Haswell E: Just me that Feeels Kinda Meh?

[Marcvs]

So Ive had my aging rig (i7-950 OC'ed) and been thinking about an upgrade for ~1year, as it slightly struggles with playing the most demanding games on maxed settings while streaming AND recording in HD simultaneously.

Was considering Haswell-E, but is it just me that Feels a bit meh over the whole product line, The entry level one has crippled PCI-E Lanes (which isnt a problem now but maybe a couple years down the line). Added on to that there is no improvement clock for clock over haswell - meaning an IPC per core of around 33%, MY i7-950 being at 5Ghz, means I would need to reach ~4.1Ghz to break even for single threaded applications - added to the fact that more cores means it will be more difficult to overclock im really struggling to see what it actually brings to the table (apart from the 2 extra cores over a 950), aside from Quicksync video (which isnt even present so?). Add in the Mobo + Ram Cost and you are talking ~£1000 for something that will be a sidegrade in most aspects.

[kalniel]

It brings AVX, PCI-E 3.0, DDR4, Quad channel mem etc. etc.

But I doubt you are CPU limited anyway. Your recording and streaming should be largely off-CPU tasks, and gaming is GPU bound.

You could try that new MSI board with dedicated streaming/encoding hardware I suppose if you're wanting an upgrade.

[Marcvs]

Im fairly sure its CPU limited - as streaming is done via system SSD and recording done to another (separate) ssd/hdd.

The 2-3 games i Play drop from ~40fps while playing, only drop ~3fps when doing just straming or recording but drop about 25fps when both are done together. (and my cpu usage is very high while streaming)

PPS which new MSI Board.

[kalniel]

You're not using GPU to help with the streaming/encoding? OK maybe you are CPU limited, but you could just upgrade/buy another GPU instead.

The MSI board was covered on Hexus here: http://hexus.net/tech/news/mainboard...c-motherboard/

[Marcvs]

Yea I found the board, sadly Radeons dont support a streaming via it, If I was gonna get that board I can just get the avermedia card for ~£160, still a lot cheaper than the £1000 upgrade - Ive been waiting for AMD to bring out a shadowplay-esque thing and id be sorted, stream with that and encode the high res one with CPU.
And that is what i meant by it doesnt feel like I get enough bang for my $$. Had the middle one been an 8 core and top one 12 core, it would be significantly more interesting (I realise there are tech limits, but you can get 12 core xeons so)

[kalniel]

Ive been waiting for AMD to bring out a shadowplay-esque thing and id be sorted, stream with that and encode the high res one with CPU.

They were meant to be working on an equivalent using the VCE in AMD cards, but only thing I can find is the Gaming Evolved App which apparently isn't all that good.

[Marcvs]

The best solution I have atm is Capture using DXTory w/ AMD VCE, then send that to directshow and encode the directshow stream with FFSplit, but its far from perfect.

[Agent]

Ever tried Bandicam?

Direct encoding on the GPU. Absolutely fantastic and works much better than fraps for what I do.

[Marcvs]

GPU Encoding is trash @HD though, looks like minecraft. Also editing Bandicam H264 is fiddly.

[Agent]

GPU Encoding is trash @HD though, looks like minecraft.

mmm.....I record higher than HD and it looks awesome, even with real time encoding. You have something seriously setup wrong if you're getting results like that. Not all GPU encoders are equal. The AMD encoder was tragic last time I tried it (a while back to be fair), but modern ones are much better. I'd assume AMD had sorted theirs out by now too.

We use video encoding daily at work and did blind tests for real time encoded vs external x264 encoding. The difference was indistinguishable in most cases unless pausing and looking at individual areas very closely. Even more if it was going on Youtube.
Granted, it depends on what settings you use though.

Also editing Bandicam H264 is fiddly.

In what way?
Either use one of the default profiles, or use 264VFW. It's as fiddly as every other x264 encoder, as x264VFW is used by most applications.

[Marcvs]

mmm.....I record higher than HD and it looks awesome, even with real time encoding. You have something seriously setup wrong if you're getting results like that. Not all GPU encoders are equal. The AMD encoder was tragic last time I tried it (a while back to be fair), but modern ones are much better. I'd assume AMD had sorted theirs out by now too.

We use video encoding daily at work and did blind tests for real time encoded vs external x264 encoding. The difference was indistinguishable in most cases unless pausing and looking at individual areas very closely. Even more if it was going on Youtube.
Granted, it depends on what settings you use though.




In what way?
Either use one of the default profiles, or use 264VFW. It's as fiddly as every other x264 encoder, as x264VFW is used by most applications.

Ok I was perhaps exaggerating, but its noowhere close to as good as CPU encode in my experience - unless you have insane bitrate, As for fiddly I just tried with the newer version of bandicam and its a lot less of a PITA to fix the colour profiles.

[Tallflip]

Also feeling meh about it but it's not surprising. I've been pondering an upgrade myself and have been closely looking at a x99 upgrade instead of z97 for a mix of gaming and workstation use. It seems very few scenarios benefit much from the extra cores and DDR4 quad channel benefits. Waiting for a bit longer and for more reviews, particularly on the 5930K but I think I will end up going with Z97.

[shaithis]

Personally I think it's not meh. It actually added a fair amount.....the question is whether it's financially viable for you.

As much as i'd like an 8 core intel cpu with DDR4 RAM, I think there is maybe 1% of my computing time where I would notice the difference, so not really worth it.......but that doesn't make it "meh".

[Gunbuster]

Personally I think it's not meh. It actually added a fair amount.....the question is whether it's financially viable for you.

As much as i'd like an 8 core intel cpu with DDR4 RAM, I think there is maybe 1% of my computing time where I would notice the difference, so not really worth it.......but that doesn't make it "meh".

I have to agree. I am still on X58, using an OC'd x5650, this is one of the first platforms to really turn my head. The original 2011 platform was a big bag of meh for me. However so much time has passed that both the cutting edge stuff (DDR4) and the stuff that is just more modern like UEFI and native USB3.0& SATA3 makes it a head turner.

The sad truth is that if I have a use for X99, its at work and thats working for a huge corporate beast who would never spring for this. Even my X58 beats the pants of my i5 machine at work.

So I would love to have X99, but I just can't justify it, when shifting more data to SSD or a new GPU would boost me further. That said if this setup cooked itself X99 here I come!

[directhex]

I have to agree. I am still on X58, using an OC'd x5650, this is one of the first platforms to really turn my head. The original 2011 platform was a big bag of meh for me. However so much time has passed that both the cutting edge stuff (DDR4) and the stuff that is just more modern like UEFI and native USB3.0& SATA3 makes it a head turner.

The sad truth is that if I have a use for X99, its at work and thats working for a huge corporate beast who would never spring for this. Even my X58 beats the pants of my i5 machine at work.

So I would love to have X99, but I just can't justify it, when shifting more data to SSD or a new GPU would boost me further. That said if this setup cooked itself X99 here I come!

It's amusing just how much X58 owners seem to be the ones most interested in X99

[kompukare]

Aside from costing more, DDR4 presently really doesn't add any extra performance.
Comparing the i7 5820K (6C/12T, 3.3 GHz) to the previous i7 4930K (6C/12T, 3.4 GHz) on Anandtech bench:
http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1331?vs=1320
not even the one test where memory performance matters AFAIK (7zip), the gain is less than 9% maybe ~12% if scaling the clock speed (3.4/3.3). Hardly impressive. The fact that the entry-level CPU, 5820K is not 6 core is about the only real gain. Or that for the big spenders there is now a 8C/16T processor at a cheaper price than the Xeon E5's (but does X99 support ECC?).