Ivy E vs Haswell E for gaming

[Kippa]

I know that Haswell E is going to have 8 cores as opposed to the Ivy E being six cores. Bearing in mind that even thought the Haswell E will have 2 more cores, could it be possible that the Ivy E might be better for games?

The main reason I ask the question is that Haswell E is rumoured to be 8 cores running at 3ghz, where as the Ivy E will be 3.4ghz and 3.9 turbo. For games running only 1 thread or just a few do you think Ivy E might be better?

 

[Sweepr]

Haswell-E will probably have a very agressive Turbo, so even if it runs @ 3GHz with all cores loaded perhaps +3.6GHz is possible in ST tasks. At +3.6GHz it should have no problem beating a 3.9GHz Ivy-E part thanks to Haswell's IPC improvement.

 

[rgallant]

er unless your running 3 780ti dose it matter
-4770k [or a 3770k @ 4.8]using 4 cores in gaming might be faster ,depending on your set up.

 

[Ajay]

I thought there were HW-EP 'ES' samples running @ 3.0 GHz last year. I would think that a '5960X', or whatever, will be clocking a bit higher than that. Still, for gaming, just go with the hexacore variant if you need > 2 video cards - those CPUs will probably run @ the same clocks at the 4770k.

 

[Kippa]

I am not so sure that Haswell E will be clocked higher or the same as Ivy E, possibly because if Haswell E has a relatively high clock rate with 8 cores it might start biting into Xeon sales. Why go for a 10 core Xeon at 3ghz when you can get a cheaper 8 core Haswell E at 3.6ghz+, especially if you can overclock it to much higher frequencies. On a personal note I would like to see Haswell E cpus clocked at a high rate, I just don't think that it will happen. Meh, maybe I am wrong, who knows.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I know that Haswell E is going to have 8 cores as opposed to the Ivy E being six cores. Bearing in mind that even thought the Haswell E will have 2 more cores, could it be possible that the Ivy E might be better for games?

The main reason I ask the question is that Haswell E is rumoured to be 8 cores running at 3ghz, where as the Ivy E will be 3.4ghz and 3.9 turbo. For games running only 1 thread or just a few do you think Ivy E might be better?

I've been watching the experience with both the IB skt-1155 / Z77, and the Haswell skt-1150 / Z87. There are several advantages to picking the IB-E chips this year, unless you think you really need eight cores, when six is twelve with HT enabled.

First and so far, all the E CPUs still use an indium solder between IHS and die.

Second, you can do "extra stuff" with the Intel HD 3000/4000/ etc. built into your processor, but it's extra real-estate, more heat. And the power-savings of iGPU-mode aren't very significant. You're going to find a compromise for a single fast graphics card anyway; a lot of people buy two of them, but that's also part of a cost-benefit equation.

You can overclock a 4960X or 4930K to a likely limit of 4.6 Ghz on top-end air or water -- the spread between heatpipe coolers and AiO water-cooling may be as little as 5C degrees under load, and the temperatures for a 4960X were measured at around 70C for the 4.6 overclock. I think the Tj throttling limit is a mere 90C.

Just as personal observation, if an old SB 2600K @ 4.7 is neck-and-neck with an i7-4770K at 4.4 Ghz with Cinebench, how would the SB-E 4930K or 4820K rank?

There are advantages and disadvantages to everything . . . .

 

[BrightCandle]

We don't know until the reviews come out but chances are it will be very like the current Haswell v Ivy Bridge comparisons even with the extra cores. Most games still don't use those extra cores at all. For other applications it should easily win but I suspect it will overclock about as well as Haswell does, maybe a little worse just like IB-E and SB-E did to their respective parent architectures.

 

[IntelUser2000]

I know that Haswell E is going to have 8 cores as opposed to the Ivy E being six cores. Bearing in mind that even thought the Haswell E will have 2 more cores, could it be possible that the Ivy E might be better for games?

The main reason I ask the question is that Haswell E is rumoured to be 8 cores running at 3ghz, where as the Ivy E will be 3.4ghz and 3.9 turbo. For games running only 1 thread or just a few do you think Ivy E might be better?

Honestly, I don't overclock my system, but if I am going to spend $1000 on a CPU alone, ADVERTISED to be overclocked, I would go overclock it.

If you take that into mind, then Base/Turbo frequencies are irrelevant. If Haswell core overclocks 10% less compared to Ivy, you are getting similar single thread performance, with 33% more cores.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The 3Ghz is an ES sample. So forget about that.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Are you on a 1366 socket motherboard?

 

[Mand]

What if you overclock? Is there likely to be a noticeable difference between say a 4770k and a Haswell-E beyond just the extra cores that the E has?

 

[Mand]

What if you overclock? Is there likely to be a noticeable difference between say a 4770k and a Haswell-E beyond just the extra cores that the E has, if they're both overclocked?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Westmere chips can keep up with a 4770K in most categories except Single Thread

 

[crashtech]

I am not so sure that Haswell E will be clocked higher or the same as Ivy E, possibly because if Haswell E has a relatively high clock rate with 8 cores it might start biting into Xeon sales. Why go for a 10 core Xeon at 3ghz when you can get a cheaper 8 core Haswell E at 3.6ghz+, especially if you can overclock it to much higher frequencies. On a personal note I would like to see Haswell E cpus clocked at a high rate, I just don't think that it will happen. Meh, maybe I am wrong, who knows.

Well, I don't think this is a factor because the high end i7 parts lack ECC support.

 

[Ajay]

Well, I don't think this is a factor because the high end i7 parts lack ECC support.

Previous HEDT chipsets have supported it, if the mobo maker implements it (rare). I don't know if x99 will have ECC, but I wouldn't rule it out till we have more info.

I'd be (happily) amazed if even the 6-core HW-E runs @ 4 GHz. If I had to guess, I figure the 6-core will have approximately the same clocks as the 4770K (unless ShintaiDK can post a source for the 4 GHz rumor).

Unfortunately, HW-E won't get into the higher 140-160W TDPs that Haswell-EP (workstation?) CPUs will be allowed to hit (stock, obviously).

 

[Kippa]

Are you on a 1366 socket motherboard?

My old rig was an 1366 mobo and was running an six core i7 970. I have just upgraded to an 2011 board and have a six core 4930K installed on it. I had to get a new rig as the mobo was playing up, had BSOD and one of the PCIe ports doesn't even work. I certainly have had my moneys worth out of that old rig. It was a tough little fecker. 🙂

I am not too fussed about missing out on 2 extra cores with regards to the up and coming Haswell E as my 3D rendering nowadays is done soley on a gpu on the plugin program Octane using CUDA. And as for gaming cpu wise, I think the 4930K will handle the newer console games alright.

So far as this thread is concerned I am just interested in how high Intel clock the new Haswell E cpus, I won't be upgrading for a very very long time.

 

[crashtech]

Previous HEDT chipsets have supported it, if the mobo maker implements it (rare). I don't know if x99 with have ECC, but I wouldn't rule it out till we have more info.

Have a look at which current chips support ECC, and you will detect a clear effort by Intel to force users wanting higher performing parts AND ECC into the Xeon line:

http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced/?s=t&SocketsSupported=FCLGA1150&ECCMemory=true

As you can see, lower end Celerons, Pentiums, and even i3s support ECC, but if you need more than that, it's Xeon time, with the interesting exception of the 4570TE, which I had not heard of before now. There's no reason to believe this will change.

 

[Ajay]

Have a look at which current chips support ECC, and you will detect a clear effort by Intel to force users wanting higher performing parts AND ECC into the Xeon line:

http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced/?s=t&SocketsSupported=FCLGA1150&ECCMemory=true

As you can see, lower end Celerons, Pentiums, and even i3s support ECC, but if you need more than that, it's Xeon time, with the interesting exception of the 4570TE, which I had not heard of before now. There's no reason to believe this will change.

Thanks. That answers the ECC question. I must be remembering back to Nehalem.
Same reason that we don't have dual socket HEDT board w/overclocking any more - boo hiss!

 

[tweakboy]

Niether, FX800 pownz LOL,

 

[_Rick_]

with the interesting exception of the 4570TE, which I had not heard of before now.

That i5 has been in the line-up for the past few generations.
It's essentially an i3 with HT enabled, to give 4threads at around 35W TDP.
In the previous generations it was interesting (I think the IB-E one didn't have ECC though?) as it had AES instructionsd and ECC, while the i3s didn't have AES. So it made for a nice storage server CPU, despite the unreasonable cost. Still slightly better than most Xeons, especially because it hits 35W with integrated graphics. You could understand it as what's left from the original i5 600 series, except restricted to low power scenarios.

Interestingly with Haswell, the ECC has been limited again. Previously the normal T i5 would have ECC support, this time around only the embedded variant, which doesn't go out into the retail channel, has ECC, while it's conspiciously absend for the standard model.

 

[Concillian]

Most likely it doesn't matter enough to worry about it.

6 core Ivy E is overkill for every game in every situation, OCed or no. PC games are already pretty good about being multi-threaded, and new gen console hardware configs will make this trend continue, meaning 8 cores @ 3 GHz probably will outperform 6 cores @ 3.4 GHz in many situations.

However, I expect any difference to largely be a paper debate. Differences will be noticeable in benchmarks, but I highly doubt they'll be noticeable in practice (actually playing games.) After all, there are VERY few games that even really push an i5 @ 3.0-3.2 GHz, let alone 6 or 8 core + HT CPU.

gsync / freesync will make high end CPUs even less relevant for gaming. The variable screen updating technology is a MUCH better thing to be going after at this point if you're a gamer.

 

[Grooveriding]

Firstly it will only matter if you are running 2+ GPUs chasing maximum framerates and then probably will come down to whether or not HW-E overclocks like a pig the way HW does. The soldered IHS is going to help, but Haswell still has thermal issues and this is going to be a chip with twice the number of cores and hyper-threading to boot.

I'm expecting good overclock results on HW-E to require custom loop water cooling and it still could be so-so. There are plenty of 4670K/4770K that are overclocking like dogs, topping out around 4.2.

Considering what a tank SB-E is with big 4.8-5.0 overclocks, you're going to need a nice 4.5+ on HW-E to get appreciable gains over a good SB-E/IB-E OC.

I'm still getting one because moar cores though. 😛

 

[OCGuy]

Haswell-E will be the first interesting "E" series in quite a while for me. Lots of e-peen possibilities between having a non-Xeon Intel 8-core, DDR4, as well as the possibility of a new stepping. We will find out the new stepping info during the Haswell "refresh" that is incoming.

 

[DigDog]

i'm gonna step in here and say that neither of these CPU are made for gaming.
if you want to game, get a 4670k, overclock it, and when it becomes old, get the new 4670k equivalent.

6- and 8-core CPU are for video editing and other Big Boy Stuff(tm). You really don't need this kind of power to play Minecraft.

edit:
it seems other people have said it before me. oh well. who snoozes loses.

 

[Kippa]

i'm gonna step in here and say that neither of these CPU are made for gaming.
if you want to game, get a 4670k, overclock it, and when it becomes old, get the new 4670k equivalent.

6- and 8-core CPU are for video editing and other Big Boy Stuff(tm). You really don't need this kind of power to play Minecraft.

edit:
it seems other people have said it before me. oh well. who snoozes loses.

Maybe in fps games you only need 2 or 4 cores, but RTS games are a different kettle of fish. I think the new rts game like Planetry Annihilation is a heavily threaded game and will probable eat though as much cores as you can though at it, especially if you are going to host a game (uses server client model rather than p2p). That game has no unit cap compared to other rts games.

Also isn't the BF4 Frostbite 3 engine heavily threaded and uses 8 cores if you have them? I am not saying that new games will max out 6 or 8 cores any time soon, but I do believe they will utilise them if they're available.