Upgrade thoughts. X79 or not from X58?

[wand3r3r]

I have an i7 980 6 core / 12 thread. It's running nicely just over 4GHz.

I've been eying the X79 (3930k in particular) for a while. It seems like it's hardly worth the upgrade, but that doesn't help the upgrade itch much.

An upgrade to the 3930k actually doesn't seem logical looking at the closest comparison the i7 980 vs. i7 3930k, at least at stock settings.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/157?vs=552

I can get a used motherboard pretty cheap and am even considering a mATX because I can get one cheap.
I guess I'd need a new cooler too, the Noctua NH-D14 came with 1366/1156 connections.
Decisions decisions.

The only thing that could use some more power could be gaming, but I'd likely hang on to the CPU/MB for a while and maybe skip a generation of CPUs (hopefully this isn't just wishful thinking).

Note* I already have USB3/SATA3. I don't think I am lacking any MB features atm.

I'm sure the smart thing to do at this point is wait for the 3930k successor, but is it known when it's coming? Haswell seems to be coming in mid-2013 but will that be the ivy bridge or the the sandy-bridge E replacement? So when is the 2011 successor coming?

Are the 3930k's really overclockable? What would it be pretty certain (in general) to hit without too much voltage or high temps (with a decent cooler)? For those who have made the leap did you gain perceivable benefits?

I'm sure this topic has been beaten to death already, but I just want to confirm any thoughts and experiences about it.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Unless you need the power right now, I'd just wait for Haswell.

 

[CHADBOGA]

Frankly, in your position, I think it would be insane to do anything other than wait for Haswell.

 

[kleinkinstein]

Haswell-E is your upgrade. Anything else is a sidegrade.

 

[wand3r3r]

Is it known when Haswell-E is coming? They talk about the integrated GPU that's coming in mid-2013 so that's the normal Haswell, but I haven't seen anything confirming if the Haswell-E will come then or later.

Now I just need to suppress that blasted upgrade itch for a while.

 

[Maximilian]

Is it known when Haswell-E is coming? They talk about the integrated GPU that's coming in mid-2013 so that's the normal Haswell, but I haven't seen anything confirming if the Haswell-E will come then or later.

Now I just need to suppress that blasted upgrade itch for a while.

A looong way away.

Haswell will come out next year for the mainstream, a few months later IVB-E will come out as the upgrade to the current hexacore chips, by the time haswell-E shows up the rest will have moved onto broadwell and will be looking at the next arch after that.

So in summary if you need your 6 cores 12 threads beast then just get a 3930k now because its going to be a longass wait till haswell-E and IVB-E isnt likely to bring much improvement over the 3930k. If you dont and can work with a 4 core 8 thread then wait for haswell mainstream and upgrade to socket 1150 next year :thumbsup:

 

[wand3r3r]

Will Haswell-E drop into socket 2011? I guess by that time there may be some new features anyway that will be nice to have. (?)

 

[Maximilian]

Will Haswell-E drop into socket 2011? I guess by that time there may be some new features anyway that will be nice to have. (?)

It will not drop in no. I heard it will use a socket with 2011 pins but its not the same one that we have available now.

 

[tynopik]

Will Haswell-E drop into socket 2011?

no

 

[Makaveli]

Unless you need the power right now, I'd just wait for Haswell.

This!

i'm doing the same thing!

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Is your primary use gaming? If so consider dropping enthusiast level hardware off your scopes. 1155 vs 2011 is a joke in gaming.

Anyone even know when Haswell-E is reportedly coming out? I see IB-E is coming out reportedly after Haswell mainstream. End of 2014 maybe?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

just to clear some thing up:

Haswell is going to be mainstream oriented, ie maxing out with 4 cores

with any luck, Intel will stick to what they last "promised" and go back to solder TIM and thus ~5GHz might finally become a realistic and reasonable possibility.

5GHz on top of tentative 10% IPC improvement means that, again - with any luck, we'd have a part that performs like a 5.5GHz Ivy. Not too bad, although still not fast enough to completely outpace the first gen 6 core i7s @ 4+ GHz in anything efficiently multithreaded to max out the CPU.


As far as Haswell-E, well that's not even a blip on the radar yet; we still have IvyBridge-E in the 2nd half of 2013 that should bring us 8-10 core options to replace current 6 core options (like the 3930K) and/or add more affordable 6 cores to replace/supplement the 4 core options (like the 3820).

The good news (at least so far) is that IvyBridge-E should be compatible with current X79/s2011 so the new CPUs should be a drop-in upgrade, and while Haswell should have an IPC advantage, IvyBridge-E will likely have 2x the cores/threads and thus crush Haswell in anything sufficiently hardware intensive.

With the promise of IvyBridge-E drop in upgrades, I've become a proponent of X79/s2011, even if its with only the 4 core 3820, as the chip is still very much overclockable, probably most reliably hitting 5GHz of any of the i7s I've seen thus far.

That being said, the platform really should only be adopted by someone who's at least eventually looking for one or more of 4 things:

1. more than 4 cores
2. more than 2 video cards (or other high bandwidth PCI-e cards)
3. more than 4 sticks of memory (or more than 32GB now that 8GB sticks are affordable)
4. enjoy tinkering with the system (overclocking the 3820 is probably the most "enjoyable" since the first gen i7s)

 

[BrightCandle]

I did a similar upgrade (920 to 3930k) and having done it I don't see a great deal of benefit. At least I got another 500Mhz in terms of overclock which all in all is 50% extra performance for low threaded applications and about 100% extra for something that can utilise the 6 cores.

 

[Dave3000]

Going from an i7 980 to an i7 3930k is not much of an upgrade. You already have a 6 core CPU that has about 85-90% of the performance of the i7 3930k. Gaming performance won't improve much either with that upgrade. By the way, I used to own an i7 3930k but a few months later I downgraded to an i7 3820. I also used to own an i7 960 which is nearly as good as an i7 980 in gaming.

 

[Shmee]

I would wait if possible, unless there is some reason you need to upgrade now. I will say I am happy having upgraded to a 3770K from a setup similar to yours. At 4.4 GHz right now, at under 1.15 Vcore. Temps still have headroom as well, so I know I can go a bit further

So I would recomend waiting, or spending money on something else (SSD, GPU upgrade, monitor upgrade) only reason I did so was because I was having stability issues and I had a PSC at frys to use for credit.

 

[red454]

The 980 isn't part of this comparison, but it has a lot of good info on the 3820 and 3930K...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i7-3820.html

 

[Makaveli]

just to clear some thing up:

Haswell is going to be mainstream oriented, ie maxing out with 4 cores

with any luck, Intel will stick to what they last "promised" and go back to solder TIM and thus ~5GHz might finally become a realistic and reasonable possibility.

5GHz on top of tentative 10% IPC improvement means that, again - with any luck, we'd have a part that performs like a 5.5GHz Ivy. Not too bad, although still not fast enough to completely outpace the first gen 6 core i7s @ 4+ GHz in anything efficiently multithreaded to max out the CPU.


As far as Haswell-E, well that's not even a blip on the radar yet; we still have IvyBridge-E in the 2nd half of 2013 that should bring us 8-10 core options to replace current 6 core options (like the 3930K) and/or add more affordable 6 cores to replace/supplement the 4 core options (like the 3820).

The good news (at least so far) is that IvyBridge-E should be compatible with current X79/s2011 so the new CPUs should be a drop-in upgrade, and while Haswell should have an IPC advantage, IvyBridge-E will likely have 2x the cores/threads and thus crush Haswell in anything sufficiently hardware intensive.

With the promise of IvyBridge-E drop in upgrades, I've become a proponent of X79/s2011, even if its with only the 4 core 3820, as the chip is still very much overclockable, probably most reliably hitting 5GHz of any of the i7s I've seen thus far.

That being said, the platform really should only be adopted by someone who's at least eventually looking for one or more of 4 things:

1. more than 4 cores
2. more than 2 video cards (or other high bandwidth PCI-e cards)
3. more than 4 sticks of memory (or more than 32GB now that 8GB sticks are affordable)
4. enjoy tinkering with the system (overclocking the 3820 is probably the most "enjoyable" since the first gen i7s)

If this is accurate then at that point I would consider socket 2011 and ivy E it will still be a 20%+ ipc improvement coming from gulftown but going to wait and see. Overclocked first Gen i7 have been doing so well keeping up with the current gen stuff I have to keep an eye out before dropping any cash.

 

[tweakboy]

I have an i7 980 6 core / 12 thread. It's running nicely just over 4GHz.

I've been eying the X79 (3930k in particular) for a while. It seems like it's hardly worth the upgrade, but that doesn't help the upgrade itch much.

An upgrade to the 3930k actually doesn't seem logical looking at the closest comparison the i7 980 vs. i7 3930k, at least at stock settings.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/157?vs=552

I can get a used motherboard pretty cheap and am even considering a mATX because I can get one cheap.
I guess I'd need a new cooler too, the Noctua NH-D14 came with 1366/1156 connections.
Decisions decisions.

The only thing that could use some more power could be gaming, but I'd likely hang on to the CPU/MB for a while and maybe skip a generation of CPUs (hopefully this isn't just wishful thinking).

Note* I already have USB3/SATA3. I don't think I am lacking any MB features atm.

I'm sure the smart thing to do at this point is wait for the 3930k successor, but is it known when it's coming? Haswell seems to be coming in mid-2013 but will that be the ivy bridge or the the sandy-bridge E replacement? So when is the 2011 successor coming?

Are the 3930k's really overclockable? What would it be pretty certain (in general) to hit without too much voltage or high temps (with a decent cooler)? For those who have made the leap did you gain perceivable benefits?

I'm sure this topic has been beaten to death already, but I just want to confirm any thoughts and experiences about it.

Wait for Haswell, whole new socket. Don't make a purchase now, I did that in 2007 then in 2008 new stuff came out new chipset etc. Enjoy what you got now and well see what happens next year.. gl

 

[wand3r3r]

Hmm, I'm halfways tempted to upgrade, even to the i7 3820. I can get it with a MB for so cheap from MC (-$50 bundle) that it's nagging in the back of my mind. Does the i7 980 still have good resale value, what are they going for?

What's the current consensus on ~5GHz on the i7 3820, what are people getting them to OC to here in these forums?

I don't really know if I need more cores, but hyperthreading is ok and a nice OC would tip the scales a bit in favor of an upgrade. I'll still mull it over for a while, but now would like to ask what your guys are getting the 3820 to OC to?

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Hmm, I'm halfways tempted to upgrade, even to the i7 3820. I can get it with a MB for so cheap from MC (-$50 bundle) that it's nagging in the back of my mind. Does the i7 980 still have good resale value, what are they going for?

What's the current consensus on ~5GHz on the i7 3820, what are people getting them to OC to here in these forums?

I don't really know if I need more cores, but hyperthreading is ok and a nice OC would tip the scales a bit in favor of an upgrade. I'll still mull it over for a while, but now would like to ask what your guys are getting the 3820 to OC to?

Just hold off. Not worth it.

No price checks :/ just look.on eBay for resale price.

 

[cytg111]

It is a pickle, no doubt about it. Haswell will be featuring TX memory, read the anandtech article on it, in essence it will make multithreaded apps perform better.
Better than -2 cores(haswell quad) but +clock +ipc(sandy->haswell)? Who the hell knows, but it's problary in the ballpark.
On the other hand, you get support for 64G of system memory .. if that's important to you .

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Hmm, I'm halfways tempted to upgrade, even to the i7 3820. I can get it with a MB for so cheap from MC (-$50 bundle) that it's nagging in the back of my mind. Does the i7 980 still have good resale value, what are they going for?

What's the current consensus on ~5GHz on the i7 3820, what are people getting them to OC to here in these forums?

I don't really know if I need more cores, but hyperthreading is ok and a nice OC would tip the scales a bit in favor of an upgrade. I'll still mull it over for a while, but now would like to ask what your guys are getting the 3820 to OC to?

980's can still hold some value because they're six core CPUs that will likely still be relevant for someone who can really use more than 4 cores, as mainstream will be stuck with 4 cores even on into Haswell

it makes a pretty good drop-in upgrade for anyone still running an X58 rig with a 45nm quadcore, should be able to get at least $300-400 for just the CPU.

As far as OC results on the 3820, well it depends on what kind of cooling you give it and how far you're willing to push the volts. The 3820 should be able to OC as well if not a tad better than any other Sandy CPU, and it might have one of the highest success rates with hitting 5GHz (however this might be solely because the demographic of people overclocking it are more likely to take risks and push further than the average), however I wouldn't expect it to be easy or cheap as it will most likely take decent cooling and a good amount of volts for 24/7 use.

 

[ShintaiDK]

What do you mainly do? Gaming? Then its the wrong platform.

Get Haswell in march on LGA1150.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

IMO I would choose haswell over 3930k for gaming. Assuming things turn up as expected which they probably will.

 

[wand3r3r]

Yeah, I guess I'm really undecided on this one. I guess it'll come down to a whim. I wouldn't be afraid to upgrade to haswell from either sandy-bridge E or my current setup if the performance was noticeable. Either way CPUs seem to have about the best resale value of any component especially e.g. 2500k/3570k -3770k levels. (extreme cpus would be amongst the worst)

I game a little but in the end it's not many hours a month, however when I do I like everything to be smooth and with the best possible settings. I might run some dev stuff and possibly a database and whatnot but in the end I just like being fairly up to date. When the 3820/3930k were released it was pretty disappointing but oddly enough they have been peaking my interest. I have the dreaded upgrade itch.