Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Hey guys,
Advice time. I'll be building a new system in a month or so and I'm feeling a bit paralyzed. I have two options:
1. Get a 2600k in the hope that Ivy Bridge will be compatible with a 1155 motherboard for future cheaper upgrading.
2. Save myself some cash and go for an i7-950.
What do you guys think? The only reason I'd spend extra to go Sandy Bridge is if I could upgrade later on without having to change my motherboard as well. If I'm going to have to buy a new motherboard as well, I might as well just get an i7 for now and just overclock the bejesus out of it.
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
You already seem to have quite capable rig there.
But apparently the compatibility is confirmed fact. Though with Ivys Intel will introduce pci-e 3.0 and I'm not sure if existing boards will be capable to handle it's full potential. But then again pci-e is not yet saturated even by the dual-GPU cards. So I'd say if you really want to upgrade go with Sandy Bridge. These do seem to act quicker clock-for-clock and also OC better compared to i7s.
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
AMD Bulldozer is also being released in June or July too.
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
I know my current computer is pretty good, but I'm at the point now where I want to build a PC myself, which I didn't do with this current one. I ordered it from a custom pc builder website. If I upgrade now, I'll be able to sell my computer on to my brother (for a third of the price for which I bought it two years ago), and get a little extra money to devote to my upgrade. I'll probably need it to replace all the components I'll ruin. With my drool.
Thanks a lot for the help, CooperXS. I looked around a bit and I did find out that Ivy Bridge would use the 1155 socket, but there were rumblings that it wouldn't be compatible with the Cougar Point chipset. Obviously I'm a relative neophyte so I couldn't confirm that anywhere with any degree of assurance.
I've always been an Intel boy, but I'd never rule out getting an AMD processor - I'm just woefully underinformed about them. I'll keep an eye on them though, and maybe use the time until they're released learning a bit about AMD processors. They certainly seem to be cheaper, on average, than Intel.
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Sandy and Ivy both contain execution cores, graphics, memory and pci-e controllers.
The chipset is just a south bridge with USB, SATA etc peripheral and I don't see why it should not be compatible if it's connected to CPU via same DMI bus.
You would need new CPU, mainboard and memory. Rest of what you already have will work just fine with new setup.
AMD will be releasing brand new architecture called Bulldozer somewhere summer time with desktop options with up to 8 cores. You can read about them a bit on Hexus:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=27411
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=26082
Sounds promising but I'd wait for new chipsets for this new arch as well although it is compatible with latest AM3 boards. Perhaps next year's 28nm shrink of Bulldozer will be drop-in compatible with 890/990 chipset boards but at this point it's just an assumption. Though with future-proofing of sockets AMD is known to be more friendly than Intel.
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CooperXS
Sandy and Ivy both contain execution cores, graphics, memory and pci-e controllers.
The chipset is just a south bridge with USB, SATA etc peripheral and I don't see why it should not be compatible if it's connected to CPU via same DMI bus.
You would need new CPU, mainboard and memory. Rest of what you already have will work just fine with new setup.
AMD will be releasing brand new architecture called Bulldozer somewhere summer time with desktop options with up to 8 cores. You can read about them a bit on Hexus:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=27411
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=26082
Sounds promising but I'd wait for new chipsets for this new arch as well although it is compatible with latest AM3 boards. Perhaps next year's 28nm shrink of Bulldozer will be drop-in compatible with 890/990 chipset boards but at this point it's just an assumption. Though with future-proofing of sockets AMD is known to be more friendly than Intel.
Is AMD's next shrink(after bulldozer) really only to 28nm? Are the new chips not coming out on 32nm?
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Not really sure what you're asking there - AMDs next releases will be 32nm, the same as Intel are on now. After that they will move to 28nm which Intel are also working towards. Lithography size by itself doesn't mean much, if anything, across architectures and especially brands though. A die shrink within an architecture generally brings lower power consumption and/or increased clock because the smaller transistors use less power.
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Depends who will be defusing the chips - TSMC or GlobalFoundries. Both have their own development teams and depending on the type of silicon substrate offer different gate size options.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wiki
Bulldozer design breakdown:
...11-metal layer 32nm SOI process with implemented first generation GlobalFoundries' High-K Metal Gate (HKMG)...
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Quote:
Originally Posted by
watercooled
Not really sure what you're asking there - AMDs next releases will be 32nm, the same as Intel are on now. After that they will move to 28nm which Intel are also working towards. Lithography size by itself doesn't mean much, if anything, across architectures and especially brands though. A die shrink within an architecture generally brings lower power consumption and/or increased clock because the smaller transistors use less power.
Intel will move to 22nm with Ivybridge.
AMD bobcat chips are moving to 28nm, with bulldozer staying on 32nm for now. Doesn't really make sense to mover bulldozer over to 28nm; I'm sure the cost's would out way any benefits especially with bulldozer being new tech.
http://www.techspot.com/news/41076-a...s-laptops.html
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Cheers for all the advice CooperXS, I really appreciate it. I'd also like to suggest a change of name for you, to CooperXL, to reflect the quality of your answers.
/sycophancy
I'll go and have a look at the Bulldozer CPUs and make my mind up. They certainly don't have the rather English-garden namby-pamby cup-of-tea sort of names that Intel processors have. I know they're based on town names, or something, but still. Why not PowerSpurt?
(I just googled PowerSpurt and now it's obvious)
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Blackmage
Intel will move to 22nm with Ivybridge.
AMD bobcat chips are moving to 28nm, with bulldozer staying on 32nm for now. Doesn't really make sense to mover bulldozer over to 28nm; I'm sure the cost's would out way any benefits especially with bulldozer being new tech.
http://www.techspot.com/news/41076-a...s-laptops.html
Oops, my mistake, I thought 28nm didn't sound right...
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Quote:
Originally Posted by
helpiveimploded
Hey guys,
Advice time. I'll be building a new system in a month or so and I'm feeling a bit paralyzed. I have two options:
1. Get a 2600k in the hope that Ivy Bridge will be compatible with a 1155 motherboard for future cheaper upgrading.
2. Save myself some cash and go for an i7-950.
What do you guys think? The only reason I'd spend extra to go Sandy Bridge is if I could upgrade later on without having to change my motherboard as well. If I'm going to have to buy a new motherboard as well, I might as well just get an i7 for now and just overclock the bejesus out of it.
3. Save some cash and get a 2500K - faster than an i7-950 and can still be overclocked to the hills. Then plug in an Ivy Bridge if you need it later on.
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kalniel
3. Save some cash and get a 2500K - faster than an i7-950 and can still be overclocked to the hills. Then plug in an Ivy Bridge if you need it later on.
Cheers, kalniel. I'll plug that into my brain's reasoning centre and see what comes out. I actually just priced a 2600k system and it came out very favourably, not intolerably above an i7-950 setup at all. Still, I would like to leave a bit of room for upgrading so I'll think about it.
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
Quote:
Originally Posted by
kalniel
3. Save some cash and get a 2500K - faster than an i7-950 and can still be overclocked to the hills. Then plug in an Ivy Bridge if you need it later on.
+1
Very few benchmarks show a dramatic improvement with the 2600k over 2500k (as few apps can use 8 threads), and the difference in 'real world'/gaming is negligible. So save £70 and put it towards a 40/60Gb SSD which will make an awesome system.
If you're NOT a gamer, a H67/2500k has good/adequate onboard graphics, but no OC.
If you ARE a gamer, (a HD6850 says you probably are), a P67/2500k with a similar GPU will handle any current game (but get a HD6950/70 for 'futureproofing').
Or wait a few weeks for Z68 and get the best of both worlds (plus SSD caching). It might be more compatible (?) with Ivybridge as it is the later chipset (but don't quote me on this!).
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
I'd stick it out with what you got for a while and wait for Intel and AMD's offerings later on this year. But up to you :)
Re: Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge
I think I'll listen to the smart folks who told me to get a 2500k - from my research it seems it would best support what I'm going to do with my PC. And DennisMenace, I actually read your post about two seconds after I decided to do exactly what you suggested and put the savings towards an SSD. 120GB Vertex 2, here I come! I read somewhere (maybe anandtech?) that buying an SSD is by far the greatest single contribution one can make to a system. Assuming, of course, that one already has a PSU for it...
