Question Buy Rocket Lake (i5-11600) or Wait for Alder Lake?

[mmarsh1972]

Hello

My 10 year old system is a i7-4770K, z97 Motherboard, 16GB RAM coupled a Nvidia 1080ti is in need of a upgrade. I am struggling to decide whether I should wait to upgrade to Alder Lake or go now. This would be a complete CPU/MB/RAM upgrade (GPU will come later).
There are pros/cons of each.

The Pros of going with a i5-11600
I would get a new system sooner, that is much faster than now but also cheaper than I would if I waited.

Cons
An inferior System compared to Alder Lake, thats technology will not allow any futureproofing. LGA1200, DDR4 etc are at an end. I know Rocket Lake is merely a stopgap.

Pros of waiting for Alder Lake
A faster (rumor speaks of significant performance increase) compared to 10 and 11 Gen chips, and is full futureproof for the next few years.

Cons
Price. I expect the total cost of ALder Lake upgrade to be much more expensive, especially DDR5. Plus as its a brand new tech there is an argument to wait and let it mature before diving in.
Availability. With the demand, global scalpers, and the Semi-Conductor shortage (which has already cause a release date change from September to November) kit might be very hard to acquire...and very expensive.

What would you advise?

 

[punkncat]

I just built a system on Z590 and an 11600K. It is quite snappy and operates well after the first round of BIOS updates. Like anything 9th gen and newer, possibly even more so, consider good cooling.
The new 750 graphics are a bit better and there if you happen to need iGPU as a backup. Has Gen4 support.

It would be a significant upgrade to what you are using now.

It's easy to get tied up in the "should I wait" thing. No matter what you do, there is something coming behind it that is better or offers something different.
I also feel like 10th gen is worth consideration, particularly in their high end.

 

[USAFRet]

1. You should ALWAYS wait. There is always something new on the horizon. Hence, you will never buy anything. Your bank account will grow, and you can retire early
2. The term "future proof" is a falsehood. Don't follow that path.
3. Buy what you want, when you need it, and when you have the money.

 

[carocuore]

Buy the refresh of the 10th gen refresh of the 9th gen refresh of the 8th gen refresh of the 7th gen refresh of the 6700K or buy the refresh of the 11th gen refresh of the 10th gen refresh of the 9th gen refresh of the 8th gen refresh of the 7th gen refresh of the 6700K?

That's up to you. But don't expect a "huge" increase in IPC performance. There's no such thing as futureproofing let alone with Intel, say you wait until Alder, 6 mo and it'll be a dead platform because they'll release a refresh and new mobos with firmware locked chipsets that won't allow you to keep upgrading. That's how it is.

 

[InvalidError]

Depending on what sort of pricing you have access to, I'd go with a 11400(F) since that gives you most of the performance for nearly $100 less on the CPU.

While Alder Lake may bring a couple of significant improvements, I am not particularly optimistic about how smooth the transition to an heterogeneous architecture on desktop PCs is going to be and for the most part, I try not to buy first-gen anything so all the major bugs get sorted out at the expense of early adopters. As you noted yourself, I also expect LGA1700 platforms and CPUs to be significantly more expensive at least initially.

In the future-proofing department, I'd say buy based on what you expect to need for the next 4-5 years and forget about it until it is time to upgrade again. I'm still using an i5-3470 and whatever I will likely upgrade to this summer should easily let me skip LGA1700 and AM5. By that time, 5nm CPUs should be the norm with nearly twice as many cores per dollar and massively upgraded IO.

 

[Myst_8362]

I’d say wait. Bc when u upgrade to Adler lake or higher in the future, you will need to buy new mobo AND cpu

 

[InvalidError]

I’d say wait. Bc when u upgrade to Adler lake or higher in the future, you will need to buy new mobo AND cpu

Not if you build a good enough system up-front to skip LGA1700 altogether.

My bet is that on top of teething issues I already mentioned, Intel won't have enough 10nm capacity for a fully stocked Alder Lake launch and it will turn into vaporware similar to Broadwell for desktop: technically exists but nearly impossible to actually buy because most of Intel's 10nm wafers are going to servers, mobile, FPGAs and other higher-value SKUs.

 

[Caine Thanatos]

So did you end up with a rocket lake ?

 

[InvalidError]

So did you end up with a rocket lake ?

I don't know about OP but me, I did get an i5-11400 since I have very little faith in Alder Lake having a smooth launch, no patience for waiting for those to get smoothed out and all the signs seemed to point toward unreasonable prices as prices were trending up for almost everything - the build cost for the parts I picked has gone up $100 (about 15%) since then.