Is it Worth upgrading to Ivy Bridge or wait for Haswell??

[Edrick]

Definitely wait for Haswell. Ivy Bridge doesn't offer anything new for desktops. Haswell brings twice the SIMD throughput with AVX2, and much more efficient multi-threading with TSX. Both of these are revolutionary in their own right.

Ivy Bridge is evolutionary at best and only potentially interesting for ultrabooks, and even there Haswell will be much more efficient. Ivy Bridge is basically Sandy Bridge on an immature 22 nm process.

This +1

 

[aaksheytalwar]

IMO ivy bridge isn't evolutionary. It is the minimum improvement required to call the CPU next gen without giving much incentive to upgrade except to those who must have the latest. It may provide a bit better and smoother experience in demanding situations but nobody knows yet. As far as ipc is concerned, it couldn't have been worse.

 

[Don Karnage]

IMO ivy bridge isn't evolutionary. It is the minimum improvement required to call the CPU next gen without giving much incentive to upgrade except to those who must have the latest. It may provide a bit better and smoother experience in demanding situations but nobody knows yet. As far as ipc is concerned, it couldn't have been worse.

Its a "Tick". I'm not sure why everyone is so concerned about its 5-8% ipc gain. Westmere didn't even get a 1% IPC gain from Nehalem

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Westmere was a mainstream CPU, nehalem high end. Why would you upgrade if the difference can't be felt?

 

[alyarb]

Generally people use the term Clarkdale to differentiate it from Gulftown when discussing Westmere products. Gulftown was a definite upgrade to Nehalem in the high end, but hard to justify in a poorly threaded environment.

IVB is hard to justify in any environment unless your max TDP is 17W.

 

[Puppies04]

Its a "Tick". I'm not sure why everyone is so concerned about its 5-8% ipc gain. Westmere didn't even get a 1% IPC gain from Nehalem

This +1, all you are really supposed to get is a process shrink, intel throwing in a few extras on top is icing on the cake. People are talking about IB like it is supposed to be a major upgrade from SB and OC a lot higher when the smart money was always on more of the same with a little IPC gain while using a little less power (although with the new 3D transistor design this was never certain).

Intel have produced exactly what they set out to produce, the fact a few deluded "enthusiasts" are pissed doesn't bother them one bit. The rest of us will either get the itch and buy an IB chip fully understanding what we are buying or wait for haswell.

Personally I will probably upgrade to Z77/IB I7 but it will have to wait until june, i'm getting married next month and the missus will have my balls if I buy anything else right now

 

[Puppies04]

Westmere was a mainstream CPU, nehalem high end. Why would you upgrade if the difference can't be felt?

The same reason most "enthusiasts" upgrade, because they have an itch that needs scratching .

 

[alyarb]

People took this graph

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/Dat...through-Analyzed/Intel_Tri-Gate_Delay_689.jpg


and they saw 18% faster at 1 volt, and hoped it would work out to 10% faster at 1.3 volts. So people got a bit ahead of themselves and figured 5 GHz would be a standard overclock... and that might eventually work out to be true, but I am not going to be the one buying a launch stepping to test it.

Interpreting a graph to support what you want always leads to a little disappointment. Especially when you figure the new xtor is a fundamental change, and revolutionizes performance at 700mV.. why wouldn't it revolutionize performance at 1400mV, especially when it feels good to hope for it?

You have to assume intel is doing their fine tuning at voltage A and not voltage B.

 

[HURRIC4NE]

People took this graph

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/Dat...through-Analyzed/Intel_Tri-Gate_Delay_689.jpg


and they saw 18% faster at 1 volt, and hoped it would work out to 10% faster at 1.3 volts. So people got a bit ahead of themselves and figured 5 GHz would be a standard overclock... and that might eventually work out to be true, but I am not going to be the one buying a launch stepping to test it.

Interpreting a graph to support what you want always leads to a little disappointment. Especially when you figure the new xtor is a fundamental change, and revolutionizes performance at 700mV.. why wouldn't it revolutionize performance at 1400mV, especially when it feels good to hope for it?

You have to assume intel is doing their fine tuning at voltage A and not voltage B.

I would like to personally thank all of the men and women who have participated in helping me in planing my future upgrade for free...

On 4/20/2012 4:52 PM standard Philadelphia, Pennsylvanian time in the United States of North America of the North American Continent

I have reached the verdict that it would be much more sensible and newer and far better of a choice to wait for Haswell and invest in that Microarchitechture rather than Purchase the Ivy Bridge.

and for helping me reach this decision i would like to thank all of the men and women who have sacrificed their blood and sweat into hard research, dedication, and a lot of brain power.

Once Again, Thank You.

 

[pyjujiop]

IMO ivy bridge isn't evolutionary. It is the minimum improvement required to call the CPU next gen without giving much incentive to upgrade except to those who must have the latest. It may provide a bit better and smoother experience in demanding situations but nobody knows yet. As far as ipc is concerned, it couldn't have been worse.

Bingo. Ivy Bridge is the kind of release (a rehash of current technology) Intel makes any time they don't have any competition from AMD. If Piledriver shows up on time and is suddenly competitive, Intel will immediately respond. Until this happens, it's not really worth upgrading if you already have an adequate CPU.

 

[Denithor]

Bingo. Ivy Bridge is the kind of release (a rehash of current technology) Intel makes any time they don't have any competition from AMD.

You seriously need to look into some facts. Intel isn't rehashing current technology, they're producing the same architecture on a smaller process scale (22nm versus current 32nm). The smaller scale gives them two advantages: lower manufacturing cost and more room to add additional transistors for the next generation architecture.

Ivy Bridge was never intended to be a huge improvement, the same as Penryn wasn't much better than Conroe.

 

[taltamir]

You seriously need to look into some facts. Intel isn't rehashing current technology, they're producing the same architecture on a smaller process scale (22nm versus current 32nm). The smaller scale gives them two advantages: lower manufacturing cost and more room to add additional transistors for the next generation architecture.

Ivy Bridge was never intended to be a huge improvement, the same as Penryn wasn't much better than Conroe.

It also reduces power consumption.
Furthermore, they are implementing a brand new transistor architecture. A triple fin type dubbed "3d transister" (a bit of a garish name) which reduces power consumption even further.

 

[HexiumVII]

Its simple math to decide if you should wait for the next gen. You buy a faster processor to do things faster. If you wait 1 year for the next processor, how long until the time you save evens out from your current system. That is your answer

 

[ShintaiDK]

Even better, drop Haswell and Broadwell too, and go directly to Skylake

 

[IntelUser2000]

IVB is hard to justify in any environment unless your max TDP is 17W.

Why? A $378 CPU is beating a $560 one by 15-20%.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5772/mobile-ivy-bridge-and-asus-n56vm-preview/4

Battery life is also improved compared to exsting laptops: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/368?vs=580

That's going to be the same case for 17W Ultrabook parts. You'll gain ~30 min battery life, be 15-20% faster than previous generation, and improve graphics. Sure there's the Sandy Bridge 2820QM preview model, but none of the real life laptops achieve such battery figures.

 

[rageofthepeon]

Haswell sounds pretty amazing but I don't know if I can wait that long to upgrade. Trying to psyche myself up for 3770k/3570k or 3820 to replace my phenom II x4 955. My max FPS is good in a lot of games, with a 7970, but the mins are disappointing in CPU bound games like Skyrim.

If Haswell is so good then what would the point of releasing IvyBridge-E be if it doesn't match or exceed Haswell in some way? Well, I guess I could see that happening if IvyBridge-E turns out to be some super multi-cored behemoth.

 

[Nvidiaguy07]

im personally having the same debate in my head right now. I'm pretty happy with my Q6600, and held off from buying sandy bridge, so since this upgrade isnt going to be as big as big has haswell will presumably be, im tempted to wait another year. (either that or somehow go back in time and buy a 2500k one year ago)

Basically to me, upgrading right now is the same as buying a new iphone halfway between its release, and the next iphones release. My problem is ive waited so long that I dont know if i can make it another year. I have an Athlon 4200+ in my living room pc that is VERY old, which would be replaced by my Q6600 if i upgrade. That might be the deciding factor that gets me to pull the trigger on an upgrade.

Someone mentioned to get both, and that might end up being what i do. Hopefully the resale value on a IVB chip and motherboard will be high enough were i wont lose as much for not just waiting for haswell.

Anyone have any tips for selling used PC parts? I always shy away from it because im worried about people caring that some stuff is missing (cables and crap like that. I also would like to sell some of my heatsinks when i sell old pc's, but i usually lose the parts so that it will fit other sockets too.

 

[Fjodor2001]

From what has been said about Haswell, going from IB you'll get:

~10-30% CPU performance increase
~30-50 % IGP performance increase with GT2, 200-300% with GT3
~Lower idle power consumption

In my case:
-The IB CPU performance is already good enough for now.
-The GT3 IGP performace increase would be nice, but it'll probably come at the price of higher TDP (since it'll be 40 EUs + L4 cache). IB is already good enough for casual gaming. And if I want to do some serious gaming (1920x1080 and above with highest quality settings), then I need 10x the IB IGP performance, which Haswell will be noway near anyway.
-The lower idle power consumption will be nice for home servers (which are on 24/7) and laptops, but not that important for desktops.

So I'll probably upgrade to IB. Compared to SB, it also brings native USB3, PCI-Express 3, proper 23.976 Hz video output, much lower TDP, DDR3L support, 30-50% IGP performance increase, 5-15% CPU performance increase. Now in my case I'll be upgrading from a C2D E6600, so the performance increase will be far greater than that...

And the next upgrade will probably not be until Skylake, for which Intel is aiming for 12 cores & 24 threads according to (very uncertain!) rumors. That will be a nice...

 

[nyker96]

personally, If you already got SB I really don't believe that extra 10% going to be worth the upgrade unless you really care about the 20-30W difference in power consumption. Besides if you overclock, the max headroom in SB is greater meaning you probably make up that 10% difference if you OC. So I'd just get Haswell or the one after depend on how much better haswell will be.

 

[Caveman]

When does Haswell come out and is that date fairly certain or will it slide... Looking to target a buy around Thanksgiving...

 

[ShintaiDK]

When does Haswell come out and is that date fairly certain or will it slide... Looking to target a buy around Thanksgiving...

 

[pauldun170]

What can't your rig do now (that you need it to do) that Ivy Bridge will allow you to do?

 

[lehtv]

An upgrade from i5 650 to an Ivy i5 would see a doubling in quad threaded performance, a bit less in single threaded. In CPU limited games you'll see a nice increase in FPS with 7850. Up to you if that, along with USB3.0, SATA 6gb/s etc, is worth about $300 on a mobo+CPU. I'd probably go for it. My i7 920 though is still fast enough that I don't need to worry about CPU performance at all until Haswell.

 

[Don Karnage]

When does Haswell come out and is that date fairly certain or will it slide... Looking to target a buy around Thanksgiving...

Will be out in 10-11 months

 

[Makaveli]

Westmere was a mainstream CPU, nehalem high end. Why would you upgrade if the difference can't be felt?

The i7 970 on my desktop disagrees with you.

Is the 980x a mainstream cpu?