When is the best time to buy a new Intel cpu? (tick vs tock vs refresh/new vs used)

[cooper69]

hey everyone, i'm currently on a sandy bridge i5 which currently performs perfectly fine for what i need it for. correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems as if skylake and haswell haven't made any ground breaking progress over sandy bridge architecture. however, i do foresee this setup slowing me down and i do plan on upgrading sometime in the future, but as for when, i'm not sure.

from a performance/$ perspective, would it be best to buy during the tock release of new microarchitecture, during their tick die shrink, or during the refresh before the die shrink? and for what reason?

what about buying brand new vs. used?

 

[Arachnotronic]

The best time to buy is when you need to buy

If what you have currently suits you well, and you don't enjoy buying new gear for the sake of it, then honestly don't bother.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Best seems to be when a new baseline uarch hits in terms of performance. Sandy Bridge, Haswell, Skylake. While the more performance/watt aware user may pick the shrink like Ivy Bridge, Broadwell etc.

A refresh doesn't really add much.

But as said, buy when you need.

 

[cooper69]

ah okay, that makes sense. i guess i'll be looking at whatever microarchitecture comes after the cannonlake tick. my reason for asking is because usually, i can survive long enough if it's worth waiting for a tick or tock.

what if i'm buying used though (probably one cycle behind)? would the same concept still apply? for example, i'll be probably be interested in buying a used skylake cpu after cannonlake comes out. or buying a cannonlake cpu after the new uarch after it releases

 

[Arachnotronic]

ah okay, that makes sense. i guess i'll be looking at whatever comes after the cannonlake tick. my reason for asking is because usually, i can survive long enough if it's worth waiting for a tick or tock.

what if i'm buying used though (probably one micro architecture behind)? would the same concept still apply? for example, i'll be probably be interested in buying a used skylake cpu after cannonlake comes out.

If you can get a good deal on used gear, then I don't see the problem. The only risk is that the previous owner of the chip you might buy might have over-volted the heck out of the thing, potentially lowering the potential lifespan of the chip.

 

[Spydermag68]

The best time to upgrade is when you see a need due to slowness in your current system or there has been a jump of technology. I had an aging system that was 6 years old. I jumped at skylake since most of the technology in IO had changed and there was a significant jump in processing power.

 

[Leyawiin]

If you're a typical user who keeps their PC build for three years or so it doesn't matter at all. Do it when you need it.

 

[ninaholic37]

I wanted to vote "Never" but there is no option. Used is cheaper and more bang for your buck.

 

[paffinity]

If all you do is game, then there is absolutely no reason to upgrade. Only thing I can think of is if you want 8 threads, go for i7.

 

[cooper69]

If all you do is game, then there is absolutely no reason to upgrade. Only thing I can think of is if you want 8 threads, go for i7.

funny story: i actually moved from an i7 2600 to an i5 3470s because i didn't think i needed 8 threads. i feel everyday windows tasks becoming slower and i sometimes see my cpu usage spike to 100% on all 4 threads on the i5. i only have about 10-20 google chrome tabs open and skype, with nothing else running. is this some sort of placebo that i'm getting or are everyday windows tasks really being limited by an i5?

apart from that, what are real reasons why people would want to upgrade from sandy/ivy bridge to haswell/broadwell or skylake?

 

[poohbear]

If ure on laptop then buying a Broadwell M cpu makes a huge difference for batter life...some of then go 12 hours on battery compared to 5 hours for Haswell! If ure a desktop user then there really is no need...unless u want the latest peripherals (ie more USB/SATA ports, M2 support etc).

 

[paffinity]

funny story: i actually moved from an i7 2600 to an i5 3470s because i didn't think i needed 8 threads. i feel everyday windows tasks becoming slower and i sometimes see my cpu usage spike to 100% on all 4 threads on the i5. i only have about 10-20 google chrome tabs open and skype, with nothing else running. is this some sort of placebo that i'm getting or are everyday windows tasks really being limited by an i5?

apart from that, what are real reasons why people would want to upgrade from sandy/ivy bridge to haswell/broadwell or skylake?

Only 10-20 tabs? This seems pretty high, I usually have like 5-8 tabs though it sometimes peaks to 30+ tabs across multiple windows.
Obviously it depends on what's running in those tabs, but I'm using 2600K with HT off on Linux and my cpu utilization is around 2% across all cores. I have a bunch of other crap in the background too (remote desktop, pdf viewer, 10 terminal sessions, libreoffice).
I guess one question I have is, how much of the % utliization is due to chrome? Maybe it's an antivirus or skype that's eating up your cycles.

 

[ninaholic37]

i feel everyday windows tasks becoming slower and i sometimes see my cpu usage spike to 100% on all 4 threads on the i5. i only have about 10-20 google chrome tabs open and skype, with nothing else running. is this some sort of placebo that i'm getting or are everyday windows tasks really being limited by an i5?

CPU usage is usually below 10% on my single core Pentium M 755 @800MHz but I switched:

Windows -> Slacko
Chrome -> Firefox 28 (no addons)
Skype -> mIRC or xChat

i5 might be useful upgrade for me in 20-30 years.