What's better for Future proofing ? 4th Gen Core i5 OR 3rd Gen Core i7

[Mansoor Alam]

I know that the 4th Gen core i5 will be newer. And I know that the 3rd Gen Core i7 has gone outdated and has no newer productions. BUT the core i7 3rd Gen is significantly better than 4th Gen Core i5 (Im talking about 4570 of corei5 and 3770 of core i7).

My question is, If I sacrifice performance for having a latest 4th Gen processor, how much of a difference will it make in the long run ? Surely if any new gen Processors get released The LGA 1150 socket will also get outdated right ?

 

[i7Baby]

We could be back to lga1155. You never know.

Future proofing is lasting for 5 years according to me. You start off with the best your can buy and after 5 years it doesn't get supported and there's stuff on the market that's twice as good for half the equivalent price. Your stuff still works OK but you are a consumer and so must consume.

 

[jaguarskx]

In terms of overall increase in performance, a 4th gen Core CPU is on average 6% more powerful than a 3rd gen Core CPU assuming the same clock speed. The difference between a Core i5 and a Core i7 is that the Core i7 has Hyper Threading (HT) which can significantly increase performance as long as the programs you are using have been designed to take advantage of HT.

Socket 1150 is nearing the end of it's life. The Broadwell generation Core CPUs will be the last CPUs that will use that socket. Skylake is coming out in Q3 2015 I believe and it will use a new socket. Since Skylake is going to be a totally new architecture, it is speculated that will mean a return to double digit (%) performance increase; well at least going from Broadwell to Skylake.

 

[chenw]

But let us say that if Skylake does go back to an older socket, my bet is that old socket chipsets may not be able to support it even with a BIOS update (plus, I think Mobos would prefer to have the CPUs on a brand new sockets, more chipsets and mobos to sell).

In the best of scenarios, a BIOS update is sufficient, you will most likely short changing yourself on the newest specs of the chipset (the last time this happened was right between SB and IB, SB chipset still only had PCI 2.0, but IB chipset has PCI 3.0, which basically meant that if you wanted to get PCI 3.0, you had to upgrade BOTH CPU and Mobo, even though they were on the same socket), so who knows, maybe new specs are around the corner too for the new socket.

I am willing to say that, if Skylake will reuse an old socket, they are more likely to reuse 1150 over 1155.

That being said, with such frequent socket and especially chipset refreshes, I have completely stopped taking socket type into account. Chances are viable upgrades would be at least 2 gens apart, and that more often than not, means a socket change.

 

[jaguarskx]

But let us say that if Skylake does go back to an older socket, my bet is that old socket chipsets may not be able to support it even with a BIOS update (plus, I think Mobos would prefer to have the CPUs on a brand new sockets, more chipsets and mobos to sell).

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There is no need for any speculation of Skylake using an existing socket because it will not.

 

[chenw]

I wasn't speculating, I am fully expecting it won't be re-using a socket (pointless and probably bad for business all around), but I was speaking purely, hypothetically