Buy an i7 950 now or wait for sandy bridge?

[FLanighan]

Title. I don't know if sandy bridge is going to have more raw performance than the current chips, I heard it will have better power saving features and new crappy integrated GPUs, but is that it. Oh and also they will charge extra for overclocking. So would it be worth the wait or should I just get an i7-950?

One more thing, are the sandy bridges going to be socket 1366 so I can upgrade later?

 

[wasupmike]

no... the sandy bridges are going to be a new socket 1155 (to replace the current 1156)

as the sandy bridge is aimed at the mid-range... the current 1366 is supposedly still a higher performing platform.. its replacement, which i think will be the 'X68 chipset', will be out late next year, if i'm not mistaken...

to sum up: the current i7-950 / w the X58 platform - will still be pack leader... until late next year... even better than upcoming 1155 sandy bridge, which will have the same "mainstream" limitations as the current 1156 platform

 

[Ripthruster]

I don't think that's accurate, judging by this review of an I5-2400 with Turbo disabled. It performemd as well as a 980X.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/first-intel-sandy-bridge-quad-core-benchmarks-nearly-as-fast-as-core-i7-980x-could-make-low-end-graphics-cards-obsolete/3733

Imagine the performance of the 2500K or I&-2600K with turbo and hyperthreading enabled

 

[Trioxin]

Well I just bought i7 950 for my new system. By the advice people gave me, I don't think I made a mistake. But, I have Athlon 2500+, so this was a much needed upgrade for me which will be able to run games just fine for a couple of years.

Question is, what kind of system do you have.

 

[hogan773]

Well I just bought i7 950 for my new system. By the advice people gave me, I don't think I made a mistake. But, I have Athlon 2500+, so this was a much needed upgrade for me which will be able to run games just fine for a couple of years.

Question is, what kind of system do you have.

Guys, the 950 is a fine chip and if all you're worried about is gaming, then I'm sure it will serve you well. That said, and as another poster identified, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the new SB chips are "just mainstream" and that the "1366 will still be the pack leader." SB appears to offer performance that will equal or exceed the current i7s for about the same price. And stop getting so hung up on the overclocking......you should be able to buy an unlocked K version of teh SB chips for like $20 more.

I still don't see the wisdom of jumping into any current i5 or i7 chip today when it is literally less than 1 month until you can get SB option....why not at least wait to see whether there is a meaningful performance difference and/or verify the pricing rumors. But that's just me....for those that must scratch that itch today and not tomorrow, I guess you're out of luck. Absent a complete failure of your current system however, it's hard for me to believe there are that many people that MUST UPGRADE TODAY! and can't wait a few weeks. But to each his own......

 

[Trioxin]

Well my plan is to wait for LGA 2011, and give my recently bought i7 950 to my brother when 2011 become available.

 

[wasupmike]

ya... 1366 technically will still be pack leader... sandy bridge (1155) IS to replace current mainstream 1156... 1366 will still be considered the high-end until it is replaced by 2011 (in late 2011 i think)

that being said... i'm sure there will be CPU's from SB that will outperform let's say a core i7-950... but not a 980x i'm sure... and it's not just about the raw performance of each CPU... it's about the platform... and SB has the same limitations as 1156 with the limited PCI-E lanes (for example)... the X58 chipset is a more powerful one than SB (more power hungry), but more powerful...

 

[fazers_on_stun]

^ According to the Anandtech review the 'mainstream' or socket 1155 SB will have 5 GT/s PCIe lanes vs. Lynnfield's 2.5 GT/s. So graphics performance with one or two discrete cards might not be as bad as it would otherwise.

IIRC the performance versions of SB will have 24 PCIe lanes, so that's one 16 and one 8 lane card..

 

[Noxtreme]

I am in the exact same conundrum my friend. It appears you took the leap. I just can't do it. I have a new 950 rig all priced and ready but.......

 

[ghnader hsmithot]

I did it..It is better than waiting and waiting then never buying it.I now am a happy owner of i7 950.

 

[hogan773]

I did it..It is better than waiting and waiting then never buying it.I now am a happy owner of i7 950.

Wow....maybe you win the award for closest to the pin.

Let's see if we can get someone to post on Jan 4 that they "just can't keep waiting and waiting" (for 1 day since SB comes out on 5th) and they took the plunge and bought a current i5 or i7

 

[roscolo]

I'm in the same boat, and if you don't absolutely have to have something up and running this month, I would wait.

 

[hogan773]

I'm in the same boat, and if you don't absolutely have to have something up and running this month, I would wait.

Yeah I don't see how anyone can say they can't wait 1 WEEK!
By the time you receive the current tech through the mail, then you could be ordering new tech!

At this point, even if my PC blew up I'd probably just wait a week rather than rush to buy something today.

 

[teh_tourist]

SB will come out next week, just wait.

 

[beanoslim]

I've just invested in a whole new X58, i7 950, 6gig XMS3 system purely because it was so cheap.

I got the board, cpu and ram for about 1/3 of the rrp, how can it be a bad choice at this price.

I'm sure SB will superceed the i7 950 but that doesn't make it a bad choice IMO.

If SB is released and not so impressive the i7 prices will probably rise again.

I'm still waiting for mine to be delivered, does that make me closest to the pin. :lol:

 

[excelerater]

Do you guy think i7 950s are going to drop in price when SB comes out
I have been waiting to pull the trigger on the i7 950 and a MOBO but holding out for this sorta event.........

 

[beanoslim]

No, they already have had a massive drop, thats why I got one now just incase they go back up after SB release.

 

[lysinger]

I built an i7 950 for my accountant. I have no clue whether a Sandy Bridge will be better or not, but this thing is unbelievably fast. I used a Radeon 5450 card and he insisted on WinXP (he's not change oriented ^_^) and it still flies. The MB can take a 980X if upgradeability is required some day and by then that chip or something equivalent that works on the board should be dirt cheap on the used market.

If you can't wait, don't. It took me about 15 years of waiting for the next generation of cool PC hardware to build something modern and fast for myself. That was from a 486 DX33 with 4mb of ram when it was pretty state of the art to an E8400 with 4gb of ram (2 years ago). I bought junked PCs that were 3 generations behind the newest hardware and refurbed them in the meantime.

 

[lysinger]

Lol my first upgrade was from the xt to the PII. The xt had a 8mb hdd, 640kb ram, cga graphics and 360kb floppy drive. I had to carry like 20 floppies around just to copy california games lol

Ahh the memories. Dad's XT had CGA, a 1200 baud internal modem, 10MB full height HD, Irwin Tape Backup, half height floppy 360K. I wish I still had the case.

My first upgrade was from an XT to a 286-12 and it wen't VERY badly. I didn't know anything back then.

That 486DX 33 went in that same XT case. I used to run it with Seagate ST251-1 MFM drives because they were faster than most early IDE drives if you had a 1:1 controller at that time. I did upgrade it to a DX2 66 and 8mb ram at some point when everyone was running their P90s and AMD K6s and giving those old chips away.

Wow, I'm getting old