Nehalem Opinions Needed...

I have been some time saving for my next upgrade. The time is now, am my current rig is limited by my CPU (AMD64 3200). I am however now reading all the posititve reviews / hipe over Nehalem processors.

Is is stupid to by a Q6600 cpu with Nehalem on the horizon? Or will it be another evolution that will take software 2+ years to utilise the advancement?

I remember buying my 64bit processor all those moons ago, as it was seen as a huge development....and to be honest I have not used any 64bit OS to date! Therefore never utilised that advancement in the first place! Nehalem could be a similar caper?!

Opinions are welcome.

For what it's worth - i'm not even thinking about upgrading as nothing is vaguely pushing my system now. For gaming i'm entirely GPU limited too.
I'm only at 3ghz now so i've got plenty of headroom to overclock futher should the need arise (i left it at 3ghz as i couldn't see any benefit at higher clocks for what i do).

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Originally Posted by djglenn

I have been some time saving for my next upgrade. The time is now, am my current rig is limited by my CPU (AMD64 3200). I am however now reading all the posititve reviews / hipe over Nehalem processors.

Is is stupid to by a Q6600 cpu with Nehalem on the horizon? Or will it be another evolution that will take software 2+ years to utilise the advancement?

I remember buying my 64bit processor all those moons ago, as it was seen as a huge development....and to be honest I have not used any 64bit OS to date! Therefore never utilised that advancement in the first place! Nehalem could be a similar caper?!

Opinions are welcome.

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There's nothing in Nehalem that won't be taken advantage of immediately and effectively - it's not doing anything new, just doing existing stuff much quicker.

That said, it's not on the horizon to be honest - to get to the equivalent maturity of the Q6600 chip will take another 18 months.. which would be too long for me to hang onto a A64 3200.

I've just upgraded from a P4 3.2 S478 Prescott with 1gb of DDR400/PC3200 ram to a Q6600 with 8gb DDR2 800 and I couldn't be happier.

For me if I had money to burn then yes I'd probably upgrade again, but from experience I know to avoid first generation products as I know they are going to be buggy as hell and take a while to mature not to mention the initial price premium.

The Nehalem figures look awesome so far but you have to ask yourself "am i going to use that power?"

If your not, then you might as well buy the current tech as I expect the price difference is going to be quite substantial.

AnandTech: The Nehalem Preview: Intel Does It Again

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Originally Posted by shaithis

The Nehalem figures look awesome so far but you have to ask yourself "am i going to use that power?"

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Since when has that affected almost anyone on these forums? :p

Good point :mrgreen:

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Originally Posted by kalniel

Since when has that affected almost anyone on these forums? :p

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The general view is; its faster than what I've got, other people have got them and its shinier than my current one.

I for one have a Q6600, 4Gb RAM and a 8800GT doing pretty much nothing but internet explorer and iTunes......a waste I know (should downgrade really), but my PS3 completely taken over as the gaming box of choice.

Good point lads ;) but I think we are at one of those junctions that happens every few years where the cost of an upgrade is extremely prohibitive for the performance you gain.

The numbers are good, not earth shattering, most people aren't using all the power they currently have and DDR3 RAM is still 2-3x the price of DDR2.

I know for once, I will stay clear, at least until DDR3 prices drop to what DDR2 costs now.

Indeed, there isn't much argument for getting a current quad at the minute, so Nehalem's power would be total overkill at the moment, and as others have said, most likely very expensive at first too.

BUT nehalem will provide you good future proof

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Originally Posted by j.o.s.h.1408

BUT nehalem will provide you good future proof

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I expect the product lifespan of a single nehalem chip will be significantly less than the Q6600.

Ie, it's worse future proofing, like for like. (Alternatively, wait for Sandy Ridge - that'll be more 'future proof' than Nehalem :p)