IvyBridge worth waiting for? Or go for 2500K + Z68 now?

[GTaudiophile]

Yeah, I have thought about just doing an SSD upgrade. I don't game much really and I bet an SSD would do more for day-to-day tasks than anything else.

The extent of my gaming lately has been Portal2.

Right now I run...

C2Q Q9550 (not OCed)
2x 2GB DDR2 800
Gigabyte Motherboard w/ P45 NB + ICH10R SB chipsets
HIS AMD Radeon 4850 1GB

 

[TidusZ]

my motherboard for q9550 doesn't even have sata3 so you'd want to check that before getting an ssd since it makes a big difference. Also, why not overclock?

 

[scannall]

As close as Ivy Bridge is, just wait it out. Start at the top for the time, at the beginning of a products life.

For me personally I am just keeping with my overclocked i7-920 until Haswell. (The 'tick' of that product cycle.)

 

[skipsneeky2]

I'd go for the 2500k and z68 combo. I went from an e8400 to an i3-2100 and the difference is night and day.

Also, the z68 boards will support ivy bridge, so you can always upgrade later on down the line. But, I feel that once you get the 2500k you won't feel that itch to upgrade since the 2500k is a BEAST.

I did a e8200 to i3 2100 upgrade and it was very well worth it.

Then yesterday i went to a 2500k and even that was a massive improvement with some games receiving a 7fps higher minimum and 10fps average while others just loaded quicker even the 5 year old title UT3 which is still one of my favorites saw a massive improvement.

Hard reset demo benchmark i3 2100+gtx560oc=32min,67avg,117max
hard reset demo benchmark i5 2500k+gtx560oc=39min,77avg,130+max

Op i say go for the 2500k its the must have chip.:thumbsup:

 

[pauldun170]

Yeah, I have thought about just doing an SSD upgrade. I don't game much really and I bet an SSD would do more for day-to-day tasks than anything else.

The extent of my gaming lately has been Portal2.

Right now I run...

C2Q Q9550 (not OCed)
2x 2GB DDR2 800
Gigabyte Motherboard w/ P45 NB + ICH10R SB chipsets
HIS AMD Radeon 4850 1GB

I run Portal2 maxed out on a 1080p TV using a i3-2100 + AMD4830
Did the same on my q9950 box

A nice SSD might be money better spent if you are looking to spend cash on the puter

 

[gramboh]

I'm in a similar situation, and have been keeping a pulse on Ivy Bridge since last May when I started thinking about upgrading (ended up just getting a GTX560Ti to replace my GTX 280 at the time).

I'd say wait for the following reasons:

- Release is rumoured to be week 14 (April 1-8) which is now only 2 months away.
- Z77 motherboards bring guaranteed PCI-e 3.0 (useful down the road if you keep your motherboards for a long time like I do) and integrated USB3. Still only 2 Intel SATA3 ports unfortunately. Some Z77 will have Thunderbolt if that matters to you.
- Ivy Bridge CPUs will have lower power usage (77W TDP vs. 90W on the quads), so less power and less heat
- Better iGPU
- Small IPC improvement

Downsides to waiting:

- Won't be able to get a great deal on CPU + Mobo like you can with the 2600k/2500k + Z68 at Newegg/Microcenter/NCIX
- Possible price premium on motherboards, CPUs will launch at standard pricing like SB did, new chipset MBs seem to have a $25ish price premium for the first few months
- In real world desktop usage/gaming, highly unlikely to be any discernible difference

Since this is a hobby for me (researching, building, testing, overclocking), I don't mind waiting to have the shiniest new parts, since I keep my systems for so long with only GPU upgrades. I've been watching for deals and have started assembling parts already such as PSU, heatsink, case, SSD, RAM.

The i5-3570k is what you will be looking at (2500k replacement SKU): http://www.anandtech.com/show/5166/ivy-bridge-overview

 

[Remobz]

I'm in a similar situation, and have been keeping a pulse on Ivy Bridge since last May when I started thinking about upgrading (ended up just getting a GTX560Ti to replace my GTX 280 at the time).

I'd say wait for the following reasons:

- Release is rumoured to be week 14 (April 1-8) which is now only 2 months away.
- Z77 motherboards bring guaranteed PCI-e 3.0 (useful down the road if you keep your motherboards for a long time like I do) and integrated USB3. Still only 2 Intel SATA3 ports unfortunately. Some Z77 will have Thunderbolt if that matters to you.
- Ivy Bridge CPUs will have lower power usage (77W TDP vs. 90W on the quads), so less power and less heat
- Better iGPU
- Small IPC improvement

Downsides to waiting:

- Won't be able to get a great deal on CPU + Mobo like you can with the 2600k/2500k + Z68 at Newegg/Microcenter/NCIX
- Possible price premium on motherboards, CPUs will launch at standard pricing like SB did, new chipset MBs seem to have a $25ish price premium for the first few months
- In real world desktop usage/gaming, highly unlikely to be any discernible difference

Since this is a hobby for me (researching, building, testing, overclocking), I don't mind waiting to have the shiniest new parts, since I keep my systems for so long with only GPU upgrades. I've been watching for deals and have started assembling parts already such as PSU, heatsink, case, SSD, RAM.

The i5-3570k is what you will be looking at (2500k replacement SKU): http://www.anandtech.com/show/5166/ivy-bridge-overview

This is one of the best answers I have seen concerning this topic yet. Well said.

Like you, I do not upgrade quickly. I still have a 4 year old dual core E6800 with an ancient Nvidia graphics card and Windows XP pro. I rarely play games as a result.

I want to wait until Ivy Bridge comes out but my problem is one of finance these days. I am taking on toooo many projects and money is thin so to speak

I think based on finance, maybe I should just try and get a 2600k/2500k + a good Z68 with a 2gb AMD 6950 (I only have a 22inch monitor for now) and an SSD.

Not sure, if I want to wait another 4 years to upgrade

Hmmm....still not sure what to do now....maybe I will have to find the money?

 

[videoclone]

FYI, This first Ivy Bridge CPU's to come out will be laptop products that will then be followed with desktop parts a few months later... so for those waiting it will be another 4 months for desktop parts and 2 months for laptop parts!

 

[DarkRogue]

FYI, This first Ivy Bridge CPU's to come out will be laptop products that will then be followed with desktop parts a few months later... so for those waiting it will be another 4 months for desktop parts and 2 months for laptop parts!

Do you have a source for this information?
I thought most of the lineup was going to be out at once.

 

[Diogenes2]

According to this:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Inte...-on-April-8-Say-Taiwan-PC-Makers-243276.shtml

Desktop parts come first ..

 

[bryanW1995]

SSD would probably be a greater improvement to your daily user experience than jumping to IVB or SB. But an ssd is cheap, you can grab an 80gb intel 320 series for $73 shipped AR right now at newegg. I'd try that first, and you'll probably be able to hold out until maxwell.

 

[Kristijonas]

SSD would probably be a greater improvement to your daily user experience than jumping to IVB or SB. But an ssd is cheap, you can grab an 80gb intel 320 series for $73 shipped AR right now at newegg. I'd try that first, and you'll probably be able to hold out until maxwell.

New technology SSDs are almost around the corner too. So it's all the same.

 

[nyker96]

I'd personally just wait few months more for IB since SB is on the way out, w/ IB the OC potential will be greater. But honestly Q9xxx is pretty decent, if you primarily play games you probably will be more GPU limited than anything else, I'd just OC it to 3,6 and use the extra cash on a new video card. But if you many cpu intensive tasks, IB or SB will be a leg up esp considering the extra OC you can get outta them. with everything considered, I'd advice wait for Ivy, cause if you buy now, you might seriously regret it in just a few months time when the new stuff comes out. what's few more months since you waited this long already.

 

[gramboh]

New technology SSDs are almost around the corner too. So it's all the same.

What's in the pipeline that we know about? Is it NAND or controller improvements? I know OCZ is supposedly putting out a new Indilinx controller (Everest 2?) possibly June/July but who knows. Haven't heard about anything new from Marvell or Intel.

Curious as I am buying an SSD pretty quick.

As for Ivy, every rumour site is saying desktop parts launch first week of April.

 

[kalrith]

I was asking myself the same question about 3 months ago, and I decided to get the 2500k and ASrock Extreme3 Gen3 Z68 board for $300 for both of them.

I went from a Q6600 at 3.2 GHz to a 2500k at 4.3 GHz, and I'm really pleased with the performance increase.

 

[cantholdanymore]

If you NEED to upgrade, do it now. You SB will last you as long as your current system.
If you WANT to upgrade, then wait, since you'll WANT to upgrade again once IB is out in a couple of month.

 

[cytg111]

I have about the same setup as you .. and while i'd like to upgrade to SB or IB, I have a hard time justifying it .. haswell may not even be enough of an 'up' in grade .. :/

 

[exar333]

According to this:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Inte...-on-April-8-Say-Taiwan-PC-Makers-243276.shtml

Desktop parts come first ..

Thats my understanding as well. SB desktop CPUs were available very quickly, in large supply, shortly after the launch. From all the available news, this should be no different.

 

[bryanW1995]

What's in the pipeline that we know about? Is it NAND or controller improvements? I know OCZ is supposedly putting out a new Indilinx controller (Everest 2?) possibly June/July but who knows. Haven't heard about anything new from Marvell or Intel.

Curious as I am buying an SSD pretty quick.

As for Ivy, every rumour site is saying desktop parts launch first week of April.

Corsair Performance Pro has toggle nand, so it's a bit faster than the otherwise-similar crucial m4, but we're really splitting hairs here. All of the "new tech" ssd's on the way this year are just going to be slightly faster versions of the already extremely fast sata 6gb/s drives that we have. An sata 6gb/s ssd is going to be faster than an sata II drive like that intel 320 series, and a larger ssd is also faster than a smaller one, but the difference to somebody who is coming from an hdd is going to be enormous regardless of which ssd he ends up with. Even a slow ssd is a couple orders of magnitude faster in random reads than a very fast hdd, and most likely a cheap ($73) ssd upgrade today will give the OP's old computer such a "zip" to it that he'll end up holding off on his upgrade until haswell.

 

[Grooveriding]

New technology SSDs are almost around the corner too. So it's all the same.

Is there anything big coming with new SSDs I'm unaware of ? Or just faster throughput as usual ?

Having recently moved from a Gen1 OCZ Vertex to a Crucial M4, I notice absolutely no difference at all in regular gaming and desktop use. I have to run a benchmark to see the difference in transfer speeds.

In my experience any functional SSD is all you need for that big SSD upgrade feeling.

As an aside, I RMAed my old Vertex and forgot all about it for about a month, called OCZ and said hey what's up ? The next day a brand new sealed retail Vertex 2 arrived at our house. Good on them. Just have to find a use for it.

 

[Jacky60]

Wait unless desperate -it's always better cos new stuff is faster or prices drop.