Worth waiting for Broadwell or Skylake?

[Valantar]

I'm (slowly but surely) planning a full system upgrade for my desktop. It's nearly 6 years old (CPU, motherboard and RAM, not GPU), but still performs admirably (I can play most games at 1440p with no issue).

My main reasons for upgrading:

-I want a smaller computer, i.e. mini ITX (or a very compact mATX).
-I want something more quiet/efficient
-Feature upgrades: m.2, USB 3.0 (3.1?)

My requirements:

-significantly higher performance than my current C2Q Q9450 (not really hard, but...)
-quiet operation (low/scaleable power usage)
-should last at least as long as my current setup has

Up until now, I've been very tempted by the i5 4690, running at stock or a slight UC for general usage, and loading an OC profile for gaming or other heavy usage. The improved TIM (and thus thermal performance) seems worth the step up from the 4590, even if I'm not going to OC all that much.

The rumours of unlocked desktop Broadwell at 65W TDP have of course piqued my interest, so I'm wondering if that would be worth waiting for. From my understanding, though, Broadwell doesn't really perform better than Haswell, but runs slightly cooler due to the newer process. Still, I've been told that 84W Haswell-K CPUs run at under 70W at stock.

Would this be worth the wait?

Also, if the rumours are true, Skylake-K on the desktop will be out this fall. This might bring smaller motherboards with USB 3.1 (considering only one or two ATX X99 models have this today), but other than that, what are the arguments for waiting?

DDR4 seems like a waste of money after reading the recent (excellent) memory scaling article here on AnandTech (what ordinary PC usage today is memory limited, any way?). I'm planning on starting out with 8GB of RAM after the upgrade, but if necessary I might of course double that in a few years (I've never seen my system use more than 6GB, and I don't make any effort what so ever to limit RAM usage) Considering DDR2 is still(!) available to a certain degree, I would think DDR3 should be readily available at least for a few years. Am I wrong here? As of now, DDR4 seems to cost about 33% more/GB - what are the chances of this dropping quickly?

Of course, there is speculation that Skylake will support both DDR3 and 4, but what are the chances of a feature-rich Z170-based ITX or mATX motherboard using DDR3?

The one big draw here seems to be the increase in PCIe lanes, making 4xPCIe Gen3 m.2 more viable on ITX (only Asus seems to have this today), even enabling two m.2 slots with a bit of creative PCB design.

Also, of course, I want the new build to be usable as long as possible, and Skylake, being newer, would (hopefully) score higher on longevity. However, Intel's CPU sockets in recent years have only lasted two generations, so that point is (nearly) made irrelevant as I won't be replacing my CPU for 3-4 years (if at all before the next platform upgrade).

What do you think? Should I wait, or should I buy the setup I have in mind as quickly as possible?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Wait for Skylake-S unless you absolutely can't stand your current system, in which case buy Haswell now.

 

[Yuriman]

Skylake will be better at the same pricepoints, but I'm not feeling compelled to upgrade from Ivy Bridge just yet, given what I know about it. The extra bandwidth for an m.2 slot probably won't translate into much real world performance, and I don't see how two SSDs would be all that useful, you're more likely to want an SSD + 2.5" mechanical for large storage. I have few enough devices that use USB3.0 to be hungering for 3.1, pretty sure it's only a couple of flash drives. DDR4 might make the IGP a bit more usable and could be good for a small power saving. Are you planning to pair a high-end GPU with it?

 

[Valantar]

Skylake will be better at the same pricepoints, but I'm not feeling compelled to upgrade from Ivy Bridge just yet, given what I know about it. The extra bandwidth for an m.2 slot probably won't translate into much real world performance, and I don't see how two SSDs would be all that useful, you're more likely to want an SSD + 2.5" mechanical for large storage. I have few enough devices that use USB3.0 to be hungering for 3.1, pretty sure it's only a couple of flash drives. DDR4 might make the IGP a bit more usable and could be good for a small power saving. Are you planning to pair a high-end GPU with it?

Yep, depending on what ends up on top in the price/performance/power consumption game either a GTX 970 (if so, my first Nvidia GPU since the Riva TNT!(although that technically was my dad's)) or whatever equivalent AMD puts out in the R9 3XX series. So IGP performance doesn't matter in this build. The reason I might want two SSDs is simply that I like to keep one drive for the system+applications, and one for games. But there are many ways to achieve that, and for the moment it looks like I'll go for an MX100 512GB. In reality, I don't care about the insane performance aspects of m.2 SSDs yet (and I wouldn't be willing to pay much of a premium for it), it's more of a future proofing concern. And I'll be adding a 3.5" drive for general storage, backups and such. Still, SSDs are young, and given that both m.2 and SATAe are out there, I'm just waiting to see what the drive makers come up with. It's the same with USB 3.1 really - I've yet to own a computer with USB 3.0, but given the slow rate that i upgrade my systems, I would like to have all the newest standards available. And considering usb 3.0, that is perhaps the most missed single feature on my current PC (yes, more than SATA III, PCIe Gen2/3, a graphical BIOS, and most other innovations in the PC space since 2009).

 

[tweakboy]

Skylake looks more promising.

 

[Yuriman]

I noticed a significant reduction in the temperature of my computer areas when I moved from two Core2 systems to Ivy and Haswell. The idle power consumption dropped a lot, probably close to 150w for each machine, which works out to (at 15 cents per kWh) close to $16 per month or $200 per year for each machine, assuming I left them on but idle all the time, and you can double that if you count paying for air conditioning, as it's heat dumped into the room. The power savings from a modern machine are significant, but you're into diminishing returns if that's all you're comparing between Haswell and Skylake.

 

[toyota]

I noticed a significant reduction in the temperature of my computer areas when I moved from two Core2 systems to Ivy and Haswell. The idle power consumption dropped a lot, probably close to 150w for each machine, which works out to (at 15 cents per kWh) close to $16 per month or $200 per year for each machine, assuming I left them on but idle all the time, and you can double that if you count paying for air conditioning, as it's heat dumped into the room. The power savings from a modern machine are significant, but you're into diminishing returns if that's all you're comparing between Haswell and Skylake.

sorry but that's a load of bull unless you had all power saving features turned off.

 

[Valantar]

I noticed a significant reduction in the temperature of my computer areas when I moved from two Core2 systems to Ivy and Haswell. The idle power consumption dropped a lot, probably close to 150w for each machine, which works out to (at 15 cents per kWh) close to $16 per month or $200 per year for each machine, assuming I left them on but idle all the time, and you can double that if you count paying for air conditioning, as it's heat dumped into the room. The power savings from a modern machine are significant, but you're into diminishing returns if that's all you're comparing between Haswell and Skylake.

Well, I'm not looking to Skylake just for efficiency, but rather for the most bang for my watt, so to speak. The most performance possible within a midrange power envelope, with future-proofing in mind too.

Also, I live in Norway, so AC is a non-issue (any additional heat source is appreciated most of the time) and electricity is included in my rent In short, I want a silent, up-to-date and relatively future-proof PC, capable of scaling to high performance when needed, but which at the same time doesn't waste energy doing nothing/at light workloads.

 

[Qwertilot]

Think they've already got the low power at low workload thing working nicely with Haswell? Definitely with the mobile bits at least.

Will likely see more impact from getting the right sort of motherboard, not too big a PSU etc etc. Not sure quite how well GPUs power down in general, imagine Maxwell must do it quite well to let the fans go off.

Mind you, the 45w Haswells are already fairly fast and I'd imagine Broadwell at least should help with those. Then skylake perhaps again. That might help with the mini itx/quiet bit of it all - definitely more mini itx case options if you can use a small CPU cooler.

 

[Yuriman]

sorry but that's a load of bull unless you had all power saving features turned off.

On X38, disabling most power saving features is required to overclock. I had a Q6600 @ ~3.2GHz with power saving features largely disabled, under watercooling with a load of fans. The newer 45nm chips were better, but 775 was terrible on power in general. Also, that system had crossfire HD4870's, which were good for 58w each at idle, and 166w each under load.

Now that I consider it, the power delta might have been closer to 200w.

EDIT:

Here's an old Anand article:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2303/4

That's with a single 8800GTX. Add around 90w to that with a pair of 4870's and you have my old system, which makes it ~250w vs 35w. Off the top of my head, I was thinking it was only drawing about 185 at the wall, but my memory may be off.

 

[toyota]

nevermind since you edited your comment...

 

[Yuriman]

nevermind since you edited your comment...

My apologies. I tend to go back and review after I've posted.

Anyhow, 775 platform power consumption was pretty high too, independent of what you put in the socket.

 

[Valantar]

Think they've already got the low power at low workload thing working nicely with Haswell? Definitely with the mobile bits at least.

Will likely see more impact from getting the right sort of motherboard, not too big a PSU etc etc. Not sure quite how well GPUs power down in general, imagine Maxwell must do it quite well to let the fans go off.

Mind you, the 45w Haswells are already fairly fast and I'd imagine Broadwell at least should help with those. Then skylake perhaps again. That might help with the mini itx/quiet bit of it all - definitely more mini itx case options if you can use a small CPU cooler.

From what I've read, modern GPUs idle at a few watts, even the ridiculously hot AMD ones, so that's not an issue as long as I get one with a decent cooler for when it's in use.

And my impression is also that Haswell is really good at idle power savings - I'm mostly wondering if Skylake will give significantly better performance at load at middling wattages.

I won't be using an ultra compact case, so that's not an issue (those always have significant drawbacks when regarding cpu coolers). Right now I'm looking at the Silverstone FT03 or the Bitfenix Prodigy.

 

[escrow4]

I'd say 4790 non K right now with a decent mobo will easily last 6yrs. m.2 and USB 3.1 are new and twitchy, by the time they are standardised it will be Cannonlake or beyond. I'm running a Z87 box with a non K 4770 and a pair of 1TB EVO's and I can't complain.

 

[Idontcare]

sorry but that's a load of bull unless you had all power saving features turned off.

Not for those 65nm quads. I experienced similar when I migrated away from my Q6600 rigs to my IB rigs, amazing how much the idle power dropped. Not all from the CPU of course, Intel and mobo makers spent those years working on better chipsets and mobo integration.

 

[toyota]

Not for those 65nm quads. I experienced similar when I migrated away from my Q6600 rigs to my IB rigs, amazing how much the idle power dropped. Not all from the CPU of course, Intel and mobo makers spent those years working on better chipsets and mobo integration.

he did have those features disabled just like I thought though. with them on there is only about a 50 watt difference in idle for core 2 quad and modern Haswell.

EDIT: Q6600 at 135 watts with gtx280.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2832/17

my system is at 90 watts plus my gpu uses less idle power than what they are using too so really its not even 45 watts.

 

[Valantar]

I'd say 4790 non K right now with a decent mobo will easily last 6yrs. m.2 and USB 3.1 are new and twitchy, by the time they are standardised it will be Cannonlake or beyond. I'm running a Z87 box with a non K 4770 and a pair of 1TB EVO's and I can't complain.

I don't quite see the point of getting an i7 - the four extra threads don't give any actual performance advantage in gaming or any other work I frequently do. Plus the non-K models lack both the flexibility that I'm looking for, and the improved TIM of Devil's Canyon. So I don't see how I'll gain much from the extra 50% I'll be spending on my cpu if I go for that.

 

[Valantar]

On X38, disabling most power saving features is required to overclock. I had a Q6600 @ ~3.2GHz with power saving features largely disabled, under watercooling with a load of fans. The newer 45nm chips were better, but 775 was terrible on power in general. Also, that system had crossfire HD4870's, which were good for 58w each at idle, and 166w each under load.

Now that I consider it, the power delta might have been closer to 200w.

EDIT:

Here's an old Anand article:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2303/4

That's with a single 8800GTX. Add around 90w to that with a pair of 4870's and you have my old system, which makes it ~250w vs 35w. Off the top of my head, I was thinking it was only drawing about 185 at the wall, but my memory may be off.

This is one of the reasons that I wish I had a wattmeter. My C2Q Q9450 ides at about 2.2GHz, which is 1GHz down from the peak OC. There isn't much scaling to talk about. Also, it idles in the high 50 C range, about 10C down from load - although with significantly less noise, of course. My motherboard, an X48 Asus Rampage Formula, runs so hot it's actually crashed my PC before. I'm just glad I got rid of the dual HD 4850s I used to run, my current HD 6950 performs a lot better with far less noise and heat.

 

[Yuriman]

You can pick a nice one up from Amazon for about $20.

 

[Arachnotronic]

I don't quite see the point of getting an i7 - the four extra threads don't give any actual performance advantage in gaming or any other work I frequently do. Plus the non-K models lack both the flexibility that I'm looking for, and the improved TIM of Devil's Canyon. So I don't see how I'll gain much from the extra 50% I'll be spending on my cpu if I go for that.

You seem to hold on to systems for a *long time*. An extra $100 spent now might actually make a difference when you plan to use the chip for years.

If you upgraded every ~2 years or so, the recommendation would be different.

These days I try to buy the biggest, baddest thing I can afford and then ride it into the ground. In the long run, it's cheaper for me.