Would heavily investing into X99 platform be a wise decition at this point?

[zeock9]

I don't usually upgrade my platform on yearly basis, or even two - my good ol' 920 from 5 years ago is still alive and kicking, but the lack of support for some of the latest peripherals is beginning to get to my nerves.

Would investing heavily into a X99 platform to last me another 5 years at this point be a wise decision, knowing that Intel may not even bother with the -E variant of Broadwell due to its extremely short life cycle and instead move straight to Skylake-E, which from what I gather will be a big game changer on an incompatible socket with X99?

Or would it be better to squeeze one more year out of this old lady and wait for X109 Skylake-E in late 2015/early 2016 to blow my wallet?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Broadwell-E will come for X99.

But unless you have a specific demand for X99 platform today. I would say its an utter waste of money.

 

[davie jambo]

Next year at this time maybe

 

[billyb0b]

i'd wait to see ddr4 mature a little more and see what skylake has to offer

i'm running a 975 i7 on a sabertooth x58 mobo and it's still working fine for everything i need

 

[BonzaiDuck]

i'd wait to see ddr4 mature a little more and see what skylake has to offer

i'm running a 975 i7 on a sabertooth x58 mobo and it's still working fine for everything i need

I tell "mainstreamers" to squeeze at least 5 years from their computers. I distinguish mainstreamers from "heavy gamers," "enthusiasts," and "overclockers."

When I was in the computer-info-systems teaching business, I expected to build a new computer every year or two -- but would frequently defer it for three or four. since the teaching was a sideline with no subsidy by my employer, I may have been more generous with myself. I loved the job, I loved the technology, and one love fed the other.

Now, it is just a matter of "keeping up," but I want at least one computer capable of demanding games and other uses more intensive than working with Quicken, e-mail and document management.

Even so, it's become an addiction that involves much more "rational calculation" than panhandling quarters to buy a pint at the local liquor store. And it's not only about "keeping up," but the challenge of building a great computer. This must be tempered by circumstances: the family is happy with their LGA 775 systems; I am happy with my aging Sandy Bridge machine.

I might order parts for my Haswell-E during middle of next year. Or -- I might change my mind: I could either build a Devils Canyon system, or wait for Broadwell . . . or Skylake (I suppose). But the end result of action taken in 2015 won't replace my sig-rig until I'm good and ready. I might give it as much as a year after that. If I'm going to needlessly spend money for the fun of it, I can also afford to take my time.

So ShintaiDK's assessment, even in this more complex view, is probably spot-on. As for DDR4 -- yes -- wait until the new RAM spec has matured. But do you need it in quad-channel? Did you need DDR3 in triple-channel?

You always have the choice to "redefine need" while you continue window-shopping the emerging options.

 

[Burpo]

Swap out the 920 for a Xeon X5650 Hex core & ride it out for 2 more years.. And if you want USB3 & SATA III, add a card. Good cheap performance upgrade, while we see what Intel does, and how far prices fall.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Swap out the 920 for a Xeon X5650 Hex core & ride it out for 2 more years.. And if you want USB3 & SATA III, add a card. Good cheap performance upgrade, while we see what Intel does, and how far prices fall.

+1

See, that makes a lot more sense unless, like me, the OP thinks he should attend a 12-step program for a computer-enthusiast addiction . . .

A Hoo-Too PCI-E USB 3.0 controller can be had for $30+. For $80, you can get a PCI-E SATA-III controller with four ports and port-multiplier which uses the MSAHCI driver by default without fiddling with the card's BIOS.

All he needs is some available slots on his motherboard, and some extra PCI-E lanes that allow for the use of those slots. He might even disable some features in the BIOS that he doesn't want to use anymore to make that work for him.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Bear in mind that x58 boards are fetching a lot on the used market. Spending maybe $170/$180 on a 5650 and some expansion cards won't be financially that much better than selling your board + CPU (and maybe RAM if you feel like you need more) and grabbing a 4790k (plus z97 board and RAM). There are circumstances where the 4790k may not be substantially better than a 5650, but it is 100% guaranteed that it will be faster than your 920, and you won't have to fret over expansion cards. For many uses, the 4790k will beat that 5650 (games).

The real question is whether or not Z97 has all the bells and whistles you need to be happy for a little while until you can figure out what's going on with Broadwell-E and beyond.

 

[Burpo]

X5650's are $70 and selling his 920 recoups most of that. A single add on card for USB 3 & SATA III is as low as $30. It's an inexpensive upgrade to carry him over & see what the future brings.

 

[CropDuster]

Like Burpo said, just swap out the 920 for a 5650 and ride it out another year or two. It's what all the cool kids are doing. I doubt there is a discernible difference in FPS between a 4790 and the 5650. My system handles BF4 just fine.

 

[sm625]

Those old hex cores are insanely powerful. It is amazing how cheap they are. It's not like they are ancient either, they are 32nm.

 

[MongGrel]

Swap out the 920 for a Xeon X5650 Hex core & ride it out for 2 more years.. And if you want USB3 & SATA III, add a card. Good cheap performance upgrade, while we see what Intel does, and how far prices fall.

+1 of course



Did you ever find your elusive X5675 you've been looking for ?

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2335636&highlight=l5639&page=65

 

[Burpo]

Nope, but haven't really been looking.. Rig works.. works counts..

 

[escrow4]

What do you NEED X99 for? I used to swap out parts at will, now I can't be bothered most of the time. Both my boxes have non K 4770's and either Z87 or H97 with 16GB RAM. There is nothing out there that requires an upgrade for me at all. Games are still struggling to actually use quad's never mind hexa's. Heavy duty encoding and 3D rendering, sure, but only if you do it 24/7. X99 is also immature and DDR4 latencies are rubbish (and DDR4 is damn expensive to boot).

 

[DrMrLordX]

X5650's are $70 and selling his 920 recoups most of that. A single add on card for USB 3 & SATA III is as low as $30. It's an inexpensive upgrade to carry him over & see what the future brings.

If he can extends the platform for $100 instead of the ~$170-$180 I was getting from BonzaiDuck's post, then that's a better deal.

Fact remains that having an X58 board does give you some flexibility. If he's using a lot of lightly-threaded apps, the 5650 might not be much of a performance improvement. In the end, it comes down to where he needs the extra performance the most, if anywhere. If the 920 is still good enough for his needs, he could even skip the 5650.

 

[Railgun]

From X58 I say yes. That's what I'll be doing. Other than incremental upgrades, I've stayed with the same platform for however long.

There's zero reason to believe that it won't be somewhat viable in five years. But ultimately that will depend on your needs.

There is no such thing as "future proof" and anyone who asks whether something will be "future proof" doesn't understand technology.

A swap to a 5650 brings him up to par to a 970 (which is what I'm running), albeit at a lower power cost. Still, compared to a 5820, it can't compete.

 

[gbeirn]

Well when did you invest into X58? I did at the very beginning of its release. I think that is the only time to really invest into the higher platforms so that you can get the longest life span out of them.

5 years from now we may all be posting about the great deal on Socket 2011-3 Xeon CPUs on eBay so we can upgrade our X99 boards to 12 core CPUs.

 

[Grooveriding]

At some point it's going to be time to upgrade, X58 is a fairly old platform, but still a pretty strong one.

2011-3 is going to be here for likely another three years through HW-E and then BW-E. If you want to wait for Skylake on the enthusiast platform you are talking over three years until availability. X99 doesn't have to be a giant investment. You can get a 5820K, motherboard and DDR4 in the area of $700, not much more than a full Z97 setup using a 4790K goes for. But you get a more advanced platform than Z97, plus the additional cores in the 5820K. If you're into overclocking the 5820K is pretty strong and 4.5ghz is pretty common at reasonable voltages.

 

[DrMrLordX]

5 years from now we may all be posting about the great deal on Socket 2011-3 Xeon CPUs on eBay so we can upgrade our X99 boards to 12 core CPUs.

Sadly, those Xeons probably won't overclock. That's what makes the x58 situation so unique. Anything from the Nehalem generation can still run up the bclk when multiplier overclocking is unavailable. Anything X99 woldn't permit that sort of functionality, I wouldn't think.

 

[MongGrel]

If he can extends the platform for $100 instead of the ~$170-$180 I was getting from BonzaiDuck's post, then that's a better deal.

Fact remains that having an X58 board does give you some flexibility. If he's using a lot of lightly-threaded apps, the 5650 might not be much of a performance improvement. In the end, it comes down to where he needs the extra performance the most, if anywhere. If the 920 is still good enough for his needs, he could even skip the 5650.

The X5650 is much better than a 920, trust me, for the majority of things.

 

[coffeejunkee]

Since when do the majority of things require 6 cores?

The only reason X58 lasted so long was because it was introduced way before the consumer platform. The moment P55 came out it was the better buy for most people. Nowadays it doesn't work like that anymore with Intel bringing out the consumer line first and the HEDT platform later.

Actually from TCO point of view it would probably have been better if 920 owners had sold their stuff and upgraded to Sandy Bridge the moment it came out. Depends on your electrity rate but those 920 4GHz oc's suck lots of power.

I'd probably upgrade to 4690K or 4790K now or wait for Skylake and hope ddr4 prices have come down by then.

 

[Fox5]

Wait for Skylake.

 

[Arachnotronic]

The best time to invest in a new platform, IMO, is early on in the cycle so that you get the full benefit of being able to use two CPU generations.

 

[Burpo]

Since when do the majority of things require 6 cores?

Yeah, there's no way any of us multitask enough to ever use 6 cores, or 12 workers...
Except DAILY here.. I want everything smooth & fast, and never have to worry about an under run while I'm doing 17 other things.. Just want my sh*t to work FAST.. Could care less about the electric bill.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The X5650 is much better than a 920, trust me, for the majority of things.

It's usually good for a few hundred more mhz in clockspeed, and having an extra two cores never hurts. Lower voltage at any given clockspeed as well, which is also nice.

But it's a pretty small bump in speed unless you're likely to use more than four cores. That really depends more on usage pattern than anything else.