A Bridge too Far??

[GunnerTm1]

With the appearence of the new Sandy Bridge Processors released by Intel I wanted to know how these chips were performing before jumping in to new tech. Overclockers and other sites are posting problems with the clockable 2500k and 2600k, the chips are dying like rats one posted. The 2500k seems to be the worst affected as Hexus was the first site to review the chips has anyone had similar problems? Am waiting a while now before spashing out on new mobo setup.

[Anteries]

remember you have got a year to try and break it, and it will be under warranty. Unlike before these CPUs are sold to over clock and it doesn't invalidate the warranty.

[Queelis]

remember you have got a year to try and break it, and it will be under warranty. Unlike before these CPUs are sold to over clock and it doesn't invalidate the warranty.

Are you sure?

I think Intel would be corporate enough to sell overclockable chips without covering it with a warranty.

[kalniel]

Are you sure?

I think Intel would be corporate enough to sell overclockable chips without covering it with a warranty.

Has anyone ever broken one without fiddling the voltage?

I'm sure if you didn't touch the voltage the warranty would be fine, but then so would the chip

[Terbinator]

They sell an un-locked chip - bear that in mind.

[Anteries]

Are you sure?

I think Intel would be corporate enough to sell overclockable chips without covering it with a warranty.

no but how would they know?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,unless you really need an upgrade now I would wait a few months to see how the new AMD CPUs perform.

If they are even slightly better than the current ones Intel will probably drop the price of their current CPUs and may even introduce cheaper unlocked CPUs.

[krazy_olie]

I reckon they are breaking because people are being crazy extreme with them and adding ridiculous amounts of voltage to them. A couple of reviews/guides recommended barely touching the voltage, I think overclocking on stock voltage will be the way forward with these. Wrecking your chip to get 2 fps extra in some game which you are probably running 150fps is pure stupidity IMO

[Anteries]

TBH,unless you really need an upgrade now I would wait a few months to see how the new AMD CPUs perform.

If they are even slightly better than the current ones Intel will probably drop the price of their current CPUs and may even introduce cheaper unlocked CPUs.

You are joking aren't you, I waited years for the E8400 to drop in price I think it's about £136.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

You are joking aren't you, I waited years for the E8400 to drop in price I think it's about £136.

Unless your PC has suddenly imploded or is so slow it is not functional for your purposes, it seems pointless to get a new PC now when the first new architecture AMD processor since the Athlon 64 is being released in a few months.

Sandy Bridge will go down in price when Bulldozer is released unless Bulldozer is slower than a Phenom II.

It is not the first time that Intel has reduced prices with a new AMD CPU release.

Maybe you should have seen the price of the Core2 quads tumble when the Phenom II X4 processors were released. The Q9550 was well over £200+ until the Phenom II X4 955BE came along. Then all of a sudden it dropped to around £160.

I nearly considered getting one myself IIRC. However,my Shuttle would not work with 45NM processors.


The same goes with the whole Core2 duo E7000 and Pentium dual cores which dropped in price massively when the Athlon II and Phenom II X2 was released. The E7000 range was more than £80 to £90 until the Phenom II X2 was released. The lower end ones disappeared and Intel dropped the price of the higher end ones to replace them.

Intel released the multiplier unlocked Pentium E6500K to counter the Phenom II X2 BE in the Far East.

The Core i3 dropped below £100 because the Athlon II X4 and Phenom II X3 were competing with them in a similar price range.

The Phenom II X6 comes along and then the price of the Core i5 750 and 760 started dropping too.

Both the Phenom II X6 1055T and Core i5 760 were around the same price for months.

[Anteries]

Unless your PC has suddenly imploded or is so slow it is not functional for your purposes, it seems pointless to get a new PC now when the first new architecture AMD processor since the Athlon 64 is being released in a few months.

Sandy Bridge will go down in price when Bulldozer is released unless Bulldozer is slower than a Phenom II.

It is not the first time that Intel has reduced prices with a new AMD CPU release.

Maybe you should have seen the price of the Core2 quads tumble when the Phenom II X4 processors were released. The Q9550 was well over £200+ until the Phenom II X4 955BE came along. Then all of a sudden it dropped to around £160.

I nearly considered getting one myself IIRC. However,my Shuttle would not work with 45NM processors.


The same goes with the whole Core2 duo E7000 and Pentium dual cores which dropped in price massively when the Athlon II and Phenom II X2 was released. The E7000 range was more than £80 to £90 until the Phenom II X2 was released. The lower end ones disappeared and Intel dropped the price of the higher end ones to replace them.

Intel released the multiplier unlocked Pentium E6500K to counter the Phenom II X2 BE in the Far East.

The Core i3 dropped below £100 because the Athlon II X4 and Phenom II X3 were competing with them in a similar price range.

The Phenom II X6 comes along and then the price of the Core i5 750 and 760 started dropping too.

Both the Phenom II X6 1055T and Core i5 760 were around the same price for months.

I think you're right anyone with any sense would wait, I didn't and have bought a core I5 2400 which hopefully arrives tomorrow. I hope the new AMD stuff is fantastic. Remember things are worth what people are willing to pay for them I don't think anyone should get too hung up on comparisons. all this upgrade fever is mostly marketing bs.

I mean if you look at the benchmarks, does it really matter whether a song takes 22 seconds to encode or 17 seconds? How often do you decide to do a complete VirusScan, while compressing a movie, while simultaneously numbercrunching a massive spreadsheet, whilst playing world of war craft. it's like we all must have eight cores just in case.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think you're right anyone with any sense would wait, I didn't and have bought a core I5 2400 which hopefully arrives tomorrow. I hope the new AMD stuff is fantastic. Remember things are worth what people are willing to pay for them I don't think anyone should get too hung up on comparisons. all this upgrade fever is mostly marketing bs.

I mean if you look at the benchmarks, does it really matter whether a song takes 22 seconds to encode or 17 seconds? How often do you decide to do a complete VirusScan, while compressing a movie, while simultaneously numbercrunching a massive spreadsheet, whilst playing world of war craft. it's like we all must have eight cores just in case.

You were on a Athlon 3200+ beforehand right so its not like you were upgrading for the lolz.

However,many people here have much faster computers and in this case it makes less sense IMHO.

I am still using a PC I built in late 2006 which I upgraded with a Q6600 for around £30 in 2008.I am still using the same motherboard.

TBH,I will only replace the computer when it is too slow to do the job or is not economic to repair.

The whole point of waiting for Bulldozer for me is not to do with performance, it is to do with price.

Intel has no reason at all ATM to reduce the price of its current Core i5 processors and Bulldozer will help push the price down . The Phenom II X6 can compete but only in specific circumstances though.

I want to get the best value for my money and competition helps do that.

[GunnerTm1]

Thanks all for replies, think you are right CAT will wait to see how Buldozer performs. As Intel allows these chips to be overclocked if it dies who is to say hw little or much you overclocked it. Seems to me that some ceiling snould have been built in before damage occurs. The locked chips can have their multipliers raised 4 steps up 400Mhz, this would then mean that the locked i7 2600k could run at 4.2 Ghz as has been done in CS magazine. You can get overclocked bundles from Scan etc but how long will it last?