With DDR3 prices so annoyingly high, might as well go DDR4 anyway... of course, I can't find any yet. Only one month away??
Intel does realize that PC sales are down ... right?
PC sales are up if you missed it.
Declines in sales of digital imaging, movies, MP3 players and other products more than offset strong demand for computers, appliances and gaming devices, the company said.
PC sales have slumped in the last two years as consumers abandon laptops for touchscreen tablets, sales of which have grown exponentially since the release of the iPad in 2010.
I'm only interested in the 5960X, and that's only if it (on average) overclocks well enough to beat my current single threaded performance. I want more cores and I want 'em all to be faster than what I've already got..... Is that to much to ask?
Is that why BestBuy, Staples, etc., are still struggling to sell PCs?
With DDR3 prices so annoyingly high, might as well go DDR4 anyway... of course, I can't find any yet. Only one month away??
Physical reality has a tendency to go against our wishes.
Here is a reference point for DDR4:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36596671&postcount=7
(Notice the current prices in the Newegg links have dropped significantly since I wrote that post. The two 2 x 4GB DDR4 kits are now $109.99 and 119.99, down from $134.99 and $179.99. This price reduction happening in only 8 days time)
I have 2 x 4770's non K with 16GB RAM in both my boxes and even though I can buy a 5960X I can't see a point. May as well upgrade to Skylake which will likely be as fast as a 5960X when its released and on a newer chipset to boot. Like now, the 4770 vs the 3930K - unless its multithreaded heavily you may as well go quad. If time is money you may as well go full Xeon otherwise a 4970 would make more financial sense.
Is that why BestBuy, Staples, etc., are still struggling to sell PCs?
Edit: I may be incorrect:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/16/us-bestbuy-holidaysales-idUSBREA0F0QQ20140116
Edit: Or maybe not:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...cast-to-overtake-PC-sales-at-end-of-year.html
http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24314413
PC sales are up if you missed it.
It's not that simple:
1) Skylake-K seems to be delayed to late 2015. Based on current roadmaps and rumors, it will take until May-June 2015 before Broadwell-K launches. After Intel is said to release Skylake-S. A multiplier locked Skylake would have a tough time beating overclocked Haswell.
2) If you are going to make the argument of waiting another year for Skylake-K, then you'd have to compare it with a BW-E, not with HW-E. Someone who is looking to upgrade now is not going to wait another year. Also, you assessed that the value of a $1000 5960X is poor but ignored the nearly $400 5820K. Those buying the 8-core are surely not just gaming. If 5960X overclocks worse than 5820K, these gamers would consider the 6-core instead.
3) It depends on how long you want to keep the main platform for. If you don't think that in the next 3-4 years there will be major AAA games that could benefit from 6 cores, then 4790K is the right choice. But if we look at performance of overclocked 2600K vs. Overclocked 4790K, in 3.5 years there is hardly a difference in performance in games implying that the difference in clocks and IPS is almost entirely absorbed by GPU bottlenecks. This suggests that a gamer doesn't need to upgrade the CPU platform every 2-3 years but instead every 4-5 years. I would imagine next gen games in that time would benefit far more from 4.5Ghz 6 core Haswell than a 4.8Ghz quad 4790K or even Skylake-S. Again, since Skylake-K is now ways off, I don't even see how it's relevant to compare to HW-E.
4) If someone wants to go 2x SLI + M.2 SATA or Tri-SLI, the X99 chipset is the go to system.
All in all with 5820K dropping to almost $400, and DDR4 pricing dropping already, the price difference between going 5820K and 4790K could approach $200 or less which is not a lot over 4-5 years of the CPU platform's life. Obviously if someone has a strict budget, it is better to put it into a faster GPU if gaming is their primary motivation. But in that case, i7 4770/4790K isn't worth the upgrade yet for 2600k/3770k users either. Also, I don't think X99 platform targets users with 4770Ks either. It looks a lot more attractive for someone on 1st generation i7 or 2500K who is looking for a large increase in performance after 3.5-6 years of using their old system.
PC sales are up if you missed it.
That's all fine but a lot of the crowd here are enthusiasts who will not keep their rigs for that long no matter how rational it would be. I'm curious enough about BW-K and Skylake-K that I'd rather go with one of them (or both) than trying to convince myself of going HW-E and staying with that for 3++ years. Ironically it might not even be that much more expensive to always go with the budget K alternative even if you update every or every other generation.
Although if Windows 9 is indeed cloud based exclusively (as rumored) -- it will probably suck even more than 8.
After checking out this thread and the supplied links all I can say is:
Intel does realize that PC sales are down ... right?
These chips, at these prices may only interest a select few such as enthusiasts because most will be turned off by the high price-point of these chips.
... and I thought that the current offerings from Intel were overpriced.
Intel doesn't care about these CPUs, really. They're making the cores for Xeons anyway, so they throw enthusiasts a bone and make a bit of extra money on the side.
Their consumer lines are the i3 and i5, especially the laptop versions.
Barely -- and still far below historic levels. I think this is a combination of Intel not building anything compellingly better than 2-3 years ago.... and the utter fiasco of Windows 8. I think DDR4 might be the pop we need to get people interested in new hardware.
Most everyone I know is milking Windows 7 in the hopes that Windows 9 doesn't suck. All these "wait and see" people must be depressing new PC sales. Although if Windows 9 is indeed cloud based exclusively (as rumored) -- it will probably suck even more than 8.