Just ordered a 3930K....

[Carfax83]

and wonders if I made a mistake. :\

Despite advising one forum member in a similar dilemna as myself to wait for Haswell instead of buying a 3930K, I did the same damn thing he was thinking about doing. :whiste:

I ordered a 3930K, an AsRock Extreme 6 motherboard, LGA 2011 Noctua mounting kit and a 16GB quad channel kit of DDR3 2133 CL9 G.Skill Ripjaws..

I thought long and hard about this, because I was pretty sure I was going to go Haswell. What stopped me more than anything, is that I've always had multi-GPU setups. Right now, I have 580 SLI, and a GTX 460 which I dedicate for PhysX.

Coming from the x58 platform, I like the flexibility the x79 gives you for multi-GPU configs. Plus, I think two extra cores will come in handy with the way things are going with games becoming more and more threaded.

Crysis 3 is a great example of this, and I'm sure the Frostbite 3 engine will have greater support for hexcore processors more than the Frostbite 2 engine did.

Eventually, I plan on selling my 580s and getting 780s as well..

The 970 in my sig belongs to a friend of mine. I was sure I was going to buy it (he said he'd sell it to me for 300 bucks), so he let me borrow it and test it out. I have it sitting at 4.4 ghz, which is pretty respectable. But the thought of spending money on OLD technology seemed foolish to me so I'm going to give it back to him.

So, give me your opinion. Did I make the right, or wrong decision especially with Haswell looming so close?

 

[cytg111]

Wrong. In three days you could actually have maked an informed decision. Three days. 3 * 24 hours, three days. Just saying.

Suppose Haswell clocks a GHz higher than your current purchase
Suppose IPC gain over SB is in the 20% range
Suppose Haswell ISA extentions catches on (going hex qith 3930 sounds like a long term investment, again, opposing ...).
Suppose single thread performance still means a hell of alot more than more cores.

Three days. Information rules. - But, I am sure you'll be happy with it, its a beast in its own right.

(rule of thumb : dont buy hardware for games of tomorrow, buy hardware for games of today)

 

[oceanside]

No worries. Still a great processor and with a hexacore you'll be just fine for quite a while, no matter how Haswell turns out.

 

[moonbogg]

Don't stress it. 3930k is going to be a beast for everything for a long time to come. Besides, nothing stopping you from checking it out and then returning the hardware if you don't want it. Don't destroy the boxes just incase.

 

[Carfax83]

Wrong. In three days you could actually have maked an informed decision. Three days. 3 * 24 hours, three days. Just saying.

Suppose Haswell clocks a GHz higher than your current purchase

SB-e isn't no slouch when it comes to overclocking. Plus, I play at GPU limited settings anyway.

Suppose IPC gain over SB is in the 20% range

That would definitely make me hesitate. But, look at how game engines are progressing these days. Crysis 3 makes excellent use out of a hexcore processor, and I expect the Frostbite 3 and Unreal Engine 4 to do the same.

Next gen games and engines will be highly multithreaded, there's no doubt!

Suppose Haswell ISA extentions catches on (going hex qith 3930 sounds like a long term investment, again, opposing ...).

It's going to be YEARS before these instructions are in common use. HPC and servers will be the fastest to support these new instructions, with consumer power apps like video transcoding, encoding, photoshop etcetera coming in later.

Games, which is all I use my computer for, will take the longest to support the new instructions, and by then, I should definitely have a new processor and motherboard anyway.

Suppose single thread performance still means a hell of alot more than more cores.

Single thread performance will always be more important than adding more cores. That's how Intel has managed to stay so far ahead of AMD all of this time, by focusing on IPC. Although developers are definitely exploiting multithreading nowadays much more than they did a few years back.

But it's not merely for performance reasons why I decided to go with the 3930K. The x79 chipset has features that I like, like much better support for three GPUs.

I love games that use PhysX, so I always have a dedicated PhysX GPU. Moving over to the Z87 chipset will mean 2 out of the three GPUs will run at x4 bus speed.

I don't think that would hurt my GTX 580 SLI, but when I eventually upgrade to GTX 780 SLI, it would definitely impact performance I think.

 

[Carfax83]

Don't stress it. 3930k is going to be a beast for everything for a long time to come. Besides, nothing stopping you from checking it out and then returning the hardware if you don't want it. Don't destroy the boxes just incase.

My motherboard should be due in by Saturday, and the CPU and memory next week Monday or Tuesday. So I'll definitely have time to read some reviews before making an absolute final decision.

Of course, I won't be opening anything until then

 

[smakme7757]

It's a bad decision if you want to be ripping up synthetic benchmarks because then every last ounce of performance makes a difference. Otherwise who cares if haswell is 10% better? I mean 10% is nothing unless you have a use case where absolutely every 0 and 1 means the world.

However if you are truely regretting your impulse buy, send it back and wait.

Keep it = Win
Wait = Win

It's just up to if you need that new CPU today or not.

 

[Grooveriding]

You game a lot so a wise choice with all the new gen games using the extra cores. Enjoy the beast.

 

[crashtech]

IB-E in the fall may make your platform decision even more worthwhile, and software isn't going to get any less multithreaded. On balance, you will only regret your decision if you want to do so. I don't often hear the "f" word here, but if you are having fun with it, that to me has a value that can't be quantified by benchmarks.

 

[cytg111]

"But it's not merely for performance reasons why I decided to go with the 3930K. The x79 chipset has features that I like, like much better support for three GPUs. "

- If this is true, then its about the only argument i find logical in persuit of that platform *right now*.
Still, so much information right around the corner in a few days .. it is like playing poker with a good hand on the button and ignoring your position alltogether..

 

[cytg111]

IB-E in the fall may make your platform decision even more worthwhile, and software isn't going to get any less multithreaded. On balance, you will only regret your decision if you want to do so. I don't often hear the "f" word here, but if you are having fun with it, that to me has a value that can't be quantified by benchmarks.

IB-E ? Another hex core with a slight IPC bump? I dont see the reasoning .. it will be the closest thing to a sidegrade if there ever was one.

 

[Grooveriding]

I doubt IB-E is worth the wait. Think SB to IB. Negligible IPC increase and the possibility of that same crappy TIM usage between the die and IHS. I have my doubts they would use that again though on IB-E if it's anything like SB-E is, especially when overclocked (hot).

Haswell-E will be my next upgrade and we'll be lucky if we are able to buy them at Christmas in 2014 the way Intel is handling the enthusiast chip's timeline.

 

[cytg111]

Haswell-E does look to be the next E platform to get.. and who knows, maybe we will get more than 6 cores by then ?

 

[escrow4]

Welcome to LGA 2011! Interestingly, I went for the same CPU and mobo, just added a Corsair H90 for cooling instead. From a gaming viewpoint, Haswell offers nothing. The (slight) IPC boost and architectural reworking are easily balanced by 6 SB-E cores hammering along at over 4.0GHz, plus as you saw in Crysis 3 and Metro Last Light, SB-E either matches or exceeds Ivy Bridge. Haswell won't be much different in the end on balance. As for CPU extensions, if you upgrade to Skylake-E in 3 or so yrs, they still won't be used anyway. I have a suspicion the 3930K will end up having the lifespan of a 920 - freaky long.

Personally I'd like to see a review at Anandtech comparing old hexa cores (i7 970, 980X etc) vs 3930K/3970X vs Haswell in a gamut of tests from productivity to gaming.

 

[Remobz]

Welcome to LGA 2011! Interestingly, I went for the same CPU and mobo, just added a Corsair H90 for cooling instead. From a gaming viewpoint, Haswell offers nothing. The (slight) IPC boost and architectural reworking are easily balanced by 6 SB-E cores hammering along at over 4.0GHz, plus as you saw in Crysis 3 and Metro Last Light, SB-E either matches or exceeds Ivy Bridge. Haswell won't be much different in the end on balance. As for CPU extensions, if you upgrade to Skylake-E in 3 or so yrs, they still won't be used anyway. I have a suspicion the 3930K will end up having the lifespan of a 920 - freaky long.

Personally I'd like to see a review at Anandtech comparing old hexa cores (i7 970, 980X etc) vs 3930K/3970X vs Haswell in a gamut of tests from productivity to gaming.

Let me ask you this....

If you presently had an Intel i3 2100 what upgrade path would you do to play games for the future year or 2?

 

[BrightCandle]

Let me ask you this....

If you presently had an Intel i3 2100 what upgrade path would you do to play games for the future year or 2?

3770. You already have the board and ram etc for the chip so going quad core latest on the platform gets you the most performance for your buck. I doubt it would be worth getting has well if you are already on an ivy bridge capable platform considering the leaked performance we have seen so far.

 

[crashtech]

IB-E ? Another hex core with a slight IPC bump? I dont see the reasoning .. it will be the closest thing to a sidegrade if there ever was one.

Maybe you are right. The point was mainly that the platform is not at its end just yet. IB-E may offer something significant, and the 3930 will have some resale value, so getting into something new won't be terribly prohibitive. Heck, it might even be fun, something which doesn't require perfect reasoning.