Intel Sandy Bridge Thread

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Seeing as these are coming out in january, whats special about these? are they going to replace i7's? if not the i5's and i3's?

im looking to build an htpc so maybe this new sandy bridge cpu's will make the i5's come down in price?

[kalniel]

They're a socket 1156 replacement chip, with a new 1155 socket.

Very very fast, excellent for gaming and encoding with AVX instruction sets and hardware encoding functions.

Good power control and speed ramping. K series have super-easy overclocking. And they're very cheap too.

Downside is lack of memory bandwidth for memory intensive tasks (top model alleviates this somewhat by allowing use of faster memory, but still dual channel). And relatively poor connectivity from the socket, requiring use of bridging chips to run extra PCI-E lanes for example.

i5s are more likely to be EOL'd rather than drop too much in price for the supply.

Real multi-core dependant apps are still better suited to AMD and high end 1366 Intels.

[Jay]

am I right in thinking the the i7 will still be king of the hill until the next set of 1155 CPUs are out?

[kalniel]

am I right in thinking the the i7 will still be king of the hill until the next set of 1155 CPUs are out?

By next set do you mean these mainstream sandy bridges that we're talking about? Upper i7s are still king of the hill until their replacement (socket 2011) CPUs are out. But these mainstream sandy bridges will be faster than most i7s for quite a lot of things.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

ATM,there seems to be no K series Core i3 CPUs meaning that overclocking could be potentially limited unless you buy a Core i5.

[dirky]

http://www.techspot.com/news/41643-i...ll-switch.html

[goates]

Probably going to get a i5 2500k at release justwish theyd hurry up and release them dont know why intel insist on waiting for CES rather than releasing them in this busy buying period.

[handscombmp]

I can see all these sockets getting confusing.

I remember the last LGA775 lasted for years.
Now were on our third within about 2 years.

slow down intel!

[j.o.s.h.1408]

is it possible to build a £400 htpc around sandy bridge(excluding GPU as i have a spare 260gtx and tv tuner) or are these sandy bridge a bit too expensive and im better off with a i5?

[miXer]

is it possible to build a £400 htpc around sandy bridge(excluding GPU as i have a spare 260gtx and tv tuner) or are these sandy bridge a bit too expensive and im better off with a i5?

No I doubt it, the SB will be £400 yet alone you need buy a mobo will support that socket.

[Terbinator]

No I doubt it, the SB will be £400 yet alone you need buy a mobo will support that socket.

Lolwut?

£400 will get you the SB architecture yes, but it depends which CPU you get that will be a yay or ney to your question. Apparently there is a 30W Pentium dual-core at the lowest end of the SB spectrum so that could be decent for HTPC purposes.

[kalniel]

No I doubt it, the SB will be £400 yet alone you need buy a mobo will support that socket.

Where have you got that crazy idea from? Sandy Bridge processors are going to be in the £100-200 range for the most part.

[miXer]

Where have you got that crazy idea from? Sandy Bridge processors are going to be in the £100-200 range for the most part.

My mate told me that a decent SB CPU will be around that price, so I just followed his word. I guess he was wrong and made me a f00l :{ haha

[kalniel]

My mate told me that a decent SB CPU will be around that price, so I just followed his word. I guess he was wrong and made me a f00l :{ haha

Tell your mate to sign up to Hexus and get a real education

[cigbunt]

this is all great if money was no issue...

but dont you think the AM3 setup is more cost effective as you can upgrade at a later date or im i totally missing something?

[Terbinator]

Depends what you mean by upgrade as BD(AM3+) won't be B/C with AM3 - but you can use AM3 CPU's in AM3+ motherboards which for all intents and purposes, is pretty useless.