New Sandy Bridge Chipsets

[billythewiz]

I've read in a few places that Intel started shipping the replacement (B3) chipsets yesterday (14th Feb).

Obviously the suppliers are still going to be cagey about when they'll have stock, but assuming that it is April, what do people plan to do ?

Do you think that everything will be fine with new chips or will there be more problems ?
Is it worth hanging on for the next thing (from either Intel or AMD).
How are prices going to be affected ?

[Kalex]

Prices probably won't change too much, personally I'm not bothering with Sandy Bridge. Got an X58 combo quite cheap recently and that's more than enough power for me. If I was looking to buy new hardware I'd probably either wait for the next batch of Intel releases or go for Bulldozer.

[ed^chigliak]

Sandybridge will be as sorted as it's ever going to get just before they release something new. I usually aim for about the mid point between releases to allow the platform to mature and bugs to be worked out. There is little to no benefit to being an early adopter unless the hype and epeen is what you're seeking. Obviously you don't want to invest in the older hardware so again the midpoint between releases is a kind of sweet spot in my opinion.

Hardware purchase goes like this regardless of the hype:-

Never 1.0
Maybe 1.1 & 1.2
Probably 2.0+

It will be the same for Bulldozer. I won't be testing this platform either.

[miXer]

Well I hope they get my asus IV extreme b3 in stock by tomorrow as they said they would!

[billythewiz]

If I had an X58 setup I'd be content for a few generations yet. Alas I have a 6 year old, socket 939 Athlon 64

What's worse is that I got COD:Blops for Christmas and it won't even load. Mr. Google tells me that's because I only have one core !!

So I've had my eye on one of Scan's 3XS i5 2500k OC bundles. I keep fantasising about getting a complete system, but many of my other components seem to good to just bin.

The one mistake I'm keen to avoid is the one I made last time. I built the 939 system just before AM2 came out and within a few months 939 cpus just disapeared

So I've been researching Ivy Bridge and Z68 mother boards (what they are, when they are due). I don't mind newer/better stuff coming out (that's inevitable), I just don't want any nasty surprises.

[ed^chigliak]

There have always been nasty surprises with newly released hardware. You can buy into an older platform with confidence now or wait. Either way you are buying into an older platform at the time of purchase. You should in theory be OK with a 'fixed' Sandybridge chipset when they become available or you could really cheap out on the build and still see a massive performance improvement relative to your 6 year old socket 939. I have a tendency to cheap out and often lag by 1 or 2 generations with max 3 year old hardware.

[ik9000]

So I've been researching Ivy Bridge and Z68 mother boards (what they are, when they are due). I don't mind newer/better stuff coming out (that's inevitable), I just don't want any nasty surprises.

I bought GTX460 as a Christmas present to myself, and then chabang - GTX560 out before I can blink for the same price. Typical.... Still, come the summer I am looking forward to an x68 behemoth... anyone know of anyone looking to donate money to poor impoverished system builders?