 4 years better? No way. Not even close. Dont forget you are compared a chip that can be overclocked vs one that cannot. That is what makes or breaks all of this.''

It is funny how obvious the intel gouging is, yet you still have these shills worshipping them ready to be bent over at will.

 

[toyota]

Well duh of course it "seems" better. It is better. But is it 4 years better? No way. Not even close. Dont forget you are compared a chip that can be overclocked vs one that cannot. That is what makes or breaks all of this.''

It is funny how obvious the intel gouging is, yet you still have these shills worshipping them ready to be bent over at will.

and wtf does AMD bring? you are being so damn short sided. look at whats out there RIGHT NOW. buy an AMD X4 for the same amount of money if you want to use more power, have a noisy cooler ans still lose to i3 in gaming and nearly everything else. sure you can oc that X4 and just meet or barely beat the i3. but you will need a new cooler and you will be using tons more power just to do that. that means the i3 2100 is actually cheaper in the end for the same level of performance.

of course you can spend 60 bucks more and get an i5 2400 and beat any AMD X6 for the same price while again using way less power and having a quiet cooler and the ability to oc a little.

yeah how dare Intel give us all these powerful cpus that match or beat the competition while being quieter and using way less power. and it does all that while having a gpu built in which might be important to some. but yeah Intel is the devil...

 

[munkle]

It is funny how obvious the intel gouging is, yet you still have these shills worshipping them ready to be bent over at will.

LOL you have no idea what gouging is. Prices right now are good. Gouging would be $700+ for a 2600k, you know that's what the high end used to cost in the p4 days.

 

[toyota]

LOL you have no idea what gouging is. Prices right now are good. Gouging would be $700+ for a 2600k, you know that's what the high end used to cost in the p4 days.

yeah and when has AMD ever offered the fasting gaming cpu for just over 200 bucks? the 2500k is a bargain and the 2600k is not too bad if you need HT for what you do.

 

[Skurge]

Well duh of course it "seems" better. It is better. But is it 4 years better? No way. Not even close. Dont forget you are compared a chip that can be overclocked vs one that cannot. That is what makes or breaks all of this.''

It is funny how obvious the intel gouging is, yet you still have these shills worshipping them ready to be bent over at will.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/87?vs=406

Half the price, better performance and look at the power use.

You could cool that thing passivly.

 

[trollolo]

>this thread

 

[IndyColtsFan]

It is funny how obvious the intel gouging is, yet you still have these shills worshipping them ready to be bent over at will.

How can you call $200 or $300 for what is effectively the best performing product on the market for the majority of applications "gouging"?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

LOL you have no idea what gouging is. Prices right now are good. Gouging would be $700+ for a 2600k, you know that's what the high end used to cost in the p4 days.

I paid $1000 for my brand new Pentium 120 in 1995.

 

[toyota]

How can you call $200 or $300 for what is effectively the best performing product on the market "gouging"?

yeah and if that's "bending over" then I guess I like it. :awe:

 

[kalrith]

My Q6600 @ 3.2 GHz is still running pretty well after 4 1/2 years. However, next year might be my big upgrade year. I'd like to get an SSD and a new graphics card, and my lack of SATA3 plus my "aging" CPU might hold me back for those upgrades.

 

[jhansman]

Yes, I need 3+ GHz and six cores (and a cooler the size of Michigan) to cruise the web, type a letter, do email, and play solitaire. Doesn't everyone?

 

[RussianSensation]

For 4 years worth of advancement it is obvious that this is just intel gouging the crap out of us. So-called "enthusiasts" have all convinced themselves that the solution is to simply ... spend more money! Buy a 2500k!

Not sure what you mean.

Q6600 was around $300 in the fall of 2007 (and 12 months before that Q6700 was $851-$900+). 4-5 years later you get 2500k for $220.

2500k @ 4.5ghz x 1.5 IPC increase over Q6600/Q6700 @ 3.4-3.5ghz = almost 2x faster for $80-$800+ less depending on when you purchased your first Intel quad....(but that $220 is even less today since RAM is cheaper and then there is inflation).

Using i3 processor to show that we had little progress is not necessarily fair since I wouldn't call an i3 @ $120 great value to begin with when you can get i5-2400 for $190. With BD, you'll soon have 6- and 8-cores for the price of an E8500 in 2006.

Also, 2500k @ 4.5ghz should last another 2-3 years which can't be said of ANY CPU from < 2005. It wasn't until E6400/6600 arrived that overclocked CPUs really started to "last". Back then 18-24 months and your Pentium 3 was 2x slower, 18-24 more months and Penitum 4 1.4ghz was already at 3.2ghz, and then 18-24 months, we had dual core X2 processors, etc. [my timelines are estimated, but you get my point].

There will be nothing on the horizon that will be 2x faster on avg. than 2500k @ 4.5ghz in 18 months.

 

[greenhawk]

don't worry OP, everyone has that feeling at some point when dealing with IT over the years. For me it was back when 300MHz CPUs had become "common". Just how much speed is needed for web surfing and running a typing program. Things that could be seen as the staple of computer use at the time.

Now, their are just more tasks that want more processing power. My Q6600 is now getting old, but the only reason I know that is some tasks feel slow (video editing), espically when you read that a 2500K/2600K is close to double the performance.

I think the longest system I ever had was one I purchased during University. A dual Celeron 400a. Used it well past it's prime, but mainly due to not having the money to upgrade. Then went Athlon 1800xp, but sold it within 3 months as it did not have the smooth feel dual cpus bring to the table. Went to a Dual Opteron 244 system (nearly 6 months before the AMD 3800 x2's came out) and had it until the motherboard died(? - still not 100% sure, just stopped powering up), so purchased the current Q6600 unit.

Only reason I have not upgraded yet for such a noticable performance increase is that IB is just around the corner with another noticable speed increase (for me anyway). Otherwise I would have upgraded already. I nearly did a few months ago, but availability of parts I wanted was poor, so just got some more ram and overclocked the current system instead.

For the average user, their has not been a need of the current (pre 2 previous generations) of cpus at all. Even gaming is in a semi-rut that can be lined up with the consoles existance, so faster hardware is just not REALLY needed on the gameing side of things.

Web surfing, only have issues with flash, and been having that for several years. No amount of fast hardware will address that general crap.

The remaining tasks that need a fast cpu, at not ones I see the average home user ever doing more than once or twice in a computers life, and the closest to that is video editing/encoding. The rest of the high processing tasks that come to mind are tasks that are 99% of the time done for a businesses and not home users.

 

[soccerballtux]

With this current generation of CPU's we are seeing quad core, multithreaded wonders that can push 4.5-5.0ghz overclocked and all that jazz. Really, when it comes to the real world do normal consumers really even need this generations processors? Or heck, even last generations?

My brother built a computer 4 or so years ago with a Duo Core 2 CPU running 2.8Ghz and his computer still runs anything he throws at it with relative ease. Windows 7, running like 15 apps at a time, running a server and all that kinds of stuff. So, with this new generation and already hearing about the NEXT generation of CPU's I just wonder. Why? When I build my system out of the i5 2500k overclocked to around 4.2Ghz I really do not see it becoming any type of bottleneck for games or applications for many many years. Most games don't even use the CPU's 4 cores, let alone 6 or 8 or 12 or whatever it coming down the pipe next year.

GPU's are being used of course, but CPU's seem to have hit a point to where really theres no point to upgrading after this generations releases. What do you think?

hence the trend towards limiting games to 2 cores like the new battlefield. Forces you to upgrade PC if you want better single threaded performance. Sponsored by Intel Inside.

 

[trollolo]

I paid $1000 for my brand new Pentium 120 in 1995.

i had a sandbox in 1995, and it cost less than that. your move

 

[IndyColtsFan]

i had a sandbox in 1995, and it cost less than that. your move

Well, I think it was actually $930 now that I think of it, but still -- THAT was gouging! It was my first PC build and the P120 was the fastest on the market and brand new, soon to be eclipsed by the P133.