I paid $550 CAD for both my i7-930 and my x58a-ud5 (dual lan, dual pci-e, and 10 sata ports) in 2010. Today getting just a quad core Intel (6700k) would cost me $500 CAD alone without a mobo.
OK, my bad then but then you didn't get the i7 930 when it was cutting edge tech. Frankly, i7 930 was always overpriced as the entire i7 920->960 stacked overclocked more or less the same. Besides the point, it's rather odd that you waited what 1.5 years to get an i7-930, in the process skipping the much cheaper 2008 i7 920, and then yet again cheaper September 2009 i7 860 but then decided not to wait for what was a huge performance increase in the January 2011 i7 2600K. You seem like a patient guy now having held on since 2010 but back then you couldn't wait what 1 more year for i7 Sandy? 2600K to 4.5-4.8Ghz absolutely demolishes an i7-930 @ 4Ghz in the context of 12 or so months it would have taken in your case. Just strange that you waited that long to get X58, but yet now you are calling X99 outdated. X99 chipset isn't actually outdated as boards have M.2/USB 3.1, and newer X99 updated boards will have all the latest features of Z170 too.
I got no issues shelling out for HEDT when I see value. When I went for my current build I went from a dual core AMD to a quad core Intel. Not only was the IPC about 2x in some cases, but the number of cores was 2x, so in effect in certain apps I was getting 3-4x performance for a $300 CAD CPU.
I went from a 1998 Pentium II 233mhz MMX (never overclocked) to a 2001 Athlon XP1600+ overclocked to 1800+ speeds, or a
7.73X increase in performance in only 3 years. Then in 2003, just 2 years after my Athlon XP1600+, I got a Pentium 4 2.6Ghz "C" that overclocked to 3.2Ghz. That means from 1998 to 2003, or in 5 years, my CPU performance increased
13.73X. By 2006, I had E6400 @ 3.4Ghz (so more than 2X Pentium 4 "C" 3.2Ghz) and by August 2007, I upgraded that to Q6600 @ 3.4Ghz (double the cores). If I apply straight up linear logic, that means 13.73X * 2X for C2D and another 2X for 2 more cores =
54.92X from Fall 1998 to August 2007.
If I were to apply the same high standards, even for a small time-span of 1998 to 2003 where CPU speed for me went up almost 14X, I might as well never upgrade again for 30 more years then. See how flawed this logic is for CPUs? Unlike GPUs, CPUs perform work in a serial manner and you cannot just scale performance across 3840 Intel cores (Pascal CUDA cores).
Even looking at 6700k vs 930 doesn't even give me 2x improvements in certain task (like 7zip compression).
I really want HEDT, ram upgrade alone would is starting to sound good, but I am also crazy stubborn. I have been hoping broadwell-e would be the solution to all my problems (but the rumors of $1500 CPU cast doubt into that dream).
Why is it all or nothing for you? $1500 CAD for a 8/10-core or bust? So you'd rather use the i7 930 instead of finding something in-between with the upcoming Broadwell 6-core i7 6800/6820K? I mean I want a Porsche GT3 or a Cayman GT4 but realistically speaking, I also don't want to sacrifice the rest of my life so I have to kinda settle for a Camaro SS, or something. It doesn't mean it's either Porsche GT3 or Honda Civic (nothing wrong with a Honda Civic but you get the point).
I did not mean viable $1000 CPU. I meant if I wanted a 8 core CPU it would cost about $1000 USD. In reality a 5960x would cost me about $1500 CAD....
....
I need more cores, I want 8 or 10 cores. For a while ive been hoping Intel doesnt do anything stupid with the price, because a nice 8 or 10 core BW-E is what I want. I could even live with a 6 core if its dirt cheap.
Well I told you to consider X58 6-core Xeons then for $90-100 USD but you don't want that either, so you don't want to a get a Camaro SS/Mustang GT350 because you want a Porsche GT3/Nissan GTR but you don't want to spend the $ and so you end up driving the Honda Civic.
I find it VERY obsolete. I just don't like what Intel is offering.
What exactly are you running that needs 8-10 modern IPC cores but you seem to have been accepting running 2008-2009 Nehalem/Lynnfield 4-core tech for 6 years now?
There is no 6800 and the only 6820k is mobile, so I assume you are talking about 6700/6700k?
http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/intel-core-i7-6950x-broadwell-e-has-10-cores-and-20-threads.html
I set a 'bar' to reach for me to upgrade, and it seems each year either Intel releases something too weak, releases something too expensive, or this year looks like it will be the Canadian dollar that crushes my broadwell-e dreams (along with Intel probably introducing a $1500 CPU).
Intel prices have been pretty steady and they have actually lowered the price of entry for the 6-core in August of 2014 (!).
i7 4930K cost $583 and i7 5820K was $389 US.
I really hope broadwell-e will work out, if not maybe even a nice 8 core (or more) Zen...
If you prioritize more cores over single threaded throughput, perhaps wait for Zen and go from there. They should have an 8-core 16 thread offering but I doubt it'll be cheaper than $400-500 USD.
..... If I sold the X58/920 at a rather low $200 back in 2011, I would have spent nothing in the long term to upgrade. If the resale value was even more, I'm actually getting PAID to upgrade. Try doing the same with X58 in 2016.
Sidetrack: There was also a time when used S939 A64 X2s were going for $200+ when a new C2D/mobo/2GB RAM that runs circles around it can be had at the same price. You would be downright dumb if you had those chips and not cashed in.
Ya, you are right. There are certain times when you almost have to resell old parts or their value will start moving closer to $50-100 at most. Also, in situations like you described where you can sell old tech for inflated prices, you go for it. At the end of the day, sometimes it works out better to buy $700 worth of parts, sell them for $450 in 3 years (loss of $250), then buy $700 worth of new parts and sell them again for $450 in 3 years (another loss of $250). In 6 years, you lose
$500 of real $/value and over 6 years have a cutting edge system most of that time.
The alternative to that is spending $700 US on new parts and holding on to them for 6 years by which point let's say they are worth $200. Your real cost of ownership, or real loss in value, is still the same
$500.
Once I grasped the concept of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), upgrading actually makes more sense to me rather than not upgrading and waiting and waiting. In other words, there comes a time where it's more optimal to sell and upgrade rather than wait.
Same for getting 4790K vs 4690K, 6700K vs 6600K and the latest iPhone 16GB vs 64/128GB, if the differential in ~$100 pricing can still be maintained in the resale value why would you not want to enjoy the benefits of the pricier model? Don't be penny-wise, pound-foolish.
Exact same concept as above -- TCO. It removes all headaches.
Removing all other factors, let's say i7 6700K cost $350 and i5 6600K cost $230, let's say I can get 50% value from both in 3 years, I get:
($350 - $230) * 50% = $60 extra to own an i7 6700K over 3 years or $20/year. It doesn't get any simpler than that. :thumbsup:
Oh sure, the Sandy beats down the Nehalem by 30 or so percent, but it's nowhere near the beat down Core gave the Pentium 4/D. In just the span of a night, the Core 2 Duo made the Pentium D feel like a slug by comparison.
True but C2D was the greatest single leap Intel has ever done if we exclude mobile Merom. That's not even fair to compare.
In all seriousness, the accumulated architecture upgrades combined lead to some pretty impressive gains over Sandy, though I don't feel like I could call Sandy "Slow". Maybe just a downgrade to "Adequate" would be quite fair.
I am not calling Sandy slow per say. I was saying anything at i5 2500K and below can be much slower in certain apps. But again, I can wait another 2-3 years until my 2500K, mobo and RAM would have be worth $100 altogether. If I can sell them in 2016 for $200, I get a new fast system I use for 2-3 years. Alternatively, I have to wait 2-3 more years and then have to spend an extra $100 to get what 15-20% faster CPU in Icelake? My point is at some point or another, the opportunity cost of waiting starts to set in. Once you calculate the TCO and weigh in the resale value, at one point or another it will make sense to dump old parts. This will happen for people with i7 3930Ks and i7 3770K and later with i7 5820K/6700K, etc.
The reason it doesn't happen for the average person is because they don't really think of TCO. They'd rather buy a $1000 PC and let it become completely obsolete in 6 years. I'd rather buy $700 worth of platform parts, keep my core components like PSU, monitor, headphones, and sell those parts in 3-4 years, and buy new $700 parts. I already outlined above why financially this actually makes more sense even if the increases in CPU speed are nowhere near Pentium 4/D -> C2D -> Nehalem -> Sandy.
Sandy was remarkable not because of the huge IPC and clock gains over Nehalem, but also the first CPU where you can OC without wasting electricity at high clocks and voltages at idle, the chipsets themselves consume very little power, plus the mobos were dirt cheap compared to X58.
Another thing is HT on Sandy worked even better than on Nehalem so you got an even bigger benefit with i7 2600K vs. i5 2500K than i5 750/760 vs. i7 860. More importantly, with Sandy, you could achieve 4.4-4.5Ghz on $20 air coolers and 4.7-4.9Ghz on $50 air coolers. Overclocking headroom has decreased overtime and it took until i7 4790K and i7 6700K to barely catch up. That means Sandy's huge overclocking increase mitigated some of its IPC disadvantage. My i7 860 basically maxed out at 3.9Ghz and i7 2500k/2600K went to 4.8Ghz a lot of the time. That's a 23% increase in frequency and a 16-17% increase in IPC. If today Skylake i7 6700K could overclock 23% higher than i7 4790K, that would still be not even as good as i7 2600k vs. i7 860/920 because Sandy brought a bigger increase in IPC than Skylake did over Haswell.
That is how amazing Sandy really was.
I hate that Intel sells a dinky 4-core i7 6700K with sub-125mm2 die with mostly useless for gaming iGPU for $350 but I cannot argue with the numbers.
i7-6700K@4.6Ghz vs i7-4790K@
4.9Ghz in 10 Games (Fury X)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5lfMogcrPU
At least Intel has been improving their CPUs. With AMD, if you overclocked your
FX8150 to 4.6Ghz nearly half a decade ago, well you are lucky enough to get anything 12-13% faster as of now.