Should I just skip IB/Z77 and wait for Haswell?

[JimmiG]

I was planning on upgrading my system when Ivy Bridge came out, but now I'm not so sure. First, IB was a bit underwhelming, and secondly my Ph-II is actually doing quite well still.

If I buy a Z77 mobo and Ivy Bridge CPU now, and want to upgrade to Haswell in <1 year, does this mean I will have to buy a new mobo again? Or will they make them for the old socket as well?

A life span of <1 year for a socket that's used commercially today seems absolutely ridiculous - my current mobo is from 2007 and supports CPUs up to the Phenom II X6 1100 (6-core, 3.3 GHz) which was released in early 2011. I would expect a motherboard I buy today to last at least 2-3 years.

 

[2is]

Yes you will need a new board for Haswell, but you likely won't NEED to upgrade from IB to Haswell when it comes out either. My plans are to wait until Skylake (Next "tock" after Haswell) before moving up from IB

Only you can answer the question "should I..." I came from an overclocked Q6600 which I recon would be pretty similar in performance to your PII and it wasn't good enough anymore, at least not in BF3 which is what I play most. It handled everything else quite well.

Another nice benefit is how much less heat this system dumps into my room compared to my last.

The motherboard argument is moot imo. AMD's sockets my last through more processor revisions but it doesn't really matter if you get an extra year from an AMD board vs an Intel board when it takes AMD 2-3 years to catch up to Intel's performance. Someone with a 2600k purchased a year and a half ago is still quite a bit faster than the fastest AMD CPU today and counting.

 

[Smoblikat]

Yes you will need a new board for Haswell, but you likely won't NEED to upgrade to Haswell when it comes out either. My plans are to wait until Skylake (Next "tock" after Haswell) before moving up from IB

Only you can answer the question "should I..." I came from an overclocked Q6600 which I recon would be pretty similar in performance to your PII and it wasn't good enough anymore, at least not in BF3 which is what I play most. It handled everything else quite well.

Another nice benefit is how much less heat this system dumps into my room compared to my last.

It might have less heat but im sure it has higher temps
@op If your current setup is fine then its best to just wait it out for as long as you can, the longer you wait the more performance you get per dollar.

 

[2is]

It might have less heat but im sure it has higher temps
@op If your current setup is fine then its best to just wait it out for as long as you can, the longer you wait the more performance you get per dollar.

And the higher core temps has zero consequence other than a psychological one. Less heat is less heat.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I moved from a Q9550 to my current setup and it was a big jump. You wouldn't have such a jump but my point is this...I am not going to haswel I will go for the next one after that. Socket 1155 is dead after ivy.

 

[Magic Carpet]

If Ivy is... what a 65nm Presler was for Netburst...then Haswell is going to be too hard to pass

Worth the wait.

 

[rgallant]

haswell is just pie in the sky , just like the ib 5.3+ 7/24 on air.
net wisdom for a gaming cpu :
920 fast enough
[x79 defective for nv gpu's re pci-e 3.0]and overkill
2500k overkill
2600k over kill
2700k overkill
3570k over kill
3770k over kill
so waiting 12-16 months for a fully working haswell/1150 mb for more gaming overkill is just------------- smart ?

 

[cmdrdredd]

haswell is just pie in the sky , just like the ib 5.3+ 7/24 on air.
net wisdom for a gaming cpu :
920 fast enough
[x79 defective for nv gpu's re pci-e 3.0]and overkill
2500k overkill
2600k over kill
2700k overkill
3570k over kill
3770k over kill
so waiting 12-16 months for a fully working haswell/1150 mb for more gaming overkill is just------------- smart ?

x79 defective how? Also nothing is overkill when you consider that BF3 is extremely reliant on the CPU when playing online.

 

[borisvodofsky]

x79 defective how? Also nothing is overkill when you consider that BF3 is extremely reliant on the CPU when playing online.

Many people don't play BF3.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Many people don't play BF3.

That isn't the point. More and more games will rely on Multicore CPU power to drive certain aspects of a game.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

wait till haswell

 

[n0x1ous]

That isn't the point. More and more games will rely on Multicore CPU power to drive certain aspects of a game.

Agreed. I run the logging portion of Aida 64 after getting a new build up and running to verify voltages/temps/utilizations etc.

I had it running while playing Diablo 3 the other day and 6 out of 8 threads were being utilized during game play. No other background programs running or anything...

 

[rgallant]

x79 defective how? Also nothing is overkill when you consider that BF3 is extremely reliant on the CPU when playing online.

""x79 defective how?""

-something like nv can't write drivers for pci-e 3.0 because the mb makers are all over\under spec's [pci-e 3.0] for nv gpu's to run on 2011 cpu's.

-intel rates 2011\x79 cpu's at pci-e 2.0 -why they won't say , one data firm benched 2011\x79 cpu's with raw data and found return data[cpu to gpu] from a x79 cpu @ only 75% of the pci-e 3.0 SPEC. required speed , gpu to cpu at 100% ,but pci-e 3.0 spec's require two way at the required data speed, so they did not pass the 3.0 spec. , not a big deal un less you have $1k of nv gpu's you want to run @ pci-e 3.0 speeds with out a hack.
-this years cards is not a problem @ pci-e 2.0, but next year/year after who knows.

should add

I had to turn off msaa in bf3 only because I ran out of vram on my 580's for 2560x1440 maxed setting's ,game looked better even , not sure why , so no big deal, my 920 @ 4.1 was not stressed in bf3, but I'm picking up a 3770k + MVF just for the new tech. upgrade.

 

[JimmiG]

The motherboard argument is moot imo. AMD's sockets my last through more processor revisions but it doesn't really matter if you get an extra year from an AMD board vs an Intel board when it takes AMD 2-3 years to catch up to Intel's performance. Someone with a 2600k purchased a year and a half ago is still quite a bit faster than the fastest AMD CPU today and counting.

Perhaps it is moot now, with AMD lagging so far behind (that's why my next system will be Intel). However with my board or most other AM2+ boards, you could have gotten an Athlon X2 in 2007, a Phenom II X4 in 2008 and a Phenom II X6 in 2011, all without replacing anything else in the system.

I suppose I could pick up a cheap Z77 mobo for <$100 and then sell that along with the CPU later. It just doesn't seem worth it to spend hundreds on "premium" mobos when in Intel's world, they are essentially disposable items that you replace every time you upgrade.

 

[2is]

In theory yes, in practice a lot of boards couldn't handle the power requirments of quad and hex core CPUs. Besides, you could have went with Bloomfield in 2008 not changd a thing and kept up with AMD through the years.

Likewise, you can get Z77+IB today and probably do the same. Recent history has shown that the only thing that's going to beat an Intel CPU (within any reasonable amount of time) is another Intel CPU.

 

[EltonL]

Might as well given that Haswell uses a different board.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Sometimes it seems like people here assume everyone upgrades to the next socket immediately. A lot of IB systems built today won't upgrade to haswell next year at all.

 

[tweakboy]

My current rig is 2007 November, still ticking strong. WHen it goes to the ground and dies then I upgrade to Haswell. thx gl

 

[Mars999]

Perhaps it is moot now, with AMD lagging so far behind (that's why my next system will be Intel). However with my board or most other AM2+ boards, you could have gotten an Athlon X2 in 2007, a Phenom II X4 in 2008 and a Phenom II X6 in 2011, all without replacing anything else in the system.

I suppose I could pick up a cheap Z77 mobo for <$100 and then sell that along with the CPU later. It just doesn't seem worth it to spend hundreds on "premium" mobos when in Intel's world, they are essentially disposable items that you replace every time you upgrade.

Ah I would just get a IB CPU now and a Gigabyte MB with Z77. Haswell is at least a year away and then one year after that Broadwell or Skylake whichever one was next is out... I don't know if Haswell will be a HUGE jump from IB, but best guess 10-20% but better power reduction, unless you run the server sockets they are upping the TDP on them to push them higher IIRC.

Fact is your system is old now, and why wait a year for the next best thing enjoy now use this rig for 2-4 years and get on the 14nm CPUs with all new tech DD4, SATA4, PCIe4 ect... at that time anyway.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Haswell will probably be a big jump from ivy. The diff could be as small as 860 to 2600k or as big as pentium d to core 2 duo. The latter or at least something btw the two, these are the more likely possibilities

 

[JimmiG]

Fact is your system is old now, and why wait a year for the next best thing enjoy now use this rig for 2-4 years and get on the 14nm CPUs with all new tech DD4, SATA4, PCIe4 ect... at that time anyway.

Even though my system is old, it actually handles everything I use it for just fine.
However, if I'm going to upgrade, I feel I should do it now, rather than 4-6 months before Haswell...even though upgrading now is pointless since my current system handles everything just fine.

I've learnt over the years that preemptively upgrading is actually a bad idea because by the time you actually need the additional performance, something better is available for cheaper.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Wait for Haswell if you dont need it now. And if the last 3-6months before Haswell might end up hard. Just wait.

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Does anyone know a more concrete release point for Haswell than just 2013?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Does anyone know a more concrete release point for Haswell than just 2013?

March-June.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

March-June.

Which probably means September.