Saw a similar thread started by a gamer, but my concerns are almost everything *but* gaming so figured I'd do a separate one.
I'm currently running an E8400 with 4 GB DDR2 from 2008. It's held up well for general use, particularly with the addition of an SSD last year, but performance is finally starting to bother me in some cases. My main concerns are productivity, media (including some audio/video encoding) and Photoshop. I'd also like to have the option of running one or two VMs without breaking a sweat, a feat my current rig can't quite claim.
I came close to pulling the trigger on an 3570K-based setup over BF, but none of the deals (save in-store exclusives that I don't have locally) were tempting enough. Now that any chance of a firesale deal has passed, I'm back to asking myself whether it's worth jumping in now or holding out for Haswell, which I've read very little about.
A few specific questions for speculation:
1) Is Haswell expected to be *significantly* more efficient than IB, to the point where it would have a noticeable impact on my electric bill and heat generation in the room?
2) I haven't used HD4000, but hear it's a major step toward finally competing with low-end discrete GPUs. Is the Haswell GPU likely to be so good that I wouldn't miss my current 8800 GT using it? That might be a silly notion but again I'm a bit out of the loop these days.
3) Are mid-range (~$200) CPUs likely to be available in the spring/early summer, or just the high-end UBER EXTREME EDITION models, leaving budget users waiting til fall?
4) Are there any other noteworthy changes to chipsets/motherboards/ports upcoming that I should consider? I'm as much looking forward to better SATA performance, memory bandwidth and getting USB3 as the CPU upgrade. If any sea changes in those areas are on the horizon I might better wait, as I'll likely be on another ~4 year upgrade cycle.
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Somehow this feels eerily similar to my predicament back in '08. I ended up going with a C2D toward the end of that socket's lifecycle, and it's served me well, but I've felt hamstrung by the chipset and memory limitations these past couple years. Truth be told, I probably would've been a lot happier the past 2-3 years if it were cheap and easy to upgrade to 8-16 GB DDR2, but it's neither (in fact, my chipset doesn't even support it). Hate to grab 16 GB DDR3 now and then 8 months later we see mainstream boards that support 128 GB DDR4, leaving me with a sour taste again come 2014-15.
I'm currently running an E8400 with 4 GB DDR2 from 2008. It's held up well for general use, particularly with the addition of an SSD last year, but performance is finally starting to bother me in some cases. My main concerns are productivity, media (including some audio/video encoding) and Photoshop. I'd also like to have the option of running one or two VMs without breaking a sweat, a feat my current rig can't quite claim.
I came close to pulling the trigger on an 3570K-based setup over BF, but none of the deals (save in-store exclusives that I don't have locally) were tempting enough. Now that any chance of a firesale deal has passed, I'm back to asking myself whether it's worth jumping in now or holding out for Haswell, which I've read very little about.
A few specific questions for speculation:
1) Is Haswell expected to be *significantly* more efficient than IB, to the point where it would have a noticeable impact on my electric bill and heat generation in the room?
2) I haven't used HD4000, but hear it's a major step toward finally competing with low-end discrete GPUs. Is the Haswell GPU likely to be so good that I wouldn't miss my current 8800 GT using it? That might be a silly notion but again I'm a bit out of the loop these days.
3) Are mid-range (~$200) CPUs likely to be available in the spring/early summer, or just the high-end UBER EXTREME EDITION models, leaving budget users waiting til fall?
4) Are there any other noteworthy changes to chipsets/motherboards/ports upcoming that I should consider? I'm as much looking forward to better SATA performance, memory bandwidth and getting USB3 as the CPU upgrade. If any sea changes in those areas are on the horizon I might better wait, as I'll likely be on another ~4 year upgrade cycle.
----
Somehow this feels eerily similar to my predicament back in '08. I ended up going with a C2D toward the end of that socket's lifecycle, and it's served me well, but I've felt hamstrung by the chipset and memory limitations these past couple years. Truth be told, I probably would've been a lot happier the past 2-3 years if it were cheap and easy to upgrade to 8-16 GB DDR2, but it's neither (in fact, my chipset doesn't even support it). Hate to grab 16 GB DDR3 now and then 8 months later we see mainstream boards that support 128 GB DDR4, leaving me with a sour taste again come 2014-15.