Broadwell: what to expect?

dovah-chan

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Surprisingly besides the Haswell-E announcement we haven't heard all that much about broadwell. All I'm aware of that it's going to be a 14nm haswell and uses 30% less power under load and are beginning production in the final quarter of 2014 and beginning sales in 2015.

Will this be what pushes nehalem users up to a new CPU or just another small incremental update? I'm using a 4670K but my friend is still using an old i7 920 (bloomfield) and he was asking me about this the other day?
 

RobCrezz

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Yeah I would have thought it would be a good upgrade from Bloomfield. Unlikely to be any major improvements on this cycle though, not until Skylake.

I dont plan to upgrade from Sandybridge until Skylake.
 

dovah-chan

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I would say that they need to just stop following the traditional view of focusing on node shrinks and instead move on to perfecting their architecture. Although really they're so extremely efficient already. I guess that's why they've put almost all their focus lately on taking down ARM since they already control almost the whole desktop market. It seems today's goals are performance per watt instead of just raw performance increases per node shrink.
 

dovah-chan

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Also any idea when DDR4 will have mass market appeal? I just bought my 4670K and I'm afraid within a year that DDR4 will come out and then within 1 more year it'll gain mass market appeal. As soon as its released I'll feel that my build is inadequate and want to upgrade anyway. Although from what I've heard DDR4 just keeps getting pushed further back on its release date. The only news at all I've heard about it is that g skill was showing off some DDR4 DIMMs made by hynix a few months ago.
 

RobCrezz

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Well, it makes sense to be more efficient in performance per watt at the moment. No real incentive for them to make huge leaps in performance when the competition isnt there - doesnt look like we will have anything new from the FX range from AMD, and the APUs arent exactly setting the world alight with performance.
 

dovah-chan

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It seems that AMD has given up on their CPUs and just moving strictly to APUs now. Guess the FX-9590 was the last CPU we'll see from AMD. It's a shame because I like AMD but they've been out of their league for years now and only keep getting behind every year. And I've heard Kaveri has stirred up some talk but not much since integrated desktop graphics are very undesirable.

I don't really see the point in pursuing integrated GPU performance on a desktop. Anyone in their right mind who intends to game on a desktop is probably going to be using a separate card. A consumer who doesn't game isn't going to care because they won't be taking advantage of the extra power.

They could aim for the mobile market (which they've made recent attempts to do so as I'm using an A6-5200 APU in my lenovo G505) AMD has no chance in the mobile market at all due to haswell and ivy bridge now dominating with high performance per watt and great battery longevity. Plus to regular everyday consumers Intel has the advantage with their brand name and marketing.
 


It's surprising to think but the majority of desktop systems sold to joe public rely solely on the integrated GPU. Also remember that all new intel cpu's below the 'E' range are APUs essentially, and Intel have been pushing hard on the integrated graphics performance.

As it stands if a random person buys a system from PC World- they're likely to have a better overall experience with something like Kaveri than with an i7 due to better graphics chip. The CPU side of the equation on Kaveri is plenty fast enough for day to day tasks and the graphics will run most games fluently- it's a good 'just works' solution. Obviously they could simply add a discreet card to the i7 (or the Kaveri rig for that matter) and they'd have a much faster machine overall, however the uninitiated probably wouldn't even be aware this is an option.

AMDs approach does make some sense as they're targeting products where the money is. Also market share wise AMD aren't doing too badly on the desktop from what I've read (they've still got there 20 ish % they've always had), it's laptops where they're getting creamed and that's mainly because they're at such a disadvantage in process tech they're products aren't really competitive.

One thing of note- although the PC market as a whole is decreasing, us gamers are buying more kit than ever before (the gaming desktop market has been steadily growing for years). That would suggest that both Intel and AMD might take a bit more notice of us moving forward (although in AMDs case I don't think they're limited on manufacturing node to do much more at the moment- I'd expect a 6 or 8 core APU from them in the next few years to take the place of FX).
 

WoodenSaucer

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Apr 2, 2014
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So Broadwell will still be using the LGA 1150 socket, but will the LGA 1151 in Skylake be incompatible? If so, then anyone who upgrades to Skylake will also have to upgrade their motherboard, is that right?
 

CDdude55

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Performance has taken a backseat for sometime in the Intel camp it's largely been an increase in integrated GPU performance. Sandy Bridge was a really substantial architecture performance wise and i agree that people should hold on to their Sandy or Ivy chips until something substantial is presented in the mainstream segment of the CPU market.
 

dovah-chan

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Oh I see what they're doing. Instead of trying to nudge up into the high range again they're instead targeting the least common denominator with cheap prices. This is somewhat like they've been doing recently but they were instead targeting gamers with cheap CPUs that are fluent in gaming.
Now they're reaching out and looking for mass market appeal. I guess they're trying to get that sort of 'snappy feeling' into an average $400 PC when a user is multitasking. The graphics subsystem is strong enough for light gaming so blooming players who are on an AMD APU desktop will have that good experience with it and become attached to their name. And really AMD only falls short in just a couple of games and synthetics. But when you look past that and just focus on real world experience and gaming you won't notice it.

Speaking of multitasking I wish I still had my 8350 ;___; the 4670K improves my skyrim frame rate greatly but it doesn't have that same pep to it when I'm doing work in GIMP and switching between steam chat tabs while listening to music.
 

dovah-chan

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I guess so usually on tocks intel tends to upgrade their motherboard platform. As of lately the CPU world has been kind of obscured and slow. I very seldom ever hear anything about new architectures that are game breakers. As of lately the only significant hop it seems you can make is from a Core 2 Quad or older.

 

logainofhades

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Should have bought a 1230 v3. :p
 

RobCrezz

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Correct, it will be incompatible. Mobo upgrade will be needed for Skylake.
 

dovah-chan

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b-but muh overclocking fun times!!1!