Tick or tock?

[Concillian]

I buy ticks. Mature, low power, good performance for the $$$. May be a while before I get something new though with the whole new world order thing with the sub $200 CPUs.

 

[yottabit]

I have to admit I've been hesitant about diving into a "tock" in the past but given the performance of all the "tock"s lately I'd go in head first on the next one.

In the past I've had no preference really. Pentium 4 "Northwood" so I guess that's sort of a tick... Core 2 Duo Conroe "tock" and a Core i5 750 "tick? tock?". At near 4 Ghz I don't think I'll feel an urge to upgrade from the i5 anytime soon.

 

[ilkhan]

Ticks in laptops, tocks in desktop.
thus i5-2500K and i5-540M for my 2 current systems.
Now if only I could afford i7s instead of i5s.

 

[LoneNinja]

Same here, basically.

I've only ever really bought AMD, but the Intel processors that are interesting are usually the die shrinks. Original Nehalem was way too expensive and way too hot, whereas sandy bridge is quite tempting. Same for Merom. It was just a slightly faster and more expensive version of Yonah in terms of performance, and it wasn't until it got shrunk that it started being attractive. That said, reading about nehalem is much more interesting than reading about sandy bridge.

AMD doesn't really let you choose, Phenom introduced 65nm, Phenom II introduced 45nm and Bulldozer is bringing in 32nm.

Have you heard of Brisbane? The 65nm refresh of the Athlon X2 processors that came out before Phenom(Agena)?

 

[drizek]

Have you heard of Brisbane? The 65nm refresh of the Athlon X2 processors that came out before Phenom(Agena)?

Oh yeah, right.

I may have purchased a couple of those...

 

[mv2devnull]

Recent personal purchase history seems to be: AMD, tick , tock. Hard to make statistical preference out of that.

 

[Obsoleet]

Another reason I prefer "tick"

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2138809

 

[VirtualLarry]

It doesnt really matter but I prefer the ticks. I'm VERY happy I bought my Penryn (launch day for OEM) and have no regrets. It has 12MB of unified L2 cache while the Q6600 the 8MB cache was divided into 2, to each pair of cores and not shared. It's more than the CPU that's mature, the platform is more mature.

The 12MB of cache in a Q9550 is not unified, it's still two 6MB chunks, one per die.

 

[Obsoleet]

The 12MB of cache in a Q9550 is not unified, it's still two 6MB chunks, one per die.

It's unified in the manner of which 1 single core can address all 12MB.
This was not the case with the L2 on the Q6600. Also, I said Penryn, I meant Yorkfield (Q9450).

 

[eric.kjellen]

I'm looking forward to Haswell and I think I can put off my next desktop/workstation build to 2013 (although that is an easy thing to say now). The last CPUs I have bought since Intel started with the Tick/Tock model and slightly before that have been the Conroe (E6600) and the Nehalem (i7 820QM), so both tocks, without any real planning behind that.

 

[Obsoleet]

It's (tick) more than the CPU that's mature, the platform is more mature.

Another reason I prefer "tick"

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2138809

Yet a 3rd vote for "tick".

http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/31/intel-finds-sandy-bridge-chipset-design-flaw-shipments-stopped/
"Intel finds Sandy Bridge chipset design flaw, shipments stopped and recalls beginning"

I think the proof is in reality, that tick is the wiser way to go. Though I understand the temptation to have the newest architecture asap. A mature platform avoiding even just the issues I posted, is worth a lot to me. I still vote for "neither: AMD!" I'd build a 6core AMD rig if building today, and slap a Bulldozer in it down the road.

 

[Accord99]

I still vote for "neither: AMD!" I'd build a 6core AMD rig if building today, and slap a Bulldozer in it down the road.

You'll also need to slap in a new MB as well then.

 

[Obsoleet]

Did they change how they were going to do it? I thought it was going to remain interchangeable? I'm happy with my current system in my signature for a few more years, but I wouldn't personally touch Intel today (outside of SSDs).

edit- Upon searching it appears you're right. That's kinda sad, but not really. AM3 had a long run and I'm sure there's new features that need the changes. Well, then I'd vote for "AMD! Wait for bulldozer!" Or tick, if you must go Intel.

 

[Accord99]

Did they change how they were going to do it? I thought it was going to remain interchangeable? I'm happy with my current system in my signature for a few more years, but I wouldn't personally touch Intel today (outside of SSDs).

It's been confirmed by AMD that Bulldozer requires an AM3+ motherboard. Even with the SATA issue, I'm still very happy about the 2600K system that I upgraded to recently, at 4.7 GHz it has close to twice the throughput of my old 3.85 GHz Q9550 while using less power.

 

[Obsoleet]

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade. I just thought it was ironic this thread was posted asking about tick/tock and all this bad news comes out about the latest tock. Certainly amazing CPUs either way. I just got "lucky" when I bought my Yorkfield, didn't really plan on "tick or tock" being a factor but I will from now on. Once I realized the cache addressing differences between a Q6600 and a Yorkfield I felt good about my decision to avoid that tock though, as should anyone who held off on this tock (SB).

 

[IntelUser2000]

Now that the 6 series chipset news is out, I'm a little more certain on Tick vs. Tock decision.

Desktop-Tick: I didn't have a problem with Core i5 661 build. That was a Tick, even though the i5-661 didn't really have a direct "pre-Tick". I had a bit of problem with original Core 2 Duo E6600, based on Conroe. Direct build setups like a desktop has more to be taken care of when a problem arises. It's not a simple "return-and-forget-it".

Laptop-Tock: There's things beyond regular performance and power improvements new architecture gives you. For example, the Huron River platform has drive low power optimizations and technologies like Zero power ODD that helps immensely in Blu-ray disc playback power usage.

I'd get a Sandy Bridge laptop right away without considering the 22nm shrink. The reason is I don't think we'll see such a leap in performance and energy efficiency on mobile for another 5-10 years. If you see the Tomshardware review, the i7 2820qm matches the desktop 2500K!

 

[Obsoleet]

I stand firm with the ticks, which I forewarned before this news broke was a more mature platform. Laptops or desktops.

"- Desktops, notebooks, servers are all affected.

This is a widespread problem affecting all products that are based on Sandy Bridge. Notebooks and up-coming Xeon-based servers may take longer than motherboards to see replacements become widely available."
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sandy-bridge-sata-error-sata-3,12112.html#xtor=RSS-181

 

[Obsoleet]

I'm assuming we can all agree the "tick" guys won this one, regardless of the vote?

 

[drizek]

But Intel puts out new chipsets for both ticks and tocks. Hell, they have two different lines of chipsets just for sandy bridge (assuming Z67 is unaffected).