Haswell, and the 10-year rig revisited

[SPBHM]

I had 512MB of DDR333 10 years ago, my MB probably supported up to 1.5GB


I wonder for how long we are going to keep using ATX...

 

[JimmiG]

The longest I've kept any system functional is about 5 years, not counting the Commodore 64 and Amiga, which probably still work.. At this point the age of the components (not just the performance) seems to become a factor.

My Athlon64 system from 2004 started acting weird around late 2007 (occasional black screen when starting cold etc.) and finally in mid-2008 it stopped booting altogether.

My current system (from 2008-2009) is going strong for now, but it uses a lot of power compared to an equivalent system with more modern components. It's not really worth keeping around as a secondary system. For that, it would make more sense to build a low-power system using modern, easier to find and more efficient components (DDR3 RAM, USB3, lower TDP etc.).

 

[NTMBK]

I wonder for how long we are going to keep using ATX...

What do people use their expansion slots for these days? Graphics card, wifi card, and sometimes a sound card? And the wifi can happily live in a mini PCIe slot, if the mobo backplate has connections for antennas. ATX is far too much motherboard for most people- even mATX is only really necessary for a gamer, in my opinion.

 

[Yuriman]

Obviously Haswell would be better for a 10 year period. But the entire concept of a 10 year period is silly. You need every single component to work that long, and you need to be able to replace any defect component within reasonable price, should it happen. Not to mention all the performance related issues.

Had you bought the best 10 years ago. It would be something like a singlecore P4 2.8Ghz/K7 with a FX5800/9700 card and whatever limited memory it may have had.

I think you're missing the point. He's not asking the entire PC to work perfectly without upgrades for 10 years, but instead wants a platform that with minimal added cost will still be useful in one form or another in 10 years.

That said, old motherboards are still relatively expensive - so much so that instead of replacing a P4 motherboard, you may as well buy an A64 x2 board and spend $6 on the new processor.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

I don't think using a P4 is a good example, even if it is, in fact, 10 years old.

Look at how the C2D has aged, in comparison. From 2006 until today, is what, 8 years? And yet, they are still totally viable, assuming that you max the RAM out and add an SSD.

After the quantum leap forward in performance with the P4 to C2D transition, further CPU performance increases were much more subtle, on the order of a few miniscule percentage points each new generation.

Intel is now much more concerned with lowering power consumption and increasing IGP performance, than they are with raw CPU performance. They also don't seem to want to go beyond quad-cores in the consumer segment, even though quad-cores were introduced in 2006 as well.

Edit: Then again, we may have 4K video and H265 by then (in 2 more years), which might cripple the C2D rigs just as much as 1080P flash video cripples P4 rigs today. Who knows.

The C2D is only 7 years old currently and the lower end ones struggle with some daily tasks. Im sure its fine if your time is worth nothing to you, but for those of us that actually want to spend more time with the end result of their pc than sitting around waiting for it, upgrades are worth it. I tend to say around 5 years worth of progress makes a big enough difference for the majority of people to upgrade. Especially given the low cost of most parts these days/

 

[Railgun]

This is no different than "future-proofing" which is so unbelievably subjective....

In what context is this PC supposed to perform? Gaming for something 10 years from now? Surfing? Spreadsheets? Databases? ASCII art?

To put this into some better context, my oldest working PC at the moment is a Q9550 (if we're strictly taking CPU only), which puts this at about five years old. That said, for it's current task, which is zero gaming, just as a general use PC, it's more than sufficient. It's got 8GB RAM, and a pair of Raptors in a stripe. I can easily pop in an SSD to get a bit more performance out of it if I desire and it will be fine.

That said, that's the third and lesser of three active PCs I have. My middle is an i7-920 and main is a 970. Needless to say, my main rig isn't the most current, but it doesn't need to be. It more than holds its own.

Now from a peripheral perspective, it's kind of in the same boat.

SATA Express. While it's greate to see the speed increase, there will always be non-native solutions to use the technology. Whether it's on-board or not is really irrelevant. I have sata3 ports on my existing mobo, but still use a RAID card. I have on-board sound, but still use a dedicated sound card.

While those examples obviously don't cover everything, the point is that the foreseeable future allows for some flexability with maintaining a PC for a while, depending on what we want it to do.

 

[VirtualLarry]

In what context is this PC supposed to perform? Gaming for something 10 years from now? Surfing? Spreadsheets? Databases? ASCII art?

Basic web browsing, media consumption, online videos, etc. Basically, something for puttering around on the Internet.

To put this into some better context, my oldest working PC at the moment is a Q9550 (if we're strictly taking CPU only), which puts this at about five years old. That said, for it's current task, which is zero gaming, just as a general use PC, it's more than sufficient. It's got 8GB RAM, and a pair of Raptors in a stripe. I can easily pop in an SSD to get a bit more performance out of it if I desire and it will be fine.

While those examples obviously don't cover everything, the point is that the foreseeable future allows for some flexability with maintaining a PC for a while, depending on what we want it to do.

I just dug my Q9300 out, and re-installed it as my main rig. It also has 8GB of RAM. I had been using a G630 with 8GB of RAM. Both rigs have an SSD. I missed my quad-core!
(I had downgraded as a means to save power, but I realized that it didn't save all that much power, and the G630 was about as low as I was willing to go on performance.)

 

[Zorander]

Basic web browsing, media consumption, online videos, etc. Basically, something for puttering around on the Internet.

I wouldn't count on the load for media decoding remaining the same. Historically, new algorithms always present difficult, if impossible, challenge for older CPUs to decode in real time. I remember going through different iterations of video codecs and resolution (DivX3 to 5, XviD, 720p to 1080p H264 and Hi10). Each newer codecs always upped processing workload.

4K and H265 will undoubtedly continue the trend. Who knows what newer codecs we will have in 10 years and if a Haswell will still be viable or just useless by then?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I wouldn't count on the load for media decoding remaining the same. Historically, new algorithms always present difficult, if impossible, challenge for older CPUs to decode in real time. I remember going through different iterations of video codecs and resolution (DivX3 to 5, XviD, 720p to 1080p H264 and Hi10). Each newer codecs always upped processing workload.

4K and H265 will undoubtedly continue the trend. Who knows what newer codecs we will have in 10 years and if a Haswell will still be viable or just useless by then?

If, every year, we get a 5% improvement in CPU performance, that 105% of the speed of last year. Multiply that out, and for 5 years, you get something on the order of 127% increase over 5 years. (Too lazy to do the math for 10 years.)

Unless there's some breakthrough in CPU performance, then it is unlikely that codecs of the future will demand more CPU power than that which is available from a top-of-the-line CPU at that point in time, and using my 5% improvement progression, then it seems highly unlikely that Haswell will be rendered obsolete. Well, unless Intel gets TDP licked, and goes core-crazy.

Another thing to consider. Assuming that they still use some (backwards-compatible) form of PCI-Express for video cards 5 years into the future, then when 4K-res displays come down in price, the rig will need a video card upgrade just to support those resolutions in 2D, I think. (Will current Intel IGPs, or NV/AMD card drive 4K already?) A new video card, will also contain, most likely, hardware support for all the current newest codecs to drive that resolution when playing video.

 

[Arachnotronic]

If, every year, we get a 5% improvement in CPU performance, that 105% of the speed of last year. Multiply that out, and for 5 years, you get something on the order of 127% increase over 5 years. (Too lazy to do the math for 10 years.)

Unless there's some breakthrough in CPU performance, then it is unlikely that codecs of the future will demand more CPU power than that which is available from a top-of-the-line CPU at that point in time, and using my 5% improvement progression, then it seems highly unlikely that Haswell will be rendered obsolete. Well, unless Intel gets TDP licked, and goes core-crazy.

Another thing to consider. Assuming that they still use some (backwards-compatible) form of PCI-Express for video cards 5 years into the future, then when 4K-res displays come down in price, the rig will need a video card upgrade just to support those resolutions in 2D, I think. (Will current Intel IGPs, or NV/AMD card drive 4K already?) A new video card, will also contain, most likely, hardware support for all the current newest codecs to drive that resolution when playing video.

Psst...the iGPU performance is increasing at a rate much greater than 5%.

 

[cbn]

(Will current Intel IGPs....(snip)....drive 4K already?)

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6270/ivy-bridge-gets-4k-display-support-in-october

This October Intel will be providing a driver update for Ivy Bridge that will enable 4K x 2K resolution support as well as hardware accelerated 4K video decode. You'll need to use two DP outputs to drive a 4K panel from an Ivy Bridge system, which unfortunately makes it so most existing Ivy Bridge systems won't be able to drive the higher resolution panels.

Haswell will support driving a 4K display off of a single DP output or HDMI.

Some more info on the driver release--> http://ultrabooknews.com/2012/10/31...or-windows-8-4k-ultra-hd-opengl-4-0-and-more/

 

[Zorander]

Things don't typically increase in such linear fashion. A new codec or standard may be released one day and your CPU, which coped fine with yesterday's codecs, is now dropping frames like crazy. Once that standard becomes common, it's either upgrade or compromise (in today's terms, that's viewing with DivX/XviD/MPEG-1/MPEG-2 -no H264- at 480p).

I extended my AGP-based A64 system life by adding a HD3850, i.e. DXVA for the otherwise impossible-to-decode 1080p contents. It was worth it to some extent but 1) DXVA support was patchy back then, and 2) there was a hefty price premium for AGP cards. A new entry-level system, which will undoubtedly outperform the ancient system and without much extra tweaking or additional costs, may make more sense. It is certainly the case even now.

If, every year, we get a 5% improvement in CPU performance, that 105% of the speed of last year. Multiply that out, and for 5 years, you get something on the order of 127% increase over 5 years. (Too lazy to do the math for 10 years.)

Unless there's some breakthrough in CPU performance, then it is unlikely that codecs of the future will demand more CPU power than that which is available from a top-of-the-line CPU at that point in time, and using my 5% improvement progression, then it seems highly unlikely that Haswell will be rendered obsolete. Well, unless Intel gets TDP licked, and goes core-crazy.

Another thing to consider. Assuming that they still use some (backwards-compatible) form of PCI-Express for video cards 5 years into the future, then when 4K-res displays come down in price, the rig will need a video card upgrade just to support those resolutions in 2D, I think. (Will current Intel IGPs, or NV/AMD card drive 4K already?) A new video card, will also contain, most likely, hardware support for all the current newest codecs to drive that resolution when playing video.

 

[MountainKing]

My c2d (first c2d e6600 batch)is going on 7 years soon and its been on for like 85-90% of the time. Maybe even more. The only thing that has crapped out on me so far is the HDD I used when I first made the rig, a western digital 250GB and that is after like 6 years of near continuous use of downloading files, deleting, encoding stuffs.
I only upgraded my graphics card (was not even needed but I got a good deal) and added one GB of ram from my 2GB config.
I also added a couple of HDDs for storage but that is not an "upgrade" as such.
That rig could live another 3-5 years no problem but if I'm going to go into Blu Ray encoding, I will need a new rig. Else, for surfing, casual games, downloading, watching stuffs, it is still quite fast with a mild OC (3GHZ)

edit: I forgot to add my first HDD used to run at temps of around 48-58 Degrees Celcius.

 

[moonbogg]

10 years? Haswell should web browse for 10 years. So should Ivy.

 

[djgandy]

Still running Core2Duo + 8800GT. Can play all the games that come out today, sure not on highest quality but I can still play them. Web browsing no problems either.

The worst parts of old systems are the hard drives and I think this is what makes them feel slow a lot of the time. Hard drives deteriorate quite badly over time it seems.

I think Haswell will be more than capable in 10 years time. That seems crazy to say but C2D is still a more than capable architecture for general usage.

 

[willomz]

I see no real reason to wait for SATA Express, PCIe4, etc. It's one thing having the interface available, quite another to have devices that make full use of the interface.

 

[Abwx]

Posting with a laptop mobile 1.6G Pentium4 Northwood 768MB 160GB HD
with discrete Radeon 7500 32MB.....

The other old laptop has a crap IGP from VIA , i relegated it as oscilloscope
and measurements gear , for simulations i use a Pentium T6600 , good enough
and likely that it will last at least 5 years before i feel the need to upgrade.

 

[deimos3428]

5-7 years seems like a more realistic lifespan for a system. 10 years is pretty much the same thing but with a couple years of stubborn, grudging unhappiness before you upgrade tacked on the end.

 

[cytg111]

Some of you might have read my other thread about an IB Celeron and my goals of having a "ten year rig". One that I wouldn't have to do a platform upgrade for 10 years.

Well, I might have been a bit pre-mature buying an IB rig for that purpose, but I had that idea mostly AFTER I purchased it.

Assuming I do something similar for my personal rig, except get a Haswell. Do you all think that the HW platform is a good investment for a "ten year rig"?

haswell-e might do that trick, more cores, quad channel ddr4(?) .. Lets expect great strides in the graphics department, so you'll need to up your descrete a few times .. but I guess a 6-8 core haswell with 64G+ of ram and a few T's of SSD space + a few huge spindles could pull it off.

 

[Subyman]

I don't think compute will be the problem, but graphics will. 4K will become prominent this holiday season and we will finally start seeing high density computer monitors. The current HD4000 will choke at 4k with any kind of interactive/html5 graphics. Even Retina MacBook Pros have hitching problems surfing Facebook right now. I can't imagine what we will be looking at 10 years from now on the internet. I'd speculate we will see 3D rendering, manipulating 3D objects, and such. With 3D scanners, taking 3D pictures of objects will be trivial. So you may be able to rotate objects on Amazon to see all the detail and such. That kind of thing will require MUCH more than the current iGPUs have and could stress top tier graphics cards.

One the other side of the coin, if bandwidth takes off then we could see LESS computer being needed at home with most of the rendering done server side and piped directly to your screen.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Stereo webcams, 3D skype, you heard it here first.

 

[moonbogg]

I actually have an answer for you. Every two years, the time it takes your PC to complete a task increases by two seconds. It takes two seconds longer to boot your PC and to load programs etc. I know this the same way that michael moore discovered moore's law. A lucky guess and lots of ingorance.

 

[bbhaag]

My Athlon XP 2800+ lasted me just shy of the ten year mark. The beast had 2 gig of ram and believe it or not ran Win7 Ultimate for a short time. It wasn't till I started encoding video for Usenet and P2P that I realized how much of a dog it was.

Given the current state of PC software and its inability to fully use the hardware at its disposal I think your IB system will last you for years to come.
Ten years? Maybe but who knows.

 

[Goros]

5 years is about the limit, assuming you buy all the best schwag...and that includes upgrading the processor to the max the socket/chipset supports and adding ram and possibly upgrading the GPU.

 

[2is]

You can certainly get more than 5 years. A Q6600 is over 5 years old and there isn't anything it can't do, and quite well for most things at that.