Nahelem vs Sandy Bridge vs Ivy Bridge: Wait or Pull Trigger?

swiftor

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I'm currently running:

Core i3-530 @3.9ghz
Asus p7h55-m pro
HD 6950
4800x900 eyefinity (3x20" monitors)

I would really like a second 6950 for better performance with all eye candy enabled.
Unfortunately my mobo doesn't support xfire.
I've been waiting for Ivy Bridge to upgrade but all the games that I actually want to play are coming out now.
Obviously waiting for Ivy Bridge would be the best option but I really want a second 6950 now (playing bf3 on high is worse than window shopping)!

Option 1.
Get a cheap lga 1156 xfire mobo, a second 6950 and wait for Ivy Bridge to upgrade cpu and mobo.
(Sale the 2 older mobos afterwards).

Option 2.
Upgrade mobo and cpu to Sandy Brige, get a second 6950 and forget about Ivy Bridge all together.
(Sale older mobo afterwards).

I'm actually worried that Ivy Bridge will be too overpriced when it comes out (lga 1366 cpus are still outrageously expensive to this day). At which point the waiting for it would have been a waste since I will end up stuck with upgrading to Sandy Bridge anyway.

Thoughts???
 
G

Guest

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Ivy Bridge is not a major change in architecture from Sandy Bridge, mainly a die shrink from 32-22nm, which while significant, should not have nearly the impact of Nahelem to SB.

Id get the 2500k a cheap Z68 board, and your second 6950. The performance upgrade to Ivy should not be spectacular enough to be worth waiting the 3-6 months, and even if it is, its still socket 1155, so you can drop in a replacement CPU down the line. The 2500k is a proven cpu you wont regret getting it.
 
The current hot game out right now is BF3 and that game can be run with a dual core cpu , and that is because the game is gpu intensive and gets little support from the cpu. since you have your current cpu overclocked then you shouldn't get a bottleneck from the cpu if you add another gpu. Once MW3 comes out and is disected we will find out if that game is the same way , if it is then there would be no reason to wait for Ivy Bridge and you could get a motherboard to sup[port your current cpu and crossfire and play away , then you could get your new upgrade at your liesure and not feel rushed and waste money.
So you could add option 3 which is upgrade mobo and another 6950 and get whatever you want later on , eirther Ivy Bridge or whatever comes after that.
 

swiftor

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Thanks for the quick replies!

All the added bells and whistles from Ivy Bridge + LGA 2011 seem really tempting. When getting my current mobo I decided to forgo bells and whistles for affordability and now that I need xfire, I don't have it.

As for option 3, Inzone, sticking with the core i3 doesn't seem ideal (dual core vs quad core). It's a pretty nifty cpu and it's served me well but every time I'm unzipping files, knowing how much faster the 2500k I've been putting off upgrading to would be, I wanna shoot myself. Besides, more and more games are taking advantage of multi-cores.
 

swiftor

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You're right, staying on lga 1156 doesn't make much sense but it would allow me to enjoy the games I'm playing now and in the next couple of months (by adding a second 6950), while buying me the necessary time to gage the worth and affordability of Ivy Bridge + lga 2011.
It's the cheapest and safest option for now if Ivy Bridge + lga 2011 turn out to be worthwhile and somewhat accessible financially.
 

swiftor

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Not entirely. Care to elaborate?
 
Sandy Bridge E is a different socket altogether, LGA 2011. Ivy Bridge is a die shrink of Sandy Bridge, meaning that the sockets will likely stay unchanged. Thus if you buy a 1155 motherboard with a Sandy Bridge CPU, Ivy Bridge should slot into the same mobo, maybe with a BIOS update.
 

gnomio

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200 to 300usd range is covered by the 2500 and 2600 variants. I would think from 350usd and up they will slot in their new cpus. No way they will compete with their own chips price wise.
 


+1 Herr Koos,

Also socket 1155 equates to 1156 and 1366 to 2011.

So your concern about the 1366 chips being overly expensive is what you'll see on 2011 and sandy-E not on ivybridge.
 


Disagree. The Ivy Bridge version of something like the i3-2100 or maybe even the i5-2400 will almost certainly be cheaper than the 2600 is today. Heck, the Ivy bridge version of the 2600 may even be cheaper than it is today. Ivy bridge is a refresh across the board, meaning the entire processor line gets die shrunk. So you will still have entry level, mainstream, and high-end CPU's.
 
You can also move to a cheap sandybridge + 1155 mobo (able to upgrade to ivybridge) plus a 6950. It will be like your 1st option of upgrade, a little more than your 1st option on budget, but it will be upgradeable to ivybridge and faster with games than your current cpu. And when ivybridge is out, since your mobo will be ready, you will only have to grab a cpu :).
 

Chad Boga

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I'm not sure if you know or not, but Ivy Bridge won't be coming out on LGA 2011 initially that's for sure and it is far from clear if towards the end of 2012 if we will see a IV-E to go into the LGA 2011 platform.
 

billybobser

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2500k / 2600k will not be pushed that hard I imagine in games for the next few years (past ivybridge).

Games at eyefinity resolutioins are GPU dependant I imagine.
 
thats what I'm thinking now, my Q9550 gives me no reason to upgrade, if i wait till ivy bridge i'll have skipped 2 generations and 3-4 years. I might not even do it then, depends on how CPU constrained I get with Next Gen GPU.
 

gnomio

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Its the nice thing about gaming on 1080p. You can get a el cheapo cpu and a good gpu and off you go. Even the phenom x4 will still last for years to come.

Thx to dx there won't be much of a cpu bound game anymore.
 

vitornob

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You could buy a cheap i5-2300 (quad-core) + LGA 1155 mobo.
And then, when time comes, you can buy the mightiest ivy-bridge you can, and use it in ur mobo.

What you think about it?

EDIT: exchanged i5-2400 for i5-2300
 


I agree, especially when physics is loaded onto the GPU, the only change i'll be doing is to get an SLI&CFX mobo to give me flexibility should microstuttering be resolved.
 

ojas

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Agree with everyone. Go Sandy Quad-core. Drop in an ivy if you need it, though honestly for the price you'll buy both (cheap sandy now and mighty ivy later) just drop in a i7-2600K now and be happy till 5nm processors are out (i mean, a i5-2400 will do for gaming for at least 3 years, my Q8400 still runs strong, but if you must have the greatest...).

You won't see a huge jump in performance. Something that takes 30 seconds on sandy bridge may take 25 to 29 seconds on ivy.

As others have said, most games are more GPU dependent these days than CPU dependent.
 

gnomio

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they can do that easily if they incorporate it into dx. Don't think nvidia will make that sacrifice though.
Amd Gpus behave very badly to a piece of bad code. I think it has something to do that they don't have any buffer overflow and underflow protection like nvidia do. The gpu will return a zero or a whatever they use for it nand etc etc.

Here is a good insight into that
http://techreport.com/articles.x/21516

The 560ti also behaving badly with some games but that has more to do with nvidias ram connections but its on 1 game.
The schedulers on the Amd card which are programmable, of course Amd don't say how or gave a lot of info about them but I'm sure its through their drivers. Now they give priority to the threads and the problem is they re-schedule the threads not to have a go again after the one that replaced it but later down the line. And off course dx wants it stuff in order. That's where the problems arise as well. But problems like that wouldve been expected as its a modded RV790 design basically with tweaks and a few additions.

 

vitornob

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