Should I get a Haswell or wait for Broadwell?

[Kolcars]

There's a deal for an i7 4770k for 200-250 and I'm thinking about jumping on it. My processor is about 6-7 years old as well as the motherboard = core 2 quad Q8300 + LGA775 socket+ 2 slots for DDR2 RAM. I've been anticipating a brand new build for quite a while now, but I want it to last long. My cousin is telling me to wait till summer for Broadwell (if it's even being released at that time?). Supposedly it's compatible with DDR4 RAM and is more efficient and what not.

So the question is: Should I go after the deal or wait for 2-3 months for broadwell and ddr4? I mean I guess I could also sell the i7 cpu after a few months of use. Please let me know Thanks

 

[JOOK-D]

I believe only Haswell-E will support DDR4, not Broadwell. Regardless, not all of DDR3 is even being saturated yet, memory is not a bottleneck so DDR4 is somewhat unnecessary.

This is just some food for thought. It could be a little while for Broadwell and not much information has been released on it. On the other hand, the Haswell Refresh chips (Devil's Canyon) will be much better overclockers than Haswell if you're interested in that.

Broadwell will bring the more efficient 14nm manufacturing process, as you can see.

For the deal on the 4770K, I'm not sure. The only thing that would be holding me back is the possibility that the new Devil's Canyon chips will likely overclock far further.

 

[k1114]

Broadwell is too far away, suspected q4, but the haswell refresh is close enough to wait for. Recent rumors is May 11 for z97 and locked skus, while unlocked skus is June 2. Broadwell still uses ddr3. Hwe and later skylake will be ddr4 (current rumors say august release for hwe). Buy a new pc when you need it, don't ever wait for more than a month or so. I hope you're not talking about the 4770k being $250 at microcenter as that's been there since release almost a year ago.

 

[Kolcars]

Broadwell is too far away, suspected q4, but the haswell refresh is close enough to wait for. Recent rumors is May 11 for z97 and locked skus, while unlocked skus is June 2. Broadwell still uses ddr3. Hwe and later skylake will be ddr4 (current rumors say august release for hwe). Buy a new pc when you need it, don't ever wait for more than a month or so. I hope you're not talking about the 4770k being $250 at microcenter as that's been there since release almost a year ago.

Yes, that is what I was talking about. I guess I'll wait for haswell refresh. Thanks

 

[keyrock]

No DDR4 for Broadwell, only Haswell-E will have DDR4 this year (and possibly some high end Xeons), DDR4 for mainstream desktop processors will likely arrive with Skylake, late 2015 or early 2016. Honestly, you wouldn't really get any performance benefit from DDR4 right now anyway (lower power consumption, but on a desktop that's not a big deal). The highest speed DDR3 is every bit as fast as the initial DDR4 rollout will be and DDR3 will almost certainly be a lot cheaper. It will likely be a couple years until significantly faster DDR4 comes out and we see performance benefits.

As for Broadwell, we're still not sure when these chips are going to come out. It may not be until late this year, and desktop Broadwell might not come out this year at all. Broadwell will almost certainly be more power efficient than Haswell, but there's no guarantee it will have any higher IPC. Haswell didn't really gain any IPC over Ivy Bridge and Ivy Bridge barely gained any IPC over Sandy Bridge. Because AMD is so uncompetitive in the mid to high end desktop segment (read: no competition whatsoever) Intel can sit on their hands in terms of performance and concentrate fully on better power efficiency as they try to push into the mobile space dominated by ARM. It sucks for desktop users, but you can't really blame Intel, they have no competition so there's no incentive to sink money into R&D to increase desktop processor performance.

 

[Kolcars]

Thank you all for all your comprehensive and insightful answers!

 

[chesteracorgi]

One note about waiting for Broadwell: each of the previous two generations of Intel (Sandybridge to Ivybridge, Ivybridge to Haswell) has resulted in a 7%-15% gain for comparable processors with a concomitant lower ability to overclock the processor (because of less heat dissipation due to smaller chip dies); so a 2500K can be easily overclocked to 4.4-4.6 GHz while the comparable 3570K generally tops out at 4.0-4.2 GHz without throttling or damage to the chip.

The 14 nm chip may have better Thermal Interface Material (as touted by Intel) but the physics of heat dissipation may make the chip less susceptible to (or capable of) overclocking due to the scale of the chip. The prrof of the pudding is in the eating: i.e. we will not know the ability of Broadwell to OC until it is released to the market and given real world tests.

 

[Rationale]

I'm waiting for the Haswell refresh, not Broadwell.

 

[oAlex]

If I were you, I would wait for skylake/broadwell(q4). Performance is not the main argument. 14nm CPU is quieter.
I have core 2 duo e8500, it is still a good CPU... upgrade costs a lot these days. Are you sure that it is right to pay $1k to play BF4 (or what ever you want). I've decided to wait for more problems )))

 

[oAlex]

Haswell refresh will most likely bring +100 mhz in the normal mode. Nothing stunning.