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Computer gurus come in! (New build advice)


Slimpsy1647545505

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Hey guys. I'm considering building a new pc. I haven't built one since 2010, but rather kept upgrading my i7 950 platform I built then. I have been building pc's since 1998 and have always kept up with the processor technology but in recent years it just seems so overwhelming and varied (i3, i5, i7 and a plethora of AMD offerings) I would like some opinions from you fine people!

 

Before the i7's it seemed like you upgraded every year or two and got a significant performance boost. Going from the socket 478 P4 with hyper threading to the core duo to the q6600 quad to the i7 were all very rational upgrades within a 1-2 year time span. Anyway, the first generation i7 is getting a little long in the tooth, and the x58 platform in general. That's not to say it hasn't been a capable and still is capable machine, but I would like a faster sata bus (running raid ssd's on sata 2 still, lol) more USB 3.0 ports, etc .

 

My ultimate question is. . . should I wait for haswell-e and ddr4 to hit the market and find a 47XX or amd equivalent on sale as this will presumably drive prices down or is now a good time to find a solid bundle and build? What would you recommend getting in terms of cpu/mobo combos?

 

I rambled quite a bit. . . but having a little impulse geeky moment and wanted to get CR's opinion!

 

Thanks guys!

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About this time last year I started having problems with my Core i7 920 machine, so I built a fairly budget AMD APU system based on the A10-6800k. Ran for a while on the IGPU while I saved up for a discrete graphics card, and now it has a GTX 760 Superclocked in it. She runs pretty good! Obviously it isn't Intel 4*** performance, but it is still 4 4.1 ghz cores. No slouch for sure, and renders my YouTube videos fairly quickly.

 

If money was no object, I probably would have gone Intel.

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Right on. . . my primary uses are modern gaming with occasional photo/video editing. I have a gtx 770 that I am still happy with so I won't be upgrading til probably next year when the maxwells go down. I just really want to know if I'm going to be like WOW from upgrading or not. I miss the feeling of a new zippy machine, but at the same time. . mine still feels zippy, albeit "ancient" by technology standards.
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What are your goals? Is this for gaming? Is it for productivity? Are you running heavily threaded applications?

 

There are two big perks to the E series chips: More cores, and more PCI-E lanes. So if you're using it for work and run heavily threaded software, and get paid by the project Haswell-e will help you get more done faster. Haswell-e also has access to 28-40 pci-e lanes (dependent on which CPU you buy) vs the 16 lanes available on mainstream i5 and i7 chips. The lanes can be used to provide bandwidth to either GPUs, or to new and faster storage standards (M.2 and SATA Express). But not both at once. If you want to run more than 2 GPUs and a pci-e 4x M.2 you pretty much need the Haswell-e.

 

The bang for the buck CPUs have always been the i5 K series CPUs. The Newest Devil's Canyon i5-4690k will be a fantastic CPU all around. By default it turbos to 3.9GHz, but being K series it has an unlocked multiplier. It's $170ish cheaper than the low-end haswell-e i7-5820K, and will use more affordable DDR3. Personally, I don't believe DDR4 has been developed into an interesting product yet. The only real advantage is has over DDR3 is lower operating voltage. Sure, the frequencies are much higher, but so are the latencies. It balances out, and I doubt there's much performance improvement to be had in going to DDR4 for now.

 

The biggest upgrade for you will be having access to SATA3 (and faster if you select a Z97 motherboard). A single Sata 3 SSD will be as fast as your current RAID 0 SSDs.

Edited by JaSSon
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What are your goals? Is this got gaming? Is it for productivity? Are you running heavily threaded applications?

 

As I wrote above. . . mostly gaming with the occasional video encode/raw image editing. The i5's do look rather impressive dollar for dollar. Do you think the haswell-e will drive all current gen intels down or have they pretty much stabilized in price?

 

Also I have seen the haswell-e prices. . . not a big fan, but also not afraid to invest in staying power. If I could get another 4-5 years out of it. . . it's a good investment IMO. This isn't to say I was even considering one though. . .I'd probably wait for a refresh release.

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There are two big perks to the E series chips: More cores, and more PCI-E lanes. So if you're using it for work and run heavily threaded software, and get paid by the project Haswell-e will help you get more done faster. Haswell-e also has access to 28-40 pci-e lanes (dependent on which CPU you buy) vs the 16 lanes available on mainstream i5 and i7 chips. The lanes can be used to provide bandwidth to either GPUs, or to new and faster storage standards (M.2 and SATA Express).

 

http://i.imgur.com/ksEBe2e.jpg

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Do you think the haswell-e will drive all current gen intels down or have they pretty much stabilized in price?

 

Haswell-e will have an impact on the pricing of Ivy Bridge-e, but I doubt it will impact the more mainstream CPUs. For that you'd need AMD to release a competitive product (don't hold your breath), or wait for the release of Broadwell.

 

Broadwell seems interesting. The linked article states the socketed unlocked sku CPUs will have Iris Pro Graphics, which introduces a 128MB L4 cache.

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Yeah those broadwells look quite epic! So put yourself in my shoes. . keep your i7 950 OC'd @ 4Ghz x58 build or upgrade and bask in the glory of new pc smell!

 

I don't see an OC'ed i7-950 bottlenecking a GTX-770. I'd probably keep the Bloomfield CPU. Like I said, your biggest gain will be in better SATA support. USB3 support is also nice. Here's what I'd do: Buy a Sata3 pci-e card and newer/faster SSDs. The Crucial MX100 is the current bang/buck champ. Buy a USB3 controller card too.

 

The generational performance increases have been pretty modest, but will make a difference over 3-4 CPU generations, and that 128MB L4 Cache could shake things up. I say wait for Broadwell reviews and make a decision then.

 

Edit: You'd want to start with a fresh OS install with the new controller and SSDs.

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