Does it make sense to buy Haswell now?

[SteveGrabowski]

You say "bare minimum" as if it's a slight, when in reality it is "plenty of enough power" for less money which let's you spend more money on a graphics card, which will always be the better way to spend money for gaming.

Yeah, it always makes me laugh when I see that post. I think a locked i5 really is the sweet spot though for great price to performance, since anything less requires making some huge sacrifices. E.g., going for an Fx chip bottlenecks a high-end graphics card now, which means it will bottleneck a midrange card in 2 years. And really, an Fx-8350 isn't much cheaper when you factor in increased motherboard cost. Whereas even an i5-4430 does great with a GTX 980 on a 60FPS target, so a buyer can have confidence it will still be a pretty good gaming chip in 2017. And not many people buy a CPU thinking they want to replace it in one or two years.

Or for the compromise if you go i3 or lower, you probably have to buy an overpriced Nvidia card like a 760, as it seems the much better midrange AMD cards have been getting bottlenecked in recent games, at least according to Eurogamer in a couple of their recent reviews. So that's a huge compromise going with a 760 instead of a superior 280 or even 280x.

But you can still play most AAA games pretty well right now on even an i3/G3258/Fx-6300/Fx-4300 + R7 260x/GTX 750Ti combo, which is what I would call the bare minimum for a gaming PC (though your future-proofing is basically zero here).

 

[Lepton87]

Thanks.

I thought so, but it's very rare to see 3820 gaming benchmarks compared to the 5820. I just needed some 2nd opinions.

Since it's cpu mark score(about 10300) is near the 4770k, i just got by how the 4770k compares.

You really don't need benchmarks of exactly 3820 because you can just use 2600K/2700K as reference point instead because all those CPUs perform pretty much the same in games. Going by 4770K will be very inaccurate it's a completely different architecture and don't let one benchmark fool you, it's much faster than any SB. Even IB (3770K) will be a bad point of comparison, 2700K is the closest.

Look for yourself 4770K vs 3820
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/523?vs=836
Not even close as expected, but
3820 vs 2600
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/523?vs=287
Very close as expected, only 2700k will be closer in performance.
A quad core SB-E is only marginally better than a regular quad core SB. Even IB is better than quad core SB-E. Using a HW as an equvalent is very inaccurate even an IB is better than a quad core SB-E.
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/523?vs=551

So a quad core SB-E is between a auad core SB and a quad core IVY. If you can get the 3930K/4930K for a good price that would be my choice. HW-E isn't much better than SB-E/IVY-E, most of the IPC improvements are eaten up by lower frequency.
ps. How did you get similar 3D mark CPU scores? They should be similar just as other scores aren't look at that bench comparison.
UPDATE: I assumed that you were talking about 3D mark CPU score but you didn't say that. What cpu mark score? If they are indeed similar that's just an outlier don't use it as a proxy. In all games a 4770K will be faster sometimes by a lot.

 

[StrangerGuy]

You say "bare minimum" as if it's a slight, when in reality it is "plenty of enough power" for less money which let's you spend more money on a graphics card, which will always be the better way to spend money for gaming.

Exactly, the GPU should always be the top priority especially on a tight budget. Telling most people to OC a i5 just to futureproof the CPU for an extra $150 over a $250 i5 4460 + budget mobo is stupid because somehow the CPU deserves futureproofing but that poor GPU which is the bottleneck like 95% of the time in games doesn't.

 

[voodoo7817]

It's all about finding the right balance for each build, but it can be tough sometimes (hence all this discussion). And everyone has moments where their eyes are bigger than their stomach/wallet. At the end of the day though, we're all talking about great CPU tech and even the 'worst' decision isn't that much worse than the 'best' decision, whether talking money invested or performance levels.

I like builds that begin with higher level mainstream CPUs (860 to 4790k) that help to bridge two higher level mainstream GPUs (8800gt to 560ti to soon to purchase 290 and then something else around $250 in 2ish years) so the platform lasts about 4 years. If your horizon is 2ish or 6ish years, perhaps a different plan would be appropriate.

 

[RaistlinZ]

It's all about finding the right balance for each build, but it can be tough sometimes (hence all this discussion). And everyone has moments where their eyes are bigger than their stomach/wallet. At the end of the day though, we're all talking about great CPU tech and even the 'worst' decision isn't that much worse than the 'best' decision, whether talking money invested or performance levels.

I like builds that begin with higher level mainstream CPUs (860 to 4790k) that help to bridge two higher level mainstream GPUs (8800gt to 560ti to soon to purchase 290 and then something else around $250 in 2ish years) so the platform lasts about 4 years. If your horizon is 2ish or 6ish years, perhaps a different plan would be appropriate.

I do the same thing as well. Went from i7-930 to i7-4770K to my current 5820K. Does it always make financial sense? No. But life is short, why not enjoy the nice stuff as long as it fits within your budget?

 

[Lepton87]

I do the same thing as well. Went from i7-930 to i7-4770K to my current 5820K. Does it always make financial sense? No. But life is short, why not enjoy the nice stuff as long as it fits within your budget?

I wouldn't call the i7 930 or 5820K mainstream. Only the 4770K fits there.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I wouldn't call the i7 930 or 5820K mainstream. Only the 4770K fits there.

Maybe the platform isn't, but I still think the chip is. It was $299.99 for me @ MC, not much more than a 4770K.

 

[2is]

Maybe the platform isn't, but I still think the chip is. It was $299.99 for me @ MC, not much more than a 4770K.

Unless you somehow managed to make it work in an LGA 1150 board, I don't see how you can make two separate distinctions like that.