Who's skipping Haswell-e and Broadwell-e?

[Carfax83]

Anyone else decided to skip Haswell-e and Broadwell-e and upgrade when Skylake/Skylake-e is available?

I mulled over getting a 5930K based setup, but each time I would place the items in my cart at Newegg and get ready to check out, I would inevitably cancel.

What stopped me more than anything were the high price premiums for DDR4. Being new technology, we're essentially forced to shell out big bucks for game spec DDR4. Given the higher timings, DDR4 really won't begin to really pull away from DDR3 until it ramps up to say 3200 mhz, where the sheer speed should start to overcome the high timings.. Of course that's available now, but it costs almost as much as the CPU! D:

As tempting as it may be, Haswell's 15% higher performance really just isn't enough of an upgrade for me at this time to drop $1,400 bucks.. Skylake on the other hand will supposedly be a major improvement. I'm expecting at least a 30% gain over Sandy Bridge, plus the potential for much more with the addition of 512 bit vectors.

And by then, DDR4 prices should be much better and PCI-e 4.0 will be available as well, making for a more justifiable system upgrade.

Now I may be tempted to sidegrade to a 4930k on the other hand :sneaky:

 

[III-V]

I'm definitely skipping Haswell-E, simply because I can't afford it. Broadwell-E is tempting, in that it 14nm should be a higher performing process, in addition to having the potential of making 6 and 8 core iterations more affordable. And I should have my financial situation well under control by then.

Skylake-E... well, at this point, there is very little known about it. Thankfully, by the time Broadwell-E releases, we'll know a lot more about Skylake, so I don't really have to worry about making the wrong decision.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Anyone else decided to skip Haswell-e and Broadwell-e and upgrade when Skylake/Skylake-e is available?

I mulled over getting a 5930K based setup, but each time I would place the items in my cart at Newegg and get ready to check out, I would inevitably cancel.

What stopped me more than anything were the high price premiums for DDR4. Being new technology, we're essentially forced to shell out big bucks for game spec DDR4. Given the higher timings, DDR4 really won't begin to really pull away from DDR3 until it ramps up to say 3200 mhz, where the sheer speed should start to overcome the high timings.. Of course that's available now, but it costs almost as much as the CPU! D:

As tempting as it may be, Haswell's 15% higher performance really just isn't enough of an upgrade for me at this time to drop $1,400 bucks.. Skylake on the other hand will supposedly be a major improvement. I'm expecting at least a 30% gain over Sandy Bridge, plus the potential for much more with the addition of 512 bit vectors.

And by then, DDR4 prices should be much better and PCI-e 4.0 will be available as well, making for a more justifiable system upgrade.

Now I may be tempted to sidegrade to a 4930k on the other hand :sneaky:

I can definitely see your point there. Of course you have the X79 build and (what you call) a "sidegrade" option.

I'm still rocking a Sandy CPU, but I'm asking myself the same question. I try and pretend I'm NASA or Kelly Johnson's "Skunk Works" for a business-like approach to upgrades and new builds. So long before Haswell-E was released, I made the plan and decision to build it next year.

Some will argue that I'll miss Broadwell, or that I can wait for Skylake. But since I won't press the "Checkout" button until next year according to the essential part of the "plan" -- plans can change.

 

[cytg111]

Waiting to see what Skylake brings, if it is minor, so will Cannonlake be. Might jump a 6 core -E then. If Skylake > Haswell * 1.1 then ill problary wait it out(with this gimped 4770) for what comes after Cannonlake.

 

[Hulk]

Definitely skipping Haswell e. Broadwell might be an option for my desktop if the price and core count is right.

Definitely will be going Broadwell for my next laptop.

 

[RussianSensation]

Not sure why you would even considered 5930K over 5820K as it's basically a worthless SKU unless you are using more than 3 GPUs. You seem to have top of the line components but honestly in your case I'd rather spend $1K on a 4K IPS 32" monitor. That would be an upgrade you'll appreciate. Your CPU is plenty fast for another 2 years until Skylake-E.

---

As for myself, a GPU upgrade and a larger SSD would benefit me more than a CPU upgrade. I also would like to move to 4K. I haven't had many issues with CPU bottlenecks so I will wait until DDR4 prices drop a bit more and I am curious to see how well 14nm Broadwell-K and Skylake overclock. For HW-E overclocking I feel that one really should get a watercooling setup which basically means $100-150 extra needs to be added for that. The irony is when I move to 4K, I'll be way more GPU limited which would mean even Skylake's IPC wouldn't do much. If more games were coded like Ryse: Son of Rome, I would be tempted to go 6-core earlier.

 

[DigDog]

i have a 4670k; and a 770. i cannot for the life of me find anything that gives this setup a hard time.
(i know i am not a professional, just a casual computer user, but i come from the age of PCs struggling to do *anything*, such as web surfing 5 pages at the time, or trying to run one background and one foreground application. now even sony vegas goes fast enough that i dont have to worry about it and it will be done by the time i'm through with a sandwich.)

as far as i can see, the power users have at their disposal has become bigger than the practical needs of basic computing.

ram is the prefect example of this - back then, it was always less than you needed and more bandwidth was always very beneficial. today, DDR4 is completely "meh", it doesn't do *anything* better than DDR3, and yes you can have enough of it.

(people buying 1900xt to play oblivion, and even when brand new and overclocked it barely managed to run it at max stock settings, never mind any mods...)

 

[Makaveli]

Pretty much in the same boat.

I'm not liking dd4 pricing and current performance below 2800 speeds.

So think I may wait until broadwell-E to see how memory and board prices stabilize.

I could also use more SSD space but I have enough now to hold out for the next build.

And since i'm at 1200p my current GPU is still fine.

And agreed russian that next build will most likely be using a swiftech AIO cooler.

 

[RussianSensation]

And agreed russian that next build will most likely be using a swiftech AIO cooler.

Swiftech now introduced the H240-X which is 2x140mm for only $10 more than their H220-X. Now I'll need a new case for my next upgrade too as my case can't fit such a rad. Just happens that NZXT will soon have the matte black H440 that fits a 2x140mm rad at the top! It's like they are reading my mind or something.

Now I just have to hold out to Skylake-E 6-core.

 

[Carfax83]

Some will argue that I'll miss Broadwell, or that I can wait for Skylake. But since I won't press the "Checkout" button until next year according to the essential part of the "plan" -- plans can change.

Part of the curse of being a hardware enthusiast is figuring out the right time to upgrade. The desire to upgrade is driven in large part by ego and boredom, and that can cause us to upgrade prematurely because we want to have the latest hardware to play with. And then a few months down the road, the itch returns and we'll be salivating at the next prospect..

At any rate, your Sandy Bridge will remain viable for years, so there's really no "need" to upgrade it at this time.....other than ego and boredom as I said earlier.

 

[Carfax83]

Waiting to see what Skylake brings, if it is minor, so will Cannonlake be. Might jump a 6 core -E then. If Skylake > Haswell * 1.1 then ill problary wait it out(with this gimped 4770) for what comes after Cannonlake.

I'm fairly certain Skylake won't be minor. By all accounts, it will be the sort of upgrade that Nehalem was over the Core 2 series; but even bigger.

For them to extend the registers from 16 to 32 for the 512 bit vectors is just one indication of how massive the change will be..

Also Skylake-e will probably have 8 cores as a minimum, and 10 cores for the extreme edition..

Thats a metric ton load of processing power!

 

[Carfax83]

Not sure why you would even considered 5930K over 5820K as it's basically a worthless SKU unless you are using more than 3 GPUs. You seem to have top of the line components but honestly in your case I'd rather spend $1K on a 4K IPS 32" monitor. That would be an upgrade you'll appreciate. Your CPU is plenty fast for another 2 years until Skylake-E.

The 5820K is an excellent bang for the buck CPU, but if I'm going the enthusiast route, I want the full Monty

Although I don't have three GPUs in my rig anymore, I have had it in the past and if I ever decide to buy a third one, I definitely wouldn't want the reduced amount of PCI-e lanes on the 5820K holding back performance.

As for the 4K monitor, I think it's still too early for 4K. When 20nm GPUs are finally available, then I'll take a serious look at going 4K..

 

[Carfax83]

i have a 4670k; and a 770. i cannot for the life of me find anything that gives this setup a hard time.
(i know i am not a professional, just a casual computer user, but i come from the age of PCs struggling to do *anything*, such as web surfing 5 pages at the time, or trying to run one background and one foreground application. now even sony vegas goes fast enough that i dont have to worry about it and it will be done by the time i'm through with a sandwich.)

Do you game? Games are perhaps the only applications for non professional consumers that can really justify the amount of money that we spend on our hardware..

And as games become larger and more detailed, and PC gaming more and more popular, we'll likely see this justification continue.

 

[Carfax83]

Pretty much in the same boat.

I'm not liking dd4 pricing and current performance below 2800 speeds.

Yep, DDR4 doesn't begin to really look impressive until it's around 3200 mhz. Probably a little faster than DDR3 2600 at that point, but of course at a much lower voltage.

By the time Skylake-e comes out, we should be seeing DDR4 approaching, or right at 4ghz I would wager..

 

[cytg111]

I'm fairly certain Skylake won't be minor. By all accounts, it will be the sort of upgrade that Nehalem was over the Core 2 series; but even bigger.

For them to extend the registers from 16 to 32 for the 512 bit vectors is just one indication of how massive the change will be..

Also Skylake-e will probably have 8 cores as a minimum, and 10 cores for the extreme edition..

Thats a metric ton load of processing power!

for academic throughtput with avx3.2, sure, other than that, I do not share your optimism. There is little to do to increase singlethreaded performance but up the clocks, if you up the clocks you up the wattage and since Intel is still on a perf/watt quest I dont see that happening(the entire processnode will likely be tuned for low wattage, not high clocks). We also know mainstream will be quads, so from an "enthuiasm" standpoint, I dont see skylake towering over haswell/broadwell.. Perf/Watt? Sure! TDP? Sure! Singlethreaded performance? No . Hope I am wrong.

 

[Carfax83]

for academic throughtput with avx3.2, sure, other than that, I do not share your optimism. There is little to do to increase singlethreaded performance but up the clocks

Yes, IPC is much harder to get, but it's possible. As I said in my OP, I would expect at least a 30% gain in IPC from Skylake compared to Sandy Bridge, and 15% compared to Haswell, which is still significant.

With CPUs getting more core and threads, we can expect the majority of the performance gains to come from increased TLP and ILP in the future. We're already seeing that now with games and encoding/transcoding software. Game developers have been forced to redesign their engines to utilize more cores/threads as a result of the PS4 and Xbox One. All of the new 3D engines benefit from more than four threads, and some will scale up to 8 threads even.

So whilst IPC is still very important, it's not where the focus is. As long as it keeps evolving though, thats all that matters.

We also know mainstream will be quads, so from an "enthuiasm" standpoint, I dont see skylake towering over haswell/broadwell.. Perf/Watt? Sure! TDP? Sure! Singlethreaded performance? No . Hope I am wrong.

Mainstream will be quads, but I'm talking about enthusiast level hardware. Just like Haswell-e is 6 core minimum and 8 core maximum, I would expect Skylake-e to have 8 core minimum and 10 core maximum..

 

[PliotronX]

Funny, I was doing the same thing, but ended up getting other stuff because my 4670k is still r0x0ring my b0x0rs handily.

 

[cytg111]

15% compared to Haswell
...
With CPUs getting more core and threads, we can expect the majority of the performance gains to come from increased TLP and ILP in the future. We're already seeing that now with games and encoding/transcoding software.

15%, hope your right, cause that would keep me from investing in haswell-e. If by TLP and ILP you are talking thread level parallelism, well, then an 'aging' haswell system will benefit from that just as well. On the other hand, if you mean avx2+, that I might have seen in encoding software, but games? I havent heard of a single one.

edit : we had a user once, or alter ego, called benchpress, at one point he mustered something along the lines of haswell should be in one of the consoles, cause it was, well, awsome. It would have helped AVX2+ to take off though!

 

[jpiniero]

Thing is, with Intel's problems with 14 nm, it's going to be a long time before Broadwell-E comes out. I think it's more likely a 2016 product at this point. Especially since I think the problems are exaggerated with a big die. Skylake-E might be 2017.

 

[III-V]

Thing is, with Intel's problems with 14 nm, it's going to be a long time before Broadwell-E comes out. I think it's more likely a 2016 product at this point. Especially since I think the problems are exaggerated with a big die. Skylake-E might be 2017.

That's a good point. Yields are going to be very critical to something so large. Although really, yields are pretty damn critical across the board. I suppose it could be argued that "E" parts have higher margins, and can absorb bad yields better. Whatever. I don't know.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Part of the curse of being a hardware enthusiast is figuring out the right time to upgrade. The desire to upgrade is driven in large part by ego and boredom, and that can cause us to upgrade prematurely because we want to have the latest hardware to play with. And then a few months down the road, the itch returns and we'll be salivating at the next prospect..

At any rate, your Sandy Bridge will remain viable for years, so there's really no "need" to upgrade it at this time.....other than ego and boredom as I said earlier.

Ain't it the truth?! Put a more positive patina on it: The desire to tinker and build "the perfect PC."

The accumulation of info about these E processors will continue. I have a timetable, and the fat lady hasn't sung yet -- or pressed the "checkout" button. At least I can try and build it "in my head," on paper -- in a spreadsheet.

I still have to wonder about the news that Intel will discontinue FIVR with the Skylake. What exactly does that mean? Do they think they made a mistake!?

 

[III-V]

I still have to wonder about the news that Intel will discontinue FIVR with the Skylake. What exactly does that mean? Do they think they made a mistake!?

Arguably. Apparently Intel's Haifa team, in charge of Skylake, wasn't thrilled with it. It's making a return for Icelake, Intel's 10nm tock, however.

 

[jpiniero]

I still have to wonder about the news that Intel will discontinue FIVR with the Skylake. What exactly does that mean? Do they think they made a mistake!?

The only thing we know about it is that "The Skylake team didn't like it" and that it is likely back in Cannonlake.

 

[III-V]

The only thing we know about it is that "The Skylake team didn't like it" and that it is likely back in Cannonlake.

Cannonlake is the shrink of Skylake, which almost undoubtedly does not have FIVR. Icelake is the Hillsboro-designed 10nm tock, which brings back FIVR.

Source: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/mathew-kottoor/3/798/bb5

 

[jpiniero]

I almost wonder if Icelake is instead the 'Skylake Refresh' at 14 nm.

Still, totally baffling how people get away with posting stuff that you think would be considered confidential on LinkedIn.