i7 920 Bloomfield moving towards i7 4770k Haswell?

[Arbiter_Arbiter]

OK. I am debating on upgrading my CPU now or waiting until Broadwell later this year/early next year. I use my computer for gaming/entertainment center.

I currently am running:
a i7 920 @ 3.8 GHz on a P6t Deluxe V2
3x2GB Ram
240 GB SSD
600 GB HDD
GTX 780
900W CoolerMaster UCP
1440p Qnix monitor

So I got my new monitor and would like to make use of its 120 Hz ability in newer games. Currently I get ~60 fps in BF4. I would like to add another 780 at some point this year. I am still uncertain whether my CPU/MB would not allow me to utilize SLI 780s entirely.

So I have decided I WILL be upgrading at some point in the next year and the options are Haswell or Broadwell(as of now). I know new technology always has kinks so buying a Broadwell setup right out of the gate may not be the best idea. I am assuming Ivy-E and Haswell-E are worthless for my purely gaming setup? I am set on the i7 because I reckon HT will be usefull in the future so please do not try and convince me the 4670k is a better option than the 4770k.

I have 2x4GB RAM on hand already but it is not compatible with my triple channel MB so I would need to upgrade my MB to utilize the RAM.

 

[Shneiky]

Supposedly DDR4 is hitting next year. Around the same time Broadwell comes. This is rumors of course. I would suggest to wait till DDR4 is available.

 

[Arbiter_Arbiter]

Will DDR4 make that big of a difference? I have read that 8 GB DDR3 RAM is adequate for gaming and is not a bottleneck. Do you believe that DDR4 will have a big impact on performance when it hits the market? I just wonder how long after DDR4 is released will Motherboards be released that support it?

 

[Shneiky]

Haswell-E and Broadwell are supposed to run in DDR4 motherboards. Broadwell is still a bit of a mystery to me, since it should drop in existing Z87 motherboards. Also they are supposed to bring some more goodies along with the Z97(?) X107(?) platforms.

What impact will it make? Noone knows. DDR4 will allow double the size of RAM at the same density, with some higher clocks and/or hopefully lower timings. Anyway since such a major change is coming that soon (well DDR type doesn't change every other year. DDR3 has been here since 2006 if I remember correctly. )

If you are impatient, go for it. I would wait.

 

[wdmfiber]

You could upgrade now if you wanted to. The big jump/shake-up was Sandy Bridge, 2600K.
After that, upgrading to a 3770K or even 4770K wasn't noticeable (unless you benchmarked).
Broadwell... lets call it a 5770K, likely won't offer much over a 4770K.

Intel i7's are so long lived, I'd recommend a nice build based on a higher-end Asus board.
[actually recently did that for myself (August/2013)]

 

[Arbiter_Arbiter]

I had my eyes on the Asus Maximus VI Hero board actually to go with 4770k if I were going that route. I always run into this sitution where I am unsure if I should upgrade now when I have some wiggle room or upgrade when I NEED to upgrade for performance sake.

I just would hate to upgrade to Haswell and then in 1 year all of a sudden NEED DDR4 although I am questioning whether DDR4 will have much of an impact right away in terms of performance.

Since I am questioning myself so much I may just wait it out....

 

[Shneiky]

Well supposedly DDR4 is going to bring as much of a change as DDR3 did over DDR2. DDR2 dims were capping out at 4 GBs. Now the mainstream DDR is 4GB/8GB per stick. I am expecting the mainstream DDR4 modules to be 8/16 GBs with the more expensive sticks to reach maybe 32 GB which wont cost an arm and a leg, but that is a dream.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/08/samsung-mass-produces-ddr4-which-still-has-nowhere-to-go/

Samsung is producing DDR4 modules since 2012/2013.

 

[wdmfiber]

There is always something better just "over the horizon" and it can drive you nuts.
Even frequency vs. latency can be a hard decision. In the end I went with (the standard) 1600 MHz dims, but at the tight timing of 7-8-8-24. But this new build is so snappy, 1333 MHz dims at cas 11 probably wouldn't hurt it.

And RAM is a mess right now anyway. Last fall there was a huge fire at a major production plant in China. It will take a while(maybe a year +) for production to come back and prices to drop. DDR4 in anyway quantity or quality is likely "further away", than most people think.

Just Google: China ram fire (or similar words), if you want to research it.
There are also threads on it here at Tom's, just search keywords as well.

 

[Arbiter_Arbiter]

I guess the question is this(I know it is the future and nothing is known 100%, but I enjoy educated guesses):

If 2x4GB DDR3 Ram runs everything I need it to run adequately now, do you think 2x8GB DDR4 Ram will make a huge impact in a year when available? If I can get away with DDR3 for 4-5 years I will or else that will majorly impact my decision.

 

[feelingtheblanks]

I guess the question is this(I know it is the future and nothing is known 100%, but I enjoy educated guesses):

If 2x4GB DDR3 Ram runs everything I need it to run adequately now, do you think 2x8GB DDR4 Ram will make a huge impact in a year when available? If I can get away with DDR3 for 4-5 years I will or else that will majorly impact my decision.

You won't really feel the difference like day and night unless you are up to rendering or video editing. If you only play games then it will be a waste to wait just for DDR4 since they will be needlessly expensive in the beginning and will not offer a tremendously different gaming performance.

Today's gaming climate is more and more going towards to GPUs (and also consoles). I've been running a Core2Duo system with DDR2 RAMs for 6 years and the only game I had problem was the latest Battlefield 4 (and believe me I've played almost any indie and AAA video game that comes to PC) and it wasn't about the memory performance. It was all about that the game requires at least a mediocre quad core cpu. I've been playing anything in highest details with good frames with my 7870.

I've upgraded to a 4770K and the only game I felt a difference is Battlefield 4. But well from now on almost every big title will require decent quad cores at least. But in the end your gaming performance will be determined mostly by your GPU.

System memory was never be one of the driving forces of gaming performance and sad to say but It never will be. Remember the last generation of consoles only had 512MB memories and in this generation both of them became a X86 PC with 8GB memories. Only reason that PS4 has GDDR5 memories is to use it more efficiently in graphics processing.

So you'll be fine with DDR3 memories until a dramatically different architecture arrives and make your processor obselete which will never be the case to the next generation of consoles at least.

If you are up to rendering, video editing or even running servers then it's a different story though.

 

[Shneiky]

Your I7 920 is still very capable and at 3.8 GHz. Also you have 3 x PCIe 2.0 x16. PCIe 2.0 x16 is quite enough for SLI 780s, though you might lose anywhere between 1-3% (5 at the worst case scenario) compared to a PCIe 3.0 x 16. For me, those 1-3% are not enough to change a whole platform. And the LGA 1366 CPUs were not as bad IPC wise as the LGA1156.

I guess you are a guy that upgrades when it is smart to upgrade. I do agree with the "better thing on horizon" theory though. But my main argument does not lie in an year, it lies in 2-3 years. There was XP and DDR2, the OS was taking around 800 MBs - 1 GB at max. A default Win7 usually takes anywhere from 2GBs to 2.6GBs (mine sits at 2.4). We got Win8 which is tablet, laptop, touch oriented, but we did not get the true refresh of Win7. Lets call it Win9. So when Win9 arrives (around the same 2015), it will be optimized for the current a set of hardware. For now, a standard for a desktop is 4 GBs for gaming and 8GBs for more serious gaming+some work. I am expecting the arrival of the new platform to change that standard to 8/16GBs. And since the software developers will have a mainstream audience with more RAM resources, they will up the RAM requirements.

In the end - you will not see much difference between your current set-up and an I7 4770k. You have enthusiast class hardware, and even though old, it still packs a punch against the mainstream hardware. Just looking at numbers, it is a waste of money. But the next generation with DDR4 and bla bla is more reasonable to upgrade to.

If you worry about not being able to utilize the 780 SLI, you should not.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Impact-of-PCI-E-Speed-on-Gaming-Performance-518/

Your PCIe 2.0 x16 are very sufficient.

It is not only about the DDR4. It is about the new platform. DDR4 won't make the huge difference, but what comes around it will.

 

[feelingtheblanks]

What comes around?

Gaming-wise we've just seen the biggest development for at least the next 5-7 years with the so-called next gen consoles. It has the same architecture as our PCs (actually even worse) so there's nothing to come around really until the next gen consoles. Everything in between will be some powerful and enthusiastic features maybe, but never gonna used by developers like we've seen dozens of times before. Well unless majority of PC users decide to pay for the video games though. 😛 With current sales figures it's just a dream to expect some big changes in gaming performances with the so-called next gen hardwares. None of the developers are stupid enough to build their games on some new and expensive PC exclusive technologies to their games which won't sell to many PC users. But on the other hand, as enthusiasts, we can always have the latest hardwares and amuse ourselves by looking at our very high synthetic benchmark numbers of never been used technologies. It's sad but true...

So Arbiter, I'd suggest to look at your current gaming performance. If it's enough for you then don't upgrade until you feel it's not enough. I've been doing the same for the last 15 years. My Core2Duo platform was performing just amazing with a good GPU until BF4's "quad core" requirements. But now we are all fine until the next gen consoles come with some strong 16 core processors. It's not important that Intel is making an 188 core processor with DDR36 RAMs running at 3500000 MHz in 2 years. It isn't Intel who directs the game industry. It's the console manufacturers. And they aren't providing anything to those consoles. So just check where the current gen consoles are standing at the moment and make your move if you just using your PC for gaming...

 

[Arbiter_Arbiter]

I suppose my i7 920 works for now and I should wait for DDR4/Broadwell as I can play any game at 60 fps.

I have this nice Qnix monitor than CAN be overclocked to 120 Hz but my current system can not reach 120 fps in BF4/BL2. I suppose I should get a second GPU and SLI my 780's before I upgrade my CPU and my CPU is not a bottleneck ESPECIALLY when playing at 1400p as at that point it is more dependend on my GPU I believe.

Or getting a Noctua/Water and hitting the 4.0 GHz mark may be better for me.