Skylake or Kabylake? Sanity check required...

[Mutley]

Hi all,

First post since October 2014!

As you can see from my current rig setup, it is rather old. I'm amazed that it has lasted this long. This has been due to small component upgrades (e.g. changing my long-living Radeon 5850 for a second hand GTX660 six months ago), and overclocking stuff. I think the fact that the CPU is a quadcord 9650 extreme helps...

Anyway, finally time for the system upgrade.

I'm going to go with an i5K. The question is 6600 or 7600. I've been looking at this for quite a while, and am now starting to lose my marbles, so would appreciate same sane input (and probably a light slap around the face).

Up till now, I've been looking at only the Skylake and something like the Asus Z170 Pro Gaming or A motherboard. I figured that Kabylake being new would be too expensive, the motherboards too expensive, and anyway, Kabylake is just a polishing of Skylake.

Then I realised that you can buy the i6700k for pretty much the same price as the i6600k, and that Z270 motherboards are not much more expensive that Z 170. For example, the Asus Z270 PRIME A is about 144 on Amazon.

So the question : I'm not mad in going straight for Kabylake over Skylake, am I?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It might be worth waiting 4 to 6 weeks for AMD Ryzen to launch?? Its a major new uarch from AMD and from a leaked sample which was tested by CPC,it looks like it has Haswell to Broadwell level IPC and if AMD prices it right we could see some decent price movement by Intel - we have already seen a Pentium launched with HT and there are rumours of a Core i5 with HT being launched soon too.

[Mutley]

Rumours of an i5 with HT? Ooh.
So many times I've found myself in these quandries and you just wait, and realise there is no good time - things are changing all the time. But I take you point.

I do have a new graphics card for the new set up - Sapphire Nitro+ RX480 4GB. That is a result of waiting. Did well with that one, as it turns out it is one of the RX480 4GBs which is actually an 8GB card, and it can be flashed to 8GB quite easily (saved me 40 quid).

But on the subject specifically of Sky vs Kaby, it would make sense to go with Kaby rather than Sky, wouldn't it? (newer tech, longer life etc).

[wazzickle]

Kaby lake processors work on skylake motherboards with a bios update - i'm running the i5-7600 on an asus z170i. There's no big reason to go for one either way, flip a coin, when the differences aren't big is when you can't decide, i.e. it doesn't matter much.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Rumours of an i5 with HT? Ooh.
So many times I've found myself in these quandries and you just wait, and realise there is no good time - things are changing all the time. But I take you point.

I do have a new graphics card for the new set up - Sapphire Nitro+ RX480 4GB. That is a result of waiting. Did well with that one, as it turns out it is one of the RX480 4GBs which is actually an 8GB card, and it can be flashed to 8GB quite easily (saved me 40 quid).

But on the subject specifically of Sky vs Kaby, it would make sense to go with Kaby rather than Sky, wouldn't it? (newer tech, longer life etc).

Well its more the case Ryzen is the first new AMD uarch since 2011,and even some people at Intel apparently think it looks a competitive design:

https://www.techpowerup.com/230446/a...l-skylake-dies

[Mutley]

I've spent so long looking at this stuff, that it is hard to wait longer - just want to get my hands on the new gear!
UEFI? Blimey, I've only ever known BIOS UIs from 2008!

Anyone know when we might seem some concrete information about Ryzen?

[shamus21]

Just wait for AMD.

[rob4001]

Yes wait for amd. I've had an i5 equivalent with hyper threading for a few years with a xeon 1231 v3 but I think intel closed off that route and screwed over people wanting HT for a bit cheaper with skylake/kabelake. So I am glad that AMD might be back with a bang. I missed having an AMD CPU last time was 10 years ago.

[imadaily]

Rumours of an i5 with HT? Ooh.

Don't get too excited:
I read that it (i5 7640k) doesn't have HT and would use the upcoming LGA 2066 socket ($$$)
As a guess it'll be released at the same time as the new X299 enthusiast grade motherboards.
I'd say it's of very little use except for people who need the quad channel memory (or extra PCIe lanes maybe?) and yet don't need for more than 4 cores...

+1 For holding out till Ryzen even if you're going for Intel, there should hopefully be some decent price reductions around

[badass]

Mutley, if you are anything like me, you will see these unqualified "Wait for AMD" type posts with not a lot else and dismiss it as fanboy useless advice. However The Next line of AMD CPU's - Ryzen will be launching in 2 weeks now. I would normally not suggest waiting however there looks to be a very strong chance:

They will be both hugely faster than current AMD CPU's.
They will have very close to the single threaded performance of current Kaby lake CPU's
They will offer more cores for the same or less money with similar per core performance.
They will really shake up pricing of CPU's in general by giving Intel some competition.

Currently, the cheapest Intel Quad core costs around £180. I bought a Core2 Q6600 for £150 almost exactly 10 years ago! They are only this expensive because there is no competition. The competition part will almost certainly change in just over 2 weeks.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am hardly unqualified and I think my general advice on Hexus has been sound for nearly 11 years. Any CPU update or release from a competing company has potential to improve pricing,or lead to EOL pricing on older stuff and it is mere fanboism in general to not wait for a new release if its not too far off,unless you are really time constrained for the build. Its especially true with graphics cards,where you get loads of EOL deals when new cards are sooner to release. It also has applied to things like cameras,hifi and phones for yonks too.

People in a rush never get good deals - patience is a virtue and just panic rushing with electronics is pointless. Use built-in obsolescence as a tool to save money,not waste it!

[peterb]

People in a rush never get good deals - patience is a virtue and just panic rushing with electronics is pointless. Use built-in obsolescence as a tool to save money,not waste it!

Very true. The early adopters get e-peen bragging rights for a few months - along with any teething troubles, bios updates etc - and pay a premium for those rights.

Or to put it another way, the pioneers get the arrows, the followers get the land and the farms!

[Agrippa]

If ever there was a time to sit back and wait for the new stuff to arrive, then surely that time is now.

[nekomata]

I'm so glad I decided to check this forum before running off to build a new system. Now I just need to sit on my hands for a while until the dust settles from the new AMD release.
Anyone have any ideas on how long I should plan on waiting before looking to build the new machine?