Broadwell desktop, pointless?

badbiddy · 26 Jan 2015 at 12:22

I kept telling myself I'll wait till Skylake.

But I'm still on Lynnfield packaged in a beautiful 540 Air but with no USB3 support

Keep looking at Devil's Canyon anyway...

ubersonic · 26 Jan 2015 at 12:48

Imagine how cool it would be if Broadwell brought an LGA1150 hex core to the table (I know it won't, but just imagine

).

McGraw · 26 Jan 2015 at 17:17

I'd definitely upgrade for 6 cores

smilertoo · 27 Jan 2015 at 14:45

Intel don't make their cpus for the hardcore upgrader, new cpus are aimed at people who actually need the upgrade so small increases are fine.

varkanoid · 27 Jan 2015 at 15:47

Nuclear Fusion said:
When I bought my 3770K I had Skylake in mind for my next upgrade. However I realise that probably won't be necessary so I'm going to hang on until Cannonlake or perhaps even later. I'd say wait until Skylake unless your CPU performance is inadequate.

Me too with the 4670k now unless I get an i7 1150 I think I will leave it for a long while.

R400 · 28 Jan 2015 at 11:28

smilertoo said:
Intel don't make their cpus for the hardcore upgrader, new cpus are aimed at people who actually need the upgrade so small increases are fine.

Hey! we'll have none of that common sense around here!

madindehead · 29 Jan 2015 at 15:25

I think the plan is to not delay Skylake just because Broadwell was delayed. So we might see Broadwell K CPUs at the same time that we see locked Skylake. The thing is, Broadwell is designed to work on Z97, so it's an easier upgrade than going to Skylake.

Overall, it's probably a better fit. Anyone who wants an unlocked multiplier will probably go Broadwell-K into Skylake-K. Not go from Broadwell-K directly to Skylake, then to Skylake-K.

If I manage to sort a Devil's Canyon upgrade, I'll probably go Broadwell-K, then Skylake-K. Just because the step to Broadwell-K doesn't involve a new motherboard.

Dicehunter · 29 Jan 2015 at 15:29

madindehead said:
I think the plan is to not delay Skylake just because Broadwell was delayed. So we might see Broadwell K CPUs at the same time that we see locked Skylake. The thing is, Broadwell is designed to work on Z97, so it's an easier upgrade than going to Skylake.

Overall, it's probably a better fit. Anyone who wants an unlocked multiplier will probably go Broadwell-K into Skylake-K. Not go from Broadwell-K directly to Skylake, then to Skylake-K.

If I manage to sort a Devil's Canyon upgrade, I'll probably go Broadwell-K, then Skylake-K. Just because the step to Broadwell-K doesn't involve a new motherboard.

Unless Skylake has some super secret sauce I can't see it being miles ahead of Broadwell K, Even Intel said it's the same process, Same piece of glass that goes into the fab machine, Same fab plant, Same size as Broadwell.

From the early info the only difference really is support for DDR4 vs DDR3.

madindehead · 29 Jan 2015 at 15:41

Dicehunter said:
Unless Skylake has some super secret sauce I can't see it being miles ahead of Broadwell K, Even Intel said it's the same process, Same piece of glass that goes into the fab machine, Same fab plant, Same size as Broadwell.

From the early info the only difference really is support for DDR4 vs DDR3.

It's a new architecture. I hope we'd see some improvements in that! But then again, you say early info only shows DDR4 support, so perhaps not a huge gain.

Dave2150 · 29 Jan 2015 at 16:51

Dicehunter said:
Unless Skylake has some super secret sauce I can't see it being miles ahead of Broadwell K, Even Intel said it's the same process, Same piece of glass that goes into the fab machine, Same fab plant, Same size as Broadwell.

From the early info the only difference really is support for DDR4 vs DDR3.

Your completely misinformed. Skylake is a completely new architecture. It's the successor of Haswell.

Broadwell is a 14nm refresh of Haswell, with minor improvements, though same architecture as Haswell pretty much.

Skylake is the first new architecture since June 1st 2013 (Haswell release date).

I'm hoping for something special performance/feature wise. Really excited to read all the reviews/videos later this year

P.S. It's already pretty much confirmed Skylake will be compatible with DDR3 and DDR4 - by using a UniDIMM SO-DIMM form factor.

setter · 29 Jan 2015 at 16:57

I suspect broadwell wont offer a very signifigant improvement over current DC haswell. Kinda like ivybridge to first gen haswell. DC basically being hotter running speed binned versions of the first gen haswell chips. Skylake is the one ill most likely be interested in.

LePhuronn · 6 Feb 2015 at 16:31

Given that Broadwell for mobile is supposedly super low power, I wouldn't be surprised if we see Skylake and Broadwell released more or less together but the architecture gets put to different uses: i3, i5 and the low-power variants are on Broadwell, and Skylake is released purely as i7, just like Nehalem was, and then i3, i5 and i7 is unified again under Cannonlake (and drops DDR3).

Intel did say that Z97 is intended for Broadwell, but they didn't say that we'd get a full range of CPUs based on Broadwell - i7 is skipping 5th Gen

Dave2150 · 6 Feb 2015 at 19:03

LePhuronn said:
Given that Broadwell for mobile is supposedly super low power, I wouldn't be surprised if we see Skylake and Broadwell released more or less together but the architecture gets put to different uses: i3, i5 and the low-power variants are on Broadwell, and Skylake is released purely as i7, just like Nehalem was, and then i3, i5 and i7 is unified again under Cannonlake (and drops DDR3).

Intel did say that Z97 is intended for Broadwell, but they didn't say that we'd get a full range of CPUs based on Broadwell - i7 is skipping 5th Gen

Broadwell will have a 95w i7 part - which will outperform the 4790k DC, though we don't know how much until we see the clock speeds.

IPC increase from Haswell to Broadwell was 3% on the 2 core Broadwell parts (Broadwell-U, which has been shipping since November)

hedgey · 17 Feb 2015 at 23:58

new architecture, so what? Haswell wasnt even 10% faster than Ivybridge. DDR4 over DDR3 - expect no difference there either.

BlackAle · 18 Feb 2015 at 01:29

I doubt we will ever see big performance increases again between cpu generations, the industry has shifted to power efficiency. When most software can use more cores efficiently, we'll see more cores being available.

LePhuronn · 18 Feb 2015 at 13:05

BlackAle said:
When most software can use more cores efficiently, we'll see more cores being available.

And yet Intel's mainstream chips are still stuck at 4 cores

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 18 Feb 2015 at 21:44

The mainstream chips are essentially overclocked laptop chips now.

badbiddy · 19 Feb 2015 at 19:07

Ignoring generation improvements, limitations are around GPUs for gaming, so who really cares about CPUs???

setter · 19 Feb 2015 at 19:09

badbiddy said:
Ignoring generation improvements, limitations are around GPUs for gaming, so who really cares about CPUs???

Those who arent gaming.

Dave2150 · 19 Feb 2015 at 21:24

badbiddy said:
Ignoring generation improvements, limitations are around GPUs for gaming, so who really cares about CPUs???

There are a vast number of popular games that are still heavily CPU limited. Whether that's because of inefficient coding, limitations of DX11 in regard to draw calls or other factors, though the fact remains that for a lot of games, CPU is just as important as the GPU.

Depends which games you play though really!